GELLERT. "ACH JA, that have I, IHRO MAJESTAT!"KING. "But why doesn't it change? The Devil must be in it (ES ISTETWAS VERTEUFELTES). They bring me whole sheets of that stuff, and I can make nothing of it!"GELLERT. "If your Majesty cannot alter it, still less can I. I can only recommend, where you command."KING. "Can you repeat any of your Fables?"GELLERT. "I doubt it; my memory is very treacherous."KING. "Bethink you a little; I will walk about [Gellert bethinks him, brow puckered. King, seeing the brow unpucker itself].
Well, have you one?"
GELLERT. "Yes, your Majesty: THE PAINTER." Gellert recites (voice plaintive and hollow; somewhat PREACHY, I should doubt, but not cracked or shrieky);--we condense him into prose abridgment for English readers; German can look at the bottom of the page:
[(Gellert's WERKE: Leipzig, 1840; i. 135.)]--"'A prudent Painter in Athens, more intent on excellence than on money, had done a God of War; and sent for a real Critic to give him his opinion of it. On survey, the Critic shook his head: "Too much Art visible; won't do, my friend!" The Painter strove to think otherwise; and was still arguing, when a young Coxcomb [GECK, Gawk]
stept in: "Gods, what a masterpiece!" cried he at the first glance:
"Ah, that foot, those exquisitely wrought toenails; helm, shield, mail, what opulence of Art!" The sorrowful Painter looked penitentially at the real Critic, looked at his brush; and the instant this GECK was gone, struck out his God of War.'"KING. "And the Moral?"GELLERT (still reciting):
"'When the Critic does not like thy Bit of Writing, it is a bad sign for thee; but when the Fool admires, it is time thou at once strike it out.'"
"Ein kluger Maler in Athen, Der minder, weil man ihn bezhalte, Als weil er Ehre suchte, malte, Liess einen Kenner einst den Mars im Bilde sehn, Und bat sich seine Meinung aus.
Der Kenner sagt ihm fiei heraus, Dass ihm das Bild nicht ganz gefallen wollte, Und dass es, um recht schon zu sein, Weit minder Kunst verrathen sollte.
Der Maler wandte vieles ein;
Der Kenner stritt mit ihm aus Grunden, Und konnt ihn doch nicht uberwinden.
Gleich trat ein junger Geck herein, Und nahm das Bild in Augenschein.
'O,' rief er, 'bei dem ersten Blicke, Ihr Gotter, welch ein Meisterstucke!
Ach, welcher Fuss! O, wie geschickt Sind nicht die Nagel ausgedruckt!
Mars lebt durchaus in diesem Bilde.
Wie viele Kunst, wie viele Pracht Ist in dem Helm und in dem Schilde, Und in der Rustung angebracht!'
Der Maler ward beschamt geruhret, Und sah den Kenner klaglich an.
'Nun,' sprach er, 'bin ich uberfuhret!
Ihr habt mir nicht zu viel gethan.'
Der junge Geck war kaum hinaus, So strich er seinen Kriegsgott aus."
MORAL.
"Wenn deine Schrift dem Kenner nicht gefallt, So ist es schon ein boses Zeichen;Doch, wenn sie gar des Narren Lob erhalt, So ist es Zeit, sie auszustreichen."
KING. "That is excellent; very fine indeed. You have a something of soft and flowing in your verses; them I understand altogether.
But there was Gottsched, one day, reading me his Translation of IPHIGENIE; I had the French Copy in my hand, and could not understand a word of him [a Swan of Saxony, laboring in vain that day]! They recommended me another Poet, one Peitsch [Herr Peitsch of Konigsberg, Hofrath, Doctor and Professor there, Gottsched's Master in Art; edited by Gottsched thirty years ago; now become a dumb idol, though at one time a god confessed]; him I flung away."GELLERT. "IHRO MAJESTAT, him I also fling away."KING. "Well, if I continue here, you must come again often;bring your FABLES with you, and read me something."GELLERT. "I know not if I can read well; I have the singing kind of tone, native to the Hill Country."KING. "JA, like the Silesians. No, you must read me the FABLESyourself; they lose a great deal otherwise. Come back soon."[ Gellert's Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius
(already cited), pp. 632 et seq.] (EXIT GELLERT.)KING (to Icilius, as we learn from a different Record). "That is quite another man than Gottsched!" (EXUENT OMNES.)The modest Gellert says he "remembered Jesus Sirach's advice, PRESSNOT THYSELF ON KINGS,--and never came back;" nor was specially sent for, in the hurries succeeding; though the King never quite forgot him. Next day, at dinner, the King said, "He is the reasonablest man of all the German Literary People, C'EST LE PLUS RAISONNABLE DETOUS LES SAVANS ALLEMANDS." And to Garve, at Breslau, years afterwards: "Gellert is the only German that will reach posterity;his department is small, but he has worked in it with real felicity." And indeed the King had, before that, as practical result of the Gellert Dialogue, managed to set some Berlin Bookseller upon printing of these eligible FABLES, "for the use of our Prussian Schools;" in which and other capacities the FABLESstill serve with acceptance there and elsewhere. [Preuss, ii. 274.]
