The jurists, accustomed from their youth upward to an abstruse style, which, in all legal papers, from the petty court of the Immediate Knight up to the Imperial Diet at Ratisbon, was still maintained in all its quaintness, could not easily elevate themselves to a certain freedom, the less so as the subjects of which they had to treat were most intimately connected with the external form, and consequently also with the style.  But the younger Von Moser had already shown himself an independent and original writer; and Putter, by the clearness of his delivery, had also brought clearness into his subject, and the style in which he was to treat it.  All that proceeded from his school was distinguished by this.  And even the philosophers, in order to be popular, now found themselves compelled to write clearly and intelligibly.  Mendelssohn and Garve appeared, and excited universal interest and admiration.

With the cultivation of the German language and style in every department, the capacity for forming a judgment also increased, and we admire the reviews then published of works upon religious and moral, as well as medical, subjects; while, on the contrary, we remark that the judgments of poems, and of whatever else may relate to the belles-lettres, will be found, if not pitiful, at least very feeble.  This holds good of the “Literary Epistles” ("Literaturbriefen"), and of “The Universal German Library,” as well as of “The Library of the Belles-Lettres,” notable instances of which could easily be produced.

No matter in how motley a manner all this might be confused, still, for every one who contemplated producing any thing from himself,—­who would not merely take the words and phrases out of the mouths of his predecessors,—­there was nothing further left but, early and late, to look about him for some subject-matter which he might determine to use.  Here, too, we were much led astray.  People were constantly repeating a saying of Kleist, which we had to hear often enough.  He had sportively, ingeniously, and truly replied to those who took him to task on account of his frequent, lonely walks, “that he was not idle at such times,—­he was going to the image-hunt.”  This simile was very suitable for a nobleman and soldier, who by it placed himself in contrast with the men of his rank, who did not neglect going out, with their guns on their shoulders, hare-hunting and partridge-shooting, as often as an opportunity presented itself.  Hence we find in Kleist’s poems many such individual images, happily seized, although not always happily elaborated, which, in a kindly manner, remind us of nature.  But now they also recommended us, quite seriously, to go out on the image-hunt, which did not at last leave us wholly without fruit; although Apel’s garden, the kitchen-gardens, the Rosenthal, Golis, Raschwitz, and Konnewitz, would be the oddest ground to beat up poetical game in.  And yet I was often induced by that motive to contrive that