his precepts from Du Bellay, Scaliger, and Heinsius, Theory. Opitz sketched the plan of his reforms in his Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey (1624). With some just and fruitful remarks on purity of language, and on versification (some of which he had anticipated in his earlier Aristarchus sive de contemptu linguæ Teutonicæ (1617)), he combines the usual discussion of the "kinds"—epic, tragedy and comedy, eclogues, sylvæ, lyrics, &c.—and singles out for commendation Petrarch, Sannazaro, Ronsard, Sidney (whose Arcadia he translated), Heinsius, and the tragedies and comedies of those Dutchmen, Hooft, Brederoo, and Coster, who had established Coster's Academy, a few years before, with the same reforming intention as Opitz.
Opitz's own contributions to the carrying out of his ambitious programme—epics, tragedies, pastorals, and odes—have proved of no enduring value. All that lives of his poetry are some of the more graceful and simple of his songs—lyrics like
"Sei Wohlgemuth, lass Trauern sein,
Auf Regen folget Sonnenschein,
Es giebet endlich doch das Glück
Nach Toben einen guten Blick,"
and
"Ich empfinde fast ein Grauen
Das ich, Plato, für and für
Bin gesessen über dir;
Es ist Zeit hinaus zu schauen,
Und sich bei den frischen Quellen
In dem Grünen zu ergehn,
Wo die schönen Blumen stehen
Und die Fischer Netze stellen."
