The Park review - v. 1-2 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: he won Selicia from Maria Theresa and during the Seven Years' War he defeated the armies of France, Austria and Russia in the great battles of Rossbach, Leuthen ... more »and Zorudorf. Because of his martial honors he was called the Great, but his real greatness consists in this: that he gave the Prussians a Vaterland to respect and to love. Thus was patriotism created. But though the king was a German in things political, he favored the French language and literature. While Frederick was forming a nation there was another man at work preparing himself for the great literary Rossbach which he had planned for Germany. That man was Lessing. The life of this man is interesting. He is related to German literature as Luther is to her language,! Frederick to her nationality, or Kant to her philosophy. Of great natural power, he was highly educated. He hated all sham. Liberal in his views, he was yet an uncompromising foe to falsehood. He was ever a seeker after truth and the general opinion is that he did much to bring the real within the grasp of those who are anxious for it. He was generous and easily imposed upon. To a person who asked for help he extended gold and silver. "You help the undeserving," said his friend. "Ach, Gott!" replied he, "what should we have if we all got only what we deserve?"! Lessing knew the essence of friendship. He makes Werner say: "One has as long as one's friend has."|| He was a patriot who saw the possibility of a greater Germany, and all his powers were exerted to establish peace and harmony between suspicious states. He was a reformer and, like others of his class, he had to suffer abuses cast by negative mischief makers. He was a prophet, too, and knowing his life, we can assert that in many respects he met a prophet's reward. But in spite of all he s...« less