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Perioti0 of European Uttcraturc 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH 
 
PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Edited by Pkofessoe SAINTSBURY. 
 
 A COMPLETE AND CONTINUOUS HISTORY OF TEE SUBJECT. 
 In 12 Crown 8vo Volumes. 
 
 " The criticism which alone can much help lis for the future 
 is a criticism which regards Europe as ieing, for intellectual 
 and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bcnmd to a joint 
 action and working to a common result." 
 
 — Matthew Arnold. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 XI. 
 XII, 
 
 The DARK AGES . 
 The PLOUBISHING OF EOMANCE 
 AND THE RISE OP ALLEGORY 
 
 The FOURTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 The TRANSITION PERIOD . 
 
 The EARLIER RENAISSANCE . 
 
 The LATER RENAISSANCE . 
 
 The FIRST HALF OP 17th CENTURY . 
 
 The AUGUSTAN AGES . 
 
 The MID-BIGHTBBNTH CENTURY 
 
 The ROMANTIC REVOLT 
 
 The ROMANTIC TRIUMPH . 
 
 The LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Professor W. P. Ker. 
 
 The Editor. [Ready. 
 
 F. J. Snell. [Ready. 
 
 G. Gbegory Smith. 
 The Editor. 
 
 David Hannat. [Ready. 
 Professor H. J. C. Grierson. 
 Oliver Elton. [Ready. 
 
 J. Hepburn Millar. 
 Professor C. E. Vaughak. 
 T. S. Omokd. [Ready. 
 
 The Editor. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York. 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH 
 
 BY 
 
 T. S. QMOND, M.A. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OT ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXPORD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHAELES SCEIBNER'S SONS 
 
 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE 
 1900 
 
 ^ 
 
 AU Rights reserved 
 
K\^'bk>% 
 
 \ 
 
PEE FACE. 
 
 The scope of this volume differs somewhat from that 
 of its predecessors in the same series. They dealt 
 with remoter times and less familiar authors, so were 
 bound to give much detailed information. In this 
 volume, concerned mainly with writers whose names 
 are household words, it has been thought sufficient 
 to give only such particulars as were required to 
 bring out the genei'al effect. Neither biography nor 
 bibliography has been made prominent. The wish 
 was to paint a general picture, preferring broad out- 
 lines to finished studies ; to depict a movement by 
 showing it embodied in its representatives. Not in- 
 dividual writers, but the Komantic Triumph, forms 
 our subject ; parts are of value only as constituting 
 a whole. Thus the student may be led to form 
 conceptions for himself, rather than take them ready- 
 made from the lips of any historian. , 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Such a scheme does not encourage novelty of treat- 
 ment, or postulate direct acquaintance with every book 
 mentioned. The limits of the writer's knowledge will 
 appear in the course of his survey. Their straitness 
 need not prevent fidelity in the broad lines of por- 
 traiture adopted. Tor the aim throughout has been 
 to give literary facts, not literary opinions, and the 
 " personal equation " has been studiously subordinated. 
 That it may still colour some statements, is doubtless 
 only too possible; but at least the effort has been 
 made to avoid partisanship. 
 
 The book was planned on rather too liberal a scale, 
 and has been shortened by omission or condensation 
 of minor authors. Dates and facts have been checked 
 by reference to our own Encyclopaedias and Biogra- 
 phical Dictionaries, the German Conversations-Lexi- 
 cons, the Nouvelle hiograpTiie g&nirale and AUgemeine 
 deutsche BiograpMe, the dictionaries of Allibone, 
 Vapereau, and many others. Sources of special in- 
 formation are too numerous to recount ; a few will be 
 found cited in the bibliographical notes. Ideas as well 
 as facts may often have been taken from these. In 
 treating authors familiar from childhood, it is seldom 
 possible to tell what is altogether one's own, what 
 suggested by others. Even were the distinction 
 feasible, it would be out of place in this volume, 
 where accuracy, not originality, has been the object 
 sought. 
 
 Beginning midway through a great Movement, it 
 
PEEFACE. vii 
 
 has not been thought necessary to define that move- 
 ment. This falls to be done by other writers of the 
 series. The English reader may meantime be referred 
 to a book whose acquaintance I regret to have made 
 only while these sheets were passing through the 
 press. The introduction to Professor Herford's Age 
 of Wordsworth discusses with searching insight the 
 nature of Eomanticism, while his treatise itself, 
 though covering part only of the ground occupied 
 in this volume, takes possession of all it covers with 
 scholarly fulness of knowledge. 
 
 Among many general obligations one particular debt 
 must be specified, though to enlarge on it is forbidden. 
 My editor's suggestion. — or friendly compulsion — 
 originated this volume, and his advice has done more 
 for it than can be readily expressed. But he is not 
 responsible for shortcomings of execution. His help 
 may be traced in whatever it has of value ; its faults 
 are the writer's own. 
 
 Edinbuegh, December 1899. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTKODUCTOEY. 
 
 Romantic impulse— Its genesis — Importance in English literature 
 — Date of its triumph — Where first observaWe 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 
 
 Scott : his method — His material— Character of his verse — Influ- 
 ence of his poems— Always a poet— His lyrics and ballads 
 — Coleridge as poet — Southey — WOTdsworth: direction of 
 Romantic Movement — Love of antiquity — Love of nature — 
 With Wordsworth a religion — Its abiding influence — First 
 stage of Movement — Vii mmores — Hogg — Landor — Moore — 
 Campbell — Leigh Hunt — Older survivors — Second stage of 
 Movement — Byronj his life — Quantity and quality of his 
 ■work — VarietyoFmalter — Principal faculty — Style and metre 
 — His genius for comedy;— His failure in tragedy — Criticism 
 and summary — gh'^lgj : his personal character — Perfection of 
 hiT inethdJ— Matthew Arnold's criticism — Ideality and lyric 
 gift — Charm of his personality — Keats : his short life — Char- 
 acter of his work — Immature yetTmportant — Succession to 
 Keats — Writers of transition period — Neo-Eomantio revival — 
 Elizabeth Barrett : her aims and method — Defects of her style 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 —Absence of simplicity— Alfred Tennyson : his slow growth 
 — Not merely an artist — But essentially artistic — His teaching 
 and influence — Robert Browning: his habits of thought — 
 Neglect of early poems — The fault his own — ITie misfortune 
 mutual — Conclusion ...... 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FICTION AND LiaHT LITEEATUEE. 
 
 Development of the novel — Scott's predecessors — His own method 
 — Truth to life — Outside and inside — His personal history — 
 His relation to Bom.ance — His immense Influence — Sister 
 novelists — Miss Austen: her attack on ultra-Romanticism — 
 Miss Edgeworth — Miss Ferrier — Other contemporaries — Gait 
 — Immediate followers — Influences other than fiction — Jour- 
 nals — The magazine proper — Its literary value— Charles Lamb 
 — Southey — Cobbett — Hazlitt — De Quincey — John Wilson — 
 John Gibson Lockhart ■ — ■ The Blackwood school — Varieties — 
 Travel literature — The drama: Tragedy — Comedy — Carlyle: 
 lateness of development^ Novel resumed — Bulwer Lytton: 
 faults and merits — Thackeray: his attitude to Romance — 
 Charm of manner — Influence and teaching — Dickens : his up- 
 bringing and popularity — Relation to Thackeray — Method and 
 mannerisms— Disraeli : his habit of thought — Other novelists 
 — The Bronte family — Place of Charlotte Bronte — Romantic- 
 ism and democracy — Popularising of knowledge — Ruskin — 
 Punch — Miscellanea — Conclusion . . . .73 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DIDACTIC LITBRATUEB : HISTORY, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 Scope of this chapter— Historical writing— Some pioneers— Hallam 
 —The next decade— Principal group— Arnold— Grote : Sis- 
 tory of Greece— Thirlwall— Other members of group— Mac- 
 aulay: defects and merits— Later historians— Summary and 
 conclusion- Writers on science— Buokland and Sedgwick— 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Faraday — Hersohel — Mnrchison — Lyell — Owen — Robert 
 Chambers and Hngh Mfller — Do Morgan and Forbes — Dar- 
 win : reflects spirit of age — Its result in thought — Philosophy 
 proper — Bentham — James Mill — Austin — John Stuart Mill: 
 life and books— Character of his work — High place as a writer 
 — Successors to Mill — Influence of school — Herbert Spencer 
 — ^Mackintosh — Other independent thinkers — Coleridge as 
 philosopher: matter and manner — Effect of his teaching — 
 Pupils of Coleridge — Scottish school — Hamilton: style and 
 method — Impression produced— Followers of Hamilton — 
 Influence of this school — Semi-philosophical writers — Import- 
 ance of theology — Evangelical revival — Broad Church and 
 High Church — Keble — Augustus Hare — Hampden — Julius 
 Hare — Pusey — Newman : his literary power — Minor authors 
 — ^ Bishop Wilberforce — Manning, and others — Efiects on 
 literature — Scottish divinity — Chalmers — His successors — 
 Conclusion ....... 131 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN TRANCE. 
 
 Origin of Eomantic Movement — Literature of the Eestoration — 
 Wide diffusion of movement — Lamartine's flrst volume — 
 Chteier and Delavigue — B^ranger — Translations — Prose 
 writers : Laraennais, Constant, Courier — Professional re- 
 viewers — University leaders ; Villemain, Guizot, Cousin — 
 Disciples of Cousin — History: Michaud, Barante, Sismondi, 
 Thierry, Michelet, Thiers — Socialistic school — Natural science 
 — VistgiiSugo — Uernani — English actors in Paris— Revolution 
 in verse — Freedom and sonority — Chief early writings — Char- 
 acter of his work — Other Romantics — Vigny — Poet and novelist 
 — Sainte-Beuve — Musset — Work and limitations — Qaaiigr — 
 Strength of his work — Beginnings of change— Lamartine — His 
 real importance — Minor verse — St endhal — Fiction ; Balzac — 
 His life — His works — Their subject — His method — Aims and 
 results — Duaias — Criticism of Dumas — His rightful place — 
 GeoigeSand — Characterisation of her work — Style and short- 
 comings — M^rimee — E ugene Sue — Janin— Bernard — Karr — 
 Summary: transition to drama — Brief vogue of Romantic 
 
xii _ contents; 
 
 drama — Inherent drawbacks — Rival dramatists — Comedy : 
 Scribe — Other writers of comedy — Writers of criticism— 
 Jonbert, and others — Publicists — Proudhon — Louis Blano — 
 Lacordaire— Montalembert — The Gu^rins — Ozanam— "Women- 
 writers— Later historians — Tocqueville— Comte — His system— 
 His great work — Its abiding value — Conclusion— Influence of 
 French writers— Causes of gratitude— Passage to Germany . 
 
 192 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EOMANTIC TEIUMPH IN GERMANY. 
 
 Introductory — Men and dates — Goethe's old age — His kingly place 
 — Komantio leaders — August Schlegel — Friedrich Schlegel — 
 Their teaching — Eeligious prepossession — Popular approval — 
 Tieck — Hoffmann — Fouqu^ — Younger writers — Kemer — 
 Uhland — Zenith of Eomanticism — Patriotic poetry — Drama — 
 Austrian poets — Central group — Prose writing — Eichter — The 
 German novel — Some minor novelists — Critics — JoxtmaUsts — 
 Scholars — History : Niebuhr — Niebuhr's method — And results 
 — Successors to Niebuhr — Jurisconsults — Philosophy: Schel- 
 ling — His attitude — Hegel — Personality — Influence of school — 
 Eight and left wings — Science — Theology: Schleiermacher — 
 His teaching — His school — General results — Young Germany 
 — ^Heine : his work — Effects of ill health — His method — Flouts 
 and jeers — Faith in the ideal — Ever a fighter — Modern spirit — 
 Unique result — Effect of his work — Fellow-writers — Freili- 
 grath — Other singers — Later prose : Auerbach and Freytag — 
 Struwwelpeter — Ciitios — History and theology — Philosophy : 
 Schopenhauer — Physical science — Conclusion . . . 280 
 
 CHAPTER VI. . 
 
 THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 
 
 Italy, introductory— Era of revolution— Foscolo—Manzoni— Pro- 
 messi sposi — Eomanticism begun — School of Manzoni — 
 Leopardi: his work — His influence — Eeasons for decay of 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 poetry— Guerrazzi — Giusti — Other poets and critics— Philoso- 
 pliers — Historians — Summary and results — Spanish literature 
 — Predecessors of Romanticism — Rosa — Rivas — Herreros and 
 others — The climax : Larra and Bspronceda — Didactic writers 
 — Greek literature — Switzerland— Butch literature — Lennep — 
 Younger writers — ■ Flemish literature — Denmark — Oehlen- 
 sohlager — Thorwaldsen and Andersen — Norway — Sweden : 
 Ling and Tegn^r — Almqvist — Runeberg and others — Finland 
 — Russian literature — KJriloff and others — Pushkin — Gogol 
 — Mickiewicz — Hungarian literature — Romantic poets — 
 Romantic prose-writers — Bohemian literature — Its great re- 
 vival — End of first stage ..... 345 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 General Summary — Features of Movement — Forms of expression — 
 
 New use of prose — Direction of working — Final effect . . 395 
 
 Index ......... 401 
 
THE EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 INTEODUCTOEY. 
 
 ROMANTIC IMPULSE — ITS GENESIS — IMPORTANCE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 — DATE OP ITS TRIUMPH — WHERE FIRST OBSERVABLE. 
 
 That great literary upheaval which followed the 
 political revolution of 1788 and succeeding years 
 lumanHe is known to US as the Eomantic Ee- 
 impuise. yival. For, throughout Europe gener- 
 ally, it took the form of a revolt against methods- and 
 traditions which claimed authority as Classical; and 
 in its love rather of colour than of form, and of im- 
 pressiveness than of precision, it betrayed kinship to 
 what critics are agreed to call Eomance. This word, 
 indeed, is associated with bygone more than with 
 coming days, with chivalric pageant and ecclesiastic 
 ceremonial, not with democratic violence or the 
 passionless outlook of science. Yet the new spirit, 
 fed by these latter, and taking for its province the 
 Future not the Past of humanity, found none the 
 
 A 
 
2 EUEOPEAN LITBRATUKE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 less its fullest utterance in men whose hearts and 
 hopes had scant sympathy with its political aspiration. 
 Lessing, and Scott, and Chateaubriand — showing 
 the way to Byron, Shelley, and Victor Hugo — ^joined 
 the storming party against the Classical fortress, and 
 consciously or unconsciously lent weight to an irre- 
 sistible onset. The impetus which burst pedantic 
 rules of a fossilised creed inspired at once fiery Eadi- 
 cal and wistful Conservative, uniting both in the 
 cause of liberty and renovation. 
 
 Other volumes of the present series must be left 
 
 to trace this movement in its earlier stages. They 
 
 will show how simultaneous was the up- 
 
 Its genesis. .... 
 
 rising, how impossible to assign its origin 
 to any nation of Europe exclusively. Eousseau may 
 lead the assault in one part of the field ; " Ossian " 
 and the Scandinavian reaction herald it in another. 
 Celtic mainly at one period, it took later a prevailing 
 Teutonic tinge. For the revival of German literature 
 coincided with its outbreak, and drew force from its 
 inspiration. The great minds which led that revival 
 were deeply imbued with Eomanticism. Their ini- 
 tiative and example diffused it far and wide. Every 
 nation of Europe felt the result, ourselves among the 
 foremost. Burger's ballads fired Scott, equally with 
 the legends of his own land ; Taylor of Norwich in- 
 troduced Southey and Coleridge to German literature. 
 L'Allemagne spoke the key- word of imaginative re- 
 volt, here as across the Channel. What Madame de 
 Stael's descriptions did for Prance, a score of trans- 
 lators and adapters did for England; nor must we 
 
INTEODUCTOEY. 3 
 
 forget Wordsworth's stay for a winter at Goslar. The 
 new learning was catholic in sympathy. Italy and 
 Spain, the Northern peninsula, Eussia, Egypt, and the 
 mystic East, all came under contribution, directly or 
 indirectly yielding stores to the common stock. But, 
 in the dawning days of this Century, German influence 
 was beyond all others potent with lovers of romance 
 and diablerie ; the beginnings of the Eomantic im- 
 pulse were everywhere quickened by enthusiastic 
 study of German literature. 
 
 When we come to consider results rather than 
 origins, however, no literary history is more instruc- 
 tive than our own. In none is the transi- 
 
 Imporiam^e 
 
 inEngiisii, tiou morc clearly marked, in none is the 
 record writ more largely and completely. 
 It is but natural, therefore, that in a book intended 
 for English readers the first and most prominent 
 place should be given to our own movement. Even 
 on the most general grounds, and having regard to 
 European rather than insular standards of criticism, 
 this course seems plainly justified. No Continental 
 appraiser will minimise the importance of Scott and 
 Byron, Wordsworth and Tennyson, Dickens and Car- 
 lyle. To our own literature, then, let attention 
 first be turned. The problems which it suggests, the 
 characterisations which it requires, will be found to 
 have cleared the way for a better comprehension of the 
 Eomantic Movement as it influenced other nations of 
 Europe. 
 
 During the first decade of the Nineteenth Century, 
 the Eomantic Eevival made continuous progress in 
 
4 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — ^ROMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 this country. By the year 1810 it may fairly be said 
 Date of Us to havc reached maturity. Scott had at- 
 triumph. tained his poetical zenith; Wordsworth had 
 produced nearly all his best work ; Coleridge's annus 
 miraUlis lay already far in the past. To the general 
 public, indeed, these writers were still strange, nay 
 in some cases hardly known. But the student of 
 literature must distinguish between the first impulse 
 of creation in original minds, and its later acceptance 
 by adopters and imitators. In the England of 1810, 
 few readers may have been conscious that the old 
 regime was ended. Leading writers still followed the 
 old methods. Crabbe, Bowles, and Eogers in so-called 
 poetry; Joanna Baillie and the younger Colman in 
 drama; Bentham and Godwin, Dugald Stewart and 
 Alison, Cobbett, Malthus, Mrs Eadclifife, and Isaac 
 D'Israeli in various departments of prose — these were 
 the chief stars in the literary firmament, uneclipsed 
 yet by the splendour of a new dawn. For years still 
 the Edinburgh and Quarterly Eeviews would repeat 
 ancient fallacies, and the universities refuse to believe 
 that the night had really gone and passed. None the 
 less the historian, looking back, realises that the 
 Eomantic Eeaction was already victorious. At the 
 blast of its defiance the walls of tradition had fallen 
 in ruin. The young, the eager, the generous — all the 
 creative vigour, all the guiding impulses, of the new 
 age — were heart and soul with it. The rest could be 
 but a question of time. It is our task here to note 
 the results of victory, the spread and progress of this 
 mighty revolution, to record the successive stages and 
 
INTEODUCTOEY. 5 
 
 periods of what may be now called the Eomantic 
 Triumph. 
 
 In a literature like English, highly developed for 
 centuries, the new spirit naturally showed itself first 
 wherejirst in imaginative writing. It is matter 
 oismiaUe. indeed of surprise that a language so old, 
 and so well exploited already, as ours, should have 
 been capable of such a new burst of development. 
 All the auguries pointed the other way. A Byzantine 
 age of dulness, or at best an Alexandrian age of 
 criticism and culture, might have been reasonably 
 expected. History furnishes no parallel to the 
 astonishing re-birth of imaginative literature which 
 ushered in the Nineteenth Century in this country. 
 A wind which blew where it listed seemed to sweep 
 over the dry bones of English letters, and awaken 
 them in a veritable resurrection. 'Not in historical/ 
 writing, not in criticism or philosophy, need we look \ 
 for the beginning of the new era. Poets and imagina- ) 
 tive writers generally were first to feel it; in their 
 writings we shall best trace its earlier successes. 
 From them it spread far and wide, overflowing all 
 departments of literature. But the new birth of 
 imagination, as was every way natural, made itself 
 first felt in works of pure imagination ; whatever may 
 be the ultimate limits of our survey, it is to poetry 
 above all else that it must direct its initial regard. 
 
 L 
 
OHAPTEE I. 
 
 BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 
 
 SOOTT : HIS METHOD — HIS MATERIAL — ^CHABAOTEB OF HIS VEKSE — 
 INFLUENCE OF HIS POEMS — ALWAYS A POET — HIS LTEIOS AND 
 BALLADS — COLERIDGE AS POET — SOUTHET WORDSWORTH : DIREC- 
 TION OF ROMANTIC MOVEMENT — LOVE OF ANTIQUITY — LOVE OF 
 NATURE — WITH WORDSWORTH A RELIGION — ITS ABIDING INFLU- 
 ENCE — FIRST STAGE OF MOVEMENT — DII MINORES — HOGG LANDOR 
 
 — MOORE — CAMPBELL — LEIGH HUNT — OLDER SURVIVORS — SECOND 
 STAGE OF MOVEMENT — BYRON : HIS LIFE — QUANTITY AND QUALITY 
 OF HIS WORK — VARIETY OF MATTER — PRINCIPAL FACULTY — STYLE 
 AND METRE — HIS GENIUS FOR COMEDY — HIS FAILURE IN TRAGEDY 
 — CRITICISM AND SUMMARY — SHELLEY : HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER 
 
 — PERFECTION OF HIS METHOD — MATTHEW ARNOLD'S CRITICISM 
 
 IDEALITY AND LYRIC GIFT — CHARM OF HIS PERSONALITY — KEATS : 
 HIS SHORT LIFE — CHARACTER OF HIS WORK — IMMATURE YET IM- 
 PORTANT — SUCCESSION TO KEATS — WRITERS OP TRANSITION PERIOD 
 — NBO-ROMANTIC REVIVAL — ELIZABETH BARRETT : HER AIMS AND 
 METHOD — DEFECTS OP HER STYLE — ABSENCE OF SIMPLICITY — 
 ALFRED TENNYSON : HIS SLOW GROWTH — NOT MERELY AN ARTIST 
 — BUT ESSENTIALLY ARTISTIC — HIS TEACHING AMD INFLUENCE — 
 ROBERT BROWNING ; HIS HABITSI OF THOUGHT — NEGLECT OP EARLY 
 POEMS — THE FAULT HIS OWN — THE MISFORTUNE MUTUAL — CON- 
 CLUSION. 
 
 The first Eomance poet to gain the ear of the public 
 was Walter Scott (1770-1832).i In him the new era 
 
 1 Editions of authors so well known need not be specified. Repre- 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIG" POETS. 7 
 
 first spoke so as to command attention. But we 
 must not suppose that he was regarded as a pur- / 
 veyor of novelties. On the contrary, re- / 
 viewers accounted him one trying back to 
 archaic and obsolete models. It was too late in the 
 day to resuscitate ballad-forms, said the great critic 
 Jeffrey. So far could dress hide from keenest eyes 
 the reality of new life. Ballad-measure, in itself, was 
 of course an ancient and effete form of verse. It had 
 been revived by antiquarians in the previous half- 
 century, and brought low by feeble imitations. John- 
 son's sturdy ridicule was scarcely needed to kill it. 
 
 " I put my hat upon my head, 
 And walked into the Strand, 
 
 sentative extracts from leading writers are given in "Ward's English 
 Poets, voL iv. (Macmillan, 1880), and Palgrave's Golden Treasury, 
 book iv. Miles, Tlie Poets and Poetry of the Century (10 vols., Lon- 
 don, 1898), supplements thesefor lesp known writers. English Men 
 of Letters (Macmillan) and Great Writers (Scott) contain several per- 
 tinent volumes. Saintsbury's Nineteenth Century I/iteratv/re (1896) 
 and Herford's The Age of Wordsworth (1897) furnish critical sum- 
 maries. The chief Memoirs — Lockhart's Scott, Moore's Byron, 
 Southey's Life and Correspondence, &o. — are mines of information : 
 Dykes Campbell's Coleridge (1894) should be added to these. For 
 Wordsworth, see a selection from the Wordsworth Society papers 
 {Wordsworthia/na, Macmillan, 1889), and the prefaces by Matthew 
 Arnold and Mr John Morlby to different editions of his poems. 
 Shelley Uterature is very extensive ; Hogg and Trelawny's accounts 
 deserve special study. Two new editions of Byron are at this moment 
 adding much to our knowledge of him. Tennyson's Memoir and the 
 Browning Letters (3 vols.) are important for facts, while of books on 
 these writers, and on our period generally, there is indeed no end. 
 Those of Professor Dowden at home, MM. Taine and Scherer abroad, 
 may be specially mentioned ; the more so as both Taine's History 
 and Scherer's Essays are accessible in English translations. 
 
8 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUKE — EOM^TIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 And there I met another man, 
 Whose hat was in his hand " — 
 
 was really no very exaggerated parody of the weaker 
 style of ballad. ISTo task could have seemed much 
 more futile than to attempt reanimating this corpse. 
 Men of reading and culture were the last to believe it 
 possible. To the end, Jeffrey was but half converted ; 
 he did not realise the greatness of Scott's achievement. 
 He pats and patronises his illustrious fellow-citizen, 
 and gives somewhat grudging praise even to Marmion 
 and the Lady. Well might Scott's wife make mouths 
 at him in her pretty French way, and " hope he was 
 very well paid for his review." That the briefless 
 advocate, the unscholarly antiquarian, the boon com- 
 panion of many a festive evening, could transform 
 the whole face of English poetry, and by so hopeless- 
 seeming an expedient as renewing a mode of verse left 
 to the bellman and the singer of executions, was more 
 than any critic could be expected to believe ; and it 
 is not at all wonderful that Jeffrey never thoroughly 
 accepted or understood it. 
 
 How Scott went to work is well known. He did not 
 
 try to tinker up the crude, hard- worn jingle of plain 
 
 "eights and sixes." Taking a hint from 
 
 Eis method. ^,., n-,. , „,. 
 
 Coleridge, which in the nature of things 
 could have been only a hint, he invented the admir- 
 able adaptation which forms the metre of his chief 
 poems. It varies in detail from one to the other, 
 but the essence is always the same. Instead of a 
 succession of detached stanzas, he gives a long para- 
 
BRITISH KOMANTIO POETS. 9 
 
 graph of verse, the pauses and the accents and the 
 rhymes of which can be varied very much as the 
 writer pleases. This elastic metre was admirably 
 adapted to his free, spirited, unconventional narration. 
 As a vehicle of narrative, indeed, it is unsurpassable 
 in English. In this respect, though in no other, 
 it may even be compared to the Greek hexameter. 
 Those who tried to render Homer or Virgil in this 
 measure were misled by recognising this. But the 
 metre is too well marked, too individual, to be a use- 
 ful organ of translation ; Conington's ^neid is but 
 Virgil Scottified. The perfecting of this vehicle — its 
 creation so far as bold and strong effects are con- 
 cerned — forms Scott's first claim to eminence. But 
 it is very far from being his only one. 
 
 For years it has been the custom to depreciate 
 
 Scott as a poet. The very facility of his style 
 
 brought out a host of imitators. Satiety 
 
 His material. , j! n i i ^ i 
 
 ensued, and was followed by a natural re- 
 action in favour of other forms of poetry. Thought, 
 not mere picturesqueness ; music, not mere animated 
 jingle — these were proclaimed indispensable, and Scott 
 suffered accordingly. The true poet, we were told, 
 must know men from within, not merely from with- 
 out. He must deal with sin and suffering, must enter 
 into the great heart of humanity, and sing the woes 
 of the ages. And no doubt the greatest singers are 
 both philosophers and artists, and the depths and 
 heights of man's nature their familiar province. Yet 
 there are times, after all, when one wearies of psy- 
 
10 BUKOPEAN LITBEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 chologic analysis, and longs for simpler, sunnier 
 minstrelsy, or even is tempted to exclaim profanely 
 with Browning — 
 
 " Enter in the heart ? Its shelly 
 Cuirass guard mine, fore and aft ! 
 Such song enters in the belly. 
 And is cast out in the draught.'' 
 
 Tired with the aimless melancholy and perpetual 
 unrest of modern poetry, one goes back to Scott as 
 to a breezy midsummer morning, welcome indeed 
 after dreary night-watches or fevered tossing on 
 however soft a pillow. 
 
 The natural appeal of Scott's poetry is to the 
 
 young. This he frankly recognised, and rather prided 
 
 charaoorof himsclf ou, just as he liked to be thought 
 
 terarse. ^.j^g country gentleman wielding awhile the 
 
 tool of the penman. 
 
 " Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale ! " 
 
 — and he takes full use of his licence, which might 
 with advantage have been exercised more sparingly. 
 But, when all offset is made, how delightful is the 
 result ! How brave, and free, and cheering the lilt 
 of his verse ! "With what Homeric directness and 
 simplicity he carries us along ! This Lady of the Lake, 
 for instance, at whose publication we take up his 
 career, is surely a masterpiece in its way. The story 
 is well compacted, lays hold on us at once, from the 
 admirably told account of the chase at the beginning, 
 to the denouement in Stirling Castle. "We know the 
 tale by heart, but can read it with fresh interest. 
 
BKITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 11 
 
 The dialogue between Fitz-James and Eoderick Dhu 
 is still vivid as their fighting ; the Fiery Cross still 
 glows as it hurries through the glens. If there is no 
 battle-piece so fine as that in Marmion, there are 
 dozens of passages as eager and brilliant. 
 
 " With heart of fire, and foot of wind, 
 The fierce avenger is behind. 
 Fate judges of the rapid strife ; — 
 The forfeit death — the prize is life.'' 
 
 Scott's characters stand out clear and heroic, unlike 
 Byron's shadowy Corsairs, or Wordsworth's ethereal- 
 ised Cliffords and Nortons. And, speaking of battle- 
 pieces, what can be more vigorous than the charge out 
 of the Trosachs pass ? — 
 
 " Bearing before them in their course 
 The relics of the archer force, 
 Like wave with crest of sparkling foam, 
 Eight onward did Clan- Alpine come. 
 Above the tide, each broadsword bright 
 Was brandishing like beam of light. 
 
 Each targe was dark below ; 
 And with the ocean's mighty swing 
 When heaving to the tempest's wing, 
 
 They hurled them on the foe." 
 
 One is tempted to recall a parallel passage from a 
 later poet: — 
 
 " . . . as a wild wave in the wide North Sea, 
 
 Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all 
 Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, 
 Down on a bark, and overbears the bark. 
 And him that helms it — so they overbore 
 Sir Lancelot and his charger." 
 
12 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIO TEIUMPH. 
 
 If Tennyson's verse takes the palm for majesty and 
 music, is there not yet a note almost of preciosity in 
 its wording ? We have the artist lingering to describe 
 a scene, and choosing crafty terms to heighten his 
 effect. The wave pauses before us in air — pauses like 
 a theatrical drop-scene. Scott, on the other hand, 
 simply shows us the thing happening; we forget the 
 showman entirely for the moment. Style is his 
 servant, not his master, and he cares only that you 
 realise what he himself sees. 
 
 But we need not depreciate others to admire Scott. 
 He himself would have smiled to be put in comparison 
 inMenoeof with the great world-singers. The enor- 
 hw poems, jjjqus popularity of his poems, at any rate, 
 is indisputable. And no writer did more to dis- 
 seminate the spirit of Eomance. His success, indeed, 
 produced more than one revolution. It killed the old 
 bad Grub Street tradition of literature. It proved that 
 poems thoroughly healthy in tone could compete with 
 the most highly spiced productions of the Minerva 
 Press. And, to leave literature for a moment, it made 
 the Scotch Highlands fashionable. Scott did not. 
 indeed discover Loch Katrine, as is foolishly said. Its 
 beauties were known before both to pamphleteer and 
 tourist. But he did more than any one else to pro- 
 mote that change of thought which has made the 
 '' Hieland hills," execrated by Nicol Jarvie, the objects 
 of what can only be called a lover's passion to many 
 of us. And so we come back to literature. For in so 
 far as torrent and cataract, peak and precipice, heather 
 
BRITISH EOMAJSTTIO POETS. 13 
 
 and rock and bracken, haunt our thoughts and inspire 
 our writing to-day, we owe that thought and that 
 inspiration above all men to Walter Scott. 
 
 The events of Scott's career are familiar to all. The 
 Lady (1810) was followed by Don Boderich (1811), an 
 Swtt always attempt in a new field and a new metre, 
 "po'f- which the public received with less 
 
 favour. He resumed his old style in Bokeby (1812) 
 and the Lord of the Isles (1815), neither equal 
 to their predecessors, yet each containing things 
 that only Scott could have written. The same might 
 be said of even the Field of Waterloo (1815), which has 
 some stirring passages. He also published anony- 
 mously the Bridal of Triermain (1813) and Harold 
 (1817), which people said were as good as the real 
 article, and then were amused to find his own. 
 Meanwhile, Byron's star was rising, and Scott's own 
 thoughts turning to prose, as he has described in the 
 delightful prefaces to the 1830 edition of his poems. 
 One cannot grudge a change which gave us the 
 Waverley novels. But it is often forgotten that Scott 
 remained a poet to the end. The songs, and ballads, 
 and scraps of motto and other verse scattered through 
 his novels form no inconsiderable part of his poetry, 
 and contain some of his very best work. He spoke 
 even better through an imaginary character than with 
 his own mouth. Elspeth's Harlaw ballad in the 
 Antiquary ; Madge Wildfire's " Proud Maisie " in the 
 Heart of Mid-Lothian ; and some of the weird rhymes 
 scattered through the Pirate, any of his contempo- 
 
14 EUROPEAN LITEEATUKE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 raries might be proud to own. Take but one of the 
 
 last : — 
 
 "And you shall deal the funeral dole, 
 Ay, deal it, mother mine ; 
 To weary body and to heavy soul 
 The white bread and the wine. 
 
 And you shall deal my horses of pride. 
 
 Ay, deal them, mother mine ; 
 And you shall deal my lands so wide, 
 
 And deal my castles nine. 
 
 But deal not vengeance for the deed. 
 
 And deal not for the crime. 
 The body to its place, and the soul to Heaven's grace, 
 
 And the rest in God's own time." 
 
 Indeed, the judicious lover of Scott's verse will lay 
 even more stress on the short poems than on the long 
 His lyrics and oues which comc to mind at mention of his 
 lauads. name. Tastes change, and versified narra- 
 
 tive may go out of fashion, despite iire, and descrip- 
 tion, and character-drawing, and the rest. But songs 
 and ballads never pall. Scott, at his best, equals any 
 of his contemporaries as a song- writer, and excels them 
 as a ballad-writer. Would that the critics who deem 
 his verse " facile " could give us another Bonny Dundee 
 or Macgregor's Gathering ! We would cheerfully 
 exchange much fine talk and subtle sentiment for a 
 swing like 
 
 " The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae, 
 And the clan has a name that is nameless by day '' — 
 
 or even the more commonplace 
 
 " Ah ! County Guy, the hour is nigh." 
 
BKITISH EOMANTIC ?OETS. 15 
 
 To US, however, the important thing to notice is that 
 Scott, the earliest-known of our romance poets, re- 
 mained a poet through life ; and that his verse, facile 
 perhaps, careless and often commonplace undoubt- 
 edly, exercised at its best a widespread influence 
 which it must be held to have thoroughly deserved. 
 His chronological importance secures his place in a 
 history of literature. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Scott's master^ 
 in metric, is a name of different note. The pure ele 
 Courtage as mcnt of poetic inspiration was perhaps | 
 ^°^' never more exquisitely embodied than in i 
 
 Coleridge's best verse. As a man, his record is other 
 than Scott's. Dreaming and opium -consuming, he I 
 passed his life in gorgeous reveries, of which only j 
 scattered fragments took shape in writing. Poetry ' 
 and philosophy, politics and religion, formed the sub- 
 ject of these. The nobility of his character is at- 
 tested by the devotion of friends, sorely as he was 
 wont to try their patience. Though " discord on 
 the music fell, and darkness on the glory " ; though 
 the magnificent promise of his early days was re- 
 deemed only in part, enough remains to show what 
 he was. It is as poet we consider him here, and the i 
 perfection of his best strains is only equalled by their \ 
 importance as models. The sonnets of Bowles, the in-\ 
 teresting Taylor school at Norwich, the companionship 
 and collaboration of Wordsworth, did much to make 
 him. But the dominant note was original, and may 
 be regarded as the first fully complete Eomance note 
 
16 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUIIE — KOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 [ struck in England. If he did not follow up his own 
 inspiration, he passed it on to others. Christahel re- 
 mained a fragment, but it was read and handed round 
 in manuscript, and all his younger contemporaries fed 
 upon its music. The Ancient Mariner had no suc- 
 cessor from its author, but all succeeding poetry owed 
 something to it. The best of Coleridge's verse would 
 go into one very small volume, and does not strictly be- 
 long to the period we are considering. But its effect 
 and influence do. Christahel was first published in 
 1816, the Sibylline Leaves, his first more or less com- 
 plete collection of poems, in 1817. Till then his 
 poetry was but the delight of a few. In dealing with 
 a national, or rather an international, movement, dates 
 of publication cannot be ignored. The appreciation of 
 Coleridge's gift of song, the recognition of its one year 
 of perfect utterance, belonged to the volume preceding 
 this. But in dealing with the Eomance Movement at 
 its height we cannot pass by in entire silence one who 
 did more than any other to make it a living thing, 
 and give it the shape it took. 
 
 Coleridge's brother-in-law Southey comes next, his- 
 torically rather than by his own weight or force. 
 Eobert Southey (1774-1843) was but little 
 
 Southey. , , . 
 
 younger than his great friends and fellow- 
 workers, and his eager precocity brought him before 
 the public sooner, or at least more fully. In the 
 criticism of his day he bulks as large as any of them ; 
 Emerson's later question, " Who is Southey ? " is only 
 an expression of somewhat petulant scorn. When 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIO POETS. 17 
 
 our century was in its 'teens, Southey was living at 
 Keswick that life of splendid and devoted industry, 
 which would earn admiration even had the results been 
 wholly worthless. In 1813 he became Poet Laureate, 
 a position, however, which did not then imply pre- 
 eminence. He was counted a leader in the " Lake 
 School " of poets, for praise or blame as the case might 
 be. And he had himself no doubts of his ultimate 
 position. The same generous enthusiasm which col- 
 oured his estimate of friends — which prompted him to 
 declare that than Wordsworth a greater poet never 
 either was or would be — assured him that posterity 
 would acclaim his own poems. Posterity, as yet, 
 shows small wish to do so. Thalaha and Kehama 
 slumber on the shelf, and the Battle of Blenheim, 
 Hollytree, and Stanzas in my Library, almost exhaust 
 most people's knowledge of Southey's verse. As a 
 writer of admirable prose, we shall meet him later on. 
 As a poet, despite Lander's praise, despite his own 
 confident anticipation, he cannot be ranked high. The 
 best even of what he did was produced before the time 
 we are considering. The Curse of Kehama came out 
 in 1810, coeval with the Lady of the Lake. Boderick 
 followed in 1814, and the Vision of Judgment, chiefly 
 notable as rousing Byron's keenest satire, in 1821. 
 By this time he felt himself that his vein was ex- 
 hausted. If Kehamxi and Boderick had appeared at a 
 time of less poetical affluence, their success would cer- 
 tainly have been greater. They have undeniable 
 merit, and beside Hayley, Pye, and Darwin for 
 example would have shone indeed. But Southey had'^ 
 
18 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 giants for his rivals, and could not " live the pace " 
 with them. His honest, meritorious, conscientious 
 verse lacks only the breath of genius. He is perhaps 
 never quite so flat as Wordsworth at his worst ; but 
 he never rises with Wordsworth into the highest 
 heaven of poetry. His influence was great for a time, 
 in his early Jacobin destructive days : during these 
 later years it was a thing of the past. The Conserva- 
 tive Poet Laureate no longer excited either sympathy 
 or anger ; he was a butt for the wits of the new 
 Liberal opposition. Mocked by Canning and Frere in 
 his salad days of youth and inexperience, the author 
 of Wat Tyler and Joan of Arc lived to be ridiculed by 
 a new race of rebels as the representative of Toryism 
 and official prejudice. 
 
 The oldest and greatest of the "Lake Poets" was 
 
 William Wordsworth (1770-1850). His share in the 
 
 new movement had been large and indeed 
 
 Wordsworth. i ■ j» mi 
 
 " epoch-making. The publication of Lyri- 
 cal ^llads in 1798 and 1800, and of the two volumes 
 of 'Poems "in 1807, were events of immense import- 
 ance, which however fall outside the scope of the 
 present volume. We take up Wordsworth in middle' 
 life. His most inspired work, as has often been 
 pointed out, was done in the ten years preceding 
 1808. By 1810 he was settling down in opinions 
 and habits. The Jacobin passion of youth, the un- 
 rest of early manhood, the days of poverty and high 
 endeavour at Dove Cottage, all are left behind. His 
 place in life is taken; the stamp-distributorship has 
 removed financial fears, and eight years of happy 
 
BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 19 
 
 marriage have sweetened and quieted him. As yet, 
 even at the age of forty, he finds his poetry dear only 
 to a few, derided and despised or wholly ignored by 
 most. The Prelude, written before 1805, remains 
 still unpublished, and will do so till his death. But 
 the Excursion appears in 1814, and is greeted by 
 Jeffrey's famous "Tliis will never do." Meantime, 
 in 1813, some two years after leaving Dove Cottage, 
 he settles into Eydal Mount, his latest and most 
 luxurious home. 1815 sees the first collected edi- 
 tion of his minor poems, and the publication of his 
 White Doe of Eylstone, in which the public found 
 but a pale imitation of Scott's chivalrous romances. 
 The education of his sons recalled him to classical 
 studies, and Laodamia and Dion (1814) are the happy 
 result. In 1819 the publication of Peter Bell marks 
 a completed change in public opinion. Written long 
 before, and fairly open to whatever charges of trivi- 
 ality and mawkishness were brought against his early 
 verse — satirised, moreover, mercilessly by the young 
 bloods of the new era — this poem none the less found 
 readers and purchasers. The poet had at last created 
 his public. In his fiftieth year, he at length found 
 himself secure of a sympathetic and even subservient 
 audience. For nearly a generation yet, the High- 
 priest of Nature will live in honoured old age, his 
 home the Mecca of admiring votaries. But the fire on 
 his altar burned dim and low. Once only, and that 
 so early as 1818, it flamed up with something of its 
 old glow in an Evening Yolvmtary ; but when he sang 
 
 " 'Tis past ! the visionary splendour fades, 
 And night approaches with its shades " — 
 
20 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 he was bidding semi-conscious farewell to the inspira- 
 tion of old days. A sonnet now and again — the con- 
 cluding one of the Buddon series (1820), the one on 
 parting from Scott in 1831, or the tender elegiac lines 
 mourning his brother-poets gone to the " sunless land " 
 (1835) — show that in his ashes dwelt the immortal 
 spark. But for the most part he merely lived, and 
 more in the past than the present. The Laureateship 
 in 1843, the Oxford degree four years earlier, were 
 grateful proofs of the affectionate respect of a once 
 hostile world. For the seed which fell on such stony 
 ground had struck root and bloomed richly at last; 
 the ideas which former critics never wearied of con- 
 temning were now an accepted treasure of English 
 literature, and have never ceased to influence it 
 since. 
 
 What, exactly, has that influence been? What 
 did the " Lake Poets " eventually do for English lit- 
 Directim of ^'^^^^^^ ^ ^6 need not stay to consider 
 Romaiuic curlously of names. Grant that there 
 never was a " Lake School " — that Words- 
 worth was Wordsworth, and the others were his 
 friends and admirers, but by no means his followers 
 — the question still remains vital. What marks the 
 new life which these men, more than others, though 
 themselves of course receiving as well as giving in- 
 spiration, brought into English poetry ? Apart from 
 mere questions of style, two features seem especially 
 Tchamcteristic : a keener love of the Past, and a keener 
 / passion for Nature. Of the first of these Scott is 
 
BElTiSH ROMANTIC POETS. 21 
 
 the chief exponent. With him love of the Past was 
 indeed a master-passion. How he studied it, how he 
 lived in it, how he made it live again in his pages, 
 no one needs to be told. Critics may call his know- 
 ledge shallow ; a board-school child can detect errors 
 in his dates. But he began what others have per- 
 fected. Compare him with the antiquaries of the 
 previous Century, even with men like Gray, Warton, 
 and Eitson. It is the difference between capable 
 students and masters of a craft. That Scott was 
 but one out of many ; that to his contemporaries his 
 zeal and his insight seemed neither unique nor even 
 distinctive — this is of course true. No man creates 
 the spirit of an age by himself. But Scott voiced 
 and guided it, and called us all to feel and to follow. 
 In this sense he may even be said to have begun 
 the Catholic revival of the next generation. 'No man 
 was less ecclesiastically minded himself. But the 
 outside show, the pomp and pageant of old relig- 
 ion, appealed to him strongly. Born and bred in 
 Presbytery, he adopts Episcopalianism himself, and 
 his family tend toward the more ancient rite. With- 
 out Scott the Tractarian movement might have shaped 
 itself differently ; he and his influence are potent there 
 to this day. 
 
 But Scott only voiced a common longing. The 
 
 Eighteenth Century was on the whole content with 
 
 Love of ^*^ '^^^ ideal. Its men of letters regarded 
 
 antiquity, thomselvcs as the final flower of literary 
 
 culture ; the tradition survives in our quaintly named 
 
 Augustan age of literature. The Eomantic Move- 
 
22 EUEOPEAN LITEKATUKE — RdMAimC TRIUMPH. 
 
 ment taught entirely different notions and ideals; 
 it sent people back to the Past in the spirit of 
 worshippers rather than critics. No longer despising 
 the rude vigour, the "barbarian" opulence of our 
 forefathers; no longer pitying their ineffectual and 
 antiquated methods of speech ; men found grandeur 
 in the thought, and a quaint charm in the diction, of 
 even our ruder literary ancestors, surpassing the 
 trim style and narrow, pithless speculation of authors 
 who fancied themselves classics. Lamb's attitude to 
 Shakespeare is a sign of the age. Coleridge led or 
 followed with his subtle disquisitions. Even the 
 restrictions and excrescences of old writers were 
 idolised. Their formal style, their affectations and 
 archaisms, became objects of worship. With feebler 
 guidance, the movement would probably have ended 
 in mere aatiquarianism. As it was, the new wine of 
 real poetry often gleamed oddly enough in these 
 old-fashioned bottles. But the sterling strength, the 
 indubitable ardour, of our great Nineteenth -Century 
 thinkers and singers saved the movement from de- 
 generacy. Their love of the Past remained an inspira- 
 tion, not a cultus ; only after they were gone did it 
 tend to lapse into pedantry and euphuism. 
 
 The other great influence was their passionate love 
 of Nature. Here Wordsworth predominates, just as 
 Scott in the other field. But it is equally 
 true that the poet of Grasmere was but 
 primus inter pares. Appreciation of wild scenery was 
 yet in its infancy. Obviously, indeed, it was difficult 
 to admire rugged landscapes when each bush or crag 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIC POETS. 23 
 
 might screen a lurking brigand. The pacification 
 of the country must precede its leisurely exploration. 
 But the times were now ripe, and the tourist had 
 arisen. He was still an object of respect, still posed 
 as a "pilgrim of nature," Travel had not ceased to 
 be adventure, but it had become also an approach 
 to enchanted castles of fairydom. The Eomantic 
 writers were confirmed tourists. Scott's Border up- 
 bringing, and later excursions into the Highlands, 
 widened his knowledge of nature as of men ; Coleridge 
 and Wordsworth travelled, observed, and rhapsodised. 
 Eacedown and the Quantocks, Lake-land and Scot- 
 land, not to mention Germany and Switzerland, 
 passed into their verse. Inspiration came from rock, 
 and wave, and mountain. Scenery became a study, 
 sublime scenery a rapture. The most superficial com- 
 parison of this attitude with that of earlier writers 
 — even of Gray, himself a worthy pioneer in Lake-land 
 and elsewhere — reveals an enormous difference. Grand 
 scenes are now enjoyed for themselves, and the 
 more rugged the better. They no longer need art 
 to heighten their effect, or bear being looked at 
 through a " Lorraine glass." The fashion thus set 
 spread like wildfire; every young aspirant, even a 
 delicate Keats, shouldered his knapsack and set forth 
 as pilgrim of nature. And the spirit so created and 
 developed went on constantly growing: in this re- 
 spect, too, the influence of these men is graven 
 indelibly on the literature of the first half of our 
 Century. 
 
 Wordsworth, however, added a deeper note to the 
 
24 EUEOPEAl^ LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 widening chorus. Nature, with him, was the object 
 „.. . ^ . not merely of romantic passion, but of 
 
 With Words- ^ . ■ j 
 
 worth a religious devotion. She is sustainer and 
 r igwn. consoler, but she is something more. 
 
 " Nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her," 
 
 he says in Tintern Abbey, — an assertion so sadly 
 falsified in the case of that beloved sister, whose 
 "wild eyes" were lit in later days by gleams of 
 insanity, instead of by the " sober " radiance predicted. 
 In this same early poem he recognises a " presence '' 
 in Nature, the sense of Which " far more deeply 
 interfused" makes, him say 
 
 " Thebefoee am I still 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 And mountains." 
 
 Didactic through every fibre of him — "every great 
 poet is a teacher," he says himself — he preaches his 
 creed with the persistence of a divine. At first an 
 inspiration, it hardens later into a doctrine or dogma. 
 In the Excursion it has become an almost pantheistic 
 idealism, not without its grotesque side. When we 
 are told to forget human crime and suffering by 
 adoring the peace which dwells in 
 
 " plumes. 
 And weeds, and the high spear-grass on that wall " 
 
 (Book I., end), an unregenerate reader is apt to smile 
 or sigh. 
 
 Yet Wordsworth's pastoral poetry at his best is a 
 
BRITISH EOMiNTIO POETS. 25 
 
 noble utterance. In previous ages men had turned 
 Its abiding froui luxurj and turmoil to envy the peace 
 influence, tij^t dwolt in " huts whero poor men lie." 
 The splendours of Alexandria had thus created the 
 pastorals of Theocritus, imitated by Virgil in days of 
 Imperial pomp. The wars and self-indulgence of 
 mediseval Italy sent Sannazaro on the same quest; 
 our own Elizabethans, tired of the Tudor troubles, 
 echoed his cry for peace. The pastorals of Pope and 
 Shenstone were mainly amusements or aifectations. 
 But Wordsworth was earnest if ever man was, and his 
 pastoral poetry came from the heart. " High think- 
 ing" was to him allied with "plain living"; grave 
 talk, and simplicity of life, were dearer than the bril- 
 liance of court or camp. Tlie hillside was his study, 
 not merely his " boudoir " or place of amusement. He 
 did not " take an inventory of Nature," as he accused 
 Scott of doing ; he lived with her, drank deep of her 
 influence, and when inspired gave voice to her holiest 
 teaching. Nature was personal to him, and more than 
 personal ; she was the very embodiment and symbol 
 of Deity. It is this deeper note of Wordsworth's that 
 has resounded in all our poetry since ; the hermit of 
 Grasmere is still our patriarch and high-priest. No 
 later writer has been insensible to his solemn music. 
 Childe Harold himself made an altar of the Alps; 
 Shelley saw in all things living a mirror of " that light 
 whose smile kindles the universe." Even the pagan- 
 dom of Keats humbled itself before "the Eternal 
 Being, the Principle of Beauty." That all religious 
 feeling is inspired by Wordsworth, it were absurd to 
 
26 EUEOPEiN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 contend ; but we can hardly err in tracing his influ- 
 ence throughout that particular idealised form of 
 Nature -worship which predominates in our later 
 poetry, and seemed to men like the late Professor 
 Tyndall an adequate substitute for ecclesiastical 
 formulas. 
 
 These four names that have now been dwelt on may 
 be taken as representing the first flush and fervour of 
 First stage of the Eomautic outbreak. Scott with his 
 Mmment. martial strain, the witching music of 
 Coleridge, "Wordsworth's austere and lofty thought, 
 all opened new regions of poetical delight ; and 
 Southey pointed thither by precept and example. 
 Into these magic realms flocked all lovers of poetry. 
 Critics might blame ; and there was much in even 
 the mature work of these writers fairly open to censure. 
 But the public, careless of details, recognised the new 
 voices, the authentic breath from above, and followed 
 gladly where they led. Slowest to win favour was 
 the greatest and most original. "Wordsworth's poetry 
 had so much to cause stumbling, so much certain to 
 offend, that it is not wonderful it took time to appre- 
 ciate. But in the end his influence has been the most 
 potent and enduring. His view may have been one- 
 sided, his protest against convention exaggerated, his 
 emphasising of the trivial itself a mannerism. His 
 claim to use in poetry none but language of common 
 life was early abandoned even by himself. Never was 
 writer more unequal ; his " two voices " (to adopt the 
 phase of a witty parodist) differ as a penny whistle from 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIO POETS. 27 
 
 an archangel's trump. We read him in extracts and 
 chosen selections ; few have patience to labour through 
 the dull levels of intervening commonplace. But his 
 task was great, and greatly achieved. Not so much 
 in prosody as in poetical thought, he worked a verit- 
 able revolution, vindicating for poetry whole worlds 
 from which she had heen excluded. And his own 
 verse, at its highest, is as noble as his thought. It has 
 the freshness, the simplicity, the inevitableness, of a 
 natural phenomenon. If Coleridge is pre-eminently 
 the singer, the " poets' poet," the master of melody, 
 "Wordsworth is the poet of thought, the poet who 
 knows as well as feels. His " Orphic strain " is seldom 
 long maintained, but while it lasts our heads must be 
 bowed. So thought those who knew him in life ; so, 
 without serious exception, their children feel to-day. 
 After all discount, all disparagement, Wordsworth at 
 his best is unique and supreme. The intensest rap- 
 ture, the deepest harmonies, the most spiritual aspira- 
 tions of the Eomantic movement are embodied in his 
 verse ; they were the daily task and nightly meditation 
 of him who sang — 
 
 " By grace divine, 
 Not otherwise, O Nature, we are thine." 
 
 Beside these chiefs of the elder Eomantic School, 
 
 and second only to them in freshness and influence, 
 
 other notable singers aided in the work of 
 
 Dii minores. .. . -, . n • j i i i i! 
 
 deepening and broadenmg the channels or 
 our poetry. Some of them were pupils, more were 
 
28 EUROPEAN LITERATUEE — EOMANTIO TEIUMPH. 
 
 independent workers ; but the Eomantic impetus 
 made itself felt throughout their work. Love of 
 poetry, and fair skill in verse-writing, were common 
 endowments at this time; we need not linger over 
 volumes which reveal only these accomplishments. 
 Even Charles Lamb (1775-1834), for example, may be 
 left to appear later as a prose-writer ; his scanty crop 
 of verse interests mainly as a return to Tudor models. 
 But there are some names which cannot be passed in 
 silence, and which will serve to show how wide and 
 varied were the forces which combined in perfecting 
 the Eomantic ideal. 
 
 James Hogg (1770-1835), the "Ettrick Shepherd," 
 whose life almost synchronised with Scott's, was a 
 self-taught poet, such as Burns is often 
 wrongly supposed to have been. At the 
 age of twenty -five, he had forgotten his alphabet, 
 but made verses in his head, learning later with 
 laborious effort both to read and write. Scott dis- 
 covered and befriended him ; and no doubt his 
 patron's influence was a strong factor in his develop- 
 ment. But he had a true and living gift of his own. 
 His chief poem, the Queen's Wake, which appeared 
 in 1813, contains the piece by which above all else 
 he will live. " Bonny Kilmeny," though disfigured 
 by needlessly archaic spelling, is an exquisite piece 
 of pure Scots, and in its own region unsurpassable. 
 As a song-writer Hogg takes high rank. Two or 
 three of his lyrics — "When the kye comes hame," 
 " Donald M'Donald," and the best of his Jacobite 
 effusions — may be called worthy of Burns. But it is 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIC POETS. 29 
 
 as laureate of fairy-land that he attains highest excel- 
 lence. He wrote also prose stories, Border Tales and 
 the like, including one remarkable piece of diablerie 
 (if it be his), the Confessions of a Justified Sinner. His 
 apotheosis by the authors of Noctes AmbrosiancB, a 
 triumph of that mystification in which writers then 
 took boyish delight, has somewhat distorted our 
 perception of the man himself. But in his proper 
 person Hogg was a peasant of genius, and perhaps gives 
 a juster notion of the merits and defects of such a 
 character than is afforded by those who would 
 travesty Burns into imaginary agreement with a 
 type he does not nearly so well represent. 
 
 Crossing the Border again, we encounter a very 
 
 different personality, that of Southey's friend Walter 
 
 Savage Landor (1775-1864). Lander's 
 
 Landor, . . 
 
 early romanticism was chastened by 
 " Classical " study properly so called, and his life- 
 long devotion to the poets of Greece and Eome lent 
 his verse some of their stateliness and severity. Yet 
 as a poet he stands with the Eomantics. Bose Aylmer 
 is a gem of purest water ; the hackneyed " Sea-shell " 
 quotation adequately samples his blank verse ; and 
 we may claim for poetry the tenderly touching epitaph 
 on the " Scholar of the Cherwell," 
 
 " Litterarum qusesivit gloriam, 
 Videt Dei." 
 
 To sum up a life-work like Landor's in a single para- 
 graph is profanation. But in one respect, in respect 
 of the pure lilt of poetry, his genius was defective. 
 
30 EUROPEAN LITEEATUKE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 One lyric of lesser singers ; one stanza from one poem 
 of his mellifluous panegyrist — 
 
 " I came as one whose feet half linger, 
 Half run before ; 
 The youngest to the oldest singer 
 That England bore ; "— 
 
 outweighs in this respect whole pages of Lander's 
 verse. I^on omnia possumus omnes, and Landor's 
 mighty genius can dispense with this grace. His 
 compact, vivid verse stands by itself, as did its writer. 
 Owing no man aught ; borrowing from no contempor- 
 ary, influencing writers of his age but little;^ he 
 " warmed both hands before the fire " of his own 
 thought, and occupies a position wholly his own. lu 
 some ways he recalls Southey; great men, noble 
 minds, working manfully, both in prose and poetry, 
 but in the latter case not wholly with success. But 
 Landor's was the weightier intellect, the more mascu- 
 line utterance ; he accomplished more, and never 
 deserted the inspiration of his youth. It were labour 
 lost to enumerate his publications. Their dates have 
 no significance ; they neither affected others nor 
 mark any stage of his own development. The poet of 
 Geiir (1798) is also the poet of the Hellenics (1847) 
 and the Heroic Idyls (1863). In English verse or 
 Latin, he remains the same terse, vigorous, sometimes 
 obscure but never affected writer. Massive and 
 lonely, he stands out uUimits Bomanorum, a giant 
 
 ' This refers to Landor's middle and later life. Southey, Coleridge, 
 and SheUey all owned obligations to his early poems. 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIC POETS. 31 
 
 among the pigmies of ephemeral renown. And prose 
 and poetry blend in him so harmoniously, that when 
 we claim a high place for him among English writers 
 we are apt to forget how comparatively small is the 
 part played by his poetry in shaping our estimate. 
 
 It is strange to turn from Landor to the petite grace 
 
 of Thomas Moore (1779-1852). The significance 
 
 of Moore's verse lies partly in its date, 
 
 Moore. 
 
 both of composition and of publication. 
 Younger than any poet yet named, he anticipated 
 most of them as a writer and as a public influence. 
 At the time we are reviewing, he was one of the fore- 
 most men of letters, esteemed as song-writer, satirist, 
 and fine gentleman. The popularity of his verse has 
 so hackneyed his best vein, that it is difficult for us 
 now to consider it quite seriously. Nor can we claim 
 the highest qualities either of meaning or melody for 
 his songs. Yet it is a mistake to disparage them 
 unduly. The "tinkle" may be somewhat obvious, 
 but it is smooth, sweet, and sufficient. " When he 
 who adores thee has left but the name " runs to 
 no unworthy measure ; " Oft in the stilly night " 
 retains for most of us the charm of our boyhood. 
 Critics who condemn the facility of such verses are 
 surely more to seek than the poet. Nay, even the 
 verses which halt when read, but fit deftly to the 
 tune in singing, should not be condemned for bad 
 craftsmanship. It is merely a return to the old ideal 
 of blended music and speech. Our modern song- 
 writers seem to have lost this art, and depreciate it 
 accordingly. Take it how we may, the furore which 
 
32 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 attended the Irish Melodies (begun 1807, finally com- 
 pleted 1834) is an undeniable fact, and not one 
 which seems to need elaborate explanation. Of 
 Lalla Boohh (1817) and the Loves of the Angels 
 (1821) little need be said. The former at least re- 
 tains some vitality, in spite of sugary sentiment and 
 carelessly constructed verse. And most readers will 
 thoroughly enjoy the Fudge Family (1818) and the 
 Twopenny Post-Bag. While we no longer rank Moore 
 among the great poets of his time, if seems foolish to 
 go to the other extreme, and ignore his real gift as a 
 writer of pretty, if not of grandly inspired, songs. 
 Critics ranked Moore too high at first, and lately have 
 tended to depreciate him as unduly: it is safe to 
 predict that his ultimate place will be somewhere 
 between the two positions, but the grosser blunder 
 was made by those who insisted on thrusting him into 
 the first place. 
 
 "With Moore may be bracketed Thomas Campbell 
 (1776-1844). Like Moore, he began early. But in his 
 case the interesting thing to notice is that 
 he has no original voice of his own. His 
 early Pleasures of Hope (1798) merely mimic the style 
 of his day. Then come the new Eomantic poets, and 
 Campbell catches their tone. Lord Ullin's Daughter, 
 O'Connor's Child, and other spirited ballads, reproduce 
 it faithfully but not slavishly. Gertrude of Wyoming, 
 published in 1810, tells a romantic tale quite in Scott's 
 vein, though for vehicle Campbell adopted not without 
 success the Spenserian stanza. His springs dried 
 early, yet the Last Man, published late in life, still 
 
BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 33 
 
 has admirers ; of Theodric (1824) the less said the 
 better. Settled in London, he did good work as editor 
 and critic. But his fame rests on his early writing, 
 especially the three great war-songs, of which Hohen- 
 linden and Ye Mariners of England were written in 
 1800, the Battle of the Baltic in 1809. With some 
 defects of manner, especially a certain woodenness of 
 phrasing, these poems well deserve the fame they have 
 always enjoyed ; nor perhaps have any later singers 
 produced anything quite good enough to oust Camp- 
 bell from his predominance as a master of the Tyrtaeus 
 vein. 
 
 James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was a 
 
 London contemporary of Campbell's, though a slightly 
 
 younger man, and forms a link between 
 
 Leigh Eunt. "^ ° 
 
 the earlier and later romantic poets. The 
 Feast of the Poets was published in 1814, the Story of 
 Bimini in 1816. Leigh Hunt had the misfortune 
 .to be outclassed by his competitors. His work will 
 not stand wear as theirs does ; it is more trifling, 
 more affected, yet by no means an echo. On the con- 
 trary, he taught more than he learned ; his influence 
 was great, his example fruitful. Shelley and Keats 
 profited by him metrically ; his contemporaries did 
 more homage to him than we can do. A student both 
 of Elizabethan and of Italian poetry, he stimulated the 
 Eomantic tendency to copy and enjoy these. His life 
 was not ignoble, despite some ignoble elements. The 
 imprisonment for libelling the Prince Eegent may be 
 counted for righteousness ; the journey to Italy was 
 unfortunate, but only Byron's satire made it seem 
 
 c 
 
34 EUROPEAN LITERATUEB ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 degrading. One likes to think of his gentle old age, 
 and resents the caricature which labelled him Harold 
 Skimpole. But of his actual verse little need sur- 
 vive. His fame rests on his friendships, and on some 
 volumes of genially gossiping essays. A gay and 
 buoyant spirit carried him through much trouble, and 
 the grass and daisies should grow well over the grave 
 of one who all his life loved flowers and sunshine. 
 
 To complete our picture of this initial Romantic 
 
 period, we must bear in mind that verse-writers from 
 
 an earlier time still lived and flourished. 
 
 Older 8U7^iv(yrs. 
 
 Samuel Eogers (1763-1855) remained a 
 conspicuous figure, though he belonged essentially to 
 the past, and his Italy, published at intervals between 
 1820 and 1834, seems an anachronism. Crabbe and 
 Bowles, Gifford and Sotheby, were still prominent, 
 Crabbe in particular putting out some of his best 
 work between 1810 and 1820. Blake devoted himself 
 to apocalyptic visions. Mrs Barbauld and Mrs Inch- 
 bald, with the venerable Hannah More, still wrote 
 and published; Joanna Baillie lived through all the 
 changes still to be traced. But these lesser lights, 
 to repeat a former metaphor, paled manifestly in 
 the new morning, to whose brightness a group of 
 youthful singers was now about to add more effulgent 
 lustre. 
 
 The first of this younger group was George Gordon 
 Noel, Lord Byron (1788-1824). Byron's life and work 
 are facts of far-reaching import. So much may be 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIC POETS. 35 
 
 granted, whatever our private opinion as to the worth 
 sec^amg^of °^ ^is poetry. No survey of English, still 
 t~ less of European, literature can avoid giv- 
 ing him a prominent position. The writer 
 whom Goethe styled the greatest genius of his Cen- 
 tury was worshipped abroad as at home^ and when 
 he bore through the Continent "the pageant of his 
 bleeding heart," we know that 
 
 " thousands counted every groan, 
 And Europe made his woe her own." 
 
 This, indeed, is precisely one of the crucial points 
 in the Byronic problem. Let us concede that no 
 foreign critic can ever thoroughly appreciate a poet, 
 that much Greek comment on jEschylus and Euripides 
 is unintelligible to moderns, that even German study 
 of Shakespeare seems to ourselves often strained and 
 beside the mark. Allow for all this, and still the 
 strength and unanimity of opinion on Byron's merit 
 is enough to give us pause. He translates well, says 
 one sceptic ; the finer aromas which evaporate in the 
 translator's crucible do not haunt Byron's verse, so 
 their loss is not felt. There is something in this, 
 somethiag too in the largeness, rudeness, grandiosity 
 of his figures which makes replica -work easy and 
 successful. But when all is said, there remains more 
 than can be thus explained away. Goethe's homage, 
 Heine's acceptance, the frantic Byron-worship of his 
 day, his conspicuous place still in our libraries, his 
 wide influence and immense sale throughout the 
 Continent of Europe, — these are facts which must be 
 
36 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 accounted for. Least of all should those wlio swear 
 by Goethe depreciate Byron, as for example Carlyle 
 did. Eckermann's Conversations are full of repeated 
 and deliberate verdicts in Byron's favour. "The 
 English may think of Byron as they please ; this is 
 certain, that they can show no poet who is to be 
 compared to him." "Were it not for his hypo- 
 chondriacal negative turn, he would be as great 
 as Shakespeare and the Ancients.'' " I never saw 
 the true poetical power greater in any man than 
 in him." " A character of such eminence never 
 existed before, and will probably never come again." ^ 
 In the face of such testimony, does it not savour of 
 arrogance' to set down Byron as the mere wind-bag 
 and ranter some would have him, his worship as a 
 mania, his influence as a passing whim of fashion ? 
 Some survey of what he did for English letters will 
 perhaps enable us to take a juster 'view. 
 
 The facts of Byron's life must be shortly recalled. 
 Half a Celt by blood, he was brought up in the Aber- 
 deenshire Highlands, where "his cap was 
 
 His life. . 
 
 a bonnet, his cloak was a plaid." Passing 
 to Harrow and Cambridge, he published while at 
 the latter place Hours of Idleness (1807), a collec- 
 tion of nowise remarkable short pieces. The con- 
 temptuous criticism this received called forth Bnglish 
 Bards and Scotch Beviewers (1809), a satire on good 
 old-fashioned lines, which first revealed some of his 
 
 ^ Conversations of Goethe (Oxenford's translation), in Bohn's Stand- 
 ard Library ; of. 1823, October 19 ; 1825, February 24 ; 1826, March 
 26 and November 8 : and passim. 
 
BKITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 37 
 
 power; and then he travelled abroad for two years, 
 returning to publish at the age of twenty -four the 
 first two cantos of Childe Harold, written at intervals 
 during these two years of wayfaring. Till now his 
 career had been comparatively commonplace. Idle- 
 ness and dissipation in London or the Levant are not 
 rare enough to require notice ; his satire is remark- 
 ably good for twenty-one years old, but many other 
 men have been as precocious. But after 1812, when 
 Childe Harold first saw light, the case is widely 
 different. He "awoke and found himself famous." 
 His Childe took the public by storm. Here was the 
 "pilgrim of nature" glorified by genius, and passing 
 through scenes more wonderful than our own. And + 
 the garb of gloom, the vaunt of self-sufficiency and 
 aloofness, the world-weariness and satiety and prema- 
 ture acceptance of isolation, deepened the chiaroscuro 
 and piqued curiosity. The moody, fantastic, self- 
 important youth had reached his goal at a leap ; fame 
 and notoriety were his without stint. Eagerly he 
 accepted the position, however pretending to despise 
 it. Dark tales of mystery flowed from his pen. The 
 Giaour, Corsair, Bride ofAhydos, Lara, Siege of Corinth, 
 and Farisina followed in rapid succession during the 
 years 1813-16, besides the Hebrew Melodies. In 1815 
 he married; in 1816 his wife left him, under circum- 
 stances still mysterious. Thereupon he quitted Eng- 
 land, never to return. For seven more years he lived 
 abroad, first near Geneva, where he met Shelley, and 
 wrote Man/red, the Prisoner of Chillon, and the third 
 canto of Childe Harold (1816-17); the rest of the 
 
38 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 time in Forth Italy. Wild stories of his reckless life 
 reached England, and were unfortunately not all false : 
 but his productive industry did not flag. In Venice 
 he wrote Mazeppa, the fourth canto of Childe Harold, 
 and the first four of Don Juan (1818-19). At Eavenna, 
 later, the Prophecy of Dante, several dramatic works (in- 
 cluding Gain), and the Vision of Jiidgment (1820-21). 
 Finally at Pisa, in close familiarity with Shelley, he 
 wrote most of Don Juan, besides various minor works. 
 1823 saw him sail for Greece, to fight with sword 
 instead of pen against the Turk. He died at Misso- 
 longhi in April 1824, not perhaps felix opportunitate 
 mortis, but at least laying down life at the age of 
 thirty-six on the threshold of a noble endeavour. 
 
 The immense mass of Byron's work is a thing to 
 
 note. Poets like Gray achieve immortality by 
 
 ^ strength of a few carefully chiselled pieces. 
 
 Quantity and ^ ^ i. 
 
 quality o/his Others fling forth their productions in fiery 
 haste, never stopping to prune or retrench. 
 In this respect Byron suited his age. Ours is a time 
 of study, refinement, technique ; our poets think less of 
 what they say than of how they say it. Then, it was 
 different. Men were full of new ideas, new impres- 
 sions, new ways of looking at life ; the difficulty was 
 to pour out fast enough what they felt and thought. 
 Even Shelley wrote at top speed, leaving blurs and 
 lacunas to fill up later. Scott and Byron were 
 practically iraprovisatori ; we must judge them as 
 such, not by our own standards. They would prob- 
 ably have despised our carefulness, our elegancies, our 
 studious research for the best word. Poetry was with 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIC POETS. 39 
 
 them something more free, and natural, and living. 
 Which ideal is best, we need not now discuss ; it is 
 only fair to recognise that ours is not the only one 
 possible. Poetry is a house of many mansions; we 
 are not bound to dwell in one or even two. The more 
 catholic our taste, the wider will be our enjoyment of 
 the varied triumphs of various singers ; there is room 
 in an orchestra for the dub of a drum, and even the 
 clash of a triangle. If our culture only teaches us 
 to despise ideals other than our own, it is a one-sided 
 culture. Poetry, like wisdom, shall be justified of her 
 children. 
 
 It may be argued that Byron's work is monotonous. 
 The same figures, the same vapourings, recur in each 
 voHetyof poem. This, however, is true only of his 
 matur. earlier pieces. Taking his whole range of 
 work, variety and versatility are surely what strike 
 us. He tried many forms of verse, and failed in 
 few., From sacred lyric to witty satire, from melo- 
 dramatic scene-painting to pure comedy, he passes 
 I with assured ease. He is best, perhaps, when laughing 
 f at his own raptures, making in one breath his ode and 
 'his palinode. Por indeed he was serious only in 
 vanity. His wretched home-training, and the negative 
 teaching of his age, left him with some superstitions 
 but no faith. Shelley's influence, late in life, did 
 something to elevate. But the blas^, battered world- 
 ling had no capability of passion left. Even Shelley's 
 enthusiasm only prompted more stanzas of Don Juan. 
 Typical every way are his last lines, written on his 
 thirty-sixth birthday at Missolonghi. One sees them 
 
40 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUKE — EOJIANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 dashed off in his bedroom, brought down for recitation 
 to admiring friends. He is as much in earnest as he 
 can be, but it is to sigh over himself as an " extinct 
 volcano." Yet there is a ring of sincerity which 
 redeems the attitudinising; he is not wholly posing 
 ■or making believe when he bids himself 
 
 " Seek out — less often sought than found — 
 A soldier's grave, for thee the best. 
 Then look around, and choose thy ground, 
 And take thy rest." 
 
 "That which I call invention, I never saw in any 
 one in the world to a greater degree than in him." 
 Prmcvpai This Sentence, taken again from Goethe,^ 
 fmjiUy. jjjg^y. perhaps help us to understand what 
 our grandfathers admired in Byron. It does not mean 
 that he could tell a good story. The conduct of his 
 tales, the plot and narrative, never reaches excellence. 
 Without the shadowy central figure, there would be 
 very little left in Zara and the Corsair. He has not 
 Scott's power of simple narration. "When he tried 
 this line in The Island (1823), his fully matured 
 powers did not save him from failure. But he could 
 create situations, and this is probably what Goethe 
 meant. Telling situations, vividly described ; rhetor- 
 ical comment, frequently from his own mouth, — these 
 made up Byron's poetry at its best. The element of 
 melodrama is naturally strong. As for the verse 
 which cost him so little labour, it is manly and fluent, 
 but not melodious. Of the higher grace of poetry it 
 
 ^ Eokermann, as before, 24th February 1825, 
 
BKITISH KOMAJ^TIC POETS. 41 
 
 has little. Its cadences do not haunt us; careless 
 
 dissonances abound. These he heeded about as little 
 
 as he did grammar. He was quite capable of writing 
 
 " there let him lay," quite capable of ending his best 
 
 lines with a feeble expletive. To our ears these are 
 
 unpardonable offences. But only an age which thinks 
 
 more of the vehicle than of the thing conveyed, more 
 
 of the verse itself than of what it expresses, can blind 
 
 itself to the vitality of Byron's most famous passages. 
 
 And that is not all. Imperfect as may be his 
 
 utterance, he has something of the singer's power. 
 
 style and His prosc Writing is capital, but his verse 
 
 Mpre. gains something. He flowed naturally into 
 
 metre, such as it was. 
 
 " There's not a joy the world can give, like that it takes away " — 
 
 or, 
 
 " She walks in beauty, like the night 
 Of cloudless climes and starry skies " — 
 
 may not be very subtle or recondite music, but they 
 are sufficient for the effect. The thought is enhanced 
 by the verse; metre is not a felt restraint, but an 
 added beauty. The careless freedom of his verse 
 carries us along, though not without jolts and jars. 
 U pur si muove! There is virtue in motion. Elabor- 
 ately moulded verse may leave us cold and dead, if we 
 feel it artificial. While Byron's thought is highly 
 artificial, his verse is always natural and unaffected. 
 We may laugh at and be tempted to burlesque the 
 former ; in the latter we can detect many shortcomings, 
 but no self-consciousness. 
 
42 EUEOPEiN LITERATUKE — KOMANT.IC TRIUMPH. 
 
 A style like this naturally tended to comedy. 
 Eesidence in Italy called his attention to the Italian 
 Hu genius for humourists. Without them he might 
 mmMy. nevcr have done his best work. For he 
 
 had no great gift of originality in mere concep- 
 tion. He succeeded best when following lines laid 
 down for him. Bejppo, written in 1817, was the 
 first fruit of this study. The subject is taken from 
 Italian life; for the metre he owns indebtedness to 
 Frere's "Whistlecraft," and may possibly have seen 
 Tennant's Anster Fair. But both in conception and 
 handling he has bettered his models. The metre, in 
 particular, suited him so admirably that he made 
 it his own. Bon Juan could be written in it at 
 a hand-gallop ; by 1821, when he writes the Vision 
 of Judgment, he has fully mastered its paces. Don 
 Juan (1818-23) will probably always be considered 
 his chief work. It shows his strength and his weak- 
 ness, his wealth and his poverty. As a story it 
 utterly fails. The great shapeless mass has neither 
 form nor consistency, and cannot be read consecu- 
 tively at any price. But the pictures are brilliant, 
 each successive scene holds us, though the scene- 
 shifting business is left to manage itself. His powers 
 have full scope. He flits from grave to gay at will, 
 often in the same sentence. The moralist finds much 
 to condemn, but the mere poetical critic is free to ad- 
 mire. Formless and story-less, but brimming with wit, 
 sarcasm, and laughter whose point is often not far from 
 tears, Bon Juan reflects fully Lord Byron's mind in 
 its rapid transitions and somewhat bourgeois cynicism. 
 
BEITISH KOMANTIC POETS. 43 
 
 presenting indeed a picture of the " Eegency " outlook 
 on things which commends itself as lifelike and clever. 
 
 Byron's dramatic pieces remain to consider. These 
 particularly excited the admiration of his German 
 
 His failure critics. Few of US wiU endorse that ver- 
 
 in tragedy. ^j^j^. rp^ ^^ ^-^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ Stiltcd, 
 
 poor in character and unreal in action. They are 
 meant to read, not to act. Manfred might possibly 
 be put on the Lyceum stage ; Gain or Heaven and 
 Earth would be hopeless. Of invention in the 
 dramatic sense there is little, and the characters 
 sketched are but puppets. In the two sacred dramas 
 we have Byron discussing theology with the divines 
 of his day. Their significance is ephemeral, but they 
 were significant in their time. Marino Faliero and 
 The Two Foscari interest us little; Werner and The 
 Deformed Transformed only from the standpoints of 
 literature or autobiography. In trying drama Byron 
 showed his versatility. Occasionally he struck a 
 good note, realised a favourite effect. But on the 
 whole he was happier elsewhere. Emulation of 
 Goethe and Shakespeare probably urged him to it, 
 rather than any original instinct. It is character- 
 istic that he seldom mentions Shakespeare, while 
 freely criticising others. Unapproachable supremacy 
 had no charm for Byron ; he was not content to 
 admire where it was hopeless to attempt rivalry. 
 
 Matthew Arnold has summed up Byron in a 
 couplet — 
 
 " He taught us little ; but our soul 
 Had felt him like the thunder's roll." 
 
44 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIFMPH. 
 
 This judgment seems final. Philosopliic calm, ele- 
 mental depth of thought, the seership which is akin 
 cruidsmand to prophecj as Well as to insight — these 
 
 smimary. ^g jj^^g^. ^^^ j^q^j. f^j, J^ Bjron. Subtlj 
 
 sweet music, majestic reaches of harmony, are equally 
 not in his line. We wrong him if we seek for these ; 
 we err if we consider their absence fatal. Fire and 
 movement, life and colour, passion and variety, yet 
 remain to impress ; and of these Byron has full 
 share. They are the qualities which appeal so 
 strongly to his Continental critics. In a volume 
 like this, which deals with movements rather than 
 with individuals, which ranks writers rather by their 
 influence than by their absolute attainment, Byron 
 takes necessarily a high place. If we regard details 
 instead of wholes, it may seem strangely high. Our 
 present habit of criticism dwells largely on details. 
 But it is well sometimes to take a larger view. In 
 broadness of execution, in the free liberal sweep of 
 what was perhaps rather a scene-painter's than an 
 artist's brush, Byron stands forth a master. Alike 
 in the range of his work and in the impact he 
 made on his contemporaries, he is one of the greatest 
 names of his day. And however his critical theories 
 or professional jealousies might estrange him from 
 the Eomantic leaders, might provoke him to depre- 
 ciate Wordsworth and exalt Pope, the whole weight 
 of his example and of his influence, it need hardly 
 be said, was powerfully lent to aid the Eomantic 
 movement. He himself was, or would fain be 
 thought, Eomance personified. He represents the 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIO POETS. 45 
 
 . storm a nrl Fftrif^. *''^p- "-fa otbjjz— afiii^m.e and frpqup.nt 
 -§B"S?5sLsLiJiS.,?3fiX§Went. Sentimentality over-ripe, 
 ready to drop into burlesque, is his pet emotion ; 
 lest there should be any mistake, he burlesques it 
 himself. To us now, reading in cold blood, the 
 burlesque seems the most successful part of his 
 work; but to the men of his time Byron's serious 
 vein seemed as real and splendid as his comic verse 
 was masterly and mirth-provokiijg. 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was four years 
 younger than Byron, who yet survived him by two 
 years. Son of an English country gentle- 
 man, Shelley was utterly unlike his sur- 
 roundings. Unhappiness at Eton embittered his 
 schooldays, and he went to Oxford a precocious rebel. 
 Atheist, vegetarian, revolutionary — these fantastic 
 forms of denial smote his youthful fancy. A foolish 
 pamphlet embroiled him with the authorities, and 
 compelled departure. A more foolish early marriage 
 was soon found irksome ; he left his wife, and was 
 shocked when the deserted lady drowned herself. 
 By this time he had taken up with Mary Godwin, 
 whom he afterwards married. His rustication and 
 first marriage in 1811 (aged nineteen), the appearance 
 of Queen Mob in 1813, the separation from his wife in 
 1814, his second marriage and publication of Alastor 
 in 1816, are the chief events of his early life. In 
 1817 Lord Eldon refused him (then twenty-five years 
 old) the custody of his children. This led to his 
 leaving England next year. He met Byron in Switzer- 
 
46 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 land, then settled in Italy, where during the next 
 four years (1818-22) he wrote the Genci and Pro- 
 metheus Vnlound, UpipsycMdion, Adonais, and Hellas. 
 The Revolt of Islam, it should have been mentioned, 
 was published the year he left England, having ap- 
 peared and been withdrawn as "Laon and Cythna" 
 the year before. The first complete collection of his 
 poems was made after his death. For in July 1822, 
 in his thirtieth year, he was accidentally drowned 
 when boating between Pisa and Spezia. 
 
 Too much has been made of Shelley's early eccen- 
 tricities. The opinions of an undergraduate, even 
 msi,ersom,i ^hcn the youth has genius, need not be 
 cftarocter. taken too seriously. Many a boyhood has 
 been full of " foolish noise," both of opinion and con- 
 duct; too many a passion leaves its hapless victim. 
 Shelley by no means sinned more than others. On 
 the contrary, his standard was high, and his tone 
 tragically earnest. All he did was done in the light 
 of day. And, it must be added, he could not imagine 
 himself in the wrong. When he bruised himself 
 against the facts of life, his only solution was that 
 the facts should give way. Everything seemed pos- 
 sible, in those days of revolt; the essential laws of 
 Nature could be classed with human institutions. 
 Abolish priests and kings, and men would be virtuous 
 without compulsion; laws involved degradation, to 
 the maker and the obeyer. Many a lad has aired 
 such notions. Shelley's position made his acts con- 
 spicuous, and " society " was shocked to find this 
 monster in its fold. But the pupil of Godwin, the 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIC POETS. 47 
 
 satirist of Lord Eldon, the rebel against law and 
 marriage and custom, do not make up the Shelley 
 we know. They represent his callow stage, taken 
 too seriously, and in some few respects never quite 
 outgrown. The Shelley of 1816 to 1822 is alone 
 important to literature. And his is a singularly 
 pure and elevated, in one sense saintly, character. 
 Beside his friend Byron he shows "Hyperion to a 
 satyr." Bright and winsome, if still somewhat irre- 
 sponsible, his spirit, like his poetry, burned clearer 
 and steadier to the end. His outlook always widened, 
 his insight into life and thought deepened, his re- 
 ligious feeling began to get play, and the extrava- 
 gance of early rebellion was being rapidly discarded. 
 With both art and power of thought continually de- 
 veloping, it is hard to say where he would have 
 stopped. Did we not know that already the frail 
 body was yielding under the stress and strain of that 
 indomitable spirit, we might believe that Shelley's 
 death robbed literature of glories scarce second to 
 those of any writer of our language. Even as it is, 
 we need not stay to claim for him " unfulfilled re- 
 nown"; his actual achievement ranks him among 
 the greatest masters. 
 
 The poems written after he left England — all that 
 went before is remarkable mainly for crudity and 
 Perfection of promisc — represent the highest stretch, the 
 his method, ygj-y topmost reach, of the Eomantic move- 
 ment in verse. The heir has come to his own, and 
 takes secure possession. It is hardly possible to 
 imagine all that is best in the Eomance spirit — its 
 
48 EUROPEAN LITEEATURE — -ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 warmth, its spirituality, its love of light and liberty 
 and colour — finding fuller or more adequate expres- 
 sion. Succeeding singers may subtilise and refine; 
 they may discover new forces in words, more exquisite 
 harmonies of sound. But they can scarcely travel in 
 the path of pure poetry beyond the point Shelley 
 reached. The swift clearness of his style; its glow, 
 its radiance, its exulting sense of movement and free- 
 dom ; constitute an almost ideally perfect expression 
 of the high thoughts that pulsed through his brain. 
 Such poems as the Cloud, the Skylark, the last chorus 
 of Hellas, or any of the short lyrics which he flung 
 forth so freely during the last two or three years of 
 his life, have a directness which seems to belong 
 rather to inspiration than to art. As a specimen of 
 the fully consummated verse of the Komantic"period 
 in "EiigTaTid; readTEeTasT seveirst8m:zaK"of '^'ilowais, of 
 which may be quoted the ciiTmThaiion anc 
 
 " Why linger, wliy turn back, why shrink, my heart? 
 Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 
 They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! 
 A light is past from the revolving year, 
 And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
 Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
 
 The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near : 
 'Tis Adoriais calls ! Oh, hasten thither ! 
 No more let life divide w hat d eath can ioin t og eth e r. _ .. 
 
 That light whose smile kindles the universe. 
 
 That beauty in which all things work and move, 
 
 That benediction which the eclipsing curse 
 Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
 Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
 
BRITISH EOMAIJTIC POETS. 49 
 
 By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 
 Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
 The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me. 
 Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 
 
 The breath whose might I have invoked in song ■ 
 
 Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
 Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
 
 Whose sails were never to the tempest given. 
 
 The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
 I am borne dq ir>-1y_ fec^ftiHy^ nfn,- 1 
 
 ]Em ist, burning through the inmost ve il of hM.Yen, 
 The soul of AdonaiSr like a. star, 
 Beacons from the 3.bofe.vy,her fi the Eternal are.", 
 
 It is strange that the last-cited critic should have 
 
 described Shelley as a " beautiful but ineffectual angel, 
 
 l»eating luminous wings in the void." ^ For, 
 
 Matthew . . 
 
 Ariwid's in verses like those just given, v^hat 
 °" ■ strikes us is surely strength no less than 
 beauty, masculine vigour wedded to ethereal grace. 
 Such criticisms seem to have reference mainly to 
 Shelley's immature work. In youth, no doubt, while 
 still learning his powers, still groping for expression, 
 he often leaves an impression of unreality. Beautiful 
 images, exquisite but far-drawn fancies, come to him 
 almost too quick for utterance. We are carried 
 through fairy worlds, where nothing seems familiar or 
 human. You might as well " go to a gin-shop for a 
 leg of mutton," to use his own phrase, as expect 
 reality from him. But his later verse is less open to 
 this charge. Intercourse with Byron had done some- 
 
 ' Essays in Criticism, Second Series (1888) ; compare end of essays 
 on Byron and Shelley. 
 
 D 
 
50 EUEOPEAN LITEKATUEE--EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 thing, study of Plato and other masters very much. 
 His thought has become more coherent, less visionary, 
 more human. His expression is terse in its rapidity, 
 and manly in its gentleness. Take but these lines 
 from another chorus of Hellas: — 
 
 " Worlds on worlds are rolling ever 
 
 From creation to decay, 
 Like the bubbles on a river 
 
 Sparkling, bursting, borne away. 
 
 But they are still immortal 
 
 Who, through birth's orient portal 
 And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro. 
 
 Clothe their unceasing flight 
 
 In the brief dust and light 
 Gathered around their chariots as they go." 
 
 The vigour of these verses is as great as their beauty. 
 A whole system of philosophy is condensed into the 
 last six lines. Matthew Arnold never expressed his 
 thought more succinctly, more completely, more lumi- 
 nously. To call Shelley's later verse " ineffectual " is 
 to call Samson weak and Achilles slow-footed. The 
 radiant clarity of his utterance is only equalled by 
 the depth of meaning which underlies it. 
 
 Shelley's ideal world was a region " where music 
 
 and moonlight and feeling are one." A later writer 
 
 idmuty and points US " There where law, life, joy, im- 
 
 lyricg^fl. p^^gg ^^^ ^^^ thing." The later ideal is 
 
 nobler, and Shelley's maturest verse was rapidly ap- 
 proaching it. But his life broke off short, and left us 
 only his matchless lyrics. These grew stronger as 
 well as sweeter to the last. By his lyrics, above all, 
 he will live. They are the crown of his life-work. 
 
BRITISH EOMAJTTIC POETS. 51 
 
 His longer poems lose their grip as they recede from 
 the song-form ; Prometheus Bound is mainly a gigantic 
 lyric. Even the Cenci, his first and last study in pure 
 drama, owes much of its power to the " lyrical cry " 
 which pervades it. The singing faculty was Shelley's 
 supreme endowment. If not, like his own Apollo, the 
 
 " eye by wMch the universe 
 Beholds itself, and knows itself divine," 
 
 he was the voice by which she proclaims her divin- 
 ity. " All thoughts, all passions, all delights " became, 
 vocal in Shelley's songs; it seems less as if he sang 
 them than that they freely sang themselves. There 
 is little of straining, little of difficulty in expression, 
 little of obscurity or wilfulness in his wording. The 
 expression is as natural as the thought; if fantastic 
 or thin-drawn, it is to suit the subject. No greater 
 mistake can be made than to call Shelley " ineffectual " 
 so far as pure song is concerned ; the precision of his 
 touch is as conspicuous as the aerial grace of his 
 melody. 
 
 It is difficult to avoid language of hyperbole in 
 speaking of Shelley's manhood. His life, his char-l 
 Charm, of Us acter, his poetry, all have something ^ 
 persoTMiity. unearthly in their loveliness. We mourn 
 his early death, for our own sake, grudging what Fate 
 has withheld from us. But he had done enough for 
 fame. His place is assured, and it is among the 
 supreme few. While men remain what they are, 
 while the eternal verities of poetry demand expression, 
 we feel that Shelley's immortality is secure. The 
 
52 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE — ^ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 literary historian sees in his verse the zenith of the 
 Eomantic Movement. But in himself, apart from 
 creeds and schools, there dwelt something rarer, more 
 unapproachable, than our formulas can fathom. His 
 radiance and his mastery remain the marvel of our 
 song. His example and influence can never be dis- 
 carded ; " his name and fame shall be an echo and a 
 light unto eternity." 
 
 The name of " Adonais " among mortals was John 
 
 Keats (1795-1821). Born of respectable parents in 
 
 London, he received a limited education, 
 
 Keats. , 
 
 and was early apprenticed to a surgeon. 
 But his genius owed little to circumstance. This 
 Cockney stripling had the most Greek soul of his age. 
 Chapman's old-world rendering revealed to him the 
 majesty of Homer, Lempriere's Dictionary the beauty 
 of gods and goddesses. It seemed as if something 
 akin spoke out clear within him. Poetry, therefore, 
 early claimed him. "We have wellnigh forgotten the 
 myths that grew up around Keats. The effeminate 
 youth, slain by a hostile critique, existed but in imag- 
 inative minds, and survives for us but in Shelley's 
 well-starred pity. The real Keats was very different. 
 We know him for a man strong, sane, and self-con- 
 tained by nature, luxurious yet capable of austerity, 
 and master of himself till disease and hopeless passion 
 weakened his powers. His Letters to Fanny Brawne 
 are but outcries under terrible pain, and should have 
 been left in oblivion. But his attitude to criticism 
 was both manly and modest. " Praise or blapie has 
 
BEITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 53 
 
 but a momentary effect on the man whose love of 
 beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on 
 his own works." His prefaces show that this saying 
 came from his heart. Striving ever upward, he re- 
 gards each stage reached as but the stepping-stone to 
 something higher. This is not the soul that could let 
 itself be " snuffed out by an article." 
 
 Dismissing the legendary, then, let us look at the 
 
 true Keats. The first thing to remember is that he 
 
 died aged twenty-five. At the same age 
 
 His short life. o ./ o 
 
 Shelley had not found himself. It were 
 absurd to look for fully formed powers, perfect or 
 even adequate achievement. But his progress had 
 been marked and rapid. The " Cockney poets" taught 
 him something, Leigh Hunt in particular to break up 
 the heroic couplet into more iluid and sequent verse. 
 And he soon distanced his instructors. His early 
 poems show promise rather than performance ; much 
 that he himself condemned has survived through the 
 mistaken zeal of friends. Endymion, published in 
 1818, first tried him fully, revealing his enthusiasm 
 for beauty, and his singular power of vivifying Greek 
 legend. But he regarded it himself as mainly an ex- 
 ercise. Syperion, begun the same year, struck a new 
 note, beyond his power to sustain, and remains a 
 magnificent fragment. By this time consumption had 
 seized him. All his finest work. Lamia, St Agnes' Eve, 
 the two Odes, and the ballad La Belle Dame Sans 
 Herd, were written (1819-20) after full health had 
 left him. Disease increasing, his last winter was spent 
 in Italy," where the devoted love of his friend Severn 
 
54 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — ^EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 did what care could to make exile endurable. But 
 his strength sank, and four months after his twenty- 
 fifth birthday his body was laid to rest in the Eoman 
 cemetery. 
 
 "A feverish attempt, rather than a deed accom- 
 plished." So Keats speaks of his poetry, but his 
 Character of hearcrs accouut him too modest. There is 
 Msmric. more than promise in his later poems; 
 there is high performance, valuable in itself, and still 
 more for its influence on his successors. To us, in 
 this volume, Keats is a remarkable writer, for he 
 pointed the way to all who came after. If Shelley 
 represents the zenith of the Eomantic School proper, 
 Keats may be styled the earliest Neo-Eomantic. A 
 time must come when the original movement would 
 exhaust itself. The very perfection of Shelley's best 
 verse discouraged imitation. Its secret is incommun- 
 icable; he has admirers, but no followers. Keats, 
 dying when he did, had already shown the possibility 
 of new developments. Before the original impetus 
 was spent, Keats directed it into new channels. The 
 followers whom he has influenced trust less to inspira- 
 tion than to art ; or rather, they sedulously seek the 
 aid of art to enhance their inspiration. If the free 
 music of Shelley cannot be rivalled, they will make 
 up for it by care, and culture, and striving after per- 
 fection. In tracing the origin of this movement to 
 Keats, it is by no means wished to belittle his genius. 
 The most striking character of this boy's work is that 
 it was so original and so fruitful. 
 
 We must not, indeed, forget that it was boy's work. 
 
BEITISH KOMANTIC POETS. 55 
 
 The sensuous detail of which some make so much is 
 Immature, a natural heritage of youth. So far as it 
 
 yaimj^yrtant. ^^g -^ g^^^gg^ -^ ^^^j^j ^^^^ ^^^^ Worked 
 
 off soon, as we see already beginning in his later poems. 
 His hand strengthens, his touch is firmer, up to the 
 last. Yet " boy's work '' is too poor a phrase for this 
 young man's writing. In some ways he was precoci- 
 o usly mat ure. He could sum up the whole Bomantic 
 i^earningjii one couplet, worthy of Shelley himself^, 
 when he spoke jof 
 
 " Magi c casements, opening on the foam 
 
 _0f per ilous seas, ill ItSSty'IanSs f orlorn7i_ 
 
 He could write majestic blank verse in that wondrous 
 opening of Hyperion, Miltonic only in conception, but 
 all his own in execution. If Coleridge gave the key- 
 note for his mysterious ballad, its music and compres- 
 sion bespeak the master. The Grecian Urn has the 
 statuesque dignity of Greek sculpture, the Nightingale 
 pants with the passion and pathos of our own day. 
 The Eve of St Agnes is luscious, but its sweetness is 
 pure sugar, not " poisonous honey stol'n from France." 
 And, more noteworthy still, in perfection of phrase, in 
 cioriosa felicitas of epithet, he is equal to any, and calls 
 no man (save perhaps some Elizabethan) master. This 
 is again a thing both remarkable in itself and fruitful 
 in its influence: succeeding writers have not failed 
 here to make the most of his example. 
 
 With Shelley and Keats the full splendour of 
 Eomantic Triumph comes to an end. The leaven 
 which had revolutionised our literature had done its 
 
56 EUKOPEAN LITEKATUEE — KOMANTIO TRIUMPH. 
 
 work ; old things had passed away, all had become new. 
 Succession What might come next was still uncertain. 
 to Keats. jj^ ^j^g jjgjj^. q£ ^g^(.gj, development we are 
 
 able to read in the verse of Keats hint and promise 
 of the future. But at the time this could not be 
 visible. Years were to pass before the seed Keats 
 sowed could spring up and bear fruit. Had he and 
 his great compeers lived, the course of English liter- 
 ature might have been different. Their light and 
 leading would have guided to new paths, held up new 
 models for imitation. As it was, a time of lesser 
 achievements followed, an interregnum devoid of lawful 
 sovereigns. But, throughout this transition period, 
 •the Eomantic impulse still held unchallenged sway; 
 and at its close, as we shall see, that impulse is found 
 still dominant, only modified in scope and direction. 
 
 Keats, Shelley, and Byron died in the 'Twenties of 
 
 our century, Coleridge, Scott, and others early in the 
 
 , 'Thirties. '' Brother followed brother to 
 
 Writers of 
 
 transition the suulcss land." Poetry thus lost its 
 ^™ ' natural leaders. The field was left to 
 lesser men, while the coming heroes of a new age 
 practised their weapons. These " lesser '' writers have 
 enriched our anthologies, and much indeed that they 
 have given us will not readily be let die. Heber and 
 Milman and Keble, Hood and "Barry Cornwall," 
 Praed and Macaulay, Talfourd and Sir Henry Taylor, 
 Allan Cunningham and Motherwell, Peacock and 
 Beddoes, Darley and Wells — with Mrs Hemans and 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIO fOETS. 57 
 
 Sara Coleridge, and comic verse from Rejected Ad- 
 dresses (1812) to the Ingoldsby Legends (1837) — might 
 well give us prolonged pause. The list is but begun, 
 and suggests work of most varied interest. The 
 Christian Year, Lyeus the Centaur, Songs of the Affec- 
 tions, Lays of Ancient Rome, Ion and Philip van 
 Artevelde, Death's Jestlooh, Joseph and his Brethren — 
 the mere enumeration of these titles reminds us how 
 much there is to study, how much to enjoy, in these 
 " transitional " poets. But there will hardly be found 
 anything of plastic importance, anything of quite 
 new departure. No one of these writers can be 
 said to have moulded his age, taught fresh secrets 
 of song, at any rate in serious verse ; ^ in playful or 
 serio-comic Hood and Praed were perhaps new voices. 
 And the influence of the great leaders had apparently 
 reached its natural term. The original Eomantic im- 
 pulse seemed spent. A period of decadence and stag- 
 nation might reasonably have been expected to follow. 
 The next generation, it might have been thought, 
 would be content to study and annotate the work 
 of its precursors. 
 
 Our fates, however, were more kind, and a different 
 series of events was in store. The history of English 
 Neo-Romantic pootry is fuU of such surprises. Eegenera- 
 rmvai. ^j^^ comes when least looked for. Keats 
 had apparently sung to deaf ears. But a younger race, 
 younger than any of the writers hitherto named, had 
 studied, his lesson. The neo-Eomantic reaction awaited 
 
 ' Some critics, however, will have it that Darley and Beddoes 
 opened strange by-ways of access to the "Romantic vague.'' 
 
58' EUROPEAN LITERA.TUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 its readers. These appeared at length in three young 
 singers, all of whom began under Scott and Byron, 
 went on to worship Shelley and Keats, and were now 
 to develop along lines of their own. Their names were 
 Elizabeth Barrett, Alfred Tennyson, Eobert Browning. 
 The years which gave them birth were fruitful of great 
 minds ; leaders in science, politics, art, grew up with 
 and around them. But in poetry these three were the 
 protagonists ; none of their immediate predecessors 
 or coevals came near their pre-eminence. Some 
 account of their several standpoints, and criticism of 
 their earlier work, will close this sketch so far as 
 English poetry is concerned. 
 
 Miss Barrett, afterwards Mrs Browning (1806^- 
 61), was the oldest of the three. As a child she 
 Elizabeth longed to run away in boy's clothes and be 
 Barrett. Byrou's page ; his death seemed the end of 
 all things. Country-bred, Elizabeth Barrett loved both 
 Nature and books. She studied Greek, read vora- 
 ciously and widely, and wrote verses from the very 
 first. Yet she published nothing till her twenty-sixth 
 year. The singular mistake which reckoned her three 
 years younger than she was — a mistake shared even 
 by her husband — throws uncertainty on many state- 
 ments by her friends. Thus the translation of 
 Prometheus Bound is said to have been made before 
 she was twenty ; possibly the true figure is twenty- 
 
 ^ There seems now no doubt that the true date of her birth ia 6th 
 March 1806 
 
BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 59 
 
 three. This, her first publication, appeared in 1835, 
 but was afterwards rewritten. The Seraphim came out 
 in 1838, the JRomaunt of the Page in 1839. With the 
 publication of Poems, 2 vols., 1844, her earlier life may 
 be said to close. In 1846 she married Eobert Brown- 
 ing, and for fifteen years of ideal union the two poets 
 lived together, mostly in Italy. To this period belong 
 her most ambitious works, including Aurora Leigh 
 (1856). Our concern is only with her earlier writing; 
 with Miss Barrett, not with Mrs Browning. It is the 
 young aspirant, the fresh voice, the search after and 
 revealment of new methods of work, that we have here 
 to study ; her final attainment, and completed volume 
 of song, must be left to the hands which take up the 
 tale where we leave it. 
 
 Miss Barrett, while the oldest, was perhaps the 
 least original of the three new poets. Sometimes she 
 Ber aims and sccms but Mrs Hcmans raised to a higher 
 method. power. An incomparably higher power, of 
 
 course; wider outlook, stronger thought, far greater 
 mastery of song. But the attitude varies little from 
 the earlier Eomantie one ; it is chiefly the expression 
 that is different. The same love of chivalry, of pathos, 
 the same leaning to excessive sentiment ; we might 
 name her ultra-Eomantic rather than neo-Eomantic. 
 This plethora of sentiment appears in her lately pub- 
 lished Letters, as in her poetry ; irreverent readers 
 have dared to call it gush. What distinguishes her 
 from her predecessors is, first, the strength and dar- 
 ing of her imagination, and, second, the self-conscious 
 straining of her style. Art has been called in to sup- 
 
60 EUROPEAN UTBEATUEE — EOMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 plement Nature. Miss Barrett was student and critic, 
 as well as singer. All treasures of English poetry were 
 familiar to her. She was strenuous as well as eager, 
 and worked at verse-making even when most inspired. 
 Many of her methods were her own, some not too 
 happily chosen. Her " bad rhymes," for instance, were 
 not due to carelessness, but to what she imagined an 
 attempt to develop the use of assonance in our 
 language. This we know from herself. And all 
 the secrets of her art, all the lessons learnt from 
 such loving study of our literature as is revealed in. 
 her Book of the Poets, she expended enthusiastically 
 on her own attempts. 
 
 The result has its defects as well as merits. Words 
 are never left to discharge their natural duty; they 
 Dejects of must be twisted and strained to express 
 ii^ style, something further. And the same applies 
 also to thought. She is never content with elemental 
 realities, but must be always striving to enhance her idea 
 by added ornament. The free, swift flow of even Shelley's 
 verse would not satisfy her ; it must swirl and tumble 
 amid rocks and in little cataracts. Hers is the very 
 antithesis of the improvisatore style, even when her 
 utterance is most rapid and hurrying. Artifice is al- 
 ways present, as well as art. Thus, in Go-wper's Grave, 
 the thought is clear and noble, and might have been 
 left to produce its proper effect. Peace and quiet 
 might have reigned in the telling. But this was not 
 her way. She must be ever surprising us with some- 
 thing unexpected and forceful. She bids our grief 
 " as low as silence languish " ; her hares look up with 
 
BEITISH EOMANTIO POETS. 61 
 
 " sylvan tendernesses " in their eyes. The thought, fine 
 as it is, moves with staccato jolts, like the wording. 
 Daring she always is ; sometimes her " vaulting am- 
 bition" defeats itself. From earth to heaven, from 
 man to God, she hurls us in a moment ; and when, as 
 a climax, the gaze of Eedemptive Love is pictured as 
 " those deep, pathetic eyes," the jar is painful. If Miss 
 Barrett had attempted less, if she could have believed 
 that sometimes the half was more than the whole, her 
 success would have been less flawed by weakness. 
 
 Artifice is a main characteristic of this young 
 writer's method. She represents reaction from the 
 Absence of older and simpler, more direct, utterance 
 simplicity. Qf ^.jjg gj.gg^^. Eomantics to the self-con- 
 scious, laboured, studied verse of their successors. It 
 is no longer enough to say a thing perfectly. The older 
 verse, at its best, had an air of completeness, of in- 
 evitableness ; you could not fancy its thought ex- 
 pressed otherwise. The new has the perfection of con- 
 summated labour ; it might have been put in twenty 
 other ways, but we admire the skill which shaped it 
 thus. Art and learning play as much part as inspira- 
 tion, moulding the raw material of poetry into form. 
 If Keats marked the turning-point between the two 
 schools, Miss Barrett is the first example of the newer. 
 She is still the child of the Eomantic Movement ; her 
 hyper-sesthesia is but its sentimentality redeemed by 
 genius. For genius this woman-writer possessed in- 
 deed. No poetess of whom we have record comes near 
 her in breadth and fulness ; others have sung more 
 perfectly, but not Sappho herself felt more intensely. 
 
62 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMAJSTTIO TRIUMPH. 
 
 She is always at white-heat ; the trouble is that she 
 sometimes leaves her readers cold. We are concerned 
 here with her art, almost more than with her genius. 
 Por this method of hers set, or at least emphasised, a 
 prevailing fashion. Other writers copied her faults, 
 while doing homage to her brilliance. The stress and 
 strain of later verse, the mouthings of our " Spasmodic 
 School," the lack of simplicity and directness and 
 naturalness, trace themselves largely to her. Great 
 singer when at full height, learned critic and accom- 
 plished woman — womanly to the heart of her, in her 
 strength and her weakness, her intensity and her self- 
 devotion — she did harm as well as good to our 
 literature. Perhaps, when times have changed, when 
 her theories are forgotten, and her political and social 
 verses have lost the interest of actuality, she will live 
 most of all by her Sonnets from the Portuguese, reveal- 
 ing a woman's heart of hearts with all the tenderness 
 of truth and luminous glow of genius. 
 
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92), was the master- 
 poet of his age. Prom the first his supremacy was 
 Mfred Undisputed. In undergraduate days his 
 nrmysm,. Cambridge " apostles " worshipped him ; 
 his " magic music " might be known only to a few, 
 but those few were faithful. Of course he had to 
 make himself, and to become known ; there were not 
 wanting adverse critiques, sarcastic or even con- 
 temptuous references. But these were barely enough 
 to rouse him, never sufficient to cause mistrust. His 
 devotion to poetry knew no alloy. Even love and 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIO POETS. 63 
 
 marriage could not tempt him into money-making. 
 He lived a hermit, till poetry brought riches. At a 
 quite late date, no prose sentence of his had seen light. 
 He stood as poet or nothing; faithful to his vocation, 
 and cheered by the unfailing sympathy of friends. 
 The events of his life hardly need recalling. His 
 Lincolnshire boyhood and schooldays, Cambridge and 
 London experiences, and later habitation at Farring- 
 ford and Aldworth, are familiar to us all. In 1850 
 he published In Memoriam, wedded after long waiting, 
 and became Poet Laureate in succession to Words- 
 worth. This may be considered the turning-point 
 of his career, the end of his days of uncertainty and 
 apprenticeship. The artist has forged his tools, and 
 has now only to use them. 
 
 It is the Alfred Tennyson of days prior to this that 
 we have to consider. As a boy, he already feels the 
 
 His slow music of song, the sonorousness of words. 
 
 growth. yet he, too, confesscs to Byron's rule; 
 " Byron is dead " he kept repeating to himself, unable 
 to credit it. Soon, however, the young mind trans- 
 ferred allegiance to Shelley, and still more to Keats, 
 whose influence on him was immense. If any one has 
 caught up Keats' unuttered song, it is surely Tenny- 
 son. When only fourteen, he had written verses of dis- 
 tinct self -origin, and manifesting a true voice. But the 
 voice gets muffled by layers of embroidery. His first 
 published poems are full of mannerism and affecta- 
 tion, whimsical more than imaginative. The jeers of 
 profane critics sting, but also strengthen. Tor ten 
 years he labours in silence. 1830 and 1832 had seen 
 
64 EUROPEAN LITEEATURE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 his first serious attempts, "Poems by two Brothers" 
 (1826), Timbuctoo, and other non-published work hav- 
 ing preceded. It was not till 1842 that he came for- 
 ward again. This time victory was assured. The old 
 poems had been mercilessly revised, many omitted 
 entirely, while the new were of a "higher strain." 
 Some good critics think he never surpassed the poems 
 published in 1842. At any rate, from that time 
 onward his hold on the public was firm. The Prin- 
 cess (1847) was the first of a series of longer poems. 
 Surely, though by slow degrees, his popularity grew. 
 Fame and fortune increased in equal proportion. 
 Other singers rose, and Tennyson's writings ceased 
 to be the catchword of youthful enthusiasm. But the 
 matured homage of a nation came instead, intensified 
 by much fine work of his old age. And no serious 
 attempt has yet been made to depose him from his 
 place as foremost poet of the Victorian era. 
 
 There is indeed a tendency to consider him mainly 
 as artist. "A second-class mind, with first-class 
 
 Not merely powcrs of cxpression," he was lately called. 
 
 anmtia. rpj^jg ygrdict seems due partly to want of 
 historical knowledge. Tennyson was not an " epoch- 
 making " thinker. It may be doubted if that is the 
 function of a poet, whose work is surely rather to 
 gather up and express perfectly the best thought 
 of his day. This Tennyson has admirably done. His 
 phrases have so become part of ourselves, so much 
 necessities of our intellectual equipment, that we 
 forget they were once fresh and novel. The " infant 
 crying for the light," the doubts that "faintly trust 
 
BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 65 
 
 the larger hope," seem commonplace now. When 
 In Memoriam appeared, however, it was thought pro- 
 found, "original," mysterious. The hero of one of 
 Miss Braddon's early novels hailed'it as a " Gospel of 
 the Nineteenth Century." We must not let Tenny- 
 son's very success as a renderer of thought blind us 
 to his merit. This speculative vein deepened with 
 age. The mysticism and spirituality native to his 
 family found ever-increasing expression. His associates 
 felt him prophet as well as poet, and "entered his 
 study as if it were a shrine." When natural reactions 
 have come and gone, and posterity with clear eyes 
 appraises the verse of our Century, it is certain that 
 Tennyson's will be given a high place, and probable 
 that other qualities will be esteemed and admired 
 beside his purely artistic faculty. 
 
 This last, however, is our main concern at present. 
 And as to this there can be no dispute. In early days 
 ij«( m«(ia!Ji/ it led toward mannerism, namby-pamby- 
 mtisiie. jgjjj^ effeminate delight in mere sound. 
 Critical strictures made him aware of this, and he 
 acknowledged their justice by cancelling or altering 
 whole poems. And throughout life his weakness as 
 well as strength lay in excess of artistry. A certain 
 kinship to preciosity, a disposition to make too much 
 of the mere vehicle, has been already noted. He 
 once gave as his best verse " And mellow ouzels fluted 
 in the elm," valuing it mainly for its sound. In this 
 respect Tennyson's example has been potent. If 
 Keats influenced him, he has influenced all later 
 poets, Browning not excepted. But the influence 
 
66 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — ^ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 has been mainly for good. Some excesses there have 
 been, but against this must be set the widespread 
 benefit. " All can raise the flower now, For all have 
 got the seed." And the luxuriant parterres of later 
 poetry, with their colour and freshness and fragrance, 
 must have been other than what they are but for this 
 magic gift. 
 
 Tennyson's own master seems to have been Virgil. 
 And we can fancy critics in Augustan Eome cen- 
 Eistmchmg suriug Virgil's artificialism. It is not a 
 anAinflu^'^^- natural growth, this flower of Tennyson's 
 rearing ; not the blue-bell of Scott, or the wild daffo- 
 dil of Wordsworth. It is a many-coloured tulip, rich 
 in its tints, and heavy with fragrance. But it is a 
 true and living growth. We cannot say that " Half- 
 conscious of the garden-squirt, The spindlings look un- 
 happy." Art has fostered it, loving care has shielded, 
 the sunny garden has drawn forth its full size and 
 strength and beauty. But it is Nature's still at 
 heart, and the Divine air its breath of being. Some 
 may prefer the desert wild-flower, the field-daisy or 
 the mountain -heather. But the gardener's pride is 
 legitimate. Keats gave our poetry this "garden" 
 turn, after the free growth of the early Eomantics. 
 Tennyson caught it up, and above all others trained 
 and developed it. For this, if for no more, he is 
 important. The critic of Fatima and Oenone, Tith- 
 onus and Ulysses, the Lady of Shalott and the Palace 
 of Art, the Two Voices and the Lotos-eaters and Break, 
 hreah, break ! knows that there is far more than this. 
 Such poems, and many others of as early date, how- 
 
BRITISH EOMANTIC POETS. 67 
 
 ever familiarity may stale them for the present, are 
 a deathless possession of the English tongue. But 
 in this history of a movement, we lay emphasis nat- 
 urally on what contributes to its force — on what is 
 fruitful, germinal, seedful. Much beyond the form 
 of Tennyson's verse is thus important. Its tone, its 
 colour, its luxuriance, its studied art, its elaboration 
 of music — these may perhaps be bracketed with 
 "form." His attitude toward science, toward phil- 
 osophy, toward life and thought and religion; his 
 politics, his patriotism, the aggressively English and 
 " Liberal-Conservative " view he takes of all things — 
 these belong to matter, not to manner. Hardly one 
 of these but is important, hardly one but has made 
 followers and founded a school. But, taking him all 
 in all, it is " artistic development " that sums up his 
 lesson to English literature : the artist side of him, 
 beyond all others, is of supreme importance in the 
 poetical history of his time. 
 
 Eobert Browning (1812-89) had the most alert, 
 " enquiring," and individual mind of the three. His 
 MobeH upbringing favoured independence. Lon- 
 Brmming. (jQjjgr i^orn and bred, he went to no public 
 school or college — save one winter attending some 
 lectures in Gower Street — and " Italy was his uni- 
 versity." London and Italy are the dominant notes of 
 his life. Secure of a competence, he gave himself up 
 to art, inclining strongly to both music and painting, 
 but finally choosing verse as his medium. After early 
 travel, he lived as a bachelor in London, spent most 
 
68 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 of his married life in Italy, and' returned as a widower 
 to London. There he continued to dwell thenceforth, 
 making annual excursions abroad. To poetry he was 
 constant throughout, in evil report and good report, 
 amid the contempt of early days and the applause 
 of later. His energy never flagged, his production 
 never ceased — though for nine years of his married 
 life he refrained from publication — till he died, full 
 of years and honours, in his son's house at Venice. 
 Small powers may be crushed by University train- 
 ing ; Browning's would probably have been regulated. 
 
 Eis Muts of As it was, he grew wild at will. Sensi- 
 tiwught. (.-yg^j, ^]^jyg ^.Q j-jjg gpjj.i(. Qf jj-g time— its 
 
 restlessness, its hysterical longings, its passion for 
 universal knowledge — he mirrors all these in his 
 verse. The artistic side of Keats did not appeal to 
 him as to Tennyson. Shelley was his idol, and though 
 he studied and valued Keats, his ideal song was 
 swifter, less restrained, more intellectual. One early 
 piece — " Heap cassia, sandal-buds," &c. — is a manifest 
 study after Keats. But Pauline (1833), his first 
 published poem — subsequently withdrawn, afterwards 
 reprinted by request — is full of Shelley, and nobly 
 owns its debt. Artist to the core. Browning had yet 
 a contempt for mere art. Lifelong admiration for 
 and friendship with Tennyson did not bias him to 
 imitation. Eather it tended the reverse way, urging 
 him to make his own path. The soul in action — this 
 alone he held worth attention. For the smooth flow 
 of verse he had too much scorn. Musical he could be 
 — natural music came to him unsought, as it must 
 
BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS. 69 
 
 come when expression is adequate — but he never 
 went aside to seek it. Contemptuous of syllabub, he 
 aspires to pour us neat wine — " stark strength, meat 
 for a man" — and his wine can be both muddy and 
 heady. Preternaturally quick of thought himself, he 
 assumes equal quickness in his readers. Hence his 
 so-called " obscurity," really due to rapid transitions, 
 recondite references, and a breathless hurrying out 
 of fresh ideas. He himself disclaimed being wilfully 
 obscure ; he even tried to rewrite Sordello more intel- 
 ligibly. In later life, no doubt, the oracular habit 
 grew on him; he hugged his mysteriousness, and 
 complacently called himself our " enigmatic " poet. 
 But we have to do only with his earlier years. In 
 these, it seems certain that he was surprised to find 
 himself difficult ; and the want of perception why 
 this should be, the inability to express himself more 
 precisely and fully, may fairly be regarded as due to 
 defective training. 
 
 Pauline was published anonymously, and might be 
 dismissed in haste as mere prettiness. Paracelsus 
 Neglect of (1835) was his first acknowledged pro- 
 mriypoem. Auction. Defective in form, it challenges 
 attention by some glorious passages, and these met 
 due recognition. Strafford (1837) and Sordello (1840) 
 confirmed his place among our poets; Wordsworth 
 and Landor toasted him as their successor. Yet, we 
 all know, for many years his books were unsaleable. 
 Praise he might get, but no pudding, not indeed 
 even salt for his porridge. Vainly he published 
 most remarkable work in Bells and Pomegranates 
 
70 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEB — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 (1841 - 46), a cheap series with a characteristically 
 far-fetched title. Vainly his plays were acted, his 
 poems printed. In the future, a Eossetti might copy 
 out Pauline, and write to ask if it were indeed his ; 
 " Owen Meredith," Eoden Noel, and Augusta Web- 
 ster would hail him master. But as yet, up to his 
 marriage in 1846, nay to the end of the 'Forties and 
 well into the 'Fifties, his name was known to few. 
 His noble wife chafed to find herself praised, him 
 ignored. His influence on the literature of our period 
 was therefore small indeed. 
 
 For this he had himself mainly to thank. " O 
 British Public, ye who like me not," he wrote even in 
 Thefauu 1868, whcn it had become something of 
 his own. ^^ anachronism. But the public had 
 reason for misliking. Intellectual waywardness was 
 rewarded in kind. '' Less matter with more art " 
 would have secured Browning's welcome at any time. 
 And no man could have given this more easily. On 
 all technical points, not merely of metrical structure 
 but of general composition — handling and draughts- 
 manship, what to select and what avoid — he was be- 
 yond question an expert. Not the power, but the 
 will, can have been lacking. Artist and student of 
 verse, he should have had a higher ideal of the ex- 
 pression as well as the conception of poetry. Form 
 may not be everything, but it is a condition of in- 
 calculable importance, a necessary element in the 
 highest success. "We cannot acquit him of wilful 
 disregard for some fundamental principles of his 
 chosen art. 
 
BRITISH KOMANTIC POETS. 71 
 
 Yet the public lost much too. Browning's earlier 
 verse lacks little of its matured power. His genius 
 The misfortune flowcred early and bore fruit long. High 
 mutual. thought, stroug passion, eager vision, re- 
 
 lentless tracking of the human *soul through all 
 disguises of speech or action — these were there to 
 find, could but his contemporaries have known to 
 seek. Browning's lynx-eyed scrutiny omitted no 
 corner of human affairs. His photographic snapshots 
 are as vivid as they are swift. Above all, his strong 
 sense and masculine vigour would have been invalu- 
 able correctives for much that was faulty then. It is 
 interesting to speculate what might have followed his 
 earlier popularity. He himself might have profited 
 by adequate criticism, — might have clarified his brew, 
 and strained out more of the lees. These things 
 belong to the "might have been." But one cannot 
 help regretting that Browning gave himself and his 
 readers no better chance of coming to a mutually 
 profitable knowledge. 
 
 Here, however, it is time to make end. We began 
 
 with the elder Romantics in mid- vigour of life. We 
 
 leave off with the neo-Eomantic leaders 
 
 Conclusion. ..,,.,. .in ■ mi 
 
 Similarly m their zenith of genius. The 
 foregoing survey has traced the Eomantic Triumph — 
 in this country, and in its most characteristic form, 
 that of pure poetry — through successive stages of 
 maturity, decay, and renovation. It is next incum- 
 bent to follow this movement, at home, into regions 
 where its working may seem less obvious. Imag- 
 
72 EUEOPEAN LITEKATUHE — ^ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 inative poetry was its most natural expression, but 
 is very far from being its only or even its most im- 
 portant one. The widespread activity and many- 
 sided influence of the Eomantic Movement is precisely 
 what justifies depicting it in such detail. And it will 
 be found that no department of what can be called 
 in any sense literary labour escaped the leavening 
 influence of this great principle. 
 
73 
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATURE. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OP THE NOVEL — SOOTT's PEEDEOESSOES — HIS OWN METHOD 
 — TRUTH TO LIFE — OUTSIDE AND INSIDE — HIS PEESONAL HISTORY 
 — HIS RELATION TO ROMANCE — HIS IMMENSE INFLUENCE — SISTER 
 NOVELISTS — MISS AUSTEN : HER ATTACK ON ULTRA-ROMANTICISM 
 
 — MISS EDQBWORTH MISS PEEEIEE — OTHER CONTEMPORARIES — 
 
 GALT — IMMEDIATE FOLLOWERS — mFLUENOES OTHER THAN FICTION 
 
 JOURNALS — THE MAGAZINE PROPER — ITS LITERARY VALUE — 
 
 CHARLES LAMB — SOUTHET — COBBETT — HAZLITT — DE QUINCEY — 
 JOHN WILSON — JOHN GIBSON LOOKHAKT — THE BLACKWOOD SCHOOL 
 — VARIETIES — TRAVEL LITERATURE — THE DRAMA : TRAGEDY — 
 COMEDY — OAELYLE : LATENESS OF DEVELOPMENT — NOVEL RESUMED 
 — BULWEB LYTTON : FAULTS AND MERITS — THACKERAY: HIS 
 ATTITUDE TO ROMANCE — CHARM OF MANNER — INFLUENCE AND 
 TEACHING — DICKENS : HIS UPBRINGING AND POPULARITY — RELATION 
 TO THACKEEAY — METHOD AND MANNERISMS — DISRAELI : HIS HABIT 
 OF THOUGHT — OTHER NOVELISTS — THE BEONTE FAMILY — PLACE OF 
 CHAELOTTE BRONTE — ROMANTICISM AND DBMOCEACY — POPULARISING 
 OP KNOWLEDGE — RUSKIN — ■' PUNCH ' — MISCELLANEA — CONCLUSION. 
 
 A EEMAEKABLE feature of the time we are consider- 
 ing was that it exalted imaginative prose almost to 
 the level of the best verse.^ Poetry had indeed 
 
 ' Saintsbury and Herford, as before. Chambers's Cyclopxdia of 
 English Literature (4th edition, 2 vols., 1892) gives extracts from 
 prose writers : of. Craik, English Prose Writers (vol. v., 1896). Con- 
 
74 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 often condescended to prose, consciously or unin- 
 Devdopment tcntionally J but never before had the 
 of the nova, younger sister (for such we must call her) 
 aspired to fulfil so many of the elder's functions. 
 The best Elizabethan prose is heavy-footed though 
 weighty, the best Addisonian mannered and confined. 
 It was our Komantic Movement that revealed the 
 full capabilities of prose, vindicated its place in the 
 concert of the Muses. Various causes, various depart- 
 ments, contributed to this result. First and foremost 
 comes the renascence of fiction, the writing of which, 
 as we all know, took such a new start within the 
 period we are reviewing. Novels of many kinds of 
 course existed before. Defoe, Swift, and Sterne — 
 Fielding and Smollett — Richardson — Godwin and his 
 school — Mrs Eadcliffe and a host of imitators, — these 
 had familiarised English readers with various forms 
 of tale, and also of whimsical variant. Collections 
 of " British Novelists " were already formed ; the word 
 
 temporary accounts in Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age (3rd edition, 1858), 
 Home's New Spirit of the Age (2 vols., 18i4), Leigh Hunt's Auto- 
 biography (revised edition, 1869), &c. , &c. De Quincey, Works (16 
 vols., 1875-80) ^ossim. For later criticism, Nassau Senior, Essays on 
 Fiction (1864) ; Bagehot, Literary Studies (2 vols., 1879) ; Leslie 
 Stephen, Hours in a Library (3 vols., 1874-79) ; R. H. Hutton, 
 Essays (2 vols., 1876, now with other volumes in "Eversley Lib- 
 rary ") ; Saintsbury, Essays in English Literature (1890), Corrected 
 Impressions [W^h) ; Mrs Oliphaut, Victorian Age of English Literature 
 (2 vols., 1892). 
 
 Genest, Some Account of the English Stage (10 vols., 1832), comes 
 down only to 1830. Compare Hazlitt, Book of the Stage ; Leigh 
 Hunt, Critical Essays on London Performers. Brewer's Header's 
 SandbooTc (last edition, 1898), Appendix III., gives a list of all plays, 
 with date of performance. 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATUEE. 75 
 
 novel was as well known as the word essay. Yet the 
 novel as we know it did not exist. The old-fashioned 
 "romance"; the tale of incident, of which Gil Mas 
 is archetype; the novel of character, and that of 
 philosophy, written to point a moral or enforce a 
 creed; the self-conscious narrative, where the author 
 continually stops to sermonise, or moralise, or poke 
 fun at his reader, — these were all familiar forms. 
 To create a new type embodying the best points of 
 all these methods was a task reserved for the Eoman- 
 tic Movement, and Scott was the first who succeeded 
 in this attempt. 
 
 As in his poetry, Scott succeeded by transforming 
 
 old models. The models were there already. To his 
 
 seous contemporaries, Scott seemed here too a 
 
 predecessors, jgyiyer of old modcs, whoso gcuius workcd 
 
 wonders with familiar material. We, looking back, 
 
 can see how essentially original was his departure. 
 
 But when Waverley came out in 1814, this was less 
 
 apparent. Story - tellers were numerous. Fielding, 
 
 Smollett, and Eichardson of course belonged to ancient 
 
 history. But Evelina had been published in 1778, 
 
 Vathek in 1787, the Mysteries of Udolpho and Caleb 
 
 Williams in 1794, the Wild Irish Girl in 1806, the 
 
 Scottish Chiefs in 1810, the Absentee in 1812, Pride 
 
 and Prejudice in 1813. The authors of all these 
 
 were still alive and at work ; from all of them Scott 
 
 took hints, for some he expresses special admiration. 
 
 One form of tale, of which Udolpho has been selected 
 
 as an instance, was especially popular in Scott's day. 
 
76 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 This was the tale of terror, of which both in prose 
 and verse "Monk" Lewis was a notable exponent, 
 and whose influence can be tpaced so late as in the 
 writings of Hood and Praed. Horace Walpole began 
 this, it was essentially " Gothic " in inspiration, and 
 German examples supplied its acknowledged ideal. 
 Scott in his youth worked for Lewis, was proud to 
 meet him, and retained a lifelong weakness that way. 
 His good sense rejected the mere " blood and thunder " 
 element, but whenever he tells of Vehm-gerichts and 
 Templars, Schwarz - reiters and Black Priests of St 
 Paul, we seem to catch something of the old thrill. 
 But Scott invented far more than he borrowed. It 
 is remarkable with how little seeming effort, how 
 His own spontaneously and suddenly and eom- 
 ■mthod. pletely, he perfected his new method. 
 Waverley was begun apparently by chance, thrown 
 aside a fragment and wellnigh forgotten, then taken 
 up and finished almost at a heat. Guy Mannering 
 succeeded, written simultaneously with the Lord of the 
 Isles (1815), while at the same time he was meditat- 
 ing the Pirate. The Antiquary followed in 1816, Roh 
 Boy in 1817, and the "Scotch Novels" were fairly 
 launched, their writer's modus operandi established. 
 Later developments did little to alter, little even to 
 improve in detail, his conception and handling. He 
 grew swifter and surer, hardly more brilliant or 
 more satisfying. In prose as in poetry, Scott was the 
 great improvisatore. For style he cared little. Niceties 
 and elegancies, epigram and dissection of character, he 
 left mostly to others. He loved to tell a story, and 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUEE. 77 
 
 his gift for that is peerless. But he was more than a 
 story-teller, more even than a writer of " historical 
 novels." This last phrase does not 'rightly describe 
 the "Waverley series, any more than does the other 
 phrase " Scotch novels." Some of the best are neither 
 " historical " nor distinctively Scottish. "What Scott 
 does is to introduce us to life, depicting it with unriv- 
 alled force and vividness. It may be the life of our own 
 day or another, local or cosmopolitan. In either case 
 he gives us the essential reality of the thing. His 
 Scotch peasants are of course as masterly in one way, 
 as his historical scenes and portraits are in another. 
 But it is the Shakspearean breadth and clearness of 
 his depictment of life that carries us away captive ; it 
 is this, beyond all else, that marks him out the 
 Master. 
 
 Scott carried the historical novel to perfection at 
 
 one bound. Other writers had groped and struggled ; 
 
 he reached his goal seemingly without ex- 
 
 TruthtoK/e. . „. ^ , 
 
 ertion. His facts may be occasionally 
 perverted, his dates misplaced. That belongs to the 
 historian to correct. The general verdict seems to be 
 that his conceptions are astonishingly free from error. 
 However this be, his Cavaliers and Puritans, his 
 James VI. and Lewis XI., all the crowd of figures 
 which he flung on his canvas with such superb pro- 
 digality, strike us as being the men themselves. That 
 is the real test. There is no pretence of speaking the 
 language of the time. Costumes and conversations 
 and even incidents are treated with freedom, though 
 Scott's antiquarian instincts kept him from anything 
 
78 BUEOPEAN LITEKATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 like travesty. Plot is not made a fetish. So long as 
 the tale moves, the story-teller is content ; there are 
 passages where it flags, but to many of us these are 
 as interesting as the tale itself. The fashion of the 
 day allowed pauses for reflection ; and these, like his 
 prefaces and notes, are often utilised with delightful 
 charm. Bold experimenters have tried omitting these, 
 have sought to boil down a " Waverley " into a sensa- 
 tion story. They might as well try to summarise 
 Bohinson Crusoe. The introductions, the circumlocu- 
 tions, even the undeniable halts when the story-teller 
 pauses for refreshment, all make up part of the attrac- 
 tion. An abbreviated Scott is as bad as a Bowdler- 
 ised Bible. 
 
 The Waverley Novels are of course not faultless. It 
 has been urged that they depict life only from with- 
 outside and out. Scott did uot gloat over the unsavoury, 
 inside. jjQj. specially affect the darksome and tor- 
 tuous. But to call him superficial is misleading. 
 Like the sunlight, he sees as deep as a straight line 
 will take him ; if you want zigzags and conscious 
 looking round corners, you must go elsewhere. The 
 very clearness of his insight blinds us to its depth. 
 Surely the creator of Jeanie Deans and Balfour of Bur- 
 ley, the Black Dwarf and Chief of Clan Chattan, was 
 no mere painter of clothes. Gloom and passion were 
 part of Scott's nature, witness his letters and the judg- 
 ment of his friends. If he dwelt on them no more 
 than needful, it was from truth to his art, partly too 
 perhaps — like Wordsworth with love-poetry — from a 
 feeling that excess were too easy for him. The 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATURE. 79' 
 
 Eomantic Movement led naturally to "storm and 
 stress," wildness and horror, Werther - like senti- 
 mentalism and Byronic misanthropy. It is Scott's 
 eternal glory that he resisted and diverted this tend- 
 ency. The sane, sunny nature of the man no doubt 
 helped, which neither lameness, nor affliction, nor 
 torturing bodily illness could break or sour. Whether 
 cause or effect, Scott's healthy view of life is a thing 
 continually to rejoice in, and is as light to darkness 
 beside the jaundiced survey of many of his critics. 
 
 To recount the history of the Waverley Novels 
 were labour wasted. "We all know the story. How 
 Eis personal thej wcrc published anonymously, mystifi- 
 Mstory. cation. being a favourite sport of the time, 
 and brought wealth unexampled to their hidden 
 author. How the veil of secrecy, never very im- 
 pervious, and latterly worn thin in many places, was 
 finally lifted amid overwhelming misfortune. The 
 " Wizard of the North " was a laborious public official 
 and an esteemed country gentleman, and in both 
 capacities had been punctilious and business-like, 
 keeping an exact account of his pettiest receipts and 
 disbursements. But he was also partner in a publish- 
 ing business, without the knowledge even of his 
 friends, and with strange infatuation had left incom- 
 petent partners to manage its finance. The crash 
 came, and Scott was found liable for sums far in excess 
 of what any one could have dreamed. Like a giant he 
 set himself to meet liabilities which were only techni- 
 cally his. In the herculean effort life and strength 
 both failed, but his death achieved what his life left 
 
80 EUROPEAN LITEEATDEE — ^KOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 unfinished. We need little wonder, as Lockhart says, 
 that a man who spent half his waking hours in fairy- 
 land, dreaming dreams for our delectation, should have 
 sometimes failed to distinguish fact from fancy in the 
 realms of everyday life. Of other fault Scott stands 
 free. And his best lover can scarce regret the stern 
 punishment which fell on him. But for this, we should 
 never have known the greatness of the man. His 
 lately published Journal, candid almost beyond com- 
 pare, and written with no thought of publication, lets 
 us see more fully than ever how nobly he took his 
 trial. Calamity and adversity are the touchstones of 
 character. In sorrow, in sickness, in undeserved 
 distress and premature old age, Scott remained 
 heroic and indomitable, cheerful and loving. The 
 world is the better for his example and his pain. 
 " The glory dies not, and the grief is past." 
 
 To dilate on Scott's relation to Eomance would be 
 
 also gratuitous. He is himself the arch -romancer. 
 
 His relation Take any definition of the Eomantic Move- 
 
 to Rorrmnce. ^^^^^ ^^^ •,. ^-j^ ^ye found embodied in his 
 
 work. His novels are in prose what Shelley's poems 
 are in verse, the triumph and consummation of the 
 great progress which forms our subject. In them its 
 characteristic features, its force and freedom, its love 
 of the Past and contempt for pedantry, its warmth 
 and breadth and passion and humanity, its hatred of 
 strict form and delight in strong colour, are fully 
 exemplified. And with these is a sunny radiance, a 
 genial and unaggressive humour, which is all Scott's 
 own. His tolerant universality is again like Shake- 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUEE. 81 
 
 speare's. He mirrors mankind, without partiality or 
 favour. For his villains he had a secret fondness, and 
 his heroes proper are apt to be characterless and 
 wooden. But his minor personages make up. And 
 the free, healthy tone of all his work stands out in 
 splendid contrast with that of many of his co-workers 
 and successors. Life is seen at its bravest and its 
 best, and the young man who takes the Waverley 
 Novels as his guide to conduct stands small chance 
 of playing cripple or coward in human affairs. 
 
 It is less our task to appreciate Scott than to esti- 
 mate his influence on those who came after. And this 
 His vmmmse Can scarcc be exaggerated, whether we look 
 inMence. ^^ j^^j^g ^^ ^^ ^-^e Continent. "Walter 
 Scott" was a name to conjure with through all the 
 nations of Europe. His novels, with Byron's poetry, 
 carried the Eomantic seed far and wide. France, 
 Germany, and Italy value him as we do ; Germany, in 
 particular, receives her own with interest, and hails a 
 kinsman as well as a leader. This international 
 indebtedness will be noted in subsequent chapters. 
 Now it behoves us, before dealing with the successors 
 of Scott, to survey briefly his greatest contemporaries, 
 those too nearly coeval to be moulded by his influence. 
 For, as said before, there were many others working in 
 the same field ; there are some whom not even the pre- 
 eminence of Scott can justify us in treating lightly. 
 
 England, Ireland, and Scotland each had at this 
 time a woman-writer of independent power in fiction. 
 The " predominant partner," as is not always the case. 
 
82 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — ^EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 claimed the purest genius of the three. Jane Austen 
 siBUr novelists (1775-1817) may stand in her place even 
 -Miss Austen, ^gside Scott. This young lady— for she died 
 hardly past middle age, and the words come naturally 
 to our lips in thinking of her — had a method and 
 subject of her own, and early became mistress of 
 both. Her six novels were all published between 
 1811 and 1818. But three of them were written long 
 before. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, 
 and Northanger Abbey are said to have been composed 
 in the above order, during 1796-97-98, and the last 
 was certainly offered for publication in 1803. Great 
 novels are seldom written by young authors, and per- 
 haps no such work as these three books was ever 
 executed by a girl of twenty -one to twenty -three 
 years old. The remaining novels belong to the last 
 lustrum of her life, and there is surprisingly little 
 difference in workmanship. Her first book might be 
 deemed her best, if JSmma, from the second group, did 
 not run it close. But her level of work varies little. 
 Everywhere there is the same keen observation, deli- 
 cate humour, and finely chiselled though not laborious 
 style. Miss Austen's field was a narrow one, but 
 within it she is supreme. Scott's criticism is well 
 known. "The Big Bow-wow style I can do myself 
 like any now going ; but the exquisite touch, which 
 renders . . . commonplace things . . . interesting, ... is 
 denied me " {Journal, March 14, 1826). If too mod- 
 est, this criticism is in the main sound, and came from 
 one who had read and re-read Miss Austen's work 
 admiringly. Her " talent for describing the involve- 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATUEB. 83 
 
 ments and feelings and characters of ordinary life " is 
 indeed unique ; she has hardly an equal, certainly no 
 superior, in her own line. 
 
 We have to consider her in relation to the Eomantic 
 Movement. Her attitude to it was partly antagon- 
 „ „ , istic. AVith its harebrained sentiment she 
 
 Her attcucTc on 
 
 vUra-Rommu- had no Sympathy. Norihanger Abbey is an 
 "™' amusing satire directed against, not our 
 
 movement, but its precursor in the stories of Mrs 
 Eadcliffe. "Sensibility," that pet word of the time, 
 is contrasted by her with homely " sense." Her youths 
 and maidens are not romantic, even when romance- 
 loving. They live in a world essentially Philistine. 
 Gossip and fine -sewing are the occupation of her 
 women, with matrimonial efforts as a diversion. Her 
 men live useless lives ; they hunt or shoot, read and 
 sometimes write, and lecture their female relations. 
 Georgian life in the upper classes was aristocratic in 
 Aristotle's sense ; it rested on a Helotry of labourers 
 and manufacturers. Miss Austen's heroes never dream 
 of working for a livelihood ; unless in the Church or 
 army, they simply subsist on the labour of others. 
 This was doubtless a true picture of her time, though 
 fortunately it seems remote indeed to us — a narrow, 
 and selfish, and unideal existence. The revolutionary 
 impulse came to change all this in England. Wider 
 outlook, more generous sympathies, a passion for being 
 and knowing and loving, came in its train. Prom 
 Miss Austen to Mrs Browning, how great is the step ! 
 But the cameo-like pictures of the former, her brush- 
 work on " a little bit of ivory two inches wide " (to 
 
84 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 use her own description), remain a joy to the artist 
 and a wonder to the critic. For the vividness of her 
 portraiture is as surprising as the delicacy of the 
 strokes which produce it. 
 
 Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) had a longer life, 
 and a wider field to study. Irish society in all its 
 Miss extremes — wealth and poverty, fun and 
 
 Edgeworth. anger, melancholy and vivacity — lay open 
 before her. She went to Ireland a girl of fifteen, and 
 lived there to old age. Her best books, Castle Back- 
 rent (1800), The Absentee (1812), and OrTnond (1817), 
 speak their subject by their titles. She tried other 
 styles, wrote " Moral " and " Popular " Tales and 
 serious volumes, but these three Irish stories are 
 her master -works, and the middle one of the three 
 perhaps best of all. Her, too, Scott admired, and 
 even credited with suggesting his own novels. But, 
 if so, it was only a hint she gave him. Her descrip- 
 tions are lively, by subject rather than by style ; the 
 material rather than the handling amuses us. How 
 fail to be humorous, with such characters to draw ? 
 how miss the spring of tears, when contrasted pathos 
 so obtrudes itself ? Yet she shows insight and power 
 of selection, and her dialogue is sparkling. Some- 
 what too obvious her moralising, too designedly di- 
 dactic, unlike Scott's impersonal narration or Miss 
 Austen's creative aloofness. Her pictures live, after 
 nearly a century of change ; and seem still to depict 
 the national character, though laboriously and with 
 frequent exaggeration. Lever is more high-spirited, 
 Carleton more manifestly lifelike, but Ireland may 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATURE. 85 
 
 still be proud of this daughter, who played no small 
 
 part in developing the whole modern novel of manners. 
 
 Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1782-1854) was the 
 
 least important of the three. A personal friend of 
 
 Scott's, she rather shared than was indebted 
 
 Miss Ferrier. i . . . . -rr i i tut 
 
 to his mspiration. Her three novels, Mar- 
 riage (1818), The Inheritance (1824), and Destiny 
 (1831), might so far as dates go belong to Scott's 
 school. But dates mislead, as in Miss Austen's case ; 
 Marriage was on the stocks before Waverley appeared, 
 and Miss Ferrier distinctly " drank in her own glass." 
 Her style is lively, but her field narrow. There is 
 more tendency to caricature, less verisimilitude, than 
 with Scott. Her plots are little to boast of ; she 
 excels rather in dialogue and character-sketches. Her 
 Scots gentlewomen of the old school are vividly drawn, 
 if with too free a brush; they stand out from the 
 page as though painted by Wilkie. Perhaps, however, 
 her chief value is making a foil to Scott, illustrating 
 the conditions which lay to his hand. Had he been 
 other than he was, his books might have been on 
 the scale of Miss Ferrier's. 
 
 Apart from this trio, it should be remembered 
 that though Fanny Burney (1752-1840), William 
 oa^oon- Godwin (1756-1836), and Mrs -Eadcliffe 
 temporarws. (1764-1823) Still lived and published, their 
 novels belong to a period quite before ours. The 
 two Miss Porters, Jane (1776-1850) and Anna Maria 
 (1780-1832), both wrote on steadily, but never came 
 near the success which had attended the former's 
 Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) and Scottish Chiefs (1810) 
 
86 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUKB — KOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 Mrs Brunton (1778-1818) may be called a more 
 amateur Miss Terrier, partly anticipating and partly 
 contemporary with Scott. Her first novel, Self-con- 
 trol, appeared in 1810 ; Discipline (1814), with its 
 Highland pictures, was actually being written when 
 Waverley took the world by storm. During the rest 
 of her short life she refrained from publication. Lady 
 Morgan (1780-1859) did nothing after 1810 so good 
 as the Wild Irish Girl (1801). None of these writers, 
 therefore, can be thought of for a moment as com- 
 petitors with or rivals of Scott. 
 
 More capable of such emulation, and better entitled 
 than even Scott to be called the father of the " Scot- 
 tish novel," was John Gait (1779-1839). 
 
 Gait. . . n n 1 1 
 
 His racy descriptions of Scots lower-class 
 life, and phonographic accuracy in reproducing its 
 dialect, have never been surpassed. The Ayrshire 
 Legatees (1820) and Annals of the Parish (1821) first 
 revealed his power; the latter is said to have been 
 begun in 1813. To these followed rapidly in the 
 same vein Sir Andrew Wylie, The Entail, The Steam- 
 hoat. The Provost ; while Bingan Gilhaize, The Omen, 
 and others were historical stories of a different class, 
 and decidedly less successful. After this he went to 
 Canada On business, and though he lived for ten years 
 aiter his return produced little of importance. 1821 
 to 1826 saw his best work done, and the best of it 
 stands very high. It may be doubted if Gait has 
 ever had full justice done him, as the originator 
 of what is now opprobriously called the "Kailyard 
 School." But his significance belongs to "another 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUEE. 87 
 
 story" than ours. It is sufficient here to note him 
 as contemporary with Scott, and, though eight years 
 younger, independent of origin, though later no doubt 
 influenced by his example. 
 
 Gait left no school, his most notable follower being 
 David Macbeth Moir (1798-1851), poet and prose- 
 
 imnudiate Writer, the " Delta " of Blackwood's Maga- 
 
 foiiowers. ^ine, in whose pages appeared Mansie 
 Wauch (completed in book form, 1828), Moir's best 
 work, and worthy of Gait. Otherwise the novel of 
 provincialism and dialect was for long little worked. 
 Scott had started the historical novel on new lines, 
 and fashion followed his lead. Yet it was curiously 
 long before any worthy successor appeared. It seems 
 as if the completeness of his success daunted rivalry. 
 Avowed imitations, and even suppositious Waverley 
 novels, were not wanting, of interest only to the 
 curious student. But direct descendant, rightful heir 
 of Scott's throne, there came none. It was different 
 abroad. Dumas and Victor Hugo and Manzoni take 
 up Scott's inheritance, wield his magic wand with 
 original strength. At home, English literature was in 
 the dulness of a transition period, in prose fiction as 
 in verse. Some names, however, deserve passing 
 note. 
 
 Horace Smith, Morier, Peacock, Hook, Michael 
 Scott, and Marryat were all slightly junior to Gait. 
 They developed the novel sometimes on independent 
 lines, more often with specialism only of place and 
 circumstance. Hook's lively but now scarcely read- 
 able volumes gave more hints than is commonly 
 
88 EUBOPEAN LITBEATURE — KOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 acknowledged to both Dickens and Thackeray. 
 Morier's Hajji Bala (1824), Scott's Tom CnngUs Log 
 (1829-33), and the best of Marryat's stories — such as 
 Feter Simple (1833) and Midshipman Easy (1834) — 
 are classics in their way, and to Marryat in particular 
 belongs the credit of making sea-life real, a task only 
 essayed before in some sketches by Smollett. Peacock 
 cultivated a field of his own. The four early novels — 
 Headlong Hall (1816), Nightmare, Ahhey (1818), Maid 
 Marian (1822), and Crotchet Gastle (1831),^— with the 
 much later Gryll Grange (1860), constitute a genre of 
 their own, but had little effect on the literary current 
 of his time. Side by side with these, Lady Blessing- 
 ton and Mrs Gore wrote " society novels " of limited 
 scope, and Charles Eobert Maturin continued the 
 " tale of terror," of which Mrs Shelley's Frankenstein 
 (1816), however, forms a more striking if solitary 
 example. The mine of Irish story was worked 
 energetically by Crofton Croker, Banim, Carleton, 
 and Lover, developing on tolerably similar lines Miss 
 Edgeworth's original suggestion. And The Subaltern 
 (1825) of George Eobert Gleig, a tale of the Penin- 
 sular War, is noteworthy as an early instance of the 
 novel of military adventure. 
 
 All the writers that have been named hitherto were 
 born in the Eighteenth Century. Their intellectual 
 Influences other growth was therefore to some extent syn- 
 (hanjiction. chroDous with the movement which forms 
 our subject. It is different with the next generation. 
 
 1 Melimsourt (1817) and The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829) stand 
 somewhat apart from these. 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUEE. 89 
 
 Taking the year 1825 as the earliest date by which 
 a writer born in the present Century could have 
 attained full development, it is clear that he or she 
 canae to maturity in a world where the Eomantic 
 Triumph was already fully achieved. To such it was 
 no longer a revolutionary movement but an accepted 
 creed; questioning and reaction naturally followed. 
 Before, therefore, going on to the great names that 
 come later, it may be well to ask what other in- 
 fluences, outside of pure fiction, went to the com- 
 pleting of this triumph, and- to the perfecting of 
 English prose. However mighty and far-reaching 
 Scott's work, it did not stand by any means alone. 
 In pure fiction he was master, but in mixed letters 
 other remarkable forces combined to operate. 
 
 With journalism proper we have only limited 
 concern. Yet it should be remembered that Coleridge, 
 Campbell, and others worked for news- 
 papers, as Southey for magazines. Litera- 
 ture began to invade the news-letter. A development 
 which has only culminated in recent days — if it have 
 indeed reached its climax — was already making its 
 humble start. But it is to the monthly magazine 
 rather than the daily newspaper that we must look 
 for literary inspiration during this period. The older 
 magazines had been mere reviews. Even early num- 
 bers of the Edinburgh Beview (founded 1802) and 
 Quarterly Review (1809) were but faintly superior to 
 the Monthly Magazine and Critical Beview of older 
 days. It is not till Blackwood's Magazine made its 
 
90 EUROPEAN LITBEATUEE — EOMiNTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 second and final start in October 1817, that we find 
 anything like what we now expect in magazines, 
 articles of distinct and original literary importance, 
 along with the mere useful summary or critical 
 examination of other writers' work. 
 
 The history of " Maga " has been recently written 
 at full length by a writer to whom the task was 
 Themagmine a labour of love. We need not follow 
 proper. Yiev through the details of her story. 
 
 Magazines like " Blackwood's " and the rivals which 
 followed — of which the London Magazine almost 
 simultaneously, and Fraser's Magazine some dozen 
 years later, were the most "important ^ — are practically 
 a development of the old Essay. The essay or 
 pamphlet is a form of publication boasting a long 
 and honourable existence in Great Britain. It was a 
 happy thought to stitch several together, and issue 
 them in monthly form. This gave time for real 
 literary work, and secured wider variety and more 
 adequate space than was possible in the Spectators, 
 Idlers, Bamhlers, and Tatlers of a former age. 
 
 The merely critical side of the new magazines we need 
 not dwell on. Jeffrey, and Brougham, and Macaulay, 
 
 Us literary ^^^ Sydney Smith, and Cobbett, and Lock- 
 
 vcdue. hart, and Wilson, — so far as these only 
 
 wrote slashing reviews, they may be left aside. No 
 doubt their critical performances too were a factor in 
 
 ^ Among other magazines and reviews were — Colhurn's New 
 Monthly, John Bull, The Age, The Satirist, The Metropolitan, West- 
 minster Review, Eclectic Review, Examiner, Athenmwm, &c., &c, 
 Cf. p. 126. 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEKATUKE. 91 
 
 the growth of the age, and it is interesting to see how 
 their canons widened. But criticism per se is not 
 literature. In the reprinted volumes of Prancis, Lord 
 Jeffrey (1773-1850), for example, it may be doubted if 
 there is a single paper of permanent consequence. He 
 was critic and arbiter of letters, and posterity will not 
 forget his name, or his figure as sketched not ungently 
 by Carlyle in his Reminiscences. The band of clever 
 young men who started the "Edinburgh" live as 
 historical figures, not as literary workers. Gifford, 
 first editor of the "Quarterly," has been previously 
 mentioned as a poet ; as poet and satirist he is 
 remembered, as critic he is but a name. And for 
 some time older writers, the "hacks" of periodical 
 writing, largely pervaded the new magazines. 
 Gradually, however, new blood prevailed, new 
 methods appeared. A race of penmen, who for 
 pecuniary or other reasons preferred inditing 
 magazine articles to the labour of writing books, 
 grew up and developed styles of their own. Some 
 of the most characteristic work of the time was done 
 under these novel conditions, and done in a way that 
 left permanent traces on our literature. The names of 
 the most accomplished writers of " occasional articles," 
 whose style and methods did so much to develop 
 English prose, must be briefly recalled. 
 
 First comes the ever delightful Charles Lamb 
 (1775-1834). His " Essays of Elia " were contributed, 
 
 from 1820 onward, to the London Magazine. 
 
 Before this Lamb had written on Hogarth 
 and Shakespeare in Leigh Hunt's short-lived Reflector, 
 
92 EUROPEAN LITERA.TUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 besides publishing tales and tragedies, which might 
 claim place for him as a novelist. But the Essays are 
 his best work. Small need to discuss these, familiar 
 as they are to readers of all tastes and ages. The 
 point to bring out is, that here was high-class original 
 work appearing with other papers in a magazine, and 
 only afterwards gathered into a book. Before this 
 Century, one cannot recall any case quite parallel.-^ 
 And the writer of this work, so mellow, so tender, so 
 full of charm — sprightly or pathetic, but in all moods 
 delightful — as he was himself one of the finest " wits " 
 of his day, so he cannot but have deeply impressed 
 the young minds that were coming to maturity during 
 the 'Twenties of our Century. 
 
 Another giant of the magazines was the poet 
 Southey. His contributions to the Quarterly Review 
 alone would fill volumes. And his prose 
 style has great merit. Without the charm 
 of Lamb — without indeed the "vaporous drop" of 
 genius, whose absence is the one fatal flaw in all 
 Southey's work — it has clearness, manliness, and 
 variety. The conditions under which he wrote almost 
 precluded sovereign excellence. All his writing is 
 hack-work, but the best of its kind. A word may be 
 said later about his historical essays. At present we 
 are concerned only to note him as one of the leaders 
 in popularising knowledge by high r class magazine 
 articles, and by miscellaneous writing of the kind 
 represented best in his hodge-podge book-series The 
 
 ^ Unless Goldsmith's Citizen of the World be the exception -which 
 proves the rule. 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATURE. 93 
 
 Doctor (1834-47), and in many pleasant pages of the 
 Life and Correspondence (1850) issued by the filial zeal 
 of his second son Cuthbert. 
 
 Some years older than these, and very different as 
 a writer, was William Cobbett (1762-1835). A 
 chequered life gave him strangely varied 
 experiences. He had been ploughman and 
 soldier, attorney's clerk, tutor, and pamphleteer (the 
 last in America, where he spent the last seven years 
 of the century), before in 1802 he started his Weekly 
 Begister. This was a journal of politics, not of liter- 
 ature. But it caused in political writing a Words- 
 worthian change toward directness and simplicity. 
 The old kid-glove and full-dress style of controversy 
 was exchanged for English which is racy if often 
 vulgar, and has a hit like a kicking horse. Nothing 
 like Cobbett's invective had been heard since Swift. 
 To equal him with Swift would be absurd, so far as 
 literary shape goes; but in sheer force he will bear 
 comparison. Of his numerous books, Rural Bides 
 (1830) at least is a classic. The English Grammar 
 (1810), Advice to Young Men (1830), and the bitterly 
 one-sided History of the English Beformation (1824-27) 
 are best known of the remainder. But he wrote hosts 
 of other things, all in the same nervous, sinewy English. 
 Bural Bides is itself a reprint from the Begister, other 
 selections from which fill six more volumes. Porcu- 
 pine's Works, a reprint of his American writings (signed 
 " Peter Porcupine "), fill double that number. Cobbett 
 farmed and wrote, made money and lost it, went for 
 two more years to America, returned to be tried for 
 
94 EUROPEAN LITERATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 sedition and get into Parliament. Through all this 
 the Register went on, doing much to develop journal- 
 ism, much also to accustom men to a racier, quainter, 
 more plain and idiomatic style than the dignity of 
 letters had lately allowed. He was a power and 
 a terror, and stamped his impression deep on the 
 minds both of friends and opponents, and indeed in a 
 sense on English literature generally. 
 
 Sydney Smith (1771-1845), the wittiest of English- 
 men, irresistibly genial yet of solid good sense, parson, 
 Edinburgh Eeviewer, and author of Flynn- 
 
 Hazliit, , , ^ .^ rtr\r,\ 
 
 leys Letters (1808), may serve to separate 
 Cobbett from another strong writer and zealous hater, 
 William Hazlitt (1778-1830). Younger than the 
 other two just named, Hazlitt was also more literary, 
 more deeply touched by the new methods and ideals. 
 Personal acquaintance with Coleridge powerfully affec- 
 ted him in early manhood, and he devoted himself to 
 literature and art, but as expositor rather than origin- 
 ator. His early philosophical and political writings, 
 his latest Life of Napoleon (1828), have no abiding 
 value. But as critic and critical exponent his place 
 is among the very first. The Spirit of the Age (1825) 
 is his best-known book ; the description of Coleridge 
 preaching, in My First Acquaintance icith Poets^ his best- 
 known short passage. From 1812 to 1830 he poured 
 forth a flood of critical and miscellaneous essaj'-s, un- 
 equalled in quality by any writer of his time. Lamb is 
 more ethereal, more delicately subtle, claims more un- 
 mistakably the prerogatives of genius ; Cobbett excels 
 
 1 The Uberal, No. III. (1823). 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATUEE. 95 
 
 in sledge-hammer force. liazlitt, more practical than 
 Lamb, more refined than Cobbett, surpasses both as a 
 direct critic. He, too, was a journalist. The Examiner 
 and Morning Chronicle, the Edinburgh Revieiu and Lon- 
 don Magazine, printed much of his best work. He 
 lectured, also — as did Coleridge and others — upon 
 various classes of English poets. His permanent fame 
 rests on his essays and critical sketches, which one is 
 glad to find still reprinted in cheap form. Por, with 
 all Hazlitt's faults — his violence, his prejudice, his 
 bitter temper and want of reticence about himself and 
 others — he stands and will stand in the very first class 
 of philosopher-critics of our own literature, narrowed 
 only by comparative ignorance of literatures other 
 than our own. 
 
 Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859) is yet another 
 writer in periodicals whose work had great and in- 
 fluential literary value. Settled first at 
 Grasmere, then in Edinburgh — if settled be 
 the word to describe his elvish and erratic ways — he 
 supported himself and his family by incessant maga- 
 zine work. Confessions of an Opium-eater, in the 
 London Magazine for 1821, brought him first into 
 fame. Eor the rest of life his income was assured, so 
 long as he could ply pen. And ply it he did, amid all 
 the self-created hindrances of an unpractical temper- 
 ament, always late with " copy," pursued by printers' 
 devils, dodging imaginary creditors, turning night 
 into day and day into night. Maugre such troubles, 
 he produced a large volume of work, sometimes 
 worthless, generally valuable in parts, always readable 
 
96 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEB — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 by those who can tolerate his style. Oa style De 
 Quincey prided himself, as stylist he wished to and 
 did make his mark. And at its best his prose poetry 
 reaches highest excellence. There are passages in 
 the Opium-eater which no reader can forget, which 
 might serve as typical instances of the change that 
 was coming over English prose. And such passages 
 occur elsewhere continually, without notice or prep- 
 aration. In a casual essay on " Sir William Ham- 
 ilton" (Works, vol. xvi.), we are suddenly plunged 
 into that well-known, ambitiously successful bit of 
 h'avura beginning " Martyrdom it is, and no less." 
 De Quincey was a student of German, in a profounder 
 sense than Scott and Wordsworth. And while the 
 prime inspiration of such passages is Ehzabethan 
 .English, we cannot fail to realise how deeply the 
 Teutonic dye had tinged his being. As a rule, how- 
 ever, and in ordinary writing, De Quincey's style 
 " overleaps the selle." Its incessant artifice, irrepres- 
 sible self - consciousness, the tortuousness and com- 
 placency of its interminable involutions, its effort and 
 whimsy and air of a juggler performing his feat, soon 
 pall on most readers. To us who did not know the 
 little wizened elaborately - courteous man, with his 
 childish self-deceptions and lovable abnormalities, 
 the style which was himself seems affected and 
 wearisome. In his own day, however, De Quincey 
 was both a type and a model, and must be seriously 
 reckoned with in treating the evolution of English 
 prose. 
 
 Next come the lions of " Blackwood," John 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUEE. 97 
 
 Wilson (1785-1854) and his younger friend John 
 Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854). "Chris- 
 
 John Wilson. ^ ' 
 
 topher North," the elder of the pair, was 
 the very impersonation of the " magazine man " we 
 have in view. His separate works go for little; 
 neither his poems (mentioned before), nor his Lights 
 and Shadows of Scottish Life (1822) and Margaret 
 Lyndsay (1823), can be credited with much individu- 
 ality. But in " Maga " he was a force indeed. Tastes 
 change, and the revelry of Nodes Ambrosiance disgusts 
 a dyspeptic generation. Their high jinks and high 
 talk, their guzzlings and gambols, their pretentious- 
 ness and prejudice and contempt of Cockneys and 
 Whigs, all seem to us equally tiresome. Only the 
 immortal Shepherd survives his wrecked surroundings. 
 And of this noble image Wilson was chief originator. 
 Through its lips he poured the very best of his own 
 thought, which otherwise meanders through rather 
 long-winded and slovenly papers, written against time, 
 and bearing too clear marks of their origin. Yet, 
 with all faults, Wilson's Blackwood work shows the 
 prodigality of genius. Want of form will probably 
 prevent it ever coming back into favour. His ascen- 
 dancy must have been largely a personal matter. The 
 great, -genial, glorious "Professor," with his magnifi- 
 cent bodily frame, and reputation for unequalled ped- 
 estrian and pugilistic prowess, for supremacy of 
 muscle as of mind, took men's admiration by storm. 
 If he did no really great work as either poet, philos- 
 opher, or critic, he combined all three into one figure 
 of heroic proportions, whose sayings and doings in 
 
 G 
 
98 EUEOPEAN LITEKATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Blackwood were events of prime importance in their 
 day. 
 
 His ally Lockhart, younger and more scholarly, gave 
 himself up mainly to magazine work. In Blackwood, 
 joTin Gibson and later as editor of the Quarterly, he did 
 Locichart. yeoman service for the light-horse brigade, 
 his sharp satire, and indeed occasional scurrility, some- 
 times getting him into trouble. But he found time 
 also for independent writing. His Spanish Ballads 
 (1823) have more vitality than all Wilson's verse; he 
 wrote four novels — Valerius (1821), Adam Blair 
 (1822), Reginald Ballon (1823), and Matthew Wald 
 (1824) — the first and second of which at any rate 
 were favourably received ; and, besides short lives of 
 Burns and Napoleon, he secured immortality by his 
 Life of Scott (1837-8). This admirably executed 
 work is at least the second in rank of great bio- 
 graphies, and there are good judges who doubt if 
 even Boswell's Johnson can be put before it. In 
 his periodical writing, Lockhart displays the same 
 fighting qualities which distinguish Peter's Letters to 
 his Kinsfolh (1819). Caustic wit, satire which earned 
 his name of Scorpion, and keen observation are applied 
 to letters in general, as- in that book to Edinburgh 
 society. Wilson and Lockhart, with their following, 
 did much to revolutionise the tone of criticism, and to 
 introduce a heartier and healthier, if not as yet a more 
 kindly and sympathetic, view of life and literature. 
 
 It were wearisome to enumerate the lesser lights 
 who sparkled in the pages of " Maga " and her succes- 
 sors. Maginn (brilliant free-lance) and Macnish and 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATURE. 99 
 
 Moir, Gleig and Warren, Barham and Miss Martineau, 
 TUBiMskwooa Edward Irving, Count D'Orsay, and a, 
 soTwoi. jjQg|. pf otiiers, need not be individual- 
 
 ised in regard of their contributions to journalism. 
 As a collective body of magazinists, their work was to 
 supple, and variegate, and widen the scope of our prose 
 essay or article, to familiarise the public with it as a 
 medium through which any subject, from metaphysics 
 to prize-fighting, might be suitably discussed. That 
 work they did well and thoroughly. Hence proceeds 
 the Magazine of to-day, with its width of subject, 
 adequacy of treatment, elevation of literary tone. 
 That the result has its drawbacks, need not be con- 
 cealed. Our books incline to become bundles of 
 reprints, our authors find it easier to write articles 
 than volumes. Knowledge has been popularised, and 
 has also perhaps been in some measure plebified. But 
 few would deny that the upshot on the whole has been 
 good, and at any rate it has been a change of con- 
 spicuous importance, reacting powerfully on all forms 
 of our literature. 
 
 Closely connected with the Magazines came also 
 much independent work of the " occasional " kind. 
 The writings of John Wilson Croker be- 
 long to this class, as do those of Miss 
 Mitford, William and Mary Howitt, Charles Kirk- 
 patrick Sharpe, and many others. Dunlop's History 
 of Fiction (1814) may perhaps find place in this 
 connection,, and William Jordan's Literary Gazette 
 (founded 1817). Space forbids multiplication of ex- 
 
100 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 amples under this head, nor allows us to linger over 
 that other form of literary enterprise denoted by the 
 names Album, Amulet, Keepsake, and the like. These 
 were compilations, as a rule handsomely got up 
 and profusely illustrated, containing contributions 
 in prose and verse from authors of all degrees of 
 eminence. Such Christmas Books, as we may call 
 them, often constituted an "editor's benefit," got up 
 to reward some struggling man of letters, whose 
 powerful friends took this pleasant way of aiding 
 with money's worth in the shape of brains. But 
 the fashion died soon, and these pretty volumes are 
 not scarce enough to be worth buying, while the best 
 of their contents is available in more convenient form. 
 
 "Writers on travel of this period may be grouped 
 together, without exactitude of dates. Interest in 
 Travel foreign countries was a feature of the age, 
 literatun. ^,^^ travellers were still scholars. Clarke, 
 Forsyth, Hobhouse (Byron's " classic Hobhouse "), and 
 Colonel Leake were the chief authorities on Italy and 
 Greece. Sir John Barrow, Sir John Malcolm, and Sir 
 Eobert Ker Porter — all knighted for services abroad 
 — published weighty works on Asiatic and African 
 countries, while Sir John Bowring added translation 
 to travel, and studied popular folk-songs. Eoss, Parry, 
 and Scoresby thrilled their readers with tales of Arctic 
 adventure ; Mungo Park, dead some years before, lived 
 again in his posthumously published Second Voyage. 
 A striking figure of the day was Belzoni, whose Exca- 
 vations in Egypt (1821) proved the rage for a time. 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUEE. 101 
 
 Charles Waterton deserves mention for his Wander- 
 ings in South ATnerica (1828), Captain Basil Hall 
 for books of travel from 1818 onward, his last work. 
 Fragments of Voyages and Travels (1830-40), being a 
 classic of exploration. 
 
 One extensive department remains to take into 
 account. Serious tragedy has been noticed occasionally 
 The drama- in formcr pages. The drama stands mid- 
 tragedy. ^^^ between poetry and prose fiction, and 
 in its lighter forms approximates closely to the latter, 
 the dialogue of comedy being indistinguishable from 
 that of the novel. The whole drama of our period 
 may advantageously be treated in a parenthesis, its 
 place in the literature under review being itself paren- 
 thetical. Striking is the contrast with that other 
 literary revival under Elizabeth, when drama was the 
 chosen form, the principal vehicle employed. In our 
 period it is little more than a survival; the novel 
 takes its place as the universal medium. Tragedy was 
 still an object of respect. Coleridge and Wordsworth, 
 Byron and Shelley, Scott, Lamb, and others, all tried 
 their hands at it. But even they rather from imitation 
 than inspiration, and they founded no school. If 
 anything, they started a tendency, which soon became 
 strong, to substitute for drama the dramatic poem. 
 This tendency, traceable back to Goethe's Faust as 
 initiator and model, took the best writers of next 
 generation away from drama. Bailey's Festus, Home's 
 Orion, Sydney Dobell and Alexander Smith, are cases 
 in point, while the most important and profitable of 
 
102 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 all is Browning. Instead of his earlier tragedies we 
 get Men and Women; instead of a conventional 
 drama, the dramatic monologue. Of writers who 
 were faithful to tragedy proper, most have been 
 already named. Talfourd and Milman and Sir Henry 
 Taylor, Joanna Baillie and Miss Mitford, are the 
 salient names after those of the great poets. To these 
 we may now add Eichard Lalor Shiel (1791-1851), 
 the Irish politician, who wrote a series of plays 
 mostly between 1815 and 1825 ; while the Bertram 
 of Charles Maturin (ante, p. 88) was a nine days' 
 wonder in 1816. No other conspicuous name occurs 
 in serious play -writing, till we come to Richelieu 
 and The Lady of Lyons (both 1838), by an author 
 whose work we shall soon have to survey. Practi- 
 cally, it will be admitted, serious tragedy is but a 
 by-play of this era; its highest energies did not 
 express themselves in this form. 
 
 Comedy and farce are more abundant. Sheridan 
 
 died in 1816, and though the younger Colman lived 
 
 till 1836, his Mynheer van Dunck and 
 
 Comedy. 
 
 other pieces belong to earlier days. 
 Thomas Morton (1764-1838), two years junior to 
 Colman both in birth and death, author of Speed 
 the Plough, was also a veteran or emeritus. But of 
 younger writers there was no lack. The difficulty 
 is to find anything that can fairly be called litera- 
 ture, classified alongside of such work as Rejected 
 Addresses. Hook's one or two plays hardly deserve 
 that name. The Paul Pry (1816) of John Poole 
 (1786-1872) has at least given us one proverbial 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATURE. 103 
 
 character. Eeynolds and Coyne and W. T. "Mon- 
 crieff," and even J. E. Planch^, — these names hardly 
 live outside the greenroom door. Perhaps John 
 Baldwin Buckstone (1802-79) and Douglas William 
 Jerrold (1803-57) come nearest our ideal, the former's 
 best hit being with Green Bushes (1845), as the latter's 
 with Black-eyed Susan (1829). Jerrold did better work 
 than this, though mostly of a fugitive and journalistic 
 order, more amusing than important. But in comedy 
 these, with the Box and Cox (1847) of J. M. Morton 
 (1811-91), seem the best of a poor bunch. Just before 
 1850, a group of younger writers comes forward, but 
 the work of Shirley Brookes, Tom Taylor, Dion 
 Boucicault, Blanchard Jerrold, W. G. Wills, Tom 
 Eobertson, and H. J. Byron, is best left to be dealt 
 with in the concluding volume of this series, even 
 though one or two plays (like Boucicault's London 
 Assurance) come well within our time. For the rest, 
 information about the stage of this date will be found 
 in the lives of Kean and the Kembles, Macready, 
 C. M. Young, and others, not forgetting Charles 
 Mathews (1776-1835), whose At Home (about 1818) 
 may fairly be ranked as comedy, and has shown 
 the way to various more or less similar "enter- 
 tainments" since. 
 
 We have now perhaps exhausted the minor forms 
 
 of light literature, which along with the novel made 
 
 up the belles lettres of the 'Twenties ; and 
 
 are almost ready to take up the record of 
 
 fiction-writing at the point where it broke o£f. One 
 
104 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIO TEIUMPH. 
 
 name, however, of outstanding importance remains 
 yet to mention, whose chronological fitness in this 
 page may create surprise. Thomas Carlyle (1795- 
 1881), though belonging so much to our own days, 
 dates from the Eighteenth Century as to birth, and 
 was older than many writers whom we think of as 
 wholly Georgian. This should perhaps be remem- 
 bered when we read his criticism of Scott and others. 
 The Waverley Novels were not part of his boyish 
 education ; they came out when he was already reach- 
 ing early manhood. And as he himself was a leader 
 in the reaction which followed their success, we need 
 hardly expect dispassionate or "detached" criticism 
 from him. Carlyle flowered late, therefore many 
 younger writers preceded him in popularity. But 
 he strikes his roots back beyond them into an earlier 
 generation, and shows signs of this to an attentive 
 reader. Carlyle had much of the Scottish peasant 
 in him, much of the stern dourness we ascribe 
 to that character, something of its narrowness as well 
 as force. But of course he represents a later view of 
 life than Burns or Hogg, was far better educated, and 
 rose permanently above both in station. Of genius he 
 had his full share. Mastery of verse-rhythm was 
 denied him, and characteristically he inveighs against 
 it as archaism and folly. Prose is his medium, but he 
 strives hard to make it fulfil the functions of poetry. 
 In doing so, he invents a style of his own. Wilful 
 and rebellious, he spurns all fetters of precedent and 
 grammar. What are helps to other men are hin- 
 drances to him. The English language is not ex- 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUKE. 105 
 
 pressive enough ; he must create a tongue for himself. 
 Unrivalled descriptive power, the gift of depicting 
 personality by an epithet, and scenes as if with an 
 instantaneous camera — this was perhaps Carlyle's 
 master-endowment. To this all else gives way, in 
 history as in essay -writing. Carlyle notably repre- 
 sents the serious study of German, mainly on its 
 literary side, as Coleridge and De Quincey on its 
 speculative. He imported German idiom into his 
 speech, as well as German habit into his thought. 
 How far-reaching his influence has been, every page 
 of modern writing shows. 
 
 Carlyle began as an Edinburgh Eeviewer, with 
 articles which bear little trace of his later mannerism. 
 Lateness of Even earlier indeed he had written papers 
 devd<rpment. for Brcwster's Uucyclopcedia, but his literary 
 importance begins with his Zife of Schiller (1825), 
 German Romance (1826), and Eeview article on Bichter 
 (1827). During his retirement at Craigenputtock he 
 wrote mainly for the magazines, and in Fraser's 
 Magazine for 1833-34 appeared his first independent 
 original work, the famous Sartor Besartus. Re- 
 moving to London in 1834, he remained permanently 
 there, writing and lecturing, and during the next 
 fifteen years published the French Bevolution '(1837), 
 Past and Present (1843), and Cromwell (1845), besides 
 other miscellaneous work. Beyond this point we do 
 not follow him. He is of immense importance in the 
 prose literature of 1830-50, a revolutionary force, 
 tearing convention in tatters, and bursting all re- 
 maining bonds alike of literary form and speculative 
 
106 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — ^EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 postulate. How far his work was beneficial, we need 
 not at present stay to enquire. Our concern is to 
 realise that he was synchronous with the novelists 
 we are about to mention, older than most of them, 
 but contemporary as to dates of publication. As a 
 stylist he stands apart by himself. Many of us 
 resent as strongly as possible the liberties he took 
 with his mother-tongue, say rather the violence with 
 which he wrenched and twisted and distorted into 
 uncouth shape her sanctities of speech. But none 
 can refuse to see in Carlyle a force of the first order, 
 an influence to which we owe much that is most 
 abiding in our conceptions of life and thought and 
 literature. 
 
 Coming back now at last to the main current of 
 
 novel-writing, we first encounter two writers who 
 
 may be shortly dismissed as pale shadows 
 
 Novel resumed. 
 
 of Scott. George Payne Eamsford James 
 (1801-60) and William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-82) 
 during many years competed for the favour of young 
 or easily satisfied readers, and it is hard to say which 
 obtained most of it. Perhaps Jack Sheppard (1839), 
 Old St Paul's (1841), Windsor Castle (1843), and others 
 by Ainsworth, had a wider popularity than anything 
 by his rival. James, however, if less exciting, is 
 usually the pleasanter writer ; both novelists still pre- 
 serve some remains of their old vogue. 
 
 More interesting problems, and a wider range, meet 
 us in Edward Bulwer, first Lord Lytton (1803-73). 
 Bulwer, or Bulwer Lytton, as his contemporaries 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATURE. 107 
 
 variously knew him, was one of the most accom- 
 plished writers of his day. We have seen 
 
 Bulwer Lytton, 
 
 that he wrote poetry, not of the first rank, 
 and plays — Richelieu, Money, and the Lady of Lyons 
 — which, coming out in 1838-40, still hold the stage. 
 But his chief work was prose fiction. He once said 
 that in all he attempted he began by failure, and 
 victory only followed perseverance. Early poems fell 
 flat, an early play is quite forgotten, and his first novel, 
 Falkland (1827), had not much success. But Pelham 
 (1828) commanded attention, and was followed in 
 rapid succession by The Disowned and Bevereux, Paul 
 Clifford, Eugene Aram, Godolphin, Pilgrims of the 
 Rhine, the Last Bays of Pompeii, and Rienzi, all 
 within the next seven years. Alice (1837) and Leila 
 (1838) appeared along with his plays, which again 
 were followed by Night and Morning (1841), the weird 
 Zanoni (1842), Harold, and theZas^ of the Barons 
 (1843). Then he turned back to poetry, but Lucretia 
 (1846) came between the New Timon and King Arthur. 
 In 1850 he broke fresh ground with the Caxtons series, 
 just as much later with Kenelm Chillingly and the 
 Parisians. Into these later achievements we must 
 not follow him. The long list of his Eomantic novels 
 speaks for itself. When we remember that besides 
 being novelist, poet, and dramatist he was a busy 
 magazine- contributor, edited for some years the New 
 Monthly, and from 1831 to 1841 sat in Parliament, 
 some idea may be formed of his remarkable diligence 
 and versatility. 
 
 In truth, Bulwer Lytton had great gifts. He read 
 
108 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEB — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 widely, thought actively, and had no mean pictorial 
 Faults and faculty. Yct the unreality of his novels 
 merits. prevents their reaching front rank. His 
 characters do not live: they are puppets skilfully 
 constructed, moving as their maker directs. Art 
 supplants nature. We find in Bulwer that " neo- 
 Eomantic" spirit which appeared also in poetry. 
 Inspiration is no longer spontaneous but laboured, 
 and eked out by the resources of learning. Add that 
 Bulwer's own taste confused the grandiose with the 
 great. Simplicity was alien to him, symbolism and 
 mystery congenial. He worships the Beautiful with a 
 big B, and is ready to prostrate himself before any 
 Cabbalistic mummery. Abstractions of all sorts ap- 
 peal to him; he cares less for the thought than for 
 the garment in which it is disguised. From Germany 
 he learned mysticism, sentimental melancholy, cloudy 
 reverie, and delight in abstract phrases. But his 
 sentiment is not all unreal, his abstractions have still 
 a concrete background. He knows what he writes 
 about, though he loves posing and grandiloquence, and 
 never allows us to lose himself in his characters. Eeal 
 strength underlies his little fopperies and sentiment- 
 alism. Exaggerated and inflated, his Eomanticism 
 provoked criticism and parody, the latter finding meet 
 prey in his sonorous but hollow periods. Yet, after 
 all deduction, Bulwer had certainly high talent, and 
 has left much good work, though none which might 
 not easily have been better. Versatile and prolific, 
 he lacked concentration and rigorous pruning. He is 
 a sort of masculine Mrs Hemans, with her fatal 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATURE. 109 
 
 fluency and love of cheap sentiment. He helped to 
 debase the Eomantic ideal, to substitute silver for 
 gold, not to mention indubitable pinchbeck. There- 
 fore he fairly lay open to the satirist and the scorner, 
 and the writer we are next to mention was not slow 
 to take advantage of such opportunity. 
 
 William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) was the 
 very antipodes of Bulwer. Of pretence in any form 
 he was sworn foe, any approach to sham 
 stirred his sharpest satire. Born m India, 
 but educated in England, his first taste was for pic- 
 torial art, and only loss of fortune compelled him 
 to write. Newspapers and magazines gave him plen- 
 tiful employment, and a needlessly large quantity of 
 these early articles has been reprinted in his Works. 
 The Paris Skefchhoolc (1840) was his first separate 
 production, followed up rapidly by the Yellowplush 
 Papers, Hoggarty Diamond, and ShaMy Genteel Story. 
 Barry Lyndon (1842) first showed his real power, 
 while in Vanity Fair (1847-8) and Pendennis (1849- 
 50) he may be said to have reached his full stature 
 as a novelist. We leave him at this point. His later 
 novels, his attempt to get into Parliament, his brief 
 editorship of the Cornhill Magazine, are all beyond 
 our province. But in this earlier work, largely re- 
 printed from magazines and particularly from Punch, 
 still more in Vanity Fair and Pendennis, there is 
 enough to demand very special attention in this 
 book. 
 
 Thackeray was at once Eomantic and anti-Eomantic. 
 
no EUKOPEAN LITERATURE — ROMAIJTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 He satirised scathingly the sham -antique school of 
 His attitude fiction, with its castles and knights and 
 to BoTnance. troubadouis and portcullises, all theatrical 
 and devoid of reality. But his own sentiment is 
 Eomantic at heart, and by no means free from a 
 leaning to sentimentalism. His satire is the indig- 
 nation of one who would fain be benevolent. The 
 neo - Eomantic tendency v^ith him turned to criti- 
 cism rather than ornamentation, but it is there 
 all the same. Bulwer and Thackeray are the chief 
 embodiments of this tendency in fiction, from very 
 different standpoints and with very different results. 
 Bulwer's methods were anathema to Thackeray. Their 
 veneer, glitter, and tinsel he could not endure, and 
 in Novels by Eminent Hands he gives first place to 
 a burlesque of their grosser inanities. Bulwer is 
 essentially Byronic, Thackeray anti - Byronic. Yet 
 they have more in common than appears at first. 
 The shield is the same, though looked at on reverse 
 sides. Certainly Thackeray's manly, direct, straight- 
 forward portraiture is far above Bulwer's posturing 
 and rhodomontade. His characters are men and 
 women, not masks or dummies. To hear him talk, 
 you would think him modern of the moderns. His- 
 tory is to put off pumps and periwig, and foot it 
 among common mortals ; poetry is to veil itself in 
 the garb of common speech. Yet the sentimental- 
 ising, poetising, moralising turn is never far off; life 
 is not looked on for itself, but for the lessons it 
 conveys. Thackeray's manners and morals are already 
 old-fashioned; we read his novels with delight, but 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATUKE. Ill 
 
 they represent a world other than ours. His char- 
 acters move on a stage of their own. Jos Sedley 
 and Becky Sharp are real enough, as well as im- 
 mortal, but they are seen as through coloured glasses, 
 and the personality of their author goes for much 
 in their presentation to us. 
 
 That personality was indeed always delightful. 
 Thackeray is as pleasant as Montaigne, but we never 
 
 Charm of forget his presence. He talks to us as a 
 
 imnner. ffjend, and one of his chief charms is the 
 unstudied grace of his conversation. His style in 
 its way is simply perfect. "Without effort, without 
 the least display, he gives you of his best, grave 
 or gay, sparkling or pathetic. Thackeray was not 
 exactly a "writing man." When he began a novel, 
 it was from necessity more than choice, and he is 
 afraid it , may bore you as it somewhat does him. 
 Incident he does not trouble about ; the story, even 
 the characters, are left pretty much to shape them- 
 selves. But the bright and kindly narrator is always 
 at your elbow : with him as guide, small chance that 
 the way will prove wearisome. Thackeray's art of 
 companionship is perhaps his highest accomplishment ; 
 the style in which his narration, exposition, and 
 comment are couched is a perennial joy in itself, and 
 as modern as his habit of thought is old-world and 
 artificial. 
 
 Thackeray had great influence, both in matter and 
 manner. No modern novelist is unaffected by his 
 priority. Even in small details, he set the fashion, 
 nor only to writers of books. The loud, noisy man. 
 
112 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMAJSTTIO TRIUMPH. 
 
 whose scorn of sham makes him shout, and brawl, 
 inflmnoeand and contradicfc unceasingly, is^ studied 
 tmching. . much from Thackeray's heroes, especially 
 the intolerable Philip of a later novel. And in litera- 
 ture as in life Thackeray's mastership goes deep. He 
 and Carlyle have taught us to be intolerant of humbug. 
 The lesson has been pushed farther than they foresaw ; 
 what was truth to them has been analysed with un- 
 sparing, sometimes presumptuous, rigour. The Holy 
 of Holies of life itself has been stripped of what 
 seemed illusory trappings. Whether human frailty 
 may not sometimes have taken the real for sham, 
 the essential for the adventitious, is another matter ; 
 but the influence of Thackeray has been supreme with 
 later novelists, and on the whole it has assuredly been 
 an influence for good. 
 
 Thackeray's great contemporary rival was Charles 
 
 Dickens (1812-70). Dickens is of special interest to 
 
 us, because he stands so much apart from 
 
 Dickens. pi. t 
 
 the current of his age. In any era, his 
 qualities would have probably showed the same. 
 True, his pathos recalls the ultra -sentimentalism of 
 the Eomantics ; no one escapes his time, and possibly 
 this is an inheritance from his immediate precursors. 
 But at any rate it is the real Dickeus. In pathos as 
 in fun, he is the same quickly responding, easily ex- 
 aggerating nature, too emotional to compretiend the 
 satiety produced on readers by his laboured sentiment 
 as by the stereotyped catchwords denoting his comic 
 characters. Both are so real to himself, so part and 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATURE. 113 
 
 parcel of his conception. This is the defect of his 
 quality, no doubt ; but how keen and pure and joyous 
 is that quality ! Comedy of the finest, perfect in 
 ■ itself, and provoking a chorus of irresistible laughter. 
 Dress and milieu are after all secondary to this; 
 those who "cannot read Dickens" are repelled by 
 mere mechanical deficiencies of presentment, and 
 fail to pierce through these to the informing reality. 
 Powers which in another age would have made a 
 Congreve or even a Molifere were diverted in Dickens 
 to the service of the novel. 
 
 A Londoner at heart, Dickens was fortunate in 
 seeing London life thoroughly. Portsmouth and 
 Hu up-bringing Chatham claimed a few early years, but 
 and popularity, ^^ien Ms father's reverses threw the family 
 on the world, they were already in London. The 
 blacking factory at Hungerford Market, the visits to 
 Marshalsea, Camden Town and the school in Hamp- 
 stead Eoad, the solicitor's office and the reporter's 
 notebook, all were training for Dickens. It was a 
 rough education, painful too at times, but incompar- 
 ably useful. Trom 1833 onward Dickens wrote much 
 for the magazines. This and his reporter's work 
 caused frequent country expeditions, also turned 
 later to capital account. Sketches iy Boz (in book 
 form, 1836) was his first literary venture ; but later 
 in the same year he married and began Pickwick. 
 From that time his literary career was a succession 
 of triumphs. Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, the 
 Old Curiosity Shop, Barnahy Budge, American Notes, 
 Martin Chuzzlewit, the Christmas Tales, Pictv/res from 
 
 H 
 
114 EUEOPEAJSr LITERATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Italy, Dombey and Son, and David Gopperfield, followed 
 in this order, and in continuous succession, between 
 1838 and 1850, where we properly leave him. His 
 later work broke little fresh ground, except partially 
 in the Tale of Two Cities. But his popularity never 
 flagged, and he worked untiringly, not only at novels, 
 but at multifarious other matters, editing Household 
 Words, lecturing and giving readings, indulging his 
 love of the stage in private though he curiously never 
 wrote a play — to the end one of the busiest of men, 
 and one of the heartiest of friends to those who knew 
 him. Some books might take less well than others, 
 but he never had cause to dread losing his public, and 
 died as he had lived, the most welcome and widely 
 read author of his day. 
 
 It is curious to remember that Thackeray sought 
 the work of illustrating Pickwick. One year his 
 naatwnio junior, Dickens preceded him as a writer, 
 Thadceray. jjqj, ^jj,^ Thackcray's vogue ever equal his 
 rival's. Both adopted a plan which was popular at 
 the time, but had its danger to lazy writers, of issuing 
 their novels in monthly numbers. Thackeray's work 
 rather suffered by this piecemeal publication; the 
 energetic nature of Dickens found no similar tempta- 
 tion. But in any case his reading circle was wider 
 than Thackeray's, extending indeed over the English- 
 speaking world. The green -covered numbers went 
 far and wide, were read by American camp-fires and 
 in Australian bush. Stalwart miners sympathised 
 with David Gopperfield, and dissolved in tears over 
 the death of Little Kell. Something of emulation is 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUEE. 115 
 
 visible in Thackeray's references to his rival, but 
 jealousy could not exist in that noble nature. He 
 frankly admires, though he cannot but compare, and 
 thinks his own "yellow" number too deserves the 
 praise it gets. A mere misunderstanding separated 
 them for a time, but they were friends again before 
 the end. Never very close friends, it is pleasant to 
 know that they were fairly intimate, for their names 
 will go down to posterity inseparably linked as the 
 pair of leading writers, the foremost novelists of their 
 time. 
 
 Thackeray had influence, but Dickens founded a 
 school. Young writers worked under him, and easily 
 Method and caught his mannerisms, the tricks of his 
 rrmnnensms. ^;].a(jg_ Thcse manucrisms grew on him 
 latterly. The leit-motifs previously alluded to, the 
 habit of associating a gesture or physical peculiarity 
 with each character, hardened into caricature. But he 
 had far more than this to teach his followers. Care- 
 ful attention to plot ; photographic minuteness and 
 accuracy of detail ; genial flow of narration, unmarred 
 by obtrusion of the writer's personality ; above all, the 
 creation of bold and strongly marked types of charac- 
 ter — these are some points in his method. It is said 
 his types are unreal. We do not meet such characters 
 in society; but, as with Turner's sunsets, don't we 
 wish we could! A world in which Sam Weller, 
 Sairey G-amp, Dick Swiveller, Mr Micawber, Captain 
 Cuttle, and Mark Tapley — to name but a few — could 
 be encountered, would be a world worth dwelling in. 
 They are more living than real life, more actual than 
 
116 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 action itself. Imagination transcends reality. Im- 
 agination, indeed, was this writer's crowning gift. No 
 other English novelist, not Scott himself, equals him 
 here. We can forget all minor faults, all crudeness 
 and vulgarity and over-ambitious style and restriction 
 to one class of subject, for the sake of this splendid 
 endowment. A jester like Hood, Dickens was also 
 master of an imagination which outstripped and out- 
 soared reality ; and the exercise of this gift places him 
 next after Scott among the brilliant novelists of the 
 Century in our land. 
 
 Bulwer and Thackeray represented the over-ripe- 
 ness of the Eomantic school, one by his bombast, the 
 other by his mockery ; Dickens stood apart 
 by himself. A fourth novelist may be 
 named even beside Dickens and Thackeray. Benjamin 
 Disraeli, afterwards Lord Beaconsfield (1804-81), was 
 somewhat older than either, but his best work came 
 late. Born of a father, Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848), 
 who should himself be mentioned in this chapter as a 
 writer of agreeable literary miscellanies, the younger 
 Disraeli was a man of letters from the first, and some 
 would say to the end. "With his career as statesman 
 we have no concern; his politics interest only as 
 reflected in his books. It is not unfair to say that, 
 both in life and letters, young Disraeli was resolved to 
 startle. His one aim was to get to the front, and this 
 seemed the quickest way. Hence his dandyism, his 
 gorgeous attire, his two canes for morning and after- 
 noon wear ; hence, too, his early novels. Vivian Grey 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUEE. 117 
 
 (1826 - 27) is essentially a book written to capture 
 attention. Following this up with Captain Fopanilla 
 (1828), he then travelled for a year ; after which, 
 while standing unsuccessfully for Parliament, he wrote 
 and published vigorously. The Young Duke (1831), 
 Contarini Fleming (1832), Alroy (1833), Henrietta 
 Temple, and Venetia (1837), besides lesser productions, 
 occupied this period of frustrated ambition. It was 
 the author of these books who got in for Maidstone, 
 and made the famous " You shall yet hear me " speech. 
 These earlier books have much brilliance ; some critics 
 claim for them a high literary place. To others they 
 may seem little more than brilliant sketches, full of 
 fault and promise, full of undigested Byronism and 
 would-be-precocious cynicism, no more entitled than 
 the work of a dozen other clever young men to any 
 permanent position. But it is quite otherwise with 
 his next three novels. After seven years of strenuous 
 Parliamentary struggle, Disraeli, now acknowledged 
 leader of the "Young England" party, published 
 Coningshy (1844), Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847). 
 These books may have been political manifestoes ; 
 they are something much more now. They are the 
 most lifelike studies of political personages ever 
 thrown into story form. To the common political 
 novel they are as infinitely superior as their author 
 was to the average member who follows the beck of 
 his Whip. 
 
 How far Disraeli was in earnest is a fascinating 
 problem. His later novels, Lothair and Endymion, 
 suggest the possibility of a negative answer, of inten- 
 
118 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE— KOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 tional trifling witii his readers. Even in this earlier 
 His imut trilogy Disraeli tries our patience hard. The 
 o/thought. Bulwerian bombast, the sham scholarship 
 and mysticism, the unreal flights of fancy, the general 
 air of affectation and superiority, are all to be got 
 over. Common humanity has no interest for this 
 writer: his loaves are all cakes, his rags are of silk 
 and satin. The gorgeous nonsense and pretence which 
 pervade even his best work have been parodied for us 
 by a master-hand. Thackeray's inimitable Codlingshy 
 — a burlesque bitterly resented, and repaid after many 
 years by the sketch of " St Barbe " in Endymion — 
 must not, however, blind us to the power which under- 
 lies all this perilous stuff and vapouring. Sidonia may 
 be shadowy, but Taper and Tadpole are real. Arab 
 horses and "more curricles," fabulous diamonds and 
 beings of preternatural intellect, move only to laugh- 
 ter ; but the picture of Parliamentary conflict is Defoe- 
 like in its faithfulness. One is never quite sure 
 whether Disraeli is taking us and himself seriously, or 
 whether he is laughing silently in his sleeve. His 
 sardonic humour, bizarre imagination, and capricious 
 vagaries of taste, give something of the interest of an 
 unsolved enigma. Much that at first seems ridiculous 
 is found to be serious and purposeful ; the dreams of 
 "Tancred" came very near fulfilment during Lord 
 Beaconsfield's premiership. But, conscious humourist 
 or unconscious, natural or affected inditer of many 
 purple passages, Disraeli is at least the novelist par 
 excellence of politics, in letters- as in life the dominant 
 force in this one department at any rate. And, the 
 
JICTION AND LIGHT LITEEATUBE. 119 
 
 more carefully we read these books, comparing them 
 also with what is best and least unreal in his earlier 
 productions, the more we shall probably be disposed 
 to say that in his own line, and allowing for the idio- 
 syncrasies of his very peculiar and iin-English tem- 
 perament, Disraeli is a master who might conceivably 
 have given us work very much higher than anything 
 he has done, while what he has done deserves at any 
 rate to be placed apart in a class by itself. 
 
 This quartette, then — or rather these two pairs, 
 
 Bulwer Lytton and Disraeli, Thackeray and Dickens — 
 
 headed the novelists of a new era. They 
 
 Otlier novelists. , ■, r^ 
 
 carried on the work of Scott, and developed 
 the novel in new directions, showing the way to an 
 innumerable army of followers. Of writers altogether 
 contemporary with them a few may be named. Mrs 
 TroUope and Mrs S. 0. Hall handled themes of their 
 own. Harriet Martineau (1802-76) won her spurs in 
 weightier fields than the novel, but deserves special 
 mention for Deerbrooh (1839) and such delightful tales 
 as Feats on the Fiord. The Irish novel was pushed to 
 perfection by Charles Lever (1806-72), who moreover 
 did for our army something of what Marryat was 
 doing for our navy. Harry Lorrequer (1840) and 
 Charles O'Malley (1841), with others hardly less famous, 
 carry us away by their rollicking humour, though we 
 feel it exaggerated and one-sided. Samuel Warren 
 (1807-77) achieved fame by Ten Thousand a- Year 
 (1841), almost unreadable now through defects of style ; 
 his earlier Diary of a late Physician (1832) and other 
 
120 EDEOPEAN LITEEATURE — ^ROMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 Blackwood stories seldom rise above the cominonplace. 
 On the other hand, Mrs Gaskell (1810-65), only three 
 years his junior, is charming in manner, and wholly 
 modern in style, though of all her books Mary Barton 
 (1848) is the only one which chronological consider- 
 ations allow us to name. 
 
 These considerations amount speedily to prohibition 
 when we come to writers junior to the four great 
 leaders. The birth-year of Dickens is closely followed 
 by those of such writers as Charles Eeade, Mrs Henry 
 Wood, the brothers Trollope, Charlotte Bronte, Charles 
 Kingsley, and " George Eliot." But, with one excep- 
 tion, none of these yriters produced any of their 
 memorable work before the date at which our study 
 closes. A few still younger authors had made their 
 d£but, such as James Grant {Romance of War, 1846), 
 Mrs Craik (The Ogilvies, 1849), Mrs Oliphant {Mar- 
 garet Maitland, 1849). Our account of the novel, 
 however, must close with some sketch of the " one 
 exception " referred to, whose work, with that of her 
 sisters, may fairly be taken as belonging to our period. 
 
 Charlotte Bronte was born in 1816, being between 
 four and five years junior to both Dickens and 
 The Bronte Thackcray. She was married in 1854, and 
 family. ^j^g^j g^ twclvcmonth later. With the single 
 exception of Villette, all her finished work, as well as 
 that of her sisters, was published before 1850. Eound 
 the Bronte family a whole literature has grown up. 
 The sombre parsonage in a remote Yorkshire village, 
 where the three girls and their unhappy brother cher- 
 ished dreams of genius, attracts yearly an increasing 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEKATUKE. 121 
 
 crowd of visitors. The other members of that family 
 may be briefly dealt with. Branwell did nothing 
 noteworthy. Anne, four years younger than Charlotte, 
 was but a replica of her sisters, and with her talent 
 hardly rose to genius. Emily (1818-48) had genius 
 indeed, but revealed only in fragments. She cannot 
 be called a poet — the volume of poems by "Currer, 
 Ellis, and Acton Bell," to use their pen-names, con- 
 tains little but mediocre verse. Yet once or twice 
 sheer stress of emotional thought lifts Emily's imper- 
 fect song-gift high into the region of pure poetry. 
 Nor can we call her novelist. Yet she has left one 
 tale, which stands almost by itself in English litera- 
 ture. Wuthering Heights (1847) is not a novel of any 
 known type. Its characters are scarcely human. 
 Except the imaginary narrator, and Mrs Dean the 
 nurse, they are creatures of diablerie rather than 
 romance; and the atmosphere of the story suggests 
 the hall of Eblis rather than earth. The lurid power 
 of the narrative makes us forget its many faults of 
 construction, and Wuthering Heights, with one or two 
 inspired snatches of verse, may well make Emily 
 Bronte's name immortal. But Charlotte, the eldest, 
 was much the most accomplished artist of the four, 
 and had time for the largest output of work. Her 
 brother and sisters died in 1848-9, while she lived on 
 in dreary solitude, brightened at the end by one year 
 of married love. When she too followed to the 
 grave, she left three novels — Jane Eyre (1847), 
 Shirley (1849), and Villette (1852) — besides unfinished 
 sketches such as the Professor, a first draft of the 
 
122 EUEOPEAN LTTERATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 story afterwards worked up into Villette — which must 
 permanently entitle her to a high place in any cata- 
 logue of British story-tellers. 
 
 Charlotte Bronte was the last of the Eomantic 
 novelists. This is not a complete description, even if 
 picux of cimr- it may not be said too broadly; but it 
 lotte Bronte, ^j^gg ggem to indicate one aspect of her 
 genius. After her, we come to sensation stories, 
 novels of character, the modern novel in its various 
 forms ; she belongs still to the old school, despite 
 freshness of handling and boldness of conception. Her 
 lonely upbringing, the remoteness of her family home, 
 to which news from the great world travelled slowly 
 and at second-hand, gives her work an archaic air. 
 In what bygone world were these strange characters 
 reared ? Compare her with Mrs Gaskell, six years 
 her senior, whom one would take to be younger by 
 nearly a generation. And Miss Bronte's methods 
 and ideals are as old-fashioned as her characters. 
 True, she claims Thackeray as master. But it is 
 Thackeray on his neo-Eomantic side, and his tendency 
 to criticism repels her. She takes her ideals seriously. 
 More modern than he in her handling of sexual rela- 
 tion, she is delightfully antique in her views of soul- 
 life. Her youths and maidens — especially the latter 
 — are frank with something of peasant frankness, 
 yet nobly idealistic in their habits of thought. Senti- 
 ment, and even sensibility in Miss Austen's sense, go 
 hand in hand with the boldest realism. This mixture 
 gives strangeness and piquancy to her pictures of a 
 time other than ours. We can listen indefinitely to 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITEKATUKE. 123 
 
 Shirley and Caroline talking, watch without weari- 
 ness the minutely described play of school -life in 
 Villette, and sympathise even with the heroics of Jane 
 Eyre. The outcry against this last book seems indeed 
 strange now, and Lady Eastlake's review (if it was 
 hers) blundering as well as brutal. Charlotte Bronte's 
 method was no doubt more photographic than the 
 refinements of her day sanctioned ; her country frank- 
 ness shocked the town lady's ears. But there is no- 
 thing unwholesome, nothing morbid or prying, in her 
 pictures of life. Fidelity of portraiture, combined 
 with loftiness of ideal, constitute her method and 
 charm. Eomanticism and Eealism are seen in the act 
 of blending. And it is fitting, therefore, that we take 
 our leave of the English novel at this exact point. 
 Charlotte Bronte marks the close of the movement 
 we have sought to consider. The neo-Eomantic im- 
 pulse still discloses itself in her, but it is seen ready 
 to pass into other forms. What were these forms, 
 how many and widely diverging the manifestations 
 they assumed, remains to be shown in the concluding 
 volume of this series. One chapter in the evolution of 
 our English novel has been, however roughly, sketched 
 out in these pages ; another, even more interesting to 
 readers of to-day, still is left to tell. 
 
 Passing now finally from the novel, let us ask 
 
 what other infiuences moulded English prose during 
 
 Bomanticism the later years of our period, say from 
 
 aitddemocrm!y. ^830 to 1850. They were years of strong 
 
 intellectual ferment. The reform of Parliamentary 
 
124 EDKOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 representation and repeal of the Corn Laws; the 
 introduction of machinery into manufacture and steam 
 travel into common life; bread riots, trade -union 
 disputes, and Chartist agitation ; the Tractarian move- 
 ment which transformed the Church of England, and 
 the fight for freedom from State control which rent in 
 twain that of Scotland, — these were some of the move- 
 ments which dominated men's minds. It is not 
 superfluous to note events like the abolition of 
 Catholic disabilities in 1829 and of slavery in 1833, 
 the introduction of a new Poor Law in 1835 and of 
 penny postage in 1840, the famine in Ireland through 
 failure of its potato crop in 1846, and the risings 
 which shook Continental thrones in 1848. Such 
 things impress the imagination, and reflect themselves 
 in letters. They test or betoken the strength of 
 ideals. Their impact on serious literature must 
 have been forceful indeed. It may be less marked 
 in the lighter branches we are now reviewing. Yet 
 even in these there seems an under-current of bitter- 
 ness, of doubt and pessimism, of reaction from the 
 Eomantic ideal. Carlyle's work has been already 
 noted. He voices strongly the unrest, the dissatis- 
 faction, the impatience which filled men's hearts. 
 Hope there was too, but a far-off hope. Ages of 
 effort, it was felt, must precede any such millennium 
 as Shelley anticipated. The " Manchester School " 
 might predict times of Quaker prosperity, to be 
 brought about by Free Trade and universal disarma- 
 ment. Leaders of literature saw farther and more 
 clearly, and realised that individual oppression was 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATaEE. 125 
 
 a bad basis for general prosperity. Democracy rose 
 on the ruins of Eomanticism. The two are of course 
 not fundamentally inconsistent, but appeared so. To 
 minds like those of the " Yorke family " in Miss 
 Bronte's Shirley no compromise was possible. Eom- 
 ance would disappear at the scream of the engine- 
 whistle, baronial parks be cut up to make cabbage- 
 gardens for the poor. The greatest happiness of most 
 could only be obtained by sacrifice of what was 
 fairest in the old order. 
 
 The nobler side of militant democracy was its zeal 
 for popular education. Penny Magazines and Cyclo- 
 poimiarismg of pasdias, cheap editions of great authors, 
 knowledge. cabincts of instructivo science and Societies 
 for the diffusion of useful knowledge, marked its rise 
 and progress. The names of Charles Knight (1791- 
 1873) and of WHliam and Eobert Chambers (1800-83 
 and 1802-71) are honourably connected with this 
 branch of work, and all three wrote books besides 
 compiling and editing. Dionysius Lardner (1793- 
 1859) started his Cyclopcedia in 1830, while the same 
 year saw the commencement of the Edinburgh Cabinet 
 Library. Knight and Chambers followed suit shortly 
 after ; the years 1830 - 50 were full of such serial 
 diffusions of "entertaining knowledge." Of general 
 Encyclopaedias there was no lack, but these were not 
 novelties ; the Gyclopcedia of English Literature, by 
 the brothers Chambers (1843), had more originality, as 
 an attempt to popularise what had hitherto been left 
 to scholars and students. Constable's Miscellany and 
 Murray's Family Library were also pioneers in the 
 
126 EUEOPEAN LITEEATURE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 work of issuing standard books at a moderate price. 
 What with these, and • the continual rise of new 
 periodicals — such as Kniglit's and Tait's Magazines, 
 Bentley's Miscellany, Hogg's Christian Instructor, and 
 very notably Chambers's Journal, a true organ of 
 popular culture — the generation we are dealing with 
 had opportunity never before equalled for mastering, 
 not merely facts of history and science, but literary 
 methods and ideals. The great writers of their day, 
 and of previous days, were made accessible as they 
 had never been before. Not only was the "school- 
 master abroad " in the vulgar sense of cramming with 
 dates and figures, but the highest models of thought 
 and expression became for the first time familiar to 
 the millions of our people. 
 
 This, in turn, reacted on the writers themselves. 
 Democracy has its inspiration, whether by attraction 
 or repulsion. It is potent in a writer like Victor 
 Hugo; it is not less so in apostles of reaction and 
 decadence. These latter do not amount as yet to a 
 school ; we are still dealing with the rise and growth 
 of democratical ideas. Everywhere " progress " is the 
 cry, though a Carlyle may shake his head. The 
 world is to " spin for ever down the ringing grooves of 
 change." Science and theology, as well as history 
 and political philosophy, shall be " widened with the 
 process of the suns." But it is time to cease 
 from general reflection, and particularise, as in pre- 
 vious pages, by dealing with men rather than 
 movements, or at least with movements only as 
 impersonated by individual men. 
 
MOTION AND LIGHT LITEKATUEE. 127 
 
 The influence of Eomance on Art would take us too 
 far afield. It is tempting to discourse on this kindred 
 movement, to cite such names as Blake 
 and Haydon and Turner and Martin and 
 Wilkie and David Scott. But we must not leave our 
 last. One writer on art, however, requires special 
 note — a writer still lingering among iis, last survivor 
 of a race of giants. John Euskin (born 1819) comes 
 into our period only in his youth. The first and 
 second parts of Modem Painters (1843 and 1846), 
 with the Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), alone 
 fall within our province. But these are enough to 
 arrest. Mr Euskin's early prose was a marvel and 
 delight, and exemplifies as exactly as possible the 
 change which had come over prose writing. We 
 have nothing to do with its subject, any more than 
 with the hundred other works on Art published 
 during our period, from Hazlitt onward and down- 
 ward. What we are concerned to note is the 
 many-coloured, many-cadenced, perfervid rhetoric of 
 Euskin's early style. Prose now aspires to fulfil all 
 functions of poetry. Ehythm and melody are hers, 
 though of wider and less recurrent sweep than that 
 of verse. One begins to understand why Carlyle 
 exhorts the poet to write in prose, why in later years 
 Whitman may think it possible to discard verse as 
 a fetter and incumbrance. In prose like Euskin's, 
 and to some extent in Carlyle's (if he could forget 
 hysteria and turbulence), we scarcely miss the subtler 
 cadences of verse. Less artificial than De Quincey, 
 weightier than Lamb, more melodious than Hazlitt, 
 
128 EUKOPEAN LITERATUEE — ROMANTIC TRroMPH. 
 
 cleaner built and neater than Coleridge, Euskin's early 
 prose perhaps sums up most perfectly the lesson of the 
 Eomantic Movement. It will be understood that the 
 reference is to style alone. What the value of his 
 thought — whether he himself was justified in the 
 contempt with which in later years he cut to pieces 
 and rent to fragments the gorgeous texture of his web 
 — we need not ask or discuss. But simply as style, as 
 an embodiment of the new methods which had trans- 
 formed English prose, and made it the perfect instru- 
 ment we know — an instrument which there seems no 
 reason to rank as second either to Greek in the old 
 world or French in the new — Mr Euskin's youthful 
 writings were at once a mirror and model to the critic, 
 and an inspiration to the crowd of succeeding writers 
 who caught up his ideas and his manner. 
 
 These successors are clearly beyond our purview. 
 
 It may seem a bathos to pass from Mr Euskin to the 
 
 founding of Puiich (1841). The contrast 
 
 'Puncli.' 
 
 piquantly illustrates the versatility and 
 many-sided character of the time. "Mr Punch," too, 
 may be styled a living writer, though the Mentors 
 who presided over his hot youth have passed away. 
 Punch in the 'Forties, in truth, was a character other 
 than what we know him. Eadical and iconoclastic, 
 he carried on vigorously the war against prejudice 
 and conventionality. Foremost writers of the day 
 contributed their best work to his pages. Thackeray 
 gave the immortal Snob series, Hood the SoTig of a 
 Shirt and Ovs more Unfortunate, Douglas Jerrold 
 the Cavdle Lectures, better than any of his novels. 
 
FICTION AND LIGHT LITERATURE. 129 
 
 Mark Lemoa (1809-70), its first editor, was himself 
 author of vivacious farces, tales, and essays. Punch's 
 literary standard was higher in those early years, 
 though the pictures were comparatively poor. And 
 in truth the whole progress of Punch is not only 
 a literary phenomenon, hut a tribute to national good 
 feeling. It is something to have satirised folly for 
 over fifty years, without once stooping to rancid 
 personality, without giving undue ofience even to 
 the serious, and without trespassing on ground for- 
 bidden by good taste or morals. No such record 
 can be found in any other literature. Each new 
 race of wits votes Punch dull and pass^, and seeks 
 new outlets for its " new humour." Punch goes on 
 secure and steady, and it is wonderful how little 
 his standard varies, how small gap is left when a 
 chief contributor dies. In his democratic youth, 
 at any rate, Pv/nch was a power in the land ; to men 
 of middle age it is curious to reflect what a guide 
 and companion he has been through life, how rarely 
 we have differed from him, how often sympathised ; 
 nor would any literary mirror of the time be worthy 
 of its name which did not give a distinct reflection of 
 that quaint figure which has now become one of the 
 trusted exponents of social and political thought and 
 feeling. 
 
 The miscellaneous writing of which Pv/nch was a 
 
 chief example steadily went on increasing. Albert 
 
 Smith and Gilbert A'Beckett, "Father 
 
 Miscellanea. .^ „ ■, , . i. tm i i 
 
 Prout and the Ay toun of Blackwood, were 
 among its most noticeable exponents. Sir Arthur 
 
 I 
 
130 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Helps, in a quieter vein, developed the humour of his 
 Friends in Council (first series, 1847). Borrow's Bible 
 in Spain (1843) revealed a new writer, with taste and 
 relish strikingly his own. Less important as literature 
 were the travel-books of this later section, Bremner 
 and Davis and Samuel Laing and Mountstuart Elphin- 
 stone, or even the first Journal of the Beagle (1835). 
 But Kinglake's Eothen and Eliot Warburton's Crescent 
 and Gross (both 1844) are of the new school, and sub- 
 ordinate everything to literary effect ; while Layard's 
 Nineveh (1848), void of literary artifice, powerfully 
 impressed popular imagination by its glimpses of a 
 buried world. 
 
 And here we must pause. Completeness is even 
 more impossible (if the Irishism be pardonable) in 
 this chapter than in last. Writers of 
 English prose, yet more than of English 
 verse, were legion in those days. Enough has prob- 
 ably been said to show how diversified and many- 
 sided were their modes of working, how completely 
 and with what variety of effect the movement we are 
 reviewing had transformed the canons of our style. 
 This largeness and liberality, this freedom and wealth 
 of colouring and width of sympathy and aspiration, 
 flow directly from the Eomantic Movement. Even 
 in our lighter departments of writing the effect has 
 been traced. Next chapter will follow it into the 
 field of didactic writing, seeking to show that there too 
 the same disruption and supersession of ancient stan- 
 dards produced a result analogous to what we have 
 seen in the realm of belles lettres. 
 
131 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DIDACTIC LITERATURE: HISTORY, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 SCOPE OF TraS CHAPTER — HISTORICAL WRITING — SOME PIONEERS — 
 HALLAM — THE NEXT DECADE — PRINCIPAL GROUP — ARNOLD — GROTE : 
 'history OP GREECE' THIRLWALL OTHER MEMBERS OP GROUP 
 
 — MAOAULAT : DEFECTS AND MERITS LATER HISTORIANS — SUM- 
 MART AND CONCLUSION — WRITERS ON SCIENCE — BUCKLAND AND 
 
 SEDGWICK — FARADAY HERSCHEL — MURCHISON — LYELL — OWEN 
 
 ■ — ROBERT CHAMBERS AND HUGH MILLER — DE MORGAN AND FORBES 
 — DARWIN : REFLECTS SPIRIT OP AGE — ITS RESULT IN THOUGHT 
 
 — PHILOSOPHY PROPER — BENTHAM — JAMES MILL — AUSTIN — JOHN 
 ' STUART MILL : LIFE AND BOOKS — CHARACTER OP HIS WORK — HIGH 
 
 PLACE AS A WRITER — SUCCESSORS TO MILL — INFLUENCE OP SCHOOL 
 — HERBERT SPENCER — MACKINTOSH — OTHER INDEPENDENT THINKERS 
 
 COLERIDGE AS PHILOSOPHER : MATTER AND MANNER — EFFECT 
 
 OP HIS TEACHING — PUPILS OP COLERIDGE — SCOTTISH SCHOOL — 
 HAMILTON : STYLE AND METHOD — IMPRESSION PRODUCED — FOL- 
 LOWERS OP HAMILTON — INFLUENCE OF THIS SCHOOL — SEMI-PHILO- 
 SOPHICAL WRITERS — IMPORTANCE OP THEOLOGY — EVANGELICAL 
 REVIVAL — BROAD CHURCH AND HIGH CHURCH — KEBLE — AUGUSTUS 
 HARE — HAMPDEN — JULIUS HARE — PUSEY — NEWMAN : HIS LITERARY 
 POWER — MINOR AUTHORS — BISHOP WILBERPORCE — MANNING, AND 
 OTHERS — EFFECTS ON LITERATURE^SOOTTISH DIVINITY — CHALMERS 
 — HIS SUCCBSSOBS— CONCLUSION. 
 
 In approaching these weightier matters of the law, 
 we must remember the necessary limitations of this 
 
132 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIDMPH. 
 
 survey.^ With the psedagogic value of the writers to 
 Scope of this be reviewed, the profit or harm caused by 
 chapter. ^jjgjj. speculations, we have little concern. 
 We do not ask whether a scientific fact was estab- 
 lished, an historical view proved correct, a religious 
 or metaphysical doctrine based on true or false lines. 
 Our criticism deals chiefly with matters of style and 
 form, with the embodiment of research rather than 
 the research itself. To show that the same revo- 
 lutionary impulse which we have seen permeating 
 all forms of imaginative literature is perceptible in 
 treatises of graver import, shaping at once mental 
 conception and rhetorical expression — such is the aim 
 of this chapter. Many causes were at work, many 
 influences moulded the thought and words of our pro- 
 fessed teachers, investigators, and preachers. But it 
 is safe to say that all are results of one movement, 
 that in the last resort — however diverse their mani- 
 festations — all were but various features of that com- 
 pleted change which is most succinctly styled the 
 Eomantic Triumph. 
 
 In History the change is especially noticeable. For 
 a marked interval separated the great men of the 
 old school from the leaders of the new. Gibbon, and 
 
 ^ Chambers and Craik, as before. Lives of Macaulay, Grote, &c. 
 Miss Meteyard, A Group of Eminent Englishmen (1871). J. S. Mill's 
 Autobiography (3rd ed., 1874). Darwin's Life and Letters (3 vols., 
 1887). Joseph Henry Green, Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the 
 Teaching of S. T. Coleridge, with memoir (2 vols., 1865). Stanley's 
 Life of Arnold (2 vols., 1844). Ward's Oxford Movement (1889). 
 Kecent Lives of Pusey, Manning, Jowett, &c. Cockburn's Memorials 
 of his Time (1856). 
 
DIDACTIC LITEKATUEE. 133 
 
 Hume, and Eobertson — the courtly, full-dress his- 
 Histormi torians of the previous Century, with their 
 wntrng. mannered style, their air of superiority, 
 their leisurely erudition — left no immediate successors. 
 Of course historical writing still flourished. Mitford, 
 and Gillies, and Eoscoe, historians by profession ; 
 Pinkerton and Chalmers, who were mainly anti- 
 quarians ; "William Godwin and Sir James Mackintosh, 
 eminent in many fields besides history — all lived well 
 into the time we have to consider. The chief imagin- 
 ative writers themselves, moreover, made excursions 
 into this field. Southey's great History of Portugal 
 never got itself written, as things chanced. But he 
 produced some studies of great merit, including a 
 History of Brazil (1810-20), and his life of Nelson 
 is a classic of our language. His chief historical 
 work, the History of the Peninsular War (3 vols., 
 1823-32), unluckily clashed with a more striking 
 book, to be mentioned soon. Scott was of course a 
 practised historian, as well as a voluminous writer of 
 miscellanea. His short History of Scotland (1830), 
 written for Lardner's Cyclopaedia, is good, but the 
 delightful Tales of a Grandfather (1827) eclipse all 
 competition in that line. His Life of Napoleon 
 (9 vols., 1827) was more a work of dauntless energy 
 than a happily chosen task. Moore, Campbell, and 
 several other of our poets also laboured at histori- 
 cal work. But we may neglect such by-play, and 
 go to the real students and writers of history. And 
 it will be best to preserve chronological order, begin- 
 ning with contemporaries of Wordsworth and Scott, 
 
134 EUROPEAN LITBRATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 and noting how the genius of composition changes 
 when we come to those whose date of birth tinged 
 them deeper with the Eomantic dye. 
 
 The earliest writers requiring mention here — earliest 
 in date both of birth and publication — are Sharon 
 Turner (1768-1847) and John Lingard 
 omejjioneers. ^]^Y71-1851). The first was a conscientious 
 worker of the old type, whose best-known History 
 of the Anglo-Saxons belongs to last Century, but who 
 produced a History of England from the Norman 
 Conquest to the Union with Scotland (1814-23) and 
 other works during later life. Lingard's History of 
 England (1819-30) was fiercely attacked as the work 
 of a Eoman Catholic, and can hardly be reckoned 
 free from religious bias. But it set an example of 
 honest inquiry and original research. Another vet- 
 eran investigator, Dr Thomas M'Crie (1772-1835), 
 wrote only ecclesiastical history {Life of Knox, 1812), 
 and broke a lance with Scott over his views of the 
 Covenanters. (A son of the same name carried on 
 much the same work some twenty years after.) 
 James Mill (1773-1836), to be mentioned later as a 
 thinker, deserves note here as author of a History 
 of British India (1817-18), which however no longer 
 keeps the place it took at the time of its publication. 
 
 Henry Hallam (1777-1859) may be accounted the 
 
 last of the old school, or the first of the new. His 
 
 calm sedate style has little indeed of 
 
 Hallam. 
 
 Eomantic colour ; yet his ideals and 
 admirations are wider than those of the Eighteenth 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 135 
 
 Century. Born to fortune, Hallam lived a life of quiet 
 dignity, more occupied with books than with affairs. 
 His Middle Ages came out in 1818, the CoTistitutional 
 History in 1827, his Introduction to the Literature of 
 the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries in 
 1837-39. Hallam's work was solid, decorous, and 
 weighty. His opinions on history, especially that of 
 our own Constitution, have perhaps outlived his 
 literary judgments. Yet the latter are always 
 respectable, sane, safe as far as they go. A more 
 trustworthy guide, over large fields and taking general 
 views, is not easily found. Somewhat coldly correct, 
 showing little sympathy or animation, Hallam's works 
 are still ones which no library can be without, and 
 his premier place was taken by right. 
 
 Historians born in the 'Eighties of last Century 
 
 are comparatively few. Sir "William Napier, K.C.B. 
 
 '^ (1785-1860), one of a band of soldier- 
 
 TIbe next decade. , , ^ . ^ , , 
 
 brothers, besides other works composed 
 the immortal History of the Peninsular War (1828-40), 
 which threw even Southey's into the shade. This 
 masterly book moves as if to the tap of drums and 
 flash of bayonets, and the "majesty with which the 
 British soldier " fought in the days of Brown Bess and 
 the Iron Duke has not missed worthy chronicle. Sir 
 Francis Palgrave (1788-1861), deputy-keeper of her 
 Majesty's Eecords, wrote many learned works, includ- 
 ing one on the English Commonwealth (1832), but his 
 History of Normandy and qf England belongs to the 
 second half of our Century. Thomas Keightley 
 (1789-1872) compiled school histories of Greece, 
 
136 EUE0PEA2T LITEKATUKE — ROMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 Eome, and England. Sir James Stephen (1789-1859), 
 one of a well-known family, was Professor of History 
 at Cambridge, and wrote books both of ecclesiastical 
 and of secular history which were well received. 
 
 It is when we come to writers born in the 'Nineties 
 that the new leaven really works. From twenty to 
 PHneipai thirty years younger than the first Eomantic 
 group. poets, they grew up in the new world, looked 
 
 at problems with new eyes. This interesting decade 
 produced a plethora of historians. Henry Hart 
 Milman (1791-1868), Patrick Fraser Tytler (1791- 
 1849), and Archibald Alison (1792-1867) lead the 
 way. Milman, a distinguished cleric, and poet of no 
 mean order, wrote ecclesiastical histories which retain 
 their value still. The same may be said of Tytler's 
 History of Scotland (1828-43), a work of independent 
 research. Alison's immense histories — Europe durinff 
 the French Revolution (10 vols., 1833-42), Europe from 
 the Fall of Napoleon (9 vols., 1852-59) — earned him 
 from Disraeli the name of "Mr Wordy,'' and have 
 little vitality in them now. Painstaking but pre- 
 judiced, Alison had learned in the school of Ma^a 
 some of her bias and none of her brilliance, and wrote 
 too exclusively from a Tory standpoint. 
 
 But the greater lights are to come. George Grote 
 (1794-1871), Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), Thomas 
 Carlyle (1795-1881), Connop Thirlwall (1795-1875), 
 are four names of great though unequal importance. 
 Of less note, but interesting from our point of view, 
 were Agnes Strickland (1796 - 1874), George Lillie 
 Craik (1798-1876), William Mure (1799-1860), and 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATURE. 137 
 
 George Finlay (1799-1875). The list of historical 
 writers born in the last decade of last Century- 
 is completed by the name of Thomas Babington 
 Macaulay (1800-59). A few words about some at 
 least of these will illustrate the argument of this 
 chapter. 
 
 Arnold of Eugby may be taken first, as both the 
 
 earliest removed by death, and to some extent the 
 
 soonest antiquated. His was a great influ- 
 
 Arnold. . . ^, . . , . , f 
 
 ence in its day. After high honours at 
 Oxford, and ten years of private teaching at Laleham, 
 he in 1828 became headmaster of Eugby, and what 
 his work was there we all know from Tom Brown's 
 Schooldays and many other sources. Arnold never 
 did parochial duty, and as cleric his teaching made 
 mainly for manliness of life and wide-embracing loose- 
 ness of creed. In history he did pioneer's work, in- 
 troducing English readers to the revolutionary con- 
 ceptions which German research had substituted for 
 acquiescence in traditional story. The early history 
 of Eome was resolved into a mass of legends, little 
 stress being laid on the realities which must have 
 underlain these legends. He wrote reviews and 
 miscellaneous articles ; edited Thucydides (3 vols., 
 1830-35) ; and made some progress with a History 
 of Borne (1838-43), carrying it indeed to the end of 
 the Second Punic War. A year before he died, he 
 became Professor of Modern History at Oxford, and 
 one volume of Lectwres on Modern History (1842) was 
 the first-fruit. These, with his School Sermons, con- 
 stitute his literary record. His personal influence, 
 
138 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 once SO widely felt, is made real to us by the lAfe, 
 (1845) written most ably by his friend and pupil 
 Dean Stanley, and has moulded the lives of accom- 
 plished sons and grandchildren. As historian, his 
 notes are great boldness of conception, and vividness 
 of detail and portraiture. The latter — unmistakably 
 derived from Scott and the Eomantics — is accentuated 
 by comparison of ancient with modern personalities, 
 no longer treating historic characters as a race by 
 themselves, but showing them men and women like 
 us, actuated by like passions and pursuing similar 
 aims. 
 
 This practice was carried still farther by Grote. 
 G-eorge Grote, banker and historian, with his clever 
 and formidable wife, will be omitted from 
 no picture of his time. Educated for com- 
 merce, without university training, devoted to both 
 philosophy and politics, he yet dared meet and beat 
 the " dons " on their own pet ground of Greek History. 
 So early as 1826, he pulled Mitford's History to pieces 
 in the Westminster Review. A " philosophic Eadical " 
 of the Benthamite school, yet courteous and stately in 
 manner, he worked hard in the uphill fight against 
 privilege, sat in the reformed Parliament from 1832 ■ 
 to 1841, and two years later retired finally from his 
 various spheres of action to concentrate himself on 
 literature. His History of Greece, in twelve volumes, 
 appeared from 1846 to 1856, and was followed later 
 by works on Plato and Aristotle, the latter unfinished. 
 Some minor writings were posthumously collected, 
 and his Personal Life, by his widow, was published in 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATUEE. 139 
 
 1873, while her life was written by Lady Eastlake 
 (1880). 
 
 Grote's History may be called a counter - blast 
 against Mitford's. The latter had taken the Tory 
 History of view of Hellenic questions ; Grote frankly 
 Greece. ^^^^ ^-^^ Eadical, in particular protesting 
 against the lampoons of Aristophanes being accepted 
 as historical facts. Primitive legends, and the Homeric 
 problem, were treated with sturdy iconoclasm ; Wolf's 
 theories about Homer, already familiar to the English 
 public, being developed into an attempt to find an 
 original kernel of Epic story. In the main, the History 
 is lively and pungent. Echoes of English political 
 strife are heard continually. The pomp of old- 
 fashioned style has quite gone, and a somewhat form- 
 less, not to say vulgar, loquacity takes its place. 
 Besides, the scale of proportion is unreasonably large, 
 a fault shared by many histories of succeeding writers. 
 Trying to be thorough, they become tediously prolix. 
 Still, after all deduction, Grote's Greece remains a work 
 of importance in itself, and still more as directing 
 and developing the gifts and inclinations of those who 
 came after. 
 
 Bishop Thirlwall was a real Broad Churchman, early 
 
 brought under German influence. Educated, like his 
 
 senior contemporary Grote, at Charter- 
 
 TUrlwall. t i %w , • % 
 
 house, he studied at Cambridge, translated 
 Schleiermacher and Niebuhr, and lost his tutorship by 
 supporting the admission of dissenters to degrees. As 
 a country clergyman he wrote for Lardner's Cyclo- 
 paedia his History of Greece (1835-47), which anticipated 
 
140 EtJliOPEAN LiTEKATCES — KOMANTIO TRIUMPH. 
 
 Grote's in date of publication, and many people think 
 surpassed it in merit. A better scholar than Grote, he 
 was also less of a partisan, and his account of Greek 
 history, while superior to Grote's in point of style, is 
 probably more trustworthy in general tone. But for 
 the popularity of Grote's work, Thirlwall's would 
 undoubtedly have been the Greek history of his time. 
 In form he is free without being slovenly, and sympa- 
 thetic without showing bias. His promotion to the 
 See of St David's, and the excellent work he did for 
 his Church both in England and Wales, need not detain 
 us at present. 
 
 With Grote and Thirlwall may be coupled Colonel 
 Mure, who wrote a history of the literature instead of 
 other meiribers the poUtics of Greece (first volume, 1850), 
 ofgrmip. bascd ou German sources, and profiting by 
 the topographical researches which had been carried 
 on for a generation by Lieutenant- Colonel Leake 
 (1777-1860), Sir William Cell (1777-1836), and others 
 including himself ; and George Finlay, the historian of 
 modern Greece, of whose Sistory the first'instalment 
 appeared in 1 844. Miss Strickland is well known by her 
 Lives of the Queens of Sngland (1840-48), and similar 
 compilations. Craik edited the Pictorial History of 
 England (1840-44), a work planned by Charles Knight, 
 and one out of many anticipations of a conception of 
 history sometimes supposed to have originated with 
 Mr J. R. Green. The immense work done by Carlyle 
 was so fully noticed in last chapter that it seems 
 needless now to dwell on his History of the French 
 Bevolution (1837) or Cromwell (1845). Beyond all 
 
Macaulay. ^ 
 
 DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 141 
 
 doubt, the old order had passed away before Carlyle 
 was possible. His explosions and ejaculations, his 
 humour and his satire, would be as incongruous in the 
 pages of an Eighteenth Century historian as his stormy 
 sentiment and realistic sympathy would have been felt 
 beneath the dignity of the elder writer. 
 
 There remains Lord Macaulay. And he fitly closes 
 one century, begins another. His Eeview articles were 
 in 1843 gathered into the well-known 
 Essays. Most of these are historical, and 
 display the characteristics later shown on larger scale 
 in his History of Etigland (first two volumes, 1848). 
 Compared with his master Hallam, Macaulay is of the 
 moderns; compared with Carlyle, of the ancients. 
 Trained in public life, Macaulay reads history like a 
 politician. He never quits the Old Whig standpoint. 
 As Alison had "shown that Providence was on the 
 side of the Tories," so Macaulay sees 'Heaven smiling 
 on Whig aims and ideals. The " cock-sureness" of the 
 man reflects itself in his style. Nothing is left in 
 shadow or doubt. An astonishing amount of detail is 
 marshalled with skill into its place. Brilliant descrip- 
 tion, dazzling antitheses, drive home each conception. 
 It is impossible to doubt the author's meaning, almost 
 impossible for the moment to think there can be 
 another side to the question. We are pelted with 
 facts, deafened with instances, driven from pillar to 
 post by a pressure of merciless rhetoric. The hard, 
 brassy, ringing style brooks no pause, softens no rigour 
 of statement. Men are either villains or heroes, prin- 
 ciples either righteous or despicable. Add that 
 
142 EUEOPEAN LITERATDEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 Macaulay read widely, knew his subject " like a book," 
 had studied topography with delight and diligence ; 
 also that he made his story as interesting as a Waverley 
 novel. The account of Monmouth's conspiracy, the 
 sending of the bishops to the Tower, enthral us like 
 a chapter of Ivanhoe or Quentin Durward. Small 
 wonder that liis readers went wild over the successive 
 volumes as they appeared, that the sale was prodigious, 
 the author's receipts a marvel of the trade. 
 
 From Scott and Macaulay most of us who are not 
 students of history derive the bulk of our historical 
 De/eeis and knowlcdgc and ideas. And in the main we 
 ™^*'- have small cause to grumble. But of the 
 
 two Macaulay gives way more to partisanship, finds it 
 more difficult to do justice to opponents. As to inac- 
 curacies, both commit them occasionally. Dryasdust 
 critics delight to pick holes in Macaulay. The wonder 
 is that they find so few, considering his range. Yet it 
 must be owned that those they do find are sometimes 
 due more to prejudice than oversight. Every man 
 can make slips ; not every man need let a fixed idea 
 run him into error. Macaulay's treatment of Boswell, 
 for instance, shows positive infirmity of judgment ; his 
 picture of Johnson is exaggerated even to caricature. 
 But, if we make sufficient allowance for the defects of 
 his qualities, we may generally rely on what remains. 
 A more serious misfortune was the unreasonably large 
 scale on which he planned his narratives. In the intro- 
 duction to his first volume he proposed to carry this 
 down to " a time which is within the memory of men 
 still living." Yet, beginning with 1685, he was able 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATUEE. 143 
 
 barely to complete the Seventeenth Century, and the 
 whole Eighteenth remains untouched. Fragment as it 
 is, however," Macaulay's History is a possession for 
 ever. Its living pictures cannot be superseded. For 
 good or evil, history is made visible, tangible. The 
 man who runs may carry away a picture, misleading 
 perhaps in some details, but how true and living as a 
 whole ! The spirit of reality which informed Scott's 
 novels, which made his characters like live men and 
 women to us, has touched Macaulay's page through 
 the rhetoric, with somewhat similar result. History 
 may be written falsely hereafter, but never again 
 vaguely. It may lose itself in multiplicity of details, 
 but this is due to the very strenuousness of its search 
 for reality. Actuality is the great note of the new 
 school, and Macaulay, with all his faults, splendidly 
 and persistently struck this note. 
 
 With Macaulay the change we have looked for was 
 
 fairly consummated. After him came a race of less 
 
 eminent writers, respectable rather than 
 
 Later historians. , .„, ._-^. 
 
 brilliant. History became a science, or 
 rather the scientific side overlaid the pictorial. Lord 
 Mahon, afterwards Earl Stanhope (1805-75), did ex- 
 cellent work, including a History of Ungland from 
 1713 to 1783, which usefully but more prosaically 
 supplements Macaulay's. Sir George Cornewall Lewis 
 (1806-63) carried doubt into denial as regards legend, 
 just as he refused to believe in any person living to 
 the age of one hundred. John Mitchell Kemble 
 (1807-57), nephew of Mrs Siddons, studied German 
 and Old English, and produced a standard History of 
 
144; EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 the Saxons in England (1849). Charles Merivale 
 (1808-93), Dean of Ely, worthily carried on the tradi- 
 tion of Thirlwall, but published nothing of importance 
 before 1850. The same fact renders inadmissible 
 the names of William Forbes Skene (1809-92) and 
 John Hill Burton (1809-81), whose labours on Scot- 
 tish history are alike and yet different. John Forster 
 (1812-76), a prominent literary figure of his day, 
 wrote excellent historical essays, his earliest book 
 being Zives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth 
 (1840). And then we come to a group of younger 
 men, to Froude, Buckle, Freeman, Bishop Stubbs (the 
 names are given chronologically), followed later by 
 Green and Dr Lecky. This will sufficiently show the 
 evolution of historical writing since Maeaulay. Through 
 its earlier part, be it remembered, Carlyle was still 
 raging apart, supreme in his own way, and even in 
 old age towering like a demigod above his con- 
 temporaries. He, too, was great for accuracy at all 
 costs, though to dry bones of fact he gave fiery breath 
 of life. And, in the reaction against Maeaulay, it may 
 be said that accuracy has tended to replace vividness. 
 Why the two should be incompatible it is hard to see ; 
 but, in spite of the great counter-influence of Carlyle, 
 that is the distinction habitually made by most of our 
 recent historical critics. 
 
 These forty years of historical writing, then, saw 
 
 the change from the laboured, formal, ex Olympo style 
 
 Summary and 0^ l^st csntury to the vivid, realistic, 
 
 oondmvon. sympathetic narrative that succeeded. Of 
 
 course generalisations never hold entirely. There 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATUEE. 145 
 
 were great men before Agamemnon, and Eomantic 
 writers before the Eomantic Eevival. The idea that 
 history is concerned with the life and manners of 
 a people as well as with battles and coronations 
 is no new thing in the earth. Livy, if not Thucy- 
 dides, held it up as his ideal. But its recognition 
 came as a surprise in our own Century, and Macaulay's 
 brilliant picture of the state of England at the time 
 he described had the freshness of novelty to his 
 readers. The key-note so struck has dominated his- 
 torical writing since, and to Carlyle more than any 
 one else we owe its predominance. Possibly, in our 
 love of detail, we have somewhat lost or neglected the 
 art of presenting wholes. "What Matthew Arnold 
 called the architectonic faculty tends to be left in 
 abeyance. The Muse of History assumes the task 
 and dress of a serving-maid ; m^moires pour servir, 
 in fact, are precisely what we offer for history nowa- 
 days. But this insistence on accuracy, this multi- 
 plication of details, this resolute endeavour to realise 
 at all cost the actual life of past ages, is noble work in 
 itself, and indispensable as a preliminary to future 
 histories. Our chronicles form the base and scaffold- 
 ing on and with which new historians will build. 
 But we need not regard the foundation as itself the 
 building, nor disparage the stately if sometimes un- 
 substantial architecture of our fathers. Perhaps a 
 new Eevival is somewhat wanted to insist afresh on 
 the value of form, a new Carlyle or Macaulay to 
 inspire, each after his own fashion, historical dry 
 bones with life. The part played by these and lesser 
 
146 EUROPEAN LITERATURE— EOMANTIO TRIUMPH. 
 
 writers in transforming our ideas of history has at 
 any rate now been sufficiently indicated. 
 
 The attention given to Natural Science during the 
 years we are considering forms a prominent feature of 
 Writers on ^^^ ti^^^e. The Conditions of our inquiry 
 scunce. forbid any but the curtest treatment of this 
 important section. Here, again, we have to do not 
 with actual discoveries or inventions, but with their 
 effect on the writing of the day. Some notice of the 
 chief workers, however, seems as before the easiest 
 way to describe this effect ; and chronological order 
 the best to follow. John Dalton (1766-1844), author 
 of the " atomic theory " in chemistry, and Eobert 
 Brown (1773-1858), the greatest of English botanists, 
 may be regarded as leading the way, Dalton in par- 
 ticular acting pioneer in many departments of science. 
 Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) followed Dalton in 
 width of culture, and particularly interests us as 
 having been a friend of Scott, Coleridge, and Southey, 
 and himself an essayist in literature {Salnumia, 1828 ; 
 Consolations of Travel, 1830), though his fame of course 
 rests on his chemical researches and the safety-lamp 
 invented by him. Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) 
 was another man of large knowledge, pre-eminent in 
 optics, but writing Letters on Natural Magic (1830) to 
 Sir Walter Scott, " general " books like More Worlds 
 than one (1854), and a host of minor treatises. He 
 edited the Philosophical Journal for years, and also 
 the seventh edition of the Encydopmdia Britannica 
 (1826-42), and was one of the founders of the British 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATUEE. 147 
 
 Association for the Advancement of Science. Davy 
 and Brewster were typical instances of the " encyclo- 
 paedic" man of science, who has almost disappeared 
 now in the necessary subdivision of departments. 
 Their width of view freed them from microscopic 
 narrowness, and was compatible with a literary train- 
 ing and even a literary achievement rarely found 
 among the lifelong students of one particular branch 
 of knowledge. 
 
 William Buckland (1784*-1856) and Adam Sedgwick 
 (1785-1873) were more of specialists, being addicted 
 
 Buckland and to what was then a new science, geology. 
 
 se(is»«. j)ga^ Buckland (he was made Dean of 
 Westminster in 1845), when a clerical fellow at 
 Oxford, and later as Canon of Christ Church, intro- 
 duced his University to these new and dangerous 
 speculations ; Sedgwick did the same at Cambridge, 
 where he too was a clerical fellow. Both men, though 
 regarded as innovators, were tolerably conservative at 
 heart, and Sedgwick in particular strenuously resisted 
 some later developments in his and other sciences. 
 The humanising influence of such men, however, was 
 most valuable, both within and outside their own 
 province. 
 
 Michael Faraday (1791-1867), a pupil of Davy's, 
 devoted himself to chemistry and electricity. It is 
 amusing to remember that when Brown, 
 Dalton, Brewster, and Faraday received 
 Oxford degrees in 1832, Keble and Newman resisted 
 the proposal because all four were dissenters. We have 
 travelled far since then. Faraday, of humble birth. 
 
148 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMAKTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 was a simple and devout Christian, but "kept his 
 religion and his science in watertight compartments." 
 His influence, exercised both through written papers 
 and attractive lectures, was on the side at once of 
 research and reverence. 
 
 Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1792-1871), 
 
 son of the famous astronomer, was Senior Wrangler 
 
 in 1813, and a profound mathematician as 
 
 Herschel. , i . n 
 
 well as a practical astronomer ; besides 
 making experiments in sound, light, and particularly 
 photography. He wrote for Lardner's Cyclopmdia, the 
 Encyclopmdia Metropolitana, and the Eiicyclopcedia 
 Britannica; and published also volumes of lectures 
 and addresses. He may therefore be regarded as one 
 of those who popularised knowledge, making possible 
 that widespread interest in " the fairy tales of science 
 and the long results of time '' which is so marked a 
 feature of the age. He found leisure also for literary 
 work, and in particular wrote the "accentual hexa- 
 meter" with as much success as any beyond the real 
 poets who tried it. His translation of Schiller's Walh 
 is in this metre, in which he also rendered some books 
 of the Iliad. 
 
 Sir Eoderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871) was 
 another of the wicked geologists, whose speculations 
 so disturbed men's minds in the 'Forties 
 of this Century. A soldier in the Penin- 
 sular War, he left the army in 1816 to devote himself 
 to science and travel. By examination of some rock- 
 forms sent from Australia, he was able to foretell the 
 discovery of gold in that continent. Murchison's 
 
DIDACTIC LITBKATUEE. 149 
 
 name is associated with the Silurian system of rock- 
 structure, a title given by him to strata found in the 
 ancient Eoman province of that name. He was one 
 of that brotherly band of workers who started the 
 " British Association," of which he was President in 
 1846, and was also for many years President of the 
 Eoyal Geographical Society. His published books are 
 on geology alone. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was yet another 
 geologist, having been drawn to that science by hear- 
 ing Buckland's lectures at Oxford. If no 
 
 Lyell. ° 
 
 special discovery is associated with his 
 name, yet his Principles of Geology (1830-32) was a 
 work of stirring interest in its day, just as thirty 
 years later his Antiquity of Man (1863) startled a 
 later orthodoxy. The ashes seem cold to us now 
 walking over them, but sparks of passion long lingered 
 there. His refusal to admit cataclysmic changes, and 
 consequent postulating of enormous periods of time, 
 in the past history of our earth, brought him into 
 collision with many by no means illiberal thinkers. 
 The clang of this controversy, indeed, may be heard 
 through most of the speculative writing of the day. 
 
 Sir Eichard Owen (1804-92) must follow next, as 
 being in anatomy much what Lyell was in geology. 
 The extraordinary brilliance of Owen's 
 work appears from the story of his divining 
 an Australian bird (and that a bird without wings !) 
 from one fragment of its thigh-bone, and finding his 
 forecast justified by subsequent discovery. His cata- 
 logue of the Hunterian collection, his monographs on 
 
150 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMAJSTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 animals of all sorts, from the Pearly Nautilus (1832) 
 to the Gorilla (1865), and his countless labours and 
 honours, scientific and philanthropic, go for less here 
 than the effect he produced on his contemporaries. 
 This was immense through life, but it may be 
 noted that in later years Owen applied the drag 
 rather than the spur in hypothetical speculation. 
 Cautious as he was bold, Owen's reputation stands 
 secure amid the welter of theory, and can afford to 
 divide honours with the greatest of his day. 
 
 Prior to Owen in date of birth were two men of 
 less scientific note but of considerable literary import- 
 „ . . ^ . ance. Eobert Chambers (1802-'71), one 
 
 Robert Chanibers ^ ^ ' 
 
 and Hugh of two brothers named in last chapter, 
 * '^' must be mentioned here as the author of 
 
 Vestiges of Creation, a book published anonymously in 
 1844, which created a great stir by its supposed un- 
 orthodox tendency. Hugh Miller (1802-56) was a 
 geologist of no mean rank, endowed with writing 
 faculty of quite unusual kind. "Working as a mason 
 till his short life was more than half spent, he raised 
 himself to be an original investigator, a foremost 
 journalist, and author of a delightful series of scien- 
 tific, quasi-scientific, and purely literary books. Scenes 
 and Legends of the North of Scotland (1835) was the 
 first of these ; the Old Red Sandstone appeared in the 
 newspaper he edited, and as a book in 1841 ; while of 
 the others the most important were Footprints of the 
 Creator (1850) and Testimony of the Rocks (1857), 
 whose purport is indicated by their titles. Men like 
 Murchisou, Buckland, and Agassiz welcomed him 
 
DIDACTIC LITEKATUKE. 151 
 
 warmly ; and his scientific work is of independent 
 value. But he is mentioned here as perhaps the 
 ablest of those who translated science into popular 
 terms, and familiarised ordinary readers with the 
 original work of the day. Overburdened by work, 
 and the strain of a great religious movement, he shot 
 himself one winter morning in his study. 
 
 Augustus de Morgan (1806-71) was one of the first 
 mathematicians of his age, but is better known by his 
 Be Morgan and work On Logic (1847) and his Budget of 
 Fories. Paradoxes (in book form, 1872). Professor 
 
 James David Forbes (1809-68) was an investigator 
 in Natural Philosophy, and a keen explorer, whose 
 Travels thromjh the Alps (1843), Norway and its 
 Glacier's (1853), &c., first brought under notice the 
 theory of ice action afterwards worked out by Prof. 
 Tyndall. He should be distinguished from a younger 
 Prof. Edward Porbes (1815-54), a naturalist of high 
 rank, and like his namesake for some time professor 
 at Edinburgh University. 
 
 To the foregoing might have been added many 
 names of interest rather than importance, such as 
 Mrs Mary Somerville (1780-1872), Charles Babbage 
 (1791-1871), author of the calculating machine, Pro- 
 fessor Baden Powell (1796 - 1860), Sir George Airy 
 (1801-92), and so forth. But this were to transcend 
 the purport of our enumeration. Special mention 
 should perhaps have been made of one set of essays, 
 the Bridgewater Treatises (eight volumes, 1833-36), an 
 attempt to exploit science in the interests of religion, 
 made by eminent writers, of whom however Dean 
 
152 EUKOPEAN LITERATUEE — EOMANTIG TRIUMPH. 
 
 Buckland alone has been referred to in the previous 
 paragraphs. But the general attitude of the time to 
 science will probably have been suggested by the 
 remarks already made, and but one more name need be 
 added, that of a writer as distinguished as any that 
 have gone before, though his most important work 
 was done after the time we are specially surveying. 
 
 Charles Eobert Darwin (1809-82) came of a literary 
 
 stock, but gave up all interest in pure literature 
 
 through the engrossment of research. All 
 
 Da/rvii/n. , , . . , 
 
 the same, his books possess, if not style, a 
 studious simplicity of narration which replaces style, 
 and perhaps argues dormant literary power. His 
 Voyage of the Beagle (best edition, 1845), the book 
 which occupied him for years in recording results of 
 a world-wandering which itself had occupied five years, 
 was referred to in last chapter. His epoch-making 
 Origin of Species did not appear till 1859. But the 
 train of thought which culminated in that book had 
 filled his mind for many years, and was not by any 
 means peculiar to himself. The popular idea that 
 Darwin "discovered evolution" cannot of course 
 survive the slightest study of the subject. It is not 
 merely that the idea itself is as old as Aristotle, had 
 been postulated by Vico and dwelt on by Lamarck, 
 and was made use of by Darwin's own grandfather 
 (Erasmus Darwin, quaint combiner of what to the 
 Eighteenth Century seemed science and seemed 
 poetry). Nor even that a fellow-worker with Darwin, 
 Dr Alfred Eussell Wallace, is fairly entitled to share 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 153 
 
 the credit of bringing forward this specific theory. 
 The point is rather that " evolution " was an ancient 
 and familiar idea, which had been naore and more 
 coming into general use as a stable working hypo- 
 thesis. Darwin's deathless glory is that he took up 
 this more or less shadowy idea, worked at it through 
 years of patient study, and finally formulated it so 
 clearly and substantiated it with such wealth of 
 illustration that what he himself promulgated as a 
 probable hypothesis bade fair to become an article of 
 scientific faith. The dogmatism of Science, being ex- 
 pugnable by argument, is less dangerous to mankind 
 than its ecclesiastical counterpart ; but there was a 
 time, not so long ago, when it really seemed as if any 
 one daring to regard " Darwinianism " as aught less 
 than gospel truth would be visited by the pains and 
 penalties of scientific anathema — when even to hint 
 that the " evolution theory " did not speak the last 
 word about man's character and destiny was to 
 incur the charge of hopeless inability to understand 
 rudimentary fact. 
 
 Darwin himself, most modest of great thinkers, was 
 not to blame for this. And neither the importance 
 Reflects spvrit of his work nor its influence on his age 
 ofage. ^^^ easily be overstated. It is not too 
 
 much to say that it has wholly transformed the 
 average man's conception of life and nature, in- 
 troduced new standards, new methods, and a new 
 ideal to judge by. If Carlyle was the most fruitful 
 man of letters of the middle portion of the Nineteenth 
 Century, Darwin was the most fruitful man of science. 
 
154 EUROPEAN LITBRATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 By frmtful is here meant stimulating and arousing, 
 being the cause of fruit-production in others ; perhaps 
 semirial would be the more exact word. The world 
 never seems quite the same again to one who has 
 looked through Darwin's eyes. The man was great, 
 but still greater was the age that bore him, the time 
 that nurtured his speculation to maturity. That time 
 was the one we are trying to realise throughout this 
 volume, the scientific side of which has been under 
 review in the last few pages. Darwin sums up and 
 embodies that time, and carries one of its main specu- 
 lations to victorious issue. In studying him, we shall 
 learn almost better than in any other way what was 
 the scientific drift, the scientific preoccupation, of the 
 forty years which form our subject. 
 
 A new conception of the solidarity and rationality 
 of the universe emerged as the main result of this 
 Its result in drift. Not that these ideas are new, of 
 tiiought. course, but that they have been set in new 
 light. The immense .advance in various special 
 branches of science may have obscured this for the 
 time. There was a tendency to regard these as the 
 real object of thought. Science, in the narrower sense 
 of the word, seemed to claim "the promise and the 
 potency " of all rational development. This tendency 
 perhaps reached its height about the close of the 
 period we are considering, or a little later. Intoxi- 
 cated by the startling joy of new discovery, by the 
 rapid and general extension of what had so long 
 passed for set boundaries of human knowledge, men 
 seemed content to limit attention to what was tangible 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATUEB. 155 
 
 and visible, even to refuse belief in whatever was not 
 cognisable by the senses. Materialism waxed fat as 
 the fashionable creed; physical progress, creature- 
 comforts, were the direct objects of desire. And 
 there is much in this way of thinking which com- 
 mends itself to the practical, well-fed Briton. Yet 
 the student of history and literature does not expect 
 such an attitude to be final. He knows that human 
 nature is not so very different now from what it has 
 always been. He is not greatly surprised even to 
 find that this identical epoch witnessed a recrudescence 
 of the cruder forms of spiritualism and table-turning. 
 " Just when we're safest, there's a sunset-touch," &c. 
 Such phenomena, however — except in the case of 
 " Sludge, the medium " — have no connection with 
 literature. "We pass from these, to consider in very 
 general outline the philosophic work of the age. 
 
 From Darwin to pure speculative thought is no 
 very violent transition. Natural inquiry pushed fear- 
 PhUosophy Icssly home lands us in metaphysic ; and 
 proper. jjjg system ultimately compelled recogni- 
 tion of the old truth that beyond the Jlammantia 
 mania mundi of our knowledge there lies in every 
 direction a region of mystery, which only despair or 
 cowardice can avoid seeking to penetrate. English 
 philosophical schools during these forty years were 
 divided into two distinct groups. The most influ- 
 ential work of the period must be held to have been 
 done elsewhere ; since Hegel lived till 1831, and 
 Comte till well past 1850. But our insular philos- 
 
156 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUKE — KOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 ophy, while indebted to both France and Germany, 
 had a stamp of its own. John Stuart Mill was a 
 student of Comte, yet cannot be called a follower. 
 German thought began to tell on us, yet at the very 
 end of our period Mansel could satirise the 
 
 " land of one Kant witli a K, 
 And of many Cants with a C." 
 
 Personal conservatism may explain this instance ; but 
 there was a strong anti - Teutonic feeling in many 
 quarters. The most convenient division, however, is 
 between the followers of Bentham and Austin on the 
 one hand ; and on the other an idealistic school, some 
 of whom followed Coleridge — great influence philo- 
 sophically as poetically — in his study of German 
 metaphysic, while others developed the " Scottish 
 School" of thought, under the leadership of Sir 
 William Hamilton. We may take the more compact 
 group first. 
 
 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) survived well into 
 
 our time. But his best work was over, and his later 
 
 writings ill deserve the name of literature. 
 
 BentJutm. _ . ^ _ 
 
 His influence, however, was great and grow- 
 ing. He had reduced common-sense (using the word 
 with no technical connotation) to a system, and intro- 
 duced the " greatest happiness of the greatest number " 
 principle into morals and politics. This phrase he is 
 said to have taken from Priestley, but it is older far, 
 at least in idea ; the novelty was its use as a universal 
 rule. Utility, as a touchstone of right and wrong. 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATUEE. 157 
 
 was a conception familiar to the Greeks ; " utilitarian- 
 ism " as a definite creed had hardly been formulated 
 before the time we speak of, and Bentham gave the 
 initiative. His Hationale of punishments and rewards 
 (1825) is said to have been written fifty years before 
 it was published, and at any rate only summed up 
 what he had influentially taught for many years to 
 his chosen disciples. Bentham was the founder of a 
 school, and one need not look for a systematised 
 corpus of philosophy in his writings. He was rather 
 the Socrates who touched on many subjects, illumin- 
 ating them all with his critical search-light, and leav- 
 ing his disciples to gather up fragments into a whole. 
 The Plato who was to do this came in time. Bentham 
 has been not inaptly compared to Hobbes, and there 
 is much in the later Englishman that recalls the 
 earlier. But we have to do here with his followers 
 rather than himself. 
 
 James Mill (1773-1836) was one of the strongest 
 
 of these. Like his master, he dealt with many sub- 
 
 iects, breaking ground first as a historian 
 
 James MUl. '', -, o i ^ i ■ • -i , n i 
 
 (ante, p. 134), and writmg largely on legal 
 and economical questions. But his Analysis of the 
 Human Mind (1829) and Fragment on Mackintosh 
 (1835) were real contributions to philosophy. Per- 
 haps James Mill is a little merely the able man, who 
 writes well on psychology as he would on any other 
 subject ; as Johnson thought any able man could 
 write poetry if he tried. But if there is nothing very 
 original in his work, it is always of masterly clearness. 
 He took his association philosophy from older writers, 
 
158 EUROPEAN LITEKATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 but systematised its statement with admirable pre- 
 cision. James Mill was a typical representative of 
 the English Aufkldrung, in its strength and its weak- 
 ness, its fervour and its narrowness. His son (to be 
 mentioned immediately) may have been an abler 
 writer than his father, but he was perhaps not an 
 abler man. 
 
 John Austin (1790-1859) developed one side of 
 Bentham's teaching with such success as entitles him 
 to be called a second founder of the school. 
 Jurisprudence was his subject, and his ap- 
 plication of the principle of utility in this sphere 
 revolutionised the teaching of legal ethics. After 
 serving in the army, and lecturing in University 
 College (or London University as it was then called), 
 he published his Province of Juri^rude,nce determined 
 (1832), and was appointed member of the Criminal 
 Law Commission. Failing health led him to reside 
 abroad, for three years in Germany, for four more 
 in Paris. During these seven years, and nine more 
 till his death, he published little; but some Lectures 
 on Jurisprudence appeared after his death, in 1863. 
 Little as he printed, Austin influenced his age im- 
 mensely, and, with his brother Charles (a prosperous 
 lawyer), seemed capable of highest leadership. But 
 his great gifts were expended in the service of a 
 narrow school. 
 
 John Stuart Mill (1806-73) must be deemed the 
 perfected flower and consummation of that school. 
 He played the part of Plato, gathering up the disjecta 
 membra into a completed whole. In so doing, most 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 159 
 
 people thiuk, he strained his fundamental principle 
 Joim Stuart beyond what it could bear. By admitting 
 ^'"" differences of kind between pains and 
 
 pleasures he breached the rampart of utilitarianism ; 
 by recognising " permanent possibilities of sensation " 
 behind the flux of phenomena he quitted the vantage- 
 ground of pure associationism, without going far 
 enough to repel in advance the idealistic onslaught. 
 But, if errors, these were generous ones, proceeding 
 from an anxious spirit of fairness, and a refusal to 
 shut his eyes to light from whatever quarter. Dis- 
 passionate candour is Mill's leading quality as a 
 thinker, while his writing faculty was fine and finely 
 trained. As writer, indeed. Mill reached very high 
 excellence, and his influence on contemporaries was 
 a force of the very first rank. 
 
 Born in London, Mill was educated by his father on 
 
 a system of extraordinary rigour, a full account of 
 
 which is given by the son in his Autohio- 
 
 Life and books. itit\ mi 
 
 graphy (posthumously published). The 
 wonder is that any original power survived such a 
 forcing process. " I never was a boy," he says himself ; 
 and he might have added that he never was a child. 
 Beginning Greek at three years old, he had read before 
 he was fourteen more widely than most under- 
 graduates of twenty. Visiting France at the latter 
 age, he came back to study history and philosophy, 
 and at seventeen took a place under his father at the 
 India Office. Young Mill was now the rising hope of 
 philosophic Eadicals. His early contributions to the 
 Westminster Review first delighted and then began to 
 
160 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 pain them. The best of these are included in the first 
 three volumes of Dissertations and Discussions (in book 
 form, 1859), and remain charming to read. The 
 crystal clearness of thought and style, the freedom 
 from bias and generous appreciation of adversaries, 
 may truly be called ideal. The articles on Coleridge 
 and Bentham are especially remarkable, and must have 
 not a little astonished his father's friends. For Mill 
 was outgrowing the narrow garment of rationalist 
 orthodoxy ; its seams gaped in all directions plain to 
 see. Still he remained a recognised leader, and his 
 great System of Logic (1843) is a treasure-house of the 
 thoughts and criticisms of the school to which he 
 belonged, just as his Political Economy (1848) is the 
 most readable account of the sociological doctrine of 
 that school. His subsequent works, including the 
 Utilitarianism (1861), Examination of Hamilton 
 (1865), and edition of his father's Analysis (1869) — 
 with such lesser but stimulating books as the Liberty 
 (1859), Comte and Positivism (1865), Subjection of 
 Women (1869), and perhaps the early written but 
 posthumously published Essays on Religion — pass 
 beyond our proper limit. Even the writings named 
 do not exhaust his publications. But enough has been 
 said to recall how vast and varied was his influence 
 on his countrymen. "Whether we accept his teaching 
 or not, it is impossible to deny Mill's place as one 
 of the foremost writers of his time. 
 
 And this place was thoroughly deserved. To the 
 end Mill retained the qualities which were so attrac- 
 tively manifested in his earlier writings. He could 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATUEE. 161 
 
 hit hard sometimes. He combats Hamilton vigorously, 
 Character of and thinks proper to warm himself to rhet- 
 las work. oTical boiling-point over Hansel's denying 
 our knowledge of the sense in which God is good. 
 But his usual characteristics are moderation and fair- 
 ness, and he never hit below the belt. In him were 
 presented most favourably the ideas of the extreme 
 Eadical school. Eadical of course it was in every 
 sense of the word, ready to make a clean sweep of much 
 that his countrymen held dear. Closely allied to 
 French thought, it shared the thoroughness and 
 doctrinairism, as well as the clearness, of its congener. 
 To it also Clericalism was the enemy, and there was 
 really no room in its system for any form of religion. 
 That Mill had religious feelings, is to his credit as a 
 man, but was a doubtful boon to him as philosopher. 
 The spirit of this creed spread widely and sank deeply; 
 Victorian literature is full of its influence and teach- 
 ings. It survived in the combative agnosticism of 
 Huxley and Tyndall, and has left its mark on our age 
 for good or evil. John Stuart Mill was the most 
 accomplished and most powerful representative of this 
 school, and divides with Sir William Hamilton the 
 reputation of being foremost philosopher of his time. 
 Mill had become head of the India Office before his 
 retirement in 1858. He sat in Parliament for a few 
 High place as ycars late in life, but did not quite attain the 
 a writer. position there that might have been antici- 
 pated. Long a bachelor, he was powerfully influenced 
 by his friendship with Mrs Taylor, whom he married 
 in 1851. Her teaching is said to have done much to 
 
162 EUEOPEAN LITEEATURB — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 retain him in the Eationalist fold, and is acknowledged 
 in somewhat extravagant terms in the preface to 
 Subjection of Women. Few who studied Mill in their 
 youth can forget the impression he made on them. 
 The vigour and the clearness, the perfect courtesy and 
 yet insistence on points of weakness, constitute a lesson 
 in thought as well as in style. And from the narrower 
 standpoint of purely literary judgment, one can have 
 little hesitation in giving him the premier place 
 among the speculative writers of his day. 
 
 The school which culminated in Mill barely sur- 
 vived his loss. No immediate leader succeeded to 
 sv^BOTsto anything like his place and position. Per- 
 ^*- haps Alexander Bain (born 1818) came 
 
 nearest to wearing his mantle, and his important 
 books (all later than 1850) have certainly done much 
 to systematise and bring to date the doctrines of Em- 
 piricism. Another powerful recruit, of whom as dead 
 one can speak with more freedom, was George Henry 
 Lewes (1817-78). Liitirateur par excellence, author 
 of two rather striking novels — BantJiorjie (1847) and 
 Rose, Blanche, and Violet (1848) — and of a Life of 
 Goethe (1855) which is quite a standard work ; con- 
 tributor to endless magazines, and first editor of the 
 Fortnightly Beview ; Lewes spent much time on both 
 scientific and philosophical writing, though he cannot 
 be credited with any really original work in either. 
 His Sistory of Fhilosophy, originally published as a 
 Biographical History of Philosophy (1845) ; Comte's 
 Philosophy of the Sciences (1853); Aristotle (1864); 
 and Problems of Life and Mind (1874 seq.), constitute 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATUEE. 163 
 
 his claim to record here. Not an original thinker 
 of first rank, Lewes was rather a " smart " than a 
 deep man. It was always matter of some surprise to 
 George Eliot's friends that^she should have taken up 
 with Lewes; and his influence is understood to be 
 responsible for the pedantic terminology in which she 
 delighted to clothe her thought during later years. 
 On the other hand, Lewes certainly encouraged and 
 probably suggested her first writing of novels. In his 
 own books, Lewes impresses more favourably than he 
 seems to have done in real life. He is always read- 
 able, and seldom or never disagreeable. That he did 
 much for philosophy, probably cannot be contended; 
 but he was an effective raconteur, and in his chosen 
 department of historical or biographical writing did 
 good service, putting his points always clearly and 
 usefully. 
 
 Austin's side of the Benthamite work was developed 
 and supplemented by Sir Henry Maine (1822-88) and 
 infiumixof Sir James Fitzjames Stephen (1829-94), 
 school. j;]jg latter the son of the Sir James Stephen 
 
 mentioned earlier in this chapter. But as neither of 
 these writers had been even called to the Bar before 
 1850, it would be out of place to do more than name 
 them here. The influence of the School, as noted 
 above, after MiU's death is less an affair of individual 
 writers than of a widespread habit of thought, whether 
 in the region of jurisprudence or in the larger world 
 of general philosophy. In this form its operation was 
 important and general, and may fairly be said to have 
 survived even to our own time. 
 
164 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUKE — EOMANTIC TEroMPH. 
 
 One later writer, indeed, has not merely attained to 
 a pre-eminence greater than Mill's, but has developed 
 the teaching of this school of philosophy 
 pracer. ^.^^^ ^ profundity and a coherence to which 
 Mill could lay no claim. But the writings of Herbert 
 Spencer (born 1820) belong too manifestly to the next 
 generation to allow of notice here. Social Statics 
 was indeed published in 1850, and even before that 
 he had written papers on economic and social 
 problems. But the great cycle of books which 
 embody his system of Synthetic Philosophy were not 
 begim till long after our period. 
 
 Divisions are never exhaustive, and Sir James 
 Mackintosh (1765-1832) does not fit in easily under 
 any of our headings. Older than James 
 Mill or Austin, he spent most of his life 
 on the higher politics and the higher jurisprudence, 
 going for seven years to Bombay in a judicial function, 
 and entering Parliament after his return to England. 
 But he had always the name of a philosopher, and 
 during the last year of his life justified it by publish- 
 ing his Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy 
 (1831), written for the supplementary volume added 
 to the seventh edition of the Encyclopcedia Britannica, 
 but left unfortunately incomplete. It may be men- 
 tioned that he wrote a short History of England for 
 Lardner's Gyclopcedia (3 vols., 1830-32), and had 
 worked at a history of the Eevolution of 1688. 
 Mackintosh had great reputation among his contem- 
 poraries, as has been said, and the Dissertation shows 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 165 
 
 it was well deserved. Lucid exposition, admirable 
 arrangement, and critical judgment of the first order 
 are in evidence throughout. It called forth James 
 Mill's Fragment previously mentioned, and has taken 
 its place as a standard history of English Ethics. As 
 a historian of philosophy, if not a philosopher proper. 
 Mackintosh could evidently have taken high rank; 
 and his style is delightful. His own opinions, so far 
 as can he judged from the Dissertation, leaned strongly 
 to eclecticism. Though admitting utility as a test, he 
 contended for the separate existence of a moral faculty, 
 not innate in its present fulness, but capable of growth 
 and development ; and this was the contention which 
 especially called forth the diatribe of the elder Mill. 
 
 Nor perhaps should Isaac Taylor (1787-1865), Eich- 
 ard Whately (1787-1863), or William Whewell (1794- 
 
 oturindepen- 1866) be classed as members of a school. 
 
 dent thinkers. Taylor was one of a well-known family, 
 and spent most of his life at Ongar (so associated with 
 them), writing there such works as the Natural History 
 of Enthusiasm, (1829), Natural History of Fanaticism, 
 (1833), Physical Theory of Another Life (1836), &c. 
 His father, and his better-known son, both bore the 
 same name as himself. Archbishop Whately was a 
 man of strong personality, who wrote many books on 
 clerical and general subjects, including the satirical 
 Historic Doubts (1819), but who comes in here by 
 virtue of his excellent manuals on Zogic (1826) and 
 Rhetoric (1828), both enlarged from contributions to 
 an Encyclopaedia. William Whewell, Master of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, was another forceful 
 
166 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 writer, who contributed equally to the popularising of 
 science and philosophy, and also ventured into pure 
 literature, writing hexameters, translating Hermann 
 und Dorothea, &c. He contributed one of the Bridge- 
 water Essays before referred to, but his best-known 
 books are his History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), 
 Philosophy of the Indiictive Sciences (1840), and per- 
 haps Plurality of Worlds (1853). Whewell was a 
 man of encyclopaedic knowledge, and as Master of his 
 College delighted to show it. None of these men, 
 able as all three were, did much to found or build 
 up any particular school of thought. But they were 
 writers of weight and authority, and must be taken 
 into account in reckoning the influence of philo- 
 sophical writing on English literature. 
 
 Among those who opposed the doctrine of Experi- 
 mentalism, one important section followed the lead of 
 Meridfleas Coleridge. From 1816 to 1834 Coleridge 
 philosopher, (j^elt at Highgate, writing little, but pour- 
 ing out to admiring hearers those wonderful mono- 
 logues which have been described too satirically by 
 Carlyle, and more sympathetically by many others. 
 Aids to Reflection came out in 1825, Confessions of an 
 Enquiring Spirit and the Essay on Method were post- 
 humously published. But it was by spoken rather 
 than by written word that Coleridge as a philosopher 
 influenced his time. Coleridge, De Quincey, and 
 Carlyle did more than any others to popularise Ger- 
 man thought in England, but the latter two kept 
 mainly to literature, Coleridge alone explored habit- 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATUEE. 167 
 
 ually the arcana of metaphysics. How great was the 
 work so done, a moment's reflection will show. The 
 trim, balanced, bounded speculation of the later 
 eighteenth century — the ethics of Paley, the psychol- 
 ogy of Hartley and Priestley — a school of thought 
 which survived in the Benthamite development — took 
 its death-blow from the new philosophy. In its place 
 came a sense of largeness, distance, and mystery ; pas- 
 sionate feeling that sometimes passed the bounds of 
 reason ; fervid declamation sometimes perilously near 
 to mere rhetoric ; recognition of the infinite and eter- 
 nal as part of human nature, and a love of seeing 
 things " looming through a haze." The good side was 
 its vindication of man's spiritual nature and kinship to 
 the divine ; the bad was a disposition to rest content 
 with phrases, a preference of shadowy outline to well- 
 defined fact. Both sides derived largely from the 
 teaching of Coleridge. The altitudes which he loved 
 were too giddy for most disciples, the thin air he 
 breathed insufficient to give them oxygen. Much of 
 the formlessness and want of precision in modern 
 English thought, as well as much of its depth and 
 fervour and consciousness of immensity, seem trace- 
 able directly to Coleridge. 
 
 From Kant, and still more from Schelling, Cole- 
 ridge borrowed much of his framework. But he built 
 Matter and also on the labours of early English writers 
 manner. _g^ ^g^ g^g q^ ^.j^q Fathers, the Schoolmen, 
 and the Neoplatonist philosophers — and delighted 
 to clothe his thought in Elizabethan or Caroline garb. 
 It would be ridiculous to attempt giving a summary 
 
168 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 of his system, that system which was to be expounded 
 in the long-dreamed-of opus magnum, and which his 
 most devoted pupil vainly seeks to weave into an or- 
 dered whole. Enough to say that Coleridge, beginning 
 as Unitarian and Hartleyan Associationist, ended on 
 the loftiest heights of Transcendentalism, and found 
 faith in the Trinity less a theological pronounce- 
 ment than a philosophical necessity. How he reached 
 his conclusions; how he pressed Kant's antinomies 
 into the service of religious philosophy, and reconciled 
 Subject and Object in one ineffable unity ; how in- 
 tuition was called in to supplement the deficiencies 
 of our reasoning faculty, and credidi ideoque intellexi 
 declared man's noblest attitude — these are things too 
 hard for the mere literary historian to recount. The 
 splendour of Coleridge's style at its best is more to our 
 purpose. Purple passages from the Friend and Bio- 
 grwphia Literaria reach the highest summits of philo- 
 sophical rhetoric. The veriest agnostic, though too 
 cautious to accept his premisses, and too wary to set 
 foot in the mazes of his metaphysic, cannot but hold 
 his breath as the interminable majestic periods roll on, 
 and feel fain to say. Thou persuadest me to be a mystic ! 
 The influence of Coleridge is not to be counted by 
 names of disciples. He left no successor, founded no 
 Egeot of his direct school. But his thought passed into 
 temhmg. ^.j^g ^ery heart of his age. The heart, even 
 more than the intellect, of the rising generation be- 
 came Coleridgean. From him comes most that is 
 strong in modern idealism ; from him much that is 
 weak in our philosophy and religion. The banalities 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATURE. 169 
 
 of the pulpit derive from him, as well as its freedom. 
 The common division between faith and knowledge, 
 Eeason and Understanding, the intellect and the 
 heart — division exemplified even by Tennyson when 
 he tells how 
 
 " A warmtli within the breast would melt 
 The freezing reason's colder part, 
 And like a man in wrath the heart 
 Stood up and answer'd, I have felt " — • 
 
 this dangerous division comes direct from Coleridge. 
 Dangerous indeed ! For the soul of man is not built 
 in waber-tight compartments, like Faraday's know- 
 ledge, and if one faculty can mislead we have no 
 security that another may not. Coleridge himself 
 knew and admitted this, but he expressed his view 
 with perilous latitude, and it has been seized and' 
 pressed beyond what he would have consented to 
 allow. But this is merely one instance of how his 
 seductive speculation tinged and coloured the thought 
 of his age, so that many a writer or preacher, innocent 
 of all acquaintance with Coleridge's philosophy at first 
 hand, dwells on and disseminates views which, if not 
 his in their fulness, are drawn from ideas on which 
 Coleridge loved to dwell, and which he did not always 
 succeed in expressing so guardedly as to prevent a not 
 unnatural misconception. 
 
 It 'may be gathered from the foregoing that Cole- 
 ridge's influence was even more potent in the realm of 
 
 Pupils of applied than in that of pure philosophy. 
 
 Goiendge. "Whether this be true or not, it is at least 
 certain that we cannot point to any immediate dis- 
 
170 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIO TEIUMPH. 
 
 ciples in the latter region. His influence was enor- 
 mous, but it was general and formative rather than 
 directly didactic. Perhaps in philosophy the nearest 
 approach to a successor was Frederick Denison 
 Maurice (1805-72), who again might be considered 
 rather theologian than philosopher. Yet as Professor 
 of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge, as a strenuous 
 opponent of Mansel, and as author of Moral and Meta- 
 physical Philosophy (1850 seq.), he may come here 
 rather than in the last division of this chapter. It 
 was under Coleridge's influence that Maurice quitted 
 Unitarian views and literary work — he had written 
 a novel Eustace Conway (1834), and for some time 
 edited the Athenceum — to take orders in the Church 
 of England. Maurice was a prominent figure of his 
 day, a friend and guide to men like Charles Kingsley 
 and Tom Hughes, a leader in social questions, a pro- 
 lific writer, and, some would say, an influential thinker; 
 but in philosophy proper his work can hardly be held 
 important. More valuable, in pure philosophy at 
 least, has been the work of his year-mate Eev. James 
 Martineau (born 1805), at one time Professor of Phil- 
 osophy in Manchester New College, of whom it can 
 here be said only that his books reveal one of the most 
 massive intellects of his time. With these may be 
 mentioned William Archer Butler (1814-48), whose 
 short life barely allowed him to justify his election 
 as Professor of Moral Philosophy at Trinity College, 
 Dublin, by beginning an admirable series of Lectures 
 on Ancient Philosophy (published 1856) ; and John 
 Daniel Morell (1816-91), author of a useful History 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 171 
 
 of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (1846). But 
 the connection of these last with Coleridge, it must be 
 confessed, is somewhat remote. 
 
 In the case of the " Scottish School " no such diffi- 
 culty presents itself. We here find a regular pro- 
 gression, the torch handed on from bearer 
 
 Scottish School. .„ 
 
 to bearer. Dugald Stewart (1753-1828) 
 and Thomas Brown (1778-1820) both come into our 
 period, though perhaps more properly belonging to 
 the generation before. From 1810 to 1820 they 
 were joint-professors in Edinburgh. Stewart's accom- 
 plished teaching had done much to create the Edin- 
 burgh school of thought ; he wrote the metaphysical 
 "Dissertation" corresponding to that on Ethics by 
 Mackintosh, and so late as 1828 published his Phil- 
 osophy of the Active and Moral Powers. Brown aided 
 by lectures of remarkable subtlety, dealing mainly 
 with psychological questions, on a more or less 
 Hartleyan basis. His early death robbed philosophy 
 of a brilliant intellect. Slightly junior to him was 
 Dr John Abercrombie (1781-1844), a medical man 
 whose Unquiry concerning the Intellectual Powers 
 (1830) and Philosophy of the Moral Feelings (1833) 
 were considerable contributions from one partly an 
 outsider. These writers represent the early or 
 upward progress of the school to which they belong, 
 a progress which culminates in the teacher next to 
 be named. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856) was a true 
 leader of thought. Born of good family, he studied 
 
172 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 at Oxford, astounding the examiners there by " pro- 
 fessing" the whole works of Aristotle for 
 
 Hamilton. , . , i j_ i 
 
 his degree — a venture somewhat less 
 dangerous then than it would probably be now. Called 
 to the Scottish bar, he scarcely attempted practice, 
 devoting himself instead to prodigious reading, especi- 
 ally among the Schoolmen and the then hardly known 
 philosophers of Germany. In 1820 the death of 
 Brown and resignation of Stewart vacated the chair 
 of Moral Philosophy; but the electors preferred to 
 Hamilton his friend and fellow - Oxonian Wilson 
 ("Christopher North"), mentioned earlier in this 
 volume as a literary man, but who certainly was not 
 Hamilton's equal as a thinker. Hamilton, however 
 (who next year obtained a minor chair, that of 
 History), bore no grudge, and was frequently seen 
 among " the Professor's " audience, vigorously applaud- 
 ing his fervid declamation. Not till 1836 did Hamilton 
 find his place, by obtaining the still more suitable 
 Chair of Logic and Metaphysics. For eighteen years 
 he lectured, drawing round him yearly increasing 
 numbers of enthusiastic disciples. Accounts given 
 of his class remind us of the days of Abelard or the 
 Eevival of Learning. Prizes were given by vote; 
 essays and disputations went on as in a University of 
 the Middle Ages. Old and young, cleric and layman, 
 student and man of the world, all flocked to the great 
 instructor. Death came after a paralytic stroke, 
 followed by a period of uncertain health, but removed 
 him when still in the zenith of his fame, and except 
 for bodily weakness still master of his powers. 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATURE. 173 
 
 Hamilton's greatest work was done orally. He 
 spent immense time and labour on his edition of 
 
 style and Eeid's Works (1846 ; enlarged later), 
 
 method. ^hich, with magazine articles collected 
 as Discussions (1852), and the posthumously edited 
 Lectures, exhausts his literary output. This is not 
 the place to discuss his famous doctrine of the 
 " Unconditioned." Suffice it to say that, claiming to 
 start from Eeid as originator of his school, and find- 
 ing in that writer's formula of " common-sense " a 
 meaning which it is pretty safe to say was never 
 intended, Hamilton finished by rearing on this humble 
 basis an edifice of stateliest proportions, obviously 
 intended to sustain comparison with the master- 
 building of Kant himself. Whether the structure 
 is top-heavy, let philosophical critics say. It is cer- 
 tainly expressed (to drop metaphor) in terminology 
 the most uncouth conceivable. Such terminology 
 may be necessary ; metaphysic need not obey the 
 canons of helles lettres. But Hamilton's language 
 does not seem quite to reach its end. It has the 
 crabbedness of Aristotle without its clearness. If a 
 special vocabulary is to be employed, making a page 
 of metaphysics read almost like a page of Euclid, 
 we might at least expect geometrical lucidity and 
 proportion. That these results were not obtained, 
 the disputes between his disciples as to actual 
 meaning, the complaints of antagonists like John 
 Stuart Mill, seem sufficiently to establish. 
 
 Yet there is fascination in the very stiffness and 
 obscurity of his style. He seems dealing with 
 
174 EUEOPEAN LITEEATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 matters hardly to be expressed in plain words, grap- 
 imprmion pHng with ideas almost more than mortal. 
 vrod.wxd. r^^iQ secret of the universe seems on 
 the point of being expounded ; hearers in his class 
 no doubt felt that it was being actually laid bare. 
 One masters the technical terms, eager to apprehend 
 his exact meaning. Then the profuse quotations 
 suggest literary omniscience. Proclus and Plotinus, 
 Averroes and Avicenna, are as familiar as Plato and 
 Aristotle. Ancient and modern, prose-writer or poet, 
 nothing seems hid from him. But his special delight 
 is to unearth from some obscure Schoolman a sentence 
 which sums up the very pith and marrow of his 
 own speculation, or a verse so apposite that one half 
 suspects it made up by the writer himself — 
 
 " At ilia Mens, vah ! qualis est, 
 Conspecta cni stant omnia. 
 In singulis quse perspicit 
 Qusecunque sunt in singulis, 
 Et singulorum singulis." 
 
 Hamilton's teaching raised the " Scottish School " to 
 highest fame. Learners came from all parts of the 
 Foiiawm of country. His disciples were many and bril- 
 iiamuton. iiaiit;_ jajjjgg Frederick Ferrier (1808-64), 
 one of the most brilliant of all, wrote much for Black- 
 wood, reproduced exactly the earlier stages of Hamil- 
 ton's own life, but ended by becoming Professor of 
 Moral Philosophy at St Andrews. His Institutes of 
 Metaphysic (1854) reveal a thinker of verve and subt- 
 lety, who did not fear to stateidealism in its boldest 
 terms, and sought to define these with geometrical 
 
didActiu literature. 175 
 
 exactness. He was a nephew of the novelist named 
 in last chapter. James M'Cosh (1811-94) carried 
 his master's teaching to Ireland and America, and 
 is well known by his Uxamination of Mill and many 
 other works. Henry Longueville Mansel (1820-71), 
 afterwards Dean of St Paul's, combined sparkling 
 wit with profound thought. His assertion of the 
 relativity of our knowledge of the Creator gave of- 
 fence to many beside the orthodox, and, as we have 
 seen, drew on him the strictures of J. S. Mill. 
 Mansel's edition of " Aldrich " (1849), his Prolego- 
 mena Logica (1851), and his Metaphysics article in 
 the eighth edition of the Uncyclopcedia Brifannica — 
 with several later books, including the famous Bamp- 
 ton Lectures for 1858 — are still familiar to the student. 
 Of Alexander Campbell Fraser (born 1819), successor 
 to Hamilton's chair, and editor of Berkeley's works ; 
 Thomas Spencer Baynes (1823-87), Professor of Logic 
 at St Andrews; John Veitch (1829-94), poet and 
 philosopher, biographer of Hamilton, and co-editor 
 with Mansel of his Lectures; and Henry Calderwood 
 (1830-97), lately Professor of Moral Philosophy in 
 Edinburgh University; it were improper here to 
 speak. Their names will show how Hamilton's seed 
 fell into fruitful soil, and came up in many forms 
 even to our own day. 
 
 Writers of the "Scottish School" introduced a 
 robuster note into contemporary thought. The 
 influmce of mysticism of Coleridge, the nerveless grasp 
 this school, g^jj^ illusory reasoning of many of his fol- 
 lowers, found no favour in their eyes. But they 
 
176 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — ^EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 joined hands against the common enemy, and re- 
 inforced the Highgate contingent with fighting men 
 of proved mettle. Like the Coleridgeans, they were 
 great students of German, which gradually became 
 the armoury from which philosophical weapons were 
 mainly borrowed. This halpit of drawing freely from 
 German sources ranks as the main feature of the 
 time, and continues so even till now. The blood- 
 relationship between Teutonic thought and our own 
 is a fact of very great nioment, and has survived 
 many satirical attacks, and much natural preference 
 for the perspicuity and elegance of French writers. 
 In the commonweal of literary Europe, racial dis- 
 tinctions should have no place. But we cannot alter 
 facts, and the one just mentioned has to be fairly 
 reckoned with. 
 
 Before leaving philosophy, mention may be made 
 of some authors whose books, though not precisely 
 semi-phiioso- philosophical, had large influence on specu- 
 pMoa! writers, la^j-iyg thought. Thomas Eobert Malthus 
 (1766-1834) deserves note, not for his much-decried 
 Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), which 
 belongs to an older generation, but for his much later 
 Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Bent (1815) 
 and Principles of Political Hconomy (1820). Eobert 
 Owen (1771-1858) attracted much attention by his 
 New View of Society (1813) and his socialistic experi- 
 ments, at a time when the meaning of this last word 
 was hardly understood. David Eicardo (1772-1823) 
 corresponded with and followed up the ideas of Mal- 
 thus, and published in 1817 his Principles of Political 
 
DIBACTIC LITEEATUEE. 177 
 
 Economy and Taxation, a work that may be considered 
 the starting-point of the '-Dismal Science" in its 
 existing form. George Combe (1788-1858), a follower 
 of Gall, or rather of Spurzheim, introduced to the 
 English public the so-called science of Phrenology, 
 and also wrote a book of considerable importance 
 named The Constitution of Man (1828). 
 
 Theology, " queen of the sciences," has had hard 
 allowance during this Century. Often declared to 
 importmiceof have no existcnce, it is at best mentioned 
 moiogy. with, apology, and even its votaries seek 
 to dissimulate a passion which used to be matter of 
 pride. Like "dogma," it has passed from being a title 
 of honour to being a term — shall we say? — of con- 
 tempt. With its abstruser reaches, its more scholastic 
 concepts and divisions, these pages have of course no 
 concern. But as theology in its broader sense power- 
 fully influences the thought of an age ; as it directly 
 affects the minds, and therefore the writings, of men 
 whatever their creed ; no apology is made for devoting 
 space to it here. This is the more necessary because 
 the theological movements of our period were numerous 
 and important, and reacted in marked fashion on most 
 forms of literature. Some account of these, or rather 
 of the writings to which they gave birth, will fitly 
 conclude this chapter. 
 
 A recent book, "Collections and Eecollections," 
 draws a sombre picture of the state of religion and 
 morals in England at the end of last Century. 
 Students of that epoch know that the colours are 
 
 M 
 
178 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 not laid on too darkly. It was a time of low aims, 
 Emngeiioai and debased standards of life. Things had 
 revival. somewhat improved by the time our period 
 begins. At Court and in high life amelioration might 
 lag, but in the middle-class it was already conspicuous. 
 To ascribe a change of so general a kind to theology 
 may seem whimsical and far-fetched. Yet there can 
 be little doubt that this movement, coming as it did 
 from the great mass of the nation rather than from any 
 special leaders, was mainly due to the Evangelical Ee- 
 vival. No doubt that cause itself was conditioned by 
 facts which lay deeper than any strata of popular re- 
 ligion. But the historian must be content to deal with 
 phenomena. The evident circumstances in this ease, 
 which no amount of special pleading can get over, are 
 that a reaction toward greater purity of life and manners 
 synchronised with a quickening of the popular con- 
 science, and that this took the form of what is called 
 Evangelicalism. The names of Hannah More, William 
 Wilberforce, Charles Simeon, Eobert Hall, John Foster, 
 and Legh Kichmond — not to mention the poetry of 
 Cowper and the purely theological works of John 
 Newton and others — are proof sufficient that this 
 movement existed, and that it reflected itself in litera- 
 ture, with quite appreciable result, though rather before 
 the date we have now under view. 
 
 It is interesting to remember that all the great 
 men about to be named were brought up under 
 Evangelical influence. That influence moulded their 
 most susceptible years. But, as modern ideas crept 
 in, a division of impulse made itself felt. The 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 179 
 
 younger men tended to adopt one or other of two con- 
 Broad cimrch flicting lines of thought, which are known 
 and High respectively as the Broad Church and High 
 Church views. So much has been written 
 about each of these — ^the historical development of each 
 will be so familiar to all readers — that it seems better 
 here not to class writers separately, but as before to 
 follow chronological order. The sequence and contem- 
 poraneity of the two schools, sometimes forgotten when 
 they are treated separately, will thus be kept in sight. 
 And after all it is with the men as men, or rather as 
 writers, that we are concerned, more than with their 
 place in a theological party. 
 
 John Keble (1792-1866) has been previously men- 
 tioned as a poet. His most valuable literary work 
 
 was either poetry or criticism of poetry. 
 
 But as an influencer of others he must 
 come in here, since to his initiative the "High 
 Church " movement was due. First at Oxford, then 
 at Hursley, he gathered round him a band of devoted 
 disciples, who vainly sought to force him into a more 
 prominent position. His wise counsel, his steadfast 
 moderation, kept the party together in its darkest 
 hour, and to the end he retained his position as chief 
 authority. From where he himself drew his ideas, 
 which exercised so potent and transforming an effect, 
 it were hopeless to consider here, beyond noting the 
 influence of the Eomantic Poets on his own sweet but 
 restricted poetical gift. As a prose writer he is re- 
 membered mainly by his Sermons, of which that on 
 
180 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE— EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 National Apostacy (1833) may be taken as one of the 
 most striking both in itself and for its results. 
 
 Augustus "William Hare (1792-1834) is the next on 
 
 our list. Oxonian and country rector, he published 
 
 little but sermons, except that he co- 
 
 ugv^us an. ^^^.^^^^^ ^j^,.]^ j^jg brother Julius in a book 
 
 which made much stir, Guesses at Truth (1827), which 
 appeared without the writers' names. This book, 
 largely following Coleridge's lead, did much to famil- 
 iarise English readers with German criticism, and 
 particularly with broader views of Biblical inspiration. 
 He himself, his wife Maria Leycester, and the other 
 members of a remarkable family, are painted for us in 
 the numerous writings of the later Augustus Hare 
 (born 1834), the well-known biographer and travel- 
 writer of our own day. 
 
 Between the brothers Hare comes Eenn Dickson 
 Hampden (1793-1868), afterwards Bishop of Hereford. 
 Oxonian too, his "Bampton Lectures" of 
 1832, his election to the headship of St 
 Mary Hall and to the chairs of Moral Philosophy and 
 Divinity, but above all his nomination as Bishop, 
 formed the occasion of furious protests by the High 
 Church party. Besides his Bampton Lectures, he was 
 author of several books on divinity and philosophy, 
 none of which need now be particularised. 
 
 Julius Charles Hare (1795 - 1855) was a more 
 
 forceful writer than his brother. Educated at 
 
 Cambridge, he became Eector of Hurst- 
 
 JuUus Rare. 
 
 monceaux and afterwards Archdeacon of 
 Lewes ; and he married a sister of Frederick Maurice. 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 181 
 
 After translating Fouqu^'s Sintram (1820), and with 
 his brother writing Guesses at Truth (1827), he co- 
 operated with Thirlwall in translating Niebuhr (1828 
 seq.), and published in 1829 his own Vindication of 
 Niebuhr's History. A recognised party leader, his 
 later publications were mainly Sermons or " Charges," 
 the latter especially being influential on his time. 
 But he also wrote a Life (1848) of his curate Ster- 
 ling, which had a curious fate. As John Sterling 
 (1806-43), though a bright and winsome personality, 
 hardly requires separate mention as a writer in these 
 pages, it may be sufficient to name him here, and to 
 note the curious fact that he wrote a novel called 
 Goningshy and a tragedy called Strafford, anticipating 
 in each case better known performances. Sterling's 
 widened views clashed with even Hare's eclecticism, 
 and the Life written by Hare dwelt so much on this 
 one aspect of Sterling's work that Carlyle was moved 
 to write that infinitely more remarkable Life of Ster- 
 ling (1851) which will immortalise the short-lived 
 subject, and in connection with which, it is not 
 improbable, Julius Hare himself will be chiefly 
 remembered. 
 
 Next in order should be named Arnold and Thirl- 
 wa:ll, already dealt with under the head of History; 
 and Walter Farquhar Hook (1798-1875), 
 a non-papal High- Churchman, author of 
 a Ghv/rch Dictionary (1842) and other works of 
 ecclesiastical biography. Then we come to Edward 
 Bouverie Pusey (1800-82). Of good family, and 
 Oxford training, Pusey was through life a University 
 
182 EUEOPEAU LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 magnate, residing there except during two years of 
 early study in Germany. It is curious to think 
 that Pusey's d^but was made as expounder of German 
 theology, and that he incurred suspicion of undue 
 laxity in his own opinions. To the last he retained 
 his interest in this subject ; but it need hardly be said 
 that he had no sympathy with " Eationalism," to a 
 study of which his earliest publication was devoted. 
 In Keble he found a friend and adviser. It was at 
 the latter's suggestion that the famous " Tracts for the 
 Times" were begun (in 1833), a venture of which 
 Pusey and Newman were chief supporters. Pusey, 
 by this time Eegius Professor of Hebrew, played a 
 prominent part in the discussions which followed. 
 " The great man," as Newman loved to call him, was a 
 tower of strength, both for learning and for sobriety 
 of judgment, and it was not inaptly that the school, 
 even before Newman's secession, became known as 
 Puseyite. Besides the Tracts, Pusey edited the Oxford 
 Library of the Fathers (begun 1836), translating for it 
 Augustine's Confessions and other works. Tract 90 
 was condemned in 1841, in 1843 Pusey was suspended 
 from preaching before the University, and in 1845 
 Newman joined the Church of Eome. Under these 
 and other blows the party staggered, but Keble and 
 Pusey rallied and kept them together. In later days 
 Pusey became prosecutor instead of prosecuted. The 
 University Commission of 1852 was a sore blow, the 
 Gorham judgment and the rationalistic teaching of 
 Jowett and others wounded him to the quick. But 
 he remained faithful to the Church of England, 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATUEE. 183 
 
 defending what he deemed her faith by speech and 
 writing, restraining as far as possible the excesses of 
 his own followers, while sternly refusing any com- 
 promise with the enemy.' In the evening of life his 
 public work was chiefly literary, while in private he 
 was the trusted confidant and father - confessor to 
 younger men. His private life was saintly, even 
 beyond the verge of asceticism. Eleven years of 
 married life left him a widower for his remaining 
 days. Penance and mortification were familiar to 
 him, and his charity was munificent. His best work 
 was done as party leader, but his writings ranged 
 from a Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts (1835) to a 
 CommerdaTy on the Minor Prophets (1860 - 77). A 
 pamphlet on Collegiate and Professorial Teaching 
 (1854) is valuable from an academic standpoint. 
 Gentle and affectionate by nature, Pusey outlived the 
 harshness of controversy, and has left perhaps the 
 purest reputation of any one connected with the 
 Oxford Movement. But ecclesiastical conflict made 
 great inroad on his time for work, and he has 
 bequeathed less literary record than many men of 
 inferior ability. 
 
 John Henry Newman (1801-90), a few months 
 Pusey's junior, was a brother-fellow at Oriel. Early 
 seeking clerical work, he became vicar of St 
 Mary's, published his book on the Arians 
 (1833), and wrote several hymns printed in Lyra Apos- 
 tolica (1834). " Zead, Icindly light ! " in particular, was 
 composed during a voyage in the Mediterranean. Tracts 
 for the Times revealed his full power, and made him in 
 
184 EUKOPEAN LITERATUKB — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 some respects the real leader of the Tractarian move- 
 ment. Against Kome he protested vigorously, while 
 vindicating the catholicity of the Anglican Church. 
 But the condemnation of Tract 90 in 1841 was fol- 
 lowed by the resignation of his charge in 1843, and in 
 1845 he was received into the Church of Eome. 
 Beyond the Tracts and successive volumes of very fine 
 sermons, he had as yet published little. For the next 
 few years not much was heard of him, but Anglican 
 Difficulties (1850) and Catholicism in England (1851) 
 showed that his pen retained its old power. An in- 
 cautious sentence of Charles Kingsley's provoked the 
 masterly Apologia pro vita sua (1864), which caused a 
 reaction of opinion in his favour. All these years he 
 worked quietly at Birmingham, in the Oratory of S. 
 Philip Neri, but about 1870 he took a prominent part 
 against Manning and the Ultramontanes. In spite of 
 this he received the cardinal's hat in 1879, and for 
 some ten years more lived in high honour, once at 
 least revisiting Oxford after so long absence. Besides 
 books mentioned, he wrote many others, including two 
 historical romances, a poem called The Dream of 
 Gerontius (1865), a philosophic treatise entitled The 
 Grammar of Assent (1870), and many volumes of 
 sermons and lectures. All show the same finished 
 style, clearness of thought, subtlety of argument, and 
 vigour of conception and handling. 
 
 Newman was not only the greatest of the Tractarian 
 writers, but one of the very greatest writers of his 
 time. Perhaps Carlyle alone could be set up against 
 him as a master of English prose. Comparison be- 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 185 
 
 tween the two is impossible, and no one would claim for 
 His literary Ncwman the titanic force of Carlyle's vol- 
 pomr. canic utterance, any more than they would 
 
 claim for Carlyle the silver beauty of Newman's writ- 
 ing. As a master of English Newman is superb. While 
 Carlyle's effects are obtained by means the most brutal 
 and violent, Newman's are reached by an art which 
 conceals art. He never poses, never mouths, never 
 stoops to maltreat the Queen's English. If there be a 
 fault, it is the super-subtle delicacy of his ratioeinative 
 process ; but limpid clearness of style goes far to 
 redeem this. With his merits as a theologian we have 
 fortunately nothing to do; as a stylist his place is 
 among the highest. He may not impress the popular 
 ear, for he seldom indulges in deliberate fine writing. 
 He regards the end of an argument, not the means, 
 and must be judged of as a whole, not by isolated 
 passages. Indeed, his influence as a writer has not 
 been commensurate with his ability. The man New- 
 man is better known than the author. His books may 
 not have enough solid matter in them to withstand the 
 attack of oblivion. But so far as manner goes, so far 
 as pure style, untouched by garish excess or gaudiness 
 of description, can make a writer immortal, Newman is 
 secure of immortality. 
 
 One year younger than Newman was Nicholas 
 Patrick Wiseman (1802-65), afterwards Cardinal- Arch- 
 bishop of Westminster, who wrote many 
 
 MiTlor authors, , , .ii i p tit T^77.-r». 
 
 theological books, lounded the Dublin Review 
 (1836), and was the occasion of a manifestation of 
 anti-papal feeling on his assuming the title conferred 
 
186 EUROPEAN LITEEATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 by the Head of his Church. Eichard Hurrell Froude 
 (1803-36), another fellow of Oriel, was a close friend 
 of Newman's, and wrote one or two of the Tracts ; but 
 his early death extinguished a genius which may have 
 been equal to that of his brother the historian. John 
 Kitto (1804-54) was a popular writer of religious 
 books, such as the Pictorial Bible (1838) and Pictorial 
 History of Palestine (1840), and edited the Joicrnal 
 of Sacred Literature (1848 sej.), published by Charles 
 Knight. He had the misfortune to be stone-deaf, and 
 took no part in theological controversy. 
 
 Samuel Wilberforce (1805-73), son of the eminent 
 Evangelical, devoted his youth to clerical work, having 
 Bishop no university connection from the time he 
 wuburjoTce. fjuigiied his undergraduate career at Oxford 
 till he became Bishop of the diocese. Meantime he 
 had been curate, rector, rural dean, archdeacoii, canon 
 (of Winchester), court chaplain, and Dean of West- 
 minster. This wide experience gave him great know- 
 ledge of affairs and strong parochial interests, and 
 administration was his best point. Skilful, astute, 
 even " saponaceous " in manner, the Bishop of Oxford 
 has been painted by many hands, and given rise to 
 many literary bon-mots. His encounters with Lord 
 Westbury have become historical, while the " Bishop " 
 in Lothair will probably preserve his memory longest. 
 Wilberforce maintained close relations with the Trac- 
 tarian school, but ab extra rather than from within. 
 As a writer he did little, the Life and Journals of 
 Henry Martyn (1837), stories called Agathos (1839) 
 and Rocky Island (1840), with a History of the 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 187 
 
 American Church (1844) and his share in writing his 
 father's Life, being his chief contributions. But he 
 influenced men who wrote, and his bright wit kept 
 up a family tradition. He was killed by a fall from 
 his horse, not long after being promoted to the see of 
 Winchester. 
 
 The year 1805 gave birth to several other theological 
 writers. But Maurice and Dr Martineau have been 
 Manning, mentioned already, and there remains but 
 and others. ^^ ^^^^ Fraucis William Newman, brother 
 of the Cardinal (1805-97). Of him it can here be 
 said only that the spirit of the age drove him on an 
 opposite course from his brother's, and that he wrote 
 The Soul (1849) and Phases of Faith (1853), works of 
 ultra-liberal tone. One year junior was Henry Eogers 
 (1806-77), congregational minister, who controver- 
 sially attacked Newman's just-mentioned books, and 
 whose Uclipse of Faith (1852) was long deemed a 
 model of vigorous polemic. And then we come to 
 Henry Edward Manning (1808-92), another of the 
 Oxford party. Fellow of Merton and contributor to 
 Tracts for the Times, friend of Newman and related by 
 marriage to Wilberforce, Manning joined the Church 
 of Eome in 1851, and speedily rose there to high 
 office. Siding with the Ultramontane party, he 
 became estranged from Newman, succeeded Wiseman 
 at Westminster in 1865, supported strongly the In- 
 fallibility decree in 1870, and was made a cardinal in 
 1875. Later he laboured much on social questions, 
 and made an impressive and honoured figure in 
 London society. He wrote many sermons and theo- 
 
188 EUKOPEAN LITEEATUEE — ROMANTIC TBIUMPH. 
 
 logical tractates, and the Anglican pulpit sustained a 
 severe loss when he left it. 
 
 Henry Alford (1810-71), a Cantab, afterwards Dean 
 of Canterbury, was pre-eminently a type of the mod- 
 ern literary clergyman. Besides popular hymns and 
 verses, he wrote magazine articles innumerable, and 
 edited the Contemporary Review, but is best known by 
 his notes to the Greek Testament (first volume, 1844). 
 Edward Harold Browne (1811-91), Divinity Professor 
 at Cambridge, Bishop of Ely and (after Wilberforce) 
 of Winchester, wrote many non-party treatises, notably 
 one on the Thirty -nine Articles (1850). William 
 George Ward (1812-82), one of the most interesting 
 figures in the Oxford Movement, brilliant, humorous, 
 with a Puck-like love of stirring up difificult questions, 
 wrote one famous book, the Ideal of a Christian 
 Church (1844), which cost him his Fellowship at 
 Balliol and his University career. Eeceived into the 
 Koman Church, he edited for some time the Dublin 
 Review, lived latterly on his estate in the Isle of 
 Wight, and was commemorated in a sonnet by his 
 attached friend Lord Tennyson. 
 
 The importance to literature of this troubled time 
 of wrangling and contention must excuse dispro- 
 
 Bffectson portionate length of recital. It will be 
 
 hteratun. gggjj j^^^ large & place in men's thoughts 
 at this stage was taken by theological controversy. 
 Theology in the 'Thirties, Geology in the 'Porties, were 
 bugbears to honest souls; and the former swallowed 
 up even the latter, developing into a general un- 
 settling of men's minds. That such a process should 
 
DIDACTIC LITEEATUEU. 189 
 
 leave no mark on literature would be indeed 
 improbable. Accordingly, we find theological ideas 
 and passwords becoming current coin in popular 
 writing to a degree .unparalleled even in times of 
 storm like the Eeformation. Hence the necessity of 
 sketching, however briefly, the foregoing lives ; hence 
 the value to a literary student of some knowledge of 
 their outlines. The Tractarian and Broad Church 
 movements in the Church of England, regarded from 
 this point of view, assume the dignity and the interest 
 of national events. 
 
 While the life of the Church of England was thus 
 distracted and troubled, that of the Church of Scotland 
 
 smitish was a prey to still more internecine dissen- 
 
 divinuy. gjQjj^ culminating in the "Disruption" of 
 1843. During years of conflict which preceded that 
 event, abstrusest questions of theology had been dis- 
 cussed coram populo by some of the acutest intellects 
 in the kingdom. In Scotland yet more universally 
 than in England theological discussion swayed men's 
 hearts and minds. " A free Church in a free State," 
 as Montalembert and Cavour afterwards phrased it, 
 appealed to memories of the past as to resentment of 
 state interference in the present, and it may safely be 
 said, that the main engrossment of Scottish literature 
 during this latter portion of our period was theological 
 and polemical. 
 
 The leader in this prolonged controversy was Thomas 
 Chalmers (1780-1847). Competent critics have spoken 
 of Chalmers in terms of almost idolising admiration. 
 
190 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 It is difficult to realise this impression now. As a 
 pulpit or platform orator he was clearly 
 
 Chalmers. '^ '^ "^ ^ , . ... . , 
 
 very great. But his writings, tor example 
 his " Bridgewater Treatise " (cf . ante), with a title too 
 long to quote, strike one as containing somewhat 
 more of turgid rhetoric than of real eloquence. Pos- 
 sibly this is not unusual with the writing of orators. 
 Chalmers was also a great statesman — too great for 
 comprehension by the Queen's ill-advised advisers — 
 profoundly interested in economic and social problems, 
 and deviser of that Sustentation Fund, or general 
 pooling of stipends, which did so much to ensure 
 financial success to the new organisation. He died 
 only four years after the exodus of 1843, labouring to 
 the last both at Church affairs and at his posthum- 
 ously published Institutes of Theology, 
 
 The captains of the " Free " Church — some younger 
 leaders of the still "Established" section which re- 
 mained in possession of the temporalities — 
 
 His siwcessors. 
 
 With one or two representatives of other 
 bodies, cherishing a characteristically intense life of 
 their own — gave to literature what time could be 
 snatched from more laborious and responsible duties. 
 But, with the single exception of Hugh Miller {ante, 
 p. 150), it can scarcely be claimed that any of their 
 publications, prior at least to 1850, demand attention 
 on the ground of purely literary value. 
 
 The reader has now had put before him, so far as 
 imperfect guidance would allow, materials for a rough 
 sketch of how the Komantic Triumph affected the 
 
DIDACTIC LITERATURE. 191 
 
 literature of our own country. We have traced its 
 workings in poetry and in prose, in imagin- 
 ative literature and didactic, in the pages 
 of verse-writers and novelists, historians and men of 
 science, philosophers and theologians. Some attempt 
 has been made to indicate how much English letters, 
 in various departments, were affected by the operation 
 of the same causes in other countries. What remains 
 of this volume will be devoted to showing in more 
 detail, within the limits of knowledge still more im- 
 perfect, how the Triumph of the Eomantic Movement 
 during the same half-century affected languages and 
 literatures other than our own. 
 
192 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 
 
 OEIOm OF BOMANTIC MOVEMENT — LITEEATUKB OF THE EESTORATION — 
 WIDE DIFFUSION OF MOVEMENT — LAMAETIKb'S FIKST VOLUME — 
 CHtolER AND DELAVIGNE — BI^KANQEK — TRANSLATIONS — PKOSE 
 WRITERS : LAMENNAIS, CONSTANT, COURIER — PROFESSIONAL RE- 
 VIEWERS — UNIVERSITY LEADERS : VILLEMAIN, GUIZOT, COUSIN — 
 DISCIPLES .OF COUSIN — HISTORY : MIOHAUD, BAKANTB, SISMONDI, 
 THIERRY, MIOHELET, THIERS — SOCIALISTIC SCHOOL — NATURAL 
 SCIENCE — VICTOR HUGO — " HERNANI " — ENGLISH ACTORS IN 
 PARIS — REVOLUTION IN VERSE — FREEDOM AND SONORITY — 
 CHIEF EARLY WHITINGS — CHARACTER OF HIS WORK — OTHER 
 
 ROMANTICS — VIGNY POET AND NOVELIST — SAINTE - BEUVE — 
 
 MUSSET — WORK AND LIMITATIONS GAUTIER — STRENGTH OP 
 
 HIS WORK — BEGINNINGS OP CHANGE — LAMARTINE — HIS REAL 
 IMPORTANCE — MINOR VERSE — STENDHAL — FICTION: BALZAC — HIS 
 LIFE — HIS WORKS — THEIR SUBJECT— HIS METHOD — AIMS AND RE- 
 SULTS — DUMAS — ^ CRITICISM OP DUMAS — HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE — 
 GEORGE SAND — CHARACTERISATION OF HER WORK — STYLE AND 
 SHORTCOMINGS — MISrIMISe — EUGENE SUE — JANIN — BERNARD — KARR 
 
 — SUMMARY : TRANSITION TO DRAMA — BRIEF VOGUE OF ROMANTIC 
 DRAMA — INHERENT DRAWBACKS — RIVAL DRAMATISTS — COMEDY: 
 SCRIBE — OTHER WRITERS OF COMEDY — WRITERS OP CRITICISM — 
 JOUBERT, AND ^ OTHERS — PUBLICISTS — PROUDHON — LOUIS BLANC — 
 LAOORDAIRE — MONTALEMBERT — THE GUERINS — OZANAM — WOMEN- 
 WRITERS — LATER HISTORIANS — TOCQUEVILLB — COMTE — HIS SYSTEM 
 
 — HIS GREAT WORK- — ITS ABIDING VALUE — CONCLUSION —►INFLU- 
 ENCE OF FRENCH WRITERS — CAUSES OF GRATITUDE — PASSAGE 
 TO GERMANY. 
 
 Fkance, centre and focus of the revolutionary spirit 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 193 
 
 in Europe, was late in applying herself to literary 
 „ . . , rebellion.^ Her chief energies had other 
 
 Origin of ^ 
 
 Eomantic outlet. The Terror with its scenes of 
 carnage, the lurid stage-play ot JSfapoleon s 
 wars, left men little time or wish to cultivate letters. 
 Yet literary stirrings and strivings existed even 
 during those times of bloodshed. Earlier volumes 
 of this series must tell how the reaction against 
 Classicism began ; how the impulse given by Eousseau 
 shaped the romance of Saint-Pierre and the meditation 
 of Chateaubriand, while new scenes and new modes 
 of thought were introduced to French readers by the 
 descriptions of Madame de Stael. Led by dangerous 
 destiny to the van of international conflict, France 
 became perforce familiarised with foreign names and 
 habits of speech. England and Germany, in particu- 
 lar, were seen to possess literatures unlike those of 
 Latin races, yet deserving study. The great Emperor 
 slept with " Ossian " under his pillow. Shakespeare 
 and Goethe found students among the readers of 
 Corneille and Eacine. Before the end of the First 
 Empire, the literary soil of France had been deeply 
 
 ^ Petit de JulleviEe, Histoire de la la/ngue et la litUrature fraru;aise, 
 vol. vii. (Paris, 1899). Brunetifere, Mam,ud de Vhistoi/re de la litUra- 
 tore/ramfaise (Paris, 1898; English translation same year). Lanson, 
 Histovre de la littirature framqaise (Paris, 1896). •' Demogeot, the same 
 (Paris, 1892). Charpentier, La littiratwre frami^aise au dix-newvUme 
 sUcle (Paris, 1875). Gautier, Histoire du romantisme (Paris, 1895). 
 Sainte - Beii ve. Portraits contemporaims, 3 vols. (Paris, 1847; new 
 edition, 1855) ; Portraits litl^raires, 3 vols. (Paris, 1862-64). Maxime 
 du Camp, Souvenirs littiraires, 2 vols. (Paris, 1882-83). Grands 
 icrivains fram(;ais (Haohette et Cie., 1886, seq.) Faguet, l&udes 
 littiraires (Paris, 1898). 
 
 N 
 
194 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 tilled by new forces, and was ready to burst forth 
 in strange forms of harvest. But it was not till 
 after, in 1815, Buonaparte gave way to the Bourbons, 
 that the Eomantic Eevolt in France can be said to 
 have become triumphant. 
 
 We in England have a literature of the Eestoration. 
 It is one in which few of us take much pride or 
 Literature of plcasurc. But in French history the name 
 tus^uyratim. ^enotes a period of magnificent vitality, 
 during which all that is most living in the France 
 of to-day took shape and substance. To the " Eestau- 
 ration" French writers of this Century look back as 
 to a Golden Age. All was bright, and fresh, and new. 
 Infinite possibilities seemed opening. History, phil- 
 osophy, political writing and teaching breathed the 
 spirit of poetry, were full of the new fiery wine. As 
 to verse itself, the time had clearly come to rejuvenate, 
 to transform it, to bid farewell and defiance to old 
 creeds and critics. In reading what French writers of 
 all schools say of this epoch, we continually remember 
 the words in which Wordsworth describes his own and 
 France's revolutionary morning thirty years earlier — 
 
 " Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
 But to be young was very heaven.'' 
 
 Not in poetry alone, by any means, are the first 
 victories of the new school to be traced. France had 
 wicu diffusion much to Icam, and plain prose suited best 
 o/movmenf. ^.j^g ^^^^ ^^ discussion and prelection. 
 
 Pamphlets and lectures and university courses — the 
 class-rooms of the Sorbonne, the columns of Les D^ats 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 195 
 
 and Le Globe — these too were places where the new 
 doctrine flourished, pulpits whence the Eomantic 
 gospel was preached. The intellectual life of France, 
 during the years following 1815 and leading up to 
 1830, flowed in many different channels, and filled 
 them all with abounding vigour. Our survey of this 
 period, therefore, must not be confined to one de- 
 partment at a time, but embrace in bird's-eye view 
 all the varied literary activities which bore wit- 
 ness to a new departure. Poetry sounded the onset, 
 so with poetry our narrative begins. But ere long 
 we shall find our gaze wandering to other and wider 
 fields. 
 
 The MMitations of Lamartine were published in 
 1820. Since the appearance of Chateaubriand, no 
 LamartiTie-s first work of any writer made so profound 
 first volume, g^^ impressiou. Eeared in the stormy days' 
 of the Empire, Alphonse - Marie - Louis Prat de 
 Lamartine (1790-1869) drank deep of the spirit of 
 battle and revolution, yet combined it with a wistful 
 regard for the sanctities of authority and tradition. 
 He is not himself wholly iconoclast, nor even wholly 
 Eomantic. But he shows the way to others, who will 
 go far. Meantime, his own verses, tender, pathetic, 
 elemental, reveal new points of unfamiliar inspiration. 
 The old undying subjects — Love, Death, Nature — are 
 treated from new standpoints, sung to new tunes. 
 The author tells us how he took his manuscript to 
 Didot, publisher and arbiter of letters, and received 
 an adverse verdict. Your verses, he was told, are 
 
196 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 melodious, but crude ; they do not resemble anything 
 which is accepted or sought after by our poets ; one 
 knows not whence you have taken your language, 
 your ideas, your images. Undismayed, the young 
 poet committed his work to the press, and was 
 rewarded by the immediate and almost unanimous 
 applause of his readers. What freshness, what refine- 
 ment, what "ethereal aspiration," what enchanting 
 and musical melancholy ! Young France went wild 
 over the new writer. Critics of standing might say 
 what they pleased ; here was something unhackneyed, 
 something suited to the new world opening all around. 
 Lamartine's later life work will engage us again. At 
 present it is enough to note these Meditations of 1820 
 as sounding for the first time clearly the Eomance 
 note in France, opening the gates through which a 
 whole army would before long seek to pass. 
 
 Other verse - writers may be noted, less clearly 
 preluding the Romantic strain, yet interesting 
 chinierand both in themsclvcs and in tlieir rela- 
 Deiavigne. ^.Jq^ ^^ ^^le chaugc inaugurated by 
 Lamartine. The poems of Andr^-Marie de Ch^nier 
 (1762-94) belong to a previous generation. But the 
 posthumous publication of his collected works in 1820 
 introduced him for the first time to most readers, and 
 his neo- Classicism, of a somewhat Byzantine type, 
 brought at least a new breath into French poetical 
 atmosphere. Entirely of this age, on the other hand, 
 was Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843), who became 
 known as early as 1817. Less original than his 
 great contemporaries soon to bo named, he was also 
 
THE ROMANTIC TKIUMPH IN FEANCE. 197 
 
 less alive to the humanising influences of Peace and 
 the Eestoration. 
 
 " Enfant, j'aimais la France : aimer la France alors, 
 CMtait detester I'Angleterre." 
 
 Not this the spirit to draw sustenance from the 
 literature of other nations. Yet Delavigne's work is 
 interesting in its way. As a lyrist of somewhat 
 wooden calibre, as a playwright of respectable vigour, 
 he fills his own place in the literature of his time. 
 His chief works, to which we need not again return, 
 are Les vipres sidliennes (1819), Ze joaria (1821), Zes 
 messdniennes (1827), Marino Faliero (1829), Zouis XI. 
 (1832), Don Juan d'Autriche (1835), Za fille, du Cid 
 (1840) ; with two early comedies, Zes comidiens (1820) 
 and Z'dcole des vieillards (1823). Delavigne is often 
 abused as a mere hanger-on of the Eomantics, who 
 pillaged their ideas and copied their forms. But he 
 seems rather an experimenter before them, less suc- 
 cessful, and doomed to absorption in their brilliance. 
 He wrote much in Ze lyc6e fran^ais, an avant-courier 
 showing semi-Eomantic twilight before the dawn, 
 started in 1819 by the short-lived Charles Loyson 
 (1791-1820), himself the author of tJpitres et iUgies 
 (1819) whose verse and whose ideas approximate with 
 some closeness to those of Lamartine. 
 
 A more noteworthy writer, though in a. narrow 
 
 field, is Pierre-Jean de B^ranger (1780-1857). The 
 
 songs of B^ranger (the aristocratic prefix 
 
 Beranger. • ^ t 
 
 was a mere assumption) are known by 
 name to all readers. The first appeared in 1815, the 
 
198 EUROPEAN LITERATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 last {Berni&res chansons) in the year of his death. 
 Their easy if rather prosaic cadence ; their happy-go- 
 lucky epicureanism ; the writer's somewhat fade and 
 vulgar sentiment ; his paganism and his Buonapartism ; 
 the naivete and amusement of his careless thoughts 
 on life and love ; are familiar to most of us, and have 
 been happily reproduced in one or two cases by 
 Thackeray. The bourgeois Horace of Paris, it cannot 
 be held that either his art or his inspiration greatly 
 widened the outlook of French poetry. He is rather 
 a "prose-man writing in verse," and his merit is to 
 picture faithfully the petty life of the Parisian cockney 
 during the period we are considering. Yet he worked 
 loyally according to his lights, and tried to correct his 
 own want of education and accomplishment. Com- 
 paring him with Burns, we see how limited is the 
 nature of the man, how trivial his production. 
 Neither high poetry nor high passion can for a 
 moment find room with him. In its own way, 
 however, — limited, commonplace, tawdry often in 
 conception and sometimes in execution, — a chanson 
 of Bdranger's retains a certain happiness and even 
 music of its own, and combined with other influences 
 to popularise the idea of more free and unconventional 
 singing. 
 
 These are names not without distinction. It 
 
 remains true, however, that during the earlier years 
 
 of our period more vivifying and vitalising 
 
 Translations. ./ o o 
 
 influences worked in prose than in poetry. 
 Even in verse, indeed, the many translations put forth 
 were perhaps fully more formative than the original 
 work. A series of Chefs- d'ceuvre des tMdtres itrangers 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN ffEANCE. 199 
 
 (1822-23), by various hands, gave Hamlet, Faust, and 
 Emilia Gallotti to French readers. About the same 
 time, Barante published a translation of the entire 
 poetical works of Schiller; Constant and Edmusat 
 reproduced the dramatic works of Goethe ; Guizot 
 and Pichot sent out their monumental rendering of 
 the whole works of Shakespeare, based on the earlier 
 labours of Letourneur. The international rapproche- 
 ment was complete, no feeling of soreness seeming to 
 be left, as after a later war. The Corsican had fallen, 
 but France still remained great and glorious. A few 
 old soldiers of the Empire, perhaps, still "detested 
 England " and despised Prussia ; but the predominant 
 feeling, in politics as in letters, was one of courteous 
 readiness to profit by mutual inter-relation. 
 
 Turn we therefore now to consider the weighty 
 output of prose which signalised the years 1815-30. 
 Prose writers Joseph-Maric dc Maistrc (1753-1821), and 
 !«««»»«. Louis-Gabriel-Amboise de Bonald (1754- 
 1840), seem hardly to belong to these years. Yet the 
 publication of Le pape (1819) by the former, of Les 
 recherches pMlosophiques (1818) by the latter, bring 
 them within our view, as veterans and still leaders. 
 De Maistre, aristocratic, energetic, often paradoxical, 
 wielding his pen like a weapon of offence, had long 
 preached anti-Voltairean and anti-materialistic views 
 of life and history.^ De Bonald, calmer, more 
 
 1 His younger brother, Xavier de Maistre (1763-1852), wrote some 
 delicate sketches of foreign life, also the Voyage oMtowr de ma chwmbre 
 (1794), quite a classic in its way, and one which inaugurated a fashion 
 of its own. 
 
200 EUROPEAN LITEKATUEE — ROMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 systematic, logician and thinker, — though far from 
 his equal in regard of style, — had combated the 
 doctrines of Eousseau and Montesquieu, declaring law, 
 language, and society to be the work not of man but 
 of God. To these now added himself a younger 
 champion, Hugues - Fdlicit^ - Eobert de Lamennais 
 (1783-1854). Born of that Breton stock which has 
 given France so many of her leading thinkers, this 
 young priest had lived near Dinan in his youth, written 
 and been proscribed under the Empire, had fled to 
 England during the Hundred Days, and now returned 
 to Paris with the 6clat of a sufferer. His essay on 
 Indifference in matters of Eeligion (1816) created a 
 veritable furore. Pushing further the doctrine of his 
 great predecessors, he boldly declared against the right 
 of private judgment, and claimed that the unity of 
 society presupposes a unity of truth. His after- 
 history is a curious comment on this text. He who 
 denounced toleration, and execrated personal liberty 
 of thought, was himself condemned by his ecclesiastical 
 superiors. The College he had founded, the periodical 
 where he expressed his views, came both under the 
 ban. Going to Eome, he vainly pleaded his cause, 
 and avenged his defeat by publishing Les affaires de 
 Eome (1836), in which he broke loose from the 
 authority of the Vatican, and entered a path which 
 led ultimately to his resigning clericalism. At the 
 time of which we write, however, he was stiU the 
 trusted hero of the Ultramontanes, developing theories 
 which de Maistre had laid down in Le Pape. Though 
 his Defense de I'essai sur V indifference (1821) caused 
 
THE EOM ANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 201 
 
 suspicion at Eome, while his Progris de la revolution 
 (1828) conceded the private liberty he had formerly 
 denounced, there was as yet no sign of the fire about 
 to burst forth in Paroles d'un croyant (1834), much 
 less of the complete negation of authority which per- 
 meated the great work of his old age, the Usquisse 
 d'une philosophie (1840-46). The combination of what 
 we should call radicalism and high-churchism which 
 de Lamennais taught his followers created a serious 
 and energetic school, anticipating in some ways the 
 English Tractarian Movement. With Comte on one 
 side, Victor Hugo on the other, they had intimate 
 relations. The " Mennaisian School " must be ranked 
 among the potent influences which shaped the thought 
 and political philosophy of the years 1815-30 in 
 France. And the literary genius of its founder, 
 inspiring his poetic flights and " apocalyptic " visions, 
 threw the weight of that influence on the side of 
 freedom and variety and independence in letters. 
 
 Side by side with this ecclesiastical writer stood 
 others of independent aim, but working in the same 
 direction. Benjamin Constant (Henri-Ben- 
 jamin Constant de Eebecque, 1767-1830) 
 was of Swiss birth though French stock, educated 
 abroad in Germany, Oxford, and Edinburgh ; had been 
 exiled under the Empire, but made his peace with 
 Napoleon before the end ; and now came forward in 
 the cause of freedom and constitutional government. 
 After publishing in 1816 his own love-story — it is said 
 — as a romance (Adolphe), he entered Parliament in 
 
202 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 1819, where his oratorical powers secured for him the 
 leadership of the Liberal Opposition. In speeches, in 
 pamphlets, in letters (his miscellaneous writings fill 
 some dozen volumes), and later in an important work, 
 De la religion, &c. (5 vols., 1824-31), he poured forth 
 a flood of stimulating thought, emancipated yet not 
 anti-religious. The doctrinaires of last Century, he 
 affirmed, despised Christianity because they failed to 
 comprehend it. The new Liberal school preferred con- 
 struction to destruction. As a Liberal leader, there- 
 fore, his influence made for independence, yet for 
 reverence. Speaker first and foremost, he is eminent 
 also as a writer and polemist. Lately (1895), the pub- 
 lication of his Journal intime has completed the 
 impression made by his Letters, his Discourses, his 
 Melanges de littdrature et de politique. And the result 
 shows him, if somewhat erratic in his own personality, 
 a strong and trusted leader in the cause of constitu- 
 tional reform, and in literary affairs an enlarging and 
 stimulating foyce. 
 
 Very different was the career of Paul-Louis Courier 
 
 de M&d (1772-1825). A soldier in his youth, yet no 
 
 admirer of his Emperor ; a pamphleteer in 
 
 Courier. . 
 
 later life, pouring equal scorn on Eoyalist 
 institutions, while living peaceably under them on his 
 country estate; devoted to the Classics, and trans- 
 lating them in a somewhat pedantic and " precious " 
 manner; Courier is more remarkable for style than 
 for elevation of thought or aim. His petty politics 
 may be forgotten, his hatred of priests and kings, his 
 abuse of Parliament {Petition aux deux chambres, 1816), 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN FRANCE. 203 
 
 of the Acad^mie des Inscriptions (1819), of all that 
 clashed with his narrow notions of what a renovated 
 France should be. But he survives in literature as 
 satirist and stylist, revelling in archaisms, scornful of 
 Eighteenth Century letters as of Nineteenth Century 
 politics, looking back for his models to Greece and 
 Eome and the great writers who lived under Louis 
 Quatorze. In this way he, too, taught his contem- 
 poraries to despise whatever was merely formal and 
 traditional. His death at fifty -two by the hand of 
 an assassin, only four years after the appearance of 
 one of his ablest productions {Simple discours, 1821), 
 removed a brilliant writer in the fulness of his power. 
 His works were published in four volumes (Paris, 
 1834), with a biographical introduction by Armand 
 Carrel, himself a soldier in the same cause, and des- 
 tined two years later to an equally violent end. 
 
 Claude-Charles Fauriel (1772-1844) is a name of 
 less note, but suggests the literary critic by profession. 
 Professional ^ type less common at this period than 
 rmewrs. jj; became later. Scholar and Professor, 
 Academician and writer of histories, an early student 
 of mediaeval and translator of Italian and German 
 authors, his introductory prefaces did much to diffuse 
 Eomantic ideas. A specimen of these is the " Theory 
 of dramatic art," prefixed to translations from Manzoni 
 (1823), hotly attacking the Unities ; of his longer works 
 the Histoire de la poesie provengale (1846) is perhaps 
 most important. Sainte-Beuve has sketched Pauriel 
 in Portraits contemporains. With him, somewhat later, 
 may be compared Charles Magnin (1793-1862), still 
 
204 EUKOPEAN LITEEATUKE — ROMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 more the occasional critic, his best work being done 
 for the Globe and Bevue des deux mondes. Origines du 
 thMtre (1838) and Gauseries et mMitations (1842) are 
 collections respectively of lectures and newspaper 
 articles; while an early comedy, Bacine (1826), and 
 the well-known Histoire des marionnettes (1854) were 
 his only separate publications. These men are almost 
 unique specimens at this time of the pure literary critic, 
 who neither meddles with politics on the one hand, nor 
 as a rule essays original creative work on the other. 
 
 Next we come to the famous University teachers, 
 the " triumvirate of the Sorbonne," who turned their 
 unimrsuy profcssorial chairs, as one of them says 
 leaders. himself, into veritable tribunes. Guizot, 
 Cousin, and Villemain were young in years, yet had 
 already suffered in the cause of freedom. Driven 
 from France by Napoleon, they had utilised their 
 exile by studying foreign thought and philosophy. 
 They came back still young, full of ardour and learn- 
 ing, with the name of martyrs, and a taking reputa- 
 tion for heresy. They supplanted Eoyer - CoUard, 
 Maine de Biran, and Deg^rando, as these had previ- 
 ously ousted the sensationalist thinkers of the mori- 
 bund Eighteenth Century. Even under the new 
 regime their work did not escape suspicion. Sus- 
 pended more than once, they were finally reinstated 
 in 1828, and the next three years saw them at the 
 height of their influence. Electrifying their hearers, 
 counting audiences by thousands, following up the 
 attack in pamphlet and newspaper article, they swayed 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 205 
 
 both the rising and risen generation with the irre- 
 sistible might of eloquence. Each had his special 
 work, and during the long contest which ended in 
 1828 each had done much to prepare the way for the 
 success which rewarded them. 
 
 Abel-FranQois Villemain (1790-1870) was appointed 
 
 at the age of twenty-six to the chair of Belles Lettres 
 
 at the Sorbonne, and to other similar 
 
 Villemain. . p -i i 
 
 chairs elsewhere. His facile rhetoric, 
 wide reading, and sound critical taste attracted thou- 
 sands of hearers, whose attention he directed to 
 foreign and to early French literature. In his great 
 work, Cours de litUrature frangaise, reproducing his 
 lectures of 1827-30, full prominence is given to 
 these two elements. Goethe and other contemporary 
 critics spoke with warm praise of Villemain's critical 
 lucubrations. To us, reading them, these volumes may 
 seem scarcely to justify such encomiums. They were 
 written to be delivered, and have the faults as well 
 as the merits of their origin. But his width of view, 
 historical faculty, and imaginative fervour, still com- 
 mand respect, and were expressed in form which 
 retains much of Classic grace and precision. Made 
 a deputy under Louis -Philippe, he became a Peer 
 of France in 1831, and Minister of Public Instruction 
 in 1834, his friend Guizot being then in power. For 
 many years Secretary to the French Academy, he 
 served a second time as Minister under Guizot, and 
 died just in time to escape that catastrophe of the 
 German War, which would have filled him with 
 acutest regrets and forebodings. 
 
206 EUEOPEAN LITERATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Even more illustrious, and by all accounts a still 
 more perfervid orator, Franqois - Pierre - Guillaume 
 Guizot (1787-1874) lived to a yet greater 
 age, and attained to yet higher honours. 
 Born at Nimes, brought up mostly in Switzerland, 
 Guizot was professor of modern history in Paris as 
 early as 1812, threw in his lot with Louis XVIIL, 
 and in 1816 received a high appointment in the Civil 
 Service. Of this and other preferments he was 
 deprived in 1821, and in 1825 was inhibited from 
 lecturing. His period of silence produced two books 
 of historical Mimoires, and was also signalised by the 
 publication of the aforesaid version of Shakespeare, 
 of which he was editor-in-chief. His lectures in 
 1828-30, after triumphant return to his chair (Cours 
 d'histoire moderne), were immensely effective. After 
 1830 he took service in politics, became Minister and 
 Ambassador to England, and finally succeeded Thiers 
 as Prime Minister in 1840. Driven once more to 
 England in 1848, he devoted himself after 1851 
 entirely to his first love. Literature, to whom his 
 allegiance had been unbroken even among the 
 harassing duties of State Government. His best 
 known works, besides translations and letters, are 
 his Histories of the English Eevolution (1850 seq.) 
 and of Mediaeval France (31 vols.), his studies of 
 Corneille and Shakespeare, his M6moires pour servir a 
 I'histoire de mon temps (1858) and Meditations on 
 Christianity (1866), his Mdanges literary and political 
 (1868 and 1869), and his History of France recounted to 
 my Children (posthumous). As a statesman, he did 
 
THE ROMAimC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 207 
 
 much for French education. As man of letters, his 
 name stands second to none, even of the brilliant 
 historical school that surrounded him. Protestant, 
 he lent weight to the reaction in favour of Christianity 
 by precept and example. In his life and his works, 
 the moralist stands revealed, teaching, correcting, not 
 content with merely describing. The taste of our day 
 may scarcely tolerate this rigorous standpoint. But 
 Guizot's strong and austere studies will outlive persi- 
 flage and cynicism, and assure him a place among those 
 who have earned the world's thanks by their work. 
 
 Victor Cousin (1792-1867) completes this remark- 
 able trio, and shared their opinions and fortunes. His 
 best work was done in philosophy. Start- 
 mg as assistant to Eoyer-CoUard, he was at 
 first an adherent of the " Scottish School " of thought, 
 and afterwards widened his horizon by a visit to 
 Germany in 1817. In spite of the well-known story 
 of his asking Hegel for a short account of his phil- 
 osophy in French, and receiving for answer, " My 
 system cannot be described shortly, nor in French " — 
 in spite of this rebuff, Cousin cultivated close rela- 
 tions with Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Jacobi, and others. 
 Silenced in 1821, and even arrested and kept prisoner 
 at Berlin in 1825, he during 1827-30 lectured with no 
 less ^clat than the others. His system was eclectic. 
 If Villemain wedded history with literature, and Guizot 
 with philosophy, Cousin allied metaphysics to poetry, 
 and united both to history. In 1832, like the others, 
 he took office, but his political life only interests as 
 revealing the nature of the man. Courteous and 
 
208 EUROPEAN LITEKATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 stately, he bore his honours gallantly, nor heeded too 
 much his reverses. It is as philosopher, or historian 
 of philosophy, that his name will live ; as the editor 
 of Proclus (1820-27), Descartes (1826), Maine de 
 Biran (1834-41), and Abelard (1849)— the translator 
 of Plato (1825-40) and Tennemann's History of Phil- 
 osophy (1829) — the author of many Manuals and 
 Introductions to philosophy, as well as to Scholastic 
 Philosophy (1840) and the Philosophy of Kant (1842). 
 Lucid and graceful, his writings did what literary 
 charm could to popularise the great German thinkers, 
 and led his readers back to the best of Greek and 
 mediaeval philosophy. But he erected no new land- 
 marks, left no distinctive contribution of his own to 
 metaphysics. Like his colleagues, he was middle-man 
 rather than originator, vulgarisateur as his countrymen 
 phrase it. The work of the triumvirate was less to 
 create new ideas than to popularise the old, to famili- 
 arise France with the best work of other ages and coun- 
 tries. Well indeed they did this, and the enthusiasm 
 of hearers and readers carried their teaching far and 
 wide, helping powerfully in the reconstitution of 
 French methods and beliefs and admirations. 
 
 Among followers of Cousin may be named Theodore- 
 Simon Jouffroy (1796-1842), who became his assistant- 
 Discipiesof lecturer, and carried on his exposition of 
 Cousin. (-jjg Scottish philosophers. Jouffroy's chief 
 books were Mdanges philosophiques (1833 and 1842), 
 Cours cle droit naturel (1835-42) and Cours d'csthi- 
 tique (1843). Sketches of him have been written by 
 M. Taine and M. Tissot. His pen was engaged by Le 
 
THE EOMANTIC TKI0MPH IN FRANCE. 209 
 
 Globe in the heroic prime of that paper ; and among 
 others whose contributions did good work about the 
 same time may be mentioned Jean-Philibert Damiron 
 (1794-1862), whose History of French Philosophy in 
 the Nineteenth Century first came out in its columns 
 (1828), followed by a Cours de philosophie (1831); and 
 Charles-Francois-Marie, Comte de E^musat (1797- 
 1875), eminent later as historian and statesman, but 
 then studying English and supporting Liberal principles 
 as a professional journalist. 
 
 In historical study the new influences were strongly 
 at work. Philosophic history, tracing events to 
 History: causes, and considering motives and con- 
 Barmtt, ditious almost more than action, may be 
 sismmdi. qq^^ ^q have been created as regards Prance 
 by Guizot, and owes its genesis to his study of 
 German. Side by side with this arose another school, 
 who laid rre-eminent weight on vivid description, and 
 sought le{.s to philosophise than to make the Past live 
 before us. The patriarch of this school was J. G. 
 Michaud (1767-1839), poet and historian, who after a 
 voyage to the East produced his Histoire des Croisades 
 in nine volumes (1838), besides a long series of 
 sketches written in conjunction with his friend and 
 fellow-traveller Poujoulat. With him compare the 
 Baron de Barante (1782-1866), whose massive Sis- 
 toire des dues de Boiirgogne (1824-28) unites the 
 naivete of a mediaeval chronicle with more conscious 
 art and practised pictorial skill. The more eminent 
 historians, however, combined both methods. De 
 
 
 
210 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE — EOMiNTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Sismondi (Jean-Charles-L^onard Simonde, 1773-1842), 
 in whom met Italian ancestry, French parentage, and 
 Swiss nativity (while his wife was English), appeared 
 early in the field with his Histoire des ripuUiques 
 italiennes du moyen-dge (16 vols., 1809-18). Edu- 
 cated in Geneva, he was driven by political troubles 
 to visit England and Italy, and in the latter wrote his 
 MtUrature du midi (4 vols., 1813 ; English translation 
 by Thomas Eoscoe, 1823). His next book, Nouveaiox 
 principes d'dconomic politique (2 vols., 1819 ; English 
 translation, 1847), reveals the ferment of changing 
 ideals and opinions. Yet his style was not affected by 
 this. His habit of thought was cold, and his great 
 Histoire des Frangais (31 vols., 1821-44) is able rather 
 than interesting, immensely learned, but showing little 
 charm of manner or sympathy with what he describes. 
 (An English translation, begun 1849, stopped midway 
 in the second volume.) For Lardner's Cyclopaedia he 
 wrote a one- volume summary of his Italian Republics 
 (1832), and a sketch of the earlier Middle Ages {Fall 
 of the Eoman Fmpire, 2 vols., 1834). Most of his life 
 was spent at Geneva, and though French was his 
 native language, he seems scarcely French in genius or 
 expression. 
 
 Augustin Thierry (1795-1856) excelled where Sis- 
 mondi failed. Chateaubriand and Scott had inspired 
 him with passionate love of the Past. He 
 tells us how he revelled in descriptions of 
 the followers of Clovis, and went about murmuring to 
 himself — 
 "Pharatnond ! Pharamond ! nous avons combattu avec Vi-p^e !" 
 
THE EOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 211 
 
 and how Qiientin Dm'ward and Ivanhoe came to com- 
 plete the impression. Writing first in journals, in the 
 Courier and Genseur europSen, he gradually amassed 
 material for his great works, Histoire de la conguite de 
 I'Angleterre par les Normands (1825 ; revised edition, 
 1858), and Lettres sur I'histovre du France (1827), fol- 
 lowed by the characteristic Bdcits des temps mer- 
 ovingiens (1840) and other writings. A pupil of St 
 Simon in early days, a friend of Comte in later, Thierry 
 has strongly marked philosophical views, allied to 
 vivid power of delineation. His brother, Amed^e 
 Thierry (1797-1873), also a historian of note, avoided 
 rivalry by confining his researches to ancient times, 
 and his History of Gaul (1840-47) and the like have 
 not the verve which distinguishes the style of the 
 elder Thierry. 
 
 Even more remarkable, however, was the personality 
 of Jules Michelet (1798-1874), a later and fierier fol- 
 lower on similar lines. Parisian born and 
 
 Michelet , i t , . 
 
 bred, he was at the time we are treating 
 merely a pamphleteer, writing historical tahleav/K 
 (1825-26), a Prdcis of modern history (1827), a sketch 
 of Vico's Principles of the philosophy of history (same 
 date). The earlier volumes of his great History of 
 France (1833-44) first revealed him to the world. 
 Poet as well as historian, he is not content even to 
 make the Past live ; he must reveal the springs of its 
 life also. Geography, with him, becomes living and 
 dramatic. The soil from which they spring is shown 
 to have shaped human races. No reader can forget 
 those marvellous pictures in which, with something of 
 
212 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUKE — ROMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 Carlyle's vividness, he calls up before us the colour, 
 the appearance, the character of the French provinces. 
 He conducts us through history like a guide, glowing 
 with emotion as he describes, thrilling us because we 
 feel he is thrilled himself. Of his later work we may 
 not speak. His attack on the Jesuits (Du pritre, de 
 lafemme, de lafamille; 1845), his loss of place under 
 Louis Napoleon, his more recent booklets of pure de- 
 scription, these belong to the volume after ours. But 
 his dawning genius was nurtured by the Hestauration, 
 and to the end he retained the glow of his springtide, 
 the dew of his youth. His Histoire has been not 
 unjustly styled " the lyrical epic of Prance." If 
 Eomantic History took its rise with Thierry, it reached 
 its zenith with Michelet. 
 
 Contemporary with him was a more famous man, 
 but lesser writer, Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877). 
 Child of the South of France, his life and 
 writings had the impulsiveness and easy 
 largeness we associate with that type, His history is 
 the work of a politician rather than a student. His 
 Histoire de la revolution franqaise (1823-27) cannot 
 be trusted as a record of facts ; his later History of 
 the Consulate and the Empire is an ambitious but 
 scarcely a successful work. His political life does 
 not concern us, though by it he will most be remem- 
 bered. But his articles in the Oonstitutional, and later 
 in the National, miade him a force as well as a figure 
 in the Paris of the Bourbons. 
 
 Another great moving power, apart from either 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 213 
 
 philosophy or history proper, was that which created 
 socmiistic the word Socialism. Claude Henri, Comte 
 ""'"'"■ de Saint -Simon (1760-1825), was now 
 infirm and old, thanks to hardship and distress more 
 than years ; but from 1817 to 1825 he poured forth a 
 stream of tracts on industrial questions, while his 
 chief work, Le nouveau christianisTue, appeared in the 
 year of his death. His mantle fell on Francois Marie 
 Charles Fourier (1772-1837), proposer of the famous 
 phalange, whose chief works came out between 1820 
 and 1830. Literary historians may ignore these 
 writers (the former is of course to be distinguished 
 from his ancestor of the great M^moires^), but their 
 teaching contributed powerfully to the general 
 upheaval. Both were men of pure aim, ready to go 
 any length in destroying a social order which caused, 
 they thought, evils without number. In striking 
 opposition to de Maistre and de Bonald, they regarded 
 civilisation as devilish rather than divine. Pushing 
 Eousseau's doctrine to the full, and systematising 
 what with him was vague declamation, they were 
 ready with matured schemes for transforming all 
 existing institutions. Fourier worked long in solitude, 
 but Saint-Simon had enthusiastic disciples, and left 
 behind him a journal, Ze jproducteur (1825-26), which 
 was carried on for some short time by these. Among 
 the most ardent of them was Barth^lemy-Prospere 
 Enfantin (1796-1864), who was principally responsible 
 for Doctrine de Saint-Simon (1830) and kindred works, 
 
 ' Which themselves, it may be noticed, were printed for the first 
 time in the year 1S24. 
 
214 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 and who himself suffered prosecution on account of 
 his articles. Perhaps, however, the most important 
 result of these men's teaching — characteristic and 
 influential as it was in itself, and permanent in its 
 impress on all social theories — was that it paved the 
 way, as we shall see later, for the philosophical system 
 of Comte. 
 
 French genius for scientific research, and brilliance 
 
 of exposition, were well represented during the 
 
 Eestoration era. Lamarck (1744 - 1829) 
 
 Natural science. t ■• . -, • tt 
 
 was still publishing his H%sto%re des 
 animaux sans verUhres (1815-22). Cuvier (1769- 
 1832) was Chancellor of the University of Paris, and 
 issuing Le regne aniTnal (1817) and other famous 
 hooks. Arago (1786-1853) is a prominent figure 
 throughout our period, both as astronomer, and after 
 1830 as politician. Jean-Fran9ois Champollion (1791- 
 1832) in his too short life created the science of 
 Egyptology. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) was 
 great as a naturalist, and two others of the name 
 as botanists. The list might be extended without 
 trouble. If we do not dwell on the writings of 
 these and other notable workers, it is because they 
 only indirectly reflected themselves in contemporary 
 literature, though doubtless playing an appreciable 
 part in creating the general tone and atmosphere of 
 the time. 
 
 Such in outline was the intellectual France of those 
 days. Full of ferment, of seeking, of reaction ; loving 
 
THE KOMANTIC TEIUMPH IN FEANCE. 215 
 
 what was old, yet ready to make a clean sweep of 
 the most venerable idols ; receptive to a 
 degree ; child-like in its faith and its fickle- 
 ness ; an age of dreams and research and bold experi- 
 ment. Into this milieu was born the greatest poet 
 of his Century, in France at least, some would say in 
 Europe. Victor-Marie Hugo (1802-85) mirrored and 
 summed up his time, ir'arisian Dorn and bred, son 
 of one of Napoleon's generals, his precocious genius 
 brought him very early into print, and 1822 saw his 
 first important work, the earlier Odes. Kan d' Islands 
 followed in 1823, Bug-Jargal in 1824, claiming prose 
 fiction too for his province ; but the later Odes et 
 ballades (1826), Cromwell (1827), and Zes Orientales 
 (1828) are more interesting to us. In the prefaces 
 to these he formulates his poetical creed. That to 
 Cromwell, in particular, is a long and laboured study, 
 in which he distinguishes three stages, alike in the 
 world's history and in that of a nation, to which 
 correspond three classes of poetry — lyric, epic, 
 dramatic. Drama is the latest and most compre- 
 hensive, and deals largely in the grotescLue as a 
 subject of art. Moli^re is the chief poet of Prance ; 
 Shakespeare, combining in himself the genius of 
 Corneille, Moliere, and Beaumarchais, is the "god" 
 of modern poetry. To make facts square with this 
 theory, he explains that Greek tragedy is essentially 
 epic, and so is Pindar. All belonging to the ancient 
 world he calls classic, to the modern romantic. Thus 
 defined, it is easy to contend that classic rules are 
 out of place now, and in particular that the " three 
 
216 EUROPEAN LITEEATUKE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 unities " must give place to one unity, that of action. 
 He would fain indeed knock all theories on the head, 
 and substitute simply Nature, freedom, and truth. No 
 subject is bad in itself ; " there are neither good nor 
 bad subjects, only good and bad poets." Everything 
 is material for art ; nothing can be accounted alien to 
 poetry. 
 
 We catch a hint of Wordsworth in these views, 
 
 where truth characteristically mingles with invention. 
 
 Hugo professes to have studied English 
 
 Hernani. . -rr i in e i 
 
 writers. He has consulted scores or such 
 while writing Cromwell; he makes no secret of his 
 preference for foreign ideals. " Les autres peuples 
 disent : Homere, Dante, Shakespeare. Nous disons : 
 Boileau." Little wonder that his doctrines were 
 scouted by French critics of the old school. A 
 veritable storm raged round his head. This battle 
 royal of the styles culminated at the first performance 
 of Hernani (1830). Crornivell was not intended for the 
 stage, being on too large a scale. Its five acts com- 
 prise seventy - five scenes, the second alone having 
 twenty -four. Hernani was written to act, though 
 a critic like Hugo might fairly call it a lyric in 
 five acts. Its production by the Th^^tre - Frah§ais 
 was a gage of battle thrown down. The critics 
 mustered in force to damn it. But on the other 
 side came the young poets who by this time had 
 rallied round Hugo's banner. A motley regiment, with 
 long hair and outlandish raiment, Gautier's red waist- 
 coat conspicuous as an oriflamme, they yelled, and 
 cheered, and gesticulated. Youth carried the day, 
 
THE ROMANTIC TKIUMPH IN FEANCE. 217 
 
 with Freedom and Romance as its watchwords ; 
 Mernani was the symbol of a cause, and as such it 
 was acclaimed, quite apart from its merits. 
 
 It is worth recalling that during the winter of 1827- 
 28 — the winter in which Cromwell was written — an 
 BngKsK actors English Company, of which Charles Kemble, 
 in Paris. Macrcady, and Miss Henrietta Smithson 
 were the chief stars, performed Shakespeare in Paris 
 amid great enthusiasm. This was at once cause and 
 sign of change. Shakespeare-olatry became the fashion, 
 though we shall see cause later to doubt whether the 
 craze ever took firm hold on the public. On Hugo, 
 however, as afterwards on his disciple Musset, the 
 effect produced was enduring, and largely influenced 
 him in making the strong stand he did for Eomantic 
 as opposed to Classical drama. The English actors' 
 visit only deepened an impression already made ; but 
 it partly explains the advance from Cromwell to 
 Hernani. 
 
 The dispute between classical and romantic was 
 largely a matter of terms. Goethe defined " classical " 
 
 Revoiutim as equivalent to healthy, strong, joyous ; 
 
 in verse. ., romantic " as equivalent to sickly, weak, 
 morbid. To Hugo, on the contrary, " romantic " meant 
 whatever was modern. Disputes based on such loose 
 phrasing can help us little. Hugo's polemics are of 
 small value now ; what is really important is the part 
 he played in renovating French verse. And this can 
 scarcely be exaggerated. He found a limited vocabu- 
 lary, and a highly artificial form of metre. The French 
 " alexandrine," never a very ductile verse, had been 
 
218 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 hardened by generations of pedants into cast-iron stifif- 
 ness. More even than our heroic couplet, it was 
 fettered by rule and precedent. Hugo broke through 
 these. His trick of enjambement, that is, letting one 
 line run on into another in sense, was probably learned 
 from English models. But he also substituted variety 
 of cadence within the line itself for the monotonous 
 regularity so dear to the Classicists. The line became 
 musical; it sang instead of speaking. Moreover, he 
 widened the bounds of poetic diction, and valued words 
 for themselves. A word may be a duke, he said, or a 
 clown (grimaud) ; in either case I want it. We can 
 clearly trace Wordsworth's influence in this utterance ; 
 and, like Wordsworth, the French insurrectionists 
 often went too far. They used phrases meant to 
 startle, words whose only merit was their novelty. 
 These were extravagances incidental to a revolution- 
 ary outbreak. As with Wordsworth's 
 
 " Tub like those 
 Which women use to wash their clothes,'' 
 
 maturer taste would condemn mere pettiness. But 
 revolutions are not made with rose-water. And this 
 was nothing short of a Eevolution, as thorough-going 
 in its way as the political one which preceded it. 
 
 Victor Hugo was its leader. Not that he was first 
 
 to begin. But his power soon placed him at its head. 
 
 Freedom and and wc may as well consider it in and 
 
 sonority. through him. It is the earlier Hugo we 
 
 deal with here. In later life his extravagance kept 
 
 pace with his power. No experiment was too daring, 
 
THE ROMANTIC TKIUMl'H IN FKANCE. 219 
 
 in subject or in style. But up to 1850 Hugo, though 
 a rebel, was never an anarchist. Even his metrical 
 experiments were cautiously made. The alexandrine 
 remained his chief measure, often grouped into 
 stanzas ; octosyllabic verse (after Scott and Byron) 
 was the principal variant. His variety of rhythm 
 was attained by simple means, and only developed 
 hints found in the Classical masters themselves. 
 Syntax was respected as yet; at a later date, like 
 Browning, he "loved to dock the minor parts of 
 speech." Ehyme was emphasised, but not made 
 grotesque. It is only in his plays that Hugo's 
 earlier verse is appreciably lax ; in his lyrics, the 
 structure is still precise, though the cadence is 
 altered. The revelation throughout Hugo's verse 
 was the tone, the singing quality, as above said. 
 Here was something that had not been heard in 
 France, one might say, since Eonsard, Sensuous 
 delight in sound came in with the Eomantics, The 
 sonority of Hugo's verse, his bold figures, his use of 
 abstractions and lofty metaphors, all had something 
 intoxicating for his contemporaries. Even a lesser 
 poet could have carried people off their feet with 
 these. 
 
 Hugo's earlier verse is mainly lyric. Indeed, it is 
 lyrical in substance, even when not in form. Above all 
 Chief early elsc, he is singcr. After the poems above 
 writmgs. mentioned came Feuilles d'automne (1831), 
 Chants du cr4puscule (1835), Voix inUrieures (1837), 
 and Les rayons et les ombres (1840). And then fol- 
 lowed a pause, so that Les chdtiments (1852) and the 
 
220 EUKOPBAN LITEEATUKE — ROMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 first part of La Ugende des sidcles (1859) belong to a 
 later Hugo. He was not idle, however. In drama, 
 Marion Delorme (1830) and Le roi s'amuse (1832) 
 inaugurated a succession of plays, leading up to the 
 misfortune of Les Burgraves (1843), a failure which 
 turned him from writing for the stage. In prose 
 romance, Notre-Bame de Paris (1831) was the greatest 
 of a series, equalled only when long after he produced 
 Les mis&aUes (1862). Meantime, he had turned to 
 politics, and become a member of the Academy. 
 From 1830 to 1848 he sat as member of Assembly, 
 and the success of Louis-Philippe, says one critic, 
 consoled him for the defeat of Les Burgraves. In 1845 
 he was made a Peer of France, and at the close of our 
 period was at the height of his popularity. 
 
 Even if Hugo had died in 1850, he would still have 
 been a great poet. Perhaps his lyrical ,atyle cul- 
 charaderof minatcd in the above- menMo'ned poems of 
 his woric. 1852 and 1859. But the poems published 
 during the 'Thirties would have made a reputation. 
 Apart from style, they impress as do none of his 
 contemporaries. The " lyrical cry," the egoism of the 
 new school, find splendid utterance. For Eomanticism 
 exalted above all else the individual view. Every 
 man was a Byron, seeking to utter the voice of his 
 own heart, for good or evil. That Byron's actual 
 influence was strong, goes without saying. He 
 personified the self - sufficiency, the daring, the 
 mystery and gloom, the Nature -worship, the love 
 of liberty and hatred of formulas, which every 
 Eomantic cherished as his ideal. Hugo, too, drank 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 221 
 
 at this fount. The influence of Byron was strong 
 on him in lyric poetry, as that of Shakespeare in 
 drama, and that of Scott in romance. But he was 
 very far from a copyist. All that went into his mind 
 came forth transformed, made his own by the right 
 of genius. France needed a new poet, and found him 
 in Victor Hugo. Had he died at the age of Byron, 
 he would still have been the great Eomantic poet. 
 The magnificent achievements of his later life, the 
 triumphs both in prose and verse which followed 
 1850, in particular the epic largeness of the great 
 works which his old age poured forth up to his death 
 in unabated volume, may tempt us to regard the 
 period before 1850 as but a promise of what was to 
 come. But in and by itself, even had nothing more 
 followed, the work of that period places him in the 
 first rank. 
 
 Hugo was not the earliest Eomantic. He even 
 held back a little at first, though he finally accepted 
 other leadership. The real originators were a 
 
 iSowiTrfto. gjQ^p Qf vyriters who, about 1823, met in 
 frequent conclave, and started in that year a short- 
 lived paper called La Muse fran^aise. Of these the 
 best-known were Charles Nodier (1783-1844), l^mile 
 Deschamps (1791-1871), Antony Deschamps (1800-69), 
 Jules Leffevre (1797-1857), and Alfred de Vigny 
 (1797-1863). Nodier was author of many imaginative 
 books, including one then lately published called Trilby. 
 The brothers Deschamps were fellow-students with 
 him of foreign literature, while Lef^vre aspired to 
 
222 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 write original poetry. Vigny alone requires detailed 
 mention. These and others, including some ladies, 
 were contributors to the paper. They professed in- 
 deed to repudiate the name Romantic, introduced into 
 France by Madame de Stael ; but they preached the 
 doctrines we know by that name, attacking all poetry 
 which was merely imitative, and claiming for the poet 
 the right to see with his own eyes, and speak with his 
 own tongue. Victor Hugo had close relations with 
 them, and wrote in their journal. His prefaces, in- 
 deed, contain nothing that had not been put forward 
 by these writers. But it was not till 1827, till the pre- 
 face to Cromwell, that he placed himself at their head. 
 By this time the original journal was defunct, and its 
 place taken by Le Globe, which ran its course from 
 1824 to 1830. A new CSnacle, founded in 1829, in- 
 cluded, with Nodier and Vigny, Hugo himself, Dumas, 
 Sainte-Beuve, and later on Musset. These are the 
 names that we associate with Hugo as Eomantic 
 leaders, and they must be considered separately. 
 
 Alfred- Victor, Comte de Vigny (1797-1863), began 
 with an anonymous volume of verse (1822), followed 
 by Moa (1824) and PodTius (1826). The 
 same year as the last saw his historical 
 novel Cinq Mars, after which he published only a few 
 additions to the Fodmes, one or two prose works, a 
 translation of Othello, and two dramas, Za marichale 
 d'Ancre (1830) and Chatterton (1835). He left at his 
 death a new volume of verse called Destinies, and his 
 Journal d'un podte. He married an English wife, and 
 was elected to the Academy the year after Hugo. 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 223 
 
 Vigny's output is tkus comparatively small, but it 
 is stamped with his individuality. He was a purer 
 artist than Hugo, in the sense that he was artist and 
 little beside. His polished elegance sat oddly on his 
 youthful radicalism. The latter was soon dropped; 
 indeed, with him it had been little more than a cloak 
 for disgust at the present. Nodier was a strong 
 Eoyalist ; his younger friends, born under the Empire, 
 and remembering its glory while never having felt its 
 pain, inclined to favour the " Napoleonic idea." But 
 politics soon lost their charm for Vigny. He with- 
 drew into himself, sat in his " tower of ivory," and 
 chiselled his verses assiduously. Pessimism grew on 
 him with age. Nature and liberty ceased to seem 
 venerable, while the egotism and riotous personalities 
 of his friends repelled his austerer taste. De Vigny 
 was thus never a leader, and latterly not even a 
 follower, of the Eomantic School. But in early days 
 his calm elegance, his stateliness and sweetness of 
 music, were elements whose influence it were un- 
 grateful to deny. And his haughty coldness, his 
 proclamation of the inherent misery of man and 
 futility of looking for aid from above, his stoicism 
 and his pessimism, could scarcely fail to impress 
 when reiterated by so powerful and original a 
 singer. 
 
 Nor must we forget his prose work. In 1826, 
 
 before Hugo had done more than try his 'prentice hand 
 
 Poet and 0^ fiction, de Vigny published Cinq Mars, 
 
 novelist. g^jj historical novel of great power, spoiled 
 
 by faulty method. Confounding the provinces of 
 
224 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 history and fiction, the student of Eichelieu tried to 
 combine both in one chef-d'oeuvre, and ended by 
 achieving neither. But his failure is finer than many 
 men's success. Of his dramas, again, Chatterton is 
 certainly a work of genius : something more than 
 patriotic sympathy, assuredly, makes us hail this a 
 masterpiece. But he lives above all as lyrist, as the 
 chanter of high and solemn, though painful, themes ; 
 and his Biblical poems particularly, from the early 
 "Moses" to the terrible "Christ on the Mount of 
 Olives," are piercing in their thought as they are 
 masterly in their music. 
 
 Omitting Dumas for the present, the next oldest of 
 
 this band of friends was Charles -Augustin Sainte- 
 
 Beuve (1804-69). And Sainte-Beuve was 
 
 Samte-Beuve. . ,^ . - 
 
 an important member oi the group. Critic 
 from the first, he taught them to look to the Sixteenth 
 Century for the inspiration they found wanting in the 
 Eighteenth. His earliest publication (1828) embraced 
 a Tableau of French poetry, coupled with an edition of 
 Eonsard; and both volumes were widely read. The 
 Premiers lundis also belong to this time, having been 
 written for Ze Globe, to which he contributed from the 
 beginning. But he also wrote poems. These were 
 collected in the anonymous Vie ef poesies de Joseph 
 Delorme (1829) and Consolations (1830), after which he 
 published no more verse except Pensdes d'aoUt (1837), a 
 volume of little moment. He also published one novel, 
 VolupU (1834). For the rest, he became the most 
 famous critic, not in France only, but in Europe. His 
 career reminds one of Matthew Arnold, whose admira- 
 
THE EOMANTIC TEIUMPH IN FRANCE. 225 
 
 tion of him was so great. Both began with poetry, 
 Arnold the more accomplished craftsman, though 
 hardly always a spontaneous singer. But while 
 Arnold had to drudge at school-inspection for bread, 
 Sainte-Beuve supported himself entirely by writing. , 
 His unequalled series of causeries, from the Portraits 
 littSraires of 1829 to the Noioveaux lundis of 1863, 
 brought modest fortune as well as fame. These, with 
 the special volumes on Port-Royal (1837) and Chateau- 
 Iriand (1849), constitute his real record. The supreme 
 critic needs no word of homage. But let his early 
 efforts in verse have their meed too. They did much, 
 like his criticisms, to enforce on the Eomantics the 
 necessity and beauty of form. Checking the natural 
 tendency to lawlessness, they taught young poets to 
 be a law to themselves. Otherwise, they are little 
 memorable. The morbid strain, later so conspicuous 
 in Baudelaire, is sufficiently apparent in Sainte-Beuve. 
 But he did much for the Eomantic Movement, and to 
 his early friendship and encouragement Hugo himself 
 owed a debt which he was not slow to acknowledge. 
 It may not be superfluous to note that Sainte-Beuve, 
 through his mother's mother, had English blood in 
 him. 
 
 Alfred de Musset (1810-57) was a later addition to 
 the coterie, and in many ways its enfant terrible. 
 " Spoiled child of a world which he spoiled," 
 no pranks were too freakish for him, in life 
 'or in poetry. His was the famous comparison of the 
 moon above a church-spire to the letter i with its dot, 
 which proved too much for many hesitating adherents, 
 
 p 
 
226 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 He tried wildest experiments with metre as with 
 sense, and delighted in nothing but what was strange 
 and bizarre. His mocking spirit soon drove him from 
 the Eomantics into independence, and he boasted that, 
 " though his glass might be little, yet he drank from 
 his own glass." And they were well quit of him. 
 What he had common with them was mainly his tire- 
 less egotism, the acuteness and vibrance of his " lyrical 
 cry." His art was carelessness itself; he made a 
 virtue of negligence, and laughed at canons of style. 
 In thought, he did not share their hope, their trust in 
 the future. Hugo never lacked faith. Life to him 
 was serious, and confidence natural. 
 
 " Ce siecle est grand et fort. . . . 
 
 . . . De meilleurs jours sont prets.'' 
 
 " Homme, ne crains rien ! la nature 
 Salt le grand secret, et sourit." 
 
 But Musset, Voltairean and dandy, had neither hope 
 nor belief. 
 
 " En vdritd, ce siecle est un mauvais moment." 
 
 " Je suis venu trop tard dans un monde trop vieux." 
 
 In Byronic mood, he could but vow himself unsuffer- 
 ably bored, and invite the world to view his boredom. 
 Like Byron, he turned melancholy into a jest, and 
 despair into a semblance of philosophy ; and the world, 
 content to take him at his own valuation, smiled or 
 sorrowed with him as he chose to bid, and danced 
 obediently to his piping. 
 
 The events of Musset's life scarcely need recounting. 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN SEANCE, 227 
 
 As a writer he was precocious, Contes d'Espagne et 
 Work and d'ltalie (1830) being the work of his 
 limitatton,. .(.gg^g_ jjjg ^^^^ brilliant time was from 
 
 1833 to 1837. The record of those years includes in 
 serious poetry Bolla and the Nuits (especially those of 
 May and October), with the curiously effusive Letter to 
 Lamartine ; in comedy, On ne iodine pas avec I'amour, 
 perhaps the happiest of his sparkling Comedies et pro- 
 verles; and the prose Confession d'un enfant du siMe. 
 This last was written after his too notorious visit to 
 Italy, usually supposed to form a crisis in his life. 
 But it is difficult to see that it left any trace on his 
 poetry, which to the last retains the careless, self- 
 centred, irresponsible heedlessness of boyhood. Pre- 
 eminently the poet of youthful passion, he tuned this 
 one string of his lyre to perfection. When he strikes 
 it he is always successful, and his indolent grace more 
 pleasing than the labour of stronger bards. Un- 
 happily, even this theme palls with repetition, and de 
 Musset had no other to offer in its place. He outlived 
 his impulse, and dragged wearily through later life, a 
 youth who did not know how to grow old. But the 
 freshness of his younger poems, the resonance with 
 which they struck the chord of passion, survives even 
 the satiety of readers, and their just disappointment 
 at his indifference to art. Even an age that sneered 
 at Byron found something to admire in Musset, and 
 there is little doubt that his place is secure among the 
 lyrists of his day, while his graceful comedy will 
 always constitute another claim to remembrance. 
 Leaving now the C4nacle, we trace the further de- 
 
228 EUROPEAN LITEEATUKE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 velopment of the school. One year younger than 
 Musset, Pierre - Jules - Thdophile G-autier 
 (1811-72) was a stronger and more serious 
 \_ artist. Erratic and unconventional in habits, appar- 
 ently heedless and even slipshod in art, Gautier was 
 long deemed the "wild man" of the Movement, 
 defiant and hare - brained. He was really a con- 
 scientious and indefatigable worker, and his famous 
 motto, "Art for its own sake" (I' art pour I' art), what- 
 ever its limitations, is a philosophy in itself. His 
 poetry goes into small bulk, and divides naturally into 
 two classes. There are the early Poisies (1830), 
 Albertus (1833), and ComMie de la mort (1838), repub- 
 lished in 1845 with additions under the title of Podsies 
 computes; and there is £maux et cam^es (1852). 
 This latter contains Gautier 's best verse, in his most 
 perfect style. The former are sometimes crude. 
 Albertus was "wild" enough — a young writer's leap 
 into the sea of poetry, as Keats phrased it ; Death's 
 Comedy was a remarkable production for any writer. 
 Uspafia, one of the poems added in 1845, is a master- 
 piece of description. In all these earlier poems we 
 see the travailing artist. ISText to Hugo, Gautier is 
 the ablest craftsman, the hardest worker, of the school. 
 He tries experiments, not freakishly like Musset, 
 but gravely and purposefully. He shares Hugo's 
 delight in sound, his love of words for themselves. 
 He ransacks the dictionary for striking expressions, 
 and revels in reviving obsolete phrases. He carries 
 pictorial description to its height, and his pages liter- 
 ally glow with colour. Like Hugo, too, he sometimes 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 229 
 
 cares more for the music of a line than for its sense : 
 take care of the words, and the meaning will take care 
 of itself. In all this, he was Hugo's right-hand man, 
 his ablest lieutenant, striving and fighting, and ready 
 to accept any task. But in £maux et camies he is 
 the perfect artist come to his own, expressing his idea 
 with the apparent ease of victory. 
 
 Gautier was not only a poet. Poetry, he says him- 
 self, is not an abiding state of mind. So early as 1835 
 strength of appeared his novel Mademoiselle de Maupin, 
 his work. ^jj-jj j(.g amusing preface. In this book we 
 see Eomanticism passing into "Naturalism," With 
 Prosper Mdrimee, he discovered the short story, as we 
 know it to-day. From Fortunio (1838) onward to 
 Spirite (1866), these are always masterly. He was 
 besides a diligent dramatic critic, and an interesting 
 writer of travel - books. Of the latter, Caprices et 
 zigzags was the forerunner, while his stage criticisms 
 were published in book-form under the somewhat pre- 
 tentious title L'Histoire de I'art dramatique en France. 
 Among many other works, his posthumous Histoire 
 du romantisme and Contemporary Portraits deserve 
 especial notice here. But enough has been said to 
 show Gautier as the conscientious, painstaking artist 
 and industrious litterateur, not the volatile, reckless 
 innovator he is sometimes depicted. He and Hugo 
 did not contend for the mere liberty of art, to quote 
 the latter's distinction, but for liberty in art. Gautier 
 never forgot that art was his medium. His notions of 
 what is suitable for art may sometimes conflict with 
 ours ; but, given his notions, he is always true to art. 
 
230 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 He does not gloat upon vice for its own sake, though 
 he introduces it freely when he thinks art requires it. 
 As poet, he is less pure lyrist than the others ;- less 
 inspiration, more artificiality. His metrical faculty is 
 limited ; latterly he seldom goes beyond a simple octo- 
 syllabic quatrain. He is no thinker, in the broad 
 sense ; painting, not thinking, was his idea of art. He 
 gives what he sees, does not try to press further. 
 But, with all limitations, Gautier is the ablest and 
 strongest of those who rallied round Hugo's banner in 
 the great fight with Convention ; he alone developed 
 the Eomantic teaching along independent and forceful 
 lines of his own. 
 
 Here a halt must be called. Already during 
 Gautier's lifetime, new developments appear. The 
 
 Beginnings Eomautic Triumph in poetry was over. 
 
 o/cimngc. j^g leaders were scattered, or silent for 
 the time. Lamartine and Hugo plunged into poli- 
 tics. Vigny would not, and Musset could not, wave 
 higher the deserted standard ; ' Gautier preferred less 
 arduous work in prose. The throng of fight surged 
 elsewhere. Other men, other ideas, other methods, 
 came in place of those just sketched. Eomantic 
 egoism had gone too far. Men began to feel that 
 they were, after all, not isolated units, each confront- 
 ing the infinite on its own account, but members of a 
 corporate body. Byronism went finally out of fashion. 
 A later mode succeeded, and took the fickle fancy of 
 the many. It is time to retrace our steps, to consider 
 how far prose-writing, imaginative or didactic, shared 
 
THE KOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN BEANCE. 231 
 
 the fortunes of poetry. Yet before leaving the 
 Eomantic poets, let us remember that Hugo, the 
 greatest of them all, was also the only one who 
 survived the wreck and dissolution of his school. 
 He alone had originality and vigour enough to secure 
 poetic triumphs in wider fields, when the limits set 
 by the Eomantic ideal were found too narrow for the 
 desires of a new generation. And let us recur for a 
 moment to the genius of that writer who gave the 
 first signal for the Eomantic assault, but whom we 
 have hitherto left aside in dealing with his eager and 
 often undisciplined followers. 
 
 The mention of Lamartine in last paragraph 
 
 j reminds us that as yet we have noticed only his 
 
 first Meditations (1820). These were fol- 
 
 lowed by the New Meditations and Death 
 
 of Socrates (1823), Dernier chant du Childe-Harold 
 
 V,(1825), and Harmonies (1830). Through this im- 
 portant decade, and later, Lamartine retained his 
 poetical pre - eminence. The last - named volume 
 secured his admission to the Academy.. Noble by 
 family, and rich by marriage, Lamartine seemed to 
 unite the favours of genius and fortune. Secretary 
 of legation at Florence, or residing in a " villa 
 magnifique'' near Leghorn, he was grand seigneur 
 and great poet at once, a later and less disreputable 
 Lord Byron. After the revolution of 1830, he re- 
 signed his diplomatic office, and set forth on a tour 
 to the East, carried through in princely style. The 
 death of a young daughter during this tour saddened 
 and sombred his thought, and after returning he 
 
232 EUROPEAN LITEEATUKE — EOMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 published Jocehjn (1836) and The Angel's Fall (1838), 
 the latter especially full of deep and strange fancies. 
 Becueillements poMiques (1839) completed his poetical 
 work. For after this he turned earnestly to politics. 
 The poetical dreamer was found an active worker and 
 an impassioned orator. His History of the Girondins 
 (1847) was a political manifesto, full of poetic fire, 
 if not of impeccable accuracy. And finally, in 1848, 
 the astonishing spectacle was shown of a poet wield- 
 ing supreme power, and dominating a people by sheer 
 eloquence and enthusiasm. For a brief interval 
 Lamartine was Dictator of France. Then the plot 
 thickened, and in 1851 the coup d'dtat of Louis- 
 Napoleon drove him from public life. Bankrupt in 
 fortune, and to some extent in reputation, he lived 
 through the Second Empire the life of a hard-working 
 litterateur, and passed away at last, happy in an 
 opportune death, not long before that Second Empire 
 crashed to its fall. 
 
 With this latest Lamartine we have not to do. His 
 autobiographical memoirs and correspondence, from 
 Bis real Confidences (1849) onward, are charmingly 
 importanca. .^yitten, and form a treasure-house of in- 
 formation. His Voyage en Orient (1833), historical 
 works, and romances (of which the first was Raphael, 
 1849) have merit, though not of the highest class. 
 But it is as poet and statesman that he will live, 
 and it is as poet we consider him here. And as 
 poet he cannot be lightly esteemed. Gautier, no 
 biassed critic, says he was not so much a poet as 
 poetry itself. This is still the impression his verse 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 233 
 
 makes. We forget to think of art, forget to scrutinise 
 the form of utterance. Art Lamartine studied little. 
 He is the last great improvisatore, pouring forth 
 music and passion in what seem " profuse strains of 
 unpremeditated" song. His method is that of Scott 
 and Byron. Then his thought is spiritual and earnest. 
 Unlike the decadent Eomantics, he takes the soul for 
 his province. It does Gautier the more honour that 
 he felt the poetical quality of verse so far removed in 
 motive from his own. Sainte-Beuve might sneer at 
 the "poetry of a country clergyman," but this is to let 
 judgment be warped by party prejudice. Not that 
 Lamartine is to be ranked with the greatest poets. 
 He is too shadowy, too subjective, too averse to the 
 labour of architectonic imagination. Content to 
 dream, to ponder, to chronicle impressions and 
 moods and feelings, he is more a singer than a 
 maker. His poems lack substance. They are 
 reveries or invocations, and scarcely ever tell a 
 distinct story. This applies especially to his early 
 pieces, of which Harmonies may be taken as the 
 perfected specimen. In the later Jocelyn he does 
 try to get away from himself, to tell a story; in 
 La chute d'un ange he emulates Byron's ambitious 
 '' Heaven and earth " with little better success. But 
 it is by his earlier nature -poems that his admirers 
 would wish to judge him. In these, the influence 
 of Wordsworth is as perceptible as that of Byron. 
 His countrymen pronounce him a " Lakist." But to 
 us the differences are greater than the resemblances. 
 Coleridge's Hymn in the Valley of Chamonix may well 
 
234 EUKOPEAN LITEEATDBB — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 have inspired Lamartine. But on the whole he is 
 mainly himself, lordly and careless and prodigal, 
 dealing with poetry en grand prince, with the weak- 
 ness as well as the spontaneity of a gifted amateur. 
 Historically, even were his merit less, Lamartine's 
 name must live. For he was a veritable revelation 
 to his age, and preceded even Hugo as a contemner 
 of moth-eaten trappings. His poetical vein, incom- 
 parably less rich than Hugo's, was probably worn 
 thin before he left verse for politics, and is marked 
 by the somewhat shallow optimism of one to whom 
 evil had little reality. But so far as it goes, it is 
 pure poetic gold; Lamartine deserves his high place 
 among the earliest renovators of French song, and his 
 reputation as one of the few philosophic poets with 
 which the France of our Century has been gifted. 
 
 Some minor poets may be disposed of in a sentence 
 
 apiece. Gerard de Nerval (1808-55), whose real name 
 
 was Labrunie, friend and collaborator of 
 
 MiTwr verse. ^ . , t p t 
 
 Gautiers, wrote many volumes ot tales, 
 travels, criticisms, and poems, in which a wistful 
 grace, born of melancholy touched with humour, 
 anticipates to some extent the mystico-romantic tone 
 of later days. Melchior-Fr^d^ric Souli^ (1800-47) 
 deserves notice merely as an extravagant follower up 
 and reducer to the ridiculous of Semantic methods, 
 whether in tale, play, or poem. Henry Murger (1822- 
 61), poet and novelist of " Bohemia," stands apart as 
 mainly a student in the school of B^ranger; Pierre 
 Dupout (1821-70) as a natural lyrist who voiced the 
 life of Southern France. Theodore de Banville and 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN FRANCE. 235 
 
 Leconte de Lisle belong distinctly to the next genera- 
 tion, and it does not seem necessary to characterise in 
 detail the verse of such writers as Barbier, Barth^lemy, 
 Brizeux, Houssaye, Laprade, Moreau, or Pommier. For 
 this is not a literary catalogue, and we are seeking to 
 concentrate attention on the factors in a great move- 
 ment, not to count curiously names of estimable but 
 less important contemporaries. 
 
 A writer to be named in a class by himself is 
 
 Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), who wrote under the 
 
 nom de plume of " Stendhal." Older than 
 
 Stendhal. , .^ . . _ • n 
 
 the Eomantic poets, he has the merit oi 
 having given earliest utterance to their creed. In 
 1822, that important year for French poetry, appeared 
 his Racine et Shakspeare, which may be called the first 
 pronunciamento of truths eagerly urged by them. 
 Beyle had had a remarkable life. A soldier under 
 Napoleon, he had fought in Italy, and lived through the 
 disastrous Eussian campaign. He had been painter, 
 merchant, and Government clerk ; had lived in Italy 
 from 1814 to 1821, and returned there as consul from 
 1830 to 1840. He had written descriptive books, and 
 a History of Italian painting (1817); and was to be 
 known later as a writer of ironical, paradoxical, mys- 
 tifying essays, and tales, and romances. " I shall be 
 understood about 1880," he said of himself. It does 
 not appear that he had any acquaintance with the 
 young Eomancists. His own tastes were semi-Classical, 
 semi-Voltairean, Buonapartist, and reactionary. But 
 in the 1822 brochure he protested vigorously against 
 merely imitative poetry, and so at least gave a 
 
236 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 lead to the revolutionary impulse. He was a keen 
 observer, and analyser ; on the side of feeling, his 
 main passion was love of Italy and Italian art. In 
 literature he professed to think little of form; the 
 use of literature is to examine ideas. His recently 
 published Journal and Souvenirs d'Sgotisme throw 
 additional light on his character, while Sainte-Beuve, 
 Taine, and M. Zola have published studies of his work. 
 His chief books, besides those named, are Ze rouge et 
 le noir (1831), La chartreux de Parme (1839), and his 
 various (Euvres de critique : his Life of Napoleon was 
 published only in 1876. Beyle wrote no verse him- 
 self, and with him we appropriately quit the study of 
 poetry for some consideration of the important works 
 of fiction which came out simultaneously with the 
 poetry of Lamartine, Hugo, and their followers. 
 
 Prose fiction, next to poetry itself, takes most easily 
 
 the stamp of imagination. And it is no surprise to 
 
 find that, side by side with the Romantic 
 
 Fiction — Balzac. 
 
 poets, there existed also a succession of 
 eminent novelists. The oldest of these was Honore 
 de Balzac (1799-1850). He may seem at first sight 
 less easy to class according to our formulas. For 
 shall we call Romantic the sordid verisimilitude of 
 that astonishing series of novels which were meant 
 to sum up La comMie humaine ? Yes, and no. Com- 
 pared with his great coevals, Dumas and George Sand, 
 Balzac is certainly not Romantic. In the larger sense, 
 the sense of Hugo, the sense in which the word denotes 
 all that is human and Shakespearean and universal, as 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FEANCE. 237 
 
 opposed to pedantry and iniitativeness and limitation, 
 he is Eomanticist indeed. To reflect Prench life in 
 its fulness — nothing less would content Balzac. His 
 shortcomings belong to himself, not to any restrictions 
 of false theory. In him, as in Gautier, we see the 
 Eomantic impulse pass into Naturalism. But this 
 is not a chronological development. Balzac slightly 
 precedes the Eomantic novelists, both in date of birth 
 and in order of first publication. To regard him as 
 the sequel to them is to misread fact. For all we can 
 see, his gigantic scheme may have been before him 
 from the first. It had taken at least partial shape 
 before Dumas or George Sand published their first 
 stories. And all through the heyday of the Eomantic 
 novel he was clinging to his purpose amid difficulty 
 and discouragement, labouring like a wolf, toiling day 
 and night, his eyes always fixed on his own goal. 
 
 Of humble origin, Balzac came early to Paris, and 
 
 lived his life mainly there. He was Parisian to the 
 
 core. He knew Paris through and through, 
 
 His life. , , , T> . ■ ■, 
 
 and the contrast between Parisian and pro- 
 vincial — to which we have fortunately no parallel in 
 England — dominates all his conception. One word 
 almost sums up his life — writing. In poverty, in 
 celibacy, solitary and far from his best friends, he 
 toiled gigantically at his gigantic task. There were 
 episodes, of course. Two duchesses befriended him ; 
 with one, Madame de Castries, we hear of him at Aix, 
 given the offer of a run into Italy. He had a sister to 
 correspond with ; he dreamed like other men of mar- 
 riage and domestic happiness. But always, with brief 
 
238 EUROPEAN LITEEATUBE — EOMANTIO TRIUMPH. 
 
 exception, our view of him is of one toiling in a garret, 
 overwhelmed with debt, full of enormous schemes and 
 labours and promises to pay. Toward the end the 
 clouds lift. Free to love Madame Hanska,^ he goes as 
 her suitor to Poland (being at length obliged to rest), 
 proposes, and is accepted. Financial affairs improve. 
 He gets ready a house in Paris, fills it with costly 
 furniture, gorgeous as in one of his own novels. 
 And then the end comes. After three months of 
 marriage, he dies at the age of fifty - one, having 
 barely set foot on the threshold of ease and love and 
 happiness. 
 
 Balzac the man only interests as throwing light on 
 Balzac the writer. His passion for truth, his minute- 
 ness, his industry, his vanity, his horn4 
 
 His works. _ „ - 
 
 nature, his true Irench love or system and 
 generalisation, all come out in his Gorrespondance just 
 as in his books. To enumerate the latter would be 
 profitless. His first success was made with Za peau 
 de chagrin (1830). What went before was 'prentice- 
 work. The next ten years are full of masterpieces. 
 UicffSnie Grandet, Le p&re Goriot, La recherche de 
 I'ahsolu, and others belong to this period, as well as 
 the Eabelaisian Gontes drolatiques (1833), which stand 
 apart from his other work. In 1842 appeared his 
 famous General Preface, explaining the scope and 
 design of his whole work. Subsequent novels fit in 
 more precisely to their place in this structure; but 
 all, later or earlier, may be regarded as sections of the 
 whole. "We have scenes from the Vie privie. Vie 
 
 ' For whom see Lettres d, I'&rangire, vol. i. (Paris, 1899). 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN FRANCE. 239 
 
 politique, Vie militaire, Vie de caTwpagne, Vie de pro- 
 vince, Vie parisienne. To this period belong Les 
 parents pauvres, La femms de trente ans, Les illitsions 
 perdues, Splendeurs et mis&res des courtisanes, &e., &c., &c. 
 Etudes philosopMques and Etudes analytiques complete 
 the projected scheme. The novels and short tales 
 arranged under these heads fill the familiar edition 
 " fifty volumes long.'' Add the Gontes drolatiques, five 
 or six comedies, miscellaneous writings whose bulk is 
 not yet exactly ascertained, and the Correspondance 
 (published 1876, English translation 1879), and we 
 have some idea of the enormous quantity of work 
 he produced. Some remarks on the general scheme 
 and purpose of Balzac's gigantic labours will exhaust 
 the space that can be given to him here. 
 
 Balzac was the author of the modern idea of the 
 novel as a "human document." His aim was to 
 photograph with absolute fidelity the entire 
 facts of French life. That he failed in his 
 attempt, even a foreigner may safely pronounce. To 
 put it broadly, he left the spiritual out of his picture. 
 Men and women as animals — not using the word in 
 any invidious sense — as busy with the concerns of 
 daily life, eating and drinking, scheming and striving, 
 bargaining and pushing and being pushed — these seem 
 to live on his pages with absolute truth. It may be 
 objected that this is all he tried to do. But the terms 
 of his Preface include much more. It would be as 
 reasonable for a misogynist to omit all referring to 
 love and marriage in a man's life, and then claim to 
 have given a full account of that life. And Balzac 
 
240 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 does not profess to exclude religion. The Catholic 
 Church figures constantly in his pages. He is Tory 
 and Restaur ationist, loyal to Church and State accord- 
 ing to his lights. Only it is a Church without faith, 
 and a kingship not supported by sentiment. Neither 
 his prelates and priests on the one hand, nor his lay 
 members on the other, have even a rudimentary sense 
 of devotion. Tliat this is a gross libel on the Trench 
 people, what was passing around him clearly shows. 
 Devotion to an ideal was rife in a hundred forms. It 
 was staring him in the face, had he had eyes to see it. 
 To ignore all this — to paint men and women as if 
 selfishness and money-grubbing and social advance- 
 ment and getting the better of one's friends or oppon- 
 ents were the chief and indeed sole object in life — 
 surely implies considerable infidelity to facts, caused 
 or conditioned probably by the observer's own limita- 
 tions, not by any wilful blindness. 
 
 This deduction fairly made, we are free to enjoy. 
 In all that regards the lower life Balzac is a com- 
 petent critic. His novels are a sound 
 
 His method. . 
 
 protest against Romantic egoism, against 
 the individual daring to regard himself as a self- 
 poised, self-centred unity. Behind and conditioning 
 the individual Balzac sees the whole immensely com- 
 plex system of modern society, without which the indi- 
 vidual could not be what he is, could indeed hardly 
 exist. He therefore aims, not so much at depicting 
 the individual, as at depicting the whole of which he 
 forms part. Incidentally, his portraits of individuals 
 are masterly and photographic (within his limits), for 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 241 
 
 it is only by presenting units that you can represent 
 a whole. But the whole is always present to his 
 mind ; it is it he is trying to bring before us. Laws 
 and commerce and politics and art, private life and 
 public, business and pleasure ; all that makes up the 
 diversified and complicated fabric of modern civilisa- 
 tion; this to Balzac is not merely the background 
 against which the individual stands out, but itself 
 part of his personality, the sum of which he con- 
 stitutes a fraction. Man exists only as social unit. 
 To many this excessive generalisation will be distaste- 
 ful ; they prefer to ignore it, and base their admiration 
 of Balzac merely on his observation of details. But 
 Balzac himself would have scorned such praise, just as 
 he disliked being called the " author of Eugenie 
 Grandet." He aspired to paint the Comidie hiimaine, 
 not merely the particles which compose it. For this 
 he could scorn delights, and live laborious days (or 
 rather nights). Encyclopaedic knowledge, encyclopaedic 
 breadth of intellect, were required. Balzac had no 
 doubt about possessing the . latter, and little modesty 
 about claiming the former, while losing no opportunity 
 of enlarging and expanding it. 
 
 Balzac's personality was strong and masterful. He 
 had an iron constitution ; none else could have stood 
 Aims ana the trials he gave it. Every now and then 
 resuMs. {jg came forth from his den, and was the 
 delight of his friends and admirers. Temperate even 
 to monasticism in ordinary, he could crack a good 
 bottle on occasion ; but, like many of his exact time; 
 detested smoking. Poet he was not, and for verse 
 
242 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 had no aptitude; neither sentiment nor good taste 
 need be expected of him. Jovial in all senses of the 
 word, he impressed with magnetism and humour ; but 
 delicacy, or even sobriety of judgment, were not in his 
 line. Subtleties of style he despises, and his plots are 
 often wild and incoherent. Thus the man explains his 
 books, and they in turn illustrate the man. Autobiog- 
 raphical touches are said to abound in them, notably 
 in (among others) Louis Lambert and Albert Savarus. 
 Balzac's women are held to be particularly admirable ; 
 but this seems true only in a very narrow sense. Of 
 one side, the "cat-like nature," he had evidently a 
 master's knowledge; with the other he displays no 
 acquaintance at all. His real glory is the modernity 
 and actuality of his atmosphere. He found the prose 
 novel restricted practically to but one passion, love, 
 and that usually idealised almost out of recognition. 
 He widened it to be a record of all human activities, 
 and laboured without wearying to make his books a 
 comprehensive record of those activities. His writing 
 is no mere vulgar realism ; it is writing with a purpose 
 indeed, and that purpose one of heroic proportions. 
 Succeeding generations find his books the valuable 
 "documents" he meant them to be, records of mar- 
 vellous fidelity, always allowing for the gross and 
 earthly and unpoetical mind of their author. There- 
 fore his reputation steadily rises, despite all draw- 
 backs, and his influence on contemporary and on later 
 novelists it were hard to exaggerate, for it can be 
 traced more or less in every important novel that has 
 been written since. 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 243 
 
 Four years younger than Balzac was Alexandre 
 Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (1803-70), commonly 
 called the elder Dumas. Son of a Eoyalist 
 general and grandson of a coloured woman, 
 his quadroon blood showed powerfully in Alexandre 
 Dumas. Coming early to Paris, he wrote some farces 
 and short stories before achieving fame with his play 
 Henri Trois in 1829. A member of the Canada, and 
 but one year younger than Hugo, he sympathised with 
 and followed him in drama, and Henri Trois was one 
 of the victories in the Eomantic campaign. He 
 followed this up with other plays, of which Antony 
 (1831) and La tour de Nesle (1832) were the most 
 remarkable. So far Dumas was known mainly as a 
 poet, or rather dramatist. It was not till considerably 
 later that he found his r61e as novelist. Isahelle de 
 BaviAre came out in 1836, and was succeeded by 
 numerous novels of a miscellaneous type. Monte 
 Gristo came only in 1844, and Les trois mousquetaires 
 — first of the immortal series — later in the same year. 
 For the next quarter of a century his name appeared 
 before countless books. He had under-studies, appren- 
 tices, collaborators without end. They did the rough 
 work, Dumas added the finishing touches, and signed 
 his name. How much is his, how much the work of 
 his "devils," it were impossible to say. Novels, 
 dramas, books of travel, journalism, poured forth over 
 his signature, and bore the stamp of his marked 
 individuality. He took part in the Revolution of 
 1848, was exiled for two years under the Empire; 
 aided Garibaldi in Italy during 1860 and following 
 
244 EUROPEAN LITERATURE— EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 years ; married, bub separated from his wife almost 
 immediately. After making and spending several 
 fortunes, he died a poor man, leaving one son of the 
 same name and (some think) even greater literary 
 ability, who however does not come within the 
 limits of our notice. 
 
 French critics seem to find it difficult to take the 
 elder Dumas seriously. M. Bruneti^re finds no place 
 Criticism of for Mm in his admirable Manual (1898), 
 mimas. v^hich professes to deal with leading writers 
 only. Other historians dwell on his dramas, dismissing 
 the novels with a few cold words. But surely this is 
 too restricted a view. Monte Gristo grips the ordinary 
 reader somewhat as Robinson Crusoe does. The Trois 
 mousquetaires series shows something of the careless 
 riches, the easy vivification, of Scott himself. Dumas 
 is the French Scott — the " author of Waverley " with 
 a difference. On him, if on any man, Scott's mantle 
 fell. He cocks it on his shoulders with a Gallic grace. 
 There is more strut, more pose ; the diaphanous 
 naturalness, the wealth of sunny humour, are wanting. 
 But there is something of the master's fire, and of his 
 ease of narration. Old or young, when we take up a 
 novel by Dumas we are slow to lay it down. Above 
 all, the characters live. They are not lay figures, but 
 live men and women. Fifty pupils may have drudged 
 at the details, but only their chief adds the vital spark. 
 Without him, they are respectable mediocrities; he 
 touches the leaves, and they live. How much, how 
 little Dumas actually did to some of the novels which 
 bear his name, one neither knows nor greatly cares. 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 245 
 
 Amusing stories are current about his readiness to sign 
 work done by his " young men." It was a fashion of 
 the time. Even Balzac, if he laboured mightily at his 
 novels, thought nothing of getting four friends to write 
 an act each, with himself, of a drama required imme- 
 diately. The important thing is that the cachet, the 
 sign-manual, of Dumas is unmistakable ; it may not 
 be a very artistic quality that he imparts to rough 
 journey-work, but it is his own, and it is alive. 
 
 An age of introspection and analysis, of rabid self- 
 consciousness and diseased craving for " style,'' natur- 
 es ri!;M/«! ally held Dumas cheap. Lovers of Flaubert 
 ■place. Qj, George Eliot were not likely to prize 
 
 the Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. Time's 
 wheel turns, and we are back once more to the novel 
 of adventure. Cloaks and rapiers, masks and am- 
 bushes, are in fashion again; laboured perfecting of 
 trifles, philosophic analysis of character, are quite at a 
 discount. So Dumas is avenged of his critics. And 
 one cannot wholly regret it. His limitations are 
 obvious. Style is a matter of the slightest moment. 
 Intellectual meditation, love or minute description 
 of nature, spiritual aspirations, poetical imagery — 
 these we neither expect nor find in Dumas. Instead, 
 we have action. The sword gleams, the horse neighs, 
 and we are ready to spring to saddle with him and 
 take the road again. Youth burns in our veins ; the 
 world is before us, a gallant and merry and adventur- 
 ous world. Stern censors may despise such vicarious 
 enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Dumas ' did a large work 
 in his own way, and it seems right to acknowledge it. 
 
246 EUEOPEAN LITERATUEE— ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 We cannot all live on manna and honey-dew ; we do 
 not all dwell habitually between the peaks of Par- 
 nassus. Those who relish country fare, the bread and 
 cheese and Windsor chairs of a village inn, are pro- 
 bably in the majority, and may well claim pabulum to 
 their mind. Dumas fairly earned his position as 
 novelist of the million, besides inspiring with a breath 
 of true Eomantic vigour the exceedingly dry bones of 
 psychological or would-be " artistic " story-telling. 
 
 "George Sand" (Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, 
 
 baronne Dudevant, 1804-76), third and youngest of this 
 
 remarkable trio, was also the most purely 
 
 George Sa^id. .— . , 
 
 Romantic. In her case there can be no 
 doubt about the epithet ; her novels are romances, and 
 little more. Born a provincial, she married at eighteen, 
 but separated from her husband after nine years of 
 married life, and lived for the next twenty years mainly 
 in Paris. After that she retired to her childhood's home, 
 and ended her days there in dignified quiet. During the 
 second and third of these periods — as Farisienne and 
 as Chdtelaine de Noliant — she wrote, like her great 
 compeers, enormously. Novels, dramas, miscellaneous 
 articles, an autobiography, and an extensive corre- 
 spondence, attest her literary industry. Her relations 
 with Musset and Chopin, her later friendship with 
 Lamennais and several less famous politicians, must 
 be noted as bearing on her work. As for anecdotage 
 about her person, her " mannishness " and cigarette- 
 smoking, that hardly belongs to literature. One recalls 
 Mrs Browning's visit to her in Paris, and gladly leaves 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 247 
 
 one woman-genius to judge another. Her books divide 
 themselves into three periods. Bose et Blanche, 
 Indiana, Valentine, Lilia, and Jacques (1831 to 1834) 
 belong to her first period of originality and freshness. 
 Mav/prat, Spiridion, Consuelo, Les sept cordes de la lyre, 
 La comtesse de Budolstadt (1837 to 1844), containing 
 perhaps her best work, are products of her most 
 socially busy years, and bear traces of her intercourse 
 with great minds. The third division comprises her 
 later novels, her rustic studies and notes of travel, the 
 Histoire de ma vie (1854-55), and much miscellaneous 
 work. Her total writings fill well over a hundred 
 volumes, and cannot possibly be enumerated here. 
 But the leading characteristics and qualities of her 
 work can be summed up with fair brevity. 
 
 George Sand was a woman and a French woman. 
 Some women are not individual, many are not national ; 
 „ , . she has no affinity to these. Her person- 
 tvm o/her ality colours and shapes every page of her 
 writing. Masculine in many tastes, she is 
 essentially feminine in structure; reflective, rather 
 than originative. The loose texture of her books, so 
 different from Balzac's compressed writing, is charac- 
 teristic. But, above all, the way she looks at every- 
 thing in relation to herself, is feminine; the grace 
 with which she clothes it, French. George Sand was 
 a poet, though she did not write verse ; her novels are 
 lyrical dramas. Thus all the early ones are fierce out- 
 cries against marriage, evidently suggested by her own 
 experience ; and in form they are little short of dithy- 
 rambs. The great novels of the middle period, again, 
 
248 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 reflect her political and philosophical studies, her com- 
 munings with Lamennais and others. The books of 
 her old age breathe of rest and country quiet, and a 
 life from which passion has died out. Of course love 
 is her prevailing theme. It is passion rather than pure 
 love, and her history and heredity go far to explain 
 this. Love being " woman's whole existence," we need 
 not wonder to find it so prominent. Yet in at least 
 one book, Spiridion, it has no place. She is called an 
 idealist, Balzac a realist ; but neither description is at 
 all exhaustive. George Sand does not so much 
 idealise, as poetise, everything. Scientific observation, 
 experiment, and analysis, are not in her line; she 
 neither sees life steadily, nor sees it whole. But what 
 she does see she puts in the most delightful way, 
 clothing it with colour, delicate as the first flush of 
 morning. Even the crudest passion becomes tender 
 and refined. And all this because she sees it as part 
 of herself, because in all her views the personal ele- 
 ment is never far distant. 
 
 George Sand wrote with great ease. Hers was the 
 easy writing which, if it does not always make hard 
 
 style aiid reading, tends to make careless reading. 
 
 shortcomings, jjgr phrascs do not dwell with us ; we do 
 not return again and again to her books, lingering 
 over favourite passages. We read them with interest ; 
 but the interest is apt to die out when the book is 
 finished. Her characters are free-hand sketches rather 
 than living creatures. On the other hand, her 
 spontaneity is one great charm. Nothing can be 
 pleasanter than her prefaces, telling how each book 
 
THE KOMANTIO TEIUMPH IN FEANCE. 249 
 
 grew like a flower. Her love of nature, and delight 
 in picturing it, are present from the first, and continue 
 or increase to the last. Then, with all her heat, she 
 is never bitter, nor — rare merit considering her 
 qualities — at all inclined to be hysterical. Senti- 
 mental she certainly is, but this in her is rather a 
 quality than a defect, and stops short of mawkishness. 
 So, though strongly anti- clerical, she is not anti- 
 religious; perhaps her woman's instinct helped her 
 there, even more than her romantic fervour. It must 
 be confessed, however, that the fluid ease of her 
 writing wants more definitely constraining bounds; 
 the river wanders too readily over its banks. Her 
 books begin delightfully, but have no proper middle 
 or end ; they may be said rather to stop than to end. 
 These remarks are general and summary; it would 
 be easy to apply them, jio particularise in separate 
 instances. But they may at least indicate the delicate, 
 airy, spiritual, picturesque, poetical atmosphere which 
 always clothes her writing, whatever the theme. She 
 sees the soul, even though her shapes be vague and 
 shadowy. She revived romance in novels, in a sense 
 in which it had lain dormant ever since Corinne. 
 Her influence was great, on other nations even more 
 than her own ; the zealous artists and strenuous 
 realists who came after her in France could hardly 
 admire her loose rapidity, or her semi - articulate 
 responsiveness, but these found a public elsewhere. 
 On the whole, she well deserves her place in the trio. 
 Her Histoire de, ma vie illustrates both her charm and 
 her negligence, recounting delightfully episodes and 
 
250 EUEOPEAN LITBEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 impressions of early childhood at inordinate length, 
 stopping short just when a scientifically composed 
 history would have reached the zenith of its 
 interest. 
 
 Less than this trio, but a more accomplished artist 
 than any of them, was Prosper M^rimde (1803-70). 
 Born a year earlier than "George Sand," 
 he was also more precocious, and as early 
 as 1820 became known as a play-writer. He held 
 Government appointments of an important nature, 
 was made member of the Academy in 1844, and 
 senator in 1853. His literary work is varied and 
 distinguished. History and archaeology, the drama 
 and the novel, all yielded him triumphs. His TMdtre 
 de Clara Gazul (1825) and La Guzla (1827) ; Ghronique 
 du regne de Charles IX. (1829) and Mistoire de P&dre 
 I. de Castille (1848); his Feintures de Saint-Savin 
 (1845); with Colomba, Arsdne Guillot, Carmen (1840- 
 45), &c., &c., may serve as samples of his work. The 
 last-mentioned will probably prove his most abiding 
 title to fame. His glory is that, along with Gautier 
 (as noted before), he perfected short stories. Of these 
 he left some twenty, the best of which are indeed 
 masterly. His style was ironic, sarcastic, con- 
 temptuous of pretence. From the Eomantic School 
 he early revolted, retaining, as a French critic has 
 noted, only two qualities in common with them, love 
 of action and love of colour. But of the later Eealist 
 school he was equally sceptical. His keenly critical 
 mind, indeed, eating away all enthusiasm, preyed 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 251 
 
 upon itself. His style, like the man himself, became 
 harsher. The nemesis of those who live only for art 
 came on his latter days. " For fear of being a dupe 
 he distrusted himself in life, love, science, art ; and he 
 was the dupe of his distrust." Losing interest in 
 everything, he sank into torpor and melancholy, 
 possibly not unassisted by misgivings as to his own 
 political position, certainly accentuated by his per- 
 ception of evil days in store for his country. Even 
 the Lettres d, une inconnue (first published 1873), 
 though they reveal some touch of human nature, 
 deepen our impression of his sad, bitter, loveless, and 
 ironical disposition. He died in the crisis of France's 
 agony (23rd September 1870), having already seen his 
 darkest misgivings hasten to be realised. 
 
 Contemporary with G-eorge Sand was Marie-Joseph- 
 Eugfene Sue (1804-59), another prolific writer, whose 
 Mysidres de Paris (1842), with Ze Juif 
 errant (1845), gave him reputation of a 
 kind. He had been an army and navy surgeon, 
 served in Spain and at Navarino, wrote some extra- 
 vagant novels embodying his own experiences, but 
 made his hit with the melodramatic romances men- 
 tioned. From a literary point of view he counts for 
 little ; one of his later books was condemned by 
 the Courts as seditious and immoral. He ventured 
 into politics, was made a deputy in 1850, went into 
 retreat after the couip d'itat of 1851, and died in Savoy 
 after several years of absence from Paris and literary 
 interests. It is impossible to omit him from any 
 record of the time, equally impossible to class his 
 
252 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 work as more than recreation for idleness, a " substi- 
 tute for a cigarette or a game of dominoes." 
 
 "We have omitted to mention Paul de Kock (1794- 
 1871), a predecessor o'f Sue on even coarser lines; 
 
 gross, laughter - loving, vulgarly popular. 
 
 Coming back to literature, we find Jules- 
 Gabriel Janin (1804-74), another year-mate of "George 
 Sand." Jules Janin was a man of letters pure and 
 simple, neither politician, nor Government employ^ 
 nor man of business. He lived by writing, and what- 
 ever he wrote was literature. As critic for the 
 Journal des Ddbats, he produced endless columns of 
 delightful matter. His theatrical critiques, in par- 
 ticular, imported Eomantic colour and freshness into 
 what had been usually arid and technical. They, 
 reprinted as a Gours de litt&ature dramaiigvs (1853- 
 58), form his largest and best work. But his stories, 
 L'Ane mort et la femme guillotinie (1829), Barnave 
 (1831), Le chemin de traverse (1837), &c., reveal a 
 subtle, half - mocking, purely Attic humour. His 
 translation or rather recomposition of Clarissa Har- 
 lowe (1846) should also stand to his credit here. He 
 succeeded Sainte-Beuve as Academician in 1870, and 
 no writer was better qualified to speak that great 
 critic's eulogium. In his own way, Janin was a critic 
 of nearly equal calibre, while his happy temper and 
 seductive style speak the writer who never made an 
 enemy. 
 
 Charles de Bernard (1805-50) is a name to most 
 of slight significance, remembered by Thackeray's 
 eulogium. Eetired, gentlemanly, quite a family man, 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 253 
 
 he wrote pleasant though not irreproachable novels. 
 Gerfaut (1838) is the most remarkable, 
 while of the others Les ailes d'Icare 
 (1839-40) may be taken as typical instance of his 
 easy, man of the world style. It is a loosely flowing, 
 as well as easy, style ; agreeable rather than impres- 
 sive. In Gerfaut alone, unpleasant as much of it is, 
 we find some tragic strength ; but usually a light vein 
 of graceful comedy seems what is most safe to be 
 found in his novels. 
 
 Alphonse Karr (1808-90) was another writer of much 
 charm ; without being great, his books are delightful. 
 Sous les tilleuls (1832), a genuinely 
 romantic novel, first made him known, 
 and is pleasant reading to this day. A long succes- 
 sion of novels followed, of which Genevieve (1838) is 
 perhaps the most outstanding. He edited Figaro for 
 some time, as also the satirical publication called 
 Les GuSpes (1839 to 1847). Alphonse Karr had a 
 keen wit, and his romanticism is far from being 
 either silly or sentimental. Of his later work, the 
 Voyage autour de mon jardin (1875) is a perennial 
 favourite, while his Eeminiscences {Le livre de lord) 
 were published in 1879. He lived the last thirty 
 years of his life mostly at Saint -Eaphael on the 
 Eiviera, where a charming villa perpetuates the 
 memory of one who did much to make that delight- 
 ful locality known. 
 
 fimUe Souvestre (1808-64) was known as moralist 
 as well as romancer, and Un philosophe sous les toils 
 (1851) is probably his best-known book. Jules San- 
 
254 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 deau (1811-83) was a prolific minor novelist, from 
 
 Madame de SommerviUe (1834) to Jean de Thomeray 
 
 (1873), as well as a writer of comedy. 
 
 Summary: ^ ' . • i j Ti 
 
 trrnisitim to And HOW a line must again be drawn, it 
 dratim. ^^^^ uselsss to multiply names of minor 
 story-tellers, while the great ones next in order — 
 such names as those of Flaubert and the Goncourts, 
 " Ercbmann-Chatrian," Dumas fils, Jules Verne, and 
 Edmond About, still more Alphonse Daudet and 
 Emile Zola — belong manifestly to a later age. In 
 reviewing the history of French novel-writing, it must 
 be remembered to include authors grouped by us 
 under other heads, but who won laurels in this field 
 likewise. Thus Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, Vigny, 
 "Stendhal," Gautier, — equally with Dumas, — are 
 names of capital importance in that history. And 
 the same holds good in other departments. Dramatic 
 writing, for example, formed a most important part of 
 the Eomautic Triumph. The new romantic drama 
 attracted most of the rising talent of the age, and 
 bulks large both in quantity and in excellence of 
 work. But we have already seen what wpre its 
 leading features, and how writers like Hugo, Dumas, 
 Mdrim^e, Vigny, Musset, &c., were its principal 
 exponents. To take up drama separately and de novo, 
 therefore, would involve recapitulating much of what 
 has been already noted. Yet it may be well in 
 a few sentences to summarise the general state of 
 French drama at this time, and mention some names 
 of dramatists which have not found a place on 
 previous pages. 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN FBANCE. 255 
 
 The romantic drama carried in it seeds of decay. 
 
 It is curious to see how universally it was taken up 
 
 „ . , , by writers of every shade, how all but 
 
 Brief vogite of '' j ^ 
 
 Rmnantw universally dropped by them in later life, 
 
 drama. p , i , • i 
 
 so tar at least as serious plays are con- 
 cerned. The modern spirit does not seem congenial 
 to serious drama. We have seen how little part it 
 played in the English revival ; in the French its place 
 is large but temporary. The innovations made by 
 the Eomantic playwrights really struck at the root of 
 drama as enjoyed in France. They tended to convert 
 drama into melodrama. The destruction of the unities 
 seemed to carry with it the loss of dramatic form 
 altogether, to critics trained on Gorneille and Eacine. 
 Nothing Was left but a great formless mass, to give 
 interest to which various devices had to be employed. 
 Drama became lyrical, or became symbolical; the 
 latter was the remedy specially favoured by Victor 
 Hugo. French audiences endured this for a time. 
 But it went always rather against the grain, and the 
 time came when they kicked. The " resounding fall " 
 of Hugo's Bur graves in 1843 was accompanied by 
 flattering plaudits showered on an undistinguished 
 work of a new writer, the Lucr&ce of one Franc^ois 
 Ponsard (1814-6'7). Ponsard was a heavy and prosaic 
 writer, rhetorical and tawdry. His later plays, such 
 as Charlotte Corday (1850), evince neither poetry 
 nor apt stage-effect. But they were vigorous in a 
 way, and their verse had a Classic sound. Ponsard's 
 success fairly drove Hugo from the field, and he 
 abandoned drama, as the public had abandoned him. 
 
256 EUEOPEAN LITERATXJEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 After this, serious drama was scarcely tried ; writers 
 who affected the stage turned their attention to 
 comedy. And in comedy, as we all know, the French 
 stage has long been supreme : their actors and writers 
 both dominated for many years after this date the 
 theatres of Europe. 
 
 This judgment of Eomantic drama embodies the 
 general verdict of French critics. It failed where it 
 
 Inherent "^^^ most anxious to succced, says one ; 
 
 drawiacks. yictorious in lyric, it was defeated in 
 tragedy. For it had no positive principles, says 
 another, building merely on negation, on defiance of 
 all rules, Classical and other. It adopted Shake- 
 speare's form without his spirit, imagining him a 
 barbarous innovator, instead of a mighty genius who 
 purified and curbed the licence he found. " Eomantic 
 drama," says M. Bruneti^re, "is a Classic tragedy 
 where the unities may be violated, where the per- 
 sonages may be simples particuliers, where the 
 grotesque mingles ever with the sublime." There is 
 manifest truth in these strictures. Hugo himself 
 maintained a natural unity, but some of his followers 
 threw this to the winds. And the vice of a precon- 
 ceived system flaws even Hugo's work. His char- 
 acters are symbols, not men and women. They talk 
 their author's language, repeat his views like a lesson. 
 And they are symbols of contradiction. Antithesis is 
 pushed beyond nature. It is right to insist, as against 
 the Classicists, that human beings are complex, but 
 wrong to build a "system" on this. Drama cannot 
 be written to order; system it abhors. It must be 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 257 
 
 spontaneous, and above all real. Hugo's manu- 
 factured clowneries, says some one, chill passion 
 instead of leading up to it like Shakespeare's. One 
 can have a surfeit even of passion and crime. On 
 the whole, one cannot but feel that the great Eoman- 
 ticists owed their measure of success in drama to 
 their own greatness, rather than their cherished 
 "system." It would be presumptuous to dispute 
 this, in the face of such a consensus of opinion. But 
 the best proof that that opinion is right will perhaps 
 be found in the fact that the leaders themselves so 
 soon abandoned their attempt, and — as in Sainte- 
 Beuve's and Hugo's Academic discourses — recanted 
 in large measure the heresies of their youth. Madame 
 Eachel's astonishing success in reviving Eacine 
 (1838-45) doubtless played its part in opening their 
 eyes. 
 
 We must not, however, suppose that the 
 "Eomantic" attempt wholly monopolised the stage. 
 
 2ji^£^ That attempt was at its height in 1825-30. 
 
 drmmtists. B^(; from the beginning of the 'Twenties 
 other writers had made essays, less systematic, but 
 perhaps more natural. Thus Pierre Lebrun (1785- 
 1873) produced his Marie Stuart (1820), a distinct 
 attempt after Schiller. The year before, Jacques- 
 Ars^ne-FranQois-Polycarpe Ancelot (1794-1854) had 
 given the stage his Louis XX. (1819), in rivalry to his 
 fellow-townsman Delavigne's V&pr&s siciliennes (ante, 
 p. 197). The Sylla (1821) of Victor-Josef -llfitienne Jouy 
 (1769-1842), and the Glytemnestre (1822) and Jeanne 
 d'Arc (1825) of Alexandre Soumet (1788-1845), were 
 
258 EUROPEAN LITEEATUKE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 further attempts in the same line. Pierre -Marie- 
 Thfir^se- Alexandre Guiraud (1788-1847) followed suit 
 with his Maccabees, Count Julian (both 1822), and 
 other pieces. Jules- Georges Ozanaux (1795-1852), 
 besides a musical drama on Le dernier jour de Mis- 
 solongld (1828), produced such tragedies as La perouse 
 (1829) and Ze n^gre (1830), before abandoning the 
 stage for more serious work. These writers, each 
 according to his bent, did much to pave the way for 
 the Eomantics, though even in 1829, when Vigny pro- 
 duced his Othello, the Parisian public still hooted down 
 mention of the famous "handkerchief." And these 
 with writers such as Delavigne continued to dispute 
 possession of the stage with the Eomantics, till cowed 
 for a time by the latter's vigorous onslaught. Only 
 the dramatic student, however, will care to trace the 
 career of such secondary playwrights. He will do well 
 to consult M. Charpentier's TMatre (6 vols., 1876-78), 
 a mine of information on such matters. We may 
 be content to turn at once to the vigorous if not 
 always refined school of comedy which flourished, in 
 several shapes, side by side with the rival attempts of 
 the Eomantics and their adversaries. 
 
 On the ruin of Eomantic drama was built a new 
 
 form of semi-serious play, allied to comedy rather than 
 
 to its opposite, which is our only substitute 
 
 Comedy: Seribe. » . ,, , , 
 
 tor. full-dress tragedy nowadays. This 
 movement, in France as in England, began rather after 
 our period, and is associated on the French stage with 
 the names of ;^mile Augier (1820-89) and Dumas /Zs 
 (1824-95). But during our entire period Comedy 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 259 
 
 flourished in various forms. Tiiere was the comddie 
 historique of Dumas p&re and others; the comedy of 
 manners in which French art has always heen great ; 
 mixed comedy, farces, "vaudevilles," and what not. 
 Of all these the great manufacturer, during the first 
 half of the Century, was Augustin-Eug^ne Scribe (1791- 
 1861). Beginning early, he soon established a veritable 
 manufactory, where — like novelists under Dumas — 
 young aspirants wrought under his directions, and left 
 him the whole credit. Thus Adrienne Zecov/vreur 
 (1849), perhaps his greatest success, was executed by 
 the younger Legouv^ under his eye. To enumerate 
 Scribe's works were impossible indeed, or rather the 
 works turned out in his school. At a venture may be 
 named Michel et Cristim (1820), VaUrie (1822), Le 
 manage de raison (1826), Le mariage d'argent (1827), 
 La camaraderie (1837), Le verre dJeav, (1840), Une 
 lataille des dames (1851). Scribe is simply a play- 
 wright. To poetry, satire, sentiment, literature in any 
 form, he hardly pretends. His plays are made to act, 
 and if they act well he is satisfied. On all points of 
 stage management he is infallible. Yet these plays, 
 such as they are, procured for their author admission 
 to the Academy in 1836. VUlemain, who received 
 him, extolled the ingenious and delicate art, the truth 
 to nature, and the happy manner, of his chief works ; 
 and for the rest of his days Scribe enjoyed a seat among 
 the Immortals. 
 
 A predecessor of Scribe's, still alive during the 
 earlier years of our period, was Louis-Benoit Picard 
 (1769-1828), comedian and satirist. Another was 
 
260 EUROPEAN LITERATUEB — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 N^pomucfene Lemercier (1771-1840), a clever and 
 other wruers humorous Writer, origiBator of the term 
 of Comedy. comMie historique. Contemporary with 
 Scribe we find less -known writers like Casimir 
 Bonjour (1795-1856), author of La mAre rivale (1821), 
 Les deux cousines (1823), &c. ; Adolf J. S. Empis 
 (1795-1868) and Edouard-Josef-Ennemond Maz^res 
 (1796-1866), who wrote in combination La mdre et la 
 fille (1830), and many other plays singly or in partner- 
 ship ; Charles - Camille Doucet (1812-95), director 
 of beaux arts; and so forth. None of these names 
 are distinguished, and the student may again be re- 
 ferred to such books as Charpentier's. But once more 
 he may be reminded that the names which really 
 shed lustre on this field of letters are the same which 
 we have had to mention so many times already. 
 Hugo, Dumas, Balzac, Musset, Gautier, are the im- 
 portant writers here again. Delavigne, too, tried his 
 hand at comedy as at tragedy, as noted early in this 
 chapter. And many writers of less mark, but still 
 whose best work was done in other regions, wrote one 
 or more sparkling comedies by way of recreation. To 
 the end of our period, however, it is true to say that 
 Comedy was but a rival to Tragedy, not its supplanter. 
 Since then, since Gahrielle (1849) by Augier, and La 
 dame aux camdlias (1852) by the younger Dumas, the 
 rising tide has been all in one direction. Comedy, 
 farce, operetta, opera-bouffe, have fairly ousted serious 
 drama. In these lighter walks French artists are 
 unequalled, as English theatres in particular have not 
 been slow to acknowledge by copious borrowing. 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FKANCE. 261 
 
 And now about the dramatic performance of this 
 time, in comedy and in tragedy, enough, or even more 
 than enough, has probably been said. 
 
 Criticism of all kinds, more especially poetical criti- 
 cism, made great strides during this period. Sainte- 
 writersof Beuve, Jules Janin, Gautier, "Stendhal," 
 critidsm. Yictor Hugo himself, have been mentioned 
 as conspicuous leaders in criticism as in original work ; 
 some names of specialists may now be added to this 
 list. Alexandre Eodolphe Vinet (1797-1847), a Swiss 
 divine and philosopher, may fairly come here in virtue 
 of his Etudes sur Pascal (1848), and his histories of 
 French literature in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth 
 Centuries (1849-53). Many of his books, theological or 
 other, have appeared in English form ; compare especi- 
 ally /S^McZm in i'ascaZ (1859), and Outlines of Philosophy 
 and IMerature (1865). Jean- Jacques- Antoine Ampere 
 (1800-64) was a learned philologist, deeply read in 
 German and Oriental languages, and wrote a Histoire 
 litUraire de la France (1840), which comes down only 
 to the twelfth Century, but was continued by Le Clerc, 
 Eauriel, and others ; also a work on the Formation de 
 la langue frangaise (1841), and much beside. He was 
 deservedly elected Academician in 1847. EranQois 
 Saint-Marc Girardin (1801-73), professor and leader- 
 writer, is known by his Cours de litUrature dramatiqtoe 
 (1843), and also wrote Souvenirs d'unjournaliste (1859), 
 &c. Maximilien-Paul-;fimile Littr^ (1801-81), author 
 of the famous Dictionary (1863-72), was in his youth 
 a fiery Eadical, fighting on the barricades in 1830 and 
 
262 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 in the columns of the National during Louis-Philippe's 
 reign, and also a devoted disciple of Comte (for whom 
 see the end of this chapter). He translated Strauss 
 (1839-40) and Pliny's Natural History (1848), ren- 
 dered Book I. of the Iliad into old French (1847), and 
 wrote freely on philology and philosophy. Eadical and 
 positivist he remained to the end, and was solemnly 
 condemned by the Academy in consequence. But his 
 chief works, and the events of his later life, fall rather 
 outside our province. 
 
 As we have returned to didactic writing, this seems 
 an opportunity to mention the Fensdes of Joseph 
 jotibmt, and Joubert (1754-1824), printed in 1838. A 
 otjwrs. critic of high standing, and influential in 
 
 his own circle, Joubert published nothing during life, 
 and the volume named above was edited from his 
 papers, fourteen years after his death, by his friend 
 Chateaubriand. It fully vindicated the high place 
 claimed for its author, and is well known to English 
 readers by the critical account of Matthew Arnold. 
 Here too may be named Jules Barthdlemy Saint- 
 Hilaire (1805-95), the immensely learned editor of 
 Aristotle (1837-87) and other works; and ^fitienne 
 Vacherot (1809-97), philosophical professor at the 
 Sorbonne, author of De Bationis Auctoritate (1836), 
 a Sistoire critique de I'^cole d'Alexandrie (1846-50), 
 La Tnitaphysigue et les sciences (1858), La religion 
 (1868), &c. Contemporary with these, again, was 
 Jean-Marie-Napol^on-Desir^ Nisard (1806-84), whose 
 Manifeste contre la litt4rature facile (1833), and still 
 more his Histoire de la litt&ature fran^ise (1844-49), 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 263 
 
 are specially interesting to us as being violently anti- 
 Eomantic in tone. The latter work, remarkable as 
 the first complete history of French literature written 
 in our Century by one man, is in effect a continuous 
 attack on Eomantic ideas. Its publication must have 
 helped the rebellion against Eomanticism, but obviously 
 the views expressed in it had matured in the author's 
 mind during the whole period of Eomantic ascendancy. 
 Later instalments of this book appeared down to 
 1861. 
 
 The publicists of the time must not be forgotten. 
 Journalism, education, and belles lettres-^ciitiaism and 
 production — ran so much into each other 
 that it is not easy to keep the threads 
 separate. Armand Carrel (1800-36), and his death in 
 a duel, have been incidentally mentioned before. That 
 tragic event robbed the National of an editor, and 
 literature of a promising recruit, as is proved by the 
 last volume of his CEiwres (posthumously published, 
 1858), edited by Nisard and Littr^, and reviewed in a 
 well-known dissertation by John Stuart Mill. His 
 antagonist, ]fimile de Girardin (1806-71), editor of 
 La Presse — to be distinguished from the Saint-Marc- 
 Girardin recently named— was referred to in passing 
 as an occasional dramatist. Somewhat junior to these 
 were Louis Veuillot (1813-83), ultramontane editor 
 of the Univers, and Jules Simon (1814-96), in later 
 days editor of the Si&cle. Consideration of their 
 maturer works must be deferred to next volume, but 
 they may be noted here as eager press-writers in their 
 youth. The latter was also a philosophical writer 
 
264 EUROPEAN LITERATUKE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 and lecturer, making his d^but in this field with an 
 Histoire de l'4cole d'Aleaxcndrie (1844-45). It is tempt- 
 ing to mention under the head of journaUsm the names 
 of Edmond Scherer (1815-89) and Francisque Sarcey 
 (1828-99). But their newspaper days came after 
 1850, and their independent works belong clearly to 
 that later generation. Similar considerations of 
 chronology forbid including here the work of Eugene 
 Eromentin (1820-76), critic and travel-writer," Ernest 
 Eenan (1823-92), Henri [Hippolyte-Adolphe] Taine 
 (1828-93), and many others who may have made 
 their first appearance before our period closes, but 
 whose completed work must be left to be dealt with 
 as a whole in the volume succeeding this. 
 
 Turning from journalism and literary criticism, we 
 
 have to take note of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809- 
 
 65), author of the famous dictum "Pro- 
 
 Proiidhon. 
 
 perty is theft." Born in humble circum- 
 stances, Proudhon forced his way up without recourse 
 to the usual method of newspaper work, though in 
 after-years he was proprietor of several periodicals. 
 Nor does he seem to have been a pupil of Saint- 
 Simon or Fourier (ante, p. 213), though doubtless 
 acquainted with their writings. In 1840 he wrote 
 Qu'est-ce que la proprUU for a prize offered by the 
 Academy of Besan9on, and followed this up by the 
 more complete SysUme des contradictions iconomiques 
 (1846). In 1848 he took part in the Eevolution, was 
 thrown into prison, and utilised his experience in 
 Confessions d!un rdvolutionnaire (1849). His later 
 exploits, the newspapers he founded, the Socialist 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 265 
 
 bank which failed, his imprisonments, exile, and 
 amnesty, hardly belong to literature. In his writ- 
 ings, Proudhon first reveals that " anarchist " trend 
 of thought which has since . become so common. 
 Existing institutions are to be destroyed, that men 
 may be left free to become moral and virtuous with- 
 out compulsion. The ideas of Shelley seem born 
 again in this unpoetical mind. On the constructive 
 side, Proudhon was far from being what we now call 
 a Socialist; and he was quite ready to accept the 
 Second Empire, if it offered hopes of carrying out 
 some of his ideas. He founded no school, perman- 
 ently influenced few disciples. But his general influ- 
 ence, during his lifetime, was considerable and un- 
 settling. His published works are said to occupy 
 thirty -seven volumes, his correspondence fourteen ; 
 but it is not likely that these contain much of per- 
 manent interest. His style, however, was incisive 
 and not without literary merit; he criticised freely, 
 books as well as men. In the general chaos of 1848- 
 50, literary as political, he played no inconsiderable 
 part ; and it would be a mistake to lose sight of him 
 in estimating the forces of the time. 
 
 With Proudhon may be coupled another socialist, 
 
 or at least socialistic writer, Jean-Joseph-Louis Blanc 
 
 (1811-82). Son of a French official at 
 
 Louis Blano. ,,,.,, j -r, • 
 
 Madrid, he came to Paris a young man. 
 His first work, the Organisation du travail (1840), was 
 eagerly read by the working classes ; and his Histoire 
 de dix ans (1841-46) was an event in the campaign 
 against Louis -Philippe. After taking part in the 
 
266 EUKOPEAN LITEEATUKE — EOMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 Eevolution of 1848, he escaped to London, and there 
 wrote most of his Histoire de la revolution franqaise 
 of which the first volume had appeared in 1847, while 
 the twelfth and last came out in 1862. Only after 
 the fall of the Second Empire did he return to Paris, 
 where he played a considerable part in politics for the 
 next ten years. Louis Blanc was a bright and attrac- 
 tive, though far from impartial, writer. His Lettres 
 sur I'Angleterre (1861-64) give a good idea of his style 
 as a journalist, and may be read with amusement as 
 well as profit still. 
 
 Several members of the "Mennaisian School" 
 (ante, p. 201) attained independent and great distinc- 
 tion. Two of these, Lacordaire and Mon- 
 talembert, accompanied Lamennais to 
 Eome in 1831, and stood beside Lamartine in the 
 crisis of 1848. Jean - Baptiste - Henri - Dominique 
 Lacordaire (1802-61) was more orator than writer. 
 Sceptic in youth, he embraced Catholicism under the 
 influence of Lamennais, and remained faithful when 
 his master left it, assuming the Dominican order 
 about 1840. But he remained also true to his con- 
 ception of Christian democracy, and enforced his 
 ideas in sermons or " conferences " during nearly 
 twenty years. He also wrote a Vie de Saint 
 Dominique (1840). Of his fiery eloquence few traces 
 are left. It built on sentiment rather than thought, 
 and was neither artistically chiselled nor imbued with 
 his master's vein of poetry. But it penetrated and 
 moved. Lacordaire, says one historian, was as great a 
 
THE EOMANTIC TEIUMPH IN FEANCE. 267 
 
 Eomantic in the pulpit as Lamennais in his writings. 
 He sat for a short time in the Assembly, was member 
 for a brief period of the Academy, but his great work 
 was preaching, and the asceticism of his life added 
 weight to his words. Though his (Euvres compUtes 
 (1857) fill nine volumes, they poorly represent the 
 mighty influence which was so potent during the 
 latter half of our period:' for that we must go to the 
 chronicles of the time. 
 
 Associated with Lacordaire were Pierre -Antoino 
 
 Berryer (1790-1868), the Cicero of the Bar, whose 
 
 speech was " less a talent than a power " ; 
 
 Montalemiert, , , 
 
 the p^re de Eavignan (1795-1858), first 
 lawyer, latterly Jesuit; the Abbd F41ix Dupanloup 
 (1802-78), afterwards well known as Bishop of Orleans. 
 But these names, great in their day, have no weight in 
 our literary scales. It is otherwise with Charles- 
 Forbes-Een^, Comte de Montalembert (1810-70), who 
 also peculiarly interests us as being at least half 
 English. Son of an imigri nobleman who married an 
 English wife, young Montalembert went to school first 
 at Eulham, and visited Ireland in 1830. Aiding 
 Lamennais in starting the Avenir, and sharing the 
 memorable journey to Eome, he afterwards retired to 
 Germany, where he wrote his first book, Histoire de 
 Sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie (1836), followed by Bv, 
 vandalisme et du catholicisme dans Vart (1839). Before 
 this he had broken with Lamennais, but with Lacor- 
 daire he was firm friend to the last. During the reign 
 of Louis-Philippe he was a prominent member of the 
 Opposition, fighting for Christian education, and 
 
268 EUEOPEAN LITEBATUEE — EOMANTIC TKIUMPH. 
 
 always adhering to his cherished motto, "God and 
 Liberty." After 1848 he supported Louis-lSTapoleon, to 
 be disillusioned by the coup d'dtat. Aged forty-two, he 
 withdrew from public life, and devoted himself there- 
 after mainly to his great book. The Monks of the West 
 (1860-67 ; English translation by Mrs Oliphant, after- 
 wards his biographer). Tranquil years of preparation. 
 by reading and travel were interrupted once by a trial 
 for sedition on account of his articles on England 
 (1858) in a newspaper, from which ordeal he emerged 
 defeated but triumphant. He also published Une 
 nation en deuil (Poland), 1861 ; Uiglise litre dans I'Mat 
 libra, 1863 ; Ze pape et la Pologne, 1864. His pen was 
 ever at the service of oppressed nationalities, Irish, 
 Polish, or Greek. At his own great work he laboured 
 to the end, and it is worthy of his genero'us if not 
 critical zeal. His latest writing was on the subject of 
 Papal Infallibility (1870), on which, as in all other 
 controversies of his life, he took the side which seemed 
 to make for religious liberty, reverence, and real not 
 political ultramontanism. 
 
 Contemporary with Montalembert was Georges- 
 Maurice de Gu^rin (1810-39), who during his short 
 life made no figure in the world, but left a 
 
 T/ie Guirim. n -n 7 ■ 
 
 volume of Behquim (first published 1860), 
 containing charming notes from a journal kept at 
 Chesnaie when a student under Lamennais, and a 
 prose-poem, "The Centaur," highly praised by Sainte- 
 Beuve for a species oi mystical pantheism. His elder 
 sister Eugdnie (1805-48) left journals and letters, which 
 have been translated into English, and obtained a 
 
THE EOMAimC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 269 
 
 measure of popularity by the good offices of Matthew 
 Arnold. But, with the best of will, it is difficult to 
 see in either of the GuMns more than a certain hectic 
 beauty, an inchoate promise but doubtfully indicating 
 any assurance of riper execution. 
 
 An abler follower of the Mennaisian school was 
 
 Antoine-Fr^d^ric Ozanam (1813-53), Professor at the 
 
 Sorbonne, and a founder of the Society 
 
 " OzatiaiJii. 
 
 of St Vincent de Paul. Though too early 
 cut off, Ozanam had shown, by his lectures on foreign 
 literature, as by his Etudes sur Dante (1889), Histoire 
 de la civilisation av, einquiime si&cle (1845), tltudes 
 germaniques (1849), and other books, very rare powers 
 both of attainment and of imparting. He lectured, says 
 an auditor, like a man inspired. Singularly bright 
 and attractive in manner, he yet impressed most of all 
 by the sense of religious fervour which dominated him. 
 Teachers like this leave their mark, and amid all the 
 welter of opinion in France, the changeful currents and 
 whirling eddies of a time of disquiet and transition, it 
 will be seen that the Mennaisian school, by the mouth 
 of- these distinguished adherents, exercised a spiritual 
 influence which did much to counteract strong dis- 
 integrating forces and impulses. 
 
 The mention of Eugenie de Gudrin reminds us that 
 few names of women-writers have been recorded in 
 this chapter. If it were allowed to cite 
 the mistresses of salons, the ladies who 
 were literary in conversation as well as in writing, 
 a considerable list could be made out. Women 
 like Madame Sophie Gay, her daughter Madame 
 
270 EUKOPEAN LITEEATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 de Girardin, Madame Desbordes - Valmore, or the 
 famous Madame Swetchine, friend of Lacordaire and 
 Montalembert, played no inconsiderable part in literary 
 society, besides leaving a certain amount of original 
 work behind them. But on the whole their claim to 
 be remembered rests on themselves rather than their 
 writings, and with the single exception of " George 
 Sand " no woman-author of real importance comes to 
 the front during the whole period of our survey. 
 
 In the department of history, the most important 
 names have been already given. Of those who came 
 Later forward later in our period three may be 
 
 historians, selected. FranQois-Auguste- Alexis Mignet 
 (1796-1884) was a fellow-student of Thiers, a con- 
 tributor to the Courrier franpais, and a Government 
 official ; and became an Academician in 1836. He 
 wrote on the Spanish Succession (1836-42), Antonio 
 Perez and Philip II. (1845), Mary Stuart (1851), &c., 
 besides an early sketch of the French Eevolution 
 (1824). Edgar Quinet (1803-75), a Swiss - French 
 writer, translated Herder's Philosophy of History as 
 early as 1825, wrote poems and an answer to Strauss 
 (1838), and from 1839 onwards delivered at Lyons a 
 remarkable series of lectures published as Bu gdnie 
 des religions (1842). After that he took to Paris and 
 politics, fought in the Eevolution of 1848, sat in the 
 Assembly till the coup d'etat, was exiled during the 
 Second Empire, came back after S^dan, and was con- 
 spicuous during the siege of Paris. As a writer 
 Quinet is religious yet anti-clerical, poetic and even 
 
THE EOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 271 
 
 prophetic, but the man was greater than his books. 
 His 3pap6es fran^ises (1831) is well thought of by 
 good authorities. Other works are Le christianisme et 
 la revolution (1846), Les revolutions d'ltalie (1848), 
 Zes esclaves (1853), &c. Quinet was a friend of 
 Michelet, and joined him in his energetic attack on 
 the Jesuits. His letters to Michelet (published 1884- 
 86), and indeed all his various volumes of Correspon- 
 dance, are perhaps more readable than his longer 
 works. His Life and Memoirs have appeared in 
 several forms. 
 
 The third of these, Alexis - Charles - Henri Clerel 
 de TocqueviUe (1805-59), was an important writer on 
 political history, and had intimate relations 
 With England, shown m his Conversations 
 and Correspondence with Nassau Senior (published 
 1872). Called to the Bar in 1825, he was sent out six 
 years later on a Commission to the States, and wrote 
 Democracy in America (1835), a work of striking merit. 
 Visiting England soon after, he was warmly welcomed 
 by leading Whigs, and married an English wife. As 
 Deputy in 1839, he held a middle course, and became 
 (1849) vice-president and foreign minister. A strong 
 opponent of Louis Napoleon, he retired from polities 
 after the cowp d'etat, and produced his second great 
 book, L'aTicien regime et la revolution (1856). Most 
 of his other work is fragmentary, such as a sketch of 
 the reign of Louis XV. (1846-50), Le droit au travail 
 (1848), CEuvres inAdites (1860), Sovwenirs (1893). But 
 his two great works are sufficient monument. Their 
 clear style, impersonal disinterestedness of statement. 
 
272 EUROPEAN LITERATUEE — EOMANnC TRIUMPH. 
 
 philosophic analysis, and lofty moralising, remain a 
 model for succeeding writers. Some of his theories 
 may be disproved by events, but the general tone of 
 his books represents the modem spirit in its pure 
 beginnings, and no recent historian fails to own him 
 as master. 
 
 Were completeness an object, many more names 
 might be added, as, for instance, in connection with 
 de Tocqueville those of Pellegrino Eossi 
 (1787-1848), Professor of Political Economy 
 and Prench Ambassador at Eome, or the third Due de 
 Broglie (1785-1870), Liberal politician and prime 
 minister under Louis -Philippe, both of whom were 
 known as writers. But we have confined our attention 
 to leading and representative names, pre-eminent in a 
 literary sense. One such has been kept to the last, 
 both as standing by itself, and as in many ways sum- 
 ming up and representing the whole forces of the 
 period. Auguste Comte (1798-1857) may indeed not 
 unfairly be called a mirror of the conflicting tendencies 
 which we have seen struggling against each other in 
 the France of our survey, and it is not without sig- 
 nificance that he was a friend of men so diverse as 
 Victor Hugo, Lamennais, Augustin Thierry, and Saint- 
 Simon. His independence and revolutionary zeal, his 
 readiness to break with the past yet veneration for 
 great men of that past ; his admiration of the Eoman 
 Church as a social and political, not as a spiritual, 
 organisation ; his clearness and method and order and 
 precision; above all, the completeness and symmetry 
 of his system of the sciences — all bespeak him typical 
 
THE EOMAKTIC TRIUMPH IN FEANCE. 273 
 
 of his medley time. If we cannot regard him as a 
 literary force of the first rank, we may at least feel 
 that he was a most important writer, and one whose 
 impress on his age was of the widest and deepest. 
 When it is said that his Gours de philosophie positive 
 came out from 1830 to 1842, and the SysUme in the 
 years immediately following 1850, we have sufficiently 
 indicated his chronological place. His private life 
 needs no record, being made up of teaching and writ- 
 ing, the former often under difficulties due to the 
 suspicion his views excited. Toward the end of his 
 career he was entirely without means, and was sup- 
 ported by the contributions of some English friends' 
 and admirers. 
 
 System is dear to every well-regulated French mind. 
 
 But Comte's was the most gigantic attempt at system 
 
 ever made even in France. He dreamed of 
 
 His system, , , . . 
 
 no less than methodismg the whole course of 
 all the sciences, establishing a formula which should 
 cover all possible workings of the human mind. Man's 
 thought, he held, inevitably passes through three stages 
 — theological, metaphysical, scientific or "positive." 
 As with the race, so with the individual. Some 
 twisting was required to make facts square with this 
 theory, just as Hugo had done in the case of poetry. 
 But Comte never allowed facts to stand in the way of 
 his generalisations. As he advanced in years, he 
 became more bigoted and unable to bear contradiction. 
 His best disciples were cast off, because they did not 
 follow him unhesitatingly. He grew more autocratic, 
 more peremptory, more opposed to anything like private 
 
 S 
 
274 EUEOPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 judgment or the free exercise of thought. He would 
 fain have drilled mankind into obedience, making him- 
 self the " Supreme Pontiff " of humanity. Into the 
 wild aberrations of his later books we need not enter. 
 They are a sad revelation of what may come to a mind 
 cased in self -trust, and regarding its own ideas as 
 veritable inspirations. But the two great works men- 
 tioned above came from a brain still working sanely 
 as well as strongly, and must be further considered in 
 themselves and in their influence upon his age. 
 
 The Eomantics had no great zeal for science. While 
 
 all thought was honoured by them, the scientific temper 
 
 was probably that form of thought with 
 
 His great work. ■, . , , ■,-,■, ■, ■ ■, • mi 
 
 which they had least kmship. The change 
 to Naturalism was largely a recoil from unscientific 
 method. Towards 1850, says a French historian, 
 men's minds dried up ; they lost all creeds but that of 
 science. Dried up, perhaps ; but partly because tired 
 of mere fluid talk about destiny and the infinite. 
 Give us something definite, they asked ; something we 
 can feel solid amid this shifting flux of emotion. 
 Comte directed this desire wisely. Instead of the ego 
 of the Eomanticists, he held up the social order; 
 instead of psychology, sociology. He did in phil- 
 osophy what Balzac did for the novel. Observation of 
 others, instead of detailed study of one's own feelings ; 
 and in ethics, altruism instead of egotism. This work 
 he did splendidly. We owe to him the very words 
 " altruism " and " sociology." How deeply his teach- 
 ing has sunk, in France as in England — though we 
 may claim to have appreciated him before his own 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 275 
 
 countrymen did — a glance at French criticism will 
 show. The latest theories regard its social character 
 as the glory of modern literature. "While Eomanticism 
 was subjective, explaining everything by itself; and 
 Naturalism objective, losing itself in the thing studied, 
 — modern writing claims to be synthetic, to deal with 
 facts instead of arbitrarily divided fragments of fact. 
 The self- surrender which Lamennais found only in 
 Christianity, Comte extended to the whole world 
 of thought. It is only by forgetting yourself in 
 contemplation of the whole that true virtue, true 
 knowledge, or true art can be attained. 
 
 To have inaugurated a change like this is work 
 enough for any thinker. We can forget his faults, 
 Its abiding f orget to smilc at his extravagance, or resent 
 "*"'• his self-sufficiency. Comte's own love of 
 
 science did not last. Eeversing his own formula, he 
 became less scientific as life advanced, more meta- 
 physical and even theological. Latterly he displayed 
 plus-quam-priestly intolerance, while his own thought 
 ran to a kind of pseudo-religious mysticism, ready to 
 abolish all independent thinking, and to destroy the 
 very records of the steps by which he had attained his 
 own conclusions. But the great work of his manhood 
 stands unaffected by these vagaries. It summed up 
 and reduced to clearness the vague thought and wild 
 generalisations of his ablest contemporaries. It sub- 
 stituted for these a method of masterly precision, a 
 formula as suggestive and comprehensive as the 
 "development" of Darwin himself. As that gave a 
 new idea of the working of the universe, so this gave a 
 
276 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 new view of the progress of humanity. It fixed 
 attention irrevocably on the social organism, instead of 
 on the mere units which compose it. That step, once 
 taken, cannot be retraced. AU subsequent French 
 thought bears the impress of Comte. His " hierarchy 
 of the sciences " may be revised, remodelled in detail : 
 but the lucidus ordo of his central conception is a 
 possession for ever, an unretractable gift to France 
 and to the world. 
 
 We have thus run through, however hurriedly and 
 
 imperfectly, the characteristics of a time which one 
 
 is fain to consider second in European 
 
 CoTiclusion. 
 
 importance only to that covered by the 
 great corresponding movement in our own literature. 
 During this period France gained much, if she lost 
 something ; she borrowed from other nations, she also 
 lent back their own with interest. What is the net 
 result ? Her borrowings were mostly from Northern 
 literature, from Scandinavia, Germany, Great Britain. 
 Italy and Spain contributed a few ideas, philosophical, 
 historical, or literary, and a large amount of Eomantic 
 costume and entourage. To ourselves, her largest 
 debt is connected with the names of Scott and Byron ; 
 the Hugonian worship of Shakespeare resulted, after 
 all, in little more than a first inspiration, a tendency 
 to lawlessness and the heroic, or perhaps rather the 
 gigantesque. To Germany her debt was greater. 
 From Teutonic sources came the chief "motives" 
 which we associate with the Eomantic Movement. 
 But what seems most striking is the way in which 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN FRANCE. 277 
 
 she made these horrowings her own. Never content 
 with mere copying, French literature ahsorbs ideas 
 from other races, passes them through the crucible of 
 her own thought, and they come forth re-cast with 
 her image and superscription. Even the great 
 Eomantic impulse of Goethe and Schiller is trans- 
 lated into methods of her own. French clearness, 
 French precision, French logic and arrangement and 
 rapidity of summation, mould into quite new shapes 
 what came to her somewhat uncouth and formless. 
 Hence there is continual pleasure to students in ex- 
 amining her transformations ; hence the very nations 
 that lent are the richer for what she returns to them. 
 The year 1850 marks the end of one such transaction. 
 With the expulsion, or rather with the death, of Louis 
 Philippe a page of history seems closed. France had 
 still much to learn. She had still to stumble through 
 the slough of Eealism to the firmer ground of " Social " 
 literature. But one lesson had been learned, one 
 influence fully absorbed; and it is that lesson and 
 that absorption which give supreme interest to the 
 period we have considered in these pages. 
 
 What did France give in return? That is also a 
 question not without interest. In previous genera- 
 infimnceof tious her asceudaucy had been complete. 
 FreiKh writers. During the reigns of Frederick the Great 
 in Prussia, George II. in England, her place had been 
 that of acknowledged arbitress. Nothing of this kind 
 exists during our period. She is more recipient than 
 inspirer. Yet, even so, how great is the influence of 
 her method and technique ! Lamartine and Hugo in 
 
278 EUROPEAN LITEKATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 poetry, Hugo and Balzac and George Sand in fiction, 
 Sainte-Beuve and others in criticism, Lamennais and 
 his followers in church matters, Comte in pure 
 thought — what potent spells these names represent 
 through the whole of European civilisation ! In our 
 own literature — excepting only poetry, where we 
 neither needed nor greatly valued impulses, which 
 after all lose most of their force when they leave the 
 language of their birth — how great is our debt to 
 authors such as those named, not so much for initial 
 suggestion, as for helpful and forceful and lucid 
 exposition ! If no longer the leader of thought (as 
 indeed she could only have been in a period so formal 
 and trim - cut as the latter half of the Eighteenth 
 Century), France was still the workshop of ideas, 
 the theatre on whose stage experiments were most 
 brilliantly carried out. Alike in her aspirations and 
 her limitations, French gave an object-lesson of the 
 very greatest value, and the literary student will 
 hardly find the lessons of Eomantic Triumph summed 
 up in more pregnant and instructive form elsewhere 
 than in the pages of French prose and verse during 
 this period. 
 
 The year 1850, as has been said, marks the end of 
 a period in France. To the Second Empire we at 
 Causes of Icast owe this debt, that its harsh repres- 
 gratitude. g^^j^ drove back to literature many who 
 had been tempted into the more difficult and less 
 repaying paths of politics, not to say demagogism. It 
 is as though some stern ordinance had compelled our 
 Disraelis and Macaulays, our Grotes and Thirlwalls 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN FRANCE. 279 
 
 and Mills, not to spend upon party what was meant for 
 mankind. Europe was the gainer, if Trance was the 
 loser. Guernsey and Brussels, London and Geneva, 
 made homes for those whom France could not hold ; 
 and European letters were fructified by forces which 
 might have expended their energy in the strife of the 
 Assembly or the stagnation of the Academy. 
 
 We need not expect to find, in each national litera- 
 ture, periods so well marked and so definitely pro- 
 Passage to grcssivc as wc havc found in the literatures 
 Germany, ^f q^j, q^j^ country and of France. But as 
 the solidarity of European literature is a fundamental 
 postulate of this series, it behoves us now to study the 
 Eomantic Triumph as it showed itself in other nations 
 of the European family. And first let us turn to that 
 literature from which, as we have already seen, both 
 France and England derived in large measure their 
 first Eomantic impulse, and to which, when they im- 
 parted some of their fervour and study of antiquity 
 and love of freedom, they were but repaying a debt 
 which the leading thinkers of each have been proud 
 to acknowledge. 
 
280 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 
 
 INTKODUCTOKY — MEN AND DATES — GOETHE S OLD AGE — HIS KINGLT 
 PLACE — EOMANTIC LEADBBS — ■ AUGUST SCHLEGEL — FKIEDKICH 
 
 BOHLEGEL — THEIR TEACHING BELIGIOOS PBEPOSSESSION — POPULAR 
 
 APPRO VAL — TIECK — HOFrMANN — POUQUlfi — TOUNGEB WBITEES — 
 KERNEE — UHLAND — ZENITH OP EOMANTICISM — PATRIOTIC POETRY 
 — ^DRAMA — AUSTRIAN POETS — CENTRAL GROUP — PBOSE WRITING — 
 RIOHTEK — THE GERMAN NOVEL — SOME MINOR NOVELISTS — CRITICS — 
 JOURNALISTS — SCHOLARS — HISTORY : NEEBUHR — NIEBUHB'S METHOD 
 — AND RESULTS — SUCCESSORS TO NEEBUHR — JURISCONSULTS — PHIL- 
 OSOPHY : SCHELLING — HIS ATTITUDE — HEGEL — PERSONALITY — IN- 
 FLUENCE OF SCHOOL — BIGHT AND LEFT WINGS — SCIENCE — THEOLOGY: 
 
 SCHLEIERMACHEE — HIS TEACHING HIS SCHOOL — GENERAL RESULTS 
 
 — YOUNG GERMANY — HEINE : HIS WORK — EFFECTS OP ILL HEALTH 
 — HIS METHOD — FLOUTS AND JEERS — FAITH IN THE IDEAL — EVER 
 A FIGHTER — MODERN SPIRIT — UNIQUE EESULT — EFFECT OF HIS 
 WORK — FELLOW- WRITERS — FRBILIGEATH — OTHEE SINGBES — LATEE 
 PBOSE : AUEBBAOH AND FEEYTAG — STEUWWELPETEE — CRITICS — ■ 
 HISTORY AND THEOLOGY — PHILOSOPHY : SCHOPENHAUEE — PHYSICAL 
 SCIENCE — CONCLUSION. 
 
 From the Fatherland, more than from any other 
 source, the Komantic Movement had origin- 
 
 Introductory. . ° . 
 
 ally spread over Europe. It is natural 
 therefore to anticipate that, in Germany, during the 
 
THE KOMANTIG TRIUMPH IN GEEMAUY. 281 
 
 same forty years or thereabouts to which our attention 
 is limited, we shall find this Movement in a more 
 advanced stage of development.^ Its inception had 
 been earlier; its progress might well have been 
 greater in proportion, apart from any question of 
 better prepared or more congenial soil. Add that 
 in Germany criticism has usually accompanied, where 
 it has not even antedated, production. Lessing and 
 Herder, Goethe and Schiller, were great critics as 
 well as creators. Whatever they did was done with a 
 clear knowledge of their aim; there was no blind 
 rush, no semi-conscious inarticulate rapture. German 
 literature stands perhaps alone in this — alone even 
 when Greece is taken into account — that its best work 
 is heralded and commented on and explained by a 
 fully ripened exegesis. "We may expect, therefore, to 
 find not only that the Eomantic Movement is farther 
 advanced than in France or even England, but that 
 it is better understood, its limits and lessons have 
 been more accurately defined. Yet, in spite of all 
 this, it will probably appear that the forty years from 
 1810 to 1850 may fairly be called, in Germany as in 
 
 ^ Godeke, Grwmlriss der JHchtwng, vol. vii. (Part I. only yet 
 published ; Berlin, 1898). Kluge, Geschichte der deutschen National- 
 Litteratur (Altenburg, 1895). Haym, Die romantische Schule (Ber- 
 lin, 1869). Hettner, Die romantische Schule (Brunswick, 1860). 
 Julian Schmidt, Geschichte der SomaMik, 2 vols. (Leipzio, 1850) ; 
 Geschichte der deutschen Ditteratur seit Lessimgs Tod, 3 vols. (Leipzio, 
 1858). On Heine, besides books mentioned in text, compare — I^fe, 
 by Stigand, 2 vols. (London, 1875) ; Life, by Sharp {Great Writers 
 series, 1887). Last Days of Heine, by Camille Selden {"La Mouche," 
 Paris, 1884 ; English translation, 1898). Matthew Arnold, Essays 
 in Criticism, &c., &c., &c. 
 
282 EUEOPBAN LITEEATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 the other two countries, the period of Eomantic 
 Triumph. 
 
 In 1810 Schiller was already dead. Goethe had 
 still over twenty years of magnificent old age before 
 Men and him. Eichter had done his best work, but 
 "Jaies- Yf&s Still Writing books unlike any one 
 else's. Voss was Professor at Heidelberg, and now 
 publishing only translations. Fichte and Jacobi sur- 
 vived, but must be regarded as belonging to the pre- 
 vious era; while Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer fall 
 within our survey. " Novalis " (Friedrich von Harden- 
 berg) was gone, but the Schlegels, Tieck, and Uhland 
 remained in full force. Heine was eleven years old. 
 The brothers Humboldt were actively at work ; the 
 brothers Grimm were just on the point of issuing their 
 Tales. Niebuhr had not quite reached, Schleiermacher 
 but little overpassed, middle age. Oken and Gauss 
 were rising luminaries of science. This will give 
 some idea of the epoch where our study begins, the 
 chief names which it will include. We have to 
 do, not with a nascent literature, but with one 
 already in full power. Our notion of the Eomantic 
 Triumph need not restrict itself to writers usually 
 classed as the "Eomantic School" of poets. Even 
 after Goethe and Schiller had done their work, there 
 remained room for a development which should 
 be more distinctively Eomantic than any but their 
 earlier writings showed. Both began as revolu- 
 tionaries, but passed on to accept literary orthodoxy 
 of a kind, to rest in traditions which themselves at 
 least described as Classical. Their predominant power 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GEEMANY. 283 
 
 prevented challenge of their canons, compelled accept- 
 ance for a time of their code of exemptions and 
 restrictions. It was only after they were withdrawn 
 that tendencies which had long stirred German writers, 
 which had operated in these two master-singers them- 
 selves and had spread, largely through their example, 
 to other nations of Europe, were left to pursue their 
 natural course, to work out their way unhindered in 
 a generation no longer tyrannised over by the irresist- 
 ible sway of pre-eminent genius. 
 
 Goethe's lifework belongs to the volume preceding 
 ours. But he was not yet an extinct volcano. His 
 Goethe's West - ostliche Divan, published in 1814, 
 old age. gijows unabatcd lyric power, and set Ger- 
 man poets off on a new tack. The last part of 
 Wilhelm Meister appeared in 1821, the second part of 
 Faust so late as 1831. These last were important 
 works, if less transcendently so than fervid admirers 
 claim. In both, to an unbiassed view, symbolism 
 surely overrides beauty or grandeur. Intricate par- 
 ables leave us cold ; we may admire, but do not feel. 
 Those who prize a cryptic message may seek their 
 gospel in these riddling mazes ; lovers of poetry and 
 imagination will be apt to feel starved. They resent 
 the too obvious allegory of the later Faust, kick 
 against the obtruded didactic of Euphorion and the 
 Homunculus. Many of us would rather that Part I. 
 had remained alone. We could have divined a moral 
 for ourselves, without having it preached through 
 pages of tiresome metaphysic. This ambitious life- 
 drama, on which its author had lavished thought and 
 
284 EUKOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 labour through his own life, might have fared better if 
 finished earlier. Some coldness of age dulls the flash 
 of its diamond -work ; fancy drudges at the menial 
 task of prelection. The end of all comes with a shock 
 of bathos. Gretchen's lover finishing as a sort of 
 model squire may be harmonious with fact, but scarcely 
 with the supernatural machinery set in motion by his 
 choice. Wilhelm Meister, again, is a less lifelike and 
 homogeneous character than of old. This last record 
 of him — either in its first form, or in a still more 
 diffuse recast issued in 1824 — is rather a medley of 
 fragments than a completed whole. Wise things there 
 are in it plentifully, of course, as also things tender, 
 things humorous, deep and gentle touches of humanity. 
 But on the whole, in both Faust and the Wander- Jahre, 
 taking a broad view, it is Goethe the thinker, the 
 philosopher, the sage and prophet of Weimar, whom 
 we perceive working the strings of his puppets ; the 
 creative artist, the maker of real poems, live men and 
 women, is but rarely to be seen. 
 
 Yet both books were great in their way, and greatly 
 impressed their readers. Dichhong und Wahrheit, too. 
 His TdngVy that scmi-historic, fan cif ul, pleasantly gossip- 
 piace. j^g record of his life and thought, came out 
 
 at intervals from 1811 onward. In Xunst und Alter- 
 thum, a periodical started by himself, he wrote much 
 between 1816 and 1828, uttering his latest critical 
 views. And the Conversations with Eckermann, so 
 often quoted in previous pages, show the old man fuU 
 of ripe wisdom and interest in what went on. During 
 these twenty- odd years he sat at Weimar, a patriarch 
 
THE EOMANTIO TBIUMPH IN GERMANY. 285 
 
 or demigod of letters, impressing all visitors with a 
 sense of something superhuman. Heine, we know, 
 thought him worthy to be Jove himself, and " looked 
 instinctively for the eagle." So, through this first half 
 of our period, we must think of Goethe as presiding 
 with Olympian majesty over German literature, advis- 
 ing, correcting, teaching both by precept and example. 
 His fame was world-wide ; to his countrymen his voice 
 must have been that of an oracle. Still, it is as critic 
 first and foremost that we picture him in these years 
 of lordly old age. The process of years had tamed the 
 glow of his imagination, though it left his judgment 
 clear and his lifelong supremacy indisputable as ever. 
 The earlier Eomantics, who carried on Lessing's 
 liberationist work, died before Goethe himself. Burger 
 Bomaniw and MusEBUs did not see out the Eighteenth 
 ^^^"■^^ Century. Haller and Bodmer, students 
 of Shakespeare and revivers of old German litera- 
 ture, passed away too. Herder, their friend and 
 Goethe's, a Wordsworthian before Wordsworth, sur- 
 vived till 1803, as did the venerable Klopstock. Only 
 Wieland (died 1813) can be said to have touched our 
 time. These names, therefore — along with that of 
 Iffland (died 1814) — must be left out of account here. 
 But a younger race took up the tale, and (in opposition 
 to the school of Winckelmann and the Classicist lean- 
 ings of Goethe) insisted on the popular and Eomantic 
 features of poetry. Their leaders were Tieck and the 
 Schlegels, Hoffmann, and Uhland. These are the 
 names with which our survey properly begins. Ne- 
 glecting minor divisions, we may proceed to consider 
 
286 EUROPEAN LITEEATUKE— EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 them and their principal followers in chronological suc- 
 cession. 
 
 The brothers Schlegel claim first mention. Their 
 
 own poems and romances have little importance, but 
 
 their critical writings did much to 
 
 ugus c ege. gj.j.g^g(.jjg^ ^jjg Eomantic tendency. Das 
 
 JthencBum, a journal edited by them in the closing 
 years of the Century, paved the way for much that 
 followed. August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845) 
 was through most of his life a Professor in various 
 German Universities, with intervals during which he 
 lived at Coppet with Madame de Stael, at Vienna, and 
 at Stockholm. Along with Tieck, he translated 
 Shakespeare (1799-1810), popularising the study of an 
 author whose works were to be a symbol of revolt in 
 Germany as in France. He travelled in Italy, studied 
 Sanscrit in Paris, helped Goethe and Schiller with their 
 fforen (1795), afterwards criticised them with some 
 acerbity. He wrote odes, sonnets, elegies, epigrams, 
 a classical tragedy called Ion (1802), verse in fact of 
 all forms, but of no outstanding merit. As critic only 
 is he important to us ; his other work, though various 
 and scholarly, need not detain us. 
 
 Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829), younger and 
 shorter - lived, was even abler than his brother. 
 Friedrich Literature claimed most of his life, but its 
 sciiiegd. closing years were also occupied with public 
 service under Austria. His original work comprised 
 lyrical poems, tragedies (Alarkos, 1802), romances 
 (Lucifbde, 1799), this last based on his own marital 
 
THE EOMANTIO TEIUMPH IN GERMANY. 287 
 
 experiences, which, like those of his brother, were 
 peculiar. But he, too, survives only as critic. His 
 latest books. Philosophy of Life (1827) and Philosophy 
 of History (1828), with other miscellaneous lectures, 
 are well known in Bohn's translation. The much 
 earlier Charahteristiken wnd Kritilcen (1801), reprinted 
 from Das Athenmum, contains suggestive criticism of 
 German literature by both brothers. Some sketch of 
 their attitude toward that and contemporary questions 
 generally will introduce what has to be said about 
 German Eomanticism. 
 
 The movement led by these brothers differed in some 
 points from that afterwards started, not without obliga- 
 tions to them, in France. Both began as 
 
 Their teaching. • /-vn « « i i /->i 
 
 revolts against Classicism, but the German 
 was actuated also by idealist dislike of the present. 
 Both looked back to the Middle Ages, and glorified old 
 national legends. Both sought a deeper faith, and 
 sought it mainly in Nature -worship, with a strong 
 leaning to Eoman Catholicism. But while the later 
 French school stood in the wilderness, and bewailed 
 their " afflicting want of a creed," the German writers 
 were quite prepared to construct one. A new philo- 
 sophy, a new religion, especially a new mythology (it 
 is Friedrich Schlegel's word), had to be created. They 
 did not find the task so simple as it appeared. Mytho- 
 logies are not made — they must grow. But this 
 explains the large place taken by philosophy in the 
 German movement. Fichte and Schelling are as 
 much a part of it as any poet. Nay, the poets them- 
 selves were students of dialectic. Schiller was a 
 
288 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Kantian, and seduced Goethe into much discussion of 
 dubious profit. After 1781,^ says a hostile critic, even 
 Goethe and Schiller allowed philosophy to run away 
 with poetry. The tendency is so natural to a German 
 mind that we need not ascribe it entirely to the influ- 
 ence of these two masters. But it is very marked, and 
 to a large extent brought about the revolt against 
 Goethe. His clear-cut mind, after Schiller's death, 
 leant less to vague speculation, rested more in a serene 
 Paganism. Against this the Eomantics set up 
 mystical Pantheism. Eeligion, which had been so 
 airily laid aside, so easily supposed to be recon- 
 structible, avenged herself on her adversaries. Senti- 
 mental patronage of the Eoman Church ended in blind 
 acceptance of her claims. While the initial aim had 
 been critical and revolutionary, the ultimate effect of 
 the movement was retrograde and reactionary. 
 
 The personal history of the brothers Schlegel illus- 
 trates this change. Art, philosophy, and literature 
 Religious Came to be looked on by them from a 
 prepossession, p^rgiy rcligious Standpoint. The younger 
 brother joined the Church of Eome, as did Tieck, 
 " Novalis," &c. The elder, without actually sub- 
 mitting, tended that way. They visited Italy, not 
 like Goethe to absorb Classical influence, but to 
 revive the study of mediaeval art. Giotto and Fra 
 Angelico were rescued by them from the neglect of 
 ages. Their teaching started a school of painters, 
 such as Cornelius (1783 - 1867), who painted in a 
 
 ^ The year of Lessing's death, and of the publication of Kant's 
 Critique of pure reason. 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 289 
 
 cloister to avoid debasing verisimilitude, Overbeck 
 (1789-1869), the great frescoist, and others. Thus 
 they in many ways anticipated both our Tractarian 
 and Pre - Eaphaelite movements. But one - sided 
 criticism, coupled in the case at least of the elder 
 brother with overweening self - conceit, finally led 
 them into strange places. Not content with a re- 
 ligious art, they must have an art dependent on and 
 ministering solely to religious teaching. Calderon 
 was therefore a greater poet than Shakespeare ; 
 Zacharias Werner (1768-1823), an extravagant writer 
 of third-rate tragedies, had to be exalted against 
 Goethe and Schiller. From Eomantic pantheism to 
 Ultramontane dogmatism — from Spinoza and Shake- 
 speare to Aquinas and Calderon — they ran the gamut 
 within a brief compass of years. The stream thus 
 lost in a bog does not reappear in its original form. 
 It doubtless permeates all later thought, fertilises 
 song and philosophy after undergoing further trans- 
 mutation. But the Eomanticism thus led astray 
 would hardly have survived to a second generation, 
 even had no other hostile influence come in to give 
 it the cowp de grdce. 
 
 One more point may be noted. In France, Eoman- 
 ticism had to fight the whole force of Academic and 
 Popular official couservatism. Even with us it had 
 approvc^i. ^Q fg^gg j.jjg ^j.g^Yi of the Anti-jacoMn 
 
 writers, the contempt of critics like Jeffrey, though 
 not an organised opposition as in Paris, But in 
 Germany it had the people at its back. No literary 
 clique, no cultured taste, opposed either the earlier 
 
 T 
 
290 EUEOPEAN LITER ATUKK — KOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 movement of Goethe and Schiller, or the later 
 development we are now considering. Perhaps 
 the school suffered from the absence of wholesome 
 criticism. The Schlegels, says Heine, had only to 
 stand on the field of victory, and sing paeans over 
 the slain. Goethe himself, in his later criticism, 
 speaks leniently of the excesses in which these new 
 ultra-Eomantic writers indulged. Germany was the 
 home of romanticism, of sentimentalism, of the new 
 disease called Wertherism, in fact. The. wildest 
 freaks of her writers were more than equalled by 
 contemporary historical facts. Neither literature nor 
 society rested on an assured basis. Any pranks 
 might conceivably be played with either ;. and both 
 licences were taken to the full. Whatever we think 
 of Goethe's own life, it stands out dignified and self- 
 restrained beside that of many of his contemporaries. 
 The wonder is, not that wild experiments were tried, 
 but that so much method was observed in their 
 madness. And now we may go on to see what 
 manner of recruits ranged themselves below the 
 banner upheld by the Schlegels. 
 
 Johann Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) may be classed 
 
 as an industrious man of letters. Lyrics, dramas, 
 
 romances, satires flowed freely from his 
 
 TUiik. _, % , . . „ 
 
 pen. rerhaps ms most influential work 
 was translating Shakespeare along with the elder 
 Schlegel, and Don Quixote (1799-1801) on his own 
 account. But his original writing, if derivative 
 rather than independent, made him a leader in his 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 291 
 
 day, and a vein of sarcastic humour procured him the 
 absurd title of "a Eomantic Aristophanes." Early 
 novels (Abdallah and William Lovell, 1795) and plays 
 (Genevieve de Brabant, 1800 ; Kaiser Octavianus, 1804) 
 betray the influence of his Jena friends ; and his 
 lyric poetry follows Eomantic model. Phantasus 
 (1812-17), the chief success of his middle life, is a 
 collection of mediaeval tales. After 1820 the pre- 
 dominant influence is that of Goethe (shown much 
 earlier ^in Sternhald's Wanderwngen, 1798, which 
 clearly recalls Wilhelm Meister). To this last period 
 belong his chief novels. Das Dichterleben (1828), a 
 study of the youthful Shakespeare, and Der Tod des 
 Dichters (1829), a reminiscence of Camoens. Through 
 all stages, therefore, Tieck was assimilator more than 
 originator, and his writings have little permanent 
 value of their own. But both as critic and creator he 
 was a large figure in his day. 
 
 Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (1776-1822), 
 
 usually called " Amadeus Hoffmann," was one of the 
 
 wildest spirits of the school. Satirist and 
 
 Soffmann. , . 
 
 caricaturist, he loved the grisly side of 
 Eomanticism, dealing in corpses and spectres instead 
 of nymphs and fairies. His imagination brooked no 
 discipline, his satiric criticism no rein of reason or 
 good taste. The "Philistine'' got no quarter at his 
 hands. Yet he is Eomantic to the core, with what- 
 ever extravagance; a leader, fighting himself in the 
 front rank. Napoleon's conquest of Germany de- 
 prived him of a small official post, and for some 
 years he suffered much privation. But his pen never 
 
292 KUEOPEAIT LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 ceased, as the tales included in Phantasie-Stilche (1814), 
 NacM-Stucke (1817), and Die Serapionsbriider (1819- 
 25) sufficiently show. Many of these have been 
 translated into English; Carlyle's studies of both 
 Tieck and Hoffmann are familiar. The Devil's Mixir 
 (1816), Klein Zaches (1819), Der Doppeltgcinger (1822), 
 with the shorter Fraulein von Scudery and Meister 
 Martin der Kiifer (1825), may be singled out as 
 representative of his tales ; while Zehensansichten 
 des Katers Murr (1821-22) gives a good notion of his 
 wit and humour, with some amount of autobiographic 
 detail. 
 
 Much more important to literature was the work of 
 Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Baron de la Motte Fouqu^ 
 (1777-1843). As poet we rank him, in 
 virtue not only of his epics and plays, such 
 as Sigurd (1808), Corona (1814), and Bertrand du 
 Guesclin (1821), but of his well-known romances, which 
 are surely prose poems, besides breathing the purest 
 essence of Eomanticism. If Undi ne (1811) be perfect 
 as a legend of awakening girlhood, Sintram and his 
 Companions (1814) not less finely gives the storm and 
 stress of boyhood, touched to noble issues, and girt by 
 unseen powers and possibilities. Aslauga's Knight, 
 The two Captains, Thiodulf, and the Ring of Magic, 
 complete the enchanting series as known to English 
 readers, though this is far indeed from representing 
 his entire output. A soldier in his youth, a country 
 gentleman in later days, Fouqu^ never knew the 
 trials and troubles of literary life. But he reached 
 without effort high levels of literary achievement, and 
 
THE EOMANTIO TEIUMPH IN GERMANY. 293 
 
 shines though an amateur with a clearer light than 
 his professional compeers. Captious critics may stylo 
 his art " bastard -Eoman tic " ; the general verdict 
 seems nearer the truth in accepting it as carrying 
 its own patent of nobility. His collected QedicMe 
 appeared in five volumes in 1816-27, his works 
 (edited by himself) in twelve volumes (1841-46). 
 
 All these writers were more or less friends and 
 
 fellow -workers, and there remain some lesser and 
 
 younger names to be added. Heinrich 
 
 Yamiger writers. . ,^^,„^, m.^x . ,i 
 
 von Kleist (1777-1811) survives mostly 
 by his plays, such as Die Hermanns- SchlacM (1809), 
 directed against Napoleon and the French; but his 
 short life ended by his own hand almost before our 
 period had begun. Clemens Brentano (1778-1842) 
 and his brother-in-law Ludwig Achim von Arnim 
 (1781 - 1859) published together a book of poems, 
 Des Knahen Wunderhorn (1806-8), popular then and 
 charming still. Brentano was a strange solitary 
 mortal, who began with Satiren (1800), went on to 
 plays {Ponce de Lion, 1804, Bie Grwndung Prags. 
 1815), and bizarre poems {An eine Kranhe, Die 
 Geschichte vom, hraven Kasperl, &c.), and latterly 
 betrayed clear signs of madness. Von Arnim wrote 
 plays and novels {The Heath-cock, Isabella von-. Egypt, 
 Bie Kronenwachter, &c.) His wife, Brentano's sister, 
 was the " Bettina " of a famous correspondence with 
 Goethe; another sister became Madame de Savigny. 
 Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838) lived a roving 
 life as a naturahst, and latex combined poetry with 
 the duties of keeper of the Botanical Garden at 
 
294 EUROPEAN LITERATUBE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH, 
 
 Berlin. He is best known by his story of Peter 
 SoUemihl (1813), the man who sold his shadow to 
 the Devil. But his poems also deserve attention, 
 blending early romanticism with a touch of modernity 
 which gradually leads him away from the old methods. 
 He shows skill in metre, passing from ballad-verse to 
 terza rima, and from that again to alliterative measures 
 on the Norse model, with equal facility. The over- 
 mastering influence of Goethe and Schiller, it may be 
 noted, drove younger singers of this Central School to 
 assert originality by abnormal methods — by eccen- 
 tricities of subject and style, or by sedulous devotion 
 to form, that form which the aged Goethe declared he 
 would violate in all directions were he beginning 
 again, to show that inspiration is not conditioned by 
 any particular mould or method. 
 
 With our next poets the scene changes. Kerner 
 
 and Uhland belong to the "Swabian school." But 
 
 this is a merely local distinction. Both are 
 
 emphatically Eomantic, and in no sense 
 
 form a separate development. Kerner expressly 
 
 denied that there was any such school : each of us, he 
 
 said, sings through his own beak, just as his heart 
 
 bids him. Andreas Justinus Kerner (1786-1862) was 
 
 a physician at Wildbad, and a student of occult science, 
 
 animal magnetism, and the like. He had a fine gift 
 
 of song, shown in such favourite lyrics as " Wohlauf 
 
 noch getrunken," &c., to be found in his Gedichte 
 
 (1826 : enlarged edition, 1854). This remained his 
 
 through life, from Somantische Dichtungen (1817) to 
 
 Winterbluten (1859). But his ghostly studies also 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN GERMANY. 295 
 
 engaged much of his thought, and are embodied in 
 Die Seherin von Prevorst (1829), a tale which has 
 gone through many editions. 
 
 Johann Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862), but a few 
 months younger than Kerner, was the acknowledged 
 head of the Swabian singers, and may be 
 considered chief poet of the later Eomantic 
 school. His best lyrics and ballads — such as Es zogen 
 drei Burschen, Ich hatt' einen Kameraden, Das Gluck von 
 Edenhall — are familiar to English readers, some of 
 them through Longfellow's translations. Even Heine 
 finds nothing bitter to say against Uhland, though 
 characteristically insinuating that his best pupils sur- 
 passed their master in various points. Born and 
 dying in Tubingen, he lived all his life in Germany, 
 except for one visit of less than a year to Paris about 
 1810, and his life and verse were both thoroughly 
 patriotic, to Germany first, to Swabia second. His 
 cycle of ballads, Graf EberJoardt der Banschebart, 
 with many other pieces, illustrates the latter, his 
 whole poetry the former. His gentle, kindly nature 
 endeared him to all. Educated as a lawyer, he was 
 elected deputy for Tubingen in 1819, and continued 
 in public service for the remainder of life. But his 
 heart was always with poetry. His Gedichte first 
 appeared in collected form in 1815, and were con- 
 tinually added to thereafter. The "jubilee edition" 
 of 1886 is the fullest. A three-volume edition of his 
 "Works" bears date 1892. Two plays, Ernst von 
 Schwdben (1818) and Ludwig der Bayer (1819), show 
 patriotic feeling and beauty of detail, but hardly 
 
296 EUROPEAN LITEKATUEE — KOMANTIO TEIUMPH. 
 
 dramatic power. On the other hand, some critical 
 essays are masterly, such as Walther von Vogelweid 
 (1822) and Alte Volhslieder (1844). But Uhland's 
 glory rests on his lyrical verse, and this is of singular 
 beauty, with a tender sweetness all his own. 
 
 In Uhland's poems the Eomantic revival seems to 
 reach its zenith. Uhland in verse, Fouqu^ in prose, 
 Zenith 0/ record its high- water mark. Critics have 
 romantioism. suggested that Uhlaud is not properly 
 a Eomantic; he does not share the Traumerei and 
 Schwarmerei — shall we say the dreaminess and senti- 
 mentalism ? — of the school. But the extravagances of 
 a movement are not its hall-marks. Uhland is dreamy 
 and sentimental, within bounds of reason; if he did 
 not push these to absurdity, so much the better for 
 his judgment. He avoids the grotesqueness of Hoff- 
 mann, the bizarrerie of Brentano. But to call Uhland 
 non-romantic is like saying that Shakespeare is un- 
 dramatic, or Homer unheroic. Eather he seems to 
 sum up and contain all that is best in the German 
 Eomantic ideal. Its tenderness, its naivete, its 
 humanity, its love of Nature, of antiquity, of the 
 legendary and mystical — its metrical freedom and 
 Wordsworthian directness of handling — all are worthily 
 exemplified in his poems. Space forbids illustrating 
 this by quotation. Fortunately his verse is too well 
 known to render such a course necessary. What- 
 ever critics of his own race say, to outsiders Uhland 
 seems to represent the very crown of the German 
 Eomantic movement. He was, it has been justly said, 
 not the father of a school, but the child of one. Con- 
 
THE EOMANTIC TKIUMPII IN GERMANY. 297 
 
 temporary or immediately succeeding writers may 
 appear to echo Uhland, but it is because they shared 
 the inspiration which he absorbed and gathered to a 
 focus. In his verse, as in his liberty-loving life, he 
 summed up all the aspiration and idealistic striving of 
 the best minds of his generation, and clothed them 
 with form to which his beloved Swabia furnished a 
 fitting background. 
 
 Eegarded in this way, we may take Uhland as the 
 active leader of German poetry during the earlier part 
 Patriotic of our period. There is no need to re- 
 poetry. coguisc subdivisions. One department of 
 verse alone must be excepted, and that only partially. 
 The German Komantic movement was greatly helped 
 by the long war with Napoleon. Eesistance to France 
 became the watchword in poetry as well as in politics, 
 and the despotism of Eacine as hateful as that of 
 Buonaparte. During the years 1805-15 patriot fervour 
 produced passionate song. The Eomantic poets were 
 not behind ; Uhland, Pouqu^, Brentano, and others 
 smote the Tyrtsean lyre. But this special strain 
 required singers of its own. Foremost of such was 
 Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769-1860), who throughout his 
 long life never ceased to defy tyranny — that of Na- 
 poleon in earlier days, that of a reactionary Government 
 later. Teacher and writer of history, he also made 
 history by his spirit-stirring songs, of which Was ist 
 des deufschen Vaterland ? is alone sufficient example. 
 He was ably seconded by Maximilian von Schenken- 
 dorf (1783-1817), who hymned the victory of Leipzic, 
 and Friedrich Eiickert (1788-1860), author of Deutsche 
 
298 EUEOPEAN LITERATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 GedicMe (1817), afterwards a distinguished philologer 
 and translator of Oriental books into German verse. 
 But the young Marcellus of the war was Karl Theodor 
 Korner (1791-1813), who had begun as dramatist, but 
 joining Liitzow's Cavalry in 1813 electrified his com- 
 rades with fiery lyrics, afterwards published under the 
 title of Lyre and Sword, and fell in fight before the 
 close of that fateful year. " Liitzow's wild hunt," the 
 Bundeslied vor der Schlacht, and the Sword-so-ng (written 
 in a pause of his last battle), are among the best-known 
 of these ; but perhaps the " Prayer during fight," with 
 its solemn Voter, ich ru/e dich ! will last as long as 
 anything he wrote. 
 
 The patriotic poets — of whom these are only the 
 leading names — shared the Eomantic impulse, as did 
 
 the Eomantic poets the patriotic impulse ; 
 
 and even here no strict line of demarcation 
 is necessary. But at any rate these two divisions com- 
 prise all that is noteworthy in German poetry at this 
 time. Lyrics, ballads, romances, and dramas are the 
 favourite form of verse, with occasional adoption of 
 mediaeval or earlier measures, sonnets and terza rima 
 from Italy, alliterative verse from Scandinavia. It 
 will be noticed that the drama is not classed separ- 
 ately. As in France, as in England, drama had little 
 independent life of its own. Goethe and Schiller 
 might fill it with breath of their genius, but they 
 created no dramatic impulse, transmitted no new 
 modification of its idea. Tragedy and comedy con- 
 tinued to be written, just as did narrative poems, 
 pastorals, and sonnets. But these were forms of verse 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 299 
 
 merely, one might say forms of poetical exercise, not 
 involving any independent and original impulse ; the 
 real force, the creative inspiration of the day, expressed 
 itself mainly in lyric measures of all kind. 
 
 Eesuming the main current of Eomantic poetry, we 
 need stay to mention at present but one more Swabian 
 Austrian Writer, Gustav Schwab (1792-1850), who 
 ^''*- followed the lead of Uhland without sharing 
 his genius, but had a rather happy turn for ballad. 
 Austria about this time contributed some notable 
 poets. Joseph, Baron Eichendorff (1788-1857), a 
 volunteer in the campaign of 1813-15, produced plays 
 (Hzzelin von Romano, 1828), several novels in which 
 the best things are their occasional verses, and poems 
 of true song -gift and love of nature, witness the 
 favourite " In einem kiihlen Grunde," to be found in 
 his collected GedicUe (1837), a favourite volume still 
 with youths and maidens. Joseph Christian, Baron 
 Zedlitz (1790-1862), a fellow-soldier with Eichendorff, 
 and afterwards holder of several state offices, wrote 
 dramas {Kerlcer und Krone, 1834) and narrative poems 
 (Waldfrdulein, 1843), but excelled especially in certain 
 reflective pieces (Todtenkrdnzen, 1827) commemorat- 
 ing not unworthily the death of such men as Goethe, 
 Canning, Byron, Tasso, and Napoleon. His Cfedichte 
 are collected in a volume dated 1832. A more re- 
 markable genius was that of Franz Grillparzer (1791- 
 1872). First and foremost a dramatist, he almost 
 suggests reconsideration of our dictum about the 
 absence of independent dramatic life at this time. 
 And indeed his plays, with those of Werner (ante, p. 
 
300 EUKOPEAN LITEEATURE — EOMAJSTTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 289) and Adolf Miillner (1774-1829), are sometimes 
 classed apart as constituting a school of " destiny- 
 drama." We may perhaps see in G-rillparzer's plays, 
 such as Swppho (1819) and The Golden Fleece (1822), 
 &c., a nearer approach to Eomantic Tragedy written of 
 set purpose, with a partial anticipation too of Ibsenite 
 methods, than we find in any other contemporary. But 
 his field is not wide, and his influence was not great. 
 Like Browning, he was the occasion of a Society being 
 formed to study his works ; but in this case the poet's 
 death preceded the formation of the guild. His other 
 writings comprise lyrical poems (jubilee edition, 1891), 
 one novel {Ber Spielmann, 1848), and an historical 
 study {Ottokar's Gliick und Ende, 1825). 
 
 The central school of German poetry, meantime, 
 
 continued to flourish. We may take the chief names 
 
 in chronological order, without much care 
 
 Central group. «.,..,, 
 
 for dates of individual works. Ernst 
 Schulze (1789-1817), a true if not powerful Eomantic, 
 was author of narrative poems (Cacelie, Die bezauberte 
 Rose, &c.) in ottava rima on legendary and mytho- 
 logical subjects. Wilhelm Miiller (1794-1827), again, 
 poet and philologer, father of our eminent Oxford 
 professor, wrote folk-songs which are no mere slavish 
 reproduction of antique models, but breathe the 
 genuine spirit of popular pastoral song. An edition 
 of his poems by his son appeared in 1869. August, 
 Count von Platen (1796-1835), began as a Eomantic 
 with his play of The glass slippers, but diverged later 
 to Classical odes, idylls (such as The fisher of Capri), 
 Italian sonnets and ritornelli, and Persian ghazels. 
 
 G 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 301 
 
 Learning with him was stronger than inspiration, and 
 he is frequently bracketed with Eiickert {ante, p. 297). 
 His attack on Heine as the " Eomantic OEdipus " drew 
 on him that writer's fiercest attack. Karl Leberecht 
 Immermann (1796-1840), lifelong friend of Heine, 
 shone more in prose than poetry, but led off with 
 numerous plays {The Princes of Syracuse, Roncevcd, 
 Periander, &c.), Gedichte (1825), and an epic poem, 
 Tristan wnd, Isolde. Two satirical novels. Die Upi- 
 gonen and Munchhausen, published late in life, contain 
 perhaps his best work. Christian Friedrich Scheren- 
 berg (1798-1881) followed a line of his own in patriotic 
 poems on Waterloo, Ligny, Ahoukir, &c., and was equally 
 spontaneous and natural in his lyric verse. August 
 Heinrich Hoffmann (1798-1874), usually called " Hoff- 
 mann of Fallersleben," a librarian and philologist, and 
 writer of political poems {Unpolitischen Lieder, 1840) of 
 a revolutionary character, was also a maker of folk- 
 songs which take no mean place in the splendid roll 
 of German popular lyrics, though his more ambitious 
 verse is less successful. The best edition of his poems 
 is in nine volumes (1887). Albert Knapp (1798-1864) 
 may deserve a special place for his Christlichen Gedichte 
 .(1829), in which religion for once does not overpower 
 poetry. His collected poems bear date 1843. August 
 Kopisch (1799-1853), poet and painter, should be men- 
 tioned not only for some excellent translations (Dante, 
 1840, &c.), but icor his humorous, poetico-comic Historic 
 von Noah, and tales of sprites and cobolds. His 
 Gedichte appeared in 1836, and his collected works 
 (five volumes) in 1856. 
 
302 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE— EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 The year we have now reached, keeping always to 
 order of birth -date, produced an author destined to 
 work something like a revolution in German 
 rose wn mg. ^^^^^^^ Heinrich Heine loved to call him- 
 self the "first man of his Century," but his actual 
 birthday was in December 1799. Before going on to 
 consider a career by far the most poetically important 
 of any which properly come within our survey in this 
 chapter, it seems needful to pause and take stock of 
 the extent to which the Komantic Triumph had 
 affected literature in other fields. Rightly to under- 
 stand Heine's work, we must have some idea of the 
 world into which he was born, as it manifested itself 
 in written thought, whether under shape of prose or 
 verse. Poetry and the drama have been sketched 
 down to the date at which he enters the arena ; the no 
 less large and fruitful influences which worked other- 
 wise than in verse must be reckoned with. To attempt 
 any exhaustive treatment of these latter would be pre- 
 sumptuous and useless: such slight record as will 
 bring out the salient facts under each head is probably 
 all that the literary student will ask or expect. 
 
 The novel had been written in Germany by many 
 
 eminent hands. Most of the poets had tried it. 
 
 Goethe, "Novalis," Fouqu6, Tieck, Arnim, 
 
 Richtcr. 
 
 Brentano, Hoffmann, and others, have been 
 mentioned as writing romances. One writer of the 
 first rank confined himself to this province. But 
 Jean Paul Friedrich Eichter (1763-1825) belongs to 
 the period before ours. He was indeed still writing. 
 
THE EOMAKTIC TEIUMPPI IN GEEMANY. 303 
 
 had still to give us Fibel's Life (1812) and Nicolas 
 Marhgraf (1820), besides various patriotic writings 
 during the war, and an unfinished Autobiography 
 (1826). His influence was so potent, and on Heine 
 in particular exercised so lasting an effect, that a 
 single remark on the upshot of his work may not 
 be out of place here. 
 
 A German reviewer credits Richter with " perfect- 
 ing the comic romance." This seems true only with 
 Theoermm large cxceptiou. There is nothing in the 
 '^^^- least resembling the humorous story of 
 
 Dickens. Perhaps the emphasis lies on the word rom- 
 ance ; but in that case " comic romance " seems rather 
 a contradiction in terms. If we widen the phrase 
 into " philosophico- comic romance," the difSculty is 
 at least partly avoided. With Eichter and Goethe, 
 the German novel was fairly launched on its career. 
 But it was not quite what we understand by the term 
 novel. No Scott, no Thackeray, no Dickens came to 
 bend it into plastic shape. It remained rather a 
 philosophic miscellany, a self-conscious dealing with 
 ideas under story form, its method a compound of 
 Swift and Sterne, the Spectator and Fielding, or rather 
 Smollett. Only much later did dramatic verisimilitude 
 take due place in the German novel. To the men of 
 Heine's time, it was still what it had been to us in the 
 days before Scott — an ingenious medley, capable of 
 much variety and of expressing much of the subtlest 
 thought and wildest fun of a bold or unconventional 
 author, but rarely having for its chief feature a strong 
 set of incidents vividly told. 
 
304 EUROPEAN LITEEATUBE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Such the German novel remained through at least 
 the main part of our period. And, with the excep- 
 somemmar tion of the poets and others who wrote 
 novelists. "romances" as part of their imaginative 
 work, there are hardly any other names of novelists 
 worthy of record. Ernest Wagner (1768-1812) was 
 an imitator of Eichter, who however barely comes 
 within our limits. Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke 
 (1771-1848), a German Swiss, schoolmaster and poli- 
 tician, wrote many volumes of tales, but hardly showed 
 much original faculty. Georg Wilhelm Heinrich 
 Hiiring (1797-1884), under the name of ■' Willibald 
 Alexis,'' wrote a novel ( Walladmor, 1823) which was 
 credited to Scott and translated by De Quincey, with 
 many other unimportant volumes of fiction, travel, &c. 
 On the whole, it may be safely said that the novel is 
 one of the least interesting and least important fields 
 of German literature at this time, except only as poet- 
 ised by the Eomantics or as filled with flowers of 
 strange bloom by Eichter. Goethe himself, in his role 
 of novelist, by no means fulfils the expectations raised 
 by his poems, and even Wilhelm Meister need not be 
 withdrawn from the scope of this characterisation. 
 
 In critical literature the Germans have long ex- 
 celled. The poets are once again our chief authorities 
 for imaginative criticism. Besides those 
 
 Critics. " 
 
 lately named, Johann Heinrich Voss (1751- 
 1826), author of Luise and translator of Homer, &c., 
 though his poetical work was now over, published late 
 in life an important critical work, Ardi- Symholik 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GEEMANT. 305 
 
 (1824-26), iu answer to Creuzer's treatise about to 
 be named. Among writers not poets, Wilhelm von 
 Humboldt, to be noted later in connection with science, 
 deserves mention here for his translations from the 
 Classics, and his critical studies of Goethe, Schiller, 
 &c. (1799), as well as for later philological work of a 
 very original kind, covering nearly all known lan- 
 guages. Friedrich Greuzer (1771-1858), professor of 
 philology at Heidelberg, put forth in 1810-12 a pon- 
 derous but ill-advised work on the symbolical inter- 
 pretation of Ancient mythology (Symbolik und Myth- 
 ologie der alien Volker), replied to with crushing effect 
 by Voss. The brothers Grimm, besides publishing 
 their famous Mdrchen (1812-22), were conspicuous 
 workers in the field of philological criticism. Jakob 
 Ludwig Karl Grimm (1785-1863), promulgator of 
 " Grimm's Law," established his fame by Deutsche 
 Grammatik (1819), and spent his life on similar work, 
 also starting the great and still unfinished Deutsehes 
 Wdrterhuch. His brother, Wilhelm Earl Grimm 
 (1786-1859), was a scarcely less eminent writer on the 
 same lines, in collaboration and alone. Henri Steffens 
 (1773-1845), Norwegian by birth, studied at Jena 
 under Schelling and Freiberg under "Werner, settled 
 in Germany, and became a prominent member of the 
 Eomantic group, and a prolific writer on critical and 
 scientific subjects. Karl August Varnhagen von Ense 
 (1785' 1858), with his charming wife, both wrote 
 biography and criticism, and kept for years a salon 
 where the greatest writers of the day met and talked, 
 and where Heine made his (J^but in literary society. 
 
 u 
 
306 BUKOPEAN LITEKATXIRB— EOMAIJTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 To these may be added the names of Heine's friend 
 Moses Moser (died 1838), who, though he published 
 nothing, seems to have been in conversation a brilliant 
 and suggestive critic ; and of Heine's opponent Wolf- 
 gang Menzel (1798-1873), who filled a long life with 
 copious historical and critical writings, attacking from 
 a conservative point of view the innovators in poetry 
 and politics, including Goethe, whom he dubbed the 
 " great Pagan." His Streckverse (1823), Deutsche lAt- 
 teratur (1827 ; enlarged later), plays named Bubezahl 
 (1829) and Narcissus (1830), and novel Furore (1851), 
 probably did less to inculcate these views than his 
 twenty-two years (1826-48) as literary editor of the 
 well-known Morgenhlatt. 
 
 Journalism played no very conspicuous part in these 
 
 troubled times, when the press was still far from free. 
 
 But among writers of literary power, who 
 
 Jowmalists. 7^ 
 
 yet gave fully more attention to politics 
 than to literature, Gorres and Borne deserve note. 
 Jakob Joseph von Gorres (1776-1848) was a keen 
 student of old German poetry, an equally keen Liberal 
 in politics, who was finally exiled by an absolutist 
 Government, and ended as a theological mystic. 
 Ludwig Borne (1786-1837), of Jewish extraction, an 
 indefatigable journalist, settled in Paris after the 
 Eevolution of 1830, was intimate with Lamennais, 
 wrote there his most important book, Brief e aus Paris 
 (1832), quarrelled with Heine, and was somewhat 
 scurvily treated by the latter in a memorial paper, of 
 which more anon. Adam Heinrich Miiller (1779- 
 1.829), too, co-editor with Kleist {ante, p. 293) of a 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH' IN GERMANY. 307 
 
 magazine called Phoebus in 1808, wrote many books 
 supporting the Catholic reaction, and curiously mixing 
 up mysticism and political economy, whose names are 
 not worth recalling now. And a more hard-headed 
 thinker, August von Haxthausen (Baron of Hax- 
 thausen-Abbenberg, 1792-1866), developed the literary 
 side of politics and of constitutional history in such 
 works as Bie Agrarverfassung (1829), first of a series 
 of masterly treatises on the land -laws, especially of 
 Eussia and Germany. 
 
 In the special field of Classical criticism, Germany 
 assumed at this time a leadership which she has 
 never since lost. The pioneer - work of 
 Heyne and Wolf, followed in splendid 
 succession by Hermann, Lobeck, Bbckh, Bekker, 
 Brandis, Bopp, Lachmann, and Ottfried Miiller — 
 with the brothers Grimm as mentioned before, and 
 Gesenius doing kindred work in Hebrew — had 
 results far beyond the bounds of their special 
 studies. It is too narrow a view which ignores the 
 importance to literature of a training-school such as 
 the labours of these men afforded, and as a matter of 
 fact their position as teachers enabled them to wield 
 an influence which is continually reflected in the 
 writings of their pupils. And this influence, too, 
 must be regarded as tending on the whole toward 
 freedom and independence and fearlessness of judg- 
 ment, as well as to the most minute and relentless 
 accuracy. 
 
 If this last field was not one in which Eomantic 
 
308 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIO TEITJMPH. 
 
 ideas could have full play, it is otherwise when we 
 History: come to the department of History. There, 
 Nieiuiir. hardly less than in poetry, the new teach- 
 ing worked powerfully. Arnold Hermann Ludwig 
 Heeren (1760-1842) had shown the way to a more 
 vivid and " modern " handling of ancient history ; in 
 Barthold Georg Mebuhr (1776-1831) we find the 
 lesson fully learned. A Dane by birth, Niebuhr had 
 studied in both London and Edinburgh, but finally 
 settled in Prussia. Precisely at the beginning of our 
 period (1810-12) he gave, in the then new University 
 of Berlin, those lectures on Eoman history which first 
 made him famous. From 1816 to 1823 he resided at 
 Eome as Prussian ambassador ; then for seven more 
 years lectured with great acceptance at Bonn. The 
 Eevolution of 1830 was a terrible shock to him, and is 
 said to have caused or hastened his death. His chief 
 works have been translated into English (the earlier 
 volumes of his Soman History by Hare and Thirlwall), 
 and are too well known to need enumeration. 
 
 Like Wolf in Homeric criticism, Niebuhr in ancient 
 history used canons and criteria which were applicable 
 NiOmWs to many other subjects. The stir which 
 imfhod. jjjg views made in England has been already 
 referred to. It was not merely that events formerly 
 accepted as facts were shown to be legendary. 
 Whether Eomulus and Horatius Codes were real 
 persons or mythical was a matter of sufficiently 
 remote interest to most readers. But it was tolerably 
 clear that the same process could be applied over a 
 much wider field, and to events and persons of much 
 
THE KOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 309 
 
 greater importance. So far as Niebuhr's actual coa- 
 tentions are concerned, there can be little doubt that 
 he used his obliterating sponge too freely. Legends 
 generally imply a foundation of some sort; myths 
 grow up only around an actual person. The existence 
 of Eomulus and Eemus is not disproved by arguing 
 that the story of their being suckled by a wolf is 
 fictitious. But the spirit which tests ancient tales by 
 strict canons of historical evidence gains strength with 
 every increase of our knowledge. It becomes the 
 fundamental postulate, the demand not to be gainsaid, 
 of modern science in all departments. And Mebuhr's 
 work was a most important factor in developing this 
 spirit. 
 
 How widely his teaching has spread needs hardly to 
 be dwelt on. We shall see it presently influencing 
 other branches of thought. From the 
 Eomantic impulse toward revolutionary 
 criticism it derived its strength. The Eomantic 
 Movement indeed studied the Past, and looked back 
 with wistful yearning to the great days gone by. But 
 it insisted on closer vision, clearer knowledge. It was 
 not content to worship the Past from a respectful dis- 
 tance. It sought to get face to face with it, to see it 
 living and moving before our eyes. Anything that 
 withstood this approach it was ready to tear down and 
 destroy. No veils, no formalities, no assumptions and 
 hypotheses, were allowed to come in the way. The 
 notion of ancient history as a sacred region, where 
 demigods and heroes walked, whom it were profane to 
 touch and impious to judge by our standards and tests. 
 
310 EUKOPEAN LITBRATUEE — EOMAKTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 was wholly alien to the new criticism. If, in the pro- 
 cess of making closer acquaintance, some awkward 
 difficulties were disclosed; if much that had been 
 reckoned certain was proved dubious, — that was not 
 the inquirer's fault. His search was simply for fact, 
 and he would follow the search whithersoever it led. 
 A tendency to iconoclasm, a delight in smashing for 
 the sake of the blow, instead of for the sake of the 
 clearing thereby effected, not unnaturally accompanied 
 this zeal for truth. Eeformers are generally men with 
 a bias. The hard work of pioneering is done by men 
 whose thews and sinews rejoice to be exercised. We 
 who come after, and who delight in the wider prospect 
 opened out by their toil, should be ungrateful if we 
 disparaged the sturdy boldness which was ready to 
 encounter any obstacle. 
 
 After Niebuhr came Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann 
 (1785-1860), professor at Gottingen, Jena, and Bonn, 
 Successors to who did good work at the QuellenJcunde of 
 NUbuhr. German History (1830), and by a History 
 of Denmark (1840-43). He was a staunch Liberal, and 
 played a prominent part in 1848, though far from 
 an incendiary. Johann August Wilhelm Neander 
 (1789-1850), more conservative in sympathies, shared 
 the contemporary impulse to fresh and vivid treatment 
 of history. A converted Jew, he devoted himself to 
 ecclesiastical study, his great History of Christianity 
 coming out from 1825 to 1852. Leopold von Eanke 
 (1795-1886) may be called the inaugurator of our 
 modern school of history, and through his long life 
 produced a series of important works, especially deal- 
 
THE EOMANTiC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 31 1 
 
 ing with the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 
 which he made his " period." Berlin secured him as 
 professor of history in 1825, and retained him for the 
 rest of his life. His Popas came out in 1834-37, and 
 were translated into English by Sarah Austin, wife of 
 the great jurisconsult, since when they have been a 
 textbook in all our schools. Among his other works, 
 which in collected form number fifty-four volumes, 
 may be specially named Crerman Eeformation History 
 (6 vols., 1839-62), French (Q vols., 1852-61), zjiA English 
 (9 vols., 1859-67). His later writings include several 
 biographical studies, and a World-History (1881-88). 
 Johann Martin Lappenberg (1794-1865), City Librarian 
 at Hamburg, besides much work on local antiquities, 
 wrote a painstaking History of England (1834-37 ; 
 English translation, 1845 seq.), subsequently continued 
 by a younger student of the subject, Eeinhold Pauli 
 (1823-82). 
 
 Cognate to history was the important work of Paul 
 Johann Anselm von Feuerbach (1775-1833), father of 
 a notorious writer on theology. The elder 
 Feuerbach was a jurist of high rank, who 
 applied the new ideas to his chosen science, and 
 partly anticipated the labours of our Austin. His 
 writings are too technical to require citation here, but 
 they illustrate the versatility of the new departure, 
 the widespread ramification of its informing influence. 
 This is still more strikingly exemplified in Friedrich 
 Karl von Savigny (1779-1861), German by birth and 
 education. Professor at Berlin from 1810 to 1842, 
 
312 EUEOPEAN LITBKATUKB — EOM ANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 whose early writings on the Law of Possession (1803), 
 and later works on Boman Law (1815-31 and 1840- 
 49), gave him European reputation. Savigny was a 
 leader of the "historical school" of jurists, and was 
 aided in his researches by his wife, a sister of the 
 poet Brentano, and by his pupU Jakob Grimm. His 
 principal opponent was Anton Friedrich Justus 
 Thibaut (1772-1840), professor of Civil Law at Jena 
 and Heidelberg. 
 
 But the new departure was still more remarkable 
 in philosophy, philosophical science, and theology. 
 pmosofTiy: ^0 o^e wiU expect here a criticism of 
 soieiiing. German metaphysic. But we may at least 
 remember how to the dominant sensationist philo- 
 sophy of his time, carried to logical issue by the 
 scepticism of Hume, Kant sought to oppose the 
 impregnable barrier of an idealistic conception of the 
 universe, which should substitute everlasting relations 
 of thought for evanescent impressions of sense ; and 
 how richte developed this into universal pantheism, 
 his ego being, a synthesis of self with the eternal that 
 surrounds it. To these succeeded Eriedrich Wilhelm 
 Joseph Schelling (1765-1854), whose long life ex- 
 tended through our whole period. In actual achieve- 
 ment Schelling added little to Fichte. He was less 
 originator than expositor ; poet more than philosopher, 
 indeed, and as such all the more interesting to us. 
 He did not seek to found a school, sworn to a par- 
 ticular set of ideas ; but rather to instil a spirit, 
 which might work in each disciple to different results. 
 
THE KOMANTIO TEIUMPH IN GERMANY. 313 
 
 And that spirit was a species of poetical intuition. 
 His greatest works, the Philosophy of Nature (1797), 
 Transcendental Philosophy (1800), and Philosophy of 
 Identity (1803), had been before the public for some 
 time. They sought to explain the Fichtean ego in 
 terms of general thought rather than of mere reason- 
 ing, identifying it with that process by which the 
 world -soul becomes conscious of itself. Schelling, 
 airily says Heine, is simply Spinosa. No doubt in a 
 sense all modern philosophy is developed Spinosa. 
 But Schelling is Spinosa diluted into mysticism, and 
 refined to ultra-tenuity by imaginative rhetoric. In 
 later days Schelling, as Fichte to some extent, con- 
 siderably modified his teaching. He took up with 
 Catholic presuppositions, and was roundly accused of 
 betraying philosophy into the hands of clericalism. 
 Those who cannot credit this must yet admit that 
 his bolt was already shot, and that his later work 
 has little of the earlier's rich sentiment and plastic 
 force. 
 
 Schelling has been called the philosopher par ex- 
 cellence of the Eomantic School. If this refers 
 merely to his personal intimacy with many 
 
 His attitude. . . , , , „ . . ,, 
 
 01 its leaders, the tact is unquestionable. 
 But the phrase evidently points further, and indicates 
 a relation of thought as well as of personal sympathy. 
 Nor is the criticism unjust. There is much in his 
 attitude, even that of the youthful Schelling, which 
 suggests the fancif ulness and warm-heartedness of the 
 true Eomantic. We are far from the calm analysis, 
 the passionless meditation, marking the ideal philo- 
 
314 EUROPEAN LITEEATUKB— KOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 sopher. Thought glows and burns ; metaphysic 
 assumes the garb and bearing of poetry. In 
 "nature" Schelling sees not merely stuff for thought, 
 but the radiance of a divine manifestation. The poet 
 studies it with rapture, while the thinker apprehends 
 its deeper message and meaning. Schelling's scheme 
 of thought had much influence in England, where it 
 was popularised mainly by Coleridge, to some extent 
 also by De Quincey and Carlyle. In Germany its fate 
 was different. Even before the volte -face of its 
 author alienated sympathy and excited criticism, it 
 had suffered premature extinction through the rise of 
 a greater luminary. Between Fichte before him and 
 Hegel after, Schelling's philosophy could hardly be 
 more than a temporary resting-place, a pause and 
 breathing -ground of thought. But during its brief 
 day it was influential, and realised something like 
 what we read about the impulse and authority exerted 
 by Greek sages of olden time. 
 
 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was 
 but five years younger than Schelling, and speedily 
 outstripped him in popularity. Both men 
 were teachers almost pure and simple ; their 
 lives call for no record apart from their work. To- 
 gether, in Jena, they edited the Critical Journal of 
 Philosophy (1802); after that their paths and ideas 
 diverged. The University of Jena was closed by 
 Napoleon in. 1807 ; Hegel went to Nuremberg, return- 
 ing later to Heidelberg and Berlin, while Schelling 
 was stationed at Munich and Erlangen, and came to 
 Berlin only when Hegel was already ten years dead. 
 
THE EOMANTIC TKIUMPH IN GERMANY. 315 
 
 At the opening of our period, Hegel had published one 
 important book, Phaenomenology of Spirit (1807). The 
 first volume of his Logik appeared in 1812, and for 
 close on twenty years folbwing he was the acknow- 
 ledged chief of German philosophy, his various 
 lectures being published in successive volumes at 
 short intervals, while his collected works only began 
 to be issued after his death, and it took a dozen years 
 before the tale of eighteen volumes was completed 
 by the reverent care of his disciples. 
 
 Hegel's contribution to German, or rather to 
 universal, philosophy was of course one of enormous 
 and far - reaching importance. We have 
 however here to consider, not the world- 
 renowned reasoner, but the master of contemporary 
 thought, the creator of a school, the dictator and 
 irresistible overlord of young Germany's speculation. 
 It is that dark and mysterious Hegel who fascinated 
 Heine's youthful mind, who in his supreme calm 
 seemed to him the greatest philosopher since Leibniz, 
 but whose sepulchral tones and sardonic, tortuous 
 sayings terrified while they attracted, as the serpent 
 fascinates a bird. It is the Hegel of startlingly vulgar 
 utterances, who declared the stars were but a leprosy 
 of heaven, and when his pupil besought him to say 
 if there were not there a place of reward for the 
 righteous, growled out, " What ! you want a trinkgeld 
 for having been dutiful to your mother and not having 
 poisoned your brother." No doubt much of this is 
 " only Heine's fun," as when he assures us that Hegel 
 made him believe himself a god, and he did his best to 
 
316 EUKOPEAN LITEEATUKE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 live up to his privileges. But there is truth under- 
 lying the satire. The blunt directness of Hegel's style 
 is often in curious contrast with his reputation for 
 unintelligibility. From him come most of those naive 
 metaphors which intersperse our modern meta- 
 physicians' discourses on the absolute. His emphatic 
 prose snuffs out the candle of Schelling's poetical 
 mysticism. The light of common day rests on his 
 pages. He is practical even to coarseness, and by no 
 means taught his pupils to dream. The philosopher, 
 with him, must go down into the market-place, and 
 serve his fellow-men with manful exertion. And yet, 
 all the time, the completeness of his intellectual 
 system seems to leave no loophole for escape. Every 
 activity of thought is accounted for ; the place of each 
 is settled, its function prescribed. In practical life, 
 this teacher is the shrewdest of business men and 
 politicians ; while in intellectual he is the Ehada- 
 manthus of a final appeal-court, brooking no evasion, 
 and irrevocably determining the fate of whatever 
 comes before his ken. 
 
 " I never understood Hegel," says Heine somewhere. 
 Probably many of his pupils would have confessed the 
 
 infiuenmof samc, given sufficient brains and honesty. 
 
 souoi. u Qjjjy Qj^g ^^^ jjg^g understood me," he is 
 
 reported to have himself said — then adding, " and he 
 does not." But, whether they understood him or not,, 
 he carried his students off their feet. The intoxication 
 of that complete, all-embracing system was as fire in 
 their veins. The secret of the universe was being 
 unfolded as he lectured. Here, beyond doubt, was the- 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GEEMANY. 317 
 
 key of all knowledge. Idolising devotion, arrogant 
 contempt of all other systems, were the natural 
 corollaries. Those who have felt the spell of a great 
 teacher will be slow to blame the fervour of such 
 loyalty. Wholehearted belief is a noble thing, though 
 its results may not always be noble. Some results 
 here were grotesque, some painful, many to be^ depre- 
 cated. Hegelianism was a force indeed, and threatened 
 to become a persecuting orthodoxy. All outside the 
 charmed circle were aliens. Thoughts hardened into 
 shibboleths, and the identity of being and not-being 
 became a spell to conjure with against gainsayers of 
 every kind. The last word had been spoken; it 
 remained only to apply the master-key to each ward 
 in the complicated lock. Young Germany had got a 
 faith, so far as faith implied submission to and recep- 
 tion of the unknown. In every branch of thought, in 
 every department of literature, the new doctrine 
 spread. For the system of Hegel was nothing if not 
 universal. It was regnant in the trivial as much as in 
 the vital. Extremes met in the confessor, as in his 
 creed; plain commonsense and metaphysical acumen 
 were but two sides of the same thing, and the method 
 to be used in great matters and small was one and the 
 same. There were differences of opinion, of course, as 
 to particular conclusions to be drawn ; a right wing and 
 a left wing appeared in the school, a party of con- 
 servatism and a party of revolution. But both were 
 agreed as to initial principles, and differed only in 
 the manner of carrying them out. 
 
 The progress of philosophy had apparently reached 
 
318 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 its term. One eccentric development, a parody rather 
 Rig%t(md than a contravention of Hegelianism, will 
 uft wings, i^g mentioned later in this chapter. But, 
 with that exception, finality seemed to have been 
 reached. Speculation since then has vainly tried to 
 get beyond the Hegelian synthesis, save where it has 
 sought to " hark back to Kant " in the hope of 
 making a fresh departure. Farther advance in the 
 original direction is found impossible. At the time, 
 at any rate, this seemed beyond question. No great 
 philosopher came to don Hegel's mantle. Contem- 
 porary writers speak of Solger ; but, like Emerson of 
 Southey, one is tempted to ask, who is Solger ? Of 
 Hegel's own immediate pupils, two only need be 
 named. Eduard Gans (1798-1839), a close friend of 
 Heine's, perhaps the ablest of Hegel's direct followers, 
 paralleled Heine's career as to both change of religion 
 and adoption of French tastes; and was especially 
 prominent in opposing the " historical school " as 
 represented by writers like Savigny. Arnold Euge 
 (1802-80), an enthusiastic liberal and patriot, for some 
 time professor at Halle, represented the extreme left 
 of Hegelianism, and so early as 1821 drew on him- 
 self censure and imprisonment. From then till 1850 
 he was a prominent leader of the reforming party, 
 and in the latter year had to fly to England, 
 where he spent the remainder of his days. Neither 
 of these men left philosophical writings of original 
 importance, and as our concern is not with the 
 Hegelian school but only with the effect of Hegelian- 
 ism on literature, we need not follow further the for- 
 
THE EOMANTIC TKIUMPH IN GEEMANY. 319 
 
 tunes of pure philosophy, but turn rather to its chief 
 applications. 
 
 Natural science, philosophically studied, had several 
 distinguished votaries. Goethe himself takes high 
 place in virtue of his botanical researches, 
 his theory of colours, and at least one 
 actual discovery in anatomy. When Schiller remarked 
 of his view concerning the typical plant-form which 
 undergoes metamorphosis, that it was "not an ob- 
 servation but an idea," the speech struck Goethe as 
 showing a standpoint irreconcilably different from his 
 own; and the remark was certainly strange from a 
 Kantian. Abraham Gottlob "Werner (1750-1817), the 
 veteran geologist, survived into the beginning of our 
 epoch. But the most prominent names connected 
 with pure science were those of the brothers Hum- 
 boldt. The elder, Karl Wilhelm (1767-1835), already 
 mentioned as a critic, and a prodigy of all -accom- 
 plished intellect, rather interested himself in than 
 worked at natural science. A politician of the first 
 rank, for some years Prussian Minister at Eome, and 
 passionately devoted to literary and philological studies, 
 he befriended and encouraged both art and science to 
 his full power, and his successive homes were centres 
 of scientific discussion and thought and energy. His 
 brother, Friedrich Heinrich Alexander, created Baron 
 von Humboldt (1769-1859), who devoted years to 
 distant travel, wrote and lectured while at home, 
 publishing full accounts of his explorations, and after 
 1830 held high political oJBfiees, first abroad and 
 latterly in Berlin. His writings embraced scientific 
 
320 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 discussion of the most varied kind, and were finally 
 summed up in the great work of his old age, Kosmos 
 (1845-58), an encyclopaedic epitome of the studies of 
 his life. In a more special field, Lorenz Oken (1779- 
 1851), medical professor at Jena and Munich, im- 
 ported into physiological teaching ideas drawn from 
 his companionship with Schelling and Hegel, and with 
 the other illustrious men who for a time made Jena a 
 veritable centre of intellectual brilliance. Johann 
 Karl Priedrich Gauss (1777-1855), mathematician and 
 astronomer, resident at Gottingen, wrote learnedly 
 on such questions as sidereal motion, terrestrial 
 magnetism, and the transmission of light through 
 lenses, while he is credited with inventing a helio- 
 graph and other scientific instruments. Johann 
 Andreas Buchner (1783-1852), physician and chemist, 
 author of many important medical books, edited 
 during most of his life the Mepertorium der Pharmacie. 
 By such men the new thought was applied to science ; 
 others carried it to the sphere of religion. 
 
 Theology, in its relation to Eomanticism, is almost 
 summed 'up for us in one name. The historical 
 Theology: method of Nicbuhr, the philosophical 
 scwriermocfer-. mgthod of Schelliug, may be said to unite 
 in -the teaching of Schleiermacher. It is true that 
 Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752-1827) still lived and 
 wrote ; but the younger man carried out what Eich- 
 horn only began. Priedrich Ernst Daniel Schleier- 
 macher (1768-1834) was brought up as an evangelical, 
 among the Moravian brethren; but first at Halle, 
 afterwards at Berlin (where he became ultimately a 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GEEMANY. J21 
 
 theological professor), he widened the borders of his 
 creed and allied himself with the innovating party. 
 In conjunction with Friedrich Schlegel he translated 
 the philosophical works of Plato, and had already before 
 our period opens published many striking theological 
 treatises. His chief book, however. Die Ghristliche 
 Glaube (1821-22), had still to come. He was a dis- 
 tinguished preacher and church leader, but influenced 
 a yet wider audience by his writings. Schelling 
 and Schleiermacher together revolutionised the philo- 
 sophical theology of Germany, and the movement they 
 started is mighty to tliis day. 
 
 With its technical side we have no concern. As a 
 living literary force its influence was powerful. In- 
 stead of the dusty syllogisms and arid 
 
 His teaching. . i i • i i 
 
 abstractions of scholastic theology, men 
 were given the idea of a faith broad as humanity, 
 fresh as the moiuing sunshine, and drawing inspira- 
 tion less from argument than from experience and 
 intuition. Subjective relations replaced ratiocinative 
 processes ; freedom of belief counted for more than 
 orthodoxy. The miraculous element in Christianity 
 was relegated to the background, and feeling rather 
 than knowing made the essence of religion. It is 
 easy to see how this fitted in with the Semantic Ee- 
 vival in secular letters. Schleiermacher has been 
 called the high-priest of Eomanticism, and his tolerant 
 criticism of Schlegel's Lvicinde shows how far sym- 
 pathy with that view carried him. As a solvent force 
 his work was lasting, and if his constructive work did 
 not equal his destructive, want of will was not the 
 
 X 
 
322 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 cause. Like many others of Lis persuasion, however, 
 -he was better at throwing down than building up, if 
 it is allowable to judge by results. Time has not 
 undone the effect of his critical teaching, but it has 
 transformed his positive conceptions till little of the 
 old is left. And the same result was apparent in the 
 persons of his hearers and readers. They accepted 
 the disintegrating influence, but rarely and for a brief 
 interval followed his lead in matters of affirmation. 
 The net result of Schleiermacher's teaching, on the 
 whole, seems but to have been a strengthening of the 
 many revolutionary though well-meaning activities 
 which made for change and confusion in the imme- 
 diate future, whatever their ultimate effect might be, 
 and whatever share of truth they possessed at their 
 inception. 
 
 The conspicuously literary action of this form of 
 
 thought did not last very long. With Ferdinand 
 
 Christian Baur (1792-1860) it becomes 
 
 His school. 
 
 almost entirely polemical. Julius Miiller 
 (1801-78), on the contrary, is rather devotional than 
 intellectual. But the development and infinite rami- 
 fications of German theology are beside our purpose. 
 Even the interesting Catholic reaction, headed by such 
 men as the poetical Counts of Stolberg (1748-1821 and 
 1750-1819), and the philosophic writer Tranz Joseph 
 Molitor (1779-1860 ; Philosophic der Geschichte, 1827- 
 53), which was so potent among literary workers, 
 must not further detain us. It is enough to realise 
 that, during the earlier years of our period, theology 
 of the school of Schleiermacher aided the other great 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 323 
 
 influences above sketched in producing a literary 
 development which ran its course triumphantly to a 
 certain point, but which — as we are now to see — 
 received a severe check just when its difficulties 
 seemed overcome, and its future bade fair still to be 
 prosperous. 
 
 The multiform and powerful impulses which acted 
 
 on German thought during the first and second decades 
 
 of our Century created a complex movement 
 
 General results. , _ . 
 
 in pure literature — a movement partly of 
 reaction, partly of excited aspiration. The spirit 
 embodied in this movement was essentially that of 
 " Young Germany." Young men in most ages expect 
 to make progress by transcending the ideals they find 
 dominant. At the juncture to which attention must 
 now be recalled such an expectation had more than 
 usual probability. How far it was fulfilled, in the 
 persons of writers born at or shortly after the beginning 
 of the Century, we are about to see. That it should 
 result in some deviation from, some hostile criticism of, 
 the accepted Romantic ideal, some substitution either 
 of practical earnestness or pessimistic scepticism, 
 might almost have been predicted in advance. 
 
 The writers who called themselves "Young Ger- 
 many" were brought up on Eomanticism. Heine 
 Young himself, their supposed leader, claimed 
 Germany, emphatically to be a Eomantic. An " un- 
 frocked Eomantic," some one had styled him ; but 
 while admitting the cleverness of the epithet, he pro- 
 tested that the second word was no less true than the 
 
324 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 first. As Cervantes, a lover of chivalry, wounded it 
 to death ; so Heine (himself a great admirer of Don 
 Quixote) loved the romance he satirised. A generation 
 sooner, the Young German school would probably have 
 been the keenest of anti-Classicists ; but the natural 
 swing of the pendulum impelled thena against weak 
 points on the other side. They were heirs of a revolu- 
 tion, therefore not themselves revolutionaries. A 
 literary Eevolution had come and gone, with Kant 
 (the saying went) for its Eobespierre, Fichte for its 
 Napoleon, while Schelling represented the Eoyalist 
 reaction. The analogy is not very striking, and leaves 
 no place for the far more important work of Hegel. 
 A revolution truly there had been. Young Germany 
 accepted it, and asked, what next ? They did not fall 
 back on Goethe, whom they considered beautiful but 
 sterile, coldly perfect in form, without the fructifying 
 warmth of Schiller. Goethe's aristocratic hauteur, his 
 insistence on art, his passion for objectivity, repelled 
 them; they were Eomantics in wanting something 
 more personal, democratic, significant. But they did 
 not find this something in popular " Eomance." That 
 aspired indeed to give the inner meaning of form ; but 
 they were sceptical of both form and meaning. So, 
 though patriots, they were zealously cosmopolitan ; free 
 from the old hatred of France, and inclined to glorify 
 the Napoleonic legend. Heine's earliest known poem, 
 the famous "Two Grenadiers," said to have been 
 written at the age of sixteen, has Napoleon for its 
 hero. Shakespeare and Scott, Tasso and Cervantes, 
 influenced them as much as did their own poets. But 
 
THE KOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 325 
 
 the best way to understand the purport of their 
 reaction is to study the work of Heine himself, by far 
 the most remarkable of these young writers, indeed 
 the only one who can claim more than merely local 
 reputation. 
 
 Heinrich Heine (1799-1856) was born and spent his 
 school-days at Dusseldorf. His family were Jews, but 
 the Napoleonic occupation of Germany sent 
 him to school m a Franciscan convent, 
 which had been turned, practically into a French lyc4e. 
 One of the fathers wished to make him a priest, and in 
 later years he speculates amusingly on how he might 
 have become first a Eoman abbd, then cardinal, finally 
 Pope ! Other influences made him half French, not- 
 ably that of the drummer Le Grand, with his martial 
 enthusiasm and tales of the Emperor. Actually, how- 
 ever, the only time he donned military uniform was 
 as a volunteer in the uprising against Napoleon. In- 
 tended for commerce, he entered a bank at Frankfort, 
 then for three years did clerk's work at Hamburg, 
 home of his rich and powerful uncle Solomon. Work 
 and place alike proved distasteful, and eventually he 
 was allowed to study for the bar, with a view to quali- 
 fying for a government post. Seven years of student 
 life (1817-24) were spent in Bonn, Gottingen, and 
 Berlin, and were rewarded by a degree in jurispru- 
 dence; after which, to disarm prejudice, he accepted 
 Christianity, being baptised in 1825. But the sacrifice 
 proved fruitless ; already his writings had given offence, 
 and the appointment he sought went to another. In- 
 debted for subsistence to his uncle's grudging kindness, 
 
326 EUROPEAN LITEKATUKE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 during the next five years Heine wrote and wandered, 
 visiting England in 1827 and Italy in 1828, but 
 haunted by increasing ill-health, to relieve which he 
 frequently tried North - Sea watering - places. At 
 Heligoland, in 1830, news of the "Eevolution of July" 
 fired his spirit, and next Spring he migrated to Paris, 
 which for twenty-five more years he made his home. 
 His pen was seldom idle thenceforward. " A radical 
 in England, a carbonaro in Italy," he wrote eagerly on 
 political matters, and more than coquetted with Saint- 
 Simonianism. His books were forbidden to be sold in 
 Germany, he himself forbidden to cross the frontier. 
 Two visits to Hamburg were made by stealth, under 
 danger of arrest. Meantime, during many years, para- 
 lytic disease made constant progress, till at length he 
 lay a cripple, powerless to move himself, blind except 
 when he raised one eyelid by a finger, and often suffer- 
 ing acutest agony. Yet necessity and genius still 
 urged him to write, and from that " mattress-grave," 
 during a period of eight years (1848-56), came forth 
 exquisite work both in prose and verse. At length 
 death released from pain and toil ; the wasted remains 
 were laid in Montmartre Cemetery, " where at length 
 there was peace." 
 
 From boyhood Heine had written verses. They 
 
 were more than mere boy's work, and in 1821 he 
 
 published his first Gedichte, and was recog- 
 
 His work. , ° 
 
 nised a poet. Other volumes followed ; in 
 1827 the completed Buck der Lieder fairly established 
 him in the first rank. Two tragedies, Ahnansor (acted 
 1824) and Batcliff, were not very remarkable, though 
 
THE EOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 327 
 
 the latter has some salient passages. But the first 
 and second volumes of Beisebilder (1826 and 1827) 
 revealed his power as a prose-writer, and were warmly 
 appreciated. The third and fourth volumes (1830 and 
 1831), dealing largely with politics and personalities, 
 offended officialdom, and drew down his sentence of 
 banishment. From that time onward, his chief note 
 is cosmopolitan radicalism, his chief aim to interpret 
 France and Germany to each other. Many of his 
 books were published both in French and German, and 
 in 1848 he superintended a French edition of his 
 works, translating his German prose books himself, 
 but enlisting for his poems the skilled aid of such 
 friends as Gerard de Nerval. Thus books like 
 AUemagne (1835) have an independent value in their 
 French form, the prefaces being especially character- 
 istic. His latest writings, Deutschland (1844), Atia 
 Troll (1847), and Bomancero (1851), were translated at 
 once into French. And, since his death, French and 
 German editors have vied in spending labour on a 
 writer who belongs to both languages. Thiers called 
 him "the wittiest Frenchman of his time." But he 
 was never naturalised, and remained German at heart. 
 
 " Deutschland, meine feme liebe, 
 Gedeak' ici deiner, wein' ich fast." 
 
 For four years, he said sadly in 1835, he had not 
 heard a German nightingale. Except, he might have 
 added, the bird within, which sang in Paris as in 
 London. "German poet" was the title. of which he 
 was proudest, for he held that in two regions, phil- 
 
328 EUEOPEAlsr LITEKATUKE — ROMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 osophy and lyric poetry, Germans were supreme. 
 The countrymen of Shakespeare must take exception 
 to the second claim ; but they hail in Heine a lyrist of 
 very high order, though his method and individuality 
 are singularly and perilously his own. 
 
 The long tragedy of Heine's later days throws a 
 shadow over his whole Hfe. Already, in young man- 
 Effeats of ill ^^^^y ^c scc traccs of disease. His health 
 TiMith. vyas never good, and bodily causes may 
 
 have had much to do with his reckless satire. Yet he 
 made warm friends, from his student days in Germany 
 till the time when those who loved him could scarcely 
 bear the sight of his wasted form. One such, a 
 countrywoman of our own, has left a touching account 
 of her last interview with the poet. Lady Duff-Gor- 
 don's narrative was lately made by a writer of power- 
 ful imagination the basis of a brilliant picture, which 
 when it appeared in a magazine now defunct was 
 treated by most reviewers as a piece of pure fantasy, 
 few if any seeming to recognise its nucleus of fact. To 
 that picture, now republished in "Dreamers of the 
 Ghetto" (1898), one is tempted to refer as vividly 
 reproducing Heine's personality, for the most part in 
 his own words. And the reference may be extended 
 to the Autobiographie of Prof. Karpeles (1888), mainly 
 extracted from Heine's writings; and to the family 
 recollections compiled by his nephew (Seine's Familien- 
 Leben, Baron von Embden, 1892) and his grand-niece 
 (Becordi della vita, Principessa della Eocca, 1880). 
 But the task, remains of estimating Heine's resultant 
 force and actual place in the history of his time ; and 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GBBMANY. 329 
 
 on this restricted and defined subject some words must 
 now be said. 
 
 Heine was first and foremost a lyrist. Singing came 
 
 naturally to him, and art was used to enhance nature. 
 
 The free metrification of the Zieder is not 
 
 Eis method. 
 
 due to carelessness. In this country, the 
 neo-Eomantics tended to artistic elaboration ; Heine, 
 occupying a similar position, aims at a studious 
 negligence. In the Nord-See poems he experiments 
 with unrhymed lines, and is ever somewhat lax in 
 structure. His favourite metre is the simple song- 
 verse, written with an easy and even rough liberty. 
 That liberty is the perfection of self-concealing art. 
 His lines impress by what they say, rather than by 
 how they say it, and suggest the careless growth of 
 nature. But the barbed point is what above all bites ; 
 mixture of romance and satire constitutes Heine's 
 method. EecHess and ironical, as ready to mock him- 
 self as others, he rarely lets you off without a cut of 
 the whip, and loves with a sudden turn to leave you 
 victim of his raillery. Nothing is sacred to him, no 
 subject too tender or awful for jesting ; in a moment 
 his tricksy muse has donned cap and bells, and runs 
 away laughing at your discomfiture. 
 
 Eeckless wit was the basis of Heine's character, 
 combined with poet-grace and love of ideal beauty 
 
 even when he flouted it. We may accept 
 
 Mouts and jeers. . , , , i n i ■ i 
 
 his own view that much or his early 
 scof&ng was simple gam/merie; he flung stones at 
 Heaven as a boy throws them at a policeman. But 
 it was the same everywhere. Varnhagen von Ense, 
 
330 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — KOMANTIO TEIUMPH. 
 
 his friend and patron, was amused by Heine's offering 
 to "fustigate'' any one for him in the Beisebilder ; he 
 was ready to trounce for the sheer joy of trouncing. 
 So, when he wrote about Borne, love of mischief 
 impelled him to drag in matters which should have 
 been left in abeyance, and reference to which involved 
 him in a duel. That duel, by the bye, had important 
 consequences. In view of it he regularised an illicit 
 connection, and saddled himself with a wife who 
 could not speak German, could not appeal to his 
 higher nature, but whom he tenderly loved, and who 
 was admirably devoted to him through his years of 
 final illness. Lady Duff-G-ordon, again, is positive 
 that his change of religious sentiment was deep and 
 genuine. This recalls his own saying, " the thinkers 
 die — or recant," and it seems fairer to judge him by 
 what he was in his heyday than when the damps of 
 death obscured his spirit. But it may be doubted if 
 the change was really so great. The famous passage 
 about the " Aristophanes of Heaven " might have been 
 written at any time of his life. Heine was never 
 fundamentally irreligious. The instinct of Israel was 
 too strong in him, and even the " battle-god " of his 
 fathers powerfully attracted his fancy. He might 
 poke fun at this, as at every other conception in 
 heaven or earth ; but deep down in his nature there 
 was a fund of inherited reverence, and all through 
 life he claimed to be a soldier of the ideal, though a 
 soldier who would wear no uniform, and obey no 
 word of command but his own. 
 
 Not, of course, that he was devout in any ordinary 
 
THE EOMANTIC TEIUMPH IN GERMANY. 331 
 
 sense. His attachment to Judaism was a matter of 
 Faith in til, poetry and sentiment. Nothing can be 
 ideal. conceived more cold - blooded than his 
 
 adoption of Christianity for a mess of pottage, jesting 
 at the same time about the desirability of being a 
 Japanese, because they abhorred the sign of the cross. 
 But this was a mere piece of outward conformity, to 
 be compared with our habit of compelling unbelievers 
 to take religious oaths. His friends Gans, Borne, 
 Madame von Ense, had done the same, and would 
 doubtless have ridiculed any scruples. He never 
 concealed his real views, and adopted Lutheranism 
 rather than Eoman Catholicism because of its greater 
 freedom and militant character. All this had nothing 
 to do with his real faith. That seems to have con- 
 sisted in devotion to idealism and belief in the brother- 
 hood of man, coupled with a vague sense of some 
 superior Power, at whom it was thrilling to cast jibes, 
 but whom he nevertheless reverenced somewhat after 
 the fashion of Caliban. 
 
 In this Heine much resembles Byron, though in 
 few other respects. Heine neither posed nor affected 
 mystery. He lived like a bourgeois ; even 
 in youth neither smoked nor drank beer, 
 while in Paris his menage was of the simplest. With 
 his girlish face, grey-blue eyes, and winning smile, he 
 might pass for a dilettante dreamer ; but the scabbard 
 hid a sword of steel. Matthew Arnold's somewhat 
 frigid conceit of Heine being the smile which played 
 on the lips of the World-spirit, beholding the absurdi- 
 ties of men, is truer philosophically than poetically ; 
 
332 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 but it is only part of the truth. Heine not only 
 smiled — ^he fought. Through good or evil, love or 
 hatred, health or sickness, his sword was ever ready. 
 He always " loved truth and detested falsehood," as 
 he says himself ; the latter especially with his whole 
 power. In verse and prose of brilliant piquancy he 
 fought for what seemed to him right. His prose is 
 almost more wonderful than his poetry. Prom Jean 
 Paul, from Cervantes, from English writers whom he 
 admired, while he hated their country, he doubtless 
 borrowed hints. But the result is his own. Except 
 for a trick of discursiveness, which grew on him 
 latterly, but which it is hard to wish away, his prose 
 style is perfect of its kind. It is adequate to all 
 subjects, from card - playing to metaphysics. How 
 admirable, for instance, his account of Kant satisfac- 
 torily disproving the existence of Deity, then seeing 
 his servant Lampe in tears, bethinking himself that 
 Lampe must have a God, so invoking the "practical 
 reason" of Lampe to supplement the "speculative 
 reason " of his master. It is excellent fooling ; it is 
 also excellent philosophical criticism, tersely and tell- 
 ingly put. Heine may not be a philosopher, but he 
 can hit off the weak points of a philosopher to perfec- 
 tion. On every subject, underlying his raillery, there 
 is sound sense and useful criticism, put with such 
 neatness as doubles its effect, and clothed in sentences 
 which carry one along without wish or power to resist. 
 Heine is the most modern of writers. The lapse of 
 two generations has not made him old-fashioned. 
 Trappings of circumstance may change, but the inform- 
 
THE EOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 333 
 
 ing spirit is fresh as ever. This, indeed, seems to sum 
 up both his work and his influence — that 
 
 Modsn spirit. . . -, r i ■, ■ 
 
 he brought m the modern way or looking 
 at things. The spirit which asks the why of every 
 wherefore ; which analyses its own enthusiasm, and is 
 ready to debate any possible proposition; this spirit 
 began with Heine. Others had shown it partially ; in 
 him first it was fully incarnated. This does not 
 explain the charm of his writing, why his verse at 
 least is so untranslatable. A stanza here and there 
 may be converted, by a happy turn of accident, but in 
 any prolonged attempt failure is certain. That, no 
 doubt, results from the simplicity and apparent ease 
 of his verse, which need a master of equal power to 
 reproduce them in another language. But the thesis 
 advanced above does seem to indicate why his work 
 defined the end of a school. Pure romantic impulses 
 could not stand against modern questioning. Once 
 admit self-analysis, and the charm is broken. " The 
 Eose and the Eing " spells finis to Eomance. Heine 
 was a Thackeray of far greater power and more mor- 
 dant wit, and after him Uhland became impossible. 
 Somewhat as a too good parody may kill our enjoy- 
 ment of a fine passage, so Heine's satire killed Eomance 
 in Germany. The first Eomantics had laid great stress 
 on irony. Their successors found what a terribly 
 potent weapon it was, when used against them. Not 
 the shams and affectations merely, but the inmost 
 reality of Eomanticism, were thrust through and 
 through by it. Poetry itself might well seem doomed ; 
 how write serious verse again on any theme which 
 
334 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Heine had transfixed with his lightning-like mockery ? 
 At any rate the old forms, the old methods, could not 
 serve longer ; a new start must be made, fresh ground 
 broken. The spear of a mortal's wit had wounded even 
 celestial forms, and driven them from the field in con- 
 fusion and terror. 
 
 Heine owned obligations to A. W. Schlegel, Hoff- 
 mann, Wilhelm Miiller. To the last-mentioned, in 
 1826, he writes acknowledging his lyrical 
 
 Unique result. ,. ,..p„ 
 
 debt, and opming that their gift of song is 
 in each case probably exhausted ! Swift and Sterne 
 were favourites of his. From Don Quixote (probably 
 in Tieck's translation) he drank largely, and Eichter 
 unquestionably gave him much of his method. Scott 
 and Byron became fashionable in Berlin about 1822 ; 
 the former Heine pronounced our second poet (taking 
 the novels into account), second only to Shakespeare. 
 Dickens he read in later days, and greatly admired. 
 From all these he may have taken hints, but the result 
 remains his own. He is neither a Byron nor a 
 Werther, neither dandy nor sentimentalist, but trans- 
 fuses all he borrows into his own exquisite irony. If 
 Jean Paul be " the unique " in one way, Heine is not 
 less tlie unique, the incomparable, in his own selected 
 field ; and he not only defied rivalry at the time, he 
 made it impossible for any one else to come after him 
 in the regions he had seized for his own. 
 
 Little has been said about individual books, because 
 it seemed more important to emphasise Heine's general 
 position. The Biich dcr Lieder can be easily sampled. 
 The Seisebilder are now accessible in Mr Leland's 
 
THE EOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 335 
 
 translation of Heine's prose works, as well as in the 
 Effect of his French version. The works of his middle- 
 work. j^gg^ gygjj g^g j)^g romautische Schule and 
 
 Philosophie und Literatur in Beutschland, can be read 
 either in French or German. His later books, Neue 
 Gedichte, Atta Troll, Bomancero, and three volumes of 
 miscellaneous prose, should be studied in view of his 
 alleged change of creed, notably the pieces entitled 
 Lazarus in Part II. of the last-named. But the point 
 of first importance for us is to recognise that with 
 Heine a new order begins ; a line is drawn below past 
 work, it is summed up and put away. Before Heine 
 we are still in the reaction against the Eighteenth 
 Century, in a time of wistful retrospect and sentiment 
 and experimenting with old ideas ; after Heine, we are 
 fairly launched into the world of to-day. 
 
 Of course this could not be so apparent at the time. 
 
 Champions of the old order long went on fighting. Of 
 
 Heine's fellow-workers — in the nature of 
 
 Fellow-writers. , . , 
 
 things he could not found a school — only 
 one or two need be named, and that without particu- 
 larising their works. Heinrich Laube (1806-84) wrote 
 poems and dramas, and was one of Heine's executors. 
 Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow (1811-78) wrote dramas and 
 novels, and had the honour of being imprisoned by the 
 coercionist Government of 1835. Michel Beer (1800- 
 33), another dramatist, is chiefly remembered by 
 Heine's review of his Struensee (1829). None of these 
 attempted lyric poetry at all seriously. The " Swabian 
 School," on the other hand, whom Heine had compared 
 
336 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 to sardines lacking salt, were faithful to lyrics. Yet 
 Wilhelm Hauff (1802-27) in his short life did more as 
 novelist than as poet, his posthumously published 
 Marchen being full of charm, while LicMenstein (1826) 
 is a novel after the manner of Scott. Eduard Morike 
 (1804-75) essayed Yolhslieder as well as prose fiction, 
 but hardly obtained more than a succ^s d'estime. The 
 Austrian School had more to show. In addition to 
 Nikolaus Lenau (1802-50), Nepomuk Vogl (1802-66), 
 Gabriel Seidl (1804-75), and Adalbert Stifter (1806-68) 
 — all singers of some repute — ^they could boast of three 
 contemporary poets of noble birth, " Friedrich Halm " 
 (1806-71), Ernst von Feuchtersleben (1806-49), and 
 "Anastasius Griin" (1806-76). The last of these, 
 whose real name was Anton Alexander Maria, Graf 
 von Auersperg, may be fairly called the most consider- 
 able lyric poet Austria has produced. He was strongly 
 liberal and pro -German, and wrote many political 
 verses, of which S'pazier-gdnge eines wiener Poeten (1831) 
 was one of the most popular. Of his longer poems, the 
 allegorical Schutt (1836) is perhaps best known. The 
 shorter were collected first in 1837. 
 
 In central Germany, the first decade of the Century 
 gave birth to few singers of note. Philipp Spitta 
 (1801-59), Georg Scheurlin (1801-72), Lud- 
 vig Bechstein (1801-60), Julius Mosen 
 (1803-67), and Eobert Eeinick (1805-52) may be dis- 
 missed with bare mention. It is not till we come to 
 Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810-76) that we reach any 
 name of European celebrity. Born in humble circum- 
 stances, the success of his first book of poems (1838) 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 337 
 
 decided his vocation for literature instead of commerce. 
 His warm espousal of democratic views led to his 
 having to leave Germany, and he settled in London, 
 returning for a short interval after 1848. Die Todten 
 an die Lehenden (1848), with (Ja ira ! (1846) and Neuere 
 Gedichte, comprise his most important verses. His 
 relations to England influenced his style, and he 
 published translations of Tennyson, Longfellow, and 
 other writers. Eeturning finally to Germany in 1868, 
 he spent the rest of his days there, but did not take 
 any prominent part in celebrating the War of 1870. 
 
 Preiligrath is rather a later scion of the patriotic 
 
 school than a new voice in poetry. And we may 
 
 scan in vain the names of writers born 
 
 other singers. , . ,, i i. i. c i.\,- 
 
 during the next twenty years tor anything 
 that can fulfil this description. Auerbach and Frey- 
 tag belong rather to prose fiction, and from Freili- 
 grath to Paul Heyse (born 1830) the record otherwise 
 is barren. Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63), poet and dram- 
 atist; Gottfried Kinkel (1815-82), art-critic and lyrist, 
 hero of a wonderful escape from the fortress of Span- 
 dau ; Friedrich Wilhelm "Weber (1813-94), translator 
 of Tennyson's Maud; Emanuel von Geibel (1815- 
 84), writer of plays and lyrics ; Adolf Friedrich, Grab 
 von Schack (1815-94), who tried most forms of verse ; 
 and the poet-theologian Karl von Gerok (1815-90); 
 are the chief earlier names on the roll-call. Georg 
 Biichner (1813-37) may be added for his Dantons 
 Tod (1835) and other plays. Most of these indeed 
 are but dubiously included in our period, and the 
 case is worse with Alfred Meissner (1822-85), in spite 
 
 Y 
 
338 EUROPEAN LITERATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 of GedicUe (1845) and an epic Ziska (1846), or Eudolf 
 von Gottschall (born 1823), who published political 
 poems as early as 1842. Even reckoning into account 
 Freytag's plays (see below), the position assumed before, 
 that after Heine's withdrawal came an interregnum 
 in the kingdom of poetry, may be held sufficiently 
 established by this recitation of names; and it is 
 unnecessary to labour the point. 
 
 In prose fiction the latter part of our period showed 
 
 hardly more result. And even here the lead followed 
 
 is not that of Eiehter or Heine, nor even 
 
 JjxtBT prose ! 
 
 Amriiachand of Goethe. Berthold Auerbach (1812-82), 
 Freytag. indeed, was a Jew, and began as a student 
 of Spinosa, his first work being an essay on Das 
 Judenthum und die neueste Litteratur (1836), followed 
 by a romance based on Spinosa's life, and an edition 
 of that thinker's works (1841). In 1836, moreover, 
 he suffered imprisonment as a student Eadical. So 
 far he trod in Heine's footsteps, but his sketches 
 of peasant life in the Black Porest {Schwarz- Wdlder 
 DorfgeschicMen, 1843) show little of Heine's spirit or 
 power ; his later long romances come altogether after 
 our period. Gustav Freytag (1816-95), again, after 
 beginning with plays of conspicuous merit (Die 
 Valentine, 1846, &c.), entered the field of novel- 
 writing only in 1855, therefore cannot be dealt with 
 here. No other youthful novelist seems to require 
 separate mention. The humorous novel, by Heine's 
 own confession, had not been naturalised in Germany. 
 Nor was progress made with a more distinctly native 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 339 
 
 product, the philosophic or semi-philosophic romance. 
 A certain heaviness, amounting almost to indigesti- 
 bility, characterises the prose fiction of the years 
 approaching 1850. Verisimilitude is attained, but 
 it is not dramatic. Against dulness the gods them- 
 selves fight in vain, and even the best German novels 
 of this period are familiar with dulness. The lesson 
 of Heine had to be thoroughly learned ; till then, 
 vitality itself was somewhat dead-alive. 
 
 A niche by himself must however be kept for 
 Heinrich Hoffmann (1809-94), physician at Frank- 
 fort, author not only of lyrics and ballads 
 {Gedwhte, 1842) and satires {Die Mondziig- 
 ler, 1844; Humoristen Studien, 1847), but of the im- 
 mortal Struwivelpeter (" Shock-headed Peter "), written 
 to amuse his own children, published in 1847, trans- 
 lated almost immediately into English, which has since 
 run through any number of editions, and given delight 
 to countless readers both here and in its own country. 
 In criticism, to the end of our period, German 
 writers retained their pre-eminence. Karl Joseph 
 Simrock (1802-76), publicist and pro- 
 fessor, combined the feeling of a poet with 
 scholarly acumen in his modernisations of ancient 
 poems, such as the Nihelungenlied (1827), MeineJce 
 Fuchs (1845), &c., &c. ; and his own Gedichte (1844) 
 would have justified our classing him among poets. 
 He also wrote many critical volumes, and translated 
 plays of Shakespeare. Georg Gottfried Gervinus (1805- 
 71), professor at Gottingen and Heidelberg, is eminent 
 for his GeschicMe der deutschen Dichtung (1835-42), 
 
340 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 and helped to found the Deutsche Zeitung (1847). To 
 us, however, his main interest centres in his important 
 Shakespeare-studies (1849-52), which have become a 
 classic on the subject, and were soon translated into 
 English. Johann Hermann Detmold (1807-56) was 
 a brilliant writer on art and politics, whose satiric 
 Bandzeichnungen (1843) and Merr Piepmeyer (1849) 
 created no small stir. And Georg Friedrich Kolb 
 (1808-84) was not only an energetic editor of the 
 Frankfurter Zeitung and other papers, but also wrote 
 a Geschichte der Menschheit mid der Kultur (1842), 
 afterwards expanded into the more ambitious Kultur- 
 geschichte of 1868-70 and later editions. 
 
 The succession of great historians was kept up 
 by Heinrich von Sybel (1817-95), a pupil of Eanke's, 
 History and profcssor mainly at Bonn, who did much 
 tiieoiogy. excellent work before 1850, though his 
 great History of the Revolutionary period (1853-58) 
 belongs to the succeeding decade. Historical phil- 
 osophy, or philosophical history, was illuminated by 
 the labours of Eduard Zeller (born 1814) and Albert 
 Schwegler (1819-57). The former, a son-in-law of 
 Baur, began as Hegelian theologian, but published 
 his greatest work, the well-known Geschichte der 
 griechischen Philosophie (1844-52), during the closing 
 years of our period. His pupil Schwegler followed 
 him both in early philandering with theology and in 
 later neglect of it for such work as his compendious 
 Geschichte der Philosophie (1848), so racily translated 
 by Dr Hutchison Stirling. Critical theology — for we 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN GERMANY. 341 
 
 may be dispensed from tracing the long later succes- 
 sion of purely technical writers on theology, nor need 
 delay even to notice such works as the important 
 Symbolik (1832) of Johannes Adam Mohler (1796- 
 1838) — showed also two prominent names, those of 
 Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-72) and David 
 Friedrich Strauss (1808-74), both keen polemists. 
 Feuerbach's extreme views soon caused a reaction, 
 and though his Wesen des Ghristenihums (1841) was 
 translated into English by George Eliot, his other 
 writings secured little assent. The Zeben Jesu (1835) 
 of Strauss, on the other hand (translated by the same), 
 provoked great excitement both at home and here. 
 He followed it up with several similar works, whose 
 best claim to remembrance will perhaps be that 
 they suggested Browning's picture of the German 
 professor in Christmas Day, and inspired the far 
 more delicate and sympathetic criticism of Ednan in 
 France. 
 
 Philosophy proper saw the rise to fame of Arthur 
 Schopenhauer (1788-1860). Though more than ten 
 FhUosopM/: years older than Heine, and though The 
 Schopenhauer. jfTorM OS Will aucL Idea (1819) was pub- 
 lished before Heine's first book, there is no evidence 
 that he was known to the latter, and it was only 
 toward the very end of our period that his writings 
 began to attract attention. For this reason not much 
 space need be given to him here. Nor can it be 
 deemed that his work, singularly able as it is in 
 execution, either has attained or is like to attain 
 
342 EUROPEAN LlTEEATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 honours reserved for what has greatly influenced the 
 thought of an age. Schopenhauer's ontological scheme 
 is a paradox, and paradoxes as well as final causes 
 are fortunately sterile. Instead of a world consti- 
 tuted by reason, as Hegel taught, this later thinker 
 saw in the universe only the working of a blind, 
 non-moral will. "The will desired to live," and it 
 lived; but no purpose is served by its living, and 
 no law governs its action. So far from working for 
 good, the drift of things is unmistakeably to evil; 
 pessimism is the reward of thinking, and death the 
 only cure of life. Such a creed deserves few con- 
 verts. Its logical issue is suicide ; a conclusion which 
 Schopenhauer himself showed no desire to draw. He 
 was not even careful to avoid bringing new sufferers 
 ■into this world of misery. Able as his whole argumen- 
 tation is, no sane man can help doubting its validity. 
 The wisest minds in all ages have believed that 
 this life of ours is not a chaos of chances; that 
 it " means intensely, and means good." It is on the 
 whole more probable that they are right than that 
 the wisdom of the ages is less than our own. Inor- 
 dinate self-trust blinded Schopenhauer to the extreme 
 doubtfulness of his main conclusion, but literary 
 power and finish may be trusted to secure' for his 
 books a permanent place among the classics of 
 metaphysic. 
 
 In Science the new ideas continued to bear fruit. 
 Johann Miiller (1801 - 58), professor at Bonn and 
 Berlin, student of Goethe and Hegel, has been called 
 
THE EOMANTIC TEIUMPH IN GERMANY. 343 
 
 the founder of modern physiology, and his Handhuch 
 Physical der Pkysiologie des Menschen (1833-40) is 
 smmce. regarded as a work of first importance. 
 Eudolf Wagner (1805-64), of Erlangen and Gottingen, 
 a zoologist and physiologist of European note, wrote 
 Hand-books of Anatomy (1834-35) and Physiology 
 (1838), followed by the great Handworterbuch der 
 Physiologic (1843-52), but his later exploits as theo- 
 logian and anthropologist fall without our survey. 
 Ernst Heinrich "Weber (1795-1878), professor at Leip- 
 zic, was an earlier worker in the same field; his 
 brother, Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804-91), a pupil 
 of Gauss, became conspicuous as one of the seven 
 Gottingen professors who suffered deprivation in 
 1837 through their adherence to the cause of re- 
 form. These brief references may suffice to show 
 that German science could show names of import 
 to literature as well as to technical research, which 
 is of course the sole justification of such names 
 being mentioned on these pages. 
 
 In the various departments of didactic literature, 
 therefore, Germany to the end of our period main- 
 tained her place of prominence among the 
 
 Conclusion. , . . . . . 
 
 nations, in works or pure imagmation it 
 was otherwise. Heine's may be considered the one 
 name of capital importance during the later twenty 
 years of our epoch ; he had no equal or rival, and he 
 left no successor. With his work the Eomantic 
 Triumph in Germany comes to an end. It had had a 
 long and delayed development ; its final success was 
 
344 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 widespread, its fall sudden and complete. To one 
 man, with his keen perception and his merciless irony, 
 this result was mainly due. German Eomanticism 
 was slain by the satire of Heine. All general state- 
 ments must be received with necessary caution; to 
 this one, as to others, exceptions can doubtless be 
 found. The atmosphere of the Fatherland is favour- 
 able to Eomance. There the Eomantic movement 
 gathered strength, there its traces long remained, and 
 probably linger to this day. The coming Century may 
 even witness a revival of what had apparently passed 
 for ever. Nothing is impossible in literature, and 
 prophecy the most futile of amusements for a literary 
 historian. But, dealing only with the past, it is safe 
 to assert that the outcome of this period, so far as 
 imaginative letters in Germany are concerned, is con- 
 tained in and bounded by the personality of Heine. 
 That elusive and enigmatic figure, with mocking smile 
 on its lip and a sword of intolerable sharpness in its 
 hand, dominates our whole view of the time, and no 
 other figure stands long beside it. "With Heine the 
 old order ceases, the new begins. We pass from the 
 vision and aspiration of earlier writers to the precision 
 and clearness of a later school. The lights and 
 shadows of romance merge in the common daylight 
 of realism. How far German writers could do good 
 work under these new conditions; whether, in par- 
 ticular, a new outburst of poetry was experienced or 
 was possible while the method of Heine still retained 
 its vogue ; are questions which only too evidently 
 lie beyond the limits of this chapter. 
 
345 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE EOMANTIC TfilUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 
 
 ITALY, INTEODUCTOBT — ERA OP HEVOLUTION — ■ FOSOOLO — MANZONI 
 ■ — "PBOMESSI SPOSi" — ROMANTICISM BEGUN — SCHOOL OP MANZONI 
 — LEOPABDI : HIS WOEK — HIS INFLUENCE — EEASONS POB DECAY OP 
 POETRY — GUEBBAZZI — GIUSTI — OTHER POETS AND OEITICS — PHILO- 
 SOPHBES — HISTORIANS — SUMMABY AND EESULTS — SPANISH LITEBA- 
 TURE — PBEDEOESSOES OP BOMANTIOISM — BOSA — EIVAS — HEBBEROS 
 AND OTHEES — THE CLIMAX : LABBA AND ESPBONOEDA — DIDACTIC 
 WRITERS — GREEK LITERATURE — SWITZERLAND — DUTCH LITERATURE 
 — LENNEP — YOUNGER WRITERS — PLEMISH LITERATURE — DENMARK 
 — DEHLENSCHLAQEB — THOBWALDSEN AND ANDEBSEN— NOBWAY — 
 SWEDEN : LING AND TEGN^E— ALMQVIST — BUNEBEBQ AND OTHEES — 
 FINLAND — RUSSIAN LITBEATUEE — KEILOPP AND OTHEES — PUSHKIN 
 — GOGOL — MICKIEWIOZ — HUNGARIAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC POETS 
 — ROMANTIC PROSE- WEITEES— BOHEMIAN LITEEATUEE — ITS GKEAT 
 REVIVAL — END OP PIRST STAGE. 
 
 The literatures of Southern Europe did not exhibit 
 the Eomantic Eevival in such decisive form as did 
 Italy— those of Great Britain, France, and Ger- 
 introductory. j^any. From Central Europe the impetus 
 began, and it had lost some of its force when it 
 reached regions remote from its source. Thus in 
 Italy,^ for example, the movement was assimilated 
 
 ^ Maffei, Storia ddla letteratwra itaZiana, 2 vols. (Florence, 1853) 
 
346 EUEOPEAN LITBKATUEE — EOMANTIC TBIUMPH. 
 
 and transformed at an early date, and during the 
 period to which our consideration is limited it took 
 the appearance rather of a second wave of revival, due 
 largely to Byronic influence. Byron's residence in 
 various parts of Italy, from 1816 to 1823, naturallx 
 gave strength to this impact of foreign ideas. His 
 romantic personality, his adoption of Italian habits of 
 life and thought, heightened the spell of his writings. 
 Over a,ll Europe Byronic influence was powerful at 
 this time ; it was especially so in Italy. A few intro- 
 ductory words will show at what stage of Italian 
 literature Byron's potency began, how far it was a 
 new element, and how far the years which we have 
 to pass in review can be called in Italy those of 
 Eomantic Triumph. 
 
 The revolution-era which began with Alfieri may be 
 said to have lasted till about 1815-20. During this 
 Era of time of transition, Italian writers were ex- 
 revoiuuon. perimcnting and innovating. The stir of 
 the French Eevolution, the ferment of Napoleonic 
 occupatiou, the crash of thrones and governments, 
 could not but be reflected in literature. Throughout 
 this time of unsettlement foreign ideas rather excited 
 than dominated Italy. She was self-absorbed, and 
 her Classical predisposition did not favour an indig- 
 enous growth of Eomanticism. Yet the translation 
 
 Mestioa, Manuale delta letteratwra Ualiana nd secolo XIX. (Florence, 
 1886) ; Etieiiue, Histoire de la litUratwre itaZienne (Paris, 1884) ; W. 
 D. Howells, Modem Italian poets (London, 1887) ; Manual of Italian 
 Literature, by Francis Henry Cliffe (London, 1896) ; History of Italian 
 Literature, by Richard Garnett (London, 1898). 
 
THE KOMANTIO TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 347 
 
 of " Ossian " (1763) by the Abb4 Cesarotti is known 
 to have influenced two writers about to be named. 
 On the whole, however, the work of the revolutionist 
 era was mainly negative. By airing new conceptions, 
 and beating down blind conservatism, it cleared the 
 field for a fresh growth ; but up to the date when our 
 period opens this new growth cannot be said to have 
 taken definite shape. 
 
 Vincenzo Monte (died 1826) and Ippolito Pinde- 
 monte (died 1828), junior to Alfieri by but a few 
 years, carried on what he began. They 
 were followed on more or less similar 
 lines by Carlo Botta (1766-1837) and Pietro CoUetta 
 (1775-1831), both poets as well as writers of serious 
 prose ; while Albert Nota (1775-1847) belongs rather 
 to the school of Goldoni, though among his forty-odd 
 comedies two or three were founded on history. A 
 more outstanding figure is that of Ugo Foscolo (1777- 
 1827), intermediate in date between Alfieri and Man- 
 zoni. Greek by birth though Italian by adoption, soldier 
 in youth and professor in middle life, Poscolo was more 
 pagan than Catholic in ideas, but laid before antique 
 shrines the homage of modern thought. His very 
 Classicism has something romantic at heart. In 
 ethics as in aesthetics, he would have men emancipate 
 and self-centred. His early Jacopo Ortis (1799 ; en- 
 larged later) was to Italian literature something of 
 what Werther was to German, producing the same 
 unsettlement of conduct as of imagination, and equally 
 reflecting the fever of new ideas. His Sepolchri (1807), 
 on the other hand, sounded a trumpet-call to Italian 
 
S48 EUEOMAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 patriotism. Exiled after 1816, he spent the last ten 
 years of his life in England, doing much to make his 
 national literature known in the land of his enforced 
 sojourn. 
 
 These writers may be held to have paved the way 
 for Eomanticism ; its chief inaugurator was Alessandro 
 Francesco Tommaso Manzoni (1785-1873). 
 ™^°"*' Milanese by birth, and come of a literary 
 race, the young Manzoni spent two years (1805-7) 
 at Auteuil, companion of Fauriel (ante, p. 203) and 
 other French " ideologue " thinkers, and shared their 
 beliefs and their scepticism. Eeturning to Italy, he 
 married and lived for ten years quietly on his country 
 estate, reconciled to the Church, and occupying his 
 leisure mainly with religious writing. His lyrical 
 In%i Sacri (1812 seq.) hardly require comment, any 
 more than his juvenile Trionfo delta liberta (1801) and 
 elegy on Carlo Imbonato (1806) or the more ambitious 
 Urania (1807-9) ; his Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica 
 (1819), a prose treatise imposed on him by way of 
 penance, had evidently also occupied much of his 
 thoughts during these years of comparative idleness. 
 But in 1818 he lost his property, and this misfortune 
 roused him to fresh energy. The famous Garmagnola 
 (1819) was first-fruit. In this play Manzoni antici- 
 pated "Victor Hugo by setting at nought the Unities, 
 and broke from the Classicism which had dominated 
 his previous work. Shakespeare more than Byron was 
 his model, though the latter probably contributed some 
 influence, especially as regards the fine lyrics inter- 
 spersed. The storm raised by Carmagnola travelled 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 349 
 
 far. Our Quarterly Review (vol. xxiv.) joined the fray, 
 Ugo Poscolo perhaps inspiring the attack; Goethe 
 replied in a Stuttgart paper, both in 1820. In 1821 
 came two odes, Marzio and Cinque Maggio, the latter 
 — on the death of Napoleon — being translated into 
 German by Goethe himself. And 1822 produced 
 another play, the AdelcM, as successful as its pre- 
 decessor, though trammelled by still closer adherence 
 to history. But by this time Manzoni was breaking 
 fresh ground with his last great work, the prose novel 
 / promessi sposi, begun in 1820 or 1821, published 
 1825-27. 
 
 A novel which Scott is said to have pronounced 
 "the best ever written," and which Goethe praised 
 hardly less highly, rouses anticipation to 
 the full. it is one oi the common 
 treasures of Europe, and readily accessible in English 
 dress. Yet the English reader would be wise not to 
 pitch expectance too high. The descriptions are 
 certainly admirable. Years of study and observation 
 went to compose those pictures of Lombard life, which 
 are evidently sketched from his own experience, 
 though the nominal date is thrown back more than a 
 century. The central story, if not exactly thrilling, is 
 sufficiently interesting. But to us, accustomed to a 
 more intricately arranged plot, and greater brilliance 
 of workmanship, the whole may well seem a trifle 
 dull. The longueurs which are not wanting even in a 
 " Waverley," the staid and sober tone, the somewhat 
 artificial reflections, probably belong to the time, but 
 they tend to tedium. The betrothed ones should be 
 
350 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 studied historically, not read as a sensation tale. 
 Historically regarded, it is full of interest. One most 
 remarkable fact is that neither the author nor any of 
 his disciples ever rivalled this first success. Manzoni 
 hardly published anything after the Spod. Honoured 
 and beloved, he survived for nearly forty more all but 
 silent years, and Verdi's Requiem shows the feeling his 
 death excited. The followers who trod the path 
 pointed out by him seldom became known beyond 
 Italy. To Italian prose and poetry, however, 
 Manzoni's importance is great. He saw clearly 
 what change was needed. Before him there was 
 groping, dubiety of principle, uncertainty of aim ; the 
 balance between Classic and Eomantic hung even, as 
 his own early writings clearly show. After him — or 
 rather after the success of his two plays and his one 
 novel — the die is fairly cast. Italy, too, has taken 
 Eomanticism to heart. The Eevolution era may be 
 held to have closed, the Eomantic Triumph to have 
 begun in its stead. 
 
 Manzoni himself, and his chief friends, were familiar 
 with foreign literature. The principal writers named 
 Romanticism in next paragraph formed with him a group 
 begm. ^j. ggjjQol, for the most part personally 
 
 acquainted with each other, and kindred in spirit. 
 They knew foreign authors in the flesh as well as by 
 reading. Schlegel, Niebuhr, Humboldt, Byron, and 
 others had come individually into contact with them, 
 and the result appears in their work. Manzoni, in 
 particular, by his early training, and years of studious 
 leisure, was in position to have undergone the teaching 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 351 
 
 of the great earlier Eomantics. Scott and Goethe 
 were his masters ; aud we have seen how each repaid 
 his devotion in kind. If late in beginning, therefore, 
 Italy might have been expected to make rapid progress 
 in Eomanticism. The conditions were favourable ; the 
 way had been cleared, and lay invitingly open. How 
 far this promise was fulfilled will appear immediately. 
 Niccolini, Pellico, and Testa in tragedy; ISTota (as 
 above) and Giraud in comedy; Berchet and Kossetti 
 sciwoi of in romantic lyric, Grossi and others in 
 Mam!om. pomantic " epic " ; in prose romance, Varese, 
 Eosini, Azeglio, and many more; were some of the 
 chief contemporaries or immediate successors of 
 Manzoni. A few only of these need be further 
 particularised. Giovanni Berchet (1783-1851) spent 
 most of his days in exile, and his poems were only 
 gathered into a volume on his final return (Poese 
 italiane, 1848; later edition, 1863). GabrieleEossetti 
 (1785-1854) fled from Naples to England, and there 
 became father of our own illustrious poet and poetess. 
 They are therefore scarcely fair specimens of the 
 movement which was transforming native Italian 
 poetry. On the other hand, Eossetti's contemporary, 
 Gian Battista Mccolini (1785-1861), shows the process 
 of change clearly. Between 1810 and 1817 he wrote 
 many classical plays, while only Mathilde (1815) dis- 
 closed romantic leanings. Then he kept silence for 
 ten years, before accepting the new ideas, which come 
 out strongly in GiovaTwii da Procida (1830), and later 
 with a difference in Arnaldo da Brescia (1845) and 
 PMlippo Strozzi (1847). Silvio Pellico (1789-1854) 
 
352 EUROPEAIT LITEEATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 also began with a classical Laodamia (1812 ?), but 
 speedily went on to write Francesca di Bimini (before 
 1815) on romantic lines, and to edit the short-lived 
 E Conciliatore (1819). English readers know him 
 by the book called My Prisons (Le mie prigioni, 
 1833), narrating his years of suffering as a victim 
 of Austrian tyranny. After his release he ab- 
 stained from controversial or compromising publica- 
 tions. Tommaso Grossi (1791-1853), another zealous 
 patriot, is noteworthy for his romantic drama Ilde- 
 gonda (1820), his epic poem on the Lombards (1826), 
 and his later prose romance Marco Visconti (1834).^ 
 The Marquis d'Azeglio (1798-1866) of the day, who 
 married a daughter of Manzoni, sustained the tradi- 
 tions of his school in prose and poetry, beginning with 
 a martial romance called Ettore Fieramosca (1833). A 
 school had indeed been formed, and its methods were 
 essentially Eomantic. But a new writer of inde- 
 pendent power, contemporary with Azeglio, came 
 athwart them with a strain of very different inspira- 
 tion, and developed the Byronic melancholy common 
 to him and them into a darker mood wholly his own. 
 
 Giacomo, Count Leopardi (1798-1837), must be held 
 
 one of the most extraordinary beings, as one of the 
 
 most original intellects, of his time in 
 
 Europe. Of noble family, living in country 
 
 seclusion, an insatiable student, at the age of sixteen 
 
 ^ The Roman dialect used by Gioaochino Belli (1791-1863) prevents 
 most foreign readers from enjoying his immense series of Bonnets 
 describing life in the old Papal City. 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHEE COUNTEIES. 353 
 
 he had mastered three ancient and five modern lan- 
 guages, and six years later was pronounced by Niebuhr 
 the first Hellenist in Italy. These devouring studies 
 did not engross his whole time ; at the age of twenty 
 he was known as a poet. The unexplained severity 
 of his father denied him independence. An early 
 visit to Eome, where he did librarian's duty for some 
 months ; a later to Milan, editing Classic authors for 
 a bookseller; were the only events of his youth. 
 Eigorous confinement and over - study brought on 
 terrible ill-health. Some peculiarly acute form of 
 dyspepsia tortured his body and crippled his mind. 
 Yet in 1824 he published a volume of Canzoni, in 
 1826 of Versi, the latter modest title covering sonnets, 
 idylls, and elegies. 1825 was spent at Bologna, 1827 
 at Florence, where he published his prose works under 
 the title of Operette Morali. With these exceptions, 
 he lived in his country home till 1830, when he 
 published another volume of striking poems. After 
 that he was mainly a wanderer, and in 1833 settled 
 at Naples with his friend and executor Eanieri. Four 
 years later he died there suddenly, if not unexpectedly. 
 A complete collection of his Ganti, revised by himself, 
 had appeared in 1836 ; and he left a just - finished 
 satire, his Sequel to the battle of the frogs and mice 
 {Paralipomeni della £atracomiomachia). His Works 
 (4 vols., Florence, 1845) were edited by Eanieri, and 
 have been often reprinted since ; there is also a later 
 volume of Opere inedite (Halle, 1878). His poems 
 have been rendered into most European languages, 
 as recently into English by Mr F. H. Cliffe (London, 
 
 z 
 
354 EUKOPEAN LITEEATDEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 1893) ; his prose writings fill a volume of the English 
 and Foreign Philosophical Library (1882). The hom- 
 age of Musset and appreciation of Sainte-Beuve at an 
 early date made his name familiar to French readers. 
 Our fullest knowledge of him comes from his own 
 letters, especially those to his mentor Giordani, and 
 from the accounts ' more recently published by his 
 niece (Notes hiographiques sur Leopardi et sa famille, 
 par Teresa Leopardi, Paris, 1881).^ 
 
 Leopardi fills in Italian literature some such place 
 as Heine in German, but with striking differences. 
 His total product is small in bulk. Some 
 forty short poems, with the Paralipomeni 
 and the essays, dialogues, and fragments of the Operetti, 
 almost sum up his original writing. His scholarly 
 labours, the youthful work on Popular Errors of the 
 Ancients, even the Greek Odes that took in his un- 
 critical contemporaries, may be left aside. Many of 
 these studies remain unpublished ; brilliant scholar as 
 he was, they need hardly now be dragged to light. 
 But his original work makes up in quality what it 
 lacks in quantity. Prom the first all is chiselled to 
 perfection. The boyish Appressamento alia morte 
 (1816), and the Odes to Italy and on Dante's monu- 
 ment (1819) which first made him famous, reveal 
 already the artist. Eomantic formlessness had no 
 charms for him; he is classic in the highest sense, 
 and a master of style. The tragedy of his life reflects 
 
 ■' Ranieri, Selti anni di sodalizio con Oiacomo Leopardi (Naples, 
 1880), is a disagreeable book. Best recent edition of t)ie poems, 
 Oanti (Florence, 1892). 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHEE COUNTRIES. 355 
 
 itself in his verse. Death and decay are habitual 
 themes. The hopes of his generation, vigour of 
 patriotism and fervour of idealism, leave him un- 
 touched. Even Stoic pride, and the sensus communis 
 of mankind, are wanting in his pages. Disappointed 
 hedonism turns to bitterness and despair. Did we 
 not know its origin, Leopardi's melancholy might 
 seem mainly despicable, as it is selfish and non- 
 human. Aware of the conditions which caused it, 
 we can sympathise and compassionate, but must still 
 regard his poems as dealing their death-blow to his 
 theories. Pessimism such as this revolts while it 
 disillusions. We feel that life is made of nobler, if 
 sterner, stuff than he recognises. But if the subject- 
 matter of Leopardi's essentially fugitive poetic pieces 
 be as flimsy as it is sorrowful, their style and execu- 
 tion excite only to praise. His upbraidal of fate is 
 clothed in form the most exquisite, in language the 
 most noble. Perfection of art makes us forget all 
 else in admiring the artist. This railer at destiny 
 has the lips of Apollo. 
 
 The influence of Leopardi was hostile to that of 
 
 his chief contemporaries. They sing of life and love, 
 
 hope and faith in humanity ; he of despair 
 
 urn umce. ^^^ (jeath. Mauzoni and Leopardi stand 
 against each other as representatives of light and 
 darkness. How far the latter was directly affected 
 by Byron seems uncertain, as how far he knew of 
 Shelley, whose residence in Italy coincided with 
 Leopardi's most fruitful years. With a scholar so 
 distinguished, a student of English as of German, the 
 
356 EUROPEAN LITEKATUEE — EOM ANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 presumption is that he knew of their writings. At 
 all events, Leopardi's poems accentuated the Byronic 
 tendency, which made itself strongly felt hencefor- 
 ward. Eomanticism was confronted by a rebel in 
 its own household. Classic in form of utterance, the 
 world-weariness of Leopardi is but too closely allied 
 to Eoinantic egoism and lawlessness; it reduces to 
 absurdity the insubordination and self - absorption 
 which were the weak points of the new movement. 
 His all-embracing pessimism incited to search for an 
 antidote; "nor had he Heine's quick humour and 
 merciless raillery to barb his spear, and make the 
 wounds it inflicted fatal. Eomanticism survived 
 Leopardi, as it did not survive in Germany the irre- 
 sistible onslaught of his contemporary. But it was 
 profoundly affected, and conveyed that affection to 
 other nations, most of all to France, the natural 
 neighbour and linguistic ally of Italy. No name of 
 equal importance follows Leopardi's within the limits 
 of our survey ; he scarcely founded a school, but he 
 influenced all who came after. Eomanticism could 
 never again feel the thoughtless joyance of youth, 
 nor contentedly neglect severer canons of form and 
 expression. 
 
 During the remainder of our period Italian poetry 
 languished and declined. Manzoni and Leopardi had 
 Reasons for HO successor for well-nigh a generation. 
 decay of poetry. poHtical causcs go far to expMn this. 
 The years which followed 1815 did not bring to 
 Italy, as to France, a season of joyful progress. 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OPHEK COUNTRIES. 357 
 
 Buonapartist rule was replaced by more familiar 
 oppression. King, Pope, and Emperor resumed their 
 old stations, and vied in crushing independent thought. 
 Exile or imprisonment awaited any critic of estab- 
 lished order. It is remarkable that the works already 
 mentioned as appearing about 1819-20 were allowed 
 to take the shape they did ; and in fact their writers 
 rarely escaped some kind of political martyrdom. 
 As time went on, things grew steadily worse. Prom 
 1830 to 1848, the rigour of administrative severity 
 became extreme. Men dared not write down, much 
 less publish, anything which could be misconstrued. 
 This intolerable pressure was met, politically, by the 
 development of secret societies ; in literature, clandes- 
 tine publication formed the only alternative to decor- 
 ous acquiescence. It would have needed a Eabelais 
 to combine outward conformity with freedom of criti- 
 cism or creation. Small wonder, then, if the growth 
 of imaginative literature was stifled, if we have to 
 look on to Giosu4 Carducci (born 1836) before we 
 find a successor to Leopardi. This fact is all -im- 
 portant in estimating the progress of Italian Eoman- 
 ticism. The years when it should have flourished 
 were years when freedom was impossible. And 
 freedom of thought was the very basis of the 
 Romantic movement. In dealing with the names 
 that follow, few and comparatively unimportant as 
 they are, it must be borne in mind that the natural 
 leaders of progress were silent or banished, and that 
 any attempt to enjulate their utterance drew down 
 severest penalties. 
 
358 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPfl. 
 
 Francesco Domenieo Guerrazzi (1804-73), who in 
 youth met Byron at Pisa, was one of the few that 
 remained faithful to literature. And he 
 did not escape scatheless, being several 
 times imprisoned and twice exiled to Elba. His 
 numerous plays and novels follow Manzoni's lead 
 with an added element of spontaneity and humour. 
 La hattaglia di Benevento (1827) in prose fiction, an 
 ode to Byron and a tragedy Priam, preceded his first 
 sentence of exile in 1828 ; Isabella Orsini (1834) and 
 Oratione funeiri (1835) his second. Another play, / 
 Manchi ed i Neri (1847), to which are appended trans- 
 lations from Schiller and Byron, heralded his appear- 
 ance as a political leader in 1848. How he fared in 
 those days of stdrm and tumult may be read in any 
 history of the time, and in his own Apologia della 
 vita politica (1850). In literature as in politics, he 
 was more ambitious than successful, but deserves the 
 credit of not having despaired of his country in either 
 capacity. 
 
 Giuseppe Giusti (1809-50) fills a place by himself, 
 of greater prominence than he could have reached 
 in a happier time. For he was bold enough 
 to write satires, which were handed about 
 in manuscript, the author's name being kept strictly 
 secret. The first of these was Za Ghilliotina (1833), 
 closely followed by II Dies Irae (1835), inspired by 
 the death of the Emperor Francis I. ; while Gi-ngillino 
 (1847) is considered his ablest performance. Their 
 author was a lawyer, in name at least, son of a rich 
 father, who had idled through a prolonged student- 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 359 
 
 ship, and finally established himself at Plorence ; and 
 his daring skits mask republican zeal under the wit 
 of a man of the world. His Versi were first printed 
 in 18-45 ; the completer edition of 1852 contains 
 eighty-seven pieces. Some of them have been ren- 
 dered into English by Mr W. D, Howells. Giusti's 
 boldness has secured him a niche in the history of 
 his time; but his satires were naturally ephemeral, 
 and in other fields he made no attempt. 
 
 If we add the ballads of Luigi Carrer (1801-53); 
 some pieces by Cantili, to be named presently as a 
 other poets prosB- Writer ; the fanciful verses of Aleardo 
 andoritics. Aleardl (1812-78) ; and the patriotic songs 
 of Giacomo Zanella (1820 - 89) ; we seem to have 
 included all that is noteworthy in Italian poetry 
 proper. Giovanni Prater (1815-84), an Italian Tyro- 
 lese, may come here in virtue of his narrative poem 
 Edmenegarda (1841), which clearly reveals a Byronic 
 model. In poetical criticism, two names are especi- 
 ally prominent. During the first part of our period, 
 Pietro Giordani (1774-1848) corresponded with the 
 chief authors we have named, as later with Leopardi, 
 and powerfully influenced all departments of belles 
 lettres. During its closing portion, Mccolo Tommaseo 
 (1802-74) filled a similar position of influence and 
 importance. But none of these writers had much 
 weight beyond local or national boundaries. 
 
 More important work was done in other fields. 
 Pasquale Galluppi (1770-1846) practically introduced 
 Kantian thought into Italy, and may be called the 
 
360 EUEOPEAN LITBEATUEE — ^EOMANTIC TEIXTMPH. 
 
 father of modern Italian philosophy, by his Mementi 
 di filosofia (5 vols., 1820-27). Among the 
 osop rs. ^^^^ ^^^ either followed or shared his 
 impulse,^ two writers stand out chiefly prominent. 
 Antonio Eosmini-Serbati (1797-1855) founded a school 
 of thought and a rule of life which are potent still, 
 and his Nuovo saggio suW origine delle idee (1835) was 
 the first instalment of an encyclopaedic system. His 
 philosophy and his political teaching were both im- 
 pugned at the Vatican, but he succeeded in vindi- 
 cating both, and remained throughout loyal to and 
 accepted by the Church. His works in twenty- 
 two volumes (seventeen at Milan, 1842, five more 
 posthumous) are represented to English readers by 
 a translation of the above-mentioned treatise (London, 
 1883-84), of the Sistema by Thos. Davidson (London, 
 1882), with memoir and bibliography, and other ex- 
 cerpts ; while the lyife edited by Father Lockhart (Lon- 
 don, 1886) adds a record of the man and his time, 
 based on the official biography by Don Francesco 
 Paoli (Rome, 1880). His principal opponent, Vincenzo 
 Gioberti (1801-52), less fortunate than he, was ban- 
 ished in 1833, and wrote his chief books at Brussels 
 in exile and poverty. His Introduzione (1839) and 
 Errore filosofici di Antonio Bosmini (1842) were less 
 important than the great Frimato civile e morale 
 (1843) and the popular Gesuita Tiioderno (1846-47), 
 which . brought about his triumphal return to Italy 
 
 ' The eclecticism of Terenzio Mamiani della Rovere (1800-86), like 
 that of Cousin in France, was directly influenced by the Scottish 
 school of philosophy. 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COXINTEIES. 361 
 
 in 1848 and temporary premiership in the Pied- 
 montese cabinet. Soon driven from power, he again 
 left Italy, to spend the brief residue of his days 
 quietly in Paris. 
 
 History naturally received much attention, and 
 
 Gioberti had many predecessors and successors in this 
 
 study. Several writers previously men- 
 
 Historians. . 
 
 tioned as poets demand record here also. 
 Thus Botta published a History of Italy from 1789 to 
 1814 (10 vols., Paris, 1824), which gained a prize from 
 the Academia della Crusca. Colletta contributed a 
 history of Naples, Testa one of the Lombard League, 
 Azeglio made historical sketches the vehicle for 
 denunciation of Papal and Austrian misgovernment. 
 Carlo Troya (1784-1858) devoted himself to the Middle 
 Ages. But the names of most interest in this depart- 
 ment are perhaps those of Balbo and Cantu. Cesare,* 
 Count Balbo (1789-1853), a cousin of Azeglio's, and 
 colleague with him and Gioberti in the cabinet of 
 1848, was driven to literature by political restriction. 
 Beginning with Quatre novelli (1829) and a Sommario 
 della Storia d'ltalia (1830), and then for some years 
 occupied with a Vita di Bante (1839), he achieved his 
 chief success in Speranze d'ltalia (1843), a book called 
 forth by Gioberti's Primato. The politics of both, 
 books belong to the past, and neither writer dared 
 anticipate complete deliverance or national unity ; but 
 both books had educative force and stimulus at the 
 time. Cesare Cantu (1807-95), nearly twenty years 
 younger than Balbo, was more the literary man by 
 profession. His early poem Algiso (1828) and novel 
 
362 EUKOPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Margherita Fusterla (1837), with his studies of Byron, 
 Victor Hugo, and several German poets, might have 
 led to previous mention ; but his chief work was his- 
 torical, and the great Storia Universale (35 vols., 
 Turin, 1837 seq.) will always bulk largest among his 
 titles to fame. His later separate books, in which a 
 reactionary tendency contrasts with the tone of his 
 earlier work, hardly concern us here. 
 
 The influence which Italy exerted on European 
 literature during the first half of the Mneteenth 
 Summary Ccntury was not inconsiderable. If Man- 
 and results, ^oni and Lcopardi alone became household 
 names, part of the common literary possessions of an 
 international commonweal, other writers and other 
 ideas made themselves felt individually or collec- 
 tively. The long struggle for Italian liberty secured 
 sympathy in all quarters, while the " Exiles of Italy " 
 (to use the title of a once well-known book) carried an 
 object-lesson of its sufferings to the lands where they 
 sojourned. France and Germany shared their hopes 
 and ideals ; Great Britain had a hereditary interest in 
 them, not confined by ties of party or creed. The 
 man who summed up and directed and gave shape to 
 these cosmopolitan sympathies was Giuseppe Mazzini 
 (1805-72). Even as a writer, Mazzini takes no mean 
 place in his time; as teacher and preacher, he is a 
 force of the mightiest. Politics have no place in 
 these pages, and whether the influence be exerted for 
 or against freedom of thought, by a Mazzini or by a 
 Eosmini, it must be equally noted and weighed. The 
 four names mentioned in this paragraph seem those 
 
THE ROMiNTIC tEIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 363 
 
 which were of most European importance in the Italy 
 of our period. Manzoni and, Leopardi represent her 
 contribution to pure literature, Eosmini and Mazzini 
 to those profound movements of thought which shape 
 men's minds, and condition their literary work. Home 
 of ancient beliefs and long- descended ideals, Italy in 
 this crisis of her fortunes attracted notice far beyond 
 what her actual literary output deserved. Early 
 speeches of Mr Gladstone, passionate devotion of 
 Browning and his wife, reflect to us some idea of a 
 feeling dominant throughout England, and widely 
 shared abroad. Garibaldi ranked with Kossuth as a 
 popular hero. The traditional importance of Italian 
 literature suffered temporary eclipse before the pre- 
 dominance of German. But it retained many votaries, 
 and remained always a potent secondary force. The 
 wave of Eomanticism which overspread Europe re- 
 ceived notable accession from Italian sources, even if 
 in herself Italy did not originate or even continue an 
 independent Eomantic school. 
 
 Spain 1 — and henceforward this report must be 
 
 almost entirely at second-hand, as it has been in 
 
 sprniish places even heretofore — Spain was in many 
 
 literature, respects the land where a Eomantic school 
 
 might have been expected to flourish. She had a 
 
 prepared soil, and inherited proclivities. Hers were 
 
 ' Ticknor's Spanish lAterature, vol. iii. (Boston, 1872) ; Hubbard, 
 ffistoire de la litUrature contemporaine en Espagne (Paris, 1876); 
 Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain, by James Kennedy (London, 
 1852) ; History of Spanish Literature, by James Fitzmaurioe Kelly 
 (London, 1898) ; Colecdon de esoritores Castellanos (Madrid, 1882-94). 
 
364 EUKOPBAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 old romances without number, hers the dress and 
 climate, the manners and ideals, that suited this form 
 of literature; the very word Homancero, so dear to 
 Hugo and his followers, came from her. That word 
 was itself an inspiration, a reminiscence of mediaeval 
 heroism. Yet, with so much to urge, she lagged 
 rather than led in the European movement. Even 
 her great struggle against Napoleon created no 
 national literature. The French models which had 
 dominated her Classic period were not rejected by 
 the men who summoned to war against France. Ee- 
 volutionary manifestoes affected conservative form. 
 Luzan's influence was still all-powerful, half a 
 century after his death. The English alliance pro- 
 duced apparently no effect whatever on letters. Only 
 gradually, and for the most part by reflection from 
 France, did Eomantic ideas flnd their way into a 
 country where they might have been imagined native. 
 We can therefore afford to deal shortly and in outline 
 with what, according to the best authorities, seems to 
 have been a movement of only derivative and second- 
 ary significance. 
 
 Jovellanos died in 1811, Mel^ndez in 1817. These, 
 with Leandro Fernandez Moratin (died 1828), were 
 Predecessors of the chief magnates of the previous gener- 
 
 represent the Classical French school at its height, 
 though Moratin travelled much, and must have come 
 across the new ideas. Their most immediate suc- 
 cessor was Manuel Jose Quintana (1772-1857), a 
 prolific author of odes, tragedies, and didactic poems, 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 365 
 
 but best remembered by his patriotic verses and his 
 prose biographies of the Cid, &c. In literature he 
 remained wholly faithful to the old methods, pro- 
 fessing himself always a pupil of Mel^ndez. On the 
 other hand, Alberto Lista (1775-1848) showed anti- 
 classical leanings, less in his own verses (Poesias, 
 1822) than in his career as a teacher. His Lecciones 
 de Literatura Espagnola (1839), still more his Ensayos 
 literarios y criticos (1844), gather up ideas which he 
 had long impressed on his pupils (of whom Espron- 
 ceda was the most distinguished) in favour of antique 
 national forms. Juan Nicasio Gallega (1777-1853), 
 cleric and liberal, published some fiery patriotic 
 appeals, notably A la defensa de JSuenos Aires (1807) 
 and M Dos de Mayo (1808), the former being directed 
 against the alliance with Great Britain. Of these 
 three writers, the first who are properly within our 
 limit, Lista alone has affinity to Eomanticism, and 
 he by precept only, not by example. For its first 
 appearance in practice we must look to a much later 
 date, and to. authors who reached maturity towards 
 or after the termination of the Buonapartist regime. 
 
 The oldest of these was Francisco Martinez de la 
 Eosa (1789-1862). Famous in his day both in liter- 
 ature and politics, Eosa interests now 
 mainly as showing the transition process 
 begun. His earlier lyrics echo Melendez and Quin- 
 tana, his epic poem Zaragoza (about 1813) is of the 
 old school in subject and manner. There is indeed 
 little originality in any of his work, high as it ranked 
 in its time. Its importance to us begins with his 
 
366 EUEOPEAN LITEEATURE — ROMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 exile to Paris. Wliile resident there about 1834, he 
 published two distinctly Eomantic plays, the Conjur- 
 acidn de Veneccia and Ahen-Humeya. These are evi- 
 dently inspired by Hugo and Lamartine, and his later 
 novel, Bona, Isabel de Solis (1837-40), is as clearly 
 moulded by Scott. Though Eosa was the oldest, he 
 was not the earliest of these writers to adopt the new 
 canons, and here also may be held to have followed 
 rather than led. But his prominent position gave 
 weight to his example, and the pieces last named had 
 influence beyond what their intrinsic merits perhaps 
 deserved. 
 
 Foreign contact was still more evident in Angel de 
 
 Saavedra, duque de Eivas (1791-1865). Exile came 
 
 earlier in life to him, and introduced him 
 
 Rivos. 
 
 to the poems of Chateaubriand in France, 
 of Byron in England. We find him in the latter 
 country about 1824, associating with Frere, and com- 
 posing at the latter's suggestion an epic poem, Flor- 
 inda. His youthful Unsayos poeticos (1813), the new 
 pieces contained in Poesias (2 vols., 1820-21), with his 
 narrative poem El Moro exposito (1834), show succes- 
 sive stages of a development which culminated in his 
 play Don Jlvaro (1835), whose publication was an 
 event like that of Sernani in France. Eivas thus 
 derives from the English movement as well as the 
 French, a point worth emphasising here as elsewhere, 
 in view of efforts to represent Spanish Eomanticism 
 as purely a copy of French. And in him we first 
 encounter the influence of Byron, so powerful on the 
 two abler writers soon to be named. 
 
THE EOMANTIC TEIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTKIKS. 367 
 
 A considerable interval, however, elapses between 
 Eivas and this pair of leaders, an interval filled by 
 Herreros some names of less importance. Thus 
 andothen-s. Manuel Brcton de los Herreros (1800-72), 
 a pupil of Moratin, is more remembered by his tragic 
 death than by El Carnaval (1833), or the Escu- 
 ela del Matrimonio (1850?). "Fernan Caballero" 
 (Cecilia Bohl de Faber, 1796-1877) was so late of 
 entering the lists that her first and best-known novel. 
 La Gaviota, appeared only in 1848. Serafin Est^banez 
 Calderon (1799-1867) anticipated her by several years 
 with his Escenas Andaluzas (1836 ? fourth edition, 
 1847), which, like his poems signed El Solitario (1833 
 and 1840), are laboured and affected. A younger and 
 more spontaneous writer, Eamon de Mesonero Eom- 
 anos (1803-82), amused the capital with his lively 
 Escenas Mafritenses (1845). All these writers, though 
 earlier in birth, seem derivative rather than original 
 beside the leaders above referred to. Only Manuel 
 de Cabanyes (1808-33), with his one volume of 
 Preludios (1833), in his short life struck a fresh 
 note of execution if not conception ; and him the 
 Fates removed with lips scarce unsealed. 
 
 Prose and poetry have not been separated in the 
 foregoing paragraphs; they come together again in 
 Tu dimax: the two chief names of our period, Larra 
 ^"■^ and Espronceda. Mariano Jos6 de Larra 
 
 (1809-37), the " Figaro " of Spanish journalism, stands 
 out a captain of prose. In his short and stormy life, 
 closed by his own hand as the sequel to some love- 
 
368 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 affair, he essayed little else, and his tales and plays, 
 of which Macias (1834) is best known, do but echo 
 foreign models. But his occasional writing was a 
 power of the first rank. Born and educated in 
 Prance, he seems to have grafted the qualities of 
 her younger writers on to the now modified Spanish 
 stock, and like them to have been influenced 
 by Byron, Heine, and Leopardi. His cosmopolitan 
 training left no national prejudice to overcome, and 
 he adopted the new points of view without reserve. 
 Brilliant and accomplished, he created a school of 
 writing if not of thought, and reminds of Leopardi 
 rather than of Byron in his attitude of criticism. 
 With him the old school has wholly passed away ; 
 he is modern and European, and though dying be- 
 fore thirty left an indelible mark on his country's 
 literature. 
 
 Almost exactly of age with Larra, and not dissimilar 
 in tone, Jos6 de Espronceda (1810-42) accomplished 
 and more permanent work, and may be called 
 
 Espronceda. j-he chief Writer of Spain's Eomantic school. 
 Yet he survived Larra but five years. The early 
 death of these her two greatest writers robbed Spain 
 of natural leadership at this crisis of her literature. 
 Espronceda is perhaps more exactly akin to Musset 
 than to any of the three foreign writers named in 
 last paragraph. The Byronic pose is the same, and 
 the lyrical rather than dramatic nature ; his comedy 
 too is more happy and spontaneous than his tragedy. 
 Espronceda's serious plays do not count for much, 
 nor is his novel Don Sancho Saldana (1834) highly 
 
THE KOMANTIC TKIUMPH IN OTHEK COUNTRIES. 369 
 
 spoken of ; but his short poems have the charac- 
 teristic Eomantic egoism and passion. Like Larra, 
 he was cosmopolitan and revolutionist ; lived abroad 
 for ten years (1823-33), made acquaintance with 
 Byron's poems in London, fought on the barricades 
 at Paris in 1830, aided Liberalism at home later 
 with sword and pen, and shared its triumph in 1840. 
 Among his best-known works are M Estudiante de 
 Salamanca, dealing with the national Bon Juan 
 legend ; El Verdugo (the Executioner) ; and the witty 
 but fragmentary El Diablo Mundo (1841). Collected 
 before his death, his works in prose and verse were 
 more recently edited by his daughter (Madrid, 1884), 
 and are accessible in various forms. 
 
 Imaginative literature suffered an irreparable blow 
 by the premature death of these two leaders. The 
 DUactic authors mentioned before them still went 
 mruers. q^ Writing; but unless we include the 
 earlier work of Josd Zorrilla (181*7-93), no new name 
 of importance emerges during the rest of our period. 
 Criticism was represented by Lista and by Augustin 
 Duran (1789-1862) ; history by several works of merit, 
 such as Calderon's Conquista y F&dida de Portugal 
 (posthumous). In philosophy, two writers contempor- 
 ary with Larra and Espronceda took the first place. 
 Juan Francesco Maria Donoso-Cortds, Marques de Val- 
 degamas (1809-53), and Jaime Balmes y Uspia (1810- 
 48), both wrote works defending Catholicism, the latter 
 against Protestantism, the former against Liberalism 
 and Socialism. Both aimed at the same end, but the 
 haughty intolerance of Donoso, a Spanish noble of the 
 
 2 A 
 
370 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 most unyielding type, is less likely to persuade than 
 the hyper-subtle ratiocination of Balmes, an ecclesi- 
 astical casuist of keenest intellect, author also of two 
 books on pure metaphysic. Even these names can 
 hardly be said to be of European importance; and 
 there is no other to place beside them. "Whatever, 
 therefore, Spanish literature might have done had 
 Cabanyes, Larra, and Espronceda been longer-lived, 
 its actual accomplishment during our period was 
 narrowly restricted ; nor does it seem certain that 
 any of its authors had real unborrowed power, or could 
 ever have risen to be more than a brilliant reproduc- 
 tion of the best foreign models and exemplars. 
 
 The third Southern peninsula of Europe — that of 
 
 Greece — contributed to the European movement rather 
 
 by ancient example than by modern pro- 
 
 Greelc literature. . 
 
 duction. Her folk - songs and popular 
 verses were widely studied, Fauriel's versions^ in 
 particular making them known through Western 
 Europe. And there was much to attract in the 
 effort she made to restore what was practically a 
 mere dialect to its place as an independent language. 
 But her contemporary writers were few and un- 
 important, and more busied with translating foreign 
 authors or editing their own classics than with 
 new departures. The names of G-ennadios, Soutzos, 
 and Salamos • stand out most prominent, but only 
 
 ^ CJiants populaires de la Orice moderne (Paris, 1824 ; English 
 translation, 1825). 
 
THE EOMANTIG TEIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTEIES. 371 
 
 by comparison. History and archasology received 
 special attention, and perhaps Spyridon Trikupis or 
 Tricoupi (1788-1873), statesman and scholar, need 
 alone be particularised for his travels abroad, his 
 service as a young man in the War of Independence, 
 and his eminence later as historian of the events 
 which he had helped to shape. 
 
 Passing up through Central Europe, we are re- 
 minded that several leading writers have been dealt 
 with already, being classed by language 
 rather than by birthplace. Thus Constant, 
 Sismondi, and Vinet are no longer left to come under 
 the head of French Switzerland; while German and 
 Italian Switzerland, Tyrol, and even Austria, have 
 given their chief names to illuminate our German 
 and Italian roll-calls. It is hardly necessary to go 
 through lesser celebrities, to enumerate the poems 
 of Tanner, Frohlich, Gotthelf, or Hagenbach, the 
 novels of Topffer and Appenzeller, or do more than 
 take note of Alfenrosen (1811-31) edited by Johann 
 Eudolf Wyss, author of the national hymn Riofst du, 
 mein Vaterland, and of the book known to ourselves 
 as the " Swiss family Eobinson." More Eastern liter- 
 ature, again, is best left to come in with Eussian. 
 From the South of Europe therefore we pass at once 
 to the farther North, where a movement of well- 
 marked proportions, and reacting not inconsiderably 
 on various nations of Europe, was in progress during 
 nearly the whole of our period. 
 
372 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 In the Netherlands/ indeed, this movement was re- 
 tarded and partially thwarted by personal causes. The 
 example and high authority of Willem 
 ' Bilderdijk (died 1831) still dominated 
 Dutch literature, and championed French classical 
 methods against the inrush of German romanticism. 
 Younger poets were too slight or too modest to lead 
 war against him. Antonin Staring (1767-1840) pub- 
 lished his first poems in 1820, and then rather as a 
 follower of others than a leader. Hendrik Tollens 
 (1780-1856) confined himself mostly to patriotic songs 
 and ballads (Gedichten, 3 vols., 1808 - 15 ; Nieuwe 
 Gedichten, 1821), with one long descriptive poem 
 about Nova Zembla (1816). His friend and pupil 
 "Willem Messchert (1790-1844) is remarkable but for 
 one "domestic" study, the Golden Wedding (1825). 
 More original and forceful than any of these, Adrianus 
 Bogaer's (1795-1870), who seemingly had it in him to 
 be Holland's great Eomantic poet, absolutely shrank 
 from publication, his few pieces coming out as by 
 stealth. Jochebed, privately printed in 1835, is said 
 to have been written thirteen years before ; HceTns- 
 kerk's Voyage to Gibraltar (Be Togt van Hecmskerk 
 naar Qibraltar), published in 1836, with a privately 
 printed volume of Ballads and Romances ten years 
 later, completes his literary record. It is only by 
 
 ^ Schneider (Louis), Geschichte der niederlandischen lAtteratur 
 (Leipzig, 1888) ; Jonokbloet, Geschiedenis der nederlandsche Letter- 
 Tcunde (Groningen, 1868 ; German translation, Leipzig, 1870-72) ; 
 Jan ten Brink, Kleine Geschiedenis der nederlandscJie Letteren 
 (Haarlem, 1887). 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 373 
 
 degrees that Bogaers has taken his rightful place, 
 advancing perhaps in estimation as Bilderdijk de- 
 clines ; and in poetry at least the influence of Holland 
 during our period cannot be said to have been con- 
 siderable. 
 
 In prose she was tnore prominent. For Jacobus 
 
 van Lennep (1802-68), rising early to fame, remained 
 
 throughout a prolific and successful writer. 
 
 Lmnep. . . 
 
 He began in verse with translations from 
 Byron and Academic Idylls (1826), made his mark with 
 Nederlandsche Legenden (1828) and two comedies, but 
 conquered criticism only with his prose Plegzoon 
 (^Adopted Son, 1829), first of the long series of his- 
 torical novels which gave him a place in Dutch 
 literature comparable to Scott's in our own. Most 
 of these have been translated into several European 
 languages ; in English we have the Adopted Son, Rose 
 of Dekama, Count of Talavera, &c. Other dramas, too, 
 followed, and a Dutch History for children, again 
 reminding us of Scott. But the novels formed his 
 chief work, and it is in virtue of these that critics 
 rank him leader of Holland's Eomantic school. His 
 Foetische Werlcen (11 vols., 1859-62) comprise trans- 
 lations from English poets as well as original com- 
 positions ; his BomantiscKe Werken (23 vols., 1855-72) 
 contain the substance of his real contribution to 
 European literature. 
 
 Nor did the school led by Bogaers and Lennep 
 long continue to flourish. The " domestic " tone 
 already noted in one writer tended to exclude the 
 Eomantic. Thus Nicolaas Beets (bora 1814) turned 
 
374 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUEB — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 from the Byronic melancholy of Josi (1834) and Kuser 
 Younger (1835) to give in Camera obscura (1836; 
 wHters. afterpiece added, iVa vijftig jaar, 1887) a 
 Dickens-like picture of men and manners. Johannes 
 Pieter Hasebroek (born 1812), clergyman and poet, both 
 in his Poezy (1837) and his prose Truth and Dreams 
 (1840) reminds faintly of Charles Lamb. Criticism 
 was combined with poetry by the slightly older 
 Everhard Johannes Potgieter (1808-75), who in 1837 
 founded that excellent magazine Be Grids, and with 
 his friend Bakhuieen van den Brink (1810-65) directed 
 Dutch letters by precept and example. His own 
 poems are deeply tinged with mysticism. Even when 
 strong English tastes revealed themselves, as in the 
 Twee Tudors (1847) of Hendrik Jan Schimmel (born 
 1824), they took a garb and colour other than 
 Byronic. The tumult of Eomanticism did not either 
 long or fundamentally affect the course of Dutch 
 literature, which pursued its placid way but slightly 
 affected by influences so powerful elsewhere. 
 
 In Belgium, it need hardly be said, French was 
 still predominant, and the writers who employed that 
 Flemish language have in this volume been regarded 
 literature. ^^ French authors. The use of the native 
 Dutch or "Flemish" tongue for literary purposes may 
 be said to have begun during our period, the first 
 pioneer of importance being Karel Lodewijk Ledeganck 
 (1805-47). His collection of poems, Bloemen mijner 
 Lente {Flowers of my Springtide, 1839), still more his 
 verses on the "sister cities" of Ghent, Bruges, and 
 Antwerp {De drie Zustersteden, 1846), had a popu- 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHEE COUNTRIES. 375 
 
 larity only equalled by the early books of a much 
 more voluminous author seven years his junior. But 
 though several volumes by Hendrik Conscience (1812- 
 83) appeared during the time we have in review, his 
 complete work must be left for treatment as a whole 
 in the volume following this. More appropriate 
 matter lies to hand in neighbouring countries. 
 
 Scandinavian literature had contributed its element 
 
 to the Eomantic revival in other countries, and was 
 
 now receiving back a wave of foreign 
 
 Denmark. . . ^ t^ • ti ■ t-v 
 
 Eomantic miiuence. Especially in Den- 
 mark,^ most southerly of the three allied nations, did 
 this influence prevail. Her chief poet, Adam Gottlob 
 Oehlenschlager (1779-1850), had been converted at 
 one sitting to Romantic theories by Steffens (ante, 
 p. 305), just returned from Germany. Throwing 
 previous poems into the fire, he set to work on new 
 lines, and from 1805 to 1810 travelled in his turn 
 on a government grant, visiting Weimar, Dresden, 
 and Berlin, spending a year and a half in Paris, and 
 winding up with a long stay in Eome. In 1810, 
 his wanderings over, he settled at Copenhagen as 
 professor of sesthetics, adding to poems published be- 
 fore his journeyings (such as Thors reise til Jotunheim, 
 &c.), or during them (such as Hakon Jarl, first of a 
 long series of dramas), his best and richest work, 
 
 1 Schweitzer, GeacMchte der skaTidinavisohen lAtteratur (Leipzio, 
 1886-89) ; Dansh poetisk Anthologi, 3 vols. (1830-40) ; Briota, 
 Dansk hiografisk-lexicon (1887 seq.); Denmark and Iceland, by E. 
 C. Ott^ (London, 1881). 
 
376 EUEOPEAN LITBEATUEE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 notably that which appeared in Helge (1814). If the 
 next years of his life were embittered by controversy, 
 the clouds cleared later, and in 1829 his Swedish 
 contemporary Tegndr crowned him in Lund Cath- 
 edral king of Scandinavian song, after which for still 
 twenty years he reigned in undoubted supremacy. 
 
 A Dane born and bred, Oehlenschlager so steeped 
 himself in foreign literature that one of his books 
 
 (Gorreggio, 1809) was drafted in German. 
 
 Yet he remained intensely national, taking 
 his subjects from Norse history or mythology, and 
 making the legends of his own land known through 
 Europe. Nationality was the watchword of the re- 
 vival in Denmark, spite of foreign culture and foreign 
 models. It had begun largely with antiquarian and 
 philological research, in which Easmus Christian 
 Eask (1787 - 1832) took prominent part, his Dansk 
 Betskrivningslare (1826) remaining a monument of 
 erudition. It inspired in very different fields the 
 brothers Oersted, of whom Hans Christian (1777- 
 1851) was a distinguished naturalist, while Anders 
 Sandoe (1778-1860) attained equal renown as a his- 
 torical jurist. With Eask should be coupled Christian 
 Molbek (1783 - 1857), his compeer in studies later 
 carried to such perfection by Johaun Nikolai Madvig 
 (1804-86). But our concern is mainly with imagin- 
 ative literature,'and there the revival showed itself most 
 strongly. Oehlenschlager's opponent Jens Baggesen 
 (1764-1826) might cling to Classic traditions, as in 
 his idyllic epic Parthenais (1812) ; younger men fol- 
 lowed the new lead heartily. Paul Martin Moller 
 
THE ROMANTIC TKIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 377 
 
 .(1784-1838) in lyric, Bernhard Ingemann (1789-1862) 
 in drama and novels, Johann Carsten Hauch (1790- 
 1872) in romantic verse and prose of many kinds, 
 exemplified this new departure. If sometimes opposed 
 to foreign influence, as in the case of Nikolai Grundt- 
 vig (1783-1872), it was for the most part cosmopolitan 
 as well as national, replacing the narrow horizon of 
 previous generations by a generous width of outlook, 
 but enlisting all borrowed influences in the develop- 
 ment of Danish patriotism. 
 
 Apart from the general current of this revival, two 
 men of surpassing genius made Denmark and them- 
 Thorwaidsen sclves famous. Bertel' Thorwaldsen (1770- 
 and Andersen. ^844), the illustrious sculptor. Can be 
 mentioned here only in virtue of the great influence 
 his works exercised on the literature of a land which 
 saw him seldom after youth, and of his companionship 
 with Oehlenschlager during the latter's Eoman visit. 
 But Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75), one of the 
 generation which grew up under that influence, began 
 as a poet (1830 and 1831) and a novelist (O.T., 1836), 
 before making his great success with the immortal 
 series of children's stories. All his writing has charm, 
 and this was early shown in The Improvisatore (1834) 
 and other travel-sketches, while his play The Mulatto 
 (1840) found fervent admirers. His specialty, however, 
 was disclosed flrst by Agnes and the Merman (1834), 
 and needs no emphasising here. A country which con- 
 tributed Thorwaldsen, Oehlenschlager and Andersen to 
 the common stock must be credited with no small 
 influence on the imaginative literature of Europe. 
 
378 EUROPEAN LITEKATUEE ROMANTIC TEIUM?H. 
 
 The severance of Norway ^ from Denmark in 1814, 
 closely following the establishment of Christiania 
 University in 1811, rendered possible the 
 "™'*''- creation of a national literature in the more 
 northern country. This creation absorbed her energies 
 during the period we have in review. At first the ■ 
 results were but slender : it is not till writers born 
 under the new regime had grown to maturity that we 
 find anything requiring separate attention. Henrik 
 Arnold Wergeland (1808-45) is considered the father 
 of modern Norwegian poetry, and much of his short 
 life was taken up by his dispute with Johann Sebastian 
 Welhaven (1807-73), an upholder of Danish culture. 
 The controversy between these two finally determined 
 the course of Norwegian literature, paving the way for 
 the future triumphs of Bjornson, Ibsen, and Jonas 
 Lie. Within the limits of our survey, however, little 
 more than the foundation was laid. Wergeland's 
 facile verse was mainly a pioneer, and owed its accept- 
 ance to date and local conditions as well as its own 
 freshness and fluency. Welhaven was more satirist 
 than poet; Andreas Munch (1811-84) a versifier of 
 talent rather than genius. More interesting work was 
 done in prose by Peter Christian Asbjornsen (1812- 
 85), a naturalist of repute, and Jorgen Moe (1815-82), 
 also known as a poet, who worked together on a 
 
 ' Botten- Hansen, Norvige litUraire (Christiania, 1868) ; HaKorsen, 
 Norsk Forf alter - lexicon (ibid., 1881 seq.); Studies in Nortliern 
 Literature, by Edmund William Gosse (London, 1879) ; Sweden and 
 Norway, tgr F. H. Woods (London, 1882) ; Norway aiid the 
 Norwegians, by C. F. Keary (London, 1892). 
 
THE EOMANTIC TEIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 379 
 
 collection of national folk-tales, continued in later 
 publication by Asbjornsen alone. These are the tales 
 made known to English readers by Sir George Dasent's 
 translations {Popular Tales from the Norse, &c.) And 
 work of greater importance was also done in various 
 fields of scientific research, of which it must suffice to 
 instance the historico -antiquarian studies of Jacob 
 Eudolf Keyser (1803-64), lector in the University of 
 Christiania, and of Peder Andreas Munch (1810-63), 
 a cousin of the above-named poet. 
 
 Sweden,^ before her union with Iforway in 1818, 
 had felt a similar wave of revival. To the French 
 Sweden ;ii«? Classicism of the previous Century suc- 
 mdTegnir. ggeded two schools, the Phosphorists and 
 the Gothics. The former, so called from their organ 
 Fosforos (about 1813), were largely influenced by 
 German Eomanticism; the latter were more directly 
 national, and studied simplicity as well as warmth and 
 freedom. Both together correspond to the school of 
 Oehlenschlager in Denmark, and to the Syttendemai 
 or Declaration of Independence school in Norway. 
 The leader of the first band was Pehr [Peter] Daniel 
 Amadeus Atterbom (1790-1855), eminent as a poet, 
 and also as author of a review of Swedish literature, 
 Svenska Siare och Skalder. With him went Lorenzo 
 Hammarskold (1785-1827), Vilhelm Fredrik Palmblad 
 (1788-1852), Karl Fredrik Dahlgren (1791-1844), and 
 the poetess Julia Nyberg (1785-1854), who in various 
 
 ^ Sturzenbecher, Die neuere schwediscJie Litterat/ur (Leipzio, 1850) ; 
 Meijer, Svensk Uteratur-lexicon (Stockholm, 1886). 
 
380 EUKOPEAN LITEEATURB — KOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 fields carried on war against academic convention, and 
 introduced richer colouring and bolder ideals. The 
 second or Gothic branch had leaders yet more distin- 
 guished in the persons of Ling, Tegndr, and Geijer. 
 Pehr Henrik Ling (1776-1839), while author of vigor- 
 ous poems such as Gylfe (1812), Asarne (1816), &c., is 
 still better known as the perfecter of a rational system 
 of health-gymnastics, to which he attached intellectual 
 as well as physical import. Esaias Tegn^r (1782- 
 1846), whose first poem Svea (1811) was written under 
 the influence of the so-called Iduna Society or Gothic 
 league, developed into the greatest poet of modern 
 Sweden. His genius was mainly lyrical, yet his well- 
 known Fritiof's Saga (several times translated into 
 English) tells the old romantic tale with vigour and 
 swing. Another poem, Nattvards Barnen, is known 
 in Longfellow's translation as " The Children of the 
 Lord's Supper." 
 
 If Tegn^r was the chief poet, Erik Gustav Geijer 
 
 (1783-1847), Professor at Upsala, was hardly less 
 
 prominent as a prose writer. But as his 
 
 Almqvist. ,.« .. ,. .1 
 
 chief writings were historical and philo- 
 sophical, we need stay to note only the Svenska Folk- 
 visor (1814-16) which he edited along with his friend 
 Afzelius. More germane to our subject are the imag- 
 inative works of Karl Jonas Ludwig Almqvist (1703- 
 1866), a voluminous author in many departments of 
 prose, from fiction to mathematics. Standing some- 
 what aloof from both schools, he leaned rather to the 
 Fosforistcrna, but refused obedience to their codes as 
 to most social regulations. His changeful life, which 
 
THE EOMAIiTTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 381 
 
 included an accusation of murder, an escape to the 
 United States, and a final return to Norway under an 
 assumed name, seems reflected in his works, par- 
 ticularly his novels : both are represented in the 
 edition of his Life and, Worlis (6 vols., Stockholm, 
 1874-78). 
 
 All these writers were born in the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury, and many yet remain to notice. The humorous 
 nunebm novels of Fredrik Cederborgh (1784-1835), 
 md others. |.jjg historical romanccs of Gustav Wilhelm 
 Gumaelius (1789-1877); the brilliant poems of Erik 
 Johan Stagnelius (1793-1823), who has been compared 
 to Shelley ; and the one lyrical volume of Erik Sjoberg 
 (1794-1828), published under the name of " Vitalis," 
 well deserve note here. And it would be unpardon- 
 able not at least to mention the names of Johan Jakob, 
 Baron Berz^lius (1779-1848), Sweden's great chemist, 
 and Christopher Jacob Bostrom (1797-1866), her most 
 original philosophical thinker. Enough has been said 
 to show how powerful was the Swedish literary move- 
 ment during the earlier years of our period. During 
 the later, it continued to put forth names of European 
 celebrity. Frederika Bremer (1801-65) is well known 
 as a novelist in this country, chiefly through the 
 translations of (Mrs) Mary Howitt. Her earlier books, 
 at any rate, beginning with The H. Family (1830), her 
 first undoubted success, show the Eomantic spirit in 
 full power, quickened later by cosmopolitan travels 
 and sympathies. Something like a dozen volumes 
 of Sketches {Teckningar) contain her collected stories, 
 of which The Neighbours and SceTies in Dalecarlia may 
 
382 EUEOPEAN LITEEATUKE — EOMANTIC TEIUMPH. 
 
 be selected as representative. Less known abroad, 
 but highly esteemed at home, Johan Ludwig Runeberg 
 (1804-77) carried on the poetical succession with un- 
 diminished power. Several of his poems have ap- 
 peared in English dress (e.g., Magnusson and Palmer's 
 Buneberg's Lyrical Songs, 1878). The earliest of these 
 appeared in 1830, while the Elk Hunters (1832) and 
 the hexametrical Hauna (1836) secured among other 
 poems his fame. Later, he turned to drama, and 
 contributed largely to the Psalm-book of his Church. 
 These were the most illustrious of the younger school. 
 
 Euneberg was by birth a Finn, which may remind 
 
 us of the attention given to folk-songs and ancient 
 
 poetry in that region, particularly by Elias 
 
 Finland. -^.^^^^^^ (1802-84). In 1835 he published 
 
 the first edition of his Kalevala (nearly doubled in 
 the second edition, 1847 ; best edition, Helsingfors, 
 1862). "Whatever scholars may say as to the fidelity 
 of this version of the ancient epic, Lonnrot's edition 
 made it celebrated through Europe, and probably 
 suggested to Longfellow the metre of Himoatha. 
 His Kantele (1829-31) and Kanteletar (1840) — the 
 name being taken in each case from the zither-like 
 instrument which accompanies the recitation — did 
 the same service for Finnish folk-songs, a service 
 parallel to what was being done for other literatures 
 elsewhere. A life of studious labour was crowned 
 at the end by the production of his great Finnish 
 Dictionary. 
 
 From Finland the transition is easy to her great 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 383 
 
 neighbour, Russia.^ Among the Scandinavian nations 
 Bussian — stlU at the close of our period separate 
 literature, gntitics in literature if not in politics, and 
 only some twenty years later making essays at lingu- 
 istic uniformity — we have seen a movement con- 
 ditioned indeed by foreign influence, yet rooted in 
 native strength, and corresponding to a free develop- 
 ment of social and political life. The Norse nations 
 borrowed, but were not enslaved ; they gave and took 
 in almost equal proportion. Particularly, the wave of 
 Byronism, which we have seen overspreading" Southern 
 Europe with its flood, had little effect comparatively 
 on them ; they could be Eomantic without being 
 pessimistic. It is otherwise with that distant and 
 strange literature, guessed at through the dim medium 
 of translation, which unites something fierce and bar- 
 baric to familiar cadences. So far as can be thus 
 judged, Russian literature during our epoch seems 
 mainly a copy of Western models, distorted in places 
 by gigantic and outlandish shadows. Without Byron 
 there could hardly have been Pushkin or Lermontov ; 
 their indisputable genius would at least have taken 
 other shape. Possibly the Byronic influence came 
 through France, through Musset and Gautier and 
 Heine, French literature having been usually more 
 important to Russia than that of her nearer neighbour 
 
 ' Couirifere, Histoire de la lUUrature contemporame en liussie 
 (Paris, 1874) ; Haller, Oesohiokte der ruasischen Litteratur (Riga, 
 1882) ; Reinholdt, ditto (Leipzio, 1885) ; Russia, by W. R. MorfiU 
 (London, 1880) ; Studies in Russian Literature, by C. E. Turner 
 (London, 1882) ; Rhymes from the Russian, by Dr John Pollen 
 (London, 1891). 
 
384 EUROPEAN LITEKATUBE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 Germany. Yet Eussians are proverbially great lingu- 
 ists, and Pushkin knew our language from childhood. 
 "What seems certain, at any rate, is that French, Eng- 
 lish, and German masters all found apt pupils east of 
 mid-Europe, though the seed sowed fell into a soil of 
 abnormal fruitfulness. 
 
 These remarks apply especially to the later writers 
 of our period. At its beginning, Ivan Andreevich 
 
 Kriioffand Kriloff (1768 - 1844) was just putting 
 
 otMrs. £qj,^.Jj jjjg tables (translated by W. E. 
 Ealston, 1868), and Nicolas Michailovich Karamsin 
 (1765-1826) had still to commence publishing his 
 great History of Russia. Nevertheless one regards 
 these as writers of the previous generation. On the 
 other hand, Konstantin Batioushkov (1787-1855), who 
 was long insane, is known to have studied not only 
 Byron but Mill, Macaulay, and Buckle, the last a 
 favourite author in Eussia. It were idle to pause 
 over names which are no more than names to us, over 
 the poems and translations of Zhukovski, Koltzov, or 
 Nekrasov, the historical writings of Oustrialov and 
 Soloviev. Attention will be more profitably concen- 
 trated on the two or three names familiar to "Western 
 Europe, which sufficiently exemplify the tenor of our 
 description. 
 
 Alexander Serg^jevich Pushkin (1799-1837) has 
 
 been styled the Eussian Heine. Of good family, like 
 
 most Eussian authors — since between noble 
 
 PiiBhldn. 
 
 and peasant there was hardly any inter- 
 vening middle class — he entered the Government 
 service, but was soon dismissed for Liberalism. As 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 385 
 
 poet he began with Buslan and Ziudmila (1820) and 
 The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1822), which are wholly- 
 romantic ; while in Tzigani (1827) and Eugene Oneguin 
 (1828) he had fully developed his style, the latter 
 being a narrative poem akin to Bep^po and Bon Juan. 
 Till now, says Tolstoi, Pushkin was himself, — a self, 
 we may add, built up of many foreign elements. Nor 
 does Poltava (1829), a tale with Mazeppa as its hero, 
 show much emancipation from Byronic influence. But 
 about this time he was deep in study of Shakespeare, 
 and his famous tragedy Boris Godunov (1831) was the 
 result. This most critics regard as his masterpiece, 
 while to Tolstoi^ it is a "cold, brain -spun work," 
 coming from theory instead of the heart. For the 
 remainder of his short life, terminated during a duel 
 six years later, he continued to pour out work with 
 unexhausted fluency, in prose as well as verse, and 
 received the appointment of Kussian historiographer. 
 His books became widely known, and many have been 
 translated into English, including Eugene Oneguin (by 
 Spalding, 1881) and a recent volume by C. E. Turner, 
 lector at St Petersburg, 1899. Taken as a whole, 
 Pushkin is the most eminent writer of his time and 
 country, and favours English directness rather than 
 German ideality. With some of Byron's vigour, he 
 has little of his copious imagery, little also of his 
 rhetorical mouthing. Grace seems more evident 
 than strength, and his cosmopolitan learning may 
 have interfered with native and natural growth. 
 These suggestions of criticism, however, must be 
 
 ' Wliat is Art (authorised English translation, 1898), p. 121. 
 2 B 
 
386 EUEOPRA.N LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 taken with all the reserve imposed by complete 
 iguorance of the originals. 
 
 Nicolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-52), ten years 
 junior to Pushkin, excelled in prose comedy and 
 fiction more racy of the soil than the 
 latter's poems. His play. The iTispedor- 
 General (1836 ; English translation, 1892) satirises 
 provincial officialdom, while his novel. Dead Souls 
 (1837; English translation,^ 1887), deals with the 
 petty life of a provincial town. Thus Gogol — who 
 spent his early years in St Petersburg, but lived 
 abroad from 1836 to 1846, and ended his days at 
 Moscow — was distinctly a predecessor of Tourgudnev, 
 whose Sportsman's Sketches appeared in 1846, though 
 his full career falls outside our limits. Gogol re- 
 ceives praise from all quarters, including the critical 
 Tolstoi, and while reflecting Eomantic stir and fresh- 
 ness in his habit of thought seems to have combined 
 with these a photographic fidelity to fact which goes 
 far to anticipate the later Realistic development. He 
 is the Dickens of Eussia, but a Dickens of a different 
 cast, with more pronounced leanings to Romanticism. 
 His influence on writers who followed was potent in 
 the direction of Naturalism. 
 
 But one other name need be mentioned in Eussia 
 proper, that of Michail Jurevich Lermontov (1814- 
 41) — the name denotes his descent from the Scottish 
 family Learmont — who like Pushkin met his fate in 
 a duel, but at the still earlier age of twenty-seven. 
 
 ' An adaptation of this book had previously appeared (1854) under 
 the title of Home Life in Russia. 
 
THE EOMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 387 
 
 Serving in the Eussian army, he did duty in the 
 Caucasus, whose wild scenery inspired his earlier 
 poems, while Na Smert Poeta {The Poet's Death, 1837) 
 and the novel known in English as A Hero of our Time 
 (1839 ; English translation, 1854) are considered his 
 masterpieces. The latter is said to have provoked the 
 duel which caused his death. Lermontov was an 
 assiduous student of our literature, and his verse 
 and prose alike reflect Byronic models pretty closely. 
 He is essentially Eomantic, and with Pushkin, and 
 perhaps Zhukovski, stands for the highest achieve- 
 ment of his country in this direction. After his 
 death, the example set by Gogol gradually led Eus- 
 sian literature into other paths. 
 
 In Eussian Poland — unless we include the songs of 
 Julian TJrsyun Memcewicz (1758-1841), soldier and 
 
 „. , . . statesman, who fought under Kosciuszko — 
 
 Mvikxe-vywz. ^ / " 
 
 the principal name of note is that of Adam 
 Mickiewicz (1798-1855). He has been compared by 
 some experts to Pushkin, and seems generally placed 
 second to him only among Slav poets. As none of his 
 works have been translated (though a Life in French 
 by his son is said to have appeared), it must sufQce 
 to record that his earliest publications (1822) were 
 Grajina and Briady, verse-tales full of local colour; 
 that Pan Tadeuz (1832), an epic poem whose scene 
 is laid in Lithuania, is considered his masterpiece; 
 that besides other epics he wrote a vast number of 
 lyrics; that he spent most of his life in banishment, 
 frequently at Paris, and organised a Polish legion for 
 service against Eussia; and that in 1890 his bones 
 
388 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 were brought home, and buried beside those of Kos- 
 ciuszko in Cracow Cathedral. Casimir Brodzinski, 
 Julius Slowacki, and Sigismund Krasinski rank next 
 in poetical distinction, Slowacki carrying on the 
 Byronic tradition unimpaired. Of the " Ukraine 
 poets," Anton Malczewski (1793-1826) met Byron 
 at Venice, achieved notoriety by ascending Mont 
 Blanc, and is remembered mainly by his poem 
 Marya (1825), a Corsair story quite in the orthodox 
 Eomantic vein. 
 
 Though the Magyar tongue^ is of immense antiq- 
 uity, its literature is still youthful. The years we 
 nungaHan ^ave in review saw it established as a 
 literature, yehicle of thought as well as action, and 
 wielded by some notable writers. Political changes, 
 the growth of national feeling, the rise of a middle 
 class, the development of urban life, combined to 
 create a school of thought which found culminating 
 expression in the Diet of 1825, and the subsequent 
 foundation of a Hungarian Academy (1830). This 
 school had owed much to the labours of Ferenc 
 [Francis] Kazinczy (1759-1831), and later to the munif- 
 icence and enthusiasm of Count Stephen Sz^ch^nyi 
 (1792-1860). Its results assumed literary form in the 
 writings of Hungary's Eomantic authors. 
 
 Of these the brothers Kisfaludy come first in order. 
 
 ' Svmgwriwn Literature, by Emil Reich (London, 1898) ; Geschichte 
 der ungwrischen Litteratur, by J. H. Schwioker (Leipsic, 1889). 
 Bodn^r, Szana, Bebthy, and Szinnyei have written Magyar histories 
 of Hungarian literature. 
 
THE ROMANTIC TEIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 389 
 
 Sandor [Alexander] Kisfaludy (1772-1844) had just 
 Boinawtic before our period opens led the way with 
 poets. Himfy's Zove-songs {Himfy szerelmei, 1801 ; 
 second part, 1807). The success of these led him 
 to pour forth novels, plays, and poems, of which only 
 his ballads retain any popularity. His much younger 
 brother Karoly [Charles] (1788-1830), after a youth 
 of poverty and privation, captured his public with 
 a play. The Tartars (1819), and for nine years 
 (1822-30) directed and inspired the literature of his 
 day as editor of the poetic annual Aurora} His 
 poems and plays, thrown off often at a heat, couple 
 humorous presentment with Eomantic tone ; his prose 
 tales give vivid pictures of contemporary life. Michael 
 Vorbsmarty (1800-55), a more accomplished artist, 
 took occasion by the hand when in the very year 
 of Hungary's awaking he published his epic poem 
 Zalan's Flight (Zaldn futasa, 1825). This patriotic 
 masterpiece was followed by other epics, as well as 
 lyrics and dramas, all marked by the same sustained 
 elevation of style. After a considerable interval, 
 Janos [John] Arany (1817-82) and Michael Tompa 
 (1819-68) carried on the poetic succession, the former 
 especially combining culture with inspiration, and 
 besides his creative work (begun by Toldi, 1847, and 
 Mur&ny, 1849), doing excellent service by translating 
 plays of Shakespeare and others. But the youngest 
 member of this group is also the best known abroad. 
 Sandor Petofi (1823-49) has been compared to Burns 
 
 1 The "Kisfaludy Society," founded in 1836, preserves his memory 
 by encouraging Magyar literature in all forms. 
 
390 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 and Bdranger, but with little justice. His poems, 
 which have been translated into English and into 
 French as well as German, seem more akin to Heine 
 than to either. This Hungarian youth, who lived but 
 one year longer than Keats, during the seven years 
 of his poetical career excelled chiefly in short pieces, 
 modelled on his native folk-songs, but breathing into 
 these new grace, humour, tenderness, and subtlety. 
 Some tales and plays have little value. But his lyrics, 
 from The Wine-drinJcer {A horozd, 1842) to his latest 
 war-songs, of which Up, Himgarian! {Tal]pra, Magyar ! 
 1848) was first and most famous, reveal a true singer, 
 with a cadence of his own. Hungarian scenery, its 
 mountains and its vast steppes, live again on his pages, 
 and are peopled by lifelike figures. In Petofi his 
 country has made her most striking contribution to 
 the treasures of European poetry. Throwing himself 
 ardently into the fight for freedom against Austria, he 
 laid down his life on the battle-field of Segesvar. 
 
 In prose fiction three writers of noble birth stand 
 out prominent. Nikolaus, Baron Josika (1794-1865), 
 
 led the way with Tendency {Irdny, 1834) 
 "Irs. and Alafi (1836), the latter a historical 
 
 novel named from its hero. He followed 
 up these by a long string of historical romances, in 
 which patriotic motive somewhat overpowers artistic 
 creation. Jozsef [Joseph], Baron Eotvos (1813-71), 
 bid earlier for fame, and reached higher levels. His 
 first novel. The Carthusian (1839), presented a psy- 
 chological study of remarkable power and sadness, 
 while The Village Notary (1845 ; English translation, 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 391 
 
 1850) was at once a striking picture of Hungarian 
 life and a novel of political purpose. After 1850 he 
 turned mainly to didactic writing, and filled a con- 
 spicuous place as President of the Academy. Sigis- 
 muhd, Baron Kem^ny (1816-75), a fecund journalist, 
 covered a wider field than Eotvos, and his Gyulai Pdl 
 (5 vols., 1844-46) is said to be worthy of Balzac. He 
 confined himself, however, to historical novels — as the 
 title just quoted exemplifies — and only in short stories 
 essayed to depict the life of his day. These three 
 writers may be considered avant-couriers of Maurus 
 Jokai (born 1825), whose inclusion would transgress 
 our limits. In more serious studies Hungary pro- 
 duced many capable writers, though none who (as 
 Liszt in music) conquered the European world. 
 Jozsef Bajza (1804-58) as critic, Ferenc Toldy (1805- 
 75) as literary historian, and Michael Horvath (1809- 
 78) as author of the chief History of Hungary, are 
 perhaps best known. Louis Kossiith (1802-94) and 
 Francis Deak (1803-76) — to use the most familiar 
 form of their names — were both powerful writers, 
 though their fame rests on other titles. 
 
 During the first half of the nineteenth century the 
 
 Czech 1 language underwent a still more striking 
 
 Bohemmn resurrcction. So universally had it been 
 
 iiteTat%re. superseded by German, that even Josef 
 
 Dobrovsky (1753-1829), the chief pioneer in its study, 
 
 ^ History of Bohemian Literature, by Francis Count Liitzow (Lon- 
 don, 1899). Cheskian Anthology, by (Sir) John Bowring (London, 
 1832). Tieitrunk, ITistorie Jjiteratury CesM (PTa,g\xe, 1880.) 
 
392 EUROPEAN LITERATURE — ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 despaired of its survival, and wrote his own works in 
 German or Latin. But the school of Antonin Puch- 
 mayer (1769-1820) strove successfully against volun- 
 tary euthanasia. By the beginning of our period, 
 national and patriotic feeling had begun to prevail, 
 and about 1818 the establishment of a chair of 
 Bohemian language in the University of Prague, and 
 of a Society for studying Bohemian antiquities, re- 
 corded its triumph. This Society, known as the 
 Museum, published its Journal in both languages, 
 though Dobrovsky urged that it should appear in 
 German only. The next generation, between 1820 
 and 1850, saw Czech become once more a living 
 literary language, and sharing with its sister-tongues 
 the Eomantic influence. 
 
 This patriotic revival was carried further by numer- 
 ous writers. The earliest of importance was Josef 
 lu great Jakob Jungmann (1773-1847), whose main 
 revival. vvork was philological, and whose Historie 
 Literatv/ry Ceski (1825 ; enlarged edition, 1849), as 
 also his Bohemian-German Lexicon (1835-39), form 
 the foundation on which later workers have built. 
 Jungmann was a student and translator of foreign 
 literature, and published renderings from Milton and 
 Gray, Goethe and Schiller, Chateaubriand and others. 
 His version of Paradise Lost, in the national trochaic 
 measure (that of Browning's One word more), appeared 
 as early as 1811, and is highly praised by competent 
 critics. These and other pieces were collected into 
 a volume in 1841. Jungmann had great influence 
 on the younger writers who follow. Wenceslaus 
 
THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 393 
 
 Hanka (1791-1861), indeed, was more directly a pupil 
 of Dobrovsky, and completed some of his philological 
 work. Librarian of the national Museum, he dis- 
 tinguished himself by discovering certain invaluable 
 historical manuscripts. His own poems are not strik- 
 ing, but his collection of old Bohemian poetry (5 vols., 
 1817-25) had wide circulation. The three chief 
 writers of this younger generation, however, were 
 friends and pupils of Jungmann. Jan [John] Kollar 
 (1793-1854), on the whole the leading poet of his 
 day, clergyman and scholar, wrote in German as well 
 as Bohemian. He, too, published a collection of 
 national songs (1823 and 1827 ; enlarged edition, 1834- 
 35), also sermons {Kazne, 1831) and notes of travel 
 (Cestopis, 1843). But his fame rests on his great poem 
 The Daughter of Sldva (Sldvy Dcera, 1821 ; enlarged, 
 1824). This extraordinary book of sonnets records 
 his love for an earthly maiden, but passes on to glorify 
 her as a goddess, and through her lips address fervent 
 exhortations to the Slav races generally. Its form 
 seems reminiscent at once of Dante and Byron, the 
 author being personified as a "pilgrim" somewhat 
 resembling Childe Harold. Alike poetically and 
 politically, Sldva's Batighter had immense effect, and 
 was the most prominent imaginative work of Czech 
 Eomanticism. 
 
 The other members of this trio wrote mainly in 
 
 prose. Pavel [Paul] Josef SafaJfk (1795-1861) edited 
 
 Bnd. of a book of songs, and executed verse trans- 
 
 ^rstml^. lations from Aristophanes and Schiller 
 
 (1816). But his main work was philological, and 
 
394 EUROPEAN LITEEATUEE — EOMANTIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 found expression in a History of Slavonic Language 
 and Literature (1826 ; best edition, 1869), and a great 
 book on Slavonic Antiquities (1837 ; enlarged, 1863). 
 His intimate friend, Franz Ladislav Palacky (1798- 
 1876), first editor of the aforesaid Journal, studied 
 English literature attentively, and began his career by 
 translating " Ossian " and publishing essays on sestheti- 
 cal philosophy (1821 and 1823), which show fruit of 
 this study. Ten years later he wrote a life of his 
 master, Dobrovsky (1833). The best years of his life 
 were given to his History of Bohemia (1836-67), of 
 which the earlier volumes were originally written in 
 German, though later recast in Czech. This masterly 
 work is perhaps the chief fruit of the -Bohemian 
 revival, and the best known outside its author's 
 country. Kollar, Safafik, and Palacky at any rate 
 represent all that was best in the movement they led, 
 and perhaps the only other name requiring mention is 
 that of Franz Ladislav Celakovsky (1799-1852), who, 
 besides translating Scott's Lady of the Lake and editing 
 collections of folk-songs (1822 to 1829), published 
 also some "Echoes" of national poetry (Russian, 
 Lithuanian, Bohemian) which are said to be much 
 more than echoes, one of his best volumes being 
 fancifully named Gentifolium (1840). With these 
 writers the first stage of the Bohemian revival was 
 completed ; its later fortunes pass beyond our limit. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A'Beckett, 129. 
 
 Aberorombie, 171. 
 
 About, 254. 
 
 Ainsworth, 106. 
 
 Airy, 151. 
 
 Aleardi, 359. 
 
 Alford, 188. 
 
 Alison, 4, 136, 141. 
 
 Almqvist, 380. 
 
 AmpJre, 261. 
 
 Ancelot, 257. 
 
 Andersen, 377. 
 
 Appenzeller, 371. 
 
 Arago, 214. 
 
 Arany, 389. 
 
 Arndt, 297. 
 
 Arnim, L. von, 293, 302. 
 
 Arnold, Thomas, 136-138, 181. 
 
 Asbjornsen, 378. 
 
 Atterbom, 379. 
 
 Auerbach, 337, 338. 
 
 Auersperg, 336. 
 
 Augier, 268, 260. 
 
 Austen, Jane, 82-85, 122. 
 
 Austin, John, 156, 158, 163, 164, 
 
 311. 
 Aytoun, 129. 
 Azeglio, 351, 352, 361. 
 
 Baggesen, 376. 
 
 Bailey, 101. 
 
 Baillie, Joanna, 4, 34, 102. 
 
 Bain, 162. 
 
 Bajza, 391. 
 
 Balbo, 361. 
 
 Balmes, 369, 370. 
 
 Balzac, 236-242, 245, 247, 248, 260, 
 
 274, 278, 391. 
 Banim, 88. 
 Barante, 199, 209. 
 Barbauld, Mrs, 34. 
 Barham, 99. 
 Barrow, 100. 
 Batlonshkov, 384. 
 Baur, 322, 340. 
 Baynes, 175. 
 Bechstein, 336. 
 Beddoes, 56, 57 note. 
 Beer, 335. 
 Beets, 373. 
 Bekker, 307. 
 Belli, 352 note. 
 Belzoni, 100. 
 
 Bentham, 4, 156-158, 160. 
 B^ranger, 197, 390. 
 Berohet, 351. 
 Bernard, Charles de, 252. 
 Berzaius, 381. 
 
 Beyle ("Stendhal"), 235, 254, 261. 
 Bilderdijk, 372. 
 "Blackwood," 89, 96-98, 174. 
 Blake, 34, 127. 
 Blanc, 265. 
 
 Blessington, Lady, 88. 
 Bockh, 307. 
 Bogaers, 372. 
 Bonald, 199, 213. 
 Bonjour, 260. 
 Bopp, 307. 
 Borne, 306, 330, 331. 
 
 2 C 
 
402 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Borrow, 130. 
 
 Bostrom, 381. 
 
 Botta, 317, 361. 
 
 Bowles, 4, 15, 34. 
 
 Bowring, 100. , 
 
 Brandis, 307. 
 
 Bremer, 381. 
 
 Bremner, 130. 
 
 Brentano, 293, 296, 297, 302, 312. 
 
 Bretin de los Herreros, 367. 
 
 Brewster, 106, 146. 
 
 Brink, Bakhuizen van den, 374. 
 
 Brodzinski, 388. 
 
 Brontes, the, 120-123. 
 
 Brougham, 90. 
 
 Brown, Rohert, 146, 147. 
 
 Brown, Thomas, 171, 172. 
 
 Browne, E. H., 188. 
 
 Browning, Mrs, 58-62, 83, 246, 363. 
 
 Browning, Robert, 10, 58, 59, 65, 
 
 67-71, 102, 219, 300, 341, 363, 
 
 392. 
 Brunton, Mrs, 86. 
 Biichner, Georg, 337. 
 Buchner, J. A., 320. 
 Buckland, 147, 149, 150, 152. 
 Buokstone, 103. 
 Burns, 28, 29, 104, 198, 389. 
 Burton; 144. 
 Butler, Archer, 170. 
 HyrOH7-i.ord, 2, 3, 11, 13, 17, 25, 
 'T33-45,lf, 49, 66, 58, 63, 81, 101, 
 \212=^»f 226, 227, 231, 233, 276, 
 
 299, 331, 334, 346, 348, 350, 355, 
 
 358, 362, 366, 368, 369, 373, 383- 
 
 385, 388, 393, 398. 
 
 Cahanyes, 367, 370. 
 
 Calderdn, Est^banez, 367, 369. 
 
 Calderwood, 175. 
 
 Campbell, 32, 89, 133. 
 
 Canti, 359, 361. 
 
 Carduoci, 357. 
 
 Carleton, 84, 88. 
 
 Carlyle,3, 36, 91, 104-106, 112, 124, 
 126, 127, 136, 140, 141, 144, 145, 
 153, 166, 181, 184, 185, 212, 293, 
 314, 397. 
 
 Carrel, 203, 263. 
 
 Carrer, 369. 
 
 Cederborgh, 381. 
 
 Celakovsky, 394. 
 
 Cesarotti, 347. 
 
 Chalmers, George, 133. 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas, 189. 
 
 Chambers, Robert, 125, 150. 
 
 Chambers, William, 125. 
 
 Chamisso, 293. 
 
 Champolllon, 214. 
 
 Chenier, 196. 
 
 Clarke, 100. 
 
 Cobbett, 4, 91, 93-95. 
 
 Coleridge, Sara, 57. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 2, 4, 8, 15, 16, 22, 
 23, 26, 27, 30 note, 56, 89, 94, 
 95, 101, 105, 128, 146, 156, 160, 
 166-171, 175, 180, 233, 314. 
 
 CoUetta, 347, 361. 
 
 Combe, 177. 
 
 Comte, 155, 156, 162, 201, 211, 214, 
 262, 272-276, 278. 
 
 Constant, 199, 201, 202, 371. 
 
 "Cornwall, Barry," 56. 
 
 Courier, 202, 203. 
 
 Cousin, 204, 207, 360 note. 
 
 Coyne, 103. 
 
 Crabbe, 4, 34. 
 
 Craik, G. L., 136, 140. 
 
 Craik, Mrs, 120. 
 
 Creuzer, 305. 
 
 Croker, Crofton, 88. 
 
 Croker, J. W., 99. 
 
 Cunningham, 66. 
 
 Cnvier, 214. 
 
 Dahlgren, 379. 
 
 Dahlmann, 310. 
 
 Dalton, 146, 147. 
 
 Damiron, 209. 
 
 Darley, 56, 67 note. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 152-155, 275. 
 
 Davis, 130. 
 
 Davy, 146, 147. 
 
 DeAk, 391. 
 
 Delavigne, 196, 257, 258, 260. 
 
 De Morgan, 151. 
 
 De Quincey, 95, 105, 127, 166, 304, 
 
 314. 
 Desbordes-Valmore, Madame, 270. 
 Deschamps, Antony, 221. 
 Deschamps, Emile, 221. 
 Detmold, 340. 
 Dickens, 3, 88, 112-116, 119, 120, 
 
 303, 334, 386. 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, 116-119, 136, 
 
 278. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 403 
 
 D'leraeli, Isaac, 4, 116. 
 
 Dobell, 101. 
 
 Dobrovsky, 391-394. 
 
 Donoso, 369. 
 
 D'Orsay, 99. 
 
 Douoet, 260. 
 
 Dumas, Alex, (pere), 87, 222, 236, 
 
 237, 243-246, 254, 259, 260. 
 Dumas, Alez. (flls), 244, 254, 258, 
 
 260. 
 Dunlop, 99. 
 Dupont, 234. 
 Duran, 369. 
 
 Edgeworth, Miss, 84, 88. 
 Eichendorff, 299. 
 Eiohhorn, 320. 
 Blphinstone, 130. 
 Empis, 260. 
 Enfantin, 213. 
 Ecitvos, 390, 391.- 
 Bspronoeda, 365, 367-370. 
 
 Faber. " Feman Caballero," 367. 
 Faraday, 147, 169. 
 Fauriel, 203, 261, 348, 370. 
 Ferrier, Miss, 85, 86. 
 Ferrier, T. F., 174. 
 Feuchtersleben, 336. 
 . Feuerbach, Anselm von, 311. 
 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 341. 
 Finlay, 137, 140. 
 Forbes, Edward, 151. 
 Forbes, J. D., 151. 
 Forster, 144. 
 Forsyth, 100. 
 Foscolo, 347, 349. 
 Foster, 178. 
 
 Fouqufi, 181, 292, 296, 297, 302. 
 Fourier, 213, 264. 
 'Eraser,' 90, 105. 
 Eraser, 175. 
 Freeman, 144. 
 Freiligrath, 336; 
 Freytag, 337, 338. 
 Prohlich, 371. 
 Fromentin, 264. 
 Froude, Autbony, 144, 186. 
 Fronde, R. H., 186. 
 
 Gallega, 365. 
 Galluppi, 359. 
 Gait, 86. 
 
 Gans, 318, 331. 
 
 Gaskell, Mrs, 120, 122. 
 
 Gauss, 282, 320, 343. 
 
 Gantier, 216, 228-230, 232-234, 237, 
 
 ' 250, 254, 260, 261, 383. 
 
 Gay, Madame, 269. 
 
 Geibel, 337. 
 
 Geijer, 380. 
 
 Gell, 140. 
 
 Gennadios, 370. 
 
 Gerok, 337. 
 
 Gerrinus, 333, 
 
 Gesenius, 307. 
 
 Gifford, 34, 91. 
 
 GUlies, 133. 
 
 Gioberti, 360. 
 
 Giordani, §54, 359. 
 
 Girardin, Bmile de, 263. 
 
 Girardin, Madame de, 270. 
 
 Girardin, Saint-Marc, 261, 263. 
 
 Giraud, 351. 
 
 Giusti, 358. 
 
 Gleig, 88, 99. 
 
 Godwin, Mary. See Shelley, Mrs. 
 
 Goethe, 35, 36, 40, 43, 101, 162, 193, 
 199, 205, 217, 277, 281-286, 288- 
 291, 293, 294, 298, 299, 302-304, 
 306, 318, 324, 342, 349, 351, 392. 
 
 Gogol, 386, 387. 
 
 Goncourts, E. and J., 254. 
 
 Gore, Mrs, 88. 
 
 Gorres, 306. 
 
 Gotthelf, 371. 
 
 Gottsohall, 338. 
 
 Grant, 120. 
 
 Grillparzer, 299. 
 
 Grimm, J., 282, 305, 307, 312. 
 
 Grimm, W., 282, 306, 307. 
 
 Grossi, 351, 352. 
 
 Grote, 136, 138-140, 278. 
 
 Grote, Mrs, 138. 
 
 "Grun, Anastasius." See Auers- 
 perg. 
 
 Grundtvig, 377. 
 
 Gu^rin, Eugenie de, 268. 
 
 Guerin, Maurice de, 268. 
 
 Gnerrazzi, 358. 
 
 Guiraud, 258. 
 
 Guizot, 199, 204-207, 209. 
 
 Gnmaelius, 381. 
 
 Gntzkow, 335. 
 
 Hagenbach, 371. 
 
404 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hall, Basil, 101. 
 
 Hall, Mrs S. C, 119. 
 
 Hall, Eotert, 178. 
 
 Hallam, 134, 135, 141. 
 
 "Halm, Priedrich," 336. 
 
 Hamilton, William, 96, 156, 160, 
 
 161, 171-175. 
 Hammarskold, 379. 
 Hampden, 180. 
 Hanka, 393. 
 
 Hare, Augustus William, 180. 
 Hare, Julius, 180, 308. 
 Hiiring, 304. 
 Hasebroek, 374. 
 Hauch, 377. 
 HaufF, 336. 
 Haxtnausen, 307. 
 Hazlitt, 94, 127. 
 Hebbel, 337. 
 Heber, 56. 
 Heeren, 308. 
 Hegel, 155, 207, 282, 314-318, 320, 
 
 324, 342. 
 Heine, Heinrich, 35, 282, 285, 290, 
 
 295, 301-303, 305, 306, 313, 315, 
 316, 318, 323-335, 338, 341, 343, 
 344, 354, 356, 368, 383, 384, 390, 
 397, 398. 
 
 Helps, 130. 
 
 Hemans, 56, 59, 108. 
 
 Hermann, 307. 
 
 Herschel, 148. 
 
 Heyne, 307. 
 
 Heyse, 337. 
 
 Hobhouse, 100. 
 
 Hoffmann, "Amadeus," 285, 291, 
 
 296, 302, 334. 
 HoSFmann, Heiurioh, 339. 
 Hoffmann of Fallersleben, 301. 
 Hogg, 28, 104. 
 
 Hood, 56, 57, 76, 116, 128. 
 
 Hook, Theodore, 87, 102. 
 
 Hook, W. ¥., 181. 
 
 Home, 101. 
 
 Horvath, 391. 
 
 Howitt, Mary, 99. 
 
 Howitt, William, 99, 381. 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 2, 87, 126, 201, 215- 
 223, 225, 226, 228-231, 234, 236, 
 243, 254-257, 260, 261, 272, 273, 
 277, 278, 348, 362, 364, 366, 397, 
 398. 
 
 Humboldt, F., 282, 319. 
 
 Humboldt, W., 282, 305, 319, 350 
 Hunt, Leigh, 33, 53, 91. 
 
 Immermann, 301. 
 Inohbald, Mrs, 34. 
 Ingemann, 377. 
 Irving, 99. 
 
 James, 106. 
 
 Janin, 252, 261. 
 
 JefiErey, 7, 8, 19, 90, 91, 289. 
 
 Jerdan, 99. 
 
 Jerrold, Douglas, 103, 128. 
 
 J6sika, 390. 
 
 Joubert, 262. 
 
 Jouffroy, 208. 
 
 Jouy, 257. 
 
 Jungmann, 392. 
 
 Karr, 253. 
 
 Keats, 23, 25, 33, 52-58, 61, 63, 65, 
 
 66, 68, 228, 390. 
 Keble, 66, 147, 179, 182. 
 Keightley, 135. 
 Kemble, J. M., 143. 
 Kem^ny, 391. 
 Kemer, 294. 
 Keyser, 379. 
 Kinglake, 130. 
 Kinkel, 337. 
 Kisfaludy, Karoly, 388. 
 Kisfaludy, Sander, 388. 
 Kitto, 186. 
 Kleist, 293, 306. 
 Knapp, 301. 
 Knight, 125, 140, 186. 
 Kock, 252. 
 Kolb, 340. 
 KoUar, 393, 394. 
 KoltzoT, 384. 
 Kopisch, 301. 
 Korner, 298. 
 Kossuth, 363, 391. 
 Krasinski, 388. 
 
 Lachmann, 307. 
 
 Lacordaire, 266, 270. 
 
 Laing, 130. 
 
 Lamartine, 195-197, 227, 230-234, 
 
 236, 266, 277, 366. 
 Lamb, 22, 28, 91, 94, 95, 101, 127, 
 
 374. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 405 
 
 Lamennais, 200, 246, 248, 266-268, 
 
 272, 275, 278, 306. 
 Landor, 17, 29-31, 69. 
 Lappenberg, 311. 
 Lardner, 125, 139, 148, &c. 
 Larra, 367-370. 
 Laube, 335. 
 Layard, 130. 
 Leake, 100, 140. 
 Lebrun, 257. 
 Ledeganok, 374. 
 Lefevre, 221. 
 Lemercier, 260. 
 Lemon, 129. 
 Lenau, 336. 
 Lennep, 373. 
 Leopardi, 352-357, 359, 362, 363, 
 
 368, 397. 
 Lermontov, 383, 386, 387. 
 Lever, 84, 119. 
 Lewes, 161. 
 Lewis, G. C, 143. 
 Ling, 380. 
 Lingard, 134. 
 Lista, 365, 369. 
 Littri, 261, 263. 
 Lobeok, 307. 
 Lookhart, 80, 90, 97, 98. 
 Lonnrot, 382. 
 Lover, 88. 
 
 Loyson, Charles, 197. 
 Lyell, 149. 
 Lytton, first Lord, 106-110, 116, 119. 
 
 Macanlay, 56, 90, 137, 141-145, 278, 
 
 384. 
 M'Cosh, 175. 
 M'Crie, 134. 
 
 Mackintosh, 133, 157, 164, 171. 
 Macnish, 98. 
 Madvig, 376. 
 Maginn, 98. 
 Magnin, 203. 
 Maine, 163. 
 
 Maistre, J. M. de, 199, 213. 
 Maistre, Xavier de, 199 note. 
 Malcohn, 100. 
 Malozewski, 388. 
 Malthns, 4, 176. 
 Manning, 184, 187. 
 Mansel, 156, 161, 170, 175. 
 Manzoni, 87, 203, 348-352, 355, 356, 
 
 358, 362, 363. 
 
 Marryat, 87, 88. 
 
 Martineau, James, 170, 187. 
 
 Martineau, Miss, 99, 119. 
 
 Mathews, 103. 
 
 Maturin, 88, 102. 
 
 Maurice, 170, 180, 187. 
 
 Maaeres, 260. 
 
 Mazzini, 362. 
 
 Meissner, 337. 
 
 Menzel, 306. 
 
 M&im4, 229, 250, 251, 254. 
 
 Merivale, 144. 
 
 Messchert, 372. 
 
 Michaud, 209. 
 
 Michelet, 211, 271. 
 
 Micklewicz, 387. 
 
 Mignet, 270. 
 
 Mill, James, 134, 157-160, 164, 165. 
 
 Mill, J. S., 156, 158-164, 173, 175, 
 
 263, 279, 384. 
 Miller, Hugh, ISO, 190. 
 Milman, 56, 102, 136. 
 Mitford, Miss, 99, 102. 
 Mitford, William, 133, 138, 139. 
 Moe, 378. 
 Mohler, 341. 
 Moir, 87, 99. 
 Molbek, 376. 
 Molitor, 322. 
 Mdller, 376. 
 
 Moutalembert, 189, 266, 267, 270. 
 Monte, 347. 
 Moore, 31, 133. 
 More, Hannah, 34, 178. 
 Morell, 170. 
 Morgan, Lady, 86. 
 Morier, 87, 88. 
 Morike, 336. 
 Morton, J. M., 103. 
 Morton, Thos., 102. 
 Mosen, 336. 
 Moser, 306. 
 Motherwell, 56. 
 Miiller, A. H., 306. 
 Miiller, Johann, 342, 
 Miiller, Julius, 322. 
 MUUer, 0., 307. 
 Miiller, W., 300, 334. 
 Miillner, 300. 
 Munch, A., 378. 
 Munch, P. A., 379. 
 Murchison, 148, 150. 
 Mure, 136, 140. 
 
406 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Murger, 234. 
 
 Musset, 217, 222, 225-228, 230, 246, 
 254, 260, 354, 368, 383. 
 
 Napier, 135. 
 
 Neander, 310. 
 
 Nekrasov, 384. 
 
 Nerval, 234, 327. 
 
 Newman, P. W., 187. 
 
 Newman, J. H., 147, 182, 183-187. 
 
 Newton, John, 178. 
 
 Niccolini, 351. 
 
 Niebuhr, 139, 181, 282, 308-310, 
 
 320, 350, 353. 
 Niemcewicz, 387. 
 Nisard, 262. 
 Nodier, 221-223. 
 
 "North, Christopher." See Wilson. 
 Nota, 347, 361. 
 Nyberg, 379. 
 
 Oehlensohlager, 375, 376, 377, 379. 
 
 Oersted, A. S., 376. 
 
 Oersted, H. C, 376. 
 
 Oken, 282, 320. 
 
 Oustrialov, 384. 
 
 Owen, Richard, 149. 
 
 Owen, Robert, 176. 
 
 Ozanam, 269. 
 
 Ozanaux, 258. 
 
 Palacky, 394. 
 Palgrave, 135. 
 Palmblad, 379. 
 Peacock, 56, 87, 88. 
 Pellioo, 361. 
 Petofi, 389. 
 Picard, 259. 
 Pindemonte, 347. 
 Pinkerton, 133. 
 Platen, 300. 
 Ponsord, 255. 
 Poole, 102. 
 
 Porter, Anna Maria, 85. 
 Porter, Jane, 85. 
 Porter, Robert, 100. 
 Potgieter, 374. 
 Praed, 56, 57, 76. 
 Prater, 359. 
 Proudhon, 264, 265. 
 " Prout, Father," 129. 
 Puchmayer, 392. 
 ' Punch,' 128. 
 
 Pueey, 181, 183. 
 Pushkin, 383-387. 
 
 Quinet, 270, 271. 
 
 Ranke, 310, 340. 
 
 Rask, 376. 
 
 Reinick, 336. 
 
 Remusat, 199, 209. 
 
 Renan, 264, 341. 
 
 Ricardo, 176, 177. 
 
 Richmond, 178. 
 
 Richter, 282, 302-304, 332, 334, 338. 
 
 Rivas, 366. 
 
 Rogers, Henry, 187. 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, 4, 34. 
 
 Roraanos, Mesonero, 367. 
 
 Rosa, 365. 
 
 Roscoe, W., 133. 
 
 Rosini, 35l. 
 
 Rosmini-Serbati, 360, 362, 363. 
 
 Rossetti, Gabriele, 351. 
 
 Rovere, Mamiani della, 360 note. 
 
 Euokert, 297, 301. 
 
 Ruge, 318. 
 
 Runeberg, 382. 
 
 Ruskin, 127, 397. 
 
 Safafik, 393. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, 203, 222, 224, 233, 
 
 236, 262, 254, 257, 261, 268, 278, 
 
 354. 
 Saint-Hilaire, Barthelemy, 262. 
 Saint-Hilaire, Geoffrey, 214. 
 Saint-Simon, 211, 213, 264, 272. 
 Salamos, 370. 
 "Sand, George," 236, 237, 246-261, 
 
 270, 278. 
 Sandeaiu, 253. 
 Savigny, Karl, 311, 318. 
 Schelling, 167, 207, 282, 287, 306, 
 
 312-314, 316, 320, 321, 324. 
 Sohenkendorf, 297. 
 Soherenberg, 301. 
 Scheurlin, 336. 
 Schimmel, 374. 
 Sohlegel, A. W., 282, 285, 286-290, 
 
 334, 350. 
 Sohlegel, F., 282, 286, 286-290, 321. 
 Schopenhauer, 282, 341. 
 Schulze, 300. 
 Schwab, 299. 
 Schwegler, 340. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 Soott, Michael, 87, 88. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 2-4, 6-15, 19-23, 
 2,5, 26, 28, 32, 38, 40, 56, 58, 66, 
 75-82, 84-87, 89, 96, 101, 104, 116, 
 119; 133, 138, 142, 143, 146, 210, 
 219, 221, 233, 244, 276, 303, 304, 
 324, 334, 336, 349, 361, 366, 373, 
 394, 398. 
 
 Scribe, 259, 260. 
 
 Sedgwick, 147. 
 
 Seidl, 336. 
 
 Shack, 337. 
 
 Sharpe, C. K., 99. 
 
 Shelley, 2, 25, 30 note, 33, 37-39, 
 45-56, 58, 60, 63, 68, 80, 101, 124, 
 265, 355, 381, 398. 
 
 Shelley, Mrs, 45, 88. 
 
 Shiel, 102. 
 
 Simeon, 178. 
 
 Simon, Jules, 263. 
 
 Simrook, 339. 
 
 Sismondi, 210, 371. 
 
 Sjoberg, 381. 
 
 Skene, 144. 
 
 Slowacki, 388. 
 
 Smith, Alexander, 101. 
 
 Smith, Albert, 129. 
 
 Smith, Horace, 87. 
 
 Smith, Sydney, 90, 94. 
 
 Soloviev, 384. 
 
 Souli^, 234. 
 
 Soumet, 257. 
 
 Southey, 2, 16-18, 26, 30, 89, 92, 93, 
 133, 135, 146, 318. 
 
 Soutzos, 370. 
 
 Souvestre, 2S3. 
 
 Spitta, 336. 
 
 Stagnelius, 381. 
 
 Stanhope, 143. 
 
 Staring, 372. 
 
 Steffens, 305, 375. 
 
 "Stendhal." See Beyle. 
 
 Stephen, James, 136, 163. 
 
 Stephen, J. P., 163. 
 
 Sterling, 181. 
 
 Stewart, 4, 171, 172. 
 
 Stifter, 336. 
 
 Strauss, 262, 270, 341. 
 
 Strickland, Miss, 136, 140. 
 
 Stubbs, 144. 
 
 Sue, 251. 
 
 Sybel, 340. 
 
 Sz^ch^nyi, 388. 
 
 Talfourd, 56, 102. 
 
 Tanner, 371. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, 165. 
 
 Taylor, Sir Henry, 56, 103. 
 
 Tegner, 376, 380. 
 
 Tennyson, 3, 12, 58, 62-67, 169, 
 
 188, 337. 
 Testa, 351, 361. 
 Thackeray, 88, 109-112, 114-116, 118- 
 
 120, 122, 128, 198, 252, 303, 333. 
 Thierry, Amed4e, 211. 
 Thierry, Augustin, 210-212, 272. 
 Thiers, 206, 212, 270, 327. 
 ThirlwaU, 136, 139, 144, 181, 278, 
 
 308. 
 Thorwaldsen, 377. 
 Tieck, 282, 285, 286, 288, 290-292, 
 
 302, 334. 
 Tooquevaie, Alexis de, 271. 
 Toldy, 391. 
 ToUens, 372. 
 Tommaseo, 359. 
 Tompa, 389. 
 TBpffer, 371. 
 Triooupi, 371. 
 TroUope, Mrs, 119. 
 Troya, 361. 
 Turner, Sharon, 134. 
 Tytler, 136. 
 
 Dhland, 282, 285, 295-297, 299, 333. 
 
 Vacherot, 262. 
 
 Varese, 351. 
 
 Vamhagen von Ense, 305, 329. 
 
 Veitch, 175. 
 
 Veuillot, 263. 
 
 Vigny, 221, 222-224, 230, 254, 258. 
 
 Villemain, 204, 205, 207, 269. 
 
 Vinet, 261, 371. 
 
 Vogl, 336. 
 
 Vorosmarty, 389. 
 
 Voss, 282, 304. 
 
 Wagner, Ernest, 304. 
 Wagner, Eudolph, 343. 
 Warburton, Eliot, 130. 
 Ward, W. G.,188. 
 Warren, 99, 119. 
 Waterton, 100. 
 Weber, E. H., 343. 
 Weber, P. W., 337. 
 Weber, W. E., 343. 
 
408 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Welhavea, 378. 
 
 Wells, 56. 
 
 Wergeland, 378. 
 
 Werner, Gottlob, 305, 319. 
 
 Werner, Zaoharias, 289, 299. 
 
 Whately, 165. 
 
 Whewell, 165. 
 
 Wilberforoe, Samuel, 186-188. 
 
 Wilberforoe, William, 178, 
 
 187. 
 Wilson, 90, 97, 172. 
 Wiseman, 185-187. 
 
 186, 
 
 Wolf, 307, 308. 
 
 Wordsworth, 3, 4, 11, 15, 17-27, 44, 
 
 63, 66, 69, 78, 96, 101, 133, 194, 
 
 216, 218, 233, 285. 
 Wyss, 371. 
 
 Zanella, 359. 
 Zedlitz, 299. 
 Zeller, 340. 
 Zhukovski, 384, 387. 
 Zorrilla, 369. 
 Zschokke, 304. 
 
 PRINTED BT WILUAM BrACKWOOD AND SONS.