The literary epoch in which I was born was developed out of the preceding one by opposition.  Germany, so long inundated by foreigners, interpenetrated by other nations, directed to foreign languages in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate her own.  Together with so many new ideas, innumerable foreign words were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her; and, even for objects already known, people were induced to make use of foreign expressions and turns of speech.  The German, having run wild for nearly two hundred years in an unhappy tumultuary state, went to school with the French to learn manners, and with the Romans in order to express his thoughts with propriety.  But this was to be done in the mother-tongue, when the literal application of those idioms, and their half-Germanization, made both the social and business style ridiculous.  Besides this, they adopted without moderation the similes of the southern languages, and employed them most extravagantly.  In the same way they transferred the stately deportment of the prince-like citizens of Rome to the learned German small-town officers, and were at home nowhere, least of all with themselves.

But as in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, the German sense of freedom and joy also began to stir itself.  This, accompanied by a genuine earnestness, insisted that men should write purely and naturally, without the intermixture of foreign words, and as common intelligible sense dictated.  By these praiseworthy endeavors, however, the doors and gates were thrown open to an extended national insipidity, nay,—­the dike was dug through by which the great deluge was shortly to rush in.  Meanwhile, a stiff pedantry long stood its ground in all the four faculties, until at last, much later, it fled for refuge from one of them to another.

Men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had therefore two objects on which they could exercise themselves, against which they could labor, and, as the matter was of no great importance, give a vent to their petulance:  these were,—­a language disfigured by foreign words, forms, and turns of speech on the one hand, and the worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to keep themselves free from those faults on the other; though it occurred to nobody, that, while they were battling against one evil, the other was called on for assistance.

Liskow, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow, silly writer, whose awkward demeanor soon gave him an opportunity to proceed still more severely.  He then went farther, and constantly aimed his scorn at particular persons and objects, whom he despised and sought to render despicable,—­nay, even persecuted them with passionate hatred.  But his career was short; for he soon died, and was gradually forgotten as a restless, irregular youth.  The talent and character shown in what he did, although he had accomplished little, may have seemed valuable