a nobler passion than he
who looks to his royal master, or the applause even of the most refined
audience of the _dames de la cour_. In a free country, the sovereign is
the highest and most honored representative of the national will, and he
honors himself by honoring those who have well deserved of his country.
There a poet laureate may hold an independent and dignified position,
conscious of his own worth, and of the support of the nation. But in
despotic countries, the favor even of the most enlightened sovereign is
dangerous. Germany never had a more enlightened king than Frederick the
Great; and yet, when he speaks of the Queen receiving Leibnitz at court,
he says, "She believed that it was not unworthy of a queen to show honor
to a philosopher; and as those who have received from heaven a privileged
soul rise to the level of sovereigns, she admitted Leibnitz into her
familiar society."

The seventeenth century saw the rise and fall of the first and the second
Silesian schools. The first is represented by men like Opitz and
Weckherlin, and it exercised an influence in the North of Germany on Simon
Dach, Paul Flemming, and a number of less gifted poets, who are generally
known by the name of the _Koenigsberg School_. Its character is
pseudo-classical. All these poets endeavored to write correctly, sedately,
and eloquently. Some of them aimed at a certain simplicity and sincerity,
which we admire particularly in Flemming. But it would be difficult to
find in all their writings one single thought, one single expression, that
had not been used before. The second Silesian school is more ambitious;
but its poetic flights are more disappointing even than the honest prose
of Opitz. The "Shepherds of the Pegnitz" had tried to imitate the
brilliant diction of the Italian poets; but the modern Meistersaenger of
the old town of Nuernberg had produced nothing but wordy jingle.
Hoffmannswaldau and Lohenstein, the chief heroes of the second Silesian
school, followed in their track, and did not succeed better. Their
compositions are bombastic and full of metaphors. It is a poetry of
adjectives, without substance, truth, or taste. Yet their poetry was
admired, praised not less than Goethe and Schiller were praised by their
contemporaries, and it lived beyond the seventeenth century. There were
but few men during that time who kept aloof from the spirit of these two
Silesian schools, and were not influenced by either Opitz or
Hoffm