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.

Note.-Mrs. Klopstock died on the 28th of November

1758.

POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS

OF

MARGARET KLOPSTOCK,

Published at Hamburg in the year 1759.

D

Introduction, by F. G. Klopstock.

EATH has deprived me of her whose affec

tion made me as happy as she was made by mine. Our friends well know with what tenderness we loved. The following pages will shew why I am compelled, and willingly submit, to refrain from all complaint. This is one reason why I shall not write a poem, which many have expected from me, even when I may be more capable of it than I am at present. I think that, before the public, a man should speak of his wife with the same modesty as of himself; and how prejudicial would the observance of this principle be to the

enthusiasm required in poetry. The reader, moreover, and not without reason, thinks himself justified in refusing implicit credit to the panegyrist of his beloved; and my love for her who made me the happiest of men, is too sincere to let me allow my readers to call it in question. Another circumstance which makes poems of this kind uninteresting is that we have too many of them. As these considerations would have restrained my pen, even if my departed friend had left nothing that could be communicated to the world, it will easily be imagined what pleasure it must be to me to have the power of publishing some little Manuscripts by which she erects a monument to herself. I am so proud of her doing this with her own hand, that I will not add to the collection the Odes I formerly wrote to her. Should this pride require forgiveness, I hope to obtain it, when it is recollected that I am not proud of myself, but only of my friends.

I have nothing more to say of these little pieces than that they were not written with the intention of erecting a monument to herself. Some subjects are particularly interesting to us; we write our thoughts on them, and perhaps shew them to a few

friends, without ever thinking of publication. It is above two years since she thus began to write down some of her favourite ideas, during my absence, and she was confused and distressed when I surprised her at this employment, and prevailed with her to read to me what she had written.-O she was all the happiness of my life! What have I not lost in losing her! But I will not complain.

I shall perhaps at some future time print some of her letters, or at least some fragments of them. I can publish only a few of them, having some hours after her death burnt most of those which we wrote to each other before our marriage. I was led to do this by the idea that I might be tempted to read them, and that they would agitate me too much. I have since found some which had been kept in a different place, and I will beg my friends who have letters from her to send them to me. My intention is, as I have already said, to publish them, Some friends of virtue may perhaps be anxious to know more of this heavenly mind.

Extracts from the Correspondence between Klopstock and Margaret Möller, when their marriage was delayed, and he left her to return to Copenhagen, in Oct. 1752. See page 23.

LETTER I.*

I Must write to you this evening, and you shall find my letter at Copenhagen. Best of men, you ought to find in me a wife desirous to imitate you as far as it can be possible. I will-indeed I will, resemble you as much as I can. My soul leans upon yours. This is the evening on which we read your Ode to GOD. Do you remember it? If I can preserve as much fortitude as I have acquired this evening, I will not shed a tear at our parting. You will leave me, but I shall again receive you, and receive you as your wife. Alas! after another day you will be gone far-far from me, and it will be long before I see you again; but I must restrain

* This letter was written before Klopstock left Hamburg, and received by him at Copenhagen.