Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/163

LEIBNITZ AS A LIBRARIAN. 151 In his ' Gcschichte der deutschen Litteratur ' Dr. Wilhelm Scherer says of Leibnitz: 'And although he wrote principally in Latin and French in order not to lose his foreign and distinguished public, the German tongue had a warm place in his heart ; he was against the excessive use of foreign words, and accepted the judicious pro- posals of Schottelius for a German dictionary ; his own German prose has something of freshness, intellect, life, and gracefulness about it, praise that cannot be apportioned to many of his colleagues/ l Leibnitz was one of the pioneers in the study of philology and etymology : his devotion to the study has already been mentioned. His ' Collectanea Etymologica,' edited by his friend Eckhard, and published at Hanover the year following his death (1717), is a repertory for the derivation of words in the Celtic and Teutonic groups of languages. It is principally written in Latin ; but the essay, ' Unvorgreiffliche Gedencken betreffend die Aus- ubung und Verbesserung der Teutschen Sprache,' is in German throughout, and its style fully con- firms Dr. Scherer's praise, and at the same time accentuates the loss German literature sustained through his not writing more than he did in his own language. There are just a few more facts of interest re- lating to Leibnitz's works, the importance of which is bibliographical. His celebrated essay, ' Hypothesis physica nova de motu,' was written by him when quite a young man in 1671. The first 1 Scherer (W.), Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur,' Qte Aufl. Berlin, 1902, p. 353.