Three Catholic poets of extreme originality appear at the close of the seventeenth century, Angelus Silesius (Scheffler of Breslau), who gave to the world his devotional thoughts in German Alexandrines; Father Abraham a Sancta Clara (Megerle of Swabia), a celebrated Viennese preacher, who, with comical severity, wrote satires abounding with wit and humorous observations; and Balde, who wrote some fine Latin poems on God and nature. Prätorius, A.D. 1680, the first collector of the popular legendary ballads concerning Rübezahl and other spirits, ghosts and witches, also deserves mention. The Silesian, Stranizki, who, A.D. 1708, founded the Leopoldstadt theatre at Vienna, which afterward became so celebrated, and gave to it the popular comic style for which it is famous at the present day, was also a poet of extreme originality. Gottsched appeared as the hero of Gallomania, which was at that time threatened with gradual extinction by the Spanish and Hamburg romance and by Viennese wit. Assisted by Neuber, the actress, he extirpated all that was not strictly French, solemnly burned Harlequin in effigy at Leipzig, A.D. 1737, and laid down a law for German poetry, which prescribed obedience to the rules of the stilted French court-poetry, under pain of the critic's lash. He and his learned wife guided the literature of Germany for several years. In the midst of these literary aberrations, during the first part of the foregoing century, Thomson, the English poet, Brokes of Hamburg, and the Swiss, Albert von Haller, gave their descriptions of nature to the world. Brokes, in his "Earthly Pleasures in God," was faithful, often Homeric, in his descriptions, while Haller depictured his native Alps with unparalleled sublimity. The latter was succeeded by a Swiss school, which imitated the witty and liberal-minded criticisms of Addison and other English writers, and opposed French taste and Gottsched. At its head stood Bodmer and Breitinger, who recommended nature as a guide, and instead of the study of French literature, that of the ancient classics and of English authors. It was also owing to their exertions that Müller published an edition of Rudiger Maness's collection of Swabian Minnelieder, the connecting link between modern and ancient German poetry. Still, notwithstanding their merit as critics, they were no poets, and merely opened to others the road to improvement. Hagedorn, although frivolous in his ideas, was graceful and easy in his versification; but the most eminent poet of the age was Gellert of Leipzig, A.D. 1769, whose tales, fables, and essays brought him into such note as to attract the attention of Frederick the Great, who, notwithstanding the contempt in which he held the poets of Germany, honored him with a personal visit.