From the very depression, political and social, prevailing in Swiss lands arose the yearning for and proficiency in letters and scientific culture which in the period now before us produced so prolific a literature in the country. And it was not in West Switzerland alone that this revival of letters showed itself. Basel prided herself on her naturalists and mathematicians, Merian, Bernoulli, and Euler; while Zurich could boast of her botanists, Scheuchzer and John Gessner. Bern produced that most distinguished naturalist, Haller, who was also a poet; Schaffhausen claims Johannes von Müller, the brilliant historian; and Brugg (Aargau) Zimmermann, philosopher and royal physician at Hanover. Bodmer and Breitinger formed an æsthetic critical forum at Zurich. And no country of similar area had so many of its sons occupying positions of honour in foreign universities. A whole colony of Swiss savants had settled at Berlin, drawn thither by the great Frederick; others were to be found at Halle. Haller, who had lived at Göttingen ever since 1736, likewise received an invitation from Frederick, but found himself unable to accept it, being greatly averse to Voltaire and his influence. A perfect stream of Swiss intellect poured into Germany, and by its southern originality, greater power of expression, and its true German instinct, quickened German nationality, and witnesses to the fact that there is ever passing between the two countries an intellectual current.[80] It is impossible within the limits of the present volume to do more than touch upon the most characteristic literary movements of the period. Amongst the upper classes in Switzerland, French culture reigned supreme, just as did French fashions, French manners, and it may almost be said, the French language. Nevertheless, the Swiss were the first to throw off the French supremacy in literature, turning rather to England as a more congenial guide and pattern. Bodmer speaks of Shakespeare and Milton "as the highest manifestations of Germanic genius." As for German literature itself, it was still in a state of helplessness--what with the Thirty Years' War, and the German nobility given over to French tastes and French influence--and fashioned itself in foreign modes till the close of the Seven Years' War, in 1763, when it took the leading position it has ever since maintained.