On the Antiquities of Prussia

...stolen for him. For this reason, let not the prattlers deny that Prussian affairs, however much they are covered by the shadow of antiquity and coated with rust, or even driven into the most hidden recesses, cannot be restored through diligent inquiry, nor be taken from the dark mist of night and be illuminated and adorned by the clarity of day: since this very inquiry, namely, industry, is asserted by all to be the only thing to which nothing is left inaccessible, nothing closed. This elicits, expresses, and brings forth things however much they are obstructed and hidden in inner chambers. This seeks out heaven and enters the subterranean realms, examines the seas, and places before the eyes whatever has remained hidden and buried. This same thing gave Homer, though blind, the ability to see more than Argus with his thousand eyes. This taught Zeuxis to paint Helen, whom he had never seen, with such beauty that she was judged worthy of the form for which Greece had undergone so much labor and high Pergama fell. This raised Phidias, that most worthy sculptor, while he was expressing the image of Jupiter, to such a point that he was said to have borrowed the likeness of divinity from heaven. This same inquiry, by removing the bars from the hinges of the doors of the antiquities of Prussia, caused them to open, and brought forth from their hiding places whatever had been walled in regarding them. With this assistant, these very things were sought out and extracted from the deep filth of the Lethean river, and, however much they were wiped clean of their squalor, they have presented themselves—as if returned by the right of postliminium—for the first time to your eyes and to your sight, most illustrious prince.