and when I asked him for the other shilling he refused to return it, and would neither suffer me to take bread, nor give me back my money, and on these terms I quitted the shop. I am informed that it is the boast and glory of these people to cheat strangers, that when a feat of this kind is successfully performed the man goes from the shop into his house, and triumphantly relates it to his wife and family. The Hamburgher shopkeepers have three sorts of weights, and a great part of their skill, as shopkeepers, consists in calculating upon the knowledge of the buyer, and suiting him with scales accordingly..

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Saturday, 29th September.—The grand festival of the Hamburghers, dedicated to Saint Michael, observed with solemnity, but little festivity. Perhaps this might be partly owing to the raininess of the evening. In the morning the churches were opened very early. St Christopher's was quite full between eight and nine o'clock. It is a large heavy-looking building, immense, without either grandeur or beauty; built of brick, and with few windows. .. There are some pictures, one of the Saint fording the river with Christ upon his back-a giant figure, which amused me not a little. Walked with Coleridge and Chester upon the promenade. . . . We took places in the morning in the Brunswick coach for Wednesday.

Sunday, 1st October.-Coleridge and Chester went to Ratzeberg at seven o'clock in the morning. William and I set forward at half-past eleven with an intention of going to Blankanese. . . The buildings all seem solid and warm in themselves, but still they look cold from their nakedness of trees. They are generally newly built, and placed in gardens, which are planted in front with poplars and low shrubs, but the possessors seem to have no prospective view to a shelter for their children. They do not plant behind their houses. All the buildings of this character are

near the road which runs at different distances from the edge of the bank which rises from the river. This bank is generally steep, scattered over with trees which are either not of ancient growth, or from some cause do not thrive, but serve very well to shelter and often conceal the more humble dwellings, which are close to the sandy bank of the river. .. We saw many carriages. In one of them was Klopstock, the poet. There are many inns and eating-houses by the roadside. We went to a pretty village, or nest of houses about a league from Blankanese, and beyond to a large open field, enclosed on one side with oak trees, through which winds a pleasant gravel walk. On the other it is open to

the river. . . . When we were within about a mile and a half or two miles of Altona, we turned out of the road to go down to the river, and pursued our way along the path that leads from house to house. These houses are low, never more than two storeys high, built of brick, or a mixture of brick and wood, and thatched or tiled. They have all windowshutters, which are painted frequently a grey light green, but always painted. We were astonished at the excessive neatness which we observed in the arrangement of everything within these houses. They have all window curtains as white as snow; the floors of all that we saw were perfectly clean, and the brass vessels as bright as a mirror. . . I imagine these houses are chiefly inhabited by sailors, pilots, boat-makers, and others whose business is upon the water.

Monday, Oct. 2nd.-William called at Klopstock's to inquire the road into Saxony. Bought Burgher's poems, the price 6 marks. Sate an hour at Remnant's. Bought Percy's ancient poetry, 14 marks. Walked on the ramparts; a very fine morning.”

Coleridge has recorded in Satyrane's Letters the interview which he and the Wordsworths had with the poet Klop

stock; and the details of the conversation-which Coleridge could scarcely follow, as it was carried on in French-are given in the Biographia Literaria, as an extract from Wordsworth's notes. As there are some curious differences between the original and the transcript, it may be worth while to quote a considerable portion of the foriner, more especially as its earlier paragraphs are entirely omitted by Coleridge. It will be observed, however, by those who take the trouble to look into Satyrane's Letters, that some sentences like Wordsworth's remarks about old men wearing powder-are placed in a new connection, and glorified by Coleridge.*

"Mr Klopstock took us to see his brother, the Poet, who lives about a quarter of a mile out of the town. In choosing his residence, the poet does not seem to have been influenced by poetic ideas. His house is one amongst a range of commonplace houses, with four or five rows of trees of a few years' growth before the windows, beyond which is a green, and dead flat intersected with several roads, but no object whatsoever to interest the eye. We were ushered into a plain decent room, ornamented with a few drawings or plates, I believe from the Messiah, and the figures of two of the Muses. We had not been here two minutes before the

Poet himself made his appearance. I was somewhat disappointed in his countenance, in which I was not able to discover the marks either of sublimity or enthusiasm. We began a conversation in French upon the events which had just taken place in Ireland. He spoke with great liveliness and spirit upon the surrender of the detachment of French troops under General Steinbert; and their proceedings with

* I am, of course, unable to say whether the "glorification" was Coleridge's or his editor's. This may be explained in the forthcoming Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, by his grandson.

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regard to the committee which they had appointed, and the rest of their organising system, seem to have given him great entertainment. He said they had in the German language no history of German poetry. He did not appear to have regularly studied the poetry of his country before his own time. He preferred the blank verse of Glover* (each verse separately considered) to that of Milton, but agreed with me that the true harmony of blank verse consisted in the periods, and not in a succession of musical lines. He showed us a new edition of his works, which is printing at Leipzig, and read us some passages from his Odes, in which he has adopted the Latin measures. I must cordially avow that my ear was unable to discover the movement in the specimen which he read us. He said he had read a translation of Milton when he was fourteen years old. He spoke with great animation of the powers of the German language, particularly on the score of compression. observed that his first Ode was fifty years older than the last. He is now in his seventy-fourth year. His teeth are almost entirely gone, yet he expresses himself with the liveliness of a girl of seventeen. This is striking to an Englishman, and rendered him an interesting object, and such I found him, notwithstanding his enormous powdered and frizelled wig. By-the-bye, old men ought never to wear powder. The contrast between a large snow white wig and the colour of an old man's skin is disgusting, and wrinkles in such a neighbourhood appear only channels for dirt. Coleridge spoke of a work which he wished to execute, namely, a history of German poetry, and added, that he hoped to have the pleasure of translating some of his Odes as specimens. He begged that if he did so, he would likewise give some fragments of the Messiah, to revenge him of the

* The author of an epic, Leonidas, 1737.

He

man who had made so execrable, so detestable a translation of that work. He spoke with much feeling on this subject. "He mentioned Ebert's translation of Leonidas and Young's Night Thoughts as the best translation from the English which they had. By-the-bye, Ebert was his particular friend. He wished to see the Calvary of Cumberland, and wished to know what we thought of it in England.

He was

"Went to Remnant's, the English bookseller, where I procured the Analytical Review, in which is contained the review of C.'s Calvary. I remember to have read there some specimens of a blank verse translation of the Messiah. I have mentioned this to Mr K., and he had a great desire to have a sight of them. I walked over to his house, and put the book into his hand. We talked of Admiral Nelson's rumoured victory. He was all faith; I had my doubts. . . . He began the Messiah when he was seventeen years old. He devoted three entire years to the plan, without composing a single word. greatly at a loss in what manner to execute his work. There were no successful specimens of versification in the German language before his time. The first three cantos he wrote in a species of measured or murmurous prose. This, though done with much labour and some success, was far from satisfying him. He had composed translations, both Latin and Greek, as a school exercise; and there had been also, in the German language, attempts in that style of versification. These were only of moderate merit. One day he was struck with the idea of trying what could be done in this way. He kept his room a whole day, even went without his dinner, and found that in the evening he had written twenty-three hexameters, versifying a part of what he had before written in prose. From that time, pleased with his efforts, he composed no