s of his youth. . . Only as _such_
did the maturer judgment of the author tolerate the play." Coleridge
avows that "The Robbers" and its countless imitations were due to the
popularity in Germany of the translations of Young's "Night Thoughts,"
Hervey's "Meditations," and Richardson's "Clarissa Harlowe." "Add the
ruined castles, the dungeons, the trap-doors, the skeletons, the
flesh-and-blood ghosts, and the perpetual moonshine of a modern
author[41] (themselves the literary brood of the 'Castle of Otranto,' the
translations of which, with the imitations and improvements aforesaid,
were about that time beginning to make as much noise in Germany as their
originals were making in England), and, as the compound of these
ingredients duly mixed, you will recognize the so-called _German_ Drama,"
which "is English in its origin, English in its materials, and English by
readoption; and till we can prove that Kotzebue, or any of the whole
breed of Kotzebues, whether dramatists or romantic writers or writers of
romantic dramas, were ever admitted to any other shelf in the libraries
of well-educated Germans than were occupied by their originals . . . in
their mother country, we should submit to carry our own brat on our own
shoulders."

Germany, rather than Italy or Spain, became under these influences for a
time the favored country of romance. English tale-writers chose its
forests and dismantled castles as the scenes of their stories of
brigandage and assassination. One of the best of a bad class of
fictions, _e.g._, was Harriet Lee's "The German's Tale: Kruitzner," in
the series of "Canterbury Tales" written in conjunction with her sister
Sophia (1797-1805). Byron read it when he was fourteen, was profoundly
impressed by it, and made it the basis of "Werner," the only drama of his
which had any stage success. "Kruitzner" is conceived with some power,
but monotonously and ponderously written. The historic period is the
close of the Thirty Years' War. It does not depend mainly for its effect
upon the time-honored "Gothic" machinery, though it makes a moderate use
of the sliding panel and secret passage once again.

We are come to the gate of the new century, to the date of the "Lyrical
Ballads" (1798) and within sight of the Waverly novels. Looking back
over the years elapsed since Thomson put forth his "Winter," in 1726, we
ask ourselves what the romantic movement in England had done for
literature; if indeed that des