In Slay, 1767, Leasing began to publish twice weekly the theatrical criticisms known as the Ilamburgische Dramaturgie. These criticisms soon came to be true essays on dramatic art. The Dramaturgic may be regarded as a con tinuation of the Laokoon, and to this day remains the rade mecum of the German stage. It gave the death-blow to French imitation and pointed the way to Schiller and Goethe.
In 1769 Leasing suspended the Dramaturgic, which pirated reprints had made unprofitable, and was attracted to antiquarian studies by the ill-natured attacks of Professor Klotz, of Halle, against whose journal Leasing openly declared war in the Antiqnarische Briefe. One of the last Letters on How the Ancients Represented Death banished the skeleton and hour-glass from Ger man art.
Famous, but poor, Lessing left Hamburg, and in the spring of 1770 became Court librarian of the Duke of Brunswick at Wolfenbiittel. He was now eager to found a home, for he had fallen deeply in love with Eva Kiinig, widow of a silk manufacturer of Hamburg. In 1775 he visited her at Vienna. where he was welcomed as no Ger man author had ever been. Ile was recalled thence to accompany the Duke's son to Italy, and found that his fame had gone before. In February, 1776, he returned and soon after wards married his betrothed. During these years of waiting he had completed a remark able tragedy. Galotti (1772). The story is that of Virginia, made familiar by Alacaulay's "Lay;" the scene is ostensibly modern Italian, but so obviously German and political in its purpose that the Court of Gotha forbade the representation. Lessing's work as a reformer of the German stage ends here. his Nathan der Weise (1779), though still acted, is rather a philosophical work in dramatic form, uniting his ethical and :esthetic studies to the theological controversies that were to fill his later years.
The year after Leasing's marriage was the happiest of his life. On Christmas Eve, 1777, a son was born to him. The child died on Christmas day, the mother on January 10, 1778. Sadly yet bravely, Leasing plunged into three years of in tense controversial activity. Of this controversy the immediate cause was Lessing's editing of some posthumous essays by a Hamburg friend, Reimarus, a free-thinker, which Leasing was not, though he was an unflinching believer in free speech, in the higher criticism of Scripture, and in the development of doctrine, as he showed in Die Erziehung des Menschengesehlechts (1780). lle thought and said that it was better error should be taught than freedom of thought stifled, and, further, that "the letter is not the spirit and the Bible is not religion." All these were novel ideas in that generation and peculiarly hateful to Pastor Goeze of Hamburg, who led a numerous band of obscurantist:. while at first
Leasing was almost the only defender of free discussion. Lessing's letters in this controversy are remarkable for their eloquence, wit. satiric power, and dramatic vivacity. They mark a dis tinct advance in German prose style and a per manent gain to the religious life of the German nation. And out of the bitterness of the dispute came as a sweet fruit the dispassionate expres sion of its results in the dramatic poem of tolera tion, Ya than the Wise, inspired by his friendship for Moses Mendelssohn.
The same lofty theme was pursued during Les sing's closing years in Die Erziehung des lien schengeschlechts, the work on education cited above; and its principles appear in the political sphere in Ernst and Falk, Gesproehe fur Frie maurer (17SS), whose bold utterance was muzzled by the Brunswick censor. Leasing in these last daya wrote as one to whom hard experience had taught its lesson of self-denying wisdom. His mind was still active and eager, but his body was gradually giving, way. On a visit to Brunswick he broke down utterly, and died after a brief ill ness. February 15, 1781.
Lessing, says Goethe, was great by character and tenacity of will. Critical distinctions are his strongest side. By them he restored a national drama to Germany. gave his nation true canons of esthetic and dramatic criticiam, freed her from a petrified orthodoxy, and taught her to breathe a more tolerant and loftier Christianity, giving to all her suns the example of a life de voted to the search for truth.
Lessing's Works have been often collected. notably by Lachniann (13 vols.. 1838-40). 1Iost of them are published separately. There are translations of the Laokoon, ilinna run Barn helm. Emilia Galotti, and Nathan der •eisc. Consult: Danzel aml Guhraner, Lessing, rein Le ben and Seine Werke (Leipzig, 1850-54) ; Erich Schmidt, Lessing (Berlin. 1899) ; Fischer, G. E. Lessing, als Reformat or der dentschen Litteratur (Stuttgart, 1881) ; Mintzer, Erlduterungen zn Lessinga We•ken (Leipzig, 1883) ; Spi•ker. Lcs sings Weltanschauung (ib., 1883 ) Braun, Lea sing min Crteile seiner Zeitgenossen (Berlin, 1884 97) ; Dort, Lessing et l'antiquitc' (Paris. 1894) ; Consentius, Lessing and die rossiache Zeit any ( Lei pzig, 1900 ) ; Blmnner, Lessings Laokoon (Berlin. 1879) ; Schriiter and Thiele, Lessings Dumburyisehe Dramaturgic (Halle, 1877) ; Strauss, Nathan der Weise (Berlin, 1866) ; Pabst. Vorlesungen fiber Nathan der Weise (Bern. 1881). There are English Lires by Sime (Lon don, 1877), Zimmerli (ib., 1878), and Rolleston (ib., 1889).