Brave as Sir John
Moore was, he thought him deficient in that greater and more essential
manliness of soul which should have made him not hold his enemy in such
fearful respect, and which should have taught him to care less for the
opinion of the world at home.
"We then got, I know not how, to German topics. He said that the language
of their literature was entirely factitious, and had been formed by Luther
from the two dialects, High and Low German; that he had made it,
grammatically, most correct, more so, perhaps, than any other language; it
was equal to the Greek, except in harmony and sweetness. And yet the
Germans themselves thought it sweet;--Klopstock had repeated to him an ode
of his own to prove it, and really had deceived himself, by the force of
association, into a belief that the harsh sounds, conveying, indeed, or
being significant of, sweet images or thoughts, were themselves sweet. Mr.
C. was asked what he thought of Klopstock. He answered, that his fame was
rapidly declining in Germany; that an Englishman might form a correct
notion of him by uniting the moral epigram of Young, the bombast of Hervey,
and the minute description of Richardson. As to sublimity, he had, with all
Germans, one rule for producing it;--it was, to take something very great,
and make it very small in comparison with that which you wish to elevate.
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