German romanticism,
and finally completed in 1853. Schlegel's lectures on _Shakespeare and
the Drama_ were delivered in Vienna in 1808, and present both the
romanticist's idolizing of Shakespeare and a new kind of esthetic
criticism destined to exercise great influence on Coleridge and the
English critics. Meanwhile Goethe was adapting _Romeo and Juliet_ for
the Weimar theater (1801) and Schiller was arranging _Macbeth_ for
presentation at Stuttgart (1801). Goethe indeed was, throughout his
life, an enthusiastic admirer of Shakespeare, and his works are full of
discriminating criticism, of which perhaps the most famous passage is
the analysis of Hamlet in _Wilhelm Meister_. Since Lessing and Herder,
German poetry and drama have felt Shakespeare's influence, and in both
textual and esthetic criticism, Germany has rivaled England and the
United States. Delius and Schmidt, whose _Shakespeare-Lexicon_ (1874) is
one of the great monuments of Shakespeare scholarship, are perhaps first
among textual students; since 1865 the German Shakespeare Society has
published yearly contributions of all kinds to Shakespeare criticism,
and especially an excellent bibliography. On the stage Shakespeare has
been constantly acted since the beginning of the century, and has
engaged the services of some of the greatest actors, as Schroeder, the
two Devrients, and Barnay. At present a large number of his plays are
performed annually, in the smaller as well as the larger cities, and
more frequently than in Britain or America. Twenty-six of the plays were
acted in 1911, _Othello_ leading with 158 performances. For the years
1909, 1910, 1911, _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _The Merchant of Venice_ have
been the favorites, with _The Taming of the Shrew_ and _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_ the most popular of the comedies. For over a
century Shakespeare has profoundly influenced German life and letters.
Rarely, if ever, has a great people been so powerfully affected by a
writer in a foreign tongue.

In France, during the eighteenth century, Shakespeare's reputation was
both aided and hindered by Voltaire. Though there are a few earlier
notices of the English dramatist, Voltaire, after his visit to England,
1720-1729, was virtually the first to win attention for Shakespeare. He
admired Shakespeare, acknowledged his influence, but deplored his
deficiencies in taste and art, "le Corneille de Londres, grand fou
d'ailleurs, mais il a des morceaux admirables." Voltaire