[Illustration: Flaxman.]
July 4.--On this day, in the year 1715, was born at Haynichen, near
Freyberg, in Saxony, the German poet, CHRISTIAN FURCHTEGOTT GELLERT.
Gellert was not a man of the highest genius; but appearing at a
favourable time, being animated by the finest spirit of benevolence and
virtuous ambition, and possessing just the talents and character of mind
suited to the task which he undertook, that of awakening the general
body of his countrymen to a taste for literature, he produced as great
and as gratifying an effect by his works as, perhaps, any writer that
ever lived. His father was a clergyman, and he was originally intended
for the same profession; but his first attempt in the pulpit convinced
him that his constitutional timidity would probably prevent him from
ever becoming an effective public speaker. He then resolved to devote
himself to the instruction of his countrymen through the press. At this
time Germany was almost destitute of a national literature. The country
had given birth to many great scholars; and both classical learning and
the abstruse philosophy of the middle ages were cultivated with zeal and
success in its colleges. But scarcely any one had yet arisen to write
for the people. This Gellert and a few of his friends resolved to do.
Discarding all the repulsive technicalities of the schools, they
proceeded to expound and illustrate the great principles of morality,
metaphysics, and criticism, for the use of society at large, in a
natural and popular style, such as was fitted to be intelligible and
interesting to all. In this patriotic enterprise Gellert may be said to
have spent his life. Every successive work which he produced was
received with delight by Germany; but his celebrated ‘Fables’ were read
with rapture by all classes of the population. One day a peasant
appeared at Gellert’s door in Leipsic, with a waggon loaded with
fire-wood. “Is it not here,” asked the man, “that Mr. Gellert lives?” On
being told that it was, he desired to see the master of the house; and
having been brought to him, “Are not you, sir,” he said, “the author of
the ‘Fables?’” “I am,” replied Gellert. “Well then,” said the other,
“here is a load of wood, which I have brought you, to thank you for the
pleasure which your book has given to myself, my wife, and my children.”
By such a heart as Gellert’s this was probably felt to be a more
touching tribute to his powers than the plaudits of crowded theatres
would have been. Another time he was standing in the workshop of a
bookbinder, when a villager came in with a book in his hand. “Here,”
said he, “I want this book strongly bound.” “Where did you pick up this
book?” asked the binder. “I bought it in our town,” replied the
delighted possessor of the treasure; “it has made the steward of the
manor and the schoolmaster laugh till they have almost split their
sides: I have a little boy, who is now a tolerably good reader; he shall
read from this book to me in the evening, while I smoke my pipe, and I
will go no more to the ale-house.” Even the war (commonly called the
_seven years’ war_) which ravaged a great part of Germany from 1756 to
1763, did not extinguish the popular enthusiasm for the writings of
Gellert. When Leipsic was taken by the Prussians in 1758, a lieutenant
of hussars found out the peaceable poet in his house, and not contented
with thanking him warmly for the delightful books to which, he said, he
owed so many pleasant hours, insisted, by way of more substantially
testifying his gratitude, upon making him a present of a pair of
pistols, which he had taken from a Cossack. Nay, the common soldiers
themselves used to come, almost in regiments, to hear a course of
lectures on moral philosophy, which he read in public about this time;
and it is related that one man, having obtained leave of absence, turned
a considerable way out of his road, on his journey homewards, in order
to see, as he expressed it, that _honest fellow_, Mr. Gellert, _whose
books had saved him from becoming a profligate_. The works of Gellert
have been frequently printed in a collected form, and amount, in the
fullest edition, to ten volumes duodecimo. He had been afflicted during
the greater part of his life by bad health; and died on the night of the
13th of December, 1769, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. Having
lingered long in considerable pain, he remarked to the physician, a
short time before his death, that he had not believed it would have been
so difficult to die, and asked when the termination of his sufferings
might be expected. When he was informed that another hour would probably
release him, “God be praised,” he said; “still another hour!” and then
lay in silent resignation, till the expected deliverance came. Germany
lamented, with all the tokens of national grief, the loss of her amiable
instructor; and medals and public monuments testified the admiration and
gratitude of all ranks of his countrymen.
July 6.--The birth-day of JOHN FLAXMAN, the late eminent sculptor, whose
works have done so much to form the English school of design. Flaxman
was born in 1755, in York, from whence he was removed in his infancy to
London, where his father, who was a moulder of figures, subsequently
kept a shop in the Strand for the sale of plaster casts. The father’s
occupation, no doubt, contributed to call forth the genius of the son;
but the boy very early began to give evidence of fondness for those arts
to which his future life was devoted, and of singular taste and skill in
the efforts of his uninstructed pencil. Like many more of the most
distinguished cultivators of literature and art, he was prevented by the
weakness and delicate health of his early years from mixing in the ruder
sports of boys of his own age; and this, of course, gave him more time
for solitary study. His father was not able to afford him the advantages
of a regular education; but he rapidly acquired a great deal of
knowledge by his own unaided efforts. When he was fifteen he was
admitted a student in the Royal Academy. Here he was successful in a
competition for the inferior honour of the silver medal; but on the
contest for the gold one, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President, awarded
the prize to another. This was, perhaps, upon the whole, not an
unfortunate incident for Flaxman, though he severely felt what he
thought an injustice. His rival, notwithstanding his good fortune on
this occasion, never rose to any distinction; but Flaxman, with the
heroism of true genius, resolved to obliterate this defeat of his youth
by future triumphs, of the glory of which no such decision should be
able to rob him. And this resolution he nobly fulfilled. His first
employment was given him by the Messrs. Wedgewood, the productions of
whose porcelain potteries he embellished with designs that gave at once
a new character to this branch of British manufactures. In 1782 he
married; and five years afterwards proceeded to visit Italy, where he
remained till 1794, studying the celebrated monuments of the fine arts
with which that country abounds, and at the same time exerting his own
pencil in the production of works which soon spread his fame over
Europe. Having then returned to England, he was in 1797 elected an
Associate, and in 1800 a Member, of the Royal Academy. After this he
executed many great works in marble; and, as a lecturer, afforded some
valuable contributions to the literature of his profession. For many
years before his death his name ranked with the highest of the living
artists of England. But we must refer the reader for an account of his
performances to Mr. Allan Cunningham’s interesting life of him, lately
published, or to the abstract of that memoir in the second number of the
Gallery of Portraits. He died at his house in Buckingham-street, on the
7th of December, 1826, in the seventy-second year of his age.
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