uliarly appropriate here, as it evidently gives expression to the
common sentiments of the time. At the conclusion of it one particular
intrigue of a small German court is more alluded to than related.

Even after 1700, this cold, bitter way of speaking of the political
condition of Germany continued generally; for the "_aufklaerungs_"
literature, which sprang up at this period, altered the style more than
the spirit. Indeed, from the end of the War of Succession till 1740,
during the longest period of peace which Germany had experienced for a
century, a diminution of political interest is discernible in the
small literature. It is always the extraordinary destinies of
individuals which more specially interest the public--the prophecies of
a Pietist, the trial of a woman for child murder, the execution of an
alchymist, and such like. When on Christmas night, 1715, two poor
peasants were suffocated by coal vapours in a vineyard-hut at Jena,
whilst they, together with a student and a torn copy of Faust's book of
necromancy, were endeavouring to raise a great treasure, this
misfortune gave rise to full a dozen flying sheets--clerical, medical,
and philosophical--which fiercely contended as to whether the claw of
the devil or the coals had been the cause of death. All the battles
that had been fought, from that of Hochstaedt to Malplaquet, had not
made a greater sensation. Even in the "Dialogues from the Kingdom of
the Dead,"--a clumsy imitation of Lucian, in which opinions were given
of the public characters of the day,--it is evident that it is more
particularly the anecdotes and the private scandal which attracted the
people. Once more an interest was powerfully excited by the expulsion
of the Protestant Salzburger; but in the year 1740 a great political
character impressed itself on the soul of Germany, and announced by the
thunder of his cannon the beginning of a new time.

But it was not the "State system" alone which loosened the connection
of the burgher class, and turned the German into an isolated
individual: the powers which usually confirm and strengthen the united
life of individuals, faith and science, worked to the same effect.

CHAPTER V.

"DIE STILLEN IM LANDE," OR PIETISTS.
(1600-1700.)

The contrast between the epic time of the Middle Ages, and the new
period which has already been often called the lyrical, is very