But notwithstanding this false and unnatural tendency of the public mind, the prospect, though here and there clouded and threatening, was not absolutely cheerless and unpromising. The heart of Germany was still sound and entire, and the foreign cultivation, in spite of the activity with which it was conducted, could not find a congenial soil. Even when the moral and intellectual imbecility and dependence were at their height, the great mass of the people remained uncorrupted and unperverted. The soul of poetry and the life of religion had retreated from the crown and topmost branches toward the root of society, and there, while the sere and many-coloured leaves trembled on the boughs, preserved the hope of a coming spring. Among the middling and lower classes, particularly in situations exempt from the contagion of courtly example, the faith, the traditions and the manners of former times flourished in happy obscurity, and in proportion as they were despised and rejected by the great and the refined were held dear by the common man, and kept his heart warm, his imagination fresh, and his life pure. Even about the middle of the last century the workings of a regenerating spirit began to appear. Some great writers then took the lead in German literature, who, though themselves not wholly free from the influence of the age, yet in various ways contributed to counteract its prevailing tendencies, and to rouse and direct the dormant strength of their countrymen. Some penetrated into the deepest mysteries of Grecian art, and inspired a new, enthusiastic feeling for the beauties of classical antiquity. Some opened the treasures of many interesting but neglected fields of ancient and modern literature. Others exposed with irresistible subtilty and force of criticism, the spurious rules and blind imitations and hollow pomp of the French drama, so long an object of unsuspecting faith, and directed the public attention to the true classical and romantic models. The language itself, which in the preceding period had lost much of its grace, raciness and vigour, and had become at once weak and unwieldy, was carefully cultivated, and gradually formed into a worthy organ of high conceptions and deep speculations. The next generation grew up under happier auspices. Shakespeare began to be known, felt and enjoyed in Germany, and the young and rising spirits of the age turned from the effete and lifeless literature of France, to contemplate the eternal freshness of nature and her favorite child. The new school of poetry which they formed, and which recognized no other guide than genius, truth and feeling, was perhaps partial in its tendency and indefinite as to its objects; it produced among much that was great and beautiful some morbid extravagances and wild exaggerations; but viewed as a state of transition it was both salutary and promising; it counteracted other much more dangerous and mischievous innovations of the age; it