Even if we allowed him imagination, it must be only on the lower plane of
prose; for of verse as anything more than so many metrical feet he had
not the faintest notion. Of that exquisite sympathy with the movement of
the mind, with every swifter or slower pulse of passion, which proves it
another species from prose, the very [Greek: aphroditae kai lura] of
speech, and not merely a higher one, he wanted the fineness of sense to
conceive. If we compare the prose of Dante or Milton, though both were
eloquent, with their verse, we see at once which was the most congenial
to them. Lessing has passages of freer and more harmonious utterance in
some of his most careless prose essays, than can be found in his Nathan
from the first line to the last. In the _numeris lege solutis_ he is
often snatched beyond himself, and becomes truly dithyrambic; in his
pentameters the march of the thought is comparatively hampered and
irresolute. His best things are not poetically delicate, but have the
tougher fibre of proverbs. Is it not enough, then, to be a great
prose-writer? They are as rare as great poets, and if Lessing have the
gift to stir and to dilate that something deeper than the mind which
genius only can reach, what matter if it be not done to music? Of his
minor poems we need say little.
Pages:
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487