will go no more to the ale-house.” Even the war (commonly called the _seven years’ war_) which ravaged a great part of Germany from 1756 to 1763, did not extinguish the popular enthusiasm for the writings of Gellert. When Leipsic was taken by the Prussians in 1758, a lieutenant of hussars found out the peaceable poet in his house, and not contented with thanking him warmly for the delightful books to which, he said, he owed so many pleasant hours, insisted, by way of more substantially testifying his gratitude, upon making him a present of a pair of pistols, which he had taken from a Cossack. Nay, the common soldiers themselves used to come, almost in regiments, to hear a course of lectures on moral philosophy, which he read in public about this time; and it is related that one man, having obtained leave of absence, turned a considerable way out of his road, on his journey homewards, in order to see, as he expressed it, that _honest fellow_, Mr. Gellert, _whose books had saved him from becoming a profligate_. The works of Gellert have been frequently printed in a collected form, and amount, in the fullest edition, to ten volumes duodecimo. He had been afflicted during the greater part of his life by bad health; and died on the night of the 13th of December, 1769, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. Having lingered long in considerable pain, he remarked to the physician, a short time before his death, that he had not believed it would have been so difficult to die, and asked when the termination of his sufferings might be expected. When he was informed that another hour would probably release him, “God be praised,” he said; “still another hour!” and then lay in silent resignation, till the expected deliverance came. Germany lamented, with all the tokens of national grief, the loss of her amiable instructor; and medals and public monuments testified the admiration and gratitude of all ranks of his countrymen.