Note 1 — From ‘Miss Sara Sampson’: Act II, Scene 7.
Reading edition
The scene is a low London inn, to which Mellefont, a sentimental profligate, has brought Sara Sampson under promise of marriage. Marwood is Mellefont’s former mistress, by whom he has a daughter, Bella.
2. The Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften, a magazine conducted by Nicolai and Mendelssohn.
3. Caroline Neuber was a famous actress, who between 1727 and 1748 coöperated with Gottsched for the improvement of the Leipzig stage.
4. The ‘Swiss critic’ is Bodmer. ‘Darius,’ the ‘Oysters,’ etc., are the titles of plays included in Gottsched’s Deutsche Schaubühne (1740-1745)
5. In his Discours sur la tragédie Voltaire speaks of Addison’s Cato as “la seule bien écrite d’un bout à l’autre chez votre [Lord Bolingbroke’s] nation.”
6. Die Sache is the fundamental difference between plastic art (Malerei) and poetry.