 Yet, a central difficulty facing any interpretation of romantic ethics and politics lies in the change that this view has undergone during the later years of many a romantic: the strong democratic and egalitarian views of the likes of Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher gave way to a growing conservatism and religiosity after 1800. The first generation of British romantics likewise turned from their conviction that to be young during the revolution was, as Wordsworth said, “bliss” and “heaven”, to an acknowledgement of the challenges awaiting a genuine political reform. With this shift in mind, they turned from political optimism to religion. A unified account of romantic politics is thus untenable. Instead, the section will focus on the political views of the German romantics during their “formative years” (from 1797–1800) and of the British romantics mainly during their early and middle phases This is because the ideals developed during these phases, though different from some of the later ideals, can shed light on the romantic path towards conservatism later on (Beiser 1992).  §4.5  will briefly present the romantics’ later political thought.