… [T]he three great elements of modern civilization, Gunpowder, Printing, and the Protestant Religion ….

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian

“The State of German Literature,” Edinburgh Review No. 92, Art. 2 (1827-10)
    (Source)

A review of Franz Horn's The Poetry and Oratory of the Germans, from Luther's Time to the Present (1822-1824), and Outlines for the History and Criticism of Polite Literature in German, 1790-1818 (1819).

Collected in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827-1855).