"Victorian," etc. The reason of this is perhaps to be found in the fact
that, although Romanticism began earlier in England than on the Continent
and lent quite as much as it borrowed in the international exchange of
literary commodities, the native movement was more gradual and scattered.
It never reached so compact a shape, or came so definitely to a head, as
in Germany or France. There never was precisely a "romantic school" or
an all-pervading romantic fashion in England.

There is, therefore, nothing in English corresponding to Heine's
fascinating sketch "Die Romantische Schule," or to Théophile Gautier's
almost equally fascinating and far more sympathetic "Histoire du
Romantisme." If we can imagine a composite personality of Byron and De
Quincey, putting on record his half affectionate and half satirical
reminiscences of the contemporary literary movement, we might have
something nearly equivalent. For Byron, like Heine, was a repentant
romanticist, with "radical notions under his cap," and a critical theory
at odds with his practice; while De Quincey was an early disciple of
Wordsworth and Coleridge,--as Gautier was of Victor Hugo,--and at the
same time a clever and slightly mischievous sketcher of personal traits.

The present volume consists, in substance, of a series of lectures given
in elective courses in Yale College. In revising it for publication I
have striven to rid it of the air of the lecture room, but a few
repetitions and didacticisms of manner may have inadvertently been left
in. Some of the methods and results of these studies have already been
given to the public in "The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement,"
by my present associate and former scholar, Professor William Lyon
Phelps. Professor Phelps' little book (originally a doctorate thesis)
follows, in the main, the selection and arrangement of topics in my
lectures. _En revanche_ I have had the advantage of availing myself of