"Fragmente," Wieland's "Musarion," Gerstenberg's "Ugolino," Lavater's "Aussichten in die Ewigkeit,” and Basedow's pædagogic-writings which were the first step to the school-reform-were put forth: they made a great stir, and promoted art, theology, and German enlightenment in general. But when GOETHE appeared as a powerful leader, the real revolution and the reformation of German letters broke out. His "Goetz von Berlichingen," and his "Werther's Leiden" (1774), were intended to reform poetry, style, and the entire drapery of belles lettres. It was Herder who unveiled to Goethe, at Strasburg, the poverty of German literature, and made him acquainted with poetry in its grand application to nature, to the nation, and to the world. Herder was the resuscitator who effected that mental revolutionary sensation in the Strassburg circles of young men, to which Goethe, Lenz, Jung Stilling, etc., markedly belonged. What Goethe effected has been considered by us in another place; let us only add here, that his works gave a fresh impulse to literature, all authors being suddenly found adopting the form either of the drama or the novel.

But whilst this emotion was entering into the inner heart of poetry, an open, noble-minded German appeared, at Hanover, who threw light upon the darkness of politics. This man was A. L. SCHLÖZER (1735-1809). He created a literary tribunal, and by his judgments and verdicts paled all the German obscurants, all the innumerable petty tyrants and their despotic servants,—at any rate, all those amongst them who had still honour and virtue enough left to be able to blush or to grow pale. Schlözer, namely, published, in 1775, a journal, with the title of "Briefwechsel," in which he censured and rebuked the administrative governments of the states, and the historic circumstances of his time. As early as the second year of this journal we find articles by which Schlözer became the detestation of all the old prejudiced officers of state, and of

the petty despots of feudal Germany. Schlosser depicts this very cleverly in his "Geschichte des 18ten Jahrhunderts," viz.: "Alle die, welche in den Ritzen und Löchern unserer verfallenen Reichsburg im Dunkeln hausten, die Tyrannen in Mönchskutten, in Stiftern und Klöstern, die wohlweisen Beherrscher oder Magistrate der Reichstädte, die hochgebornen Reichsritter, welche die Dörfer beherrschten, die durchlauchtigen fürstlichen Herrn, die im Dunkel kleiner Residenzen und leicht von den Thürmen derselben zu übersehender Länder mit königlichem Stolze ihr Wesen trieben, erhoben bald ihr vereinigtes Zetergeschrei."

But a review, very similar to Schlözer's "Briefwechsel," came out at this time, founded by Dohm and Boje, under the title of "Deutsches Museum," unquestionably one of the best journals that Germany ever sent forth to the public. This "Museum" certainly was the medium and arena of intellectual warfare. A language, a style, was written at this epoch which was unheard of before, and which had for its design the overthrow of all the old forms of poetry and criticism. New principles started up in every mind, the pattern of the Ancients was no longer sanctioned as authoritative, every one wished to give forth the individual perception and the feeling of his "Ich," and to represent nature in her wonderful strictness. Men of genius no longer desired to stick slavishly to the Greeks, as they had done before, they detested imitation of the French; they only honoured and valued the works of masters "an und für sich." The old Parnassus was entirely stormed, such men as GLEIM, GELLERT, RABENER, NICOLAI, even the products of WIELAND, were, to a certain extent, unrecognized,—they were pushed from the throne of literature and despised. Geniuses are wanted who are real and original in themselves, as original as nature; for it was thought that true genius is weakened by an imitative education. But the new generation took for their authorities-Homer, Shaks

young

peare, Ossian, and the old ballads collected by Percy, under the title of "Reliques."

In this period the movement of religious opinions may be particularly marked; the boundaries of the dogma being thrown down, a desire was afloat for the seizure of magical powers, for a preying upon the natural in its most recondite veins. At no time was the taste for unity and secret combination so great, and never was there a stronger belief in sympathising powers. Lavater was full of this peculiar feature of the time, and presented to the world exactly what they wanted. But his "Physionomik," trumpeted forth by his friend Zimmerman (who then was thought to be the greatest philosopher) as a masterpiece of science, was attacked by Lichtenberg, with a satiric power, to its very roots, and at last it broke down into the nullity out of which it was created.

SECOND PERIOD.

(1770-1800.)

DAS ZEITALTER DER CLASSISCHEN POESIE.

ONE fact there is strongly enforced upon our attention whenever we study the development of German literature. We have in our eye that remarkable conjuncture, or rather crisis, in the kingdom of letters, under favour of which certain controversies in the regions of higher criticism, between Wieland and the writers of the Nicolai school, were prosecuted at Berlin with the most passionate inveteracy, while Kant was gloriously ascending the literary horizon of the north, to stand forward as the reformer of the spiritualité of the human understanding, contemporaneously also with the very creation of æsthetical art, and with its first and earnest study. Neither

was this all; for, simultaneously with these manifestations, the taste for the imperishable classics of Greece and of Rome was greatly promoted by the judicious advocacy of that elegant humanist Heyne; and the rear of these revolutions was brought up by that intellectual phenomenon, known as the "Göttinger Hain, or Bardenbund" -a society, that would seem to have won its being and its shape out of the weird influences of the day. In the university of Göttingen, then the most flourishing "aula” of all kindred seats of learning in Germany, the imaginative phasis of the human mind obtained a large and visible manifestation. This College embraced a circle of youthful, vigorous geniuses within its walls, who, headed and led on by the justly-celebrated professors, succeeded in forming amongst themselves a union-idealistic, in aid of which all their talents were afterwards entirely directed. Klopstock was the man, who had already inflamed their enthusiasm by revealing to them the august originals of the German language, so eminently elaborated in his "Messias." The true cause of this confederation, must at once be acknowledged to be those two powerful and poeticminded persons, BOJE and GOTTER, who conceived the design of establishing a "Musenalmanach," in which they intended to offer to the public the current poetry, that was, in their judgments, really worthy of that title. This publication made its first appearance in 1770, being modelled according to the plan of the " Almanac des Muses," then published at Paris.

The nationality, that the judicious inquirer might reasonably expect to discover below the surface of German literature, may now, therefore, be taken as fully established.

At the epoch we have now attained, the natural form of poetry, germinating out of the seedling into the strong and fructive plant, displays its spiritual increase, even to its rarest and most delicately-elaborated buds, and unfolds its largest and sweetest flowers.

Goethe arises, and the ever-memorable" Barden-Bund" rushes into being. Bards of a high metrical ambition, and gifted with a wide sweep of genius,-master-spirits indeed, whom no other times could rival,-start up in quick succession in the arena of immortal renown; namely, Bürger and Hölty, Voss, the two brothers Stolberg, and many others. Hand in hand with Goethe rises Schiller, and cooperates with him in the same sublime and imperishable cause. One characteristic, and that the greatest of this age, is, that almost all these magnates were gathered together into a most intimate society; a noble feature this in the poetic gift-at once unsurpassable and truly sublime. Goethe ascends the throne as sovereign potentate, Schiller takes his place by his side, and both exercise imperial dominion in the commonwealth of the muses. Meanwhile the interests of science and the elegant arts were far from being neglected; these rose, on the contrary, to a state of high perfection.

FIRST SECTION.

DER GOETTINGER BARDEN-BUND.*

THE progress made by poetry in its first period was great, as we have already seen, and the discrimination of that age, although defective, was the means of calling forth life, new vigour, and a yearning after perfection in the metrical art. As one result of this state of things, we may hail the fact, of a number of influential authors banding themselves together into a mentally-defined union, and conspiring to give a novel stimulus to the bardic emulation. Now this poets' confederation is no other than our veritable "Barden-Bund." All its members were geniuses of the highest order, and their lays were interwoven with an un

* R. E. Prutz, Der Göttinger Dichter Bund, 1841.