gels stood upon the battle-field, now silent, and sang a hymn of victory over the bodies of the slain. Frederick Schlegel, by many degrees the most considerable critic of this school, began his career with an Anthology from Lessing's works: "Lessing's Geist; eine Blumenlese seiner Ansichten;" he ended it with admiration for Philip the Second and the cruel Alva, and with the proclamation that Calderon was a greater poet than Shakespeare. Frederick Schlegel thus represents the whole Romantic School from its origin to its close.

Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and Solger are the philosophers of this school; from the two former came the once famous, now almost forgotten, principle of Irony," which Hegel1 not only refuted as a principle, but showed that the critics themselves made no use of it. No one, not even Tieck, attempted to exhibit the "irony" of Shakespeare, the god of their idolatry. Among the services rendered by Tieck and A. W. Schlegel, the translation of Shakespeare must never be forgotten; for although that translation is by no means so accurate as is generally believed, being often singularly weak, and sometimes grossly mistaken in its interpretation of the meaning, it is nevertheless a translation which, on the whole, has, perhaps, no rival in literature, and has served to make Shakespeare as familiar to the Germans as to us.

In their crusade against the French, in their naturalisation of Shakespeare, and their furtherance of Herder's efforts toward the restoration of a Ballad Literature and the taste for Gothic Architecture, these Romanticists were with the stream. They also flattered the national tendencies when they proclaimed "Mythology and Poetry, symbolical Legend and Art, to be one and indivisible," whereby it became clear

1" Esthetik," i. p. 84-90.

2 F. Schlegel: "Gespräche über Poesie," p. 263.

that a new Religion, or at any rate a new Mythology, was needed, for "the deepest want and deficiency of all modern Art lies in the fact that the artists have no Mythology."

While Fichte, Schelling, and Schleiermacher were tormented with the desire to create a new Philosophy and a new Religion, it soon became evident that a Mythology was not to be created by programme; and as a Mythology was indispensable, the Romanticists betook themselves to Catholicism, with its saintly Legends and saintly Heroes; some of them, as Tieck and A. W. Schlegel, moved by nothing more than poetic enthusiasm and dilettantism; others, as F. Schlegel and Werner, with thorough conviction, accepting Catholicism and all its consequences.

Solger had called Irony the daughter of Mysticism; and how highly these Romanticists prized Mysticism is known to all readers of Novalis. To be mystical was to be poetical as well as profound; and critics glorified mediæval monstrosities because of their deep spiritualism, which stood in contrast with the pagan materialism of Goethe and Schiller. Once commenced, this movement carried what was true in it rapidly onwards to the confines of nonsense. Art became the handmaid of Religion. The canon was laid down that only in the service of Religion had Art ever flourished, only in that service could it flourish: a truth from which strange conclusions were drawn. Art became a propaganda. Fra Angelico and Calderon suddenly became idols. Werner was proclaimed a Colossus, by Wackenroder, who wrote his "Herzensergiessungen eines Kunstliebenden Klosterbruders," with Tieck's aid, to prove, said Goethe, that because some monks were artists, all artists should turn monks. Then it was that men looked to Faith for miracles in Art. Devout study of the Bible was thought to be the 1 F. Schlegel: "Gespräche über Poesie," p. 274.

readiest means of rivalling Fra Angelico and Van Eyck, and inspiration was sought in a hair-shirt. Catholicism had a Mythology, therefore painters went over in crowds to the Roman Church. Cornelius and Overbeck lent real genius to the attempt to revive the dead forms of early Christian Art, as Goethe and Schiller did to revive the dead forms of Grecian Art. Overbeck, who painted in a cloister, was so thoroughly penetrated by the ascetic spirit, that he refused to draw from the living model, lest it should make his works too naturalistic; for to be true to Nature was tantamount to being false to the higher tendencies of Spiritualism. Some had too much of the artistic instinct to carry their principles into these exaggerations; but others less gifted, and more bigoted, carried the principles into every excess. A band of these reformers established themselves in Rome, and astonished the Catholics quite as much as the Protestants. Cesar Masini, in his work "Dei Puristi in Pittura," thus describes them: " Several young men came to Rome from Northern Germany in 1809. They abjured Protestantism, adopted the costume of the Middle Ages, and began to preach the doctrine that painting had died out with Giotto, and, to revive it, a recurrence to the old style was necessary. Under such a mask of piety they concealed their nullity. Servile admirers of the rudest periods in Art, they declared the pigmies were giants, and wanted to bring us back to the dry, hard style and barbarous imperfection of a Buffalmacco, Calandrino, Paolo Uccello, when we had a Raphael, a Titian, and a Correggio." In spite of their exaggerated admiration of the Trecentisti, in spite of a doctrine which was fundamentally vicious, the Romanticists made a decided revolution, not only in Literature but in Painting, and above all in our general estimate of painters. If we now learn to look at the exquisite works of Fra Angelico, Ghirlandajo, and Massaccio

with intense pleasure, and can even so far divest ourselves of the small prejudices of criticism as to be deeply interested in Giotto, Gozzoli, or Guido da Arezzo, feeling in them the divine artistic faculty which had not yet mastered artistic expression, it is to the preaching of the Romanticists that we owe this source of noble enjoyment. In poetry the Romanticists were failures, but in painting they achieved marked success. Whatever may be thought of the German School, it must be confessed that before Overbeck, Cornelius, Schadow, Hess, Lessing, Hübner, Sohn, and Kaulbach, the Germans had no painters at all; and they have in these men painters of very remarkable power.

To return to Goethe. He was led by Schiller into endless theoretical discussions. They philosophised on the limits of epic and dramatic poetry; read and discussed Aristotle's Poetics; discussions which resulted in Goethe's essay, "Ueber epische und dramatische Poesie;" and, as we gather from their correspondence, scarcely ventured to take a step until they had seen how Theory justified it. Goethe read with enthusiasm Wolf's" Prolegomena" to Homer, and at once espoused its principles. The train of thought thus excited led him from the origin of epic songs to the origin of the Hebrew songs, and Eichhorn's "Introduction to the Old Testament" led him to attempt a new explanation of the wanderings of the people of Israel, which he subsequently inserted in the notes to the "Westöstlicher Divan."

Nor was he busy with epical theories only; he also gave himself to the production of epics. "Hermann und Dorothea," the most perfect of his poems, was written at this time. "Achilleis" was planned and

1 Later on in life he returned to the old conviction of the unity of Homer. It is to be regretted that in England Wolf's masterly work is seldom read, the critics contenting themselves with secondhand statements of his views, which fail to do them justice.

partly executed; "Die Jagd" was also planned, but left unwritten, and subsequently became the prose tale known as "Die Novelle." This year of 1797 is moreover memorable as the year of ballads, in which he and Schiller, in friendly rivalry, gave Germany lyrical masterpieces. His share may be estimated, when we learn that in this year were written the "Bride of Corinth," the " Zauberlehrling," " Der Gott und die Bajadere," and the "Schatzgräber." In an unpublished letter to Körner, he writes, "You will have learned from Schiller that we are now making attempts in the ballad line. His are, as you know already, very felicitous. I wish that mine may be in some sort worthy to stand beside them; he is, in every sense, more competent to this species of poetry than I am."

In the same year "Faust" was once more taken up. The "Dedication," the " Prologue in Heaven," and the Intermezzo of "Oberon and Titania's Marriage" were written. But while he was in this mood, Hirt came to Weimar, and in the lively reminiscences of Italy, and the eager discussions of Art which his arrival awakened, all the northern phantoms were exorcised by southern magic. He gave up "Faust," and wrote an essay on the "Laokoon." He began once more to pine for Italy. This is characteristic of his insatiable hunger for knowledge; he never seemed to have mastered material enough. Whereas Schiller, so much poorer in material, and so much more inclined to production, thought this Italian journey would only embarrass him with fresh objects; and urged Meyer to dissuade him from it. He did not go; and I think Schiller's opinion was correct: at the point now reached he had nothing to do but to give a form to the materials he had accumulated.

In the July of this year he, for the third time, made a journey into Switzerland. In Frankfort he introduced Christiane and her boy to his mother, who