J.

Before treating of the influence of German literature in England during the present century it is necessary to cast a glance backwards. We have already shown above how the English nation had not been able to withstand the gradual spread of French taste and manners; and this pernicious influence was so great that even the works of the immortal Shakespear fell into partial oblivion and, for a long time, were withheld alike from the stage, the reading public and criticism. But the vigorous mind of the nation shook off the unnatural fetters comparatively early and more easily than was the case with the Germans. In England as well as iu Germany the interest of the majority soon began to be directed to the mediaeval legendary lore of Britain. Subjects of the chivalrie times were treated with peculiar predilection, old ballads were collected, new ones written, and a romantie school with all the luxuriancy, though without thie sickly sentimentality of continental romanticism, was soon firmly established. The celebrated collection of Percy:„Relics of ancient English Poetry“ was perhaps the chief agent in turning the national taste in this direction.

The liveliest and freshest interest for minstrelsy and legendary composition was not to be found in England itself, but in Scotland, where there arose a surprising number of noble-minded and enthusiastic poets, such as Burns, the true child of nature and the favourite-poet of the people, whose lyrical effusions may be reckoned among the noblest treasures that the English language has to boast of, Ramsay, Fergusson,„the poetical progenitor“ of Burns, as he has been called, Hogg, and lastly prominent among all, Walter Scott.

But in England too, hollow artificiality and frigid declamation, as they appear, for instance, in the glittering French productions of Dryden, Addison and Pope, gave way to nature, feeling and true sentiment. Thomson, Goldsmith and Crabbe were among the most instrumental in this reaction.

Thus it was that the English poetic mind was gradually prepared for the easy reception of those doctrines of taste and style which had become prevalent in Germany. The deep scientific speculations and metaphysical researches of Kant and his illustrions followers, which brought about so important a revolution in philosophy and criticism, called forth the astonishment and admiration of the intellectual circles in England, and although the new doctrines did not take such firm root on English ground as they might have done, still they contributed largely to direct the attention of foreign nations to the literary life of Germany.

The acute, ready mind of Lessing, his brilliant, pure, idiomatic style, his inexorable logic and his many other qualities, which could not be otherwise than congenial to the practical English mind, gained for him many an ardent admirer, although full justice was not done to him before the era in which we live.

Klopstock and Goethe were, however, the first writers of note who found intelligent and ardent admirers in England and whose works appeared in an English garb. It is not to be wondered at that the author of the Messiah should have met with so mucb sympathy in England, considering that he had chosen a subject so very popular in the country of Milton. We shall have occasion to return to Klopstock farther on. As to Goethe, we bave already mentioned the effect produced by his Goetz