What I shall describe is a historical movement partaking of the form and character of a drama. The six different literary groups it is my intention to represent may be looked on as six acts of a great play. In the first group, the French Emigrant Literature inspired by Rousseau, the reaction begins; but here the reactionary are still everywhere mingled with the revolutionary currents. In the second group, the semi-Catholic Romantic school of Germany, the reaction is on the increase; it is more vigorous and holds itself more aloof from the contemporary struggle for progress and liberty. The third group, consisting of such men as Joseph de Maistre, Lamennais in his strictly orthodox period, Lamartine and Victor Hugo when they (after the restoration of the monarchy) were still mainstays of the Legitimist and clerical party, represents the militant, triumphant reaction. Byron and his English contemporaries form the fourth group. It is this one man, Byron, who produces the revulsion in the great drama. The Greek war of liberation breaks out, a revivifying breeze blows over Europe, Byron falls like a hero in the cause of Greece, and his death makes a tremendous impression on all the productive minds of the Continent. Shortly before the Revolution of July a change of front occurs among the great authors of France; they form the French Romantic school, which is our fifth group, a new Liberal movement on the roll of whose adherents we find such names as Lamennais, Hugo, Lamartine, Musset, George Sand, &c. The movement passes from France into Germany, and in that country also Liberal ideas are victorious. The writers forming the sixth and last group which I shall depict, Young Germany, are inspired by the ideas of the Greek war of liberation and the Revolution of July, and, like the French authors, see in Byron's great shade the leader of the Liberal movement. The authors of Young Germany, Heine, Börne, Gutzkow, Ruge, Feuerbach, &c., prepare, together with the contemporary French writers, the great upheaval of 1848. _A household god made of wax, that had been carelessly left standing beside a fire in which precious Campanian vases were bakings began to melt_. _It addressed bitter complaints to the element. "See," it said, "how cruelly you treat me! To these things you give durability, me you destroy_." _But the fire answered: "You have nothing to complain of but your own nature. As for my I am fire, always and everywhere_." _W. HEINSE_. THE EMIGRANT LITERATURE CONTENTS I. CHATEAUBRIAND II. ROUSSEAU III. WERTHER IV. RENÉ V. OBERMANN VI. NODIER VII. CONSTANT: "ON RELIGION"--"ADOLPHE" VIII. MADAME DE STAËL: "DELPHINE" IX. EXILE X. "CORINNE" XI. ATTACK UPON NATIONAL AND PROTESTANT PREJUDICES XII. NEW CONCEPTION OF THE ANTIQUE XIII. DE L'ALLEMAGNE XIV. BARANTE XV. CONCLUSION LIST OF PORTRAITS