tles, by his third brother, Bahram Shah. The reign of the latter, who distinguished himself by his munificence and patronage of science, was splendid and happy, with the exception of the last years, which were disturbed by an obstinate war against the vassal-prince Aladdin Hussein, in which Masood lost Ghuznee, which was, however, recovered by his son. His grandson, Khosroo Melick, the last Ghazneri, was, like his father, just and good, but effeminate and devoted to pleasure. After long wars with the Turcomans, who retained possession of Ghuznee for fifteen years, but were at last expelled, Khosroo was put to death in captivity, after a reign of twenty-six years. Thus ended the mighty Ghazneri dynasty; the immense possessions of which formed different empires. "By the blessing of Almighty God," says the Emperor Baber, "I gained (1504) possession of Cabool and Ghuznee, with the country and provinces dependent on them, without battle or contest."

In 1739 Nadir Shah, after the capture of Delhi, became master of the provinces to the west of the Indus, Cabool, Tatta, and part of Multan; and, in 1747, Ahmed Shah, founder of the Dooranee dynasty, conquered the whole of Affghanistan. The more recent history of Ghuznee is, doubtless, from the descriptions in the different English journals, familiar to our readers.

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING.

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING, in many respects the most illustrious name in moderu German literature, was born in the little city of Camenz, in the year 1729. His father seems to have possessed several of the virtues for which the son was honourably distinguished; he had made his own way in the world, was disinterested and benevolent even in his poverty, enlightened but zealous in religious matters, straightforward and plain in his language, even to the appearance of coarseness. In his youth Lessing made such rapid progress in his studies, that his masters at the grammar-school at Meissen confessed that the lessons of his school-fellows did not suffice for him. In his seventeenth year he visited the University of Leipzig, and was soon distinguished for his talents and oddities. He despised the shallow lectures of professors, to whom he already felt himself infinitely superior; the stiff pedantry of the times and manners, in what is commonly called good society, excited his ridicule; his active and versatile mind sought for food in originality, and he pre

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ferred the society of actors and humorists to the dull tirades of bores and magisters. His parents exhibited great anxiety for his future welfare: his father's letters were filled with reproaches and exhortations to study theology; and his mother, when she heard that he had consumed his Christmas cake, the national German family present, with comedians, gave him up. The freedom with which he expressed his opinions on men and things, the contempt, which he took no pains to conceal, for the frosty doings in literature, into which he was destined to infuse a genial warmth, had made him many enemies; his character was calumniated; and, to detach him from his evil associates, false intelligence that his mother was on her death-bed was forwarded to him; nor even then did his parents expect his arrival. He came, however, in a severe frost, and half frozen to death. This touched his mother; and when his father spoke with him on theology, and read his theological dissertations, he found that his wish to become an actor, and his essays as a dramatist, had left his heart uncorrupted. But on leaving home, instead of resuming his studies at Leipzig, he went to Berlin, and declared to his afflicted parents that he would not study theology. They held in horror the free-thinkers of Berlin, and again his father commanded him to return home. But Lessing was now determined to assert his own freedom; he added, in a remark that is very characteristic of his whole career through life, "If we do not try what is really our proper sphere, we often venture into a false one, where we scarce raise ourselves above mediocrity, whilst in another we might rise to a great height." At last he yielded to parental entreaties, went to Wittenberg, where his brother studied, and took his degree as magister; but the university-life of the time disgusted him, and he gave vent to his feelings in epigrams on everything and everybody around him, as Goethe afterwards did in the famous Xenien. But soon afterwards the four volumes of his smaller writings appeared, which first established his reputation; and his father, perhaps presaging his future greatness, allowed him now to go his own way. Before the appearance of Lessing, Klopstock had attempted to imitate Milton; Wieland was driven by the impulse of his own nature to take the French for his model. To both, the literature of their country was indebted; but both still looked to foreign elements as to the sources of their inspiration. Lessing was the first really national German writer; his style was pure beyond that of any of his predecessors; simple and unaffected, it was alike intelligible to the learned and to the people. The highest object of his admiration in literature was the epic; but he felt that this kind of poetry was no longer in unison with the manners, feelings, and wants of his age; and with that practical instinct for which he was through life distinguished, he determined to devote his powers to that branch which alone, he felt assured, could enjoy a national success-the drama. In this we find him working positively throughout the whole

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of his varied life, whilst in almost all the other branches which were the favourite studies of the time, we find him in constant and active opposition. Although he himself was well aware that he did not possess the qualities requisite for a great dramatic poet, his whole career was one which a dramatic poet would willingly have pursued; he disdained the distinctions of rank and class, and always sought in different spheres to study human nature in all its phases. But one branch was not sufficient to occupy his exclusive attention; and he wandered from one department of literature to another, with a versatility that would have indicated indifference in men of a more common stamp, but which in him was but the thirsty longing of a free soul for that intellectual food which his shallow age could not afford him. He was thrown back upon himself to a degree of which we, of the present age, can have but a faint idea. "With touching zeal," says an eminent German writer, to whom we are greatly indebted in our remarks "we see him seize the great thought of creating the stage-a national theatre, an academy in Vienna or in Mannheim, we smile, when, deceived by himself and his own abilities, he takes the first steps to execute that which is impossible through others' incapacity; but we become serious when, by his retreat, he convinces us that he had the same conviction but, a warmer heart than we have; and we begin this circle anew, with touched admiration, when he wanders from one unsuccessful thought to another, ever unweary, even in sickness and misfortune." He experienced both. He was for years engaged to a widow of the name of Koenig, whom he married, relying on the promises made to him by the court of Mannheim, but not fulfilled. His son died, and shortly after, his wife. His letters express his feelings in terms highly honourable to his character. “My wife is dead, and this experience I have likewise made. I am glad that many such experiences cannot be left for me, and am quite easy. If you had known this woman-But they say that it is only self-praise to praise one's wife. Well, I say no more of her. If, with one half of my days, I could purchase the happiness to live the others with her, how willingly would I do it! But that cannot be, and I must now begin again to totter my way alone; I have, without doubt, not deserved this happiness." One of Lessing's greatest merits is his perfect freedom from that false sentimentality which has so often disfigured German literature; and, great as was his esteem for the talent of Wieland and Goethe, he turned away with moral indignation from the Agathon of the former, notwithstanding its other merits, and from the Sorrows of Werther of the latter. "Do you believe," he writes of Werther, "that a Roman or a Greek would thus, and for this reason, have deprived himself of life? At the time of Socrates they would scarcely have pardoned such an unnatural love-folly in a girl." As his versatility was sometimes by men of weaker minds, who could only bear the investigation of one favourite study, called frivolity,