Another significant utterance comes in 1541 in a letter by Gessner quoted by Biese, p. 328. It shows a recognition of the greatness and majesty of the Alps, and has something of the modern feeling: “So lange mir Gott Leben schenken wird, habe ich beschlossen, jährlich einige Berge oder doch einen zu besteigen, teils um die Gebirgsflora kennen zu lernen, teils um den Körper zu kräftigen und den Geist zu erfrischen. Welchen Genuss gewährt es nicht die ungeheuren Bergmassen zu betrachten und das Haupt in die Wolken zu erheben! Wie stimmt es zur Andacht, wenn man umringt ist von den Schneedomen, die der grosse Weltbaumeister an dem einen langen Schöpfungstage geschaffen hat! Wie leer is doch das Leben, wie niedrig das Streben derer, die auf dem Erdboden umher kriechen, nur um zu erwerben und spiessbürgerlich zu geniessen! Ihnen bleibt das irdische Paradies verschlossen.“ Biese thinks that Rousseau’s “Nouvelle Héloise” (1761) “die Augen über die Herrlichkeiten der neuentdeckten Alpenwelt öffnete.” It is interesting to note in this connection that the beginning of enthusiastic interest in the mountains of the English Lake District found expression somewhat earlier in Dalton’s poem (1755), Amory’s novel (1756), and Brown’s “Letter” and “Rhapsody” (before 1766 and probably before 1760). The earliest of the Ossian poems belong in 1760. Goethe’s “Briefe aus der Schweiz vom Jahre 1779” are according to Biese the first full and enthusiastic recognition by a German poet of the romantic charms of the Alps (“Die Entwickelung,” etc., p. 393). [59] Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., pp. 353–55; Lecky, “History of England,” VI, 180–83. [60] Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., pp. 324, 328. [61] Waller, “A Panegyric to My Lord Protector,” st. 11; “Instructions to a Painter,” l. 228; “On the Danger His Majesty Escaped,” ll. 5, 63, 156. [62] Dryden under “Similitudes,” p. 31, and “Diction,” p. 43. [63] Young, “The Merchant,” strain 2, st. 15; strain 3, st. 9; strain 8, sts. 13–17. [64] For a Tempest take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster and Boreas and cast them together in one verse; add to these rain and lightning, _quantum sufficit_: mix your clouds and billows well together till they foam, and thicken your description here and there with a quicksand. Brew your tempest well in your head before you set it a blowing. “The Art of Sinking in Poetry.” [65] See “Monthly Review,” XXVII, 197, where Falconer’s descriptions are said to be equal to “anything in the _Aeneid_.” [66] Falconer, “The Shipwreck,” canto ii, ll. 157, 268, 346. [67] _Ibid._, ll. 148–66.