Prevalence of French atheism as the fashion. Schiller never sought personal popularity. He was aglow with patriotism, and inspired his countrymen with a love for nationality and freedom. "There is no modern writer," says a recent critic, "to whom the young men of the German Empire are so much indebted as to Friedrich Schiller." Great Philosophical Revolution. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. The same age witnessed almost simultaneously a social revolution in France, a literary revolution in Great Britain, and a philosophical revolution in Germany. The last began in the closing years of the eighteenth century, under Fichte, who, while proceeding in the road which Kant had pointed out, changed his half idealism into a complete idealism, and continued for over thirty years. A general excitement prevailed in philosophic circles; system followed system; every thinker professed himself a member of some metaphysical school; bold speculators arose on every side to enunciate new theories, often extravagant and absurd. The three systems, however, which generally prevailed were those of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel-all Idealists-viz., regarding the mind as pre-existent to the body, and as giving form to it. Their doctrines, particularly that of Schelling, exerted a powerful influence over thought and literature, not in Germany alone, but which is not only the original, but the immanent and sustaining cause of all things. Man is a spark from the Universal Spirit, a torch lighted at this altar, and manifests in miniature all the characteristics of his original. Nature proceeds from the same source, and embodies on a lower plane the thoughts of God; its laws are his ideas. All that nature contains was first in God as types, ideas, and thoughts; and its sole purpose is to serve as an outward expression of these. Idealism asserts the unity and perfect correspondence of thought and being, or of ideas and things, that the material world is the image or symbol of the ideal or spiritual world." Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel represented three phases of Idealism-subjective, objective, and absolute. Schelling's metaphysical theory was distinguished by the name of the System of Identity, which gave rise to a fanciful mode of speculation concerning life and religion. To him is traced the pantheistic mysticism of Goethe, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, as seen in their close communion with nature and its divine life. Hegel's influence is also distinctly visible in literature: the fourth book of Wordsworth's "Excursion" is said to be an able exposition of that philosopher's final teachings. University of Jena, twelve miles from Weimar, became celebrated, towards the close of the eighteenth century, as a seat of learning. Literature was there represented by the brothers Schle- in England, France, and America, where they were gel, by Tieck and Novalis; philosophy by Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Wilhelm von Humboldt. It was called "the Athens on the Saale," somewhat vaguely designated by the term Transcendentalism; and some idea of their nature is requisite to an understanding of the poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley, of the writings of Coleridge, Carlyle, and Emerson. The general principles of Idealism and constituted have been thus outlined by a recent critic: "Ideal the centre of the Romantic movement. ism looks upon the world of ideas or of mind as original and causative; it beholds the world of matter as proceeding from mind and as shaped by it. Spirit creates, it says; mind is primal. Matter is but a garment of spirit; the material world is phenomenal. Idealism says there is a Universal Spirit, of which nature and man are alike manifestations-a Spirit Ludwig von (1770-1827), Rise of the Romantic School. The Schlegels, Tieck. -Notwithstanding the high literary excellence of Goethe, Schiller, and their most illustrious contemporary, Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825), generally designated as Jean Paul, the general tone of the popular literature in Germany at the beginning of the present century was low and degrading. The corrupt, immoral romances of Lafontaine and Clauren, and the inferior dramas of Kotzebue and Iffland, which furnished amusement to audiences and readers, reflected the taste and character of the people. In opposition to this low literature arose a group of young writers, who were designated by the title of the Romantic School, on account of their endeavors to revive the spirit of the Middle Beethoven one of the greatest musical composers of modern times, passed much of his life at Vienna. Franz Schubert (17971828), another celebrated mu sical composer, Ages instead of that of ancient Greece, and their preference for the romantic to the classic in literature and art. This movement was indirectly connected with the philosophical revolution which was then agitating Germany, and became especially prominent during the years 1800-1820. The most prominent of the early members of this school were the brothers Schlegel, the celebrated critics and philolo who also spent gists, whose lectures and writings aroused new inter most of his life at Vienna. Adelbert von est and a national enthusiasm for literary history; Wackenroder, who endeavored to revive that union of art and religion which had characterized the mediæval ages; Ludwig Tieck, the poet of the Romanticists, who disregarded classical form and wrote according to the doctrines of Schlegel; Novalis, called "the prophet" of the school, who sought to restore Catholicism as the only means of uniting practical life, art, and literature with religion; while among later members were Fouqué, author of the wellknown tales "Undine," "Sintram," "The Magic Ring," etc.; and other writers of grotesque romances - Arnim, Brentano, and Eichendorff, who has been styled "the last knight of the school." Thus the Romantic School incited German study and investigation in the literatures of past ages and foreign countries, and revived German philology and archæology; but its depressing tendencies prevented its popularity, and led to its decline under the philosophical teachings of Hegel. Popular Poetry of Patriotism and of the Suabian School. During the years when Germany was seeking relief from the oppression of Napoleon, there arose a class of patriotic poets whose songs stirred the hearts of their countrymen with love of freedom and nationality. Prominent among these, after Schiller, were Körner, whose battle-songs spurred many to take up arms against the French tyrant; Arndt, author of the popular song beginning, "Where is the German's Fatherland?" Schenkendorf and Rückert. Another class of writers also produced poetry which was both popular and possessed of literary merit. These belonged to the so-called Suabian School, which was founded by Uhland, who nationalized and popularized the principles of the Romantic School. He treated subjects of living interest with the mediæval spirit. Among his followers were Gustav Schwab, Wilhelm Müller, and Hoffmann. mance, "Peter Schlemihl," and of many poetical and botanical works. III. Italy.-PIUS VI., -1800. PIUS VII., 1800-1823. LEO XII., 18231831. GREGORY XVI., 1831 Dramatic Efforts of the Followers of Alfieri, Monti, Foscolo, etc.-Alfieri's success and popularity induced many writers to follow in his footsteps, of whom the most celebrated were Monti, Niccolini, Foscolo, Nota, and Pellico. Vincenzo Monti (1753-1828) early manifested a taste for literary pursuits, and having been present at a reading by Alfieri of his drama "Virginia," was seized with the desire to become his rival. His first tragedy, "Aristodemo," was received at Rome with great applause, and has been pronounced by an Italian critic to be the masterpiece of the European modern theatre. His other tragedies were "Galeotti Manfredi" and "Caio Græco." Monti's other chief works were "Bassviliana," a poem on the murder of Hugo Basseville, the French ambassador at Rome, in close imitation of Dante; "Bardo della Selva nera," an incomplete eulogy on Napoleon; and a translation of Homer's "Iliad." Niccolini (1785-1861), an Italian patriot, produced a number of dramas which were modelled in style after those of Alfieri. His best tragedy is "Arnaldo da Brescia;" but "Nabucco," a drama founded on the events attending the downfall of Napoleon, created a great sensation when first published. Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827) has been classed with Alfieri and Monti as the triumvirate of Italian literature during the French Revolution. Of his tragedies, the best is "Ricciardo; but his literary fame was es During this ceeding age ture partook the political literamore or less of character of the times; many political jour nals were tablished and suppressed. Death of Alferi, 1803. He was buried in Santa Croce, near Machiavelli and Michael Angelo. Antonio Canova (1757-1822), who restored to sculpture the position which it had lost among the fine arts. He is ranked after tablished by the celebrated political romance, "Letters of Jacopo Ortis," which somewhat resembles in plot Goethe's "Sorrows of Werther." Ever active in attempts to secure the liberty of his country, Foscolo aroused the enmity of Napoleon and of Austria, and when the latter country gained the ascendency in Italy it was thought best for him to depart. Accordingly he emigrated to England in 1816, where he continued to apply himself to literature, and published "Essays on Petrarch"-his best prose work -and "Disputations and Notes on Dante." Alberto Nota (1775-1847), as a writer of comedy, followed Goldoni, but, as a reformer, resembled Alfieri. His dramas have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Swedish, and Russian. Silvio Pellico (1789-1854) was a devoted disciple of Alfieri, and his tragedy, "Francesca da Rimini," may still be read with interest. In 1820 he was seized as a carbonaro by the Austrians at Milan, and confined in the fortress of Spielberg for ten years. His account of this imprisonment, "Mie Prigioni," rendered him famous. Released in 1830, Michael Ange- he retired to Turin, where he remained during the lo and Bernini, as the third of epoch-making Italian sculptors. Most of his life was passed at Venice and Rome, where he was patronized by the royalty and nobility of nearly all Europe. His finest works are Cupid and Psyche, Venus and Adonis, Mary Magda rest of his life. Rise of the Romantic School under Manzoni.-The same spirit of romanticism which in the early part of the nineteenth century appeared in the literatures of England, Germany, France, and Spain, arose also in Italy. The Romanticists saw the only chance of Italian poetry in the strict adherence to the old national romances and epics of the medieval and Renaissance periods, to the exclusion of all foreign ele ments, ancient or modern, and acknowledged as their len, and Napo- leader Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1875), who openly leon Holding the Sceptre. defied French classical taste in his tragedy, "Il Conte di Carmagnola" (1820). Manzoni was the grandson of the famous Beccaria, a profound student and a stanch Roman Catholic. His poetical masterpiece is the lyric on the death of Napoleon I., "Il Cinque Maggio;" but the work on which his literary fame |