The admiration of the Germans for English literature, and their contempt for the French, are well known. Molière is the only man among the latter, to whom they allow much genius. Their notions of excellence are indeed rather hypercritical than common-place. They seem in general to assign the highest stations to the greatest men, but their list of great men is short. There are only four whom they consider as _poets_, that is to say, inventors of a new style, namely, Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Goethe. Why the last should have this high rank assigned him, I do not know. He is placed by the Germans themselves far above Schiller. Mr Holcroft while abroad, translated his poem of Herman and Dorothea. A note from the author to the translator on this subject, will be found among the letters at the end of the volume.—Mr Holcroft also, while he was at Hamburgh, finished and sent over the comedy of ‘Hear both Sides,’ and his translation of ‘Deaf and Dumb,’ which were afterwards acted with success, at Drury-Lane.
On his departure from England, he had renounced all idea of picture-dealing, and connoisseurship. He however attended several picture-sales, but without attempting to bid. One day as he was strolling along the street, his attention was caught by a small picture, which lay among some lumber at a broker’s shop. He went in, asked the price of it, and was answered three guineas. Mr Holcroft made no bargain, but determined to go home, and get Mrs. Holcroft to come and look at it, to see whether any one else must not be as much struck with it as he was. On re-examining the picture, his confidence in its being an original increased, and he paid the money for it. As he was returning home in triumph with the picture under his arm, he met Mercier, (Mrs. Holcroft’s father) who had himself been a dabbler in pictures, and who, laughing, exclaimed, ‘A ce trait je connois mon sang.’
The first step being got over, they consulted together, how to turn this accident to advantage; they henceforward frequented auction-rooms, and ransacked brokers’ shops, to make mutual discoveries of original pictures, which might be had for a song. Mr Holcroft, in this manner, laid out between four and five hundred pounds, by which he expected to clear at least double the sum.