literature did not find the sympathetic interest that English literature found in Germany; but there was nevertheless in the second part of the century a great number of translations and reviews. Before 1800 most of the important works of German literature had appeared in English. The Messias, although warmly praised, was not received with general enthusiasm; the comparison with Milton was inevitable. The plays of Lessing were translated; some of them were performed, one even with success; but Lessing, too, seems to have made no lasting impression. Even Nathan der Weise was criticised bitterly for its freedom and tolerance. Wieland was especially favored by the translators; but the literary public and the religious public of England were perhaps more nearly synonymous then than now; at all events many took offence at Wieland. Werther was popular; it was repeatedly translated, dramatized and imitated. The fame of the book is curiously shown in Crabbe's Parish Register. He is describing a cottage in the country: "Fair prints along the paper'd wall are spread; Goethe's plays were also known in England. Iphigenie had been translated by Wm. Taylor of Norwich, who of all the early students of German literature, had the least prejudice and the broadest acquaintance with his subject. One of the versions of Götz was from no - G. Herzfeld; William Taylor von Norwich. Eine Studie über den Einfluss der neueren deutschen Litteratur in England. Halle, 1897. - H. Kraeger; Carlyle's deutsches Studium und "Wotton Reinfred". Anglia, Beiblatt IX, 193 ff. 1 Poetical Works of the Rev. George Crabbe: With his letters, journals and life, by his son. London 1834. 8 Vols. Vol. II, 190. less a hand than Scott's. From both there were renderings of Bürger's Lenore. Schiller's early dramas had all appeared in English. Wallenstein in the opening year of the century found a worthy translator in Coleridge. Herder was known by the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. Kant, however, was as yet a name. With the masterpieces of German literature there were many of less merit, now almost forgotten. One is surprised to find, for example, Bodmer's Noah, Haller's Usong, the letters of Rabener, Gellert's Leben der schwedischen Gräfin G. Most of the translations were without merit; some of them were not even based on the originals; to a few of the translators it was evidently a matter of pride, that they had worked directly from the German. The taste of the people, too, seems at this day strange enough. Gessner's Idylls ran through a score of editions and was rivalled in popularity only by Kotzebue's plays. The melodramatic and sentimental were the qualities which appealed to the public. There was, however, a noticeable decline in the popular interest after the beginning of the century, and the prejudice of the religious classes became, if any thing, more decided. Yet there were still numerous books imported and there was no lack of criticisms and reviews.1 1 Articles from 1800-1823, The European Magazine has a translation of a German ballad, Jan. 1801; Articles on Kotzebue, June 1802; Gessner, Aug. 1802; Kant, Oct. 1805. The Quarterly Review (founded 1809). Goethe's Farbenlehre, Jan. 1814; A. W. Schlegel's Cours de Littérature Dramatique. Traduit d'Allemand, Oct. 1814; F. Schlegel's Lectures on the History of Literature, April 1819. The Edinburgh Review (founded 1802). Kant, Jan. 1803; Lichten. berg's Vermischte Schriften, Jan. 1804; Kotzebue's Travels, Oct. V 1 Maria Stuart and Hermann und Dorothea were translated in 1801. An adapted version of Kabale und Liebe was performed on the stage in 1803. In 1805 Taylor published a poetical version of Nathan der Weise. The first rendering of Jean Paul into English was made by Henry Crabb Robinson in a translation of Anatonda from the German of Anton Wall. 1 The opinions expressed in the reviews are often so random or shallow, so prejudiced or so indiscriminately enthusiastic, and so completely at variance, even in the most important matters, that it is clear how far from a real understanding of German literature the English educated public was. A few examples will suffice to show the chaotic state of opinion from the beginning of this century until De Quincey began to write. The Quarterly 1804; Jan. 1806; Nathan der Weise, April 1806; Lectures on Dramatic Literature. By A. W. Schlegel. Feb. 1816. Aus meinem Leben June 1816; March 1817. Blackwood's Magazine (founded 1817). Translations from Klopstock, June, July 1817; July 1818; from Krummacher, June 1817; from Herder, Sept. 1817; from Stolberg, Feb. 1818; from Schiller, May, July, Nov. 1818, Jan. 1819; from Körner, July 1818, May 1819, March 1821, Nov. 1822; from Böttger's Sabina, Oct., Nov. 1818; from F. Schlegel, Dec. 1818; from Goethe, Jan., March 1819; from Bürger, Jan. 1819; from Haller, May 1819; from Rückert, Jan. 1822. Articles on Schlegel's Hist. of Lit., Aug. 1818; A. W. Schlegel's Observations on the Provencal Language and Literature, Dec. 1818; Müllner's Guilt, or the Anniversary, Nov. 1819; Twenty-ninth of February, Jan. 1820; Albanserin, Aug. 1822; Grillparzer's Ancestress, Dec. 1819; King Yngurd, July, Aug. 1820; Baroness Fouque's Cypress Crown, Feb. 1820; Goethe's Faust, June 1820; Körner's Rosamunda, Oct. 1820; Prof. Raupach's Darkness, or the Venetian Conspiracy, Jan. 1821; Schlenkert's Rudolph of Habsburgh, Jan. 1822; Kotzebue's Voyage, May 1822; Von Houvald's Light-tower, a tragedy, Jan. 1823; Klingemann's Faust, June 1823; Wallenstein, translated by Coleridge, Oct. 1823. 1 H. C. Robinson's Diary, Edited by Sadler. 3 Vols. London 1869; Vol. I, 360. (Jan. 1814) in a review of Madame de Staël's l'Allemagne writes enthusiastically; "From these Diis minorum gentium (Haller, Gessner) we turn with delight to the mighty names names of Klopstock, Schiller and Goethe, a triumvirate which no country perhaps, except our own, can equal, and of whose splendors even the outermost skirts are as yet but imperfectly known by the English reader". There is nothing but contempt for Kotzebue. Lessing's influence is described as follows: "The early compositions of Schiller are in a sort of bombastic prose which the influence of Lessing had made popular in Germany". In a later number of the same Review (Oct. 1814) Schiller receives very divided praise and Schlegel's Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Litteratur is called "a remarkable work". In the Edinburgh (Jan. 1804) there is the following piece of criticism: "The name of Lessing, reverenced by every well-educated German, became almost as familiar (in England) as that of Addison or Fielding, and paved the way for the less respectable works of Schiller, Kotzebue and Iffland.... Schiller unquestionably a man of uncommon genius, is the avowed model of those poets, novelists and playwrights, who, without any genius at all, have succeeded in captivating the public attention, by an engaging display of furious lovers, frantic heroines, blasphemers, fatalists and anarchists of every description". In connection with Nathan the same Review says (April 1806): "We have now exhibited enough, we conceive, of this drama, to satisfy the greater part of our readers, that, in spite of some late alarming symptoms, there is good reason for holding, that there is still a considerable difference between the national taste of Germany and this country". The prejudice and commonness of English criticism reached its lowest, perhaps, in the review of Aus meinem Leben (June 1816 and March 1817). "With the single exception of Schiller they (the Germans) have no writer of chaste or elegant prose." The review speaks of the "mingled rant and sickliness of German literature" and revels in such language as the following: "A German sentimentalist is a great, fat butcher whimpering over a murdered calf." The attitude of the reviews and would-be men of taste was, for the most part, smart and cheaply condescending. The Anti-Jacobin Review was perhaps the most extreme; the Monthly Review in which Taylor's criticisms appeared, the most friendly. The Anti-Jacobin is filled with ignorance and brutality, mixed with a canting tone. It reviles Germany as the country of atheists and loose morals. One example will suffice to show the extent of its ignorance; it inveighs against Fichte's moral sense. Even among men of genuine culture there was little lasting interest in German literature; nor were the great writers free from a certain suspicion and a certain superiority. It may be humorous treatment of the language or the people; it may be parody, as in Frère and Canning's The Rovers; it may be the pure ignorance and self-sufficiency of the Anti-Jacobin or the Edinburgh Review; it may be uneasiness on religious grounds, as in the feeling of Coleridge and Wordsworth toward Goethe; but the tone is in some form or other there. It is among those who represented what is best and strongest in the English character that this last feeling is most apparent. A letter of Edward Irving's to Carlyle in connection with Jane Welsh's German studies shows it in a remarkable degree. "The books", he writes, "may not be what they are reported of. At the same time I am daily becoming more convinced that in all the literature |