And classic buskins soil'd a British stage.
To-night our bard, who scorns pedantic rules,
His plot has borrow'd from the German schools;
—The German schools—where no dull maxims bind
The bold expansion of the electric mind.
Fix'd to no period, circled by no space,
He leaps the flaming bounds of time and place:
Round the dark confines of the forest raves,
With gentle robbers[204] stocks his gloomy caves;
Tells how prime ministers[205] are shocking things,