not even Goethe does in his Erlking.  Uhland’s ballads and romances vary greatly in quality; none, perhaps, has the grandiose dramatic and ethical note of Schiller’s The Cranes of Ibycus and none the power of revealing the hidden forces of nature in anthropomorphic and demoniac form as Goethe does in his Erlking and The Fisher.  But Uhland’s poems are more varied in treatment, even though he cannot be said to have brought any new forms and themes into German verse.  There is much talk of poets and poetry in his verse and much of the tender melancholy of parting lovers, of separation and death.  There are also some very healthy bacchic notes.  Often the ballads are a mere presentation of a scene, with neither plot nor moral; once in a while, too, Uhland shows a humorous touch.  But various as are his themes and treatments, the treatment is always nicely adapted to the theme.

It is difficult to imagine a better suiting of form and content than in The Singer’s Curse.  The management of the vowel sequences is truly wonderful and the rhymes carry the emotional words with a fine virtuosity. The Luck of Edenhall, a variation of a Scottish theme and also of the Biblical “Mene tekel,” displays without sermonizing the greatest ethical vigor.  It has far more dramatic energy than either Byron’s or Heine’s “Belshazzar” poems, with fully as much dismal foreboding. Taillefer, which has been called “the sparkling queen” of Uhland’s ballads, has fresh vigor but lacks the power of handling the moral forces of the universe with as much dramatic vividness.  It has a naive joy of life not elsewhere found in Uhland’s ballads.

Uhland was the greatest poet of the “Suabian School,” a group of young men who objected to being denominated a school.  Among them was William Hauff (1802-27), who is known for several lyrics, a number of excellent short stories, and a historical novel, Lichtenstein (1826), in the manner of Scott.  His Trooper’s Song is a variation of an old theme and is of great metrical interest in that here, as in Uhland, one may observe how the subtle handling of rhythm, the lengthening or shortening of a line, or the shift of stress, brings with it a corresponding shift of emotion. Lichtenstein is the story of the struggle of Ulrich of Wuertemberg against the Suabian League and gives us a Romantic picture of the Duke which is not justified by the facts.  It was, however, an attempt to vitalize history and owes its origin to the Romantic longing for fatherland.  Its immediate impulse among Scott’s novels was Quentin Durward and, like Quentin Durward, it has a double plot—­the sentimental young lovers and the romantic ruler.  It also shows all the pageantry of Romanticism and the naive technique of the beginning of an art-form in the early stages of a new literary movement.