process of demolition was continued, with fuller consciousness of its significance, by Cavendish and, yet more, by Lavoisier (1743-1794), on whose pre-eminence in all the qualities that go to make scientific genius all authorities are agreed. To him we owe, moreover, the establishment of the indestructibility of matter, as well as the general application of quantitative methods. This was carried further by Dalton, in his theory of the atomic composition of bodies (1804). It may be added that Davy was the first to bring electrical into connection with chemical science (1806). So that, within the space of a generation, not only had the foundations of chemical doctrine been securely laid, but the methods of chemical research had been substantially fixed. Of Biology there is less need to speak. It must suffice to say that the theory of biological evolution was vaguely anticipated by Erasmus Darwin (1794), more definitely by Lamarck (1801-9); and, as we shall see in the next chapter, it was beaten out, it may well be in an exaggerated form, but with an extraordinary combination of observation and intuition, by Goethe, mainly during the ten or twelve years onwards from 1784. In this connection, it is well to refer to the work of Malthus. At the time of its publication (1798) the Essay on Population was naturally regarded as bearing solely on Economic Science. It was not until a generation and more had passed that its wider import was suspected. But both Charles Darwin and Mr Wallace have borne witness to the influence which it had on the formation of their opinions as to the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest-in other words, on the theory of biological evolution. It is needless to dwell on the vast significance of all this. By such discoveries the world became at once more intelligible, and more mysterious, to man. His beliefs were profoundly modified. His imagination was deeply stirred. Even in the poetry of the time the effects of this may be traced. "Poetry," said Wordsworth, "is the breath and finer spirit of all science." He himself, it is true, did little to work out this pregnant idea in practice. But, for examples in abundance, we need only turn to the poetry of Goethe or of Shelley. Consult, among other works, Dictionary of National Biography; Chambers's Encyclopædia of English Literature (new ed.), 1903; Saintsbury, A Short History of English Literature, 1898; Herford, The Age of Wordsworth, 1897; Southey, Life and Letters of William Cowper, 7 vols., 1836; Angellier, Robert Burns, 2 vols., 1895; Sampson, Blake's Poetical Works, 1905; Coleridge's Poetical Works (ed. J. F. Campbell), 1893; The Works of Wordsworth (with Introduction by J. Morley), 1889; Raleigh, Wordsworth, 1903; Legouis, La Jeunesse de Wordsworth, 1896; Grosart, The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, 3 vols., 1876; Lockhart, Life of Scott, 7 vols., 1837; Letters of Scott, 2 vols., 1894; Morley, Burke in English Men of Letters, also the earlier Study; Kegan Paul, William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries, 2 vols., 1876; Mill, Essays on Coleridge and Bentham in Dissertations and Discussions, vol. i. ; The Modern Orator, 2 vols., 1845-48. 166 CHAPTER II. GERMANY. LESSING FREDERICK'S ATTACK ON GERMAN LITERATURE-ASSERTION OF German INDIVIDUALITY DIFFICULTIES OF THE TASK EARLY WORK IN POETRY AND DRAMA MISS SARA SAMPSON '-LESSING AND DIDEROT -'MINNA VON BARNHELM EMILIA GALOTTI '— 'NATHAN'-ITS OCCASION-LESSING AS CRITIC-HIS LEARNING- " IPHIGENIE' ROMAN ELEGIES FLUENCE ON HIS LIFE AND ART POEMS OF SECOND PERIOD — IT HIS CONCEPTION OF MEPHIS- RELATION TO ROMANCE, AND TO CLASSICISM -SCHILLER- - 'DIE ROMANTIC SCHOOL ITS CHARACTERISTICS-CRITICISM : FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL STUDIES SHAKESPEARE-CALDERON -'DON QUIXOTE'-'LUCINDE'-'ION' AND 'ALARCOS'-TIECK-'ZERBINO- ་ GENOVEVA OCTAVIANUS' THE -THE ROMANTIC THEORY OF POETRY-NOVELS OF TIECK-POPULAR Frederick's at THE romantic revolt may, from one point of view, be described as the liberation of the tack on German Teutonic spirit from the tyranny of the literature. "Latins" and, in particular, of the French. And nowhere is this more manifest than in Ger many itself. In no country had the influence of France been stronger, in no country had it been more oppressive. The very language of the soil had, in fashionable society, been driven out by French. And it was in French that the greatest ruler of the age delivered what, when all abatements have been made, must still be called his attack upon the literature and language of his country (1780).1 Yet at the time when Frederick discharged his batteries against all things German, the yoke of France had already been shaken off. The thirty years' war of Lessing against the alien had, the year before, been victoriously crowned by the completion of Nathan; the most fruitful works of Herder, with one exception, had already been published; the author of Götz and Werther had already written some of his loveliest lyrics and the greatest scenes of Faust. In the following year Europe was to be startled by the appearance of Kant's Kritik and the earliest Play of Schiller. To banish the tyranny of foreign thought and foreign forms, to restore to German literature the power of expressing the very mind and Assertion of German in- heart of the German race-to vindicate dividuality. the indefeasible right of each nation to its own life, of every poet to embody his own ideals in his own way-this was the common aim of all 1 Euvres de Frédéric II (Berlin, 1789), t. iii. There is a violent outbreak against Götz, and "the abominable pieces of Shakespeare." Almost the only German writer to be praised is Quant (sic) of Königsberg, on account of his "harmonious" style, a quality of which readers of the Kritik will be incredulous. |