It is a marvellous circumstance, that in the same year in which the war in Germany expired, the interest of the people in public affairs was so far developed as to originate the first newspapers. In matters of faith, moral feeling and the judgments of individuals had for a century worked, but in politics it was only rarely and feebly that serious diversity of opinion was ventured to be expressed by private individuals. It was just when the recruiting drums of the princes were beating at every muster-place that public opinion began its first political struggle in the press. On an important social question, the intellectual leaders of the people rose up against the immorality of their own Sovereigns. We shall endeavour here briefly to exhibit the course of public opinion, and show what was stirred up and carried away by it during the war. It may more especially be discovered in the literature of the flying-sheets, which contended for and against the Bohemian King, condemned the _Kipper_ and _Wipper_, and did homage to the great Gustavus Adolphus, but at last became itself, like the nation, meagre and powerless. It was after the beginning of the sixteenth century that the people began to receive news through the press, in a double form. One of these forms was a single sheet printed on one side, almost always ornamented with a woodcut, and after the sixteenth century, with a copper-plate engraving, under which the explanatory text was generally rendered in verse. In these flying leaves were communicated the appearances in the heavens, and comets; very soon also battles by land and sea, portraitures of the celebrities of the day, and the like. Much of the good humour, and coarse jests of the Reformation time are to be found in them. The art of the wood carver was in constant activity, and we find many characteristic peculiarities of the talents of the great painters impressed upon it. The other form was that of pamphlets, especially in quarto, frequently also ornamented with woodcuts. They gave information of every novelty; coronations, battles, and newly discovered countries; by them every striking event flitted through the country. After the Reformation, they increased enormously in number. All printing-houses gave birth to them under the titles of newspapers, advices, reports, and couriers. Besides these, there were the small controversial writings of the Reformers, sermons, discourses, and songs. Very soon also the Princes began to make use of the invention of printing, to inform the public of their quarrels, and to gain partisans. Private individuals whose rights were injured contended with their opponents, whether city magistrates or foreign rulers, in pamphlets. During the whole of the sixteenth century the aim of the small, not theological, literature, was first to impart news, and afterwards to serve the interests of individuals or princes, or to make known the views of those in power.