The “Swiss-Saxon” quarrel 27 The elder Schlegels: Johann Adolf 29 Johann Elias 30 Moses Mendelssohn 32 Lessing 33 Some cautions respecting him 33 His moral obsession; on _Soliman the Second_ 34 The strictures on Ariosto’s portrait of Alcina 36 _Hamlet_ and _Semiramis_ 37 The _Comte d’Essex_, _Rodogune_, _Mérope_ 37 Lessing’s Gallophobia 38 And typomania 38 His study of antiquity more than compensating 39 And especially of Aristotle 40 With whom he combines Diderot 41 His deficiencies in regard to mediæval literature 41 The close of the _Dramaturgie_ and its moral 42 Miscellaneous specimens of his criticism 44 His attitude to Æschylus and Aristophanes 46 Frederic the Great 48 _De la Littérature Allemande_ 49 CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISH PRECURSORS. The first group 53 Mediæval reaction 53 Gray 54 Peculiarity of his critical position 55 The Letters 56 The _Observations_ on Aristophanes and Plato 59 The _Metrum_ 60 The Lydgate Notes 61 Shenstone 63 Percy 64 The Wartons 66 Joseph’s _Essay on Pope_ 66 The _Adventurer_ Essays 67 Thomas Warton on Spenser 68 His _History of English Poetry_ 70 Hurd: his Commentary on Addison 72 The Horace 73 The Dissertations 74 Other Works 75 The _Letters on Chivalry and Romance_ 75 Their doctrine 76 His real importance 78 Alleged imperfections of the group 79