We

me, and said I was in love. I rallied them again, and said that they must have a very friendshipless heart, if they had no idea of friendship to a man as well as to a woman. Thus it continued for eight months, in which time my friends found as much love in Klopstock's letters as in me. I perceived it likewise, but I would not believe it. At the last Klopstock said plainly that he loved; and I startled as for a wrong thing. I answered that it was no love but friendship, as it was, what I felt for him; we had not seen one another enough to love (as if love must have more time than friendship)! This was sincerely my meaning, and I had this meaning till Klopstock came again to Hamburg. This he did a year after we had seen one another the first time. saw we were friends; we loved, and we believed that we loved; and a short time after I could even tell Klopstock that I loved. But we were obliged to part again and wait two years for our wedding. My mother would not let marry me a stranger. I could marry then without her consentment, as by the death of my father my fortune depended not on her. But this was a horrible idea for me, and thank Heaven that I have prevailed by prayers! At this time, knowing Klopstock, she loves him as her lifely son, and thanks God that she has not persisted. We married, and I am the happiest wife in the world. In some few months it will be four years that I am so happy, and still I dote upon Klopstock as if he was my bridegroom.

"If you knew my husband, you would not wonder. If you knew his poem I could describe him very briefly, by saying he is in all respects what he is as a poet. This I can say with all wifely modesty. But I dare not speak of my husband; I am all raptures when I do it. And as happy as I am in love, so happy am I in friendship in my mother, two elder sisters, and five other How rich I am!

women.

Sir, you have willed that I should speak of myself, but I fear I have done it too much. Yet you see how it interests me.

"I am, Sir, &c. &c. &c."

"Hamburg, May 6th, 1758.

"It is not possible, Sir, to tell you what a joy your letters give me. My heart is very able to esteem the favor that you in your venerable age are so condescending good to answer so soon the letters of an unknown young woman, who has no other merit

than a heart full of friendship, though at so many miles of dis

tance.

"It will be a delightful occupation for me, my dear Mr. Richardson, to make you more acquainted with my husband's poem. Nobody can do it better than I, being the person who knows the most of that which is not yet published; being always present at the birth of the young verses, which begin always by fragments here and there of a subject of which his soul is just then filled. He has many great fragments of the whole work ready. You may think that two people, who love as we do, have no need of two chambers. We are always in the same. I, with my little work, still, still, only regarding my husband's sweet face, which is so venerable at that time! with tears of devotion and all the sublimity of the subject. My husband reading me his young verses, and suffering my criticisms. Ten books are published, which I think probably the middle of the whole. I will as soon as I can, translate you the arguments of these ten books, and what besides I think of them. The verses of the poem are without rhymes, and are hexameters, which sort of verses my husband has been the first to introduce in our language; we being still closely attached to the rhymes and iambics.

And our dear Dr. Young has been so ill? But he is better, I thank God along with you. And you, my dear, dear friend, have not hope of cure of a severe nervous malady? How I trembled as I read it! I pray God to give to you at the least patience and alleviation. Though I can read very well your handwriting, you shall write no more if it is incommodious to you. Be so good to dictate only to Mrs. Patty; it will be very agreeable to me to have so amiable a correspondent. And then I will still more than now preserve the two of your own handwriting as treasures.

"I am very glad, Sir, that you will take my English as it is. I knew very well that it may not always be English, but I thought for you it was intelligible. My husband asked me, as I was writing my first letter, if I would not write in French? 'No,' said I, I will not write in this pretty but fade language to Mr. Richardson' (though so polite, so cultivated and no longer fade in the mouth of a Bossuet). As far as I know, neither we nor you nor the Italians have the word fade. How have the French found this characteristic word for their nation? Our German

tongue, which only begins to be cultivated, has much more conformity with the English than the French.

"I wish, Sir, I could fulfill your request of bringing you acquainted with so many good people as you think of. Though I love my friends dearly, and though they are good, I have however much to pardon, except in the single Klopstock alone. He is good, really good, good at the bottom-in all the foldings of his heart. I know him; and sometimes I think if we knew others in the same manner, the better we should find them. For it may be that an action displeases us which would please us, if we knew its true aim and whole extent. No one of my friends is so happy as I am; but no one has had courage to marry as I did. They have married as people marry; and they are happy as people are happy. Only one, as I may say my dearest friend, is unhappy, though she had as good a purpose as I myself. She has married in my absence; but had I been present, I might, it may be, have been mistaken in her husband as well as she.

'How long a letter is this again! But I can write no short ones to you. Compliments from my husband, &c. &c.".

Hamburg, August 27th, 1758.

I

Why think you, dear Sir, that I answer so late? I will tell you my reasons.-But before all, how does Miss Patty, and how do yourself? Have not you guessed that I, summing up all my happinesses, and not speaking of children, had none? Yes, Sir, this has been my only wish ungratified for these four years. have been more than once unhappy with disappointments: but yet thanks, thanks to God, I am in full hope to be mother in the month of November. The little preparations for my child and child-bed (and they are so dear to me) have taken so much time that I could not answer your letter, nor give the promised scenes of The Messiah.' This is likewise the reason why I am still here, for properly we dwell in Copenhagen. Our staying here is only a visit (but a long one) which we pay my family. I not being able to travel yet, my husband has been obliged to make a little voyage alone to Copenhagen! alone to Copenhagen! He is absent-a cloud over my happiness! He will soon return.-But what does that heip? He is yet equally absent !—We write to each other every postbut what are letters to presence ?-But I will speak no more of this little cloud; I will only tell my happiness! But I can not

tell how I rejoice! A son of my dear Klopstock! Oh, when shall I have him? It is long since I have made the remark, that geniuses do not engender geniuses. No children at all, bad sons, or at the most lovely daughters like you and Milton. But a daughter or a son only, with a good heart without genius, I will nevertheless love dearly.

"I think that about this time a nephew of mine will wait on you. His name is Winlhem, a young rich merchant, who has no bad qualities, and several good, which he has still to cultivate. His mother was, I think, twenty years older than I, but we other children loved her dearly like a mother. She had an excellent character, but is long since dead.

"This is no letter but only a newspaper of your Hamburg daughter. When I have my husband and my child I will write you more (if God gives me health and life). You will think that I shall be not a mother only but a nurse also; though the latter (thank God that the former is not so too) is quite against fashion and good breeding, and though nobody can think it possible to be always with the child at home!

"M. KLOPSTOCK."

This was the last letter from this sweet creature. The next in the series is from a different hand.

"Honored Sir,

"Hanover, December 21st, 1758.

"As perhaps you do not know that one of your fair correspondents, Mrs. Klopstock, died in a very dreadful manner, in childbed, I think myself obliged to acquaint you with this most melancholy accident.

"Mr. Klopstock, in the first motion of his affliction, composed an ode to God Almighty, which I have not yet seen, but I hope to get by-and-by.

"I shall esteem myself highly favored by a line or two from any of your family, for I presume you sometimes kindly remember

"Your most humble servant,

"And great admirer,

"L. L. G. MAJOR."

A subsequent letter contradicts the fact of the ode's being com

posed at this time. But a comparison of the dates of Mr. Major's communication and of Mrs. Klopstock's last interesting letter, still brings this poetizing a great calamity far too near the time of its occurrence to be satisfactory to those who have read and sympathized with the quick feelings of the devoted wife. It is pleasanter to remember that Klopstock never married again, till, in his old age, a few years before his death, he had the ceremony performed between himself and a kinswoman, who lived with him, in order to entitle her, as his widow, to the pensions he enjoyed from different Courts.