The poem, after the Revival of Learning, suffered the same eclipse through the fascination and superior literary finish of classical literature, as did the _Chanson de Roland_ in France. Its rescue from oblivion dates from the year 1757, when the first imperfect edition of it was published from an old manuscript by Prof. Bodmer. The labours of later scholars and critics produced more and more perfect editions; and the interest of the German public in it was gradually awakened, till it grew to an enthusiasm for what was at last recognised as a great national epic. It was not only a subject for patriotic pride, but, from its memories of old-time greatness, from its heroic spirit, and, from that soul of loyalty to fatherland and king which pervades it, and which is a fundamental trait of the German character, it became an inspiration to great effort and noble sacrifice, coming just at the time when these were pre-eminently called for. It was when the old spirit of freedom awoke with tenfold strength, and all Germany rose as one man against the Titanic tyranny of Napoleon, that this book became for Germans what the Iliad was for Greeks. It helped to fan patriotism into a flame of heroism; it was a voice crying from the past, a great battle-call that blended with the voices of such soldier-singers as Körner. In the year of Waterloo a cheap edition for the use of soldiers {P. xix} was issued--which reminds us of the claim Aeschylus (in Aristophanes' _Frogs_) puts forth for his two dramas of war, that they made every spectator long to be a warrior, and nerved him to resolve to conquer or die. And the national instinct which then recognised and claimed for its own that spirit of loyalty to king and country, through evil report and good report, which takes for its watchword, "My country!--may she always be in the right; but my country, right or wrong!" is fundamentally sound. It recognises that he who sets up his private conscience against that of his country in the hour of her need, must himself beware lest he make himself a traitor in sinning against those to whom he owes the greatest earthly debt a man can owe. It recognises that a man may be committing a far deeper wrong by refusing to help his country in a cause in which he thinks he detects some flaw, still more by striving with word or pen to paralyse the efforts of those who are fighting for her, than if he fought in a cause of which his conscience disapproves. Hence United Germany has been no congenial foster-mother for "the friends of every country save their own"; and her scholars are not wrong in claiming for their great epic its share in thus moulding the patriotic conscience.