rs
wrote plays in the style of Terence, or after English models, and fables
became fashionable in the style of Phaedrus. But there was no trace
anywhere of originality, truth, taste, or feeling, except in that branch
which, like the palm-tree, thrives best in the desert,--sacred poetry. Paul
Gerhard is still without an equal as a poet of sacred songs; and many of
the best hymns which are heard in the Protestant churches of Germany date
from the seventeenth century. Soon, however, this class of poetry also
degenerated on one side into dry theological phraseology, on the other
into sentimental and almost erotic affectation.

There was no hope of a regeneration in German literature, unless either
great political and social events should rouse the national mind from its
languor, or the classical models of pure taste and true art should be
studied again in a different spirit from that of professorial pedantry.
Now, after the Thirty Years' War, there was no war in Germany in which the
nation took any warm interest. The policy pursued in France during the
long reign of Louis XIV. (1643-1708) had its chief aim in weakening the
house of Hapsburg. When the Protestants would no longer fight his battles,
Louis roused the Turks. Vienna was nearly taken, and Austria owed its
delivery to Johann Sobiesky. By the treaty of Ryswick (1697), all the
country on the left side of the Rhine was ceded to France, and German
soldiers fought under the banners of the Great Monarch. The only German
prince who dared to uphold the honor of the empire, and to withstand the
encroachments of Louis, was Frederick William, the great Elector of
Prussia (1670-88). He checked the arrogance of the Swedish court, opened
his towns to French Protestant refugees, and raised the house of
Brandenburg to a European importance. In the same year in which his
successor, Frederick III., assumed the royal title as Frederick I., the
King of Spain, Charles I., died; and Louis XIV., whilst trying to add the
Spanish crown to his monarchy, was at last checked in his grasping policy
by an alliance between England and Germany. Prince Eugene and Marlborough
restored the peace and the political equilibrium of Europe. In England,
the different parties in Parliament, the frequenters of the clubs and
coffee-houses, were then watching every move on the political chess-board
of Europe, and criticising the victories of their generals and the
treaties of their ambassadors. In Germany, the