of poesy, which your acquaintance has
reawakened in me, and which gives to your friendship its chief value.

"There are some songs in it, which suit my taste. I am very much
pleased with the real romance,--my head is really dizzy with the
multitude of ideas I have gathered for romances and comedies. If I can
visit you soon, I will bring you a tale and a fable from my romance,
and will subject them to your criticism." He visited his friends at
Jena the next spring, and soon repeated his visit, bringing the first
part of Henry of Ofterdingen, in the same form as that of which this
volume is a translation.

When Tieck, in the summer of 1800, left Jena, he visited his friend for
some time at his father's house. He was well and calm in his spirits;
though his family were somewhat alarmed about him, thinking that they
noticed, that he was continually growing paler and thinner. He himself
was more attentive than usual to his diet; he drank little or no wine,
ate scarcely any meat, living principally on milk and vegetables. "We
took daily walks," says Tieck, "and rides on horseback. In ascending a
hill swiftly, or in any violent motion, I could observe neither
weakness in his breast nor short breath, and therefore endeavored to
persuade him to forsake his strict mode of life; because I thought his
abstemiousness from wine and strengthening food not only irritating in
itself, but also to proceed from a false anxiety on his part. He was
full of plans for the future; his house was already put in order, for
in August he intended to celebrate his nuptials. He spake with great
pleasure of finishing Ofterdingen and other works. His life gave
promise of the most useful activity and love. When I took leave of him,
I never could have imagined that we were not to meet again."

When in August he was about departing for Freiberg to celebrate his
marriage, he was seized with an emission of blood, which his physician
declared to be mere hemorrhoidal and insignificant. Yet it shook his
frame considerably, and still more when it began to return
periodically. His wedding was postponed, and, in the beginning of
October, he travelled with his brother and parents to Dresden. Here
they left him, in order to visit their daughter in Upper Lausatia, his
brother Charles remaining with him in Dresden. He became apparently
weaker; and when, in the beginning of November, he learned that a
younger brother, fourteen years of age, had been drowned through m