3 1 4 Nations lately become Literary* 



GERMANY. 



It can scarcely be said, with strict propriety^ 

 that Germany has lately become literary; for long 

 before the period under consideration, there was 

 much, both of literature and of science, in that 

 empire. Those who have any knowledge of the 

 great contributors to human knowledge, whose 

 names adorn the history of Europe, in the six- 

 teenth and seventeenth centuries, need not be in- 

 formed, that of this number, Germany may claim 

 a very respectable portion. But the cultivation of 

 the German language -, the publication of dignified 

 and popular works in that language- and especi- 

 ally the commencement of a just taste in Ger- 

 man literature, may all, with truth, be ascribed 

 to the eighteenth century. 



At the beginning of this period, all works of 

 importance in Germany were written in the 

 Latin language. And it seemed then to be a pre- 

 valent opinion among the literati of that country, 

 that the compilation of huge folios, interspersed 

 with innumerable quotations from writers in all 

 known languages, was the most unequivocal proof 

 of literary merit. For this reason, the greater 

 part of German productions, prior to the period 

 under review, were proverbially tedious and dull, 

 and were seldom sought after by the learned of 

 other nations ; insomuch, that it was often and 

 seriously questioned, whether genius could grow 

 in a German soil. 



The first conspicuous writer who employed the 

 German language, in important scientific publica- 

 tions, was Christ. Thomasius, the celebrated me- 

 taphysician and moral philosopher, who died in 

 1728. After him Wolf was the next who made use 

 of the vulgar tongue, in treating of philosophical 



