re does not go very deep, and her expression
is lacking in precision; but her meaning will be obvious to those who
have well considered the various definitions and expositions of these
contrasted terms with which we set out. Without deciding between the
comparative merits of modern classic and romantic work, Mme. de Stael
points out that the former must necessarily be imitative. "The
literature of the ancients is, among the moderns, a transplanted
literature; that of chivalry and romance is indigenous. . . . The
literature of romance is alone capable of further improvement, because,
being rooted in our own soil, that alone can continue to grow and acquire
fresh life; it expresses our religion; it recalls our history." Hence
she notes the fact that while the Spaniards of all classes know by heart
the verses of Calderon; while Shakspere is a popular and national poet
among the English; and the ballads of Goethe and Buerger are set to music
and sung all over Germany, the French classical poets are quite unknown
to the common people, "because the arts in France are not, as elsewhere,
natives of the very country in which their beauties are displayed." In
her review of German poetry she gives a brief description, among other
things, of the "Nibelungen Lied," and a long analysis of Buerger's
"Leonora" and "Wilde Jaeger." She says that there are four English
translations of "Leonora," of which William Spenser's is the best. "The
analogy between the English and German allows a complete transfusion of
the originality of style and versification of Buerger. . . . It would be
difficult to obtain the same result in French, where nothing strange or
odd seems natural." She points out that terror is "an inexhaustible
source of poetical effect in Germany. . . . Stories of apparitions and
sorcerers are equally well received by the populace and by men of more
enlightened minds." She notes the fondness of the new school for Gothic
architecture, and describes the principles of Schlegelian criticism. She
transcribes A. W. Schlegel's praises of the ages of faith and the
generous brotherhood of chivalry, and his lament that "the noble energy
of ancient times is lost," and that "our times alas! no longer know
either faith or love." The German critics affirm that the best traits of
the French character were effaced during the reign of Louis XIV.; that
"literature, in ages which are called classical, loses in originality
what it gains i