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all equal to that of the French original, although it remained a popular favorite up to the middle of the last century. Narren Beschworung, or Exorcism of Fools, and the Schilburghers, were satirical poems of the same class, levelled against some of the religious fanatics of the day, or the assumed airs of grandeur of some of the wealthy burghers of the towns.

The writings of Luther in the commencement of the sixteenth centuary, his translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue, and the invention of printing, had a great effect in hastening on the perfection of German literature. Between his language and that of Bona two centuries before, there is as much difference, as between Chaucer and the English writers of the sixteenth century. His studies were not confined to Theology; he delighted in poetry and music, and influenced very much in these matters the spirit of his times. The Reformation produced many men of independent genius in all ranks of life, warriors, poets and theologians. Ulrich von Hutten was one of these adventurous men whom that age brought forth. He had been destined for the cloister but fled from it in disgust. His mishaps and those of his cousin Johann, who was murdered by Ulrich, Duke of Wurtemberg, on account of too handsome a wife, would form a good tale of romance. He has left various sonnets and small poems commemorating many of them. Germany at this time was troubled with the horrors of the war of the peasants, who had risen against the burthens imposed upon them and the coercion of their religion. Luther at first was the main cause in rousing them, but subsequently he declared that they ought to be exterminated. The sect of the Anabaptists renewed the contest and relighted the flames of civil war. In other countries the arts of peace, literature, sculpture, painting, &c., were being carried to the highest perfection, while Germany could only produce Hans Sach, IIans Holz, Fischart, and a few of less note. The first was a shoemaker, but of a most prolific vein in composition. Before he was sixty years of age, he had written some sixty thousand verses, besides three hundred comedies. Many of the former are hymns, others fables and satires full of humour and naiveté, which notwithstanding their rudeness, have elicited the praise of Goethe himself.

The benightedness of this period is no better evinced than in the persecution which was practised on many unfortunate old women and men on the plea of witchcraft, and the general

belief in the power of certain men, such as Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa, to control the elements. The legends of women changed into wolves, and witches assuming various forms, became so multiplied as to form the staple romance for nearly a century. The persecution of the unfortunate victims reached such a height that between the middle of the 16th and the end of the 17th century, it is calculated not less than 100,000 persons perished by fire. In the Bishopric of Bamberg in the space of three years, 225 women were committed to the flames. No wonder that the story of Dr. Faustus became one of the favourite themes of poetry and the drama. The subject was not always such as it is represented by Goethe, and it was frequently brought out in puppet shows and marionettes to the delight of the vulgar. In one piece 'tis by means of a ring that he recovers his youth, when he travels to Venice, Athens, and other luxurious cities. The ring is stolen from his finger by a lady that he loves; he loses his youth, and is carried off by the demon. In another play he has the power of evoking the heroes and heroines of Homer, and brings up Helen of Greece for some of his boon companions at a tavern. That such a person as Dr. Faustus really existed there can be no doubt, as he is mentioned personally by several writers of the age. Johannes Manlius knew him, and says that he was born at the village of Kundlingen in Wurtemberg, and studied magic at Cracow. He seems to have resided a considerable time at Leipsic, where many of his exploits are depicted on the walls of Auerbach's cellar. Here it was that he played the trick upon the students, who asked him to cause to grow from the table a vine covered with bunches of grapes. He did so, but when they stretched forth their hands to seize the bunches, the tree vanished, and each man found his neighbour pulling his nose with one hand, with a knife in the other as if about to sever it. The doctor's ride out of the cellar on a cask is also commemorated there, and other feats, which at one time formed the subject of many a ballad or farce in the middle ages.

The calamities of the thirty years' war retarded for a considerable time the growth of letters in Germany; it was not until near the end of the 17th century, that they began to revive from the prostration state. Gradually, however, certain schools of poetry began to arise, which though humble at first, laid the way for the great blaze of genius afterwards displayed. The

Silesian school of which Opitz was the leader; that of Konigs berg whose chiefs were Dach and Albert, that of Nuremberg ruled by Philip von Lezen and Holstein, with the second Silesian of Hoffmaunswaldau and Lohenstein were the acadamies,

in which the rising taste was fostered. The greater number of these however are mere versifiers, much inferior to Paul Fleming, who has left many gems of sacred poetry. Andreas Gryphius composed several successful tragedies, as well as hymns. Paul Gerahrdt too, a preacher at the Nicolair Church in Berlin, delighted his age by various effusions on moral and sacred subjects. All these however were only as preludes to the opening of the modern vein of poetry.

In the midst of the thirty years war, Gottsched published his poems, and was at once "hailed as a star of the first magnitude." He has been since reduced very much in public estimation on account of his want of invention, stiffness and dearth of imagination. But great thanks must be due to him, as a professor in the university of Leipsic for asserting the rights of the German tongue against the Latin, and his improvements in dramatic composition. Frederick the Great, who had a contempt for German poetry, permitted his verses to be recited before him.

But the real regenerator of letters was Jacob Bodmer of Zurich; he stands in the very gate of the temple of the modern Germanic muses. He was at first sent to Bergamo in Italy to prepare himself for mercantile pursuits. He threw these up, returned to Berlin, applied himself to attending lectures, studying English, and at length was appointed professor of literature at Berlin. He admired Addison and Sir Roger de Coverly, published a journal on the model of the Spectator, and produced a translation of Milton's Paradise Lost. These created a paper war between him and Gottsched, who then reigned supreme, and served to open the eyes of his fellow countrymen to the defects in their national letters. His two comedies "The Triumph of the good Wife," and "Mute Beauty were acted with great applause, causing a revolution in public taste. To him is due the collection of the lays of the minne-singers, the discovery of the Niebelungen Lied and the Parcival. Several of his school, Kestner, Professor Rammler, Hagedorn, Von Haller, the two Schlegels aud Gleim, contributed very much to improve the public taste, and to soften down the rough method of composition of the old schools.

The last writer, Gleim, was principally inspired by the heroism of Frederick the Great contending against nearly all the power of Europe. His war songs and hymns were chaunted by the Prussian soldiers, and contributed not a little to the discomfiture of the warriors of Maria Theresa. He produced also several fables, which gained a great reputation at Berlin. His desire was to form a complete German Academy of literature at Halberstadt, by drawing there together the first men of the country; but the public mind was not ripe for such a consummation. He lived until the first era of the French Revolution, and predicted a dictatorship among the French people.

This period produced four other names, once the reigning monarchs of their day, Kleist, Gellert, Gessner, and Uz. The first was an officer in the Prussian army during the seven years' war, and gained great favour with Frederick on account of the hymns and chaunts, by means of which he inspired the courage of the soldiery. His poem of "Spring," raised him to a great height in the estimation of his countrymen, although it contained much of the rhapsody of the times about shepherds and shepherdesses. At the battle of Kunersdorf, he led his battalion as major against a battery, and had his leg and arm smashed. The Cossacks then stripped and rifled him, leaving him helpless on a heap of rubbish. He was carried off prisoner to Frankfort on the Oder, where he died from hardship. Gellert filled the post of professor of literature at Leipsic, where he produced many hymns, fables and dramas, very few of which are above mediocrity. Yet he was very famous in his time, and rendered essential service to German literature, by his defence of it against Frederick the Great, who held the Belles Lettres of his countrymen in contempt. He delivered also moral lectures in the Oratorium of the University, which had a very beneficial influence upon the youth of his age. Gessner is well known in this country for his Idyls and the death of Abel, the characters in which are of such a pure, simple style, as not to belong to this earth at all. His effusions are very pleasing, but convey no feeling of reality. Uz enjoyed a large reputation during his life, and was even styled the Anacreon of Germany; but he is now considered as wholly unworthy of the crown of laurels.

We have now arrived at a very striking era in German poetry, that of Klopstock's Messiah. He was the son of a farmer, but having received a good education in his native

town, and at the University of Schulpforte, he was able to appreciate the translation of the "Paradise Lost" by Bodmer, and to see how much his countrymen were inferior in the cultivation of the muses to the English and French. He undertook the composition of an original poem, the Messiah, and having first prepared matter for three cartos in prose, selected the hexameter verse after the ancient model, as most suiting the sublimity of the subject. The first part appeared in a paper named "Bremen Contributions," and produced at once a burst of enthusiasm in its favour. The new metre was rapturously applauded as being peculiarly suited for the German tongue, on account of its involved construction similar to that of ancient Greek and Latin. This however may be questioned, from the difficulty of producing dactyls and spondees, long and short syllables, where the words are composed of so many consecutive consonants. It procured for him, however, the admiration of his countrymen and the patronage of the King of Denmark, who settled on him a pension of 150 thalers, or about 24 pounds a-year.

He was not at first so successful with the fair sex. A young lady, named Fanny, to whom he had devoted himself heart and soul, listened to his proposals and ended by marrying another gentleman. He was introduced, however, by his friend Giessecker to a second, Margaretha Mollar, who had criticised his poem in a favourable style, and consoled him for his lost love. She corresponded with him under the name of Meta, and they were finally united in 1754. Unfortunately he lost her in four years afterwards, when giving birth to a child, shortly after his father had been carried to the grave. The image of domestic happiness was not entirely lost to his mind, although he mourned for a long time over the wife of his youth. After 33 years of widowhood, in a green old age, he was again married to Frau von Wideman, who kindly tended his declining years.

His great poem was not completed until the year 1773, after 27 years of labour. The subject of it is so well-known, that it is needless to set it forth here. There are, however, some strange characters in it, such as the lovers, Selmar and Sidli, who are resuscitated beings, constantly engaged in contemplation and praise. Where their mutual affection, or worldly feeling comes from, it is difficult to discover. Abbadona, a fallen seraph, who had been induced by Satan to rebel,