excellent suggestions on this subject are offered by Hans Rohl in
his _Die ältere Romantik und die Kunst des jungen Goethe_,
Berlin, 1909, pp. 70-72. This work was written under the general
leadership of Professor Elster. The disciple would, in this case,
hardly agree with the master. Pissin likewise speaks wisely in
discussing the influence of Novalis on Loeben in his monograph on
the latter, pp. 97-98. and 129-30. And Heine himself (Elster
edition, V. 294) says in regard to the question whether Hegel did
borrow so much from Schelling: "Nichts ist lächerlicher als das
reklamierte Eigentumsrecht an Ideen." He then shows how the ideas
were not original with Schelling either; he had them from
Spinoza. And it is just so here. Brentano started the legend;
Heine goes back to him indirectly. Eichenidorff and Vogt directly;
Schreiber borrowed from Vogt, Loeben from Schreiber, and Heine
from Schreiber--and thereafter it would be impossible to say who
borrowed from whom.

[75] The majority of the _Loreleidichtungen_ can be found in:
_Opern-Handbuch_, by Hugo Riemann, Leipzig, 1886: _Zur
Geschichte der Märchenoper_, by Leopold Schmidt, Halle, 1895;
_Die Loreleysage in Dichtung und Musik_, by Hermann Seeliger,
Leipzig, 1898. Seeliger took the majority of his titles from
_Nassau in seinen Sagen, Geschichten und Liedern_, by
Henniger, Wiesbaden, 1845. At least he says so, but one is
inclined to doubt the statement, for "die meisten Balladen" have
been written since 1845. Seeliger's book is on the whole
unsatisfactory. He has, for example, Schreiber improving on, and
remodeling Loeben's saga; but Schreiber was twenty-three years
older than Loeben, and wrote his saga at least three years before
Loeben wrote his.