If these remarks are favorably received, we shall probably discuss next the introduction of foreign plays, such as has already taken place at the Weimar Theatre. This includes Greek and French, English, Italian and Spanish plays, besides the comedies of Terence and Plautus, in which masks are made use of. Most necessary would it be perhaps to discuss Shakespeare and combat the prejudice that the works of this extraordinary writer should be given in the German Theatre in their complete length and breadth. This false idea has meant the suppression of the older revisions of Schroeder, and prevented others from prospering. It must be emphatically insisted, and with solid reason, that in this case as in so many others the reader must be distinguished from and part company with the spectator; each has his rights, and neither should be permitted to injure the other’s. LUDWIG TIECK’S _DRAMATURGIC FRAGMENTS_ (1826) My mind has been stimulated in many ways by this noteworthy book. As a dramatic poet, as a writer who by extensive travels and by personal observation and study of foreign theatres has qualified himself as a critic of insight and knowledge in connection with our native theatre, and as one who by scholarly study has fitted himself to be a historian of past and present times, the author has an assured position with the German public, which is here especially evident and notable. In him, criticism rests upon pleasure, pleasure upon knowledge, and these criteria, which are usually thought of as distinct, are here fused into a satisfying whole. His reverence for Kleist is highly praiseworthy. As far as I am personally concerned, in spite of the sincerest desire to appreciate him justly, Kleist always arouses in me horror and aversion, as of a body intended by nature to be beautiful, but seized by an incurable illness. Tieck is the very reverse; he dwells rather upon the good that has been left by nature; the deformity he puts aside, excusing much more than he blames. For, after all, this man of genius deserves only our pity; on this point we do reach agreement. I also agree with him willingly when, as champion for the unity, indivisibility and inviolability of Shakespeare’s plays, he wants to have them put on the stage without revision or modification from beginning to end.