In this country the work will no doubt meet with a very different
reception. Here we have no want of scholars to appreciate the value of his
views of the ancient drama; and it will be no disadvantage to him, in our
eyes, that he has been unsparing in his attack on the literature of our
enemies. It will hardly fail to astonish us, however, to find a stranger
better acquainted with the brightest poetical ornament of this country
than any of ourselves; and that the admiration of the English nation for
Shakspeare should first obtain a truly enlightened interpreter in a critic
of Germany.

It is not for me, however, to enlarge on the merits of a work which has
already obtained so high a reputation. I shall better consult my own
advantage in giving a short extract from the animated account of M.
SCHLEGEL'S Lectures in the late work on Germany by Madame de Stael:--

"W. SCHLEGEL has given a course of Dramatic Literature at Vienna, which
comprises every thing remarkable that has been composed for the theatre,
from the time of the Grecians to our own days. It is not a barren
nomenclature of the works of the various authors: he seizes the spirit of
their different sorts of literature with all the imagination of a poet. We
are sensible that to produce such consequences extraordinary studies are
required: but learning is not perceived in this work, except by his
perfect knowledge of the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of composition. In a few
pages we reap the fruit of the labour of a whole life; every opinion
formed by the author, every epithet given to the writers of whom he
speaks, is beautiful and just, concise and animated. He has found the art
of treating the finest pieces of poetry as so many wonders of nature, and
of painting them in lively colours, which do not injure the justness of
the outline; for we cannot repeat too often, that imagination, far from
being an enemy to truth, brings it forward more than any other faculty of