Note 484 — Chapter XXII

Bouterwek, x. 89-119, has given an elaborate critique of the poetry of Opitz. “He is the father, not of German poetry, but of the modern German language of poetry, der neueren deutschen dichtersprache, p. 93. The fame of Opitz spread beyond his country, little as his language was familiar. Non periit Germania, Grotius writes to him, in 1631, Opiti doctissime, quæ te habet locupletissimum testem, quid lingua Germanica, quid ingenia Germanica valeant. Epist. 272. And afterwards, in 1638, thanking him for the present of his translation of the Psalms; Dignus erat rex poeta interprete Germanorum poetarum rege; nihil enim tibi blandiens dico; ita sentio à te primum Germanicæ poesi formam datam et habitum quo cum aliis gentibus possit contendere. Ep. 999. Baillet observes, that Opitz passes for the best of German poets, and the first who give rules to that poetry, and raised it to the state it had since reached; so that he is rather to be accounted its father than its improver. Jugemens des Savans (Poëtes), n. 1436. But reputation is transitory; though ten editions of the poems of Opitz were published within the seventeenth century, which Bouterwek thinks much for Germany at that time, though it would not be so much in some countries, scarce anyone, except the lovers of old literature, now ask for these obsolete productions, p. 90.