these recreations by making them vehicles for piety and morality. A similar feeling of hostility and contempt towards the arts, not indeed so extensively diffused as under the reign of our Puritans, but still sufficiently marked and striking, accompanied the revival of the religious spirit in Germany. In some instances it was produced by an intensity of zeal; in the greater number it proceeded from coldness of imagination and incapacity for philosophical reflexion. It may perhaps have been strengthened by a cause peculiar to that country. Every one at all conversant with the modern German literature has been struck by the frequent recurrence of that which, till a better term shall be coined for it, may be called the esthetical view of things. It is that view which regards them not as true or false, nor as good or bad, but merely with reference to art as possessing or wanting beauty. This view, the prevalence of which has been referred by Frederic Schlegel to the influence of Winkelmann over his countrymen, is on some subjects peculiar to German writers. It has been frequently applied by them, with the happiest result, as a corrective to the partiality of the moral and historical views, which, exclusively pursued, must often lead into the grossest errours. But perhaps it has itself sometimes been allowed to predominate, and been carried with an intemperate license into subjects connected with religion. Even where this was not the case its introduction may have alarmed honest prejudices, and seemed to endanger the simplicity of faith and the fervour of devotion. At all events this is one of the causes which has there contributed to widen the unfortunate breach between religion and the arts.