the spirit which the study of old legends has induced in himself. It was a kind of religious impression which imparted this tendency to his productivity. Schleiermacher's _Reden über Religion_ ("Lectures on Religion") had had a profound influence on him. He had begun to read Jakob Böhme's _Morgenröthe_ ("Dawn"), expecting to find it a perfect mine of absurdities, and from a scoffer had turned into an enthusiastic disciple. It was about this time, too, that he met Novalis and fell under his influence. Nevertheless, if we read Genoveva observantly, we soon find what Tieck himself admits, that its religion, the pious emotion which was intended to give it artistic unity, is no more than the Romantic longing for religion. Many traces of this longing are to be found in the play. The old days, the days of faith, are represented as sighing, like Tieck's own, for still older, far more believing days; their religion, too, is but a longing for religion. Golo says to Sir Wolf, who to him represents the good old times: "How could I dream of jeering at thy childlike spirit!" Genoveva looks back to the past; like Tieck himself, she spends her time reading old legends. She says, with a touch of genuine Romanticism:-- "Drum ist es nicht so Andacht, die mich treibt, Wie inn'ge Liebe zu den alten Zeiten, Die Rührung, die mich fesselt, dass wir jetzt So wenig jenen grossen Gläub'gen gleichen."[1] The principal masculine character in the play, the whimpering, whining villain Golo, is William Lovell over again, and William not in the least improved by being dressed up as a dramatic figure in a medieval tragedy. _Octavianus_, the allegorical style of which has been strongly influenced by _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_, is, if possible, still more shapeless and incoherent than _Genoveva_. It strikes one as resembling nothing so much as a splendid collection of samples of all kinds of metres, those of Southern as well as of Northern Europe, and is in reality simply a fatiguing succession of carefully elaborated descriptions of impressions produced, moods inspired, by nature. In the introduction to _Phantasus_, Tieck has himself described how all definite impressions of the surrounding world blend in his mind into a sort of mystic pantheism:-- "Was ich für Grott' und Berg gehalten, Für Wald und Flur und Felsgestalten, Das war ein einzigs grosses Haupt, Statt Haar und Bart mit Wald umlaubt. Still lächelt er, dass seine Kind' In Spielen glücklich vor ihm sind Er winkt und ahndungsvolles Brausen Wogt her in Waldes heil'gem Sausen. Da fiel ich auf die Kniee nieder Mir zitterten in Angst die Glieder. Ich sprach zum Kleinen nur das Wort: Sag an, was ist das Grosse dort? Der Kleine sprach: Dich fasst sein Graun, Weil Du ihn darfst so plötzlich schaun, Das ist der Vater, unser Alter, Heisst Pan, von Allem der Erhalter."[2]