Albert Duerer must also be cited: mathematician, architect, painter, yet
belonging to our subject by his _four books on the human proportion_
wherein he shows, in chastened and precise style, that he himself is
nothing less than the earliest founder of Teutonic aestheticism.

The seventeenth century--extending it, as is reasonable enough, up to the
region of 1730--is almost exclusively the era of French influence and a
little, if desired, of Italian influence. The critic Gottsched (_Poetic
Art, Grammar, Eloquence_) maintained the excellence of French literature
and the necessity of drawing inspiration from it with an energy of
conviction which drew on him the hatred of the succeeding generation.

LEIBNITZ.--German poetry of his period, possessing neither originality
nor power, could only interest the erudite and the searchers. The domain
of prose is more enthralling. Leibnitz, who wrote in Latin and French,
and even in German, is pre-eminently the great thinker he is reputed
to be; but though he never possessed nor even pretended to possess
originality in style, he is nevertheless highly esteemed for the purity,
limpidity, and facility of his language.




CHAPTER XIII


THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY

Poets: Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Folengo, Marini, etc. Prose Writers: