Chapter 15 MODERN FABULISTS LESSING, YRIARTE, KRILOF.

'Great thoughts, great feelings, come to them

Like instincts, unawares.'

R. M. Milnes.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, born January 22, 1729, at Kamenz, died February 15, 1781, aged fifty-two years, was a distinguished German scholar, poet and dramatist. As a fabulist, Lessing is noted for epigrammatic point rather than humour, though he is by n