Gellert, Christian, a German poet, fabulist, and moralist, born in Saxony; professor of Philosophy at Leipzig; distinguished for the influence of his character and writings on the literature of the period in Germany, in the effect of it culminating in the literature of Schiller and Goethe; Frederick the Great, who had an interview with him, pronounced him the most rational of German professors (1715‒1769).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Gellert * Gellus, Aulus