Here is yet another of my favourite quotes from Mattheson's Der vollkommene Capellmeister:

"Others, who think they know much more about [The Origin of Song] and who maintain no small reputation to this day, seem yet more wrong to me than the previous ones: since they, with Lucretious as their leader, made the unthinking bird ...

One of my favourite quotes from Mattheson's Der vollkommene Capellmeister is from the foreword: "...the four principal rivers wich originate ther [in Paradise]. But now the most common opinion on the location of Paradise is that it was situated in Mesopotamia toward Armenia, thus Eden must have been on the land which stretches between ...

I'd like to quote Mattheson from Der vollkommene Capellmeister. In his foreword (I read from [the english translation][1] that's close to impossible to get hold of these days. Publishers take note: this book requires a reprint!) he writes:
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In France they say: