leon patronized art, not literature. Poetry fell into the hands of servile imitators called the Classicists of the Decline, who loaded their verses with strained metaphors and saturated them with false sentimentality. The drama became effete and artificial, and continued so in spite of the reformatory efforts of Jean François Ducis (1733-1816), the first of his countrymen to systematically attempt the establish ment of Shakespeare's plays on the French stage.

Foundation of

the French branch of the Scotch School of Commonsense by Royer-Collard

(1763-1845),

the disciple of Reid, whose

works he translated and expounded to his

pupils, among

whom were Victor Cousin

and Jouffroy.

In opposition to this philosophical school were the materialism and systematic

Rise of the Romantic School. Chateaubriand, Madame de Staël. With the Restoration a literary movement began similar to that which was taking place in England. It had for its object the repudiation of conventionality and the restoration of religion and nat- scepticism of

the followers of Condillac and Holbach.

ure in literature. The pioneers of the new school were those two illustrious writers of the reign of Napoleon whose works vindicate the earliest departure from the prevailing artificiality and materialism of Humiliation of the era-Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël.

Austria by the
victories of
Marengo and
Hohenlinden,

1800.

Napoleon Consul for life, 1802.

François Réné de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) was a statesman, poet, historian, an advocate of Christianity, and an acute observer of nature. Combining a powerful imagination with strong religious sentiment, he could not fail to produce works which made First would thrill the hearts of his readers. Thus the two devout poems, "Atala" (1801) and "Réné" (1805), made a profound effect on the public, and received universal admiration. But it was his "Génie du Christianisme" that produced a reform; it made a revolution in style, taste, and sentiment. In 1809 appeared "Les Martyrs," and two years later "L'Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem." Histories, translations, books of travel, and memoirs are to be found among his works, all of which are characterized by magnificence of description, skilful delineation of passion, and harmony of expression.

Madame de Staël (1766-1817), who has been called the greatest of all female writers, is regarded as the first apostle of the new literary and philosophical doctrines of England and Germany, and the first to

Legal reforms of the Code Napoléon: improvement of

roads, encour

agement of

commerce and leviation of the

industry, al

distresses of the poor.

Napoleon
crowned Em-
peror by Pope
Pius VII., at

Notre Dame,
King of Italy,

Divorce of
Napoleon and
Josephine.

Commencement of re

disastrous Russian campaign of 1812.

introduce foreign influence into France at this epoch. This wonderful woman was the daughter of Necker, the celebrated minister of finance under Louis XVI., and the wife of Baron Staël-Holstein, ambassador from Sweden. Brought up amid the illustrious soci

verses with the ety who frequented the salons of her father, she early developed that brilliant conversational power which characterized her through life, and which made her ever the centre of the gatherings of the most able and accomplished men in France. Hostile from the

Deposition of
Napoleon, and

first to Napoleon, she was by him feared and driven

his exile to the into exile. During the greater part of the interval

island of Elba, 1814.

Restoration of the Bourbons, 1814.

Napoleon's escape to France. Defeated at Waterloo by the English and Prussians, un

between 1800 and 1817, Madame de Stäel was shut out from Paris and forced to reside in foreign countries. Thus she was able to study foreign literature, art, and institutions, and to make them known in her own country through her works. Her sojourn in Italy inspired her with the famous romance of "Corinne" (1807); her residence in Germany was productive of the masterpiece "L'Allemagne" (1813), which introduced German influence into France and contributed much towards the rise of a new era in literature and philosophy; while in London she ac

der Wellington quired that admiration of English government which

and Blücher, and exiled a second time (to the island of St. Helena), in 1815.

Introduction of German influence by Mme. De Stäel.

is set forth in the treatise "Considérations sur les Principaux Evènements de la Revolution Française." [See Byron, under Friends.]

Many young and original writers eagerly carried on the revival thus begun. They looked for their models in foreign literatures. Walter Scott became a favorite, and Shakespeare was read with admiration. The exaggerations of the Classical School were scoffed at, and the Middle Ages, as in Germany, were regarded as the source of inspiration. But these innovations were not without opposition. An animated controversy arose between these supporters of reform and the adherents of the Classical School. Foremost among the former were Victor says Van Laun, Hugo and Lamartine; among the latter who clung "Scott and Byron, rose to the principles of Voltaire and opposed foreign

Influence of England over French politics and literary taste. "Two Englishmen in particular,"

vor of Frenchmen, as soon as their works had been translated and their lives had been made familiar in France.

imitation-were Béranger and Delavigne. An im- high in the famense number of writers now appeared and ranged themselves on either side. When at last the contest was decided in favor of the Romanticists, there ensued an appalling activity in literature, which continued during the greater part of the next age. New The historical

life was infused into the drama, poetry, history, and philosophy.

novels of Sir Walter Scott took a strong hold on the

ers. The majority of them

were at once translated; the

caught up and imitated.. But it was to Lord Byron more than to any other that

the literary

Anglomania of

the Restora

Reformation of the Drama. Victor Hugo. -The imagination of immediate and chief aim of the new school was the reformation of the drama, which had sunk to its lowest depth under the Classicists. The formerly de- style was spised Shakespeare was adopted by the Romanticists as their model; and Victor Hugo, their bold leader, Frédéric Soulié, Alexandre Dumas, Alfred de Vigny, etc., produced on the stage dramas framed according to their conceptions of the Shakespearian style. But the drama was a tender point with the Classicists, and repeated petitions were made by them to the government to prohibit the representation of romantic dramas. The contest reached its height in 1830, when Victor Hugo's "Hernani," which was an open attack on the classical style, caused a scene of riotous confusion in the theatre where it was first acted. But though the efforts of the Romantic School were mainly directed to the drama, it was in lyric poetry one, exerted that they attained the greatest success.

tion was due; and it was his life as much as his works which produced so deep an impression in France. 'Childe Harold' was a revelation to Frenchmen.... 'Lara,' 'Manfred,' 'The Giaour, one by

their sway over minds which had been long - accustomed to extraordinary

Culmination of French Lyric Poetry. Béranger.Romanticism revived natural poetry. "The greater part of the poets," writes Sainte-Beuve, "gave themselves up, without control or restraint, to all the instincts of their nature, and also to all the pretensions of their pride, and even to all the follies of their vanity." The impassioned lyrics of Béranger, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and Alfred de Musset stirred the hearts of their countrymen and revived patriotism and religious feeling. French lyric poetry culminated with Béranger. Speaking of his lyrics, Goethe wrote: "Béranger was never at school, never studied at a university. But his songs are, nevertheless, so

emotions, and

whom the fall of Bonaparte

had left a prey monotony and

to comparative

mediocrity. Moreover, the

Englishman's precisely the

full of mature cultivation, of grace, wit, and subtlest irony, they are so artistically finished, and their language is so masterly that he is admired not only by pen," says Net- France, but by the whole of civilized Europe." He

Universality of
Journalism.
Speech and

tement, "gov-
erned France."

was the national poet of his time. Hugo and Lamartine became more illustrious still in the next age, but Béranger's active career belongs to this era.

II. Germany. - House of Austria: JOSEPH II., -1790. LEOPOLD II., 1790-1792. FRANCIS II., 1792-1804. Confederation of the Rhine, 18061815. The German Confederation, 1815

Weimar, the capital of the Grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar, became celebrated during this age as the residence of Germany's most illustrious literatiGoethe, Schiller, Jean Paul Richter, Wie

Culmination of Classic German Literature. Goethe, Schiller. With the literary alliance of Goethe and Schiller, formed at Weimar in 1795, began the Golden Age of German literature. These two great writers gave to the literature of their country that classic perfection which at once exalted it in the estimation of European nations.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), with his gigantic intellect and extended sensibilities, maintained for half a century an undisputed empire over let;" "Hermann and Dorothea," a pastoral poem composed in hexameters; and the dramas, "Egmont," "Tasso," "Stella," "Clavigo," " Iphigenia auf Tauris." He also wrote several scientific works, and numerous ballads, songs, and elegies. "Goethe represents in himself alone," said Madame de Staël, "the whole of German literature. His keen and profound insight into human life and character, his 1809), a famous encyclopedic knowledge, his sublime imagination, his exquisite sensibility and play of fancy, and his consummate style place him high in the constellation of ation," an ora

literary genius that appeared in the latter half of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries." Goethe has exercised a great influence over English literature, and the two chief exponents of British and American thought in the nineteenth century, Thomas Carlyle and his transatlantic friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, were his disciples. [See Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, under Friends.]

Haydn (1732

musical composer. His chef-d'œuvre was "The Cre

torio.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was a less aristocratic poet than Goethe, and more of a favorite with the people. Already distinguished by various literary works, he went to Weimar in 1787, where began his remarkable literary friendship with Goethe. In 1789 he was elected Professor of History in the University of Jena, where he became celebrated as a lecturer. But it was as a reformer of the drama that Schiller figured most prominently, and as a dramatist that he secured immortal fame. His principal dramas were "Die Räuber" (1781), his first literary effort, and after the Sturm und Drang manner; "Fiesco," "Kabale und Liebe," "Don Carlos;" "Wallenstein" (1799), which ranks waged during next to Shakespeare's plays in dramatic literature; "Wilhelm Tell," "Maria Stuart," and "Jungfrau von Orleans." He was also the author of a "History of the Thirty Years' War;" a "History of the Revolt of the Netherlands under Philip II.;" a series of Philosophical letters; and those unequalled ballads familiar to every German school-boy.