th A.
W. Schlegel, the _Musenalmanach_. For the diffusion of a taste for the
middle-age literature of Germany, Tieck made an important contribution
by his publication of a selection of the _Minnelieder_ from the Swabian
period, that is to say, the period of the German emperors during the
dynasty of the Hohenstauffen family, with an elaborate preface, in
which he called the attention of the Germans to their old poetry. In
1804 appeared his romantic drama of _The Emperor Octavian_, and in 1805
he published, in connexion with T. Schlegel, the works of his deceased
friend Hardenberg (Novalis),[3] which may be classed among the most
extraordinary phenomena of modern literature. The preface to this
edition is entirely by Tieck. A long pause now ensued in the midst of
his literary productiveness, during which he visited Rome. In 1814 and
1816 appeared his _Old English Theatre_, consisting of translations
from our early drama, and in the same year he published the work to
which, more than to any other, he owes his celebrity in this country,
his _Phantasus_. The entire work has never been translated, but the
tales which are introduced into it, such as the _Blond Eckbert_ and the
_Trusty Eckart_, are generally known. Another contribution to the
study of the old German literature he made by his edition of Ulrich von
Lichtenstein's _Frauendienst_ (service of ladies), a kind of romance,
by a celebrated Minnesaenger, and a collection of plays under the title
of Old German Theatre. In 1818 he visited London, where he was
received with great respect, and employed his time in making
collections for the study of Shakspeare, in Schlegel's translation of
whom he has taken an important part. Since 1821 he has chiefly been
engaged with a series of novels, which are widely different from his
former manner, and he is now (we believe) resident at Berlin. The
tales from the _Phantasus_ being already so generally known, one of a
totally different kind has been given in this volume. The powerful
tale of the _Klausenburg_ is from Tieck's collected novels.

Heinrich von Kleist, from whom two tales have been taken, is another
poet of the romantic school, and was born at Frankfort on the Oder, in
1777. He led an unsettled kind of life, residing successively at
Paris, Dresden, and Berlin, and after the battle of Jena, retired from
the latter city to Koenigsberg, where he devoted himself to literary
pursuits. Returning to Berlin during the