INTRODUCTION
and Rob Roy. But, above all, it is as the admirer and missionary of Wordsworth among English men of letters that Crabb Robinson is best remembered, and to him and his readings and quotations in early days Wordsworth owed a large proportion of his first audience, fit though few. Moreover, as his German friends recognized, Crabb, for so he was always called by his intimates in later life, was one of the earliest to popularize German literature and to introduce German philosophy into England. The man who, as a student at Jena, had been introduced to Goethe, had heard Schelling lecture upon Methodology, and had successfully impersonated[1] Fichte, never ceased to acclaim, to read, and to write about the first-named, never forgot to sing the praises of Kant, to magnify the Schlegels, and to spread the gospel of transcendentalism. Mme. de Staël owed to him most of the information which resulted in her De l'Allemagne: she summoned him to Berlin in 1804—the letter is extant—that he might help her to acquire some notion of German philosophy, and cheerfully acknowledged: "Si vous avez un moment de loisir pour m'écrire quelque chose sur Kant vous augmenteriez mes richesses morales car je n'entends rien qu'à travers vos idées." Later on she told the Duke of Weimar: "J'ai voulu connaître la philosophie allemande; j'ai frappé à la porte de tout le monde, Robinson seul me I'a ouverte."
Remembering these friendships and these achievements, reading as we may in his Diary and letters of Robinson's innumerable acts of kindness, many of which involved not only trouble and self-sacrifice, but also the power to give valuable help in business and in family difficulties, we may as soon believe in Macaulay's strange theory of the "inspired idiot," as in H. C. R.'s own estimate of his character, ability, and influence. He is curiously detached in his self-criticism, as also in his judgments on the criticisms passed upon him by other people. His parents had been known in their youth as "the handsome couple." Their
- ↑ See Sadler, vol. i, p. 106: Visit to Würzburg, 1804.
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