George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[482] both summoned to Prince John's, where, to the same party that was there before,—viz. Forster, Carus, and Baudissin,—Tieck read five more cantos of the Prince's translation of the Purgatorio, XXIV.— XXIX. Everything went on just as it did before, and was equally creditable to all parties concerned in it; the criticisms being free, full, and fair, and the spirit in which they were received that of a person really disposed to profit by them.

February 24.—This evening we had a counterpart to the amusement of last evening [when Tieck had read, at his own house, the Second Part of ‘Henry IV.’]. Tieck read ‘As You Like It,’ and showed another aspect of his remarkable talent in this way. I noticed as peculiarities that he read the part of Orlando with more of an angry movement than I have been accustomed to hear it, and that he made Sir Oliver Martext stutter, which, of course, was arbitrarily done. It was throughout very amusing. The reading took place at Mad. de Luttichau's. . . .

March 2.—It is a week since I wrote last, for the Carnival being over, and society much more quiet, we have been able to stay at home and enjoy the luxury of doing what we have a mind to do, and not what we are invited to do. I have passed one evening with Lindenau and Tiedge, and divided another between Reichenbach and the Circourts, for my own pleasure. . . ..

The only time I have dined abroad was to-day, at Vogel's, the portrait and historical painter. It was a genuinely German dinner, and curious to me because it is the first one at which I have been present in Dresden; for, though I have dined in several German houses, there has been too much of a French or Italian air about the entertainment to have it properly national. Vogel is rich, and his dinner was abundant and good, and his company excellent; consisting of Falkenstein, Forster, Carus, Dahl, Lohrmann, Haase, etc. But Mad. Vogel was only the upper servant; sitting, to be sure, sometimes at the head of her table, but constantly running out to the kitchen, and often serving her guests. I remember such things frequently when I was in Germany before, but this is the first time I have seen them on my present visit. It is bad taste, but it belongs to the whole German people, and is only avoided in the highest classes, where there is always some touch of foreign manners. The conversation was spirited and various, and the sitting was continued, in consequence, nearly three hours,—a long time for Germany.

March 9.—Another week is gone, and it has been so much filled with useful and agreeable occupations that it seems to have been very