  In the few cases Rehberg has been recognized, his reputation has not been fairly assessed.  He has been described as “next to Friedrich Gentz, the ablest literary opponent of the French Revolution in  Germany”.[6]  But such a tribute does not do him full justice, for the comparison should really be to the advantage of Rehberg, who was politically wiser and philosophically deeper than Gentz.  To some scholars, Rehberg has seemed a pale German imitation of Edmund Burke, whose Reflections on the Revolution in France became extremely popular in Germany in the early  1790s.[7]  It has been indeed customary to stress the indebtedness of the Hannoverians to Burke, as if they were all his mere  epigones.[8]  Here again, though, Rehberg has been done an injustice.  He wrote his critique of the Revolution before Burke, and it is superior to Burke's in its philosophical content.  Although Rehberg's writing has none of the rhetoric of Burke's, it makes up for its lack of style with greater substance.  Unlike Burke, Rehberg realized that it was pointless to indulge in diatribe, no matter how flashy or brilliant, and that what was needed amid the passion and partisanship of revolutionary politics was sober and solid argument.