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Lessing assailed him sometimes with cutting criticism, and again with exquisite humor. In the notice of Gottsched's poems, he says, among other things, 'The exterior of the volume is so handsome that it will do great credit to the bookstores, and it is to be hoped that it will continue to do so for a long time. But to give a satisfactory idea of the interior surpasses our powers.' And in conclusion he adds, 'These poems cost two thalers and four groschen. The two thalers pay for the ridiculous, and the four groschen pretty much for the useful.' Again, he tells us that Lessing concludes his notice of Klopstock's Ode to God
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For a young man of twenty-two, Lessing's criticisms show a great deal of independence and maturity of thought; but humor he never had, and his wit was always of the bluntest,--crushing rather than cutting. The mace, and not the scymitar, was his weapon. Let Herr Stahr put all Lessing's
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together, and compare them with these few intranslatable lines from Voltaire's letter to Rousseau, thanking him for his _Discours sur l'Inégalite_:
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On n'a jamais employé tant d'esprit à vouloir nous rendre bêtes; il prend enviede marcher à quatre pattes quand on lit votre ouvrage. Lessing from the first was something far better than a wit. Force was always much more characteristic of him than cleverness. Sometimes Herr Stahr's hero-worship leads him into positive misstatement. For example, speaking of Lessing's Preface to the
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Contributions to the History and Reform of the Theatre, he tells us that