When one considers carefully what was wanting in German poetry, it was a significant theme, especially of national import; there was never any lack of gifted writers. It is only necessary to mention Günther, who may be called a poet in the full sense of the word. A decided genius, endowed with sensuousness, imagination, memory, the gifts of conception and representation, productive in the highest degree, possessing rhythmic fluency, ingenious, witty, and at the same time well-informed;--he possessed, in short, all the requisites for creating by his poetry a second life out of the actual commonplace life around him. We admire the great facility with which, in his occasional poems, he ennobles all situations by appealing to the emotions, and embellishes them with suitable sentiments, images, and historical and fabulous traditions. The roughness and wildness in them belong to his time, his mode of life, and especially to his character, or, if you will, his want of character. He did not know how to curb himself, and so his life, like his poetry, proved ineffectual. By his vacillating conduct, Günther had trifled away the good fortune of being appointed at the Court of Augustus the Second, where, with their love of magnificence, they desired to find a laureate who would impart warmth and grace to their festivities, and immortalize a transitory pomp. Von König was more self-controlled and more fortunate; he filled this post with dignity and success. In all sovereign states the material for poetry begins with the highest social ranks, and the _Review Camp at Mühlberg_ was, perhaps, the first worthy subject of provincial, if not of national importance which presented itself to a poet. Two kings saluting one another in the presence of a great host, their whole court and military state around them, well-appointed troops, a sham-fight, _fêtes_ of all kinds,--here was plenty to captivate the senses, and matter enough and to spare for descriptive poetry. This subject, indeed, suffered from an inner defect, in that it was only pomp and show, from which no real action could result. None except the very highest were involved, and even if this had not been the case, the poet could not render any one conspicuous lest he should offend the others. He had to consult the _Court and State Calendar_, and the delineation of the persons was therefore not particularly exciting; nay, even his contemporaries reproached him with having described the horses better than the men. But should not the fact that he showed his art as soon as a fitting subject presented itself redound to his credit? The main difficulty, too, seems soon to have become apparent to him--for the poem never advanced beyond the first canto.