our, or the Story of the Brave Casper and the Fair Annerl:
With an Introduction and Biographical Notice" (London, 1847). The same
story was rendered into French in the _Correspondant_ for 1859 ("Le Brave
Kasperl et la Belle Annerl"). Three tales of Arnim were translated by
Theophile Gautier, as "Contes Bizarres" (Paris, 1856). Arnim's best
romance is "Die Kronenwaechter" (1817). Scherer testifies that this
"combined real knowledge of the Reformation period with graphic power";
and adds: "It was Walter Scott's great example which, in the second
decade of this century, first made conscientious faithfulness and study
of details the rule in historical novel-writing." Longfellow's "German
Poets and Poetry" (1845) includes nothing from Arnim or Brentano. Nor
did Thomas Roscoe's "German Novelists" (four volumes), nor George Soane's
"Specimens of German Romance," both of which appeared in 1826.

The most popular of the German romanticists was Friedrich Baron de la
Motte Fouque, the descendant of a family exiled from France by the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and himself an officer in the Prussian
army in the war of liberation. Fouque's numerous romances, in all of
which he upholds the ideal of Christian knighthood, have been, many of
them, translated into English. "Aslauga's Knight" appeared in Carlyle's
"Specimens of German Romance" (1827); "Sintram," "Undine," and "Der
Zauberring" had been translated even earlier. "Thiodolf the Icelander"
and others have also been current in English circulating libraries.
Carlyle acknowledges that Fouque's notes are few, and that he is
possessed by a single idea. "The chapel and the tilt yard stand in the
background or the foreground in all the scenes of his universe. He gives
us knights, soft-hearted and strong-armed; full of Christian self-denial,
patience, meekness, and gay, easy daring; they stand before us in their
mild frankness, with suitable equipment, and accompaniment of squire and
dame. . . . Change of scene and person brings little change of subject;
even when no chivalry is mentioned, we feel too clearly the influence of
its unseen presence. Nor can it be said that in this solitary department
his success is of the very highest sort. To body forth the spirit of
Christian knighthood in existing poetic forms; to wed that old
_sentiment_ to modern _thoughts_, was a task which he could not attempt.
He has turned rather to the fictions and machinery of former days."