first strong impulse. The churches became ancient temples, the
mechanical arts strove after classical forms, and ladies affected the
dress and manners of Greek women. The leaders of German poetry, Goethe
and Schiller, both attained the summit of their art in the imitation of
classical models."[14] Still the ground recovered from the Middle Age
was never again entirely lost; and in spite of this classical
prepossession, Goethe and Schiller, even in the last years of the
century, vied with one another in the composition of romantic ballads,
like the former's "Der Erlkonig," "Der Fischer," "Der Todtentanz," and
"Der Zauberlehrling," and the latter's "Ritter Toggenburg," "Der Kampf
mit dem Drachen," and "Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer."

On comparing the works of a romantic temper produced in England and in
Germany during the last century, one soon becomes aware that, though the
original impulse was communicated from England, the continental movement
had greater momentum. The _Gründlichkeit_, the depth and thoroughness of
the German mind, impels it to base itself in the fine arts, as in
politics and religion, on foundation principles; to construct for its
practice a theoria, an _aesthetik_. In the later history of German
romanticism, the medieval revival in letters and art was carried out with
a philosophic consistency into other domains of thought and made
accessory to reactionary statecraft and theology, to Junkerism and
Catholicism. Meanwhile, though the literary movement in Germany in the
eighteenth century did not quite come to a head, it was more critical,
learned, and conscious of its own purposes and methods than the kindred
movement in England. The English mind, in the act of creation, works
practically and instinctively. It seldom seeks to bring questions of
taste or art under the domain of scientific laws. During the classical
period it had accepted its standards of taste from France, and when it
broke away from these, it did so upon impulse and gave either no reasons,