chatter of sparrows, and Goethe also paid his compliments to the
"sing-song of the Minnesingers," but it was this same little book
which first gave young Jakob Grimm the wish to become acquainted with
these poets in their original form.

That eminently "Romantic" play, _Emperor Octavian_ (1804), derived
from a familiar medieval chap-book, lyric in tone and loose in form,
is a pure epitome of the movement, and the high-water mark of Tieck's
apostleship and service. Here Tieck shows his intimate sense of the
poetry of inanimate nature; ironic mockery surrenders completely to
religious devotion; the piece is bathed in--

The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration and the poet's dream.

It is in the prologue to this play that personified Romance declares
her descent from Faith, her father, and Love, her mother, and
introduces the action by the command:

"Moonshine-lighted magic night
Holding every sense in thrall;
World, which wondrous tales recall,
Rise, in ancient splendors bright!"

During a year's residence in Italy Tieck applied himself chiefly to
reading old-German manuscripts, in the Library of the Vatican, and
wavered upon the edge of a decision to devote himself to Germanic
philology.

[Illustration: #A CHAPEL IN THE FOREST# MORITZ VON SCHWIND]