This volume gathers the learned correspondence of three eighteenth-century German scholars: the Leipzig philologist Johann Jacob Reiske, his colleague Conrad Arnold Schmid, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, then librarian at Wolfenbüttel. Published in Berlin in 1789 as the second part of a larger collection, it preserves their letters on Greek manuscripts, editorial quarrels, and the small commerce of books, alongside the editorial matter that frames them. What emerges is less a polished treatise than the working life of scholarship—its favors, suspicions, and grudges—conducted across the German principalities in the 1760s and 1770s.
The Loan of a Demosthenes
The Title Page and the Opening Exchange
The volume opens with its title page, identifying a “Learned Correspondence” between D. Johann Jacob Reiske, Conrad Arnold Schmid, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing — the second part, published in Berlin in 1789 by Christ. Friedr. Voß und Sohn. A second title page repeats the same information, and then the letters begin.
The first letter, dated “Schruns 1709” (a date that looks garbled or misprinted), is addressed to a famous scholar. The writer says Professor Milos has given him an unexpected but welcome chance to pay a compliment to a scholar he has long admired and revered throughout Germany. A friend has assured him the recipient is willing to entrust him, for a time, with his Aldine Demosthenes, in which a learned hand has written many improvements. Moved by the recipient’s generous and disinterested sentiments, the writer dares to hold him to his word. He asks that the treasure be sent through Professor Milos, who will deliver it, and promises proper use of it and praise of the “fountain” from which it flows. This, he notes, is the only thanks poor scholars like himself can offer for such kindness. Should he find more in the Demosthenes than expected, and should the recipient decide to part with it entirely, he would inquire what price is asked; otherwise he asks for instructions on where to return the copy after a few months of use, so that it comes back safely.
He then thanks “great Lessing” — whose mere name is worth more than all titles — for defending the good cause of truth and for defending him and other honest people who had to suffer innocently from the “hellish enemy.” It pleases him when the mouths of shameless boasters, ignorant mockers, and malicious slanderers are stopped. Such rascals are beneath criticism, and correction is lost on them since they will not improve; yet the learned mob, with their harlequinades on the learned beer-bench, deserve enough pity that one makes clear to them that their Baal, worshipped out of blindness, is an ignoramus, a plagiarist, a villain of the most contemptible kind. He says he could irrefutably demonstrate Klotz’s extremely shallow knowledge, his plagiarisms, his blunders, and could expose the nakedness of his thoroughly corrupt heart. But his time is too noble, and he thinks himself too good to soil his hands with such unworthy matter. Calm, certain of his cause, and laudably proud, he awaits from time, truth, and the fairness of unprejudiced judges the justice owed him. If his writings contain something good and useful, they will avenge and justify themselves; silent truth outshouts wretched scribblers. If they are as bad as his enemies (or rather his single enemy) make them, he would be foolish and betray a bad conscience to defend them. He therefore takes no part in this war, loses no word, and awaits the outcome confidently, in which his enemy must lose. The enemy is already staggering — for Lessing and Herder, the Castor and Pollux of Germany, have brought him to this. When they raise their whips, the dog must fall silent and crawl away. He thanks great Lessing in the name of the public and his own for the effort of avenging the disgrace of so many honest people, and wishes him luck in his victory. The letter is signed “D. Reiske.”
Schmid Sends the Aldine Demosthenes
The next letter, apparently from Schmid, says it happens with the greatest pleasure that he sends his Aldine edition of Demosthenes. He had bought it back only because he did not know the recipient himself was the bidder, and he did not want it to come into other hands from which it might not easily reach the new editor of this Greek author. It is for the recipient’s use as long as he wishes; he hopes it rewards the effort and time a man will spend on it who can take more from his own head than he could find noted by the most learned. It is entirely unknown to him whose hand it is that not only carefully corrected the printing errors but also cited many more correct readings deserving publication, whether from conjecture or older manuscripts. Perhaps they are already known, for he has had time and opportunity to compare only now and then the Wolfian edition with the Taylor edition. The greatest annotations added here and there for explanation could even be passages of Ulpian; he confesses he has been able to decipher the least, especially since the book suffered from a new trimming. He is eager to learn the more reliable information about this from the recipient. Since he scarcely had occasion to be known even by name to the recipient, the approval with which the recipient honors his slight works must be all the more flattering. He had long waited to see whether anyone would take on the clumsy Goliath of the learned Philistines; finally he could no longer endure his stupid scorn without throwing a few stones from his pocket at his head. They have hit; whether he will feel them depends on his thick skull. He knows well that learned men have ended him, but he does not know whether their silent contempt is enough to avenge the public, which he confuses. Someone should finally raise his voice. And truly, if none or so few on his side publicly show themselves, he fears the enemy with his scattered henchmen throughout Germany will soon outshout him again. But always chasing him is not his business either.
The Aeschines Manuscript and the Helmstädt Codex
The correspondence continues with a sequence of letters, mostly from Schmid to a librarian — evidently Lessing at Wolfenbüttel — with some replies. The writer asks the librarian to send him the manuscript of Aeschines, either in the original or at least a reliable collation, as soon as possible, since printing of Aeschines is to begin next week. He reports hearing from all quarters that readers want the Latin translation and notes printed beneath the Greek text, so each passage and what is written about it can be seen at a glance; he has therefore resolved to give his Aeschines a new translation and notes.
He mentions a manuscript of Aeschines from the university library at Helmstädt that he had wanted to obtain; at last it is in his hands, and he will hurry it back. He had promised not to let it leave the country and to return it within six weeks, and doubts not the recipient can dispatch it in that time. He notes the codex is rather too recent — not older than the mid-fifteenth century — since its scribe, who names himself in the closing note as Georgius Chryfococca, lived about that time, as he finds in Montfaucon, where two other manuscripts by him are cited. Joannes Aurispa, for whom Chryfococca wrote the work according to the same closing note, is not unknown; among their manuscripts they have a Martial given him by his friend Antonius Panormita.
He promises that when they are done with the Greek orators and turn to Libanius, the manuscript here will be sent at the first hint; among the Greek manuscripts is also a volume of Libanius’s letters, though he believes Wolf has already used it. He assures them nothing will be withheld that could serve any work from the local library, and suggests they make a small summer excursion there. He asks, for the library, for what the recipient has published — all his writings, including the smaller ones, with indication where they may be obtained — and, knowing much was printed at the author’s own expense, asks for a copy of each by post as soon as possible; especially the Observationes in varios autores Graecos and the Anthologia graeca, which he particularly wants. Payment is to be made by the factor of the orphanage bookshop at the next Easter fair. He also wants Demosthenes’s single speech, Paris, apud Tiletanum.
The Christmas Gift and the Wolfenbüttel Demosthenes
A further letter thanks the recipient for a beautiful, pleasant “holy gift” that arrived unexpectedly on Christmas Eve; some samples of the collation have taught him it is an excellent manuscript of outstanding quality.
Work on Libanius and Demosthenes
The correspondence opens with a scholar reporting on a summer’s labour. Alongside his edition of Demosthenes, he has been working on Libanius in his spare hours. At Augsburg he acquired an excellent parchment codex of the author, supplemented it from a second source, and corrected its still crude errors, so that he would be in a position to supply a complete and reliable edition—God granting life and strength, and provided his Demosthenes fares well. Only some pieces are missing from his Libanius materials; several pieces from the first volume, from the edition of Morelli, and just those pieces except one, are found in a volume of letters.
The Wolfenbüttel Manuscript and a Plea for Patience
A manuscript in the ducal library at Wolfenbüttel, which he himself once had in his hands on his return journey, has been catalogued for him by Professor Culentamp. He asks whether he may have it only at the next Easter fair and no longer than during the fair, and on what conditions, begging the librarian to open his thoughts on the matter. He hopes for a no less willing promoter of his good intentions, mentions Herr von Oefeln and the curators, and notes that he has found Senior Brucker. The first volume of his Demosthenes will doubtless have been delivered by Magister Ebeling, inspector at the commercial academy at Hamburg, to whom he sent it with a letter last Easter. He is ashamed to owe the librarian an answer for more than half a year; work stood before him so that he resolved during the whole summer, without a single one of his patrons, neither to write nor answer, and he relies on their forbearance.
The Rarity of the Codex and the Decline of Greek
He would have thought the codex worth some effort, to the honour of the library entrusted to him, since it is such an extraordinary rarity; he regrets only that the copy has passages corrected by an unknown hand in various ways. He could not leave his recommendation lacking in Hamburg, but the study of Greek is rather in decline, and he foresaw that the subscription would not be especially large. He sends two copies by the bearer. He did not meet Herr Nandal personally; the man had gone to Wolfenbüttel before he arrived and had left the letter.
Aeschines, Helmstädt, and a Suspicious Gap
He asks the librarian to send the manuscript of Libanius, either in nature or at least in a reliable collation, the sooner the better, since next week the printing of Aeschines will begin. Hearing from all sides that people want the Latin translation and notes beneath the Greek, he has had to resolve on a new edition of Aeschines’ speech, and he mentions an edition of Dinostheites’ speech printed at Paris in 1539. After difficulties he obtained the manuscript of Aeschines from the university library at Helmstädt; it is now in his hands and he will hasten to send it on. He had to promise not to send it out of the country and to return it within six weeks, and he doubts not the librarian can dispatch it in that time. It is rather too new—no older than the middle of the last century—its scribe naming himself in the closing note as Georgius Chrysococca, as he finds in Montfaucon, where two other manuscripts by him are cited. Joannes Aurispa, for whom Chrysococca wrote the work, is not unknown. He notes that in the Wolfenbüttel codex a large piece of paper has been deliberately cut out, and that he finds no collation of this codex on the Philippics in Taylor’s papers; Herr Rector Heusinger assured him on inquiry that no Demosthenes manuscript is at Wolfenbüttel. These two circumstances together raise a suspicion worth investigating.
Thanks, a Summer Plan, and a Word about Musieren
He thanks the librarian for the honour of a place for his small works, plans a short pleasure trip to Wolfenbüttel next summer to compose a reliable report on the Arabic manuscripts there, and asks for all the librarian’s writings, especially the Observationes in varios autores Graecos and the Anthologia graeca, payment to be made by the orphanage bookshop at the next Easter fair. He asks about the meaning of “Musieren” in painting, citing the preface of a Strasbourg 1571 folio on German painters, Vasari on glass painting, and Baldovineti around the year 1389. He mentions the auction of Count von Werther’s library on the 8th of February, with a catalogue enclosed, sends the first printed copy of a volume out of gratitude, and asks again for the Libanius codex.
The Helmstädt Affair and a Merchant’s Strictness
The next letters turn to the Helmstädt matter, which the writer commends the recipient for not trying to conceal; the harm to himself will not be great, and he does not know what else the recipient could have done. He refers him to Burchard’s Historia Bibliothecae Augustae for detail on Henr. Jul. Blume and the Helmstädt library, whose registers faithfully cite the relevant passages. He then takes up the hope the recipient gave of visiting him and his local acquaintances the coming summer with his wife—nothing could make the prospect more pleasant—and promises to make the stay as agreeable as lies in his power, noting that the recipient has visited their library before, as a left-behind gift shows, though perhaps more may now be found that escaped notice then. The factor of the orphanage book-trade, Herr Gäbler, has commission to settle all the writer’s debts with the recipient: the outstanding prenumeration on two copies of the Greek orators and the amount for books sent. The recipient must in this point, even toward his best friends, act strictly as a merchant; since he does everything an unselfish scholar can do, his friends must be most hesitant to abuse that unselfishness even slightly.
Gifts, a Codex from a Wall, and the Gold-Making Art
A fragment excuses a hasty letter and mentions a Codicem Lib. to be delivered personally in July; if hindrances intervene, the writer is firmly resolved, having given his word to a professor, to pay entirely for the copies of his Demosthenes, though he wished to give one as a gift. He asks the recipient to accept free of charge the first three parts of his work on writing-paper as an owed offering of gratitude, and to permit future parts on the same condition. He cannot entertain with scholarly news, knowing little that would likely be unknown. A letter signed D. Reiske closes with assurances; another mentions his wife’s pride in the recipient’s friendship and asks Lessing to write a compliment on a slip to Herr H. He describes a codex recently sent by someone, found in a chest after the tearing down of an old wall at a castle, which someone wanted to publish as an ineditum; he could keep it only a few hours and copied the enclosed portion. It contains nothing less than the gold-making art, and also proves transubstantiation. He is curious whether the treatise is among the recipient’s works, presumably in the Paris edition of Aquinas of 1660, or another; that edition runs to eighteen volumes, but he would hastily run through the whole index. He asks when the recipient will come to Wolfenbüttel—perhaps not the whole summer—and asks Lessing, when rummaging the library, to undertake this trouble, though if burdensome he should not spoil his pleasure. It is always good, he remarks, when people who believe they have a great treasure in a book, and might foist it on an ignoramus, learn how matters really stand. A Latin incipit of a work by Thomas de Aquino is quoted, addressed to the firstborn son of the King of Jerusalem, Duke of Calabria, vicar general in the kingdom of Sicily, from Brother Thomas of the Order of Preachers.
The Stella Affair and the Longolius Collections
The correspondence opens in Wolfenbüttel in 1775 with a note to “my dear Schmid” that turns on a dry joke: one may have reasons about the age of horses and donkeys, the writer says, but not about the age of scholars. He denies, with some heat, being a “Frauenzimmer.” The tone of easy intimacy between the two men runs through everything that follows, even when the matter at hand is a small literary scandal.
That scandal arrives in a letter from Braunschweig dated 12 December 1773. The writer asks whether Schmid has seen the review of his second work in Schirach’s Latin newspaper and offers to send the sheet along. The pleasure of having brought an “unedles Werk” — the Stella — to light has been suddenly spoiled. He had half suspected the unwelcome news while copying, though he cannot recall ever having looked into Longolius’s “Vorrathskammer.” Now two editions can be set side by side. He wants to speak with Schmid soon, asks about a certain “Braunschweig Italian” whose name he does not know, and begs the return of the Messias, which someone has been asking him about.
A second letter of the same day takes up the same wound. It is unfortunate that “our Stella” is already printed; who, he asks, could know all the collections and scribblings of the Longolius clan? Yet the affair is not entirely unpleasant, since comparing the two editions shows plainly the difference between his own editing and Longolius’s. Longolius, he claims, missed the one important use of the thing: the discovery that the Tietzemann epitaph in Leipzig is interpolated — and interpolated by Stella. Had he known Stella’s writing was already in print, he would not have deigned to notice it, and the discovery might never have been made at all. He grants certain people the pleasure of crowing over knowing something better than he does, and hopes Herr Schirach is among them; the newspaper sheet has not yet reached him, and he asks that it come with the morning post. He also wants a copy of a new poem, promising not to misuse it, since a lady has asked him for it.
Verses for a Lady, and a Fragment Saved from the Binder
On 15 December he sends verses that “my dear reader” — the lady — declaimed and copied out. He wishes Schmid could read his little work to her himself; the friendly joke might then pass more smoothly. He pictures Schmid reading it aloud while knowing nothing of it, perhaps smoking his pipe. Only heaven’s force, or Schmid’s decision to visit, can bring about a speedy journey. He asks to be remembered.
Three days later he writes that Schmid has weightier things on his mind than old matters, but perhaps the enclosure will teach him that “Jatobi” is the author of something against the Palatine Lutheran papacy. Sending the little letter may be superfluous; he writes at least because he had no chance to speak with Schmid during his last visit, and asks him not to slip away so quickly next time. Eschenburg’s name surfaces briefly.
On 7 July 1774 he presents a fragment of an old German poem, rescued the week before when the bookbinder Bremer was about to paste brown paper over it to make a music book. No line of such things should be lost, he insists, and Schmid may laugh at the gift even if it is no great find. He guesses it may come from the life of Saint Bernard and does not know whether it is printed or already complete in Schmid’s possession. Even if it is printed, a music book could still be made of it; one can only give what one has.
Montfort, and the Elusive Volumen Majus
A letter of 6 April, its year uncertain, mentions “des Montfort” and hopes Schmid will overlook its negligences. Substantial people might well know he is somewhat diligent in such “Kohlmäuser” occupations. He asks that something be left lying until Schmid collects it. He would like to travel in the neighborhood during the festival but not to Wolfenbüttel: the Braunschweig air grows too heavy and the Wolfenbüttel air too near. He sends the copied piece and worries whether what he copies may already be in print. Der Montfort, he notes, must be famous through the many writings he has published, and he wonders whether the story of “Rerda” is among them, citing a Latin translation of Gulielmus attributed to one Regnanus Vitelbus, Amsterdam 1813, and a line identifying “Montfortius” as Lambertus, a learned man famed for his writings. Does Schmid know Montfort’s works?
From Wolfenbüttel in March he reports that he long ago noted the “Epistola Facis H. de A…” was not to be used for the Beyträge, and since someone wants to print it he did not wish to trouble Schmid. He has another task: he has now found the “Volumen majus,” which had crept into another manuscript. On 26 May 1777 he mentions the “Spiegelsche Ante…” and asks where in the world Schmid could trace the Volumen majus — he suspects Schmid can smell it out — and urges him to keep sending what he has copied, which he does with pleasure. He asks whether Schmid can point out the original of the electoral decree of Emperor Charles V. The edition breaks off there, mid-word, in the middle of the hunt.
How Scholars Trade in Trust
The letters turn on a currency that has nothing to do with money: the loan of a manuscript, the gift of a printed volume, the promise of a collation. Reiske opens by asking Lessing to entrust him an Aldine Demosthenes bearing a learned hand’s corrections, and Lessing sends it at once, having bought it back only because he did not know Reiske was the bidder. When Reiske returns it, he confesses with disarming plainness that he found nothing new in it—then thanks Lessing just as warmly, since the copy still adds weight to the other agreeing codices. The exchange sets the tone for everything that follows. These men are bound by obligation rather than contract, and each is careful to keep the account straight. Reiske declines payment for a copy and instead sends the first volumes of his own work on fine writing paper; Schmid, acting as go-between, insists that the factor of the orphanage bookshop settle every debt to the last penny, because a scholar’s unselfishness must not be abused even slightly.
The Wolfenbüttel Codex and the Cut Page
Running through the correspondence is a genuine piece of detection. Schmid, preparing an edition of Aeschines, obtains a manuscript from the Helmstädt library and finds it excellent—recent, to be sure, copied by a scribe named Georgius Chrysococca, but complete and correct beyond anything Taylor used. Then his attention fixes on the Demosthenes of Wolfenbüttel. Taylor makes much of it, yet precisely where Taylor discusses that codex a large piece of paper has been deliberately cut out, and no collation of the Philippics from it survives among his papers. The rector at Wolfenbüttel assures Schmid that no Demosthenes manuscript is there at all. Two circumstances together, Schmid writes, raise a suspicion worth investigating. The episode captures the era’s peculiar mixture of gentlemanly courtesy and forensic distrust: the same letters that arrange a summer visit and convey a wife’s regards also weigh the evidence of a razor blade.
Lessing Against Klotz
The volume’s sharpest thread is the campaign against Christian Adolph Klotz, the “clumsy Goliath of the learned Philistines.” Reiske thanks Lessing for defending the cause of truth and for stopping the mouths of arrogant mockers; he says he could irrefutably demonstrate Klotz’s plagiarisms and blunders but thinks his own time too noble to soil his hands with such base blood. Lessing answers with the famous image of throwing a few stones from his pocket at the giant’s head—they hit, he says, and whether the giant feels them depends on his thick skull. He fears, though, that if few declare publicly for his side, Klotz and his scattered henchmen will soon shout him down again. The quarrel is petty in its particulars and large in its stakes: it is about whether the republic of letters rewards real learning or mere noise, and the correspondents know they are fighting for the public as much as for themselves.
Antiquarians Among Their Books
Away from controversy, the letters are full of the odd, patient labor that fills a scholar’s days. Schmid rescues a fragment of an old German poem from a bookbinder about to paste brown paper over it for a music book, insisting no line of such things should be lost. He puzzles over a codex found in a chest after an old castle wall was torn down, which supposedly contains the gold-making art and proves transubstantiation, and asks Lessing to check whether the treatise sits among the works of Thomas Aquinas. He chases the meaning of a stubborn word in a dedication, hunts down a “piissimus” through an old grammar, and wonders whether Aesop and Joseph are one person, whether the Greeks took their fables from the Jews or the reverse. Reiske, meanwhile, confesses he cannot abide Latin verses composed in a dead language—”nothing is sillier than to poetize in a dead language”—and dismisses a baron’s translation of the Persian poet Hafiz in dactylic meter as head-breaking folly. These are the digressions of men who have given their lives to detail, and the letters let us watch them think.
What the Correspondence Leaves Behind
Read together, the letters document a scholarly world on the edge of change. Reiske complains that the study of Greek is in decline and that subscriptions will not be large; Schmid notes that a manuscript Schickard labored over would now be superfluous, earning at most the fame of breaking the path. The great enterprises—Reiske’s Attic orators, his Libanius, Schmid’s Aeschines—advance slowly against obstacles of money, health, and the Pyrmont waters that forbid too much reading and writing. Yet the tone is rarely despondent. The letters end as they began, in the exchange of small gifts and the hope of a visit, with Reiske’s wife sending her esteem and Schmid promising to return a codex at Michaelmas. What survives is the texture of a republic of letters sustained by favors, and the portrait of three men who trusted that silent truth outlasts wretched scribblers.
