RESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 109 



the subject. The Romantic School subsequently found an able 

 advocate in Steffens of Breslau, who visited Berlin in the winter 

 of 1824, in the hope of winning disciples at the University. 

 Besides the course of lectures addressed to the students on 

 4 Anthropology,' treated from the points of view of a natural 

 philosopher and historian, he delivered a series of discourses 

 extending over two months, from February 3 till April 2, 1825, 

 before a numerous and distinguished audience, the greater part 

 of whom were ladies, assembled at the hall of the government 

 offices ; yet even to an audience of so discriminating a character 

 the lectures, notwithstanding every attraction of rhetorical em- 

 bellishment, appeared both unscientific and phantastic. 1 Upon 

 the arrival of Schlegel at Berlin early in May, 1827, a few days 

 before Humboldt's return to his native city, he was received by 

 the literary world, who had long breathed the atmosphere of the 

 Romantic School, in the most flattering manner, and at once 

 importuned to undertake a fresh series of lectures. The new 

 music hall, inaugurated on April 8, as elegant in appearance as 

 it was admirably adapted for sound, offered all that could be 

 desired in a lecture-room. In the city which owed its beauty 

 to the works of Schinkel and Rauch, Schlegel with admirable 

 tact selected as the theme of his discourses, ' The Theory and 

 History of the Plastic Art,' 2 which he delivered extempore and 

 without reference to notes. Upon this subject he had but touched 

 in a very cursory manner when lecturing in 180 1, 3 and it was to 

 be expected that after an interval of a quarter of a century his 

 views should have gained considerably in depth and clearness. 

 His history of the development of art, superficial as it may 

 now appear, was founded at least upon the same principles 

 as the views then being advocated by Hegel in his lectures 

 upon aesthetics, before an audience including many uncon- 

 nected with the Academy. These lectures, the charge for which 

 was at the rate of a gold Frederick for every twelve 4 the 



1 Vamhagen, 'Blatter/ vol. iii. p. 230, &c. Steffens, < Was ich erlebte,' 

 vol. ix. p. 274. 



I 1 The outlines of the lectures, as furnished by Schlegel himself, are con- 

 ned in the 'Berliner Conversationsblatt' (1827), Nos. 113-159. 

 5 See Haym, Die Romantische Schule,' p. 775, &c. 

 * ' Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter,' vol. iv. p. 312. 



