the pride, of the country, as a piece of art; a high enthusiasm was
abroad; Lessing had roused the minds of men to a deeper and truer
interest in Literature, had even decidedly begun to introduce a
heartier, warmer and more expressive style. The Germans were on the
alert; in expectation, or at least in full readiness for some far bolder
impulse; waiting for the Poet that might speak to them from the heart to
the heart. It was in Goethe that such a Poet was to be given them.

Nay, the Literature of other countries, placid, self-satisfied as they
might seem, was in an equally expectant condition. Everywhere, as in
Germany, there was polish and languor, external glitter and internal
vacuity; it was not fire, but a picture of fire, at which no soul could
be warmed. Literature had sunk from its former vocation: it no longer
held the mirror up to Nature; no longer reflected, in many-coloured
expressive symbols, the actual passions, the hopes, sorrows, joys of
living men; but dwelt in a remote conventional world in /Castles of
Otranto/, in /Epigoniads/ and /Leonidases/, among clear,
metallic heroes, and white, high, stainless beauties, in whom the
drapery and elocution were nowise the least important qualities. Men
thought it right that the heart should swell into magnanimity with
Caractacus and Cato, and melt into sorrow with many an Eliza and
Adelaide; but the heart was in no haste either to swell or to melt. Some
pulses of heroical sentiment, a few /un/natural tears might, with
conscientious readers, be actually squeezed forth on such occasions: but
they came only from the surface of the mind; nay, had the conscientious
man considered the matter, he would have found that they ought not to
have come at all. Our only English poet of the period was Goldsmith; a
pure, clear, genuine spirit, had he been of depth or strength
sufficient; his /Vicar of Wakefield/ remains the best of all modern
Idyls; but it is and was nothing more. And consider our leading writers;