harshly repulsed, threatened with the whip; ultimately the letter is received, but too late to prevent the sudden attack and the firing of the residence. While the fire is raging, the bride expectant remembers that something to her of great importance is in her room, which the flames are just reaching, and Katharine undertakes to fetch it. She goes, the danger becomes imminent, the Count, against the remonstrances of his affianced bride, would rush to save her, but the house sinks in ruins. Katharine disappears for a while, and the Count laments her: when she reappears, conducted by the cherub, wholly unscathed. After this, she is acknowledged before the Vehm-gericht by the Emperor, as his illegitimate daughter, proclaimed Princess of Swabia, and married to the Count. His 'Herrmannsschlacht' is of a very superior character, though perhaps he makes his hero, Hermann (the Arminius of Tacitus) too much of an intriguer, and complicates the plot by making the Roman legate, Ventidius, the attempted seducer of Thusnilda, the wife of Herrmann. The dialogues are spirited, and the blank verse is not inharmonious, though in English it would be deemed very irregular.

Christian Dietrich Grabbe was distinguished by a comprehensive grasp, but often attempted more than, with all his real power, he could manage. His plots include great periods of time. Herzog Theodor von Gothland' is full of horrors; Friedrich Barbarossa' and 'Kaiser Heinrich der Sechste' are more strictly historical, and have long been considered as decidedly Shaksperian; but the dialogues, which are partly in verse and partly in prose, fall far below Shakspere's. His versification is inharmonious, and his prose is epigrammatic, concise, with powerful thoughts occasionally, but not a natural or characteristic mode of speaking. The Hermannsschlacht,' published in 1838, has power, but is inferior to Kleist's, and, like most of his works, is injured by capricious defects of taste, of a sort which, in a criticism upon Shakspere, he condemns as faults. But he says, with some justice, that the German dramatist is unfortunately placed; "if he writes in the spirit of Shakspere, the assumed highest model of German dramatists, it is said, "The man is an imitator, and how much he falls short of his master!' If, on the contrary, he is bold enough to write in his own fashion, he fares even worse; for then he is at once judged to be in the wrong road, and is advised to study truth and nature, not in themselves, but in their only mirror, in Shakspere." In this criticism, he explains his own aspirations: it was to form not an English or Shaksperian school, but a truly German one. His life, like his works, was irregular, and he died, in 1836, at the age of thirty-five.

Karl Lebrecht Immermann, who died in 1810, was also much indebted to Shakspere. The 'Andreas Hofer' and 'Alexis' have each considerable merit; the first appealing to his country's feelings, and well depicting the patriotism of the hero; the second is the Russian tragedy of the execution of Alexis, the son of Peter the Great; it forms a trilogy, Die Bojaren, Das Gericht von St. Petersburg, and Endoxia. Immermann also wrote other dramatic pieces, both tragedies and comedies, all decidedly belonging to the English school; the comedies, however, being scarcely equal in ment to the tragedies. As dramatist and novel-writer, Immermann has had considerable influence on the literature of his country, having introduced several authors to the public at Düsseldorf, the theatre of which town he raised to a high celebrity by his efforts.

There are others who may be mentioned with approbation, whose dramas yet appear upon the stage: Julius Neofen, Friedrich von Uechtritz, Freiherrn Münch von Bellinghausen, and others.

Shakspere's plays are performed on the various German stages as frequently-perhaps more frequently-as upon our own; but we believe never unmutilated, and sometimes disfigured; not excepting Weimar, when, upon the solemnization of the tercentenary, a series of the Historical Plays were represented on the theatre from Richard I. to Henry VIII. on successive evenings, and were very numerously attended. They were produced under the direction of Herr Dingelstedt, the manager, who at the same time was the instituter of the Shakspere Society, of which the avowed object is to extend the knowledge and facilitate the understanding of Shakspere's works. The first Year-Book of the Society has been published, and contains ingenious Essays by Ulrici, M. Bernays, A. F. Rio, and others.

Karl Simrock, in his introduction to his translation of Macbeth,* says, "Schiller and Shakspere have become the favourites of the German nation; from the prince to the townsman and the peasant, their works are found in every one's hands, their golden words in every one's memory." Shakspere's influence has doubtless extended into other branches of literature, especially into the novel, but probably in this the direction has been more due to the example of Sir Walter Scott; but for the whole, whatever it may be, the Germans are mainly indebted to the labours of Lessing, Schlegel, and Tieck.

Shakspere als Vermittler zweier Nationen, Macbeth, ein Probestück. Stuttgart. 1842.

ALEXANDER RAMSAY.

WE had intended, as the reader might infer from a note at page 383, to have taken a brief but general view of the altered state of opinion in France in relation to Shakspere. Although the subject presents many interesting features, there is considerable difficulty in dealing with it succinctly. The admiration, founded upon knowledge of our poet, is not established as in Germany. The critical opinion of France is still in a transition state. Those who are almost extravagant in their idolatry, such as Victor Hugo, do not look at the attributes of the divinity they worship from the same point of view as the Germans, and differ very considerably in æsthetical principles from the later school of English criticism. We must, therefore, in addition to what has been said in the fifth section of our "History of Opinion," request our readers to be satisfied with the following meagre notice.

The progress, and present state, of opinion in

France upon Shakspere, have been very ably treated by Mr. G. H. Lewes, in a recent article in the Westminster Review. In the "Nouvelle Biographie Générale " (tom. xliii. 1864), there is an elaborate biography of our national poet, which in itself sufficiently indicates how very much the mistakes and prejudices of French criticism have been abated-how Corneille and Racine and Molière can be admired, without declaring Shakspere "ignorant et barbare." The writer of that biography, having noticed the translation of Le Tourneur, and the pretended imitations of Dueis, says:-"M. Guizot, by the Preface to his version of Le Tourneur; M. Villemain, by his biographical labours; M. Benjamin Laroches, by a translation more exact than those which had preceded him; and M. François-Victor Hugo, by a version perfectly faithful and liberal, have contributed to make known in France a poet more admired than understood."

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