erves to be called a "movement" which had
no leader, no programme, no organ, no theory of art, and very little
coherence. True, as we have learned from the critical writings of the
time, the movement, such as it was, was not all unconscious of its own
aims and directions. The phrase "School of Warton" implies a certain
solidarity, and there was much interchange of views and some personal
contact between men who were in literary sympathy; some skirmishing, too,
between opposing camps. Gray, Walpole, and Mason constitute a group,
encouraging each other's studies in their correspondence and occasional
meetings. Shenstone was interested in Percy's ballad collections, and
Gray in Warton's "History of English Poetry." Akenside read Dyer's
"Fleece," and Gray read Beattie's "Minstrel" in MS. The Wartons were
friends of Collins; Collins a friend and neighbor of Thomson; and Thomson
a frequent visitor at Hagley and the Leasowes. Chatterton sought to put
Rowley under Walpole's protection, and had his verses examined by Mason
and Gray. Still, upon the whole, the English romanticists had little
community; they worked individually and were scattered and isolated as to
their residence, occupations, and social affiliation. It does not appear
that Gray ever met Collins, or the Wartons, or Shenstone or Akenside; nor
that MacPherson, Clara Reeve, Mrs. Radcliffe, and Chatterton ever saw
each other or any of those first mentioned. There was none of that
united purpose and that eager partisanship which distinguished the
Parisian _cenacle Romantische Schule_ whose members have been so
brilliantly sketched by Heine.

But call it a movement, or simply a drift, a trend; what had it done for
literature? In the way of stimulus and preparation, a good deal. It had
relaxed the classical bandages, widened the range of sympathy, roused a
curiosity as to novel and diverse forms of art, and brought the literary
mind into a receptive, expectant attitude favorable to original creative
activity. There never was a generation more romantic in temper than that
which stepped upon the stage at the close of the eighteenth century: a
generation fed upon "Ossian" and Rousseau and "The Sorrows of Werther"
and Percy's "Reliques" and Mrs. Radcliffe's romances. Again, in the
department of literary and antiquarian scholarship much had been
accomplished. Books like Tyrwhitt's "Chaucer" and Warton's "History of
English Poetry" had a real importance, while t