Even after 1700, this cold, bitter way of speaking of the political condition of Germany continued generally; for the "_aufklaerungs_" literature, which sprang up at this period, altered the style more than the spirit. Indeed, from the end of the War of Succession till 1740, during the longest period of peace which Germany had experienced for a century, a diminution of political interest is discernible in the small literature. It is always the extraordinary destinies of individuals which more specially interest the public--the prophecies of a Pietist, the trial of a woman for child murder, the execution of an alchymist, and such like. When on Christmas night, 1715, two poor peasants were suffocated by coal vapours in a vineyard-hut at Jena, whilst they, together with a student and a torn copy of Faust's book of necromancy, were endeavouring to raise a great treasure, this misfortune gave rise to full a dozen flying sheets--clerical, medical, and philosophical--which fiercely contended as to whether the claw of the devil or the coals had been the cause of death. All the battles that had been fought, from that of Hochstaedt to Malplaquet, had not made a greater sensation. Even in the "Dialogues from the Kingdom of the Dead,"--a clumsy imitation of Lucian, in which opinions were given of the public characters of the day,--it is evident that it is more particularly the anecdotes and the private scandal which attracted the people. Once more an interest was powerfully excited by the expulsion of the Protestant Salzburger; but in the year 1740 a great political character impressed itself on the soul of Germany, and announced by the thunder of his cannon the beginning of a new time. But it was not the "State system" alone which loosened the connection of the burgher class, and turned the German into an isolated individual: the powers which usually confirm and strengthen the united life of individuals, faith and science, worked to the same effect. CHAPTER V. "DIE STILLEN IM LANDE," OR PIETISTS. (1600-1700.) The contrast between the epic time of the Middle Ages, and the new period which has already been often called the lyrical, is very perceptible in every sphere of human life, and not least in the realm of faith.