divisions of this kind are usual with him; he divides his plays into acts and scenes, but sometimes in most unexpected places.

The influence of the English stage, with its earlier development, made itself felt, for English comedians were at this time travelling about in Germany, and a writer who drew ideas from it was

Jacob Ayrer, who died in 1605, and was, like Sachs, a native of Nürnberg. He is far behind Hans Sachs in talent. His sixty-nine plays, written in rough couplets, are divided into tragedies, comedies, carnival-plays, and— what causes him to be remembered " Singspiele," the parent of the opera, which he first introduced in rudimentary form into Germany.

CHAPTER VI.

SPRACHGESELLSCHAFTEN.

PERIOD OF IMITATION, 1624-1748.

THE TWO SILESIAN SCHOOLS OF POETRY AND FOLLOWING
WRITERS. NOVELS AND ROMANCES.

AT the period immediately preceding the Thirty Years' War, literature, as well as science, was steadily developing in Germany. Not that it was a time productive of masterpieces, but rather one of quiet growth. The highest triumphs of art are not reached at a single leap, and it is wrong to undervalue the silent years which are ripening precious fruit, or that imitation which brings after it the capability of original production.

In 1617 the so-called Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, or Palmenorden, was founded at Weimar, having as its object the purifying of the language from foreign words, the establishment of grammatical rules, and a metrical system calculated to abolish at least some of the roughnesses of the preceding years. These Sprachgesellschaften-for others were afterwards formed-were copied in the first place from Italian Academies such as the Florentine "della Crusca." They were pedantic enough, no doubt, but the German language was in need of pruning, and a number of the principles they laid down have helped in some measure towards the solid basis of modern literature.

Philipp von Zesen wrote "Lieder as well as novels, such as "Die adriatische Rosamund," where the problem of mixed marriages partly furnished the subject. He worked.

diligently, if blindly, to purify the language. Even classical names offended his patriotic ear he would have named Jupiter "Erzgott," Minerva "Kluginne," etc. The Sprachgesellschaften owed much to his diligence. He founded, in 1643, the "Deutsch-gesinnte Gesellschaft" (Germanminded society), a name thoroughly characteristic of his work.

Martin Opitz (1597-1639) did good work for literature by the publication, in 1624, of his "Büchlein von der deutschen Poeterei," almost the first art of poetry produced in Germany. He was born at Bunzlau in Silesia, and was himself a poet, but it is his "Büchlein" that constitutes his best claim to remembrance at the present day. Posterity has not confirmed the renown he won among his own contemporaries by his strained and artificial poems. The "Trostgedichte in Widerwärtigkeiten des Krieges" (Songs of Comfort in the Miseries of War) describe the horrors of the Thirty Years' War. Opitz also wrote some hymns, and a prose work, "Hercynia," or the "Sheepfold of the Nymph Hercynia," a work which transplanted the Pastoral Romance into German soil.

Paul Fleming (1609-1640), a follower of Opitz, wrote some secular poems and many hymns, such as "In allen

meinen Thaten."

Friedrich von Logau (1604-1655) wrote epigrams.

Simon Dach (1605-1659) wrote "Lied von der Freundshaft," and the well known Volkslied:

Ännchen von Tharau ist's, die mir gefällt,

Sie ist mein Leben, mein Gut und mein Geld."

(Herder's Translation, 1778.)

This was originally in Plattdeutsch "Anke von Tharow." We may class together as hymn-writers Friedrich von Spree (died 1635), whose sacred songs are called "Trutz Nachtigall," Johann Scheffler, who wrote "Heilige Seelen

lust" and "Der cherubinische Wandersmann" (collections of hymns), Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676), who wrote some beautiful hymns, such as "Nun ruhen alle Wälder," Johann Franck, author of "Du schönes Weltgebäude" (died 1677), Joachim Neander (died 1680), and Luise Henriette, wife of the Great Elector of Brandenburg; she died in 1667. Opitz and those who followed in his steps are called the First Silesian School of Poetry. Their characteristics are, the striving after purity of diction and simplicity of subject, and the avoidance of the strained and extraordinary. In these respects the poets of the so-called Second Silesian School of Poetry compare unfavourably with them. They are bombastic and inflated in style, and often extravagant in subject. Between the two schools, forming a kind of transition from one to the other, stands

Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664), in whom the influence of Shakespeare-only a shadow, indeed, still a perceptible shadow-may be seen, although the Thirty Years' War had not dealt kindly with the representation of the great English dramatist in Germany, any more than with literature in general. Gryphius, in his lyric poetry follows Opitz in form, but in his dramas he may be classed with the Second Silesian School. He was a man of considerable intellectual attainments, and apparently of gloomy temperament, a fact for which long acquaintance with the horrors of war may be responsible. His lyrical work was fairly voluminous, but it is as a dramatist that he is chiefly notable. Gryphius' first tragedy is

Leo der Armenier, the story of a conspiracy in Constantinople, full of invective against tyrannical power.

Karl Stuart von England was written immediately after the execution of that unfortunate monarch, and treats him as a martyr.

Another tragedy is

Cardenio und Celinde, a love story, in which the super

natural element is introduced with that love of the horrible which distinguishes Gryphius. It contains, nevertheless, some excellent scenes. The dramatist, towards the end of his career, turned his attention to comedy, and wrote

Peter Squenz, adapted from the workmen's comedy in Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." The adventures of Bottom and his companions had been brought to Germany by English actors, and Gryphius turns the satire against the Volkssänger (popular poets), and their ignorant treatment of mythological subjects.

Horribilicribrifax is a comedy where several pairs of lovers are represented, and the comic situations are brought about by the introduction into the dialogue of French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew words, causing misunderstandings. Gryphius' public was not educated up to this linguistic proficiency, and "Horribilicribrifax" fell flat, although the military ostentation of the times is cleverly satirized in it.

The most natural of Gryphius' plays is a peasant comedy in the Silesian dialect,

Die geliebte Dornrose (the Beloved Wild-Rose).-The hero and heroine are a sort of village Romeo and Juliet, but the feud between their families is healed, and the play ends happily. In addition to lyrics, mostly of mournful import, Andreas Gryphius wrote "Singspiele," which were very bright and successful.

Das verliebte Gespenst (the Ghost in Love), a comic Singspiel, is especially so.

Andreas Gryphius, in spite of all his faults, his stilted style, and his revelling in horrors, is one of the greatest German dramatists before Goethe. He rarely succeeded in "holding the mirror up to nature," but it is much that he did occasionally succeed.

The seventeenth century saw innumerable foreign models introduced into Germany, and followed with more or less