We have seen, that in the 12th and 13th centuries, the mind of the German people manifested its native depth and beauty in the fresh rich bloom of a poetry, characterised in a rude age by tenderness and grandeur. Before this, it had evinced its ready capability, in the production of chronicles and translations in verse from the Bible, the moment opportunity was given it in the monasteries early founded by the enlightened spirit of Charlemagne. Afterwards, in the 14th and 15th centuries, in the wars and contests incident to the political development of Germany, the nobles--to whom, and the clergy, the knowledge of letters was at first confined--were drawn off by grosser excitements from the culture and encouragement of poetry. With the fine instinct that knows, and the aspiring spirit that strives after the highest, which denote a people of the noblest endowments, poetry--thrown aside as the plaything of idle hours by warrior knights--was cherished by peaceful artizans, whose zealous devotion vindicated their worthiness of the great gift about to be bestowed; by whose wondrous potency, not only were the hitherto barred portals of all pre-existing literature thrown down, but a highway was opened to all who should seek access by letters to the temples of wisdom or fame. The invention of printing preceded the birth of Luther about half a century. This great event--infinitely the greatest of a most eventful age--facilitated vastly his labors and made effective his efforts. It showered over Germany the new language and the new ideas embodied in his translation of the Bible and his other writings. Thus, through its means chiefly, the German mind was progressive, notwithstanding the long period, extending through a century, of internal convulsion, ending in physical exhaustion, which followed Luther's death. The language, nervous, copious, homogeneous, as it came from Luther, was fixedly established,--a standard by which the corruptions and ungerman words, introduced through the long and intimate intercourse with foreigners during the _thirty years' war_, could be cast out.