The subject-matter which in this manner more or less determined the form was sought by the Germans in the most varied quarters. They had handled few national subjects, or none at all. Schlegel’s _Hermann_ only pointed the way. The idyllic tendency had immense vogue. The want of distinctive character in Gessner, with all his gracefulness and childlike sincerity, made every one think himself capable of the like. In the same manner, those poems which were intended to portray a foreign nationality were founded merely on a common humanity, as, for instance, the _Jewish Pastoral Poems_, all those on patriarchal subjects, and any others based on the Old Testament. Bodmer’s _Noachide_ was a perfect type of the watery deluge that swelled high around the German Parnassus, and abated but slowly. Anacreontic dallyings likewise made it possible for numberless mediocre writers to meander aimlessly in a vague prolixity. The precision of Horace compelled the Germans, though but slowly, to conform to him. Neither did the burlesques, modeled, for the most part, on Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_, succeed in inaugurating better times. Yet I must here mention a delusion, which was taken as seriously as it appears ridiculous on closer inspection. The Germans had now an adequate historical knowledge of all the kinds of poetry in which the various nations had excelled. This assignment of poetry to its respective pigeon-holes--a process in reality fatal to its true spirit--had been accomplished with approximate completeness by Gottsched in his _Critical Art of Poetry_, and at the same time he had shown that in all the divisions were to be found excellent works by German poets. And so it went on. Every year the collection became more considerable, but every year one work ousted some other from the place in which it had hitherto shone. We now possessed, if not Homers, yet Virgils and Miltons; if not a Pindar, yet a Horace; of Theocrituses there was no lack; and thus they soothed themselves by comparisons from abroad, whilst the mass of poetical works constantly increased, so that at last it was possible to make comparisons at home. With the cultivation of the German language and style in every department, the power of criticism also increased; but while the reviews then published of works upon religious and ethical as well as medical subjects were admirable, the critiques of poems, and of whatever else relates to _belles lettres_, will be found, if not pitiful, at least very feeble. This holds good of the _Literary Epistles_ and the _Universal German Library_, as well as of the _Library of Belles Lettres_, and might easily be verified by notable instances.