In the beginning of the 17th century, in the midst of the civil war, an attempt was made to revive literature by Martin Opitz, a Silesian. Silesia was then not included in the German empire. The language of the peasantry was bad Polish; but German had been introduced into the towns. Silesia suffered little from the _thirty years' war_. Here, therefore, was made the beginning of the endeavors which, after various fluctuations, resulted in the rich literary produce of the 18th century. Opitz was a scholar, versed in ancient literature as well as in that of France and of Holland, which latter had in the age of Hugo Grotius higher literary pretensions than at present. He endeavored to introduce a classical spirit into German poetry, and to create a new poetical language; but he was not a man of high genius, and therefore, though entitled to praise for his zeal and for having given to the German mind an impulse towards the path, so long deserted, neither he nor his feebler followers are now read but by the literary antiquarian or historian. Through the 17th and first part of the 18th centuries, writers were not wanting; but their productions were without force or originality. Though heartily devoted to letters, they were powerless to revive literature. Their efforts betoken a craving for that which they could not supply. Vile imitations of French taste, extravagant romances, exaggerated sentiment, are the characteristics of the works wherewith it was attempted to supply the national want of a literature. The authors of these were, however, the precursors of a class, who, themselves shining luminaries compared to those who preceded them, were made pale by the brilliant light of the mighty spirits in whom and through whom the literature of Germany now stands the object of admiration and of study to the most cultivated scholars of all nations, and, by general acknowledgment, unsurpassed by that of any other people for richness, for depth and truth of thought and sentiment, for beauty in its forms and solidity of substance, for, in short, multifarious excellence. Gottsched, Bodmer, Haller, Gellert, Rabener, Gleim, Kleist, Gessner, Hagedorn, are names worthy of honor, though their volumes are now seldom disturbed in their repose on the shelves of public libraries. They broke the long darkness with a promising streak of light, which expanded into day in the works of Klopstock, Winkelman, Lessing, Herder, Wieland, Goethe, Schiller, Richter.