Chapter 23

(J. K. I.)

LESLIE,a police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 3587. It lies on the Leven, the vale of which is overlooked by the town, 4 m. W. of Markinch by the North British railway. The industries include paper-making, flax-spinning, bleaching and linen-weaving. The old church claims to be the “Christ’s Kirk on the Green” of the ancient ballads of that name. A stone on the Green, called the Bull Stone, is said to have been used when bull-baiting was a popular pastime. Leslie House, the seat of the earl of Rothes, designed by Sir William Bruce, rivalled Holyrood in magnificence. It was noted for its tapestry and its gallery of family portraits and other pictures, including aportrait of Rembrandt by himself. Daniel Defoe considered its park the glory of the kingdom. The mansion sustained serious damage from fire in 1763. Norman Leslie, master of Rothes, was concerned in the killing of Cardinal Beaton (1546), and the dagger with which John Leslie, Norman’s uncle, struck the fatal blow is preserved in Leslie House.

Markinch(pop. 1499), a police burgh situated between Conland Burn and the Leven, 7¼ m. N. by E. of Kirkcaldy by the North British railway, is a place of great antiquity. A cell of the Culdees was established here by one of the last of the Celtic bishops, the site of which may possibly be marked by the ancient cross of Balgonie. Markinch is also believed to have been a residence of the earlier kings, where prior to the 11th century they occasionally administered justice; and in the reign of William the Lion (d. 1214) the warrantors of goods alleged to have been stolen were required to appear here. Its industries comprise bleaching, flax-spinning, paper-making, distilling and coal-mining. Balgonie Castle, close by, the keep of which is 80 ft. high, was a residence of Alexander Leslie, the first earl of Leven, and at Balfour Castle were born Cardinal Beaton and his uncle and nephew the archbishops of Glasgow.

LESPINASSE, JEANNE JULIE ÉLÉONORE DE(1732-1776), French author, was born at Lyons on the 9th of November 1732. A natural child of the comtesse d’Albon, she was brought up as the daughter of Claude Lespinasse of Lyons. On leaving her convent school she became governess in the house of her mother’s legitimate daughter, Mme de Vichy, who had married the brother of the marquise du Deffand. Here Mme du Deffand made her acquaintance, and, recognizing her extraordinary gifts, persuaded her to come to Paris as her companion. The alliance lasted ten years (1754-1764) until Mme du Deffand became jealous of the younger woman’s increasing influence, when a violent quarrel ensued. Mlle de Lespinasse set up a salon of her own which was joined by many of the most brilliant members of Mme du Deffand’s circle. D’Alembert was one of the most assiduous of her friends and eventually came to live under the same roof. There was no scandal attached to this arrangement, which ensured d’Alembert’s comfort and lent influence to Mlle de Lespinasse’s salon. Although she had neither beauty nor rank, her ability as a hostess made her reunions the most popular in Paris. She owes her distinction, however, not to her social success, but to circumstances which remained a secret during her lifetime from her closest friends. Two volumes ofLettrespublished in 1809 displayed her as the victim of a passion of a rare intensity. In virtue of this ardent, intense quality Sainte Beuve and other of her critics place her letters in the limited category to which belong the Latin letters of Héloïse and those of the Portuguese Nun. Her first passion, a reasonable and serious one, was for the marquis de Mora, son of the Spanish ambassador in Paris. De Mora had come to Paris in 1765, and with some intervals remained there until 1772 when he was ordered to Spain for his health. On the way to Paris in 1774 to fulfil promises exchanged with Mlle de Lespinasse, he died at Bordeaux. But her letters to the comte de Guibert, the worthless object of her fatal infatuation, begin from 1773. From the struggle between her affection for de Mora and her blind passion for her new lover they go on to describe her partial disenchantment on Guibert’s marriage and her final despair. Mlle de Lespinasse died on the 23rd of May 1776, her death being apparently hastened by the agitation and misery to which she had been for the last three years of her life a prey. In addition to theLettresshe was the author of two chapters intended as a kind of sequel to Sterne’sSentimental Journey.

HerLettres... were published by Mme de Guibert in 1809 and a spurious additional collection appeared in 1820. Among modern editions may be mentioned that of Eugène Asse (1876-1877).Lettres inédites de Mademoiselle de Lespinasse à Condorcet, à D’Alembert, à Guibert, au comte de Crillon, edited by M. Charles Henry (1887), contains copies of the documents available for her biography. Mrs Humphry Ward’s novel,Lady Rose’s Daughter, owes something to the character of Mlle de Lespinasse.

LES SABLES D’OLONNE,a seaport of western France, capital of an arrondissement of the department of Vendée, on an inlet of the Atlantic seaboard, 23 m. S.W. of La Roche-sur-Yon by rail. Pop. (1906) 11,847. The town stands between the sea on the south and the port on the north, while on the west it is separated by a channel from the suburb of La Chaume, built at the foot of a range of dunes 65 ft. high, which terminates southwards in the rocky peninsula of L’Aiguille. The beautiful smoothly sloping beach, 1 m. in length, is much frequented by bathers. To the north of Sables extend salt-marshes and oyster-parks, yielding 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 oysters per annum. Sables has a church built in the Late Gothic style towards the middle of the 17th century. The port, consisting of a tidal basin and a wet-dock, is accessible to vessels of 2000 tons, but is dangerous when the winds are from the south-west. The lighthouse of Barges, a mile out at sea to the west, is visible for 17 to 18 nautical miles. The inhabitants are employed largely in sardine and tunny fishing; there are imports of coal, wood, petroleum and phosphates. Boat-building and sardine-preserving are carried on. The town has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance.

Founded by Basque or Spanish sailors, Sables was the first place in Poitou invaded by the Normans in 817. Louis XI., who went there in 1472, granted the inhabitants various privileges, improved the harbour, and fortified the entrance. Captured and recaptured during the Wars of Religion, the town afterwards became a nursery of hardy sailors and privateers, who harassed the Spaniards and afterwards the English. In 1696 Sables was bombarded by the combined fleets of England and Holland. In the middle of the 18th century hurricanes caused grievous damage to town and harbour.

LES SAINTES-MARIES,a coast village of south-eastern France in the department of Boûches-du-Rhône, 24 m. S.S.W. of Arles by rail. Pop. (1906) 544. Saintes-Maries is situated in the plain of the Camargue, 1½ m. E. of the mouth of the Petit-Rhône. It is the object of an ancient and famous pilgrimage due to the tradition that Mary, sister of the Virgin, and Mary, mother of James and John, together with their black servant Sara, Lazarus, Martha, Mary Magdalen and St Maximin fled thither to escape persecution in Judaea. The relics of the two Maries, who are said to have been buried at Saintes-Maries, are bestowed in the upper storey of the apse of the fortress-church, a remarkable building of the 12th century with crenelated and machicolated walls. Two festivals are held in the town, a less important one in October, the other, on the 24th and 25th of May, unique for its gathering of gipsies who come in large numbers to do honour to the tomb of their patroness Sara, contained in the crypt below the apse.

LESSE,one of the most romantic of the smaller rivers of Belgium. It rises at Ochamps in the Ardennes, and flowing in a north-westerly course reaches the Meuse at Anseremme, a few miles above Dinant. The river is only 49 m. long, but its meandering course may be judged by the fact that it is no more than 29 m. from Ochamps to Anseremme in a straight line. There is a good deal of pretty scenery along this river, as, for instance, at Ciergnon, but the most striking part of the valley is contained in the last 12 m. from Houyet to Anseremme. In this section the river is confined between opposing walls of cliff ranging from 300 to 500 ft. above the river. Here were discovered in the caves near Walzin the bones of prehistoric men, and other evidence of the primitive occupants of this globe at a period practically beyond computation. Another curious natural feature of the Lesse is that on reaching the hill of Han it disappears underground, reappearing about 1 m. farther on at the village of that name. Here are the curious and interesting Han grottoes. The Lesse receives altogether in its short course the water of thirteen tributaries.

LESSEPS, FERDINAND DE(1805-1894). French diplomatist and maker of the Suez Canal, was born at Versailles on the 19th of November 1805. The origin of his family has been traced back as far as the end of the 14th century. His ancestors, it is believed, came from Scotland, and settled at Bayonne when that region was occupied by the English. One of his great-grandfathers was town clerk and at the same time secretary to Queen Anne of Neuberg, widow of Charles II. of Spain, exiled to Bayonne after the accession of Philip V. From the middle of the 18th centurythe ancestors of Ferdinand de Lesseps followed the diplomatic career, and he himself occupied with real distinction several posts in the same calling from 1825 to 1849. His uncle was ennobled by King Louis XVI., and his father was made a count by Napoleon I. His father, Mathieu de Lesseps (1774-1832), was in the consular service; his mother, Catherine de Grivégnée, was Spanish, and aunt of the countess of Montijo, mother of the empress Eugénie. His first years were spent in Italy, where his father was occupied with his consular duties. He was educated at the College of Henry IV. in Paris. From the age of 18 years to 20 he was employed in the commissary department of the army. From 1825 to 1827 he acted as assistant vice-consul at Lisbon, where his uncle, Barthélemy de Lesseps, was the French chargé d’affaires. This uncle was an old companion of La Pérouse and a survivor of the expedition in which that navigator perished. In 1828 Ferdinand was sent as an assistant vice-consul to Tunis, where his father was consul-general. He courageously aided the escape of Youssouff, pursued by the soldiers of the bey, of whom he was one of the officers, for violation of the seraglio law. Youssouff acknowledged this protection given by a Frenchman by distinguishing himself in the ranks of the French army at the time of the conquest of Algeria. Ferdinand de Lesseps was also entrusted by his father with missions to Marshal Count Clausel, general-in-chief of the army of occupation in Algeria. The marshal wrote to Mathieu de Lesseps on the 18th of December 1830: “I have had the pleasure of meeting your son, who gives promise of sustaining with great credit the name he bears.” In 1832 Ferdinand de Lesseps was appointed vice-consul at Alexandria. To the placing in quarantine of the vessel which took him to Egypt is due the origin of his great conception of a canal across the isthmus of Suez. In order to help him to while away the time at the lazaretto, M. Mimaut, consul-general of France at Alexandria, sent him several books, among which was the memoir written upon the Suez Canal, according to Bonaparte’s instructions, by the civil engineer Lapère, one of the scientific members of the French expedition. This work struck de Lesseps’s imagination, and gave him the idea of piercing the African isthmus. This idea, moreover, was conceived in circumstances that were to prepare the way for its realization. Mehemet Ali, who was the viceroy of Egypt, owed his position, to a certain extent, to the recommendations made in his behalf to the French government by Mathieu de Lesseps, who was consul-general in Egypt when Mehemet Ali was a simple colonel. The viceroy therefore welcomed Ferdinand affectionately, while Said Pacha, Mehemet’s son, began those friendly relations that he did not forget later, when he gave him the concession for making the Suez Canal. In 1833 Ferdinand de Lesseps was sent as consul to Cairo, and soon afterwards given the management of the consulate-general at Alexandria, a post that he held until 1837. While he was there a terrible epidemic of the plague broke out and lasted for two years, carrying off more than a third of the inhabitants of Cairo and Alexandria. During this time he went from one city to the other, according as the danger was more pressing, and constantly displayed an admirable zeal and an imperturbable energy. Towards the close of the year 1837 he returned to France, and on the 21st of December married Mlle Agathe Delamalle, daughter of the government prosecuting attorney at the court of Angers. By this marriage M. de Lesseps became the father of five sons. In 1839 he was appointed consul at Rotterdam, and in the following year transferred to Malaga, the place of origin of his mother’s family. In 1842 he was sent to Barcelona, and soon afterwards promoted to the grade of consul-general. In the course of a bloody insurrection in Catalonia, which ended in the bombardment of Barcelona, Ferdinand de Lesseps showed the most persistent bravery, rescuing from death, without distinction, the men belonging to the rival factions, and protecting and sending away not only the Frenchmen who were in danger, but foreigners of all nationalities. From 1848 to 1849 he was minister of France at Madrid. In the latter year the government of the French Republic confided to him a mission to Rome at the moment when it was a question whether the expelled pope would return to the Vatican with or without bloodshed. Following his interpretation of the instructions he had received, de Lesseps began negotiations with the existing government at Rome, according to which Pius IX. should peacefully re-enter the Vatican and the independence of the Romans be assured at the same time. But while he was negotiating, the elections in France had caused a change in the foreign policy of the government. His course was disapproved; he was recalled and brought before the council of state, which blamed his conduct without giving him a chance to justify himself. Rome, attacked by the French army, was taken by assault after a month’s sanguinary siege. M. de Lesseps then retired from the diplomatic service, and never afterwards occupied any public office. In 1853 he lost his wife and daughter at a few days’ interval. Perhaps his energy would not have been sufficient to sustain him against these repeated blows of destiny if, in 1854, the accession to the viceroyalty of Egypt of his old friend, Said Pacha, had not given a new impulse to the ideas that had haunted him for the last twenty-two years concerning the Suez Canal. Said Pacha invited M. de Lesseps to pay him a visit, and on the 7th of November 1854 he landed at Alexandria; on the 30th of the same month Said Pacha signed the concession authorizing M. de Lesseps to pierce the isthmus of Suez.

A first scheme, indicated by him, was immediately drawn out by two French engineers who were in the Egyptian service, MM. Linant Bey and Mougel Bey. This project, differing from others that had been previously presented or that were in opposition to it, provided for a direct communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. After being slightly modified, the plan was adopted in 1856 by an international commission of civil engineers to which it had been submitted. Encouraged by this approval, de Lesseps no longer allowed anything to stop him. He listened to no adverse criticism and receded before no obstacle. Neither the opposition of Lord Palmerston, who considered the projected disturbance as too radical not to endanger the commercial position of Great Britain, nor the opinions entertained, in France as well as in England, that the sea in front of Port Said was full of mud which would obstruct the entrance to the canal, that the sands from the desert would fill the trenches—no adverse argument, in a word, could dishearten Ferdinand de Lesseps. His faith made him believe that his adversaries were in the wrong; but how great must have been this faith, which permitted him to undertake the work at a time when mechanical appliances for the execution of such an undertaking did not exist, and when for the utilization of the proposed canal there was as yet no steam mercantile marine! Impelled by his convictions and talent, supported by the emperor Napoleon III. and the empress Eugénie, he succeeded in rousing the patriotism of the French and obtaining by their subscriptions more than half of the capital of two hundred millions of francs which he needed in order to form a company. The Egyptian government subscribed for eighty millions’ worth of shares. The company was organized at the end of 1858. On the 25th of April 1859 the first blow of the pickaxe was given by Lesseps at Port Said, and on the 17th of November 1869 the canal was officially opened by the Khedive, Ismail Pacha (seeSuez Canal). While in the interests of his canal Lesseps had resisted the opposition of British diplomacy to an enterprise which threatened to give to France control of the shortest route to India, he acted loyally towards Great Britain after Lord Beaconsfield had acquired the Suez shares belonging to the Khedive, by frankly admitting to the board of directors of the company three representatives of the British government. The consolidation of interests which resulted, and which has been developed by the addition in 1884 of seven other British directors, chosen from among shipping merchants and business men, has augmented, for the benefit of all concerned, the commercial character of the enterprise.

Ferdinand de Lesseps steadily endeavoured to keep out of politics. If in 1869 he appeared to deviate from this principle by being a candidate at Marseilles for the Corps Législatif, it was because he yielded to the entreaties of the Imperialgovernment in order to strengthen its goodwill for the Suez Canal. Once this goodwill had been shown, he bore no malice towards those who rendered him his liberty by preferring Gambetta. He afterwards declined the other candidatures that were offered him: for the Senate in 1876, and for the Chamber in 1877. In 1873 he became interested in a project for uniting Europe and Asia by a railway to Bombay, with a branch to Peking. He subsequently encouraged Major Roudaire, who wished to transform the Sahara desert into an inland sea. The king of the Belgians having formed an International African Society, de Lesseps accepted the presidency of the French committee, facilitated M. de Brazza’s explorations, and acquired stations that he subsequently abandoned to the French government. These stations were the starting-point of French Congo. In 1879 a congress assembled in the rooms of the Geographical Society at Paris, under the presidency of Admiral de la Roncière le Noury, and voted in favour of the making of the Panama Canal. Public opinion, it may be declared, designated Ferdinand de Lesseps as the head of the enterprise. It was upon that occasion that Gambetta bestowed upon him the title ofLe Grand Français. He was not a man to shirk responsibility, and notwithstanding that he had reached the age of 74, he undertook to carry out the Panama Canal project (seePanama CanalandFrance:History). Politics, which de Lesseps had always avoided, was his greatest enemy in this matter. The winding-up of the Panama Company having been declared in the month of December 1888, the adversaries of the French Republic, seeking for a scandal that would imperil the government, hoped to bring about the prosecution of the directors of the Panama Company. Their attacks were so vigorously made that the government was obliged, in self-defence, to have judicial proceedings taken against Ferdinand de Lesseps, his son Charles (b. 1849) and his co-workers Fontane and Cottu. Charles de Lesseps, a victim offered to the fury of the politicians, tried to divert the storm upon his head and prevent it from reaching his father. He managed to draw down upon himself alone the burden of the condemnations pronounced. One of the consequences of the persecutions of which he was the object was to oblige him to spend three years, from 1896 to 1899, in England, where his participation in the management of the Suez Canal had won for him some strong friendships, and where he was able to see the great respect in which the memory and name of his father were held by Englishmen.

Ferdinand de Lesseps died at La Chenaie on the 7th of December 1894. He had contracted a second marriage in 1869 with Mlle Autard de Bragard, daughter of a former magistrate of Mauritius; and eleven out of twelve children of this marriage survived him. M. de Lesseps was a member of the French Academy, of the Academy of Sciences, of numerous scientific societies, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and of the Star of India, and had received the freedom of the City of London. According to some accounts he was unconscious of the disastrous events that took place during the closing months of his life. Others report that, feeling himself powerless to scatter the gathered clouds, and aware of his physical feebleness, he had had the moral courage to pass in the eyes of his family, which he did not wish to afflict, as the dupe of the efforts they employed to conceal the truth from him. This last version would not be surprising if we relied upon the following portrait, sketched by a person who knew him intimately:—“Simple in his tastes, never thinking of himself, constantly preoccupied about others, supremely kind, he did not and would not recognize such a thing as evil. Of a confiding nature, he was inclined to judge others by himself. This naturally affectionate abandonment that every one felt in him had procured him profound attachments and rare devotions. He showed, while making the Suez Canal, what a gift he possessed for levying the pacific armies he conducted. He set duty above everything, had in the highest degree a reverence for honour, and placed his indomitable courage at the service of everything that was beneficial with an abnegation that nothing could tire. His marvellous physical and moral equilibrium gave him an evenness of temper which always rendered his society charming. Whatever his cares, his work or his troubles, I have never noticed in him aught but generous impulses and a love of humanity carried even to those heroic imprudences of which they alone are capable who devote themselves to the amelioration of humanity.” No doubt this eulogy requires some reservations. The striking and universal success which crowned his work on the Suez Canal gave him an absoluteness of thought which brooked no contradiction, a despotic temper before which every one must bow, and against which, when he had once taken a resolution, nothing could prevail, not even the most authoritative opposition or the most legitimate entreaties. He had resolved to construct the Panama Canal without locks, to make it an uninterrupted navigable way. All attempts to dissuade him from this resolution failed before his tenacious will. At his advanced age he went with his youngest child to Panama to see with his own eyes the field of his new enterprise. He there beheld the Culebra and the Chagres; he saw the mountain and the stream, those two greatest obstacles of nature that sought to bar his route. He paid no heed to them, but began the struggle against the Culebra and the Chagres. It was against them that was broken his invincible will, sweeping away in the defeat the work of Panama, his own fortune, his fame and almost an atom of his honour. But this atom, only grazed by calumny, has already been restored to him by posterity, for he died poor, having been the first to suffer by the disaster to his illusions. Political agitators, in order to sap the power of the Opportunist party, did not hesitate to drag in the mud one of the greatest citizens of France. But when the Panama “scandal” has been forgotten, for centuries to come the traveller in saluting the statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps at the entrance of the Suez Canal will pay homage to one of the most powerful embodiments of the creative genius of the 19th century.

See G. Barnett Smith,The Life and Enterprises of Ferdinand de Lesseps(London, 1893); andSouvenirs de quarante ans, by Ferdinand de Lesseps (trans. by C. B. Pitman). (de B.)

LESSING, GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM(1729-1781), German critic and dramatist, was born at Kamenz in Upper Lusatia (Oberlausitz), Saxony, on the 22nd of January 1729. His father, Johann Gottfried Lessing, was a clergyman, and, a few years after his son’s birth, becamepastor primariusor chief pastor of Kamenz. After attending the Latin school of his native town, Gotthold was sent in 1741 to the famous school of St Afra at Meissen, where he made such rapid progress, especially in classics and mathematics, that, towards the end of his school career, he was described by the rector as “a steed that needed double fodder.” In 1746 he entered the university of Leipzig as a theological student. The philological lectures of Johann Friedrich Christ (1700-1756) and Johann August Ernesti (1707-1781) proved, however, more attractive than those on theology, and he attended the philosophical disputations presided over by his friend A. G. Kästner, professor of mathematics and also an epigrammatist of repute. Among Lessing’s chief friends in Leipzig were C. F. Weisse (1726-1804) the dramatist, and Christlob Mylius (1722-1754), who had made some name for himself as a journalist. He was particularly attracted by the theatre then directed by the talented actress Karoline Neuber (1697-1760), who had assisted Gottsched in his efforts to bring the German stage into touch with literature. Frau Neuber even accepted for performance Lessing’s first comedy,Der junge Gelehrte(1748), which he had begun at school. His father naturally did not approve of these new interests and acquaintances, and summoned him home. He was only allowed to return to Leipzig on the condition that he would devote himself to the study of medicine. Some medical lectures he did attend, but as long as Frau Neuber’s company kept together the theatre had an irresistible fascination for him.

In 1748, however, the company broke up, and Lessing, who had allowed himself to become surety for some of the actors’ debts, was obliged to leave Leipzig too, in order to escape their creditors. He went to Wittenberg, and afterwards, towards the end of the year, to Berlin, where his friend Mylius hadestablished himself as a journalist. In Berlin Lessing now spent three years, maintaining himself chiefly by literary work. He translated three volumes of Charles Rollin’sHistoire ancienne, wrote several plays—Der Misogyn,Der Freigeist,Die Juden—and in association with Mylius, began theBeiträge zur Historie und Aufnahine des Theaters(1750), a periodical—which soon came to an end—for the discussion of matters connected with the drama. Early in 1751 he became literary critic to theVossische Zeitung, and in this position laid the foundation for his reputation as a reviewer of learning, judgment and wit. At the end of 1751 he was in Wittenberg again, where he spent about a year engaged in unremitting study and research. He then returned to Berlin with a view to making literature his profession; and the next three years were among the busiest of his life. Besides translating for the booksellers, he issued several numbers of theTheatralische Bibliothek, a periodical similar to that which he had begun with Mylius; he also continued his work as critic to theVossische Zeitung. In 1754 he gave a particularly brilliant proof of his critical powers in hisVademecum für Herrn S. G. Lange; as a retort to that writer’s overbearing criticism, Lessing exposed with scathing satire Lange’s errors in his popular translation of Horace.

By 1753 Lessing felt that his position was sufficiently assured to allow of him issuing an edition of his collected writings (Schriften, 6 vols., 1753-1755). They included his lyrics and epigrams, most of which had already appeared during his first residence in Berlin in a volume ofKleinigkeiten, published anonymously. Much more important were the papers entitledRettungen, in which he undertook to vindicate the character of various writers—Horace and writers of the Reformation period, such as Cochlaeus and Cardanus—who had been misunderstood or falsely judged by preceding generations. TheSchriftenalso contained Lessing’s early plays, and one new one,Miss Sara Sampson(1755). Hitherto Lessing had, as a dramatist, followed the methods of contemporary French comedy as cultivated in Leipzig;Miss Sara Sampson, however, marks the beginning of a new period in the history of the German drama. This play, based more or less on Lille’sMerchant of London, and influenced in its character-drawing by the novels of Richardson, is the firstbürgerliches Trauerspiel, or “tragedy of common life” in German. It was performed for the first time at Frankfort-on-Oder in the summer of 1755, and received with great favour. Among Lessing’s chief friends during his second residence in Berlin were the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), in association with whom he wrote in 1755 an admirable treatise,Pope ein Metaphysiker!tracing sharply the lines which separate the poet from the philosopher. He was also on intimate terms with C. F. Nicolai (1733-1811), a Berlin bookseller and rationalistic writer, and with the “German Horace” K. W. Ramler (1725-1798); he had also made the acquaintance of J. W. L. Gleim (1719-1803), the Halberstadt poet, and E. C. von Kleist (1715-1759), a Prussian officer, whose fine poem.Der Frühling, had won for him Lessing’s warm esteem.

In October 1755 Lessing settled in Leipzig with a view to devoting himself more exclusively to the drama. In 1756 he accepted the invitation of Gottfried Winkler, a wealthy young merchant, to accompany him on a foreign tour for three years. They did not, however, get beyond Amsterdam, for the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War made it necessary for Winkler to return home without loss of time. A disagreement with his patron shortly after resulted in Lessing’s sudden dismissal; he demanded compensation and, although in the end the court decided in his favour, it was not until the case had dragged on for about six years. At this time Lessing began the study of medieval literature to which attention had been drawn by the Swiss critics, Bodmer and Breitinger, and wrote occasional criticisms for Nicolai’sBibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften. In Leipzig Lessing had also an opportunity of developing his friendship with Kleist who happened to be stationed there. The two men were mutually attracted, and a warm affection sprang upbetweenthem. In 1758 Kleist’s regiment being ordered to new quarters, Lessing decided not to remain behind him and returned again to Berlin. Kleist was mortally wounded in the following year at the battle of Kunersdorf.

Lessing’s third residence in Berlin was made memorable by theBriefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend(1759-1765), a series of critical essays—written in the form of letters to a wounded officer—on the principal books that had appeared since the beginning of the Seven Years’ War. The scheme was suggested by Nicolai, by whom theLetterswere published. In Lessing’s share in this publication, his critical powers and methods are to be seen at their best. He insisted especially on the necessity of truth to nature in the imaginative presentation of the facts of life, and in one letter he boldly proclaimed the superiority of Shakespeare to Corneille, Racine and Voltaire. At the same time he marked the immutable conditions to which even genius must submit if it is to succeed in its appeal to our sympathies. While in Berlin at this time, he edited with Ramler a selection from the writings of F. von Logau, an epigrammatist of the 17th century, and introduced to the German public theLieder eines preussischen Grenadiers, by J. W. L. Gleim. In 1759 he publishedPhilotas, a prose tragedy in one act, and also a complete collection of his fables, preceded by an essay on the nature of the fable. The latter is one of his best essays on criticism, defining with perfect lucidity what is meant by “action” in works of the imagination, and distinguishing the action of the fable from that of the epic and the drama.

In 1760, feeling the need of some change of scene and work, Lessing went to Breslau, where he obtained the post of secretary to General Tauentzien, to whom Kleist had introduced him in Leipzig. Tauentzien was not only a general in the Prussian army, but governor of Breslau, and director of the mint. During the four years which Lessing spent in Breslau, he associated chiefly with Prussian officers, went much into society, and developed a dangerous fondness for the gaming table. He did not, however, lose sight of his true goal; he collected a large library, and, after the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, in 1763, he resumed more enthusiastically than ever the studies which had been partially interrupted. He investigated the early history of Christianity and penetrated more deeply than any contemporary thinker into the significance of Spinoza’s philosophy. He also found time for the studies which were ultimately to appear in the volume entitledLaokoon, and in fresh spring mornings he sketched in a garden the plan ofMinna von Barnhelm.

After resigning his Breslau appointment in 1765, he hoped for a time to obtain a congenial appointment in Dresden, but nothing came of this and he was again compelled, much against his will, to return to Berlin. His friends there exerted themselves to obtain for him the office of keeper of the royal library, but Frederick had not forgotten Lessing’s quarrel with Voltaire, and declined to consider his claims. During the two years which Lessing now spent in the Prussian capital, he was restless and unhappy, yet it was during this period that he published two of his greatest works,Laokoon, oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie(1766) andMinna von Barnhelm(1767). The aim of Laokoon, which ranks as a classic, not only in German but in European literature, is to define by analysis the limitations of poetry and the plastic arts. Many of his conclusions have been corrected and extended by later criticism; but he indicated more decisively than any of his predecessors the fruitful principle that each art is subject to definite conditions, and that it can accomplish great results only by limiting itself to its special function. The most valuable parts of the work are those which relate to poetry, of which he had a much more intimate knowledge than of sculpture and painting. His exposition of the methods of Homer and Sophocles is especially suggestive, and he may be said to have marked an epoch in the appreciation of these writers, and of Greek literature generally. The power ofMinna von Barnhelm, Lessing’s greatest drama, was also immediately recognized. Tellheim, the hero of the comedy, is an admirable study of a manly and sensitive soldier, with somewhat exaggerated ideas of conventional honour; and Minna, the heroine, is one of the brightest and most attractive figures in Germancomedy. The subordinate characters are conceived with even more force and vividness; and the plot, which reflects precisely the struggles and aspirations of the period that immediately followed the Seven Years’ War, is simply and naturally unfolded.

In 1767 Lessing settled in Hamburg, where he had been invited to take part in the establishment of a national theatre. The scheme promised well, and, as he associated himself with Johann Joachim Christoph Bode (1730-1793), a literary man whom he respected, in starting a printing establishment, he hoped that he might at last look forward to a peaceful and prosperous career. The theatre, however, was soon closed, and the printing establishment failed, leaving behind it a heavy burden of debt. In despair, Lessing determined towards the end of his residence in Hamburg to quit Germany, believing that in Italy he might find congenial labour that would suffice for his wants. TheHamburgische Dramaturgie(1767-1768), Lessing’s commentary on the performances of the National Theatre, is the first modern handbook of the dramatist’s art. By his original interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, he delivered German dramatists from the yoke of the classic tragedy of France, and directed them to the Greek dramatists and to Shakespeare. Another result of Lessing’s labours in Hamburg was theAntiquarische Briefe(1768), a series of masterly letters in answer to Christian Adolf Klotz (1738-1771), a professor of the university of Halle, who, after flattering Lessing, had attacked him, and sought to establish a kind of intellectual despotism by means of critical journals which he directly or indirectly controlled. In connexion with this controversy Lessing wrote his brilliant little treatise,Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet(1769), contrasting the medieval representation of death as a skeleton with the Greek conception of death as the twin-brother of sleep.

Instead of settling in Italy, as he intended, Lessing accepted in 1770 the office of librarian at Wolfenbüttel, a post which was offered to him by the hereditary prince of Brunswick. In this position he passed his remaining years. For a time he was not unhappy, but the debts which he had contracted in Hamburg weighed heavily on him, and he missed the society of his friends; his health, too, which had hitherto been excellent, gradually gave way. In 1775 he travelled for nine months in Italy with Prince Leopold of Brunswick, and in the following year he married Eva König, the widow of a Hamburg merchant, with whom he had been on terms of intimate friendship. But their happiness lasted only for a brief period; in 1778 she died in childbed.

Soon after settling in Wolfenbüttel, Lessing found in the library the manuscript of a treatise by Berengarius of Tours on transubstantiation in reply to Lanfranc. This was the occasion of Lessing’s powerful essay on Berengarius, in which he vindicated the latter’s character as a serious and consistent thinker. In 1771 he published hisZerstreute Anmerkungen über das Epigramm, und einige der vornehmsten Epigrammatisten—a work which Herder described as “itself an epigram.” Lessing’s theory of the origin of the epigram is somewhat fanciful, but no other critic has offered so many pregnant hints as to the laws of epigrammatic verse, or defended with so much force and ingenuity the character of Martial. In 1772 he publishedEmilia Galotti, a tragedy which he had begun many years before in Leipzig. The subject was suggested by the Roman legend of Virginia, but the scene is laid in an Italian court, and the whole play is conceived in the spirit of the “tragedy of common life.” Its defect is that its tragic conclusion does not seem absolutely inevitable, but the characters—especially those of the Gräfin Orsina and Marinelli, the prince of Guastalla’s chamberlain who weaves the intrigue from which Emilia escapes by death, are powerfully drawn. Having completedEmilia Galotti, which the younger generation of playwrights at once accepted as a model, Lessing occupied himself for some years almost exclusively with the treasures of the Wolfenbüttel library. The results of these researches he embodied in a series of volumes,Zur Geschichte und Literatur, the first being issued in 1773, the last in the year of his death.

The last period of Lessing’s life was devoted chiefly to theological controversy. H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768), professor of oriental languages in Hamburg, who commanded general respect as a scholar and thinker, wrote a book entitledApologie oder Schutzschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes. His standpoint was that of the English deists, and he investigated, without hesitation, the evidence for the miracles recorded in the Bible. The manuscript of this work was, after the author’s death, entrusted by his daughter to Lessing, who published extracts from it in hisZur Geschichte und Literaturin 1774-1778. These extracts, the authorship of which was not publicly avowed, were known as theWolfenbütteler Fragmente. They created profound excitement among orthodox theologians, and evoked many replies, in which Lessing was bitterly condemned for having published writings of so dangerous a tendency. His most formidable assailant was Johann Melchior Goeze (1717-1786), the chief pastor of Hamburg, a sincere and earnest theologian, but utterly unscrupulous in his choice of weapons against an opponent. To him, therefore, Lessing addressed in 1778 his most elaborate answers—Eine Parabel,Axiomata, eleven letters with the titleAnti-Goeze, and two pamphlets in reply to an inquiry by Goeze as to what Lessing meant by Christianity. These papers are not only full of thought and learning; they are written with a grace, vivacity and energy that make them hardly less interesting to-day than they were to Lessing’s contemporaries. He does not undertake to defend the conclusions of Reimarus; his immediate object is to claim the right of free criticism in regard even to the highest subjects of human thought. The argument on which he chiefly relies is that the Bible cannot be considered necessary to a belief in Christianity, since Christianity was a living and conquering power before the New Testament in its present form was recognized by the church. The true evidence for what is essential in Christianity, he contends, is its adaptation to the wants of human nature; hence the religious spirit is undisturbed by the speculations of the boldest thinkers. The effect of this controversy was to secure wider freedom for writers on theology, and to suggest new problems regarding the growth of Christianity, the formation of the canon and the essence of religion. The Brunswick government having, in deference to the consistory, confiscated theFragmentsand ordered Lessing to discontinue the controversy, he resolved, as he wrote to Elise Reimarus, to try “whether they would let him preach undisturbed from his old pulpit, the stage.” InNathan der Weise, written in the winter of 1778-1779, he gave poetic form to the ideas which he had already developed in prose. Its governing conception is that noble character may be associated with the most diverse creeds, and that there can, therefore, be no good reason why the holders of one sect of religious principles should not tolerate those who maintain wholly different doctrines. The play, which is written in blank verse, is too obviously a continuation of Lessing’s theological controversy to rank high as poetry, but the representatives of the three religions—the Mahommedan Saladin, the Jew Nathan and the Christian Knight Templar—are finely conceived, and show that Lessing’s dramatic instinct had, in spite of other interests, not deserted him. In 1780 appearedDie Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, the first half of which he had published in 1777 with one of theFragments. This work, composed a hundred brief paragraphs, was the last, and is one of the most suggestive of Lessing’s writings. The doctrine on which its argument is based is that no dogmatic creed can be regarded as final, but that every historical religion had its share in the development of the spiritual life of mankind. Lessing also maintains that history reveals a definite law of progress, and that occasional retrogression may be necessary for the advance of the world towards its ultimate goal. These ideas formed a striking contrast to the principles both of orthodox and of sceptical writers in Lessing’s day, and gave a wholly new direction to religious philosophy. Another work of Lessing’s last years,Ernst und Falk(a series of five dialogues, of which the first three were published in 1777, the last two in 1780), also set forth many new points of view. Its nominal subject is freemasonry, but its real aim is to plead for a humane and charitable spirit in opposition to a narrowpatriotism, an extravagant respect for rank, and exclusive devotion to any particular church.

Lessing’s theological opinions exposed him to much petty persecution, and he was in almost constant straits for money. Nothing, however, broke his manly and generous spirit. To the end he was always ready to help those who appealed to him for aid, and he devoted himself with growing ardour to the search for truth. He formed many new plans of work, but in the course of 1780 it became evident to his friends that he would not be able much longer to continue his labours. His health had been undermined by excessive work and anxiety, and after a short illness he died at Brunswick on the 15th of February 1781. “We lose much in him,” wrote Goethe after Lessing’s death, “more than we think.” It may be questioned whether there is any other writer to whom the Germans owe a deeper debt of gratitude. He was succeeded by poets and philosophers who gave Germany for a time the first place in the intellectual life of the world, and it was Lessing, as they themselves acknowledged, who prepared the way for their achievements. Without attaching himself to any particular system of philosophical doctrine, he fought error incessantly, and in regard to art, poetry and the drama and religion, suggested ideas which kindled the enthusiasm of aspiring minds, and stimulated their highest energies.

Bibliography.—The first edition of Lessing’s collected works, edited by his brother Karl Gotthelf Lessing (1740-1812), J. J. Eschenburg and F. Nicolai, appeared in 26 vols. between 1791 and 1794, as a continuation of theVermischte Schriften, edited by Lessing himself in 4 vols. (1771-1785); theSämtliche Schriften, edited by Karl Lachmann, were published in 13 vols. (1825-1828), this edition being subsequently re-edited by W. von Maltzahn (1853-1857) and by F. Muncker (21 vols., 1886 ff.), the last mentioned being the standard edition of Lessing’s works. Other editions areLessings Werke, published by Hempel, under the editorship of various scholars (23 vols., 1868-1877); an illustrated edition published by Grote in 8 vols. (1875, new ed., 1882);Lessings Werke, edited by R. Boxberger and H. Blümner, in Kürschner’sDeutsche Nationalliteratur, vols. 58-71 (1883-1890). There are also many popular editions. Lessing’s correspondence is included in the Lachmann editions and in that of Hempel (edited by C. C. Redlich, 1879;Nachträge und Berichtigungen, 1886); his correspondence with his wife was published as early as 1789 (2 vols., new edition by A. Schöne, 1885). The chief biographies of Lessing are by K. G. Lessing (his brother), (1793-1795, a reprint in Reclam’sUniversalbibliothek); by J. F. Schink (1825); T. W. Danzel and G. E. Guhrauer (1850-1853, 2nd ed. by W. von Maltzahn and R. Boxberger, 2 vols., 1880-1881); A. Stahr (2 vols., 1859, 9th ed., 1887); J. Sime,Lessing, his Life and Works(2 vols., 1877); H. Zimmern,Lessing’s Life and Works(1878); H. Düntzer,Lessings Leben(1882); E. Schmidt,Lessing, Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Schriften(2 vols., 1884-1892, 3rd ed., 1910)—this is the most complete biography; T. W. Rolleston,Lessing(in “Great Writers,” 1889); K. Borinski,Lessing(2 vols., 1900). Cf. also C. Hebler,Lessing-Studien(1862); A. Lehmann,Forschungen über Lessings Sprache(1875); W. Cosack,Materialien zu Lessings Hamburgischer Dramaturgie(1876, 2nd ed., 1891); H. Blümner,Lessings Laokoon(1876, 2nd ed., 1880); H. Blümner,Laokoon-Studien(2 vols., 1881-1882); K. Fischer,Lessing als Reformator der deutschen Literatur dargestellt(2 vols., 1881, 2nd ed., 1888); B. A. Wagner,Lessing-Forschungen(1881); J. W. Braun,Lessing im Urteile seiner Zeitgenossen(2 vols., 1884); P. Albrecht,Lessings Plagiate(6 vols., 1890 ff.); K. Werder,Vorlesungen über Lessings Nathan(1892); G. Kettner,Lessings Dramen im Lichte ihrer und unsrer Zeit(1904). Translations of Lessing’sDramatic Works(2 vols., 1878), edited by E. Bell, and ofLaokoon, Dramatic Notes and the Representation of Death by the Ancients, by E. C. Beasley and H. Zimmern (1 vol., 1879), will be found in Bohn’s “Standard Library.”

Back to Index Next