excesses as the French philosophy of the eighteenth century, that started with the same principles. The high intellectual cultivation of the English is by no means confined to this negative philosophy, but is of a very peculiar character, and like the British Constitution, combines in the most singular manner the most heterogeneous elements. For although the British Constitution is generally considered as the fashionable model for our times, and in one respect may indeed be so considered; yet a powerful aristocracy and many parts of the feudal constitution of the middle age, are there established in a sort of harmony, or at least permanent equipoise with the more modern elements of commerce and democracy. The heroic spirit of chivalry, and the whole moral character of the middle age were long paramount in England; and hence in the poetry of no country, if we except the Spanish, is that spirit so conspicuous. The struggles between the houses of York and Lancaster during the fifteenth century, which in the rugged and almost savage sternness of those heroic characters, bear no little resemblance to the contests of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, form the heroic and traditionary, though not very remote era of British history--an era which witnessed, too, the high military glory that England acquired in the many battles and chivalrous engagements fought on the French soil. The great national poet of England, who has taken the subject of many of his dramas from that glorious period of his country's annals, maintains a sort of sceptical medium--a kind of poetical balance between the romantic enthusiasm of elder times, and the clear-sighted penetration of modern; and it is in this peculiar combination of qualities, that the originality of his genius, his unfathomable depth and high intellectual charm partly consist. As the Constitution of England--that is, the balance of her social institutions--sprang out of the old and mighty struggles which had convulsed that country; we must not be surprised at finding in her higher poetry, which is only the image and reflection of life, the same artificial union and combination of the conflicting elements existing in her political organization. A profound analysis of art, conducted exclusively with this view, and towards which the German mind has a strong and perhaps excessive inclination, would be foreign to my present plan. To point out the traits of analogy existing between the productions of intellect, and the ages and nations to which they severally belong, may serve to throw a clearer and more vivid light on important periods and momentous epochs of history; and it is with this view I have indulged now, as formerly, in short parallels of this kind. Down to the most recent times, this marked predilection for the romantic world of the middle ages, and the chivalrous days, as well as the bold genius of poets bursting through all vulgar trammels, have been the