When we consider Luther's original powers of mind, independently of the use and employment which he made of those extraordinary powers, (for even the greatest comet, though it should cover half the heavens with the splendour of its light, can never possess, or be supposed to possess, the sun's genial warmth;)--when I say, we consider the intellectual endowments of this extraordinary man solely in themselves; the boldness of his speculations and the vigour of his eloquence will be found to form an epoch, not only (as is universally acknowledged) in the history of the German language, but in the progress of European science and European culture. After the first period in the intellectual history of Europe, which I denominated the scholastico-romantic epoch, and after the second, which I termed the epoch of enthusiasm for Pagan Antiquity, and in which a Christian simplicity of eloquence and a depth of scientific enquiry appear as only happy and occasional exceptions; a third epoch now arose, which from the general spirit of the age, and the tone of the writings, which exerted a commanding influence over the times, cannot be otherwise designated than as the era of a polemico-barbarous eloquence. This rude polemic spirit which had its origin in the Reformation, and in that concussion of faith, and consequently of all thought and all science which Protestantism occasioned, continued, down to the end of the seventeenth century, to prevail in the controversial writings and philosophic speculations both of Germany and England. This spirit was not incompatible with a sort of deep mystical sensibility, and a certain original boldness of thought and expression, such, for instance, as Luther's writings display; yet we cannot at all regard in a favourable light the general spirit of that intellectual epoch, or consider it as one by any means adapted to the intellectual exigencies of that age. But with respect to the language and literature of Germany, so far as these are of general interest, I should wish to make one observation. Besides Thomas à Kempis, whom I have already mentioned, I might cite several other religious writers of the fifteenth century and even of an earlier period, who though less known, were distinguished by a similar spirit, partly among those who made use of the Latin language, then universally current, and partly among those who, like Taulerus, for example, made the German the vehicle of their thoughts. And indeed were we to compare the gentle simplicity, the charming clearness of thought and expression which reign in the works of these writers, with the productions of the following age of barbarous polemic strife, we should then be furnished with the best criterion for duly appreciating the earlier and the later period.