In his literary reputation, John Gay has been less fortunate than his neo-classic contemporaries; for, added to nineteenth century neglect, he received little support from Johnson himself, whose “Life of Gay” is harsh and unsympathetic. Today, except for the lyrics in “The Beggar's Opera” and the Fables, Gay's poetry is more talked about than read; and more has been written about his life and times than about any of his work. Even when he is occasionally judged as a poet, there is little genuinely critical agreement. At one extreme, for instance, Mr. F. R. Leavis brackets Gay with Parnell, and remarks that they “are representative period figures, of very minor interest.” This is the more common view. But at the other extreme, Mr. Yvor Winters places Gay among “the chief masters of the heroic couplet.” Since these are but passing estimates, a detailed examination of Gay's heroic couplet poems should perform for his reputation a service long over-due.

No annotator of Jonson's play The Alchemist has looked very deeply into the mediæval and Renaissance alchemical treatises current in Jonson's day for material in illustration and explanation of the speeches in the alchemical episodes of the play. For the most part, it is true, alchemical lexicons are all that is needed to define specific terms and to indicate their relationship to the theories and practices of the alchemists. But certain of the speeches of the play take on a new and fuller meaning when read against a background of some knowledge of this body of alchemical literature.

From the time Friedrich Hebbel arrived in Vienna in 1845 until his death there eighteen years later, he moved in the same literary and social milieu as Grillparzer. It is well known that a certain aloofness, amounting almost to hostility, existed between them. What, however, has not been fully explained, is the reason underlying it. While some sources state that these two great contemporary dramatists did not like one another as individuals, and others claim that they did not appreciate each other as writers, no one attempt has been made to evaluate all the factors involved. A recent doctoral dissertation does go into the relationship of Hebbel to Grillparzer, but not too fully. Robert B. Nance, its author, writes regarding Hebbel: “Personal feeling often played a large part in influencing his opinions of contemporary authors, particularly in the case of Gutzkow, Laube and Grillparzer, for this reason his relationship with these men has been sketched briefly.” Because the statements of friends and contemporaries are biased and often contradictory, Nance has used them as little as possible in arriving at Hebbel's real criticism. This is only too true. These very friends and contemporaries have, however, played an important part in coloring the evaluations of most scholars who studied the relationship of Hebbel and Grillparzer. Since Hebbel himself was biased and inconsistent in his attitude toward Grillparzer and since Grillparzer, too, expressed himself on numerous occasions about Hebbel, it is important to study all the existing sources to see to what extent they may be reconciled to support or refute any one explanation. This is the purpose of this article.

Wer von der alten Universitätsstadt Besançon den Doubs stromaufwärts verfolgt bis da, wo er die bezeichnende Schleife bildet, die dem Departement Form und Namen gegeben hat, trifft kurz vor der Krümmung einen linken Nebenfluß, die Alaine, deren malerisches Tal von dem alten Städtchen Montbéliard beherrscht wird. Zur Römerzeit als Mons Peligardi schon ein strategisch wichtiger Punkt, erreichte Montbéliard in der Geschichte Europas seine Hauptbedeutung als Bollwerk und Zufluchtsort des Protestantismus. Das hing mit seiner Regierung zusammen. Gegen Ende des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, als das Grafengeschlecht Montbéliard in der männlichen Linie ausgestorben war, kam es infolge eines Familienvertrags an die Herzoge von Württemberg. Schon in ihrer gräflichen Zeit hatte die württembergische Dynastie im linksrheinischen Gebiet Interessen begründet, indem Graf Ulrich der Dritte 1324 Schloß und Herrschaft Horbourg im Elsaß kaufte. Später kamen dann Schloß und Herrschaft Riquewihr und die Grafschaft Montbéliard hinzu. Diese linksrheinischen Enklaven, die seitdem auf deutscher Seite regelmäßig mit den deutschen Namen Horburg, Reichenweier und Mömpelgard bezw. Mompelgard, Mompelgart, Monpelgart, bezeichnet werden, dienten durchweg jüngeren Mitgliedern des regierenden Hauses und verwitweten Fürstinnen zum Aufenthalt, waren auch in Zeiten der Not ein willkommenes Refugium. Als Herzog Ulrich 1519 vom Schwäbischen Bund aus Stuttgart vertrieben wurde, wandte er sich nach Mömpelgard, um erst fünfzehn Jahre später in sein Herzogtum zurückzukehren und es als Lehen vom Kaiser Ferdinand zurückzuempfangen. Während dieses Mömpelgarder Aufenthalts war er mit dem schweizerischen Reformator Guillaume Farel bekannt geworden und hatte unter seinem Einfluß in der Grafschaft die neue Religion eingeführt. Seitdem blieb Montbéliard eine Hochburg des Protestantismus. Ihre Bedeutung in Glaubenssachen trat in ein besonders helles Licht, als im Verlauf des Jahrhunderts Graf Friedrich von Württemberg-Montbéliard zwei berühmte Theologen, den Nachfolger Calvins Theodor Beza und den rührigen Jakob Andreae, dahin einlud um in Gegenwart vornehmer weltlicher und geistlicher Zeugen die Vorzüge des Kalvinismus und des Luthertums gegeneinander abzugrenzen.

Die Frage nach dem Geburtsjahr Heinrich Heines, ob er 1797 oder 1799 geboren wurde, war schon zu des Dichters Lebzeiten viel umstritten. Man entschied sich damals für 1799, welches Jahr zuerst auch von Strodtmann angenommen wurde. Erst im Jahre 1891 veröffentlichte Elster die erste wissenschaftliche Untersuchung, worin er die Facta für 1797 und 1799 gegenüberstellte und zu dem Schluß gelangte, daß Heine nur im Jahre 1797 geboren sein könnte. Seine Ergebnisse wurden zuerst nicht angefochten, bis bei der hundertjährigen Geburtstagsfeier des Dichters die alte Frage wieder in den Vordergrund trat. Einige Verehrer entschlossen sich zur Feier im Jahre 1897, die meisten bestanden auf 1899. Zwischen 1897 und 1899 entstand nun eine Reihe meist belangloser Aufsätze über Heines Geburtsjahr; die Bekenner zum Jahre 1797 stützten sich auf Elsters Feststellungen, die zum Jahre 1799 auf die Angaben der Heineschen Familie. Aus der Unmenge von Beiträgen aus dieser Zeit —ich besitze 68 in meiner eigenen Bibliothek—müssen hier besonders die von Hüffer und Franzos berücksichtigt werden, welche ganz auf Elster fußen und ebenfalls das Jahr 1797 vertreten.

The Canzoniere and the Triumphs of Petrarch are as full of fascination for the scholar as they are rich in enjoyment for the lover of poetry. Their fascination for the scholar is due largely to the fact that each of these two great works reveals itself as the product of a long process of growth: a process perhaps not quite complete in the case of the Canzoniere, and certainly very far from complete in the case of the Triumphs.

If one studies rather attentively either the religious trends or the minor literary movements of seventeenth-century France, one constantly runs across the name of Jean-Pierre Camus, bishop of Belley, and yet one finds that adequate investigation of his work has not yet been undertaken. He does have, however, several claims to our attention. More exactly than any of his contemporaries, he interpreted the spirit of saint François de Sales. Fifty years before Quietism was introduced into France, he wrote at length and with discernment about pure love. He was famous in his day for his fearless attacks on the monastic orders; at the same time, Richelieu considered him one of his most valuable allies in his efforts to reconcile the Protestants and the Catholics. For all intents and purposes, he invented the religious novel, a genre which in our century has again become important in France. Finally he has the rather doubtful honor of being one of the three or four most prolific writers of France.

In The Road to Tryermaine, an illuminating study of the origins of Christabel, A. H. Nethercot states that Coleridge was indebted to Hutchinson's History of the County of Cumberland . . . (Carlisle, 1794-97) for the name of Christabel's father, Sir Leoline. This statement is based on a sentence found on page 17 of the first volume of Hutchinson which was taken (with minor variations) from the 1695 edition of William Camden's Britannia: “King Edmund, with the assistance of Leoline, King of Wales, spoiled Cumberland of all its riches; and having put out the eyes of Dunmaile, king of that country, granted that kingdom to Malcolm, King of Scots… .”

In view of the long-recognized influence of Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry upon Johann Gottfried Herder's literary theory, especially upon his “Sturm und Drang” essays and Volkslieder, it comes as a surprise to note that Herder's Lieder der Liebe (1778), containing his German translation of the Biblical Song of Songs as well as his commentary thereon, omits all reference to Percy's earlier English translation and commentary, The Song of Solomon, Newly Translated from the Original Hebrew (1764). To be sure, Percy's work (like Herder's own) appeared anonymously. But in the eighteenth century there were ways of discovering the identity of anonymous writers, as both Percy and Herder knew to their chagrin. Yet in none of Herder's works is there any reference to Percy's Song of Solomon, and in none of his published letters is there any mention of the little book. When one considers Herder's usual scholarly habit of documentation and his willingness to acknowledge sources, one must conclude that he was ignorant of Percy's work. One can speak, naturally, of a permeating influence of the Reliques on this work of Herder's, as one can speak of such an influence on any of his writings. In fact, the thesis of the following pages is that this very influence, fused with a few others having the common denominator of folk-poetry, led Herder to a conception of the Song of Songs quite different from that reached by Percy himself and strikingly similar to Percy's theory in one point only: a negative attitude toward the theory of J. D. Michaelis, which was known to both. The contrast between Herder's and Percy's views of the supposedly Solomonic Song of Songs throws an interesting light upon the critical approach of Herder to a document that could fit perfectly into his definition of poetry as “eine Welt- und Völkergabe” and illustrates the peculiar use he made of the Reliques (along with some other, later works) in the support of his original theory of poetry, which differed so remarkably from that of Percy.

Libertinism, independent in spirit, anarchistic in morals, hostile to tradition, and scornful of revealed religion, was a necessary prelude to reforms in seventeenth and eighteenth century France: it helped to break down the ideological sanctions of monarchy, feudalism, and Catholicism, and to clear the way for the philosophes and the Revolution. Although Gabriel de Foigny (1630-92) ranks primarily as such a libertine, he was more than a mere iconoclast. Lachévre sees only the destructive element in his life and writings: he regards him as a lover of license and scandal, “un vulgaire paillard, un deséquilibre complet”; but other writers acknowledge the presence of a more positive side to his work. Lichtenberger and Girsberger notice Foigny's utopia, La Terre Australe Connue (“Vannes,” i.e., Geneva, 1676) as a precursor of socialism and communism. Lanson sees in it an early evidence of the philosophic spirit and stresses Foigny's importance as a popularizer of rationalism. Atkinson shows the place of the utopia “between the exaggerated account of voyages actually made and the more perfect form of philosophical-social-exotic novel” which followed it. Wijngaarden relates it to the economic and social background in France, judges it as a reaction against the French governmental system, and finds its chief value in its criticism of institutions and mores. Hazard follows these critics in relating La Terre Australe Connue to the utopias of Veiras, Tyssot de Patot, and Cyrano de Bergerac. He goes on to show the place of such fanciful novels of adventure, social satire, and reform in the whole critical era which undermined the French seventeenth century and brought the Age of Enlightenment. The purpose of the present article is to supplement and develop some of the ideas of these scholars by showing more particularly how Foigny's utopia was conditioned by its author's personality and experience, by throwing new light on the symbolism which he employs, and by interpreting the adventures of the hero, Sadeur, in terms of these symbols.

In an earlier paper, I undertook to show that the style of acting in the serious drama of the eighteenth century closely paralleled the general interest of the century in the imitation of nature—of nature methodized. Four principal “schools,” varying in technique but not in purpose, were examined: Betterton, the Cibber-Booth-Wilks Triumvirate, Macklin-Garrick, and Kemble-Siddons. The fourth school, with which the paper arbitrarily ended, extends well beyond the eighteenth century and provides a natural introduction to the study of acting techniques in the Romantic and Victorian periods. Like the eighteenth, the nineteenth century is primarily a century of great actors rather than great plays, and it is to the actors, rather than to the playwrights, that we must turn to find the theatrical expression of the spirit of the times. Edmund Kean and William C. Macready represent the earlier and later stages of romanticism as accurately as Shelley and Tennyson, and Victorianism is as plainly marked in Alfred Wigan and Irving as in Ruskin or Trollope.

Although Federico Gamboa is often called the leading exponent of literary naturalism in Mexico and as such was inevitably a follower of Zola, it is difficult to demonstrate that he borrowed heavily or continuously from the French master. His work provides only scattered examples of direct appropriation from Zola and the latter's influence on him was rather general than specific, bearing mainly on his choice of subject-matter, method of treatment and overall social outlook. But in at least one novel it is possible to see more than this general influence, to find evidence of an attempt on Gamboa's part not only to imitate Zola but to take a form already developed by his predecessor and to turn it to his own philosophic and artistic ends. That novel is Reconquista. Lacking specific declarations from Gamboa himself, we cannot reach definite conclusions, but certain evidence indicates that the work may have been based on Zola's L'Œuvre, based on it not as an imitation but as an answer to the basic idea that Zola had expressed in that long and turgid novel.

Empathy, the involuntary projection of oneself into an object, received its first extended formulation in the Mikrokosmos of Hermann Lotze (1858). To Lotze Einfühlung, or empathy as it has been termed in English, was a phenomenon which accounts for our knowledge of the external world. “The world,” he said, “becomes alive to us through this power to see in forms the joy and sorrow of existence that they hide: there is no shape so coy that our fancy cannot sympathetically enter into it.” In this knowledge our consciousness of our own bodily sensations is a factor: “Unquestionably the vividness of these perceptions is added to by our abiding remembrance of the activity of our own body … every movement which we execute, every attitude in which we repose, has its meaning rendered plain to us by the feeling of exertion or of enjoyment.” Entering thus into our own sensations, by means of them we are also enabled to know the feelings of creatures and objects beyond their immediate range:

Swift's influence on Keats has gone unrecognized although Keats refers to Swift in several of his letters, imitates his style on occasion, and, I believe, incorporates reminiscences of Swift's work in at least five of his poems. The evidence to be given seeks to explain several hitherto unexplained references in Keats's letters, to clarify a much-debated passage in I Stood Tip-toe, and to show the persistence in Keats's mind of a favorite image. Incidentally it reveals something about Keats's methods of composition; and it shows how Swift was regarded by Hazlitt, Keats, and their circle, calls attention to Keats's early and long-continued interest in Homer (whose work he first knew in Pope's translation), and indicates in Keats a catholicity of taste and an interest in satire to which perhaps more attention might be paid.

It is generally conceded that the varied personages of the eighteenth-century conte philosophique are not sufficiently developed to merit the label of characters. Whether in satiric or in pleasant guise, they but project ideas. However, as the conte itself covered a multiplicity of fields and lent itself to a variety of interpretations, so do these personages, the various divisions of ‘philosophes,’ possess numerous phases or nuances. Even a casual reader of the philosophic tale will have met, in the array of types on parade—an oft-repeated “naïf” (who was anything but naïve), at least one famed “candide,” and several “ingénus.” Another of these types engaged in his journey, and one whom a reader can scarcely fail to encounter, is “le solitaire.” He too is evolved by formula, and for his special century. Representing a nuance of the ‘philosophe,’ he is fully as potent an individual as were ever his various brother “naïfs.” If one grants that certain familiar and well-tempered themes have traversed the Encyclopedic and Revolutionary era,—one might say correlatively that this “solitaire” has contributed his very effective share to the creation of one great thematic personage. This philosophe’ could be a variety of entities, each one in turn representing and including a rather set formula of characteristics. Some aspects of the “solitaire” formula for this era alone, are to be considered in the present study.

Zu den Personen, die Friedrich Hebbel in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens nahegestanden haben, gehört auch der Dichterkomponist Peter Cornelius. Da wir seinen Namen in den Tagebüchern Hebbels vergeblich suchen, wohl aber seinen großen Onkel, den Maler Peter Cornelius (1783-1867), erwähnt finden, ist anzunehmen, daß Cornelius keinen starken Eindruck auf Hebbel gemacht hat. Auch Emil Kuh, Hebbels Biograph, erwähnt den Dichterkomponisten nicht, obwohl beide befreundet waren und Cornelius Gedichte von Kuh vertont hat. Andere Darsteller von Hebbels Leben haben Cornelius ebenfalls übersehen. Nur Adolf Bartels nennt in seiner kleinen Lebensbeschreibung Hebbels Cornelius unter denen, die in Wien um den großen Dramatiker waren, und Paul Bornstein hat in seinem umfangreichen Werke “Friedrich Hebbels Persönlichkeit” Teile aus den Briefen von Peter Cornelius zum Abdruck gebracht. und doch gehörte Cornelius, dessen musikalische Werke, insbesondere seine Liedkompositionen, einen hohen Rang einnehmen, dessen Dichtungen und schriftstellerische Arbeiten in vier Bänden vorliegen und dessen Leben und Werk in etlichen biographischen Arbeiten behandelt worden ist, nicht nur zu dem engeren Kreise um Hebbel in Wien, sondern er hat in seinen Briefen auch des öfteren Hebbel und sein Verhältnis zu ihm erwähnt und damit Material zu dem Charakterbilde des norddeutschen Dramatikers geliefert, das bis heute unberücksichtigt geblieben ist.