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

Thomas Carlyle
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).