escriptions of scenery; so that Chovelius says:

The Duke's German character shews pleasantly in his delight in
Nature. The story often takes one into woods and fields; already
griefs and cares were carried to the running brook and mossy
stone, and happy lovers listened to the nightingale.

His language is barely intelligible, but there is a pleasant breadth
about his drawing--for example, of the king's meadow and the grotto
in _Aramena_:

Very cold crystal streams flowed through the fields and ran
softly over the stony ground, making a pleasant murmur. Whilst
the ear was thus contented, a distant landscape delighted the
eye. No more delightful place, possessing all this at once, could
have been found, etc.

Looking through the numerous air-holes, the eye lost itself in a
deep valley, surrounded by nothing but mountains, where the
shepherds tended their flocks, and one heard their flutes
multiplied by the echo in the most delightful way.

Mawkish shepherd play is mixed here with such verses as (Rahel):

Thou, Chabras, thou art the dear stream, where Jacob's mouth gave
me the first kiss. Thou, clear brook, often bearest away the
passionate words of my son of Isaac ... on many a bit of wounded
bark, the writing of my wounds is to be found.

The most insipid pastoral nonsense of the time was produced by the
Nuremberg poets, the Pegnitz shepherds Klaj and Harsdoerfer. Their
strength lay in imitating the sounds of Nature, and they were much
admired. What is still more astonishing, Lohenstein's writings were
the model for thirty years, and it was the fashion for any one who
wrote more simply to apologize for being unable to reach the level of
so great a master! To us the bombast, artificiality, and hidden
sensuality of his poetry and Hoffmannswaldan's, are equally
repulsive.

What dreary, manufactured stuff this is from Lohenstein's _Praise of
Roses sung by the Sun_[17]:

This is the queen of flowers and plants,
The bride of heaven, world's treasure, child of stars!
For whom love sighs, and I myself, the sun, do pant,
Because her crown is golden, and her leaves are velvet,
Her foot and stylus emerald, her brilliance shames the ruby.

Other beings possess only single beauties,
Nature has made the rose beautiful with all at once.
She is ashamed, and blushes
Because she sees all the other flowers stand ashamed before her.

In _R