The cities were still deficient in such theatrical representations as could satisfy a thoughtful mind. But any one who then travelling in northern Germany had met the Schoenemannsche troop, would still remember a young man of disadvantageous figure, with a short neck, of the name of Eckhof, who afterwards became the most refined and finished actor of Germany. And just within these weeks a new book had come from the Leipzig fair, "Beitraege zur Historie und Aufnahme des Theaters" ("Contributions to the History and Rise of the Theatre"), which had been written by two young literati of Leipzig; of whom one was called Lessing. In the same batch of books was "Pamela," by Richardson, who, the year before had written "Clarissa." But what was then read in the houses of the citizens was of quite another quality. As yet there were no circulating libraries; only the small second-hand booksellers sometimes lent books to trustworthy acquaintance. But there sprang up a voluminous literature of novels, which were eagerly bought by unassuming readers. They were narratives, slight and carelessly put together, in which strange events were related. These adventures were represented in the seventeenth century in various ways: either in dull imitations of the old chivalrous and pastoral novels, with a phantastic background, and without the advantage of detailed description; or a coarse copy of real life, without beauty, often common and vulgar. There was then a concurrence of a decaying style and of the beginning of a new one. After 1700, the realistic tendency became the ruling one. From the Amadis novels, arose loose court and tourist adventures. "Simplicissimus" was followed by a great number of war romances, Robinsonades, and stories of adventurers; the greater part of them are very carelessly composed, and German gossip or newspaper information of extraordinary occurrences abroad, partly diaries, are worked in. "Fassmann's Dialogues from the Kingdom of the Dead," are collected in a similar way from flying-sheets and story-books, which that disorderly character, who then resided in Franconia, had gathered together from the pastor of the place. Those who wrote thus were thoroughly despised by literary men, but they exercised a very great influence--one difficult to estimate--on the mind of the people. They were two separate spheres that revolved together. And this contrast between the reading of the people and that of the educated class, exists but too much, even in the present day. Among the gentry of the town, however, there were in 1750 still other literati. No town of any importance failed to possess a patriotic man, who examined old chronicles, church documents, and records from the council archives, and could give valuable contributions towards a history of the place and district. As yet little was known of the monuments of antiquity; but they, as well as old inscriptions and the false idols of our primeval ancestors, were copied as curiosities.