native culture. The fact that the racial genius could perpetuate its germ, even across this chasm of desolation, is one of the astounding evidences of its strength. That germ, to which we owe the preservation of German culture, that thin current which ran all through the seventeenth and the early eighteenth century, had two distinct manifestations: the religious idealism of the north, and the optimistic rationalism of the south, which found expression in the writings of Leibnitz. The first of these movements produced in literature the religious lyrics of Protestant hymn writers, in music the cantatas, passions, and oratorios of a Bach and a Handel. Its ultimate expression was the _Messias_ of Klopstock, which in a sense combined the two forms of art; for, as Dr. Kuno Francke[22] says, it is an ‘oratorio’ rather than an epic. As for Leibnitz, according to the same authority, ‘it is hard to overestimate his services to modern culture. He stands midway between Luther and Goethe.... In a time of national degradation and misery his philosophy offered shelter to the higher thought and kept awake the hope of an ultimate resurrection of the German people.’ The one event which signalizes that resurrection more than any is the battle of Rossbach in 1757. This was the shot that reverberated through Europe and summoned all eyes to witness a new spectacle, a prince who declared himself the servant of his people. With Frederick the Great as their hero the Germans of the North could rally to the hope of a fatherland; their poets, tongue-tied for centuries, broke forth in new lyric bursts; the vision of a united, triumphant Germany fired patriots, philosophers, scientists and artists with enthusiasm for a new ideal. This idealism--or sentimentality--stood in sharp contrast to the somewhat cynical rationalism of Rousseau, Diderot, and d’Alembert, but it had an even stronger influence on art. The immediate effect of this regeneration was an increased output of literature and of music, a greater individuality, or assertiveness, in the native styles, the perfection of its technique, and the crystallization of its forms. In literature it bore its first fruits in the works of Klopstock and Wieland. Already in 1748 Klopstock had ‘sounded that morning call of joyous idealism which was the dominant note of the best in all modern German literature.’ This poet is an important figure to us, for he is of all writers the most admired in the period of musical history with which these chapters deal. His very name brought tears to the eyes of Charlotte in Goethe’s _Werther_; Leopold Mozart could go no further in his admiration of his son’s genius than to compare him to Klopstock. Wieland, who lived less in the realm of the spiritual but was fired with a greater enthusiasm for humanity, was among the first to give expression to his hope of a united Germany. He was personally acquainted with Mozart and early appreciated his genius.[23]