languages than the works of Shakespeare. The progress of his reputation in Germany, France, Italy, and Russia was somewhat slow at the outset. But in Germany the poet has In received for nearly a century and a half a recognition scarcely Germany. less pronounced than that accorded him in America and in his own country. Three of Shakespeare's plays, now in the Zurich Library, were brought thither by J. R. Hess from England in 1614. As early as 1626 'Hamlet,' 'King Lear,' and 'Romeo and Juliet' were acted at Dresden, and a version of 'The Taming of The Shrew' was played there and elsewhere at the end of the seventeenth century. But such mention of Shakespeare as is found in German literature between 1640 and 1740 only indicates a knowledge on the part of German readers either of Dryden's criticisms or of the accounts of him printed in English encyclopædias. The earliest sign of a direct acquaintance with the plays is a poor translation of 'Julius Cæsar' into German by Baron C. W. von Borck, formerly Prussian minister in London, which was published at Berlin in 1741. A worse rendering of Romeo and Juliet' followed in 1758. Meanwhile J. C. Gottsched (1700-66), an influential man of letters, warmly denounced Shakespeare in a review of von Borck's effort in 'Beiträge zur deutschen Sprache' and elsewhere. Lessing came without delay to Shakespeare's rescue, and set his reputation, in the estimation of the German public, on that exalted pedestal which it has not ceased to occupy. It was in 1759, in a journal entitled 'Litteraturbriefe,' that Lessing first claimed for Shakespeare superiority, not only to the French dramatists Racine and Corneille, who hitherto had dominated European taste, but to all ancient or modern poets. Lessing's doctrine, which he developed in his Hamburgische Dramaturgie' (Hamburg, 1767, 2 vols. 8vo), was at once accepted by the poet Johann Gottfried Herder in the Blätter von deutschen Art und Kunst,' 1771. Christopher Martin Wieland (1733-1813) in 1762 began a prose translation which Johann Joachim Eschenburg (1743-1820) completed (Zurich, 13 vols., 1775-84). Between 1797 and 1833 there appeared at intervals the classical German rendering by August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, leaders of the romantic school of German literature, whose creed embodied, as one of its first articles, an unwavering veneration for Shakespeare. Schlegel translated only seventeen plays, and his workmanship excels that 6 German trans lations. German criticism. Modern writers on of the rest of the translation. Tieck's part in the undertaking was mainly confined to editing translations by various hands. Many other German translations in verse were undertaken during the same period- by J. H. Voss and his sons (Leipzig, 1818-29), by J. W. O. Benda (Leipzig, 1825-6), by J. Körner (Vienna, 1836), by A. Böttger (Leipzig, 1836-7), by E. Ortlepp (Stuttgart, 1838-9), and by A. Keller and M. Rapp (Stuttgart, 1843-6). The best of more recent German translations is that by a band of poets and eminent men of letters including Friedrich von Bodenstedt, Ferdinand von Freiligrath, and Paul Heyse (Leipzig, 1867-71, 38 vols.). Most of these versions have been many times reissued, but, despite the high merits of von Bodenstedt and his companions' performance, Schlegel and Tieck's achievement still holds the field. Schlegel was a critic as well as a translator. His lectures on 'Shakespeare and the Drama,' which were delivered at Vienna in 1808, and were translated into English in 1815, are worthy of comparison with those of Coleridge, who owed much to their influence. Wordsworth in 1815 declared that Schlegel and his disciples first marked out the right road in æsthetic criticism, and enjoyed at the moment superiority over all English æsthetic critics of Shakespeare. Subsequently Goethe poured forth, in his voluminous writings, a mass of criticism even more illuminating and appreciative than Schlegel's. Although Goethe deemed Shakespeare's works unsuited to the stage, he adapted 'Romeo and Juliet' for the Weimar Theatre, while Schiller prepared 'Macbeth' (Stuttgart, 1801). Heine published in 1838 charming studies of Shakespeare's heroines (English translation 1895), and acknowledged only one defect in Shakespeare that he was an Englishman. During the last half-century textual, aesthetic, and biographical criticism has been pursued in Germany with unflagging industry and energy; and although laboured and supersubtle theorising characterises much German æsthetic criticism, its mass and variety testify to the impressiveness of the appeal that Shakespeare's work has made to the German intellect. The efforts to stem the current of Shakespearean worship made by the realistic critic, Gustav Rümelin, in his 'Shakespearestudien ' (Stuttgart, 1866), and subsequently by the dramatist, J. R. Benedix, in 'Die Shakespearomanie' (Stuttgart, 1873, 8vo), proved of no effect. In studies of the text and metre Nikolaus Delius (1813-88) should, among recent German writers, be accorded the first place; and in studies of the biography and stage history Friedrich Karl Elze (1821-89). recent æsthetic critics in Germany, those best deserving recognition probably are Friedrich Alexander Theodor Kreyssig (1818-79), author of 'Vorlesungen über Shakespeare' (Berlin, 1858 and 1874), and 'Shakespeare-Fragen ' (Leipzig, 1871); Otto Ludwig the poet (1813-65), author of Shakespeare-Studien,' and Eduard Wilhelm Sievers (1820-95), author of many valuable essays as well as of an uncompleted biography. Ulrici's 'Shakespeare's Dramatic Art' (first published at Halle in 1839) and Gervinus's Commentaries (first published at Leipzig in 1848-9), both of which are familiar in English translations, are suggestive but unconvincing aesthetic interpretations. The German Shakespeare Society, which was founded at Weimar in 1865, has published thirty-five year-books (edited successively by von Bodenstedt, Delius, Elze, F. A. Leo, and Prof. Brandl with Wolfgang Keller); each contains useful contributions to Shakespearean study. stage. Shakespeare has been no less effectually nationalised on On the the German stage. The four great actors - Friedrich Ulrich German Ludwig Schroeder (1744-1816) of Hamburg, Ludwig Devrient (1784-1832), his nephew Gustav Emil Devrient (18031872), and Ludwig Barnay (b. 1842) — largely derived their fame from their successful assumptions of Shakespearean characters. Another of Ludwig Devrient's nephews, Eduard (1801-77), also an actor, prepared with his son Otto, an acting German edition (Leipzig, 1873 and following years). An acting edition by Wilhelm Oechelhaeuser appeared previously at Berlin in 1871. Twenty-eight of the thirty-seven plays assigned to Shakespeare are now on recognised lists of German acting plays, including all the histories. In 1896 as many as 910 performances of twenty-three of Shakespeare's plays were given in German theatres. In 1897 no fewer than 930 performances were given of twenty-four plays. In 1898 performances of twenty-six plays reached a total of 895- an average of nearly three Shakespearean representations a day in the German-speaking districts of Europe. It is not only in capitals like Berlin and Vienna that the representations are frequent and popular. In towns like Altona, Breslau, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Hamburg, Magde In Voltaire's strictures. burg, and Rostock, Shakespeare is acted constantly, and the greater number of his dramas is regularly kept in rehearsal. 'Othello,' 'Hamlet,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' and 'The Taming of The Shrew' usually prove most attractive. Of the many German musical composers who have worked on Shakespearean themes, Mendelssohn (in Midsummer Night's Dream'), Schumann, and Franz Schubert (in setting separate songs) have achieved the greatest success. In France Shakespeare won recognition after a longer struggle than in Germany. Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–55), in his tragedy of Agrippine,' seemed to echo passages in 'Cymbeline,'' Hamlet,' and 'The Merchant of Venice,' but the resemblances proved to be accidental. It was Nicolas Clément, Louis XIV's librarian, who, first of Frenchmen, put on record an appreciation of Shakespeare. When, about 1680, he entered in the catalogue of the royal library the title of the Second Folio of 1632, he added a note in which he allowed Shakespeare imagination, natural thoughts, and ingenious expression, but deplored his obscenity. Half a century elapsed before public attention in France was again directed to Shakespeare. The Abbé Prévost, in his periodical 'Le Pour et Contre' (1733 et seq.), acknowledged his power. The Abbé Leblanc, in his 'Lettres d'un François (1745), while crediting him with many grotesque extravagances, recognised ungrudgingly the sublimity of his style. But it is to Voltaire that his countrymen owe, as he himself boasted, their first effective introduction to Shakespeare. Voltaire studied Shakespeare thoroughly on his visit to England between 1726 and 1729, and his influence is visible in his own dramas. In his 'Lettres Philosophiques' (1731), afterwards reissued as 'Lettres sur les Anglais,' 1734 (Nos. xviii. and xix.), and in his 'Lettre sur la Tragédie' (1731), he expressed admiration for Shakespeare's genius, but attacked his want of taste and art. He described him as 'le Corneille de Londres, grand fou d'ailleurs, mais il a des morceaux admirables.' Writing to the Abbé des Fontaines in November 1735, Voltaire admitted many merits in 'Julius Cæsar,' on which he published 'Observations' in 1764. Johnson replied to Voltaire's general criticism in the preface to his edition (1765), and Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu in 1769 in a separate volume, which was translated into French in 1777. Diderot made, in his 'Encyclopédie, the first stand in France against the Voltairean position, and increased opportunities of studying Shakespeare's works increased the poet's vogue. Twelve plays were translated in De la Place's Théâtre Anglais' (1745-8). Jean-François Ducis (17331816) adapted without much insight six plays for the French stage, beginning in 1769 with 'Hamlet,' his version of which was acted with applause. In 1776 Pierre Le Tourneur began a bad prose translation (completed in 1782) of all Shakespeare's plays, and declared him to be the god of the theatre.' Voltaire protested against this estimate in a new remonstrance consisting of two letters, of which the first was read before the French Academy on August 25, 1776. Here Shakespeare was described as a barbarian, whose works' a huge dunghill'-concealed some pearls. critics' from Vol Although Voltaire's censure was rejected by the majority French of later French critics, it expressed a sentiment born of the gradual genius of the nation, and made an impression that was only emancigradually effaced. Marmontel, La Harpe, Marie-Joseph pation Chénier, and Chateaubriand in his 'Essai sur Shakespeare,' tairean 1801, inclined to Voltaire's view; but Madame de Staël influence. wrote effectively on the other side in her 'De la Littérature,' 1804 (i. caps. 13, 14, ii. 5). 'At this day,' wrote Wordsworth in 1815, 'the French critics have abated nothing of their aversion to "this darling of our nation." "The English with their bouffon de Shakespeare" is as familiar an expression among them as in the time of Voltaire. Baron Grimm is the only French writer who seems to have perceived his infinite superiority to the first names of the French theatre; an advantage which the Parisian critic owed to his German blood and German education.' The revision of Le Tourneur's translation by François Guizot and A. Pichot in 1821 gave Shakespeare a fresh advantage. Paul Duport, in 'Essais Littéraires sur Shakespeare' (Paris, 1828, 2 vols.), was the last French critic of repute to repeat Voltaire's censure unreservedly. Guizot, in his discourse 'Sur la Vie et les Œuvres de Shakespeare' (reprinted separately from the translation of 1821), as well as in his Shakespeare et son Temps' (1852); Villemain in a general essay, and Barante in a study of Hamlet,' acknowledge the mightiness of Shakespeare's genius with comparatively few qualifications. Other complete translations followed-by Francisque Michel (1839), by Benjamin Laroche (1851), and by Emil Montégut (1867), but the best is that in prose by François Victor Hugo (1859-66), whose father, Victor |