(Vol. ix., p. 451.)
I cannot direct R. A. to the passage in Madame de Staël's works. The German
book for which he inquires is not by Schlegel _assisted_ by Fichte, but--
"Friedrich Nicolai's Leben und sonderbare Meinungen. Ein Beitrag zur
Literatur-Geschichte des vergangenen und zur Pädagogik des angehenden
Jahrhunderts, von Johan Gottlieb Fichte. Herausgegeben von A. W.
Schlegel: Tubingen, 1801, 8^o, pp. 130."
There certainly is no ground for the charge that Fichte attacked Nicolai
when he was too old to reply. Nicolai was born in 1733, and died in 1811;
so that he was sixty-eight when this pamphlet was published. His _Leben
Sempronius Gundiberts_ was published in 1798; and your correspondent H. C.
R. (Vol. vii., p. 20.) partook of his hospitality in Berlin in 1803.
As to the provocation, Fichte (at p. 82.) gives an account of attacks on
his personal honour; the worst of which seems to be the imputation of
seeking favourable notices in the _Literary Gazette_ of Jena. In
_Gundibert_ Fichte's writings were severely handled, but no personal
imputation was made. I do not know what was said of him in the _Neue
Deutsche Bibliothek_, but I can hardly imagine any justification for so
furious an attack {547} as this on Nicolai. I also concur with Madame de
Staël in thinking the book dull: "Non est jocus esse malignum." It begins
with an attempt at grave burlesque, but speedily degenerates into mere
scolding. Take one example:
"Es war sehr wahr, dass aus seinen (Nicolais) Händen alles beschmutzt
und verdreht herausging; aber es war nicht wahr, das er beschmutzen und
verdrehen wollte. Es ward ihm nur so durch die Eigenschaft seiner
Natur. Wer möchte ein Stinkthier beschuldigen, dass es bohafter Weise
alles was es zu sich nehme, in Gestank,--oder die Natter, das sie es in
Gift verwandle. Diese Thiere sind daran sehr unschuldig; sie folgen nur
ihrer Natur. Eben so unser Held, der nun einmal zum literarischen
Stinkthier und der Natter des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts bestimmt war,
verbreitete stank um sich, und spritze Gift, nicht aus Bosheit, sondern
lediglich durch seine Bestimmung getrieben."--P. 78.
The charge of defiling all he touched will be appreciated by those who have
read _Sebaldus Nothanker_ and _Sempronius Gundibert_, two of the purest as
well as of the cleverest novels of the last century.