" Before the middle of the next year
he was back in Berlin again.
There he remained for nearly two years, trying the house-top way of life
again, but with indifferent success, as we have reason to think. Indeed,
when the metaphor resolves itself into the plain fact of living just on
the other side of the roof,--in the garret, namely,--and that from hand
to mouth, as was Lessing's case, we need not be surprised to find him
gradually beginning to see something more agreeable in a _fixirtes Glueck_
than he had once been willing to allow. At any rate, he was willing, and
even heartily desirous, that his friends should succeed in getting for
him the place of royal librarian. But Frederick, for some unexplained
reason, would not appoint him. Herr Stahr thinks it had something to do
with the old _Siecle_ manuscript business. But this seems improbable, for
Voltaire's wrath was not directed against Lessing; and even if it had
been, the great king could hardly have carried the name of an obscure
German author in his memory through all those anxious and war-like years.
Whatever the cause, Lessing early in 1767 accepts the position of
Theatrical Manager at Hamburg, as usual not too much vexed with
disappointment, but quoting gayly
"Quod non dant proceres, dabit histrio.
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