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 deserves 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.