The older Romanticists begin, without exception, as the apostles of "enlightenment." They introduce a new tone into German poetry, give their works a new colour, and, in addition to this, revive both the spirit and the substance of the old fairy-tale, Volkslied, and legend. They exercise at first a fertilising influence upon German science; research in the domains of history, ethnography, and jurisprudence, the study of German antiquity, Indian and Greek-Latin philology, and the systems and dreams of the _Naturphilosophie_ all receive their first impulse from Romanticism. They widened the emotional range of German poetry, though the emotions to which they gave expression were more frequently morbid than healthy. As critics, they originally, and with success, aimed at enlarging the spiritual horizon. In their social capacity they vowed undying hatred to all dead conventionality in the relations between the sexes. The best among them in their youth laboured ardently for the intensification of that spiritual life which is based upon a belief in the supernatural. In politics, when not indifferent, they generally began as very theoretical republicans; who, however, in spite of their cosmopolitanism, strove to elevate and strengthen German patriotism. Unfortunately, their pursuit of all these worthy aims ended in comparative failure. Of all that the German Romanticists produced, little will endure--some masterly translations by A. W. Schlegel, a few of Tieck's productions, a handful of Hardenberg's and another of Eichendorff's lyrics, some of Friedrich Schlegel's essays, a few of Arnim's and Brentano's smaller works, a select number of Hoffmann's tales, and some very remarkable dramas and tales from the pen of that eccentric but real genius, Heinrich von Kleist. The rest of the life-work of the Romanticists has disappeared from the memory of the present generation. Looking back on it from this distance, most of their endeavour seems to have ended in smoke. In the matter of language, with their intangible imagery, their misuse of words in expressing the strange, weird, and mysterious, their archaisms, and their determination to be unintelligible to the ordinary reader, they rather diminished than enriched the poetic vocabulary, rather corrupted than improved literary style. In the domain of poetry, Romanticism ended in hysterical piety and vapouring. In the social domain it occupied itself with only one question, that of the relations between the sexes; and its ideas on this subject were, for the most part, so abnormal and morbidly unhealthy, that most of its passionate blows were dealt in the air. In dealing them, it was not humanity at large that the Romanticists had in view, but a few favoured, aristocratic, artistic natures. In religious matters, these men, whose moral and poetical theories were at first so revolutionary, bowed their necks to the yoke the moment they saw it. And in politics it was they who