'Free wished I to live, and easy and gay, And see something new on each new day; In the joys of the moment lustily sharing, 'Bout the past or the future not thinking or caring: To the Kaiser, therefore, I sold my bacon, And by him good charge of the whole is taken. Order me on 'mid the whistling fiery shot, Over the Rhine-stream rapid and roaring wide, A third of the troop must go to pot,— Without loss of time, I mount and ride; But farther, I beg very much, do you see, That in all things else you would leave me free.'

The Pappenheimer is an older man, more sedate and more indomitable; he has wandered over Europe, and gathered settled maxims of soldierly principle and soldierly privilege: he is not without a rationale of life; the various professions of men have passed in review before him, but no coat that he has seen has pleased him like his own 'steel doublet,' cased in which, it is his wish,

'Looking down on the world's poor restless scramble, Careless, through it, astride of his nag to ramble.'

Yet at times with this military stoicism there is blended a dash of homely pathos; he admits,

'This sword of ours is no plough or spade, You cannot delve or reap with the iron blade; For us there falls no seed, no corn-field grows, Neither home nor kindred the soldier knows: Wandering over the face of the earth, Warming his hands at another's hearth: From the pomp of towns he must onward roam; In the village-green with its cheerful game, In the mirth of the vintage or harvest-home, No part or lot can the soldier claim. Tell me then, in the place of goods or pelf, What has he unless to honour himself? Leave not even this his own, what wonder The man should burn and kill and plunder?

But the camp of Wallenstein is fall of bustle as well as speculation; there are gamblers, peasants, sutlers, soldiers, recruits, capuchin friars, moving to and fro in restless pursuit of their several purposes. The sermon of the Capuchin is an unparalleled composition;[34] a medley of texts, puns, nicknames, and verbal logic, conglutinated by a stupid judgment, and a fiery catholic zeal. It seems to be delivered with great unction, and to find fit audience in the camp: towards the conclusion they rush upon him, and he narrowly escapes killing or ducking, for having ventured to glance a censure at the General. The soldiers themselves are jeering, wrangling, jostling; discussing their wishes and expectations; and, at last, they combine in a profound deliberation on the state of their affairs. A vague exaggerated outline of the coming events and personages is imaged to us in their coarse conceptions. We dimly discover the precarious position of Wallenstein; the plots which threaten him, which he is meditating: we trace the leading qualities of the principal officers; and form a high estimate of the potent spirit which, binds this fierce discordant mass together, and seems to be the object of universal reverence where nothing else is revered.

[Footnote 34: Said to be by Goethe; the materials faithfully extracted from a real sermon (by the Jesuit Santa Clara) of the period it refers to.—There were various Jesuits Santa Clara, of that period: this is the German one, Abraham by name; specimens of whose Sermons, a fervent kind of preaching-run-mad, have been reprinted in late years, for dilettante purposes, (Note of 1845.)]

In the Two Piccolomini, the next division of the work, the generals for whom we have thus been prepared appear in person on the scene, and spread out before us their plots and counterplots; Wallenstein, through personal ambition and evil counsel, slowly resolving to revolt; and Octavio Piccolomini, in secret, undermining his influence among the leaders, and preparing for him that pit of ruin, into which, in the third Part, Wallenstein's Death, we see him sink with all his fortunes. The military spirit which pervades the former piece is here well sustained. The ruling motives of these captains and colonels are a little more refined, or more disguised, than those of the Cuirassiers and Jaegers; but they are the same in substance; the love of present or future pleasure, of action, reputation, money, power; selfishness, but selfishness distinguished by a superficial external propriety, and gilded over with the splendour of military honour, of courage inflexible, yet light, cool and unassuming. These are not imaginary heroes, but genuine hired men of war: we do not love them; yet there is a pomp about their operations, which agreeably fills up the scene. This din of war, this clash of tumultuous conflicting interests, is felt as a suitable accompaniment to the affecting or commanding movements of the chief characters whom it envelops or obeys.

Of the individuals that figure in this world of war, Wallenstein himself, the strong Atlas which supports it all, is by far the most imposing. Wallenstein is the model of a high-souled, great, accomplished man, whose ruling passion is ambition. He is daring to the utmost pitch of manhood; he is enthusiastic and vehement; but the fire of his soul burns hid beneath a deep stratum of prudence, guiding itself by calculations which extend to the extreme limits of his most minute concerns. This prudence, sometimes almost bordering on irresolution, forms the outward rind of his character, and for a while is the only quality which we discover in it. The immense influence which his genius appears to exert on every individual of his many followers, prepares us to expect a great man; and, when Wallenstein, after long delay and much forewarning, is in fine presented to us, we at first experience something like a disappointment. We find him, indeed, possessed of a staid grandeur; yet involved in mystery; wavering between two opinions; and, as it seems, with all his wisdom, blindly credulous in matters of the highest import. It is only when events have forced decision on him, that he rises in his native might, that his giant spirit stands unfolded in its strength before us;

'Night must it be, ere Friedland's star will beam:'

amid difficulties, darkness and impending ruin, at which the boldest of his followers grow pale, he himself is calm, and first in this awful crisis feels the serenity and conscious strength of his soul return. Wallenstein, in fact, though preeminent in power, both external and internal, of high intellect and commanding will, skilled in war and statesmanship beyond the best in Europe, the idol of sixty thousand fearless hearts, is not yet removed above our sympathy. We are united with him by feelings, which he reckons weak, though they belong to the most generous parts of his nature. His indecision partly takes its rise in the sensibilities of his heart, as well as in the caution of his judgment: his belief in astrology, which gives force and confirmation to this tendency, originates in some soft kindly emotions, and adds a new interest to the spirit of the warrior; it humbles him, to whom the earth is subject, before those mysterious Powers which weigh the destinies of man in their balance, in whose eyes the greatest and the least of mortals scarcely differ in littleness. Wallenstein's confidence in the friendship of Octavio, his disinterested love for Max Piccolomini, his paternal and brotherly kindness, are feelings which cast an affecting lustre over the harsher, more heroic qualities wherewith they are combined. His treason to the Emperor is a crime, for which, provoked and tempted as he was, we do not greatly blame him; it is forgotten in our admiration of his nobleness, or recollected only as a venial trespass. Schiller has succeeded well with Wallenstein, where it was not easy to succeed. The truth of history has been but little violated; yet we are compelled to feel that Wallenstein, whose actions individually are trifling, unsuccessful, and unlawful, is a strong, sublime, commanding character; we look at him with interest, our concern at his fate is tinged with a shade of kindly pity.

In Octavio Piccolomini, his war-companion, we can find less fault, yet we take less pleasure. Octavio's qualities are chiefly negative: he rather walks by the letter of the moral law, than by its spirit; his conduct is externally correct, but there is no touch of generosity within. He is more of the courtier than of the soldier: his weapon is intrigue, not force. Believing firmly that 'whatever is, is best,' he distrusts all new and extraordinary things; he has no faith in human nature, and seems to be virtuous himself more by calculation than by impulse. We scarcely thank him for his loyalty; serving his Emperor, he ruins and betrays his friend: and, besides, though he does not own it, personal ambition is among his leading motives; he wishes to be general and prince, and Wallenstein is not only a traitor to his sovereign, but a bar to this advancement. It is true, Octavio does not personally tempt him towards his destruction; but neither does he warn him from it; and perhaps he knew that fresh temptation was superfluous. Wallenstein did not deserve such treatment from a man whom he had trusted as a brother, even though such confidence was blind, and guided by visions and starry omens. Octavio is a skilful, prudent, managing statesman; of the kind praised loudly, if not sincerely, by their friends, and detested deeply by their enemies. His object may be lawful or even laudable; but his ways are crooked; we dislike him but the more that we know not positively how to blame him.

Octavio Piccolomini and Wallenstein are, as it were, the two opposing forces by which this whole universe of military politics is kept in motion. The struggle of magnanimity and strength combined with treason, against cunning and apparent virtue, aided by law, gives rise to a series of great actions, which are here vividly presented to our view. We mingle in the clashing interests of these men of war; we see them at their gorgeous festivals and stormy consultations, and participate in the hopes or fears that agitate them. The subject had many capabilities; and Schiller has turned them all to profit. Our minds are kept alert by a constant succession of animating scenes of spectacle, dialogue, incident: the plot thickens and darkens as we advance; the interest deepens and deepens to the very end.

But among the tumults of this busy multitude, there are two forms of celestial beauty that solicit our attention, and whose destiny, involved with that of those around them, gives it an importance in our eyes which it could not otherwise have had. Max Piccolomini, Octavio's son, and Thekla, the daughter of Wallenstein, diffuse an ethereal radiance over all this tragedy; they call forth the finest feelings of the heart, where other feelings had already been aroused; they superadd to the stirring pomp of scenes, which had already kindled our imaginations, the enthusiasm of bright unworn humanity, 'the bloom of young desire, the purple light of love.' The history of Max and Thekla is not a rare one in poetry; but Schiller has treated it with a skill which is extremely rare. Both of them are represented as combining every excellence; their affection is instantaneous and unbounded; yet the coolest, most sceptical reader is forced to admire them, and believe in them.

Of Max we are taught from the first to form the highest expectations: the common soldiers and their captains speak of him as of a perfect hero; the Cuirassiers had, at Pappenheim's death, on the field of Luetzen, appointed him their colonel by unanimous election. His appearance answers these ideas: Max is the very spirit of honour, and integrity, and young ardour, personified. Though but passing into maturer age, he has already seen and suffered much; but the experience of the man has not yet deadened or dulled the enthusiasm of the boy. He has lived, since his very childhood, constantly amid the clang of war, and with few ideas but those of camps; yet here, by a native instinct, his heart has attracted to it all that was noble and graceful in the trade of arms, rejecting all that was repulsive or ferocious. He loves Wallenstein his patron, his gallant and majestic leader: he loves his present way of life, because it is one of peril and excitement, because he knows no other, but chiefly because his young unsullied spirit can shed a resplendent beauty over even the wastest region in the destiny of man. Yet though a soldier, and the bravest of soldiers, he is not this alone. He feels that there are fairer scenes in life, which these scenes of havoc and distress but deform or destroy; his first acquaintance with the Princess Thekla unveils to him another world, which till then he had not dreamed of; a land of peace and serene elysian felicity, the charms of which he paints with simple and unrivalled eloquence. Max is not more daring than affectionate; he is merciful and gentle, though his training has been under tents; modest and altogether unpretending, though young and universally admired. We conceive his aspect to be thoughtful but fervid, dauntless but mild: he is the very poetry of war, the essence of a youthful hero. We should have loved him anywhere; but here, amid barren scenes of strife and danger, he is doubly dear to us.

His first appearance wins our favour; his eloquence in sentiment prepares us to expect no common magnanimity in action. It is as follows: Octavio and Questenberg are consulting on affairs of state; Max enters: he is just returned from convoying the Princess Thekla and her mother, the daughter and the wife of Friedland, to the camp at Pilsen.

ACT I. SCENE IV.

MAX PICCOLOMINI, OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, QUESTENBERG.

MAX. 'Tis he himself! My father, welcome, welcome!

[He embraces him: on turning round, he observes Questenberg, and draws coldly back.

Busied, I perceive? I will not interrupt you.

OCT. How now, Max? View this stranger better! An old friend deserves regard and kindness; The Kaiser's messenger should be rever'd!

MAX. [drily] Von Questenberg! If it is good that brings you To our head-quarters, welcome!

QUEST. [has taken his hand] Nay, draw not Your hand away, Count Piccolomini! Not on mine own account alone I grasp it, And nothing common will I say therewith. Octavio, Max, Piccolomini! [Taking both their hands. Names of benignant solemn import! Never Can Austria's fortune fail while two such stars, To guide and guard her, gleam above our hosts.

MAX. You play it wrong, Sir Minister! To praise, I wot, you come not hither; to blame and censure You are come. Let me be no exception.

OCT. [to Max.] He comes from Court, where every one is not So well contented with the Duke as here.

MAX. And what new fault have they to charge him with? That he alone decides what he alone Can understand? Well! Should it not be so? It should and must! This man was never made To ply and mould himself like wax to others: It goes against his heart; he cannot do it, He has the spirit of a ruler, and The station of a ruler. Well for us It is so! Few can rule themselves, can use Their wisdom wisely: happy for the whole Where there is one among them that can be A centre and a hold for many thousands; That can plant himself like a firm column, For the whole to lean on safely! Such a one Is Wallenstein; some other man might better Serve the Court, none else could serve the Army.

QUEST. The Army, truly!

MAX. And it is a pleasure To behold how all awakes and strengthens And revives around him; how men's faculties Come forth; their gifts grow plainer to themselves! From each he can elicit his endowment, His peculiar power; and does it wisely; Leaving each to be the man he found him, Watching only that he always be so. I' th' proper place: and thus he makes the talents Of all mankind his own.

QUEST. No one denies him Skill in men, and skill to use them. His fault is That in the ruler he forgets the servant, As if he had been born to be commander.

MAX. And is he not? By birth he is invested With all gifts for it, and with the farther gift Of finding scope to use them; of acquiring For the ruler's faculties the ruler's office.

QUEST. So that how far the rest of us have rights Or influence, if any, lies with Friedland?

MAX. He is no common person; he requires No common confidence: allow him space; The proper limit he himself will set.

QUEST. The trial shows it!

MAX. Ay! Thus it is with them! Still so! All frights them that has any depth; Nowhere are they at ease but in the shallows.

OCT. [to Quest.] Let him have his way, my friend! The argument Will not avail us.

MAX. They invoke the spirit I' th' hour of need, and shudder when he rises. The great, the wonderful, must be accomplished Like a thing of course!—In war, in battle, A moment is decisive; on the spot Must be determin'd, in the instant done. With ev'ry noble quality of nature The leader must be gifted: let him live, then, In their noble sphere! The oracle within him, The living spirit, not dead books, old forms, Not mould'ring parchments must he take to counsel.

OCT. My Son! despise not these old narrow forms! They are as barriers, precious walls and fences, Which oppressed mortals have erected To mod'rate the rash will of their oppressors. For the uncontrolled has ever been destructive. The way of Order, though it lead through windings, Is the best. Right forward goes the lightning And the cannon-ball: quick, by the nearest path, They come, op'ning with murderous crash their way, To blast and ruin! My Son! the quiet road Which men frequent, where peace and blessings travel, Follows the river's course, the valley's bendings; Modest skirts the cornfield and the vineyard, Revering property's appointed bounds; And leading safe though slower to the mark.

QUEST. O, hear your Father! him who is at once A hero and a man!

OCT. It is the child O' th' camp that speaks in thee, my Son: a war Of fifteen years has nursed and taught thee; peace Thou hast never seen. My Son, there is a worth Beyond the worth of warriors: ev'n in war itself The object is not war. The rapid deeds Of power, th' astounding wonders of the moment— It is not these that minister to man Aught useful, aught benignant or enduring. In haste the wandering soldier comes, and builds With canvas his light town: here in a moment Is a rushing concourse; markets open; Roads and rivers crowd with merchandise And people; Traffic stirs his hundred arms. Ere long, some morning, look,—and it is gone! The tents are struck, the host has marched away; Dead as a churchyard lies the trampled seed-field, And wasted is the harvest of the year.

MAX. O Father! that the Kaiser would make peace! The bloody laurel I would gladly change For the first violet Spring should offer us, The tiny pledge that Earth again was young!

OCT. How's this? What is it that affects thee so?

MAX. Peace I have never seen? Yes, I have seen it! Ev'n now I come from it: my journey led me Through lands as yet unvisited by war. O Father! life has charms, of which we know not: We have but seen the barren coasts of life; Like some wild roving crew of lawless pirates, Who, crowded in their narrow noisome ship, Upon the rude sea, with rude manners dwell; Naught of the fair land knowing but the bays, Where they may risk their hurried thievish landing. Of the loveliness that, in its peaceful dales, The land conceals—O Father!—O, of this, In our wild voyage we have seen no glimpse.

OCT. [gives increased attention] And did this journey show thee much of it?

MAX. 'Twas the first holiday of my existence. Tell me, where's the end of all this labour, This grinding labour that has stolen my youth, And left my heart uncheer'd and void, my spirit Uncultivated as a wilderness? This camp's unceasing din; the neighing steeds; The trumpet's clang; the never-changing round Of service, discipline, parade, give nothing To the heart, the heart that longs for nourishment. There is no soul in this insipid bus'ness; Life has another fate and other joys.

OCT. Much hast thou learn'd, my Son, in this short journey!

MAX. O blessed bright day, when at last the soldier Shall turn back to life, and be again a man! Through th' merry lines the colours are unfurl'd, And homeward beats the thrilling soft peace-march; All hats and helmets deck'd with leafy sprays, The last spoil of the fields! The city's gates Fly up; now needs not the petard to burst them: The walls are crowded with rejoicing people; Their shouts ring through the air: from every tower Blithe bells are pealing forth the merry vesper Of that bloody day. From town and hamlet Flow the jocund thousands; with their hearty Kind impetuosity our march impeding. The old man, weeping that he sees this day, Embraces his long-lost son: a stranger He revisits his old home; with spreading boughs The tree o'ershadows him at his return, Which waver'd as a twig when he departed; And modest blushing comes a maid to meet him, Whom on her nurse's breast he left. O happy, For whom some kindly door like this, for whom Soft arms to clasp him shall be open'd!—

QUEST. [with emotion] O that The times you speak of should be so far distant! Should not be tomorrow, be today!

MAX. And who's to blame for it but you at Court? I will deal plainly with you, Questenberg: When I observ'd you here, a twinge of spleen And bitterness went through me. It is you That hinder peace; yes, you. The General Must force it, and you ever keep tormenting him, Obstructing all his steps, abusing him; For what? Because the good of Europe lies Nearer his heart, than whether certain acres More or less of dirty land be Austria's! You call him traitor, rebel, God knows what, Because he spares the Saxons; as if that Were not the only way to peace; for how If during war, war end not, can peace follow? Go to! go to! As I love goodness, so I hate This paltry work of yours: and here I vow to God, For him, this rebel, traitor Wallenstein, To shed my blood, my heart's blood, drop by drop, Ere I will see you triumph in his fall!

The Princess Thekla is perhaps still dearer to us. Thekla, just entering on life, with 'timid steps,' with the brilliant visions of a cloister yet undisturbed by the contradictions of reality, beholds in Max, not merely her protector and escort to her father's camp, but the living emblem of her shapeless yet glowing dreams. She knows not deception, she trusts and is trusted: their spirits meet and mingle, and 'clasp each other firmly and forever.' All this is described by the poet with a quiet inspiration, which finds its way into our deepest sympathies. Such beautiful simplicity is irresistible. 'How long,' the Countess Terzky asks,

How long is it since you disclosed your heart?

MAX. This morning first I risked a word of it.

COUN. Not till this morning during twenty days?

MAX. 'Twas at the castle where you met us, 'twixt this And Nepomuk, the last stage of the journey. On a balcony she and I were standing, our looks In silence turn'd upon the vacant landscape; And before us the dragoons were riding, Whom the Duke had sent to be her escort. Heavy on my heart lay thoughts of parting, And with a faltering voice at last I said: All this reminds me, Fraeulein, that today I must be parted from my happiness; In few hours you will find a father, Will see yourself encircled by new friends; And I shall be to you nought but a stranger, Forgotten in the crowd—"Speak with Aunt Terzky!" Quick she interrupted me; I noticed A quiv'ring in her voice; a glowing blush Spread o'er her cheeks; slow rising from the ground, Her eyes met mine: I could control myself No longer—

[The Princess appears at the door, and stops; the Countess, but not Piccolomini, observing her.

—I clasp'd her wildly in my arms, My lips were join'd with hers. Some footsteps stirring I' th' next room parted us; 'twas you; what then Took place, you know.

COUN. And can you be so modest, Or incurious, as not once to ask me For my secret, in return?

MAX. Your secret?

COUN. Yes, sure! On coming in the moment after, How my niece receiv'd me, what i' th' instant Of her first surprise she—

MAX. Ha?

THEKLA [enters hastily]. Spare yourself The trouble, Aunt! That he can learn from me.

* * * * *

We rejoice in the ardent, pure and confiding affection of these two angelic beings: but our feeling is changed and made more poignant, when we think that the inexorable hand of Destiny is already lifted to smite their world with blackness and desolation. Thekla has enjoyed 'two little hours of heavenly beauty;' but her native gaiety gives place to serious anticipations and alarms; she feels that the camp of Wallenstein is not a place for hope to dwell in. The instructions and explanations of her aunt disclose the secret: she is not to love Max; a higher, it may be a royal, fate awaits her; but she is to tempt him from his duty, and make him lend his influence to her father, whose daring projects she now for the first time discovers. From that moment her hopes of happiness have vanished, never more to return. Yet her own sorrows touch her less than the ruin which she sees about to overwhelm her tender and affectionate mother. For herself, she waits with gloomy patience the stroke that is to crush her. She is meek, and soft, and maiden-like; but she is Friedland's daughter, and does not shrink from what is unavoidable. There is often a rectitude, and quick inflexibility of resolution about Thekla, which contrasts beautifully with her inexperience and timorous acuteness of feeling: on discovering her father's treason, she herself decides that Max 'shall obey his first impulse,' and forsake her.

There are few scenes in poetry more sublimely pathetic than this. We behold the sinking but still fiery glory of Wallenstein, opposed to the impetuous despair of Max Piccolomini, torn asunder by the claims of duty and of love; the calm but broken-hearted Thekla, beside her broken-hearted mother, and surrounded by the blank faces of Wallenstein's desponding followers. There is a physical pomp corresponding to the moral grandeur of the action; the successive revolt and departure of the troops is heard without the walls of the Palace; the trumpets of the Pappenheimers reecho the wild feelings of their leader. What follows too is equally affecting. Max being forced away by his soldiers from the side of Thekla, rides forth at their head in a state bordering on frenzy. Next day come tidings of his fate, which no heart is hard enough to hear unmoved. The effect it produces upon Thekla displays all the hidden energies of her soul. The first accidental hearing of the news had almost overwhelmed her; but she summons up her strength: she sends for the messenger, that she may question him more closely, and listen to his stern details with the heroism of a Spartan virgin.

ACT IV. SCENE X.

THEKLA; THE SWEDISH CAPTAIN; FRAeULEIN NEUBRUNN.

CAPT. [approaches respectfully] Princess—I—must pray you to forgive me My most rash unthinking words: I could not—

THEKLA [with noble dignity]. You saw me in my grief; a sad chance made you At once my confidant, who were a stranger.

CAPT. I fear the sight of me is hateful to you: They were mournful tidings I brought hither.

THEKLA. The blame was mine! 'Twas I that forced them from you; Your voice was but the voice of Destiny. My terror interrupted your recital: Finish it, I pray you.

CAPT. 'Twill renew your grief!

THEKLA. I am prepared for't, I will be prepared. Proceed! How went the action? Let me hear.

CAPT. At Neustadt, dreading no surprise, we lay Slightly entrench'd; when towards night a cloud Of dust rose from the forest, and our outposts Rush'd into the camp, and cried: The foe was there! Scarce had we time to spring on horseback, when The Pappenheimers, coming at full gallop, Dash'd o'er the palisado, and next moment These fierce troopers pass'd our camp-trench also. But thoughtlessly their courage had impelled them To advance without support; their infantry Was far behind; only the Pappenheimers Boldly following their bold leader—

[Thekla makes a movement. The Captain pauses for a moment, till she beckons him to proceed.

On front and flank with all our horse we charged them; And ere long forc'd them back upon the trench, Where rank'd in haste our infantry presented An iron hedge of pikes to stop their passage. Advance they could not, nor retreat a step, Wedg'd in this narrow prison, death on all sides. Then the Rheingraf call'd upon their leader, In fair battle, fairly to surrender: But Colonel Piccolomini— [Thekla, tottering, catches by a seat. —We knew him By's helmet-plume and his long flowing hair, The rapid ride had loosen'd it: to th' trench He points; leaps first himself his gallant steed Clean over it; the troop plunge after him: But—in a twinkle it was done!—his horse Run through the body by a partisan, Rears in its agony, and pitches far Its rider; and fierce o'er him tramp the steeds O' th' rest, now heeding neither bit nor bridle.

[Thekla, who has listened to the last words with increasing anguish, falls into a violent tremor; she is sinking to the ground; Fraeulein Neubrunn hastens to her, and receives her in her arms.

NEU. Lady, dearest mistress—

CAPT. [moved] Let me begone.

THEKLA. 'Tis past; conclude it.

CAPT. Seeing their leader fall, A grim inexorable desperation Seiz'd the troops: their own escape forgotten, Like wild tigers they attack us; their fury Provokes our soldiers, and the battle ends not Till the last man of the Pappenheimers falls.

THEKLA [with a quivering voice]. And where—where is—You have not told me all.

CAPT. [after a pause] This morning we interr'd him. He was borne By twelve youths of the noblest families, And all our host accompanied the bier. A laurel deck'd his coffin; and upon it The Rheingraf laid his own victorious sword. Nor were tears wanting to his fate: for many Of us had known his noble-mindedness, And gentleness of manners; and all hearts Were mov'd at his sad end. Fain would the Rheingraf Have sav'd him; but himself prevented it; 'Tis said he wish'd to die.

NEU. [with emotion, to Thekla, who hides her face] O! dearest mistress, Look up! O, why would you insist on this?

THEKLA. Where is his grave?

CAPT. I' th' chapel of a cloister At Neustadt is he laid, till we receive Directions from his father.

THEKLA. What is its name?

CAPT. St. Catharine's.

THEKLA. Is't far from this?

CAPT. Seven leagues.

THEKLA. How goes the way?

CAPT. You come by Tirschenreit And Falkenberg, and through our farthest outposts.

THEKLA. Who commands them?

CAPT. Colonel Seckendorf.

THEKLA [steps to a table, and takes a ring from her jewel-box]. You have seen me in my grief, and shown me A sympathising heart: accept a small Memorial of this hour [giving him the ring]. Now leave me.

CAPT. [overpowered] Princess!

[Thekla silently makes him a sign to go, and turns from him. He lingers, and attempts to speak; Neubrunn repeats the sign; he goes.

SCENE XI.

NEUBRUNN; THEKLA.

THEKLA [falls on Neubrunn's neck]. Now, good Neubrunn, is the time to show the love Which thou hast always vow'd me. Prove thyself A true friend and attendant! We must go, This very night.

NEU. Go! This very night! And whither?

THEKLA. Whither? There is but one place in the world, The place where he lies buried: to his grave.

NEU. Alas, what would you there, my dearest mistress?

THEKLA. What there? Unhappy girl! Thou wouldst not ask If thou hadst ever lov'd. There, there, is all That yet remains of him; that one small spot Is all the earth to me. Do not detain me! O, come! Prepare, think how we may escape.

NEU. Have you reflected on your father's anger?

THEKLA. I dread no mortal's anger now.

NEU. The mockery Of the world, the wicked tongue of slander!

THEKLA. I go to seek one that is cold and low: Am I, then, hast'ning to my lover's arms? O God! I am but hast'ning to his grave!

NEU. And we alone? Two feeble, helpless women?

THEKLA. We will arm ourselves; my hand shall guard thee.

NEU. In the gloomy night-time?

THEKLA. Night will hide us.

NEU. In this rude storm?

THEKLA. Was his bed made of down, When the horses' hoofs went o'er him?

NEU. O Heaven! And then the many Swedish posts! They will not Let us pass.

THEKLA. Are they not men? Misfortune Passes free through all the earth.

NEU. So far! So—

THEKLA. Does the pilgrim count the miles, when journeying To the distant shrine of grace?

NEU. How shall we Even get out of Eger?

THEKLA. Gold opens gates. Go! Do go!

NEU. If they should recognise us?

THEKLA. In a fugitive despairing woman No one will look to meet with Friedland's daughter.

NEU. And where shall we get horses for our flight?

THEKLA. My Equerry will find them. Go and call him.

NEU. Will he venture without his master's knowledge?

THEKLA. He will, I tell thee. Go! O, linger not!

NEU. Ah! And what will your mother do when you Are vanish'd?

THEKLA [recollecting this, and gazing with a look of anguish]. O my mother!

NEU. Your good mother! She has already had so much to suffer. Must this last heaviest stroke too fall on her?

THEKLA. I cannot help it. Go, I prithee, go!

NEU. Think well what you are doing.

THEKLA. All is thought That can be thought, already.

NEU. Were we there, What would you do?

THEKLA. God will direct me, there.

NEU. Your heart is full of trouble: O my lady! This way leads not to peace.

THEKLA. To that deep peace Which he has found. O, hasten! Go! No words! There is some force, I know not what to call it, Pulls me irresistibly, and drags me On to his grave: there I shall find some solace Instantly; the strangling band of sorrow Will be loosen'd; tears will flow. O, hasten! Long time ago we might have been o' th' road. No rest for me till I have fled these walls: They fall upon me, some dark power repels me From them—Ha! What's this? The chamber's filling With pale gaunt shapes! No room is left for me! More! more! The crowding spectres press on me, And push me forth from this accursed house.

NEU. You frighten me, my lady: I dare stay No longer; quickly I'll call Rosenberg.

SCENE XII.

THEKLA.

It is his spirit calls me! 'Tis the host Of faithful souls that sacrificed themselves In fiery vengeance for him. They upbraid me For this loit'ring: they in death forsook him not, Who in their life had led them; their rude hearts Were capable of this: and I can live?

No! No! That laurel-garland which they laid Upon his bier was twined for both of us! What is this life without the light of love? I cast it from me, since its worth is gone. Yes, when we found and lov'd each other, life Was something! Glittering lay before me The golden morn: I had two hours of Heaven.

Thou stoodest at the threshold of the scene Of busy life; with timid steps I cross'd it: How fair it lay in solemn shade and sheen! And thou beside me, like some angel, posted To lead me out of childhood's fairy land On to life's glancing summit, hand in hand! My first thought was of joy no tongue can tell, My first look on thy spotless spirit fell.

[She sinks into a reverie, then with signs of horror proceeds.

And Fate put forth his hand: inexorable, cold, My friend it grasp'd and clutch'd with iron hold, And—under th' hoofs of their wild horses hurl'd: Such is the lot of loveliness i' th' world!

Thekla has yet another pang to encounter; the parting with her mother: but she persists in her determination, and goes forth, to die beside her lover's grave. The heart-rending emotions, which this amiable creature has to undergo, are described with an almost painful effect: the fate of Max and Thekla might draw tears from the eyes of a stoic.

Less tender, but not less sublimely poetical, is the fate of Wallenstein himself. We do not pity Wallenstein; even in ruin he seems too great for pity. His daughter having vanished like a fair vision from the scene, we look forward to Wallenstein's inevitable fate with little feeling save expectant awe:

This kingly Wallenstein, whene'er he falls, Will drag a world to ruin down with him; And as a ship that in the midst of ocean Catches fire, and shiv'ring springs into the air, And in a moment scatters between sea and sky The crew it bore, so will he hurry to destruction Ev'ry one whose fate was join'd with his.

Yet still there is some touch of pathos in his gloomy fall; some visitings of nature in the austere grandeur of his slowly-coming, but inevitable and annihilating doom. The last scene of his life is among the finest which poetry can boast of. Thekla's death is still unknown to him; but he thinks of Max, and almost weeps. He looks at the stars: dim shadows of superstitious dread pass fitfully across his spirit, as he views these fountains of light, and compares their glorious and enduring existence with the fleeting troubled life of man. The strong spirit of his sister is subdued by dark forebodings; omens are against him; his astrologer entreats, one of the relenting conspirators entreats, his own feelings call upon him, to watch and beware. But he refuses to let the resolution of his mind be overmastered; he casts away these warnings, and goes cheerfully to sleep, with dreams of hope about his pillow, unconscious that the javelins are already grasped which will send him to his long and dreamless sleep. The death of Wallenstein does not cause tears; but it is perhaps the most high-wrought scene of the play. A shade of horror, of fateful dreariness, hangs over it, and gives additional effect to the fire of that brilliant poetry, which glows in every line of it. Except in Macbeth or the conclusion of Othello, we know not where to match it. Schiller's genius is of a kind much narrower than Shakspeare's; but in his own peculiar province, the exciting of lofty, earnest, strong emotion, he admits of no superior. Others are finer, more piercing, varied, thrilling, in their influence: Schiller, in his finest mood, is overwhelming.

This tragedy of Wallenstein, published at the close of the eighteenth century, may safely be rated as the greatest dramatic work of which that century can boast. France never rose into the sphere of Schiller, even in the days of her Corneille: nor can our own country, since the times of Elizabeth, name any dramatist to be compared with him in general strength of mind, and feeling, and acquired accomplishment. About the time of Wallenstein's appearance, we of this gifted land were shuddering at The Castle Spectre! Germany, indeed, boasts of Goethe: and on some rare occasions, it must be owned that Goethe has shown talents of a higher order than are here manifested; but he has made no equally regular or powerful exertion of them: Faust is but a careless effusion compared with Wallenstein. The latter is in truth a vast and magnificent work. What an assemblage of images, ideas, emotions, disposed in the most felicitous and impressive order! We have conquerors, statesmen, ambitious generals, marauding soldiers, heroes, and heroines, all acting and feeling as they would in nature, all faithfully depicted, yet all embellished by the spirit of poetry, and all made conducive to heighten one paramount impression, our sympathy with the three chief characters of the piece.[35]

[Footnote 35: Wallenstein has been translated into French by M. Benjamin Constant; and the last two parts of it have been faithfully rendered into English by Mr. Coleridge. As to the French version, we know nothing, save that it is an improved one; but that little is enough: Schiller, as a dramatist, improved by M. Constant, is a spectacle we feel no wish to witness. Mr. Coleridge's translation is also, as a whole, unknown to us: but judging from many large specimens, we should pronounce it, excepting Sotheby's Oberon, to be the best, indeed the only sufferable, translation from the German with which our literature has yet been enriched.]

Soon after the publication of Wallenstein, Schiller once more changed his abode. The 'mountain air of Jena' was conceived by his physicians to be prejudicial in disorders of the lungs; and partly in consequence of this opinion, he determined henceforth to spend his winters in Weimar. Perhaps a weightier reason in favour of this new arrangement was the opportunity it gave him of being near the theatre, a constant attendance on which, now that he had once more become a dramatist, seemed highly useful for his farther improvement. The summer he, for several years, continued still to spend in Jena; to which, especially its beautiful environs, he declared himself particularly attached. His little garden-house was still his place of study during summer; till at last he settled constantly at Weimar. Even then he used frequently to visit Jena; to which there was a fresh attraction in later years, when Goethe chose it for his residence, which, we understand, it still occasionally is. With Goethe he often stayed for months.

This change of place produced little change in Schiller's habits or employment: he was now as formerly in the pay of the Duke of Weimar; now as formerly engaged in dramatic composition as the great object of his life. What the amount of his pension was, we know not: that the Prince behaved to him in a princely manner, we have proof sufficient. Four years before, when invited to the University of Tuebingen, Schiller had received a promise, that, in case of sickness or any other cause preventing the continuance of his literary labour, his salary should be doubled. It was actually increased on occasion of the present removal; and again still farther in 1804, some advantageous offers being made to him from Berlin. Schiller seems to have been, what he might have wished to be, neither poor nor rich: his simple unostentatious economy went on without embarrassment: and this was all that he required. To avoid pecuniary perplexities was constantly among his aims: to amass wealth, never. We ought also to add that, in 1802, by the voluntary solicitation of the Duke, he was ennobled; a fact which we mention, for his sake by whose kindness this honour was procured; not for the sake of Schiller, who accepted it with gratitude, but had neither needed nor desired it.

The official services expected of him in return for so much kindness seem to have been slight, if any. Chiefly or altogether of his own accord, he appears to have applied himself to a close inspection of the theatre, and to have shared with Goethe the task of superintending its concerns. The rehearsals of new pieces commonly took place at the house of one of these friends; they consulted together on all such subjects, frankly and copiously. Schiller was not slow to profit by the means of improvement thus afforded him; in the mechanical details of his art he grew more skilful: by a constant observation of the stage, he became more acquainted with its capabilities and its laws. It was not long till, with his characteristic expansiveness of enterprise, he set about turning this new knowledge to account. In conjunction with Goethe, he remodelled his own Don Carlos and his friend's Count Egmont, altering both according to his latest views of scenic propriety. It was farther intended to treat, in the same manner, the whole series of leading German plays, and thus to produce a national stock of dramatic pieces, formed according to the best rules; a vast project, in which some progress continued to be made, though other labours often interrupted it. For the present, Schiller was engaged with his Maria Stuart: it appeared in 1800.

This tragedy will not detain us long. It is upon a subject, the incidents of which are now getting trite, and the moral of which has little that can peculiarly recommend it. To exhibit the repentance of a lovely but erring woman, to show us how her soul may be restored to its primitive nobleness, by sufferings, devotion and death, is the object of Maria Stuart. It is a tragedy of sombre and mournful feelings; with an air of melancholy and obstruction pervading it; a looking backward on objects of remorse, around on imprisonment, and forward on the grave. Its object is undoubtedly attained. We are forced to pardon and to love the heroine; she is beautiful, and miserable, and lofty-minded; and her crimes, however dark, have been expiated by long years of weeping and woe. Considering also that they were the fruit not of calculation, but of passion acting on a heart not dead, though blinded for a time, to their enormity, they seem less hateful than the cold premeditated villany of which she is the victim. Elizabeth is selfish, heartless, envious; she violates no law, but she has no virtue, and she lives triumphant: her arid, artificial character serves by contrast to heighten our sympathy with her warm-hearted, forlorn, ill-fated rival. These two Queens, particularly Mary, are well delineated: their respective qualities are vividly brought out, and the feelings they were meant to excite arise within us. There is also Mortimer, a fierce, impetuous, impassioned lover; driven onward chiefly by the heat of his blood, but still interesting by his vehemence and unbounded daring. The dialogue, moreover, has many beauties; there are scenes which have merited peculiar commendation. Of this kind is the interview between the Queens; and more especially the first entrance of Mary, when, after long seclusion, she is once more permitted to behold the cheerful sky. In the joy of a momentary freedom, she forgets that she is still a captive; she addresses the clouds, the 'sailors of the air, who 'are not subjects of Elizabeth,' and bids them carry tidings of her to the hearts that love her in other lands. Without doubt, in all that he intended, Schiller has succeeded; Maria Stuart is a beautiful tragedy; it would have formed the glory of a meaner man, but it cannot materially alter his. Compared with Wallenstein, its purpose is narrow, and its result is common. We have no manners or true historical delineation. The figure of the English court is not given; and Elizabeth is depicted more like one of the French Medici, than like our own politic, capricious, coquettish, imperious, yet on the whole true-hearted, 'good Queen Bess.' With abundant proofs of genius, this tragedy produces a comparatively small effect, especially on English readers. We have already wept enough for Mary Stuart, both over prose and verse; and the persons likely to be deeply touched with the moral or the interest of her story, as it is recorded here, are rather a separate class than men in general. Madame de Stael, we observe, is her principal admirer.

Next year, Schiller took possession of a province more peculiarly his own: in 1801, appeared his Maid of Orleans (Jungfrau von Orleans); the first hint of which was suggested to him by a series of documents, relating to the sentence of Jeanne d'Arc, and its reversal, first published about this time by De l'Averdy of the Academie des Inscriptions. Schiller had been moved in perusing them: this tragedy gave voice to his feelings.

Considered as an object of poetry or history, Jeanne d'Arc, the most singular personage of modern times, presents a character capable of being viewed under a great variety of aspects, and with a corresponding variety of emotions. To the English of her own age, bigoted in their creed, and baffled by her prowess, she appeared inspired by the Devil, and was naturally burnt as a sorceress. In this light, too, she is painted in the poems of Shakspeare. To Voltaire, again, whose trade it was to war with every kind of superstition, this child of fanatic ardour seemed no better than a moonstruck zealot; and the people who followed her, and believed in her, something worse than lunatics. The glory of what she had achieved was forgotten, when the means of achieving it were recollected; and the Maid of Orleans was deemed the fit subject of a poem, the wittiest and most profligate for which literature has to blush. Our illustrious Don Juan hides his head when contrasted with Voltaire's Pucelle: Juan's biographer, with all his zeal, is but an innocent, and a novice, by the side of this arch-scorner.

Such a manner of considering the Maid of Orleans is evidently not the right one. Feelings so deep and earnest as hers can never be an object of ridicule: whoever pursues a purpose of any sort with such fervid devotedness, is entitled to awaken emotions, at least of a serious kind, in the hearts of others. Enthusiasm puts on a different shape in every different age: always in some degree sublime, often it is dangerous; its very essence is a tendency to error and exaggeration; yet it is the fundamental quality of strong souls; the true nobility of blood, in which all greatness of thought or action has its rise. Quicquid vult valde vult is ever the first and surest test of mental capability. This peasant girl, who felt within her such fiery vehemence of resolution, that she could subdue the minds of kings and captains to her will, and lead armies on to battle, conquering, till her country was cleared of its invaders, must evidently have possessed the elements of a majestic character. Benevolent feelings, sublime ideas, and above all an overpowering will, are here indubitably marked. Nor does the form, which her activity assumed, seem less adapted for displaying these qualities, than many other forms in which we praise them. The gorgeous inspirations of the Catholic religion are as real as the phantom of posthumous renown; the love of our native soil is as laudable as ambition, or the principle of military honour. Jeanne d'Arc must have been a creature of shadowy yet far-glancing dreams, of unutterable feelings, of 'thoughts that wandered through Eternity.' Who can tell the trials and the triumphs, the splendours and the terrors, of which her simple spirit was the scene! 'Heartless, sneering, god-forgetting French!' as old Suwarrow called them,—they are not worthy of this noble maiden. Hers were errors, but errors which a generous soul alone could have committed, and which generous souls would have done more than pardon. Her darkness and delusions were of the understanding only; they but make the radiance of her heart more touching and apparent; as clouds are gilded by the orient light into something more beautiful than azure itself.

It is under this aspect that Schiller has contemplated the Maid of Orleans, and endeavoured to make us contemplate her. For the latter purpose, it appears that more than one plan had occurred to him. His first idea was, to represent Joanna, and the times she lived in, as they actually were: to exhibit the superstition, ferocity, and wretchedness of the period, in all their aggravation; and to show us this patriotic and religious enthusiast beautifying the tempestuous scene by her presence; swaying the fierce passions of her countrymen; directing their fury against the invaders of France; till at length, forsaken and condemned to die, she perished at the stake, retaining the same steadfast and lofty faith, which had ennobled and redeemed the errors of her life, and was now to glorify the ignominy of her death. This project, after much deliberation, he relinquished, as too difficult. By a new mode of management, much of the homeliness and rude horror, that defaced and encumbered the reality, is thrown away. The Dauphin is not here a voluptuous weakling, nor is his court the centre of vice and cruelty and imbecility: the misery of the time is touched but lightly, and the Maid of Arc herself is invested with a certain faint degree of mysterious dignity, ultimately represented as being in truth a preternatural gift; though whether preternatural, and if so, whether sent from above or from below, neither we nor she, except by faith, are absolutely sure, till the conclusion.

The propriety of this arrangement is liable to question; indeed, it has been more than questioned. But external blemishes are lost in the intrinsic grandeur of the piece: the spirit of Joanna is presented to us with an exalting and pathetic force sufficient to make us blind to far greater improprieties. Joanna is a pure creation, of half-celestial origin, combining the mild charms of female loveliness with the awful majesty of a prophetess, and a sacrifice doomed to perish for her country. She resembled, in Schiller's view, the Iphigenia of the Greeks; and as such, in some respects, he has treated her.

The woes and desolation of the land have kindled in Joanna's keen and fervent heart a fire, which the loneliness of her life, and her deep feelings of religion, have nourished and fanned into a holy flame. She sits in solitude with her flocks, beside the mountain chapel of the Virgin, under the ancient Druid oak, a wizard spot, the haunt of evil spirits as well as of good; and visions are revealed to her such as human eyes behold not. It seems the force of her own spirit, expressing its feelings in forms which react upon itself. The strength of her impulses persuades her that she is called from on high to deliver her native France; the intensity of her own faith persuades others; she goes forth on her mission; all bends to the fiery vehemence of her will; she is inspired because she thinks herself so. There is something beautiful and moving in the aspect of a noble enthusiasm, fostered in the secret soul, amid obstructions and depressions, and at length bursting forth with an overwhelming force to accomplish its appointed end: the impediments which long hid it are now become testimonies of its power; the very ignorance, and meanness, and error, which still in part adhere to it, increase our sympathy without diminishing our admiration; it seems the triumph, hardly contested, and not wholly carried, but still the triumph, of Mind over Fate, of human volition over material necessity.

All this Schiller felt, and has presented with even more than his usual skill. The secret mechanism of Joanna's mind is concealed from us in a dim religious obscurity; but its active movements are distinct; we behold the lofty heroism of her feelings; she affects us to the very heart. The quiet, devout innocence of her early years, when she lived silent, shrouded in herself, meek and kindly though not communing with others, makes us love her: the celestial splendour which illuminates her after-life adds reverence to our love. Her words and actions combine an overpowering force with a calm unpretending dignity: we seem to understand how they must have carried in their favour the universal conviction. Joanna is the most noble being in tragedy. We figure her with her slender lovely form, her mild but spirit-speaking countenance; 'beautiful and terrible;' bearing the banner of the Virgin before the hosts of her country; travelling in the strength of a rapt soul; irresistible by faith; 'the lowly herdsmaid,' greater in the grandeur of her simple spirit than the kings and queens of this world. Yet her breast is not entirely insensible to human feeling, nor her faith never liable to waver. When that inexorable vengeance, which had shut her ear against the voice of mercy to the enemies of France, is suspended at the sight of Lionel, and her heart experiences the first touch of mortal affection, a baleful cloud overspreads the serene of her mind; it seems as if Heaven had forsaken her, or from the beginning permitted demons or earthly dreams to deceive her. The agony of her spirit, involved in endless and horrid labyrinths of doubt, is powerfully portrayed. She has crowned the king at Rheims; and all is joy, and pomp, and jubilee, and almost adoration of Joanna: but Joanna's thoughts are not of joy. The sight of her poor but kind and true-hearted sisters in the crowd, moves her to the soul. Amid the tumult and magnificence of this royal pageant, she sinks into a reverie; her small native dale of Arc, between its quiet hills, rises on her mind's eye, with its straw-roofed huts, and its clear greensward; where the sun is even then shining so brightly, and the sky is so blue, and all is so calm and motherly and safe. She sighs for the peace of that sequestered home; then shudders to think that she shall never see it more. Accused of witchcraft, by her own ascetic melancholic father, she utters no word of denial to the charge; for her heart is dark, it is tarnished by earthly love, she dare not raise her thoughts to Heaven. Parted from her sisters; cast out with horror by the people she had lately saved from despair, she wanders forth, desolate, forlorn, not knowing whither. Yet she does not sink under this sore trial: as she suffers from without, and is forsaken of men, her mind grows clear and strong, her confidence returns. She is now more firmly fixed in our admiration than before; tenderness is united to our other feelings; and her faith has been proved by sharp vicissitudes. Her countrymen recognise their error; Joanna closes her career by a glorious death; we take farewell of her in a solemn mood of heroic pity.

Joanna is the animating principle of this tragedy; the scenes employed in developing her character and feelings constitute its great charm. Yet there are other personages in it, that leave a distinct and pleasing impression of themselves in our memory. Agnes Sorel, the soft, languishing, generous mistress of the Dauphin, relieves and heightens by comparison the sterner beauty of the Maid. Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, the lover of Joanna, is a blunt, frank, sagacious soldier, and well described. And Talbot, the gray veteran, delineates his dark, unbelieving, indomitable soul, by a few slight but expressive touches: he sternly passes down to the land, as he thinks, of utter nothingness, contemptuous even of the fate that destroys him, and

'On the soil of France he sleeps, as does A hero on the shield he would not quit.'

A few scattered extracts may in part exhibit some of these inferior personages to our readers, though they can afford us no impression of the Maid herself. Joanna's character, like every finished piece of art, to be judged of must be seen in all its bearings. It is not in parts, but as a whole, that the delineation moves us; by light and manifold touches, it works upon our hearts, till they melt before it into that mild rapture, free alike from the violence and the impurities of Nature, which it is the highest triumph of the Artist to communicate.

ACT III. SCENE IV.

[The Dauphin Charles, with his suite: afterwards Joanna. She is in armour, but without her helmet; and wears a garland in her hair.

DUNOIS [steps forward]. My heart made choice of her while she was lowly; This new honour raises not her merit Or my love. Here, in the presence of my King And of this holy Archbishop, I offer her My hand and princely rank, if she regard me As worthy to be hers.

CHARLES. Resistless Maid, Thou addest miracle to miracle! Henceforward I believe that nothing is Impossible to thee. Thou hast subdued This haughty spirit, that till now defied Th' omnipotence of Love.

LA HIRE [steps forward]. If I mistake not Joanna's form of mind, what most adorns her Is her modest heart. The rev'rence of the great She merits; but her thoughts will never rise So high. She strives not after giddy splendours: The true affection of a faithful soul Contents her, and the still, sequester'd lot Which with this hand I offer her.

CHARLES. Thou too, La Hire? Two valiant suitors, equal in Heroic virtue and renown of war! —Wilt thou, that hast united my dominions, Soften'd my opposers, part my firmest friends? Both may not gain thee, each deserving thee: Speak, then! Thy heart must here be arbiter.

AGNES SOREL [approaches]. Joanna is embarrass'd and surprised; I see the bashful crimson tinge her cheeks. Let her have time to ask her heart, to open Her clos'd bosom in trustful confidence With me. The moment is arriv'd when I In sisterly communion also may Approach the rigorous Maid, and offer her The solace of my faithful, silent breast. First let us women sit in secret judgment On this matter that concerns us; then expect What we shall have decided.

CHARLES [about to go]. Be it so, then!

JOANNA. Not so, Sire! 'Twas not the embarrassment Of virgin shame that dy'd my cheeks in crimson: To this lady I have nothing to confide, Which I need blush to speak of before men. Much am I honour'd by the preference Of these two noble Knights; but it was not To chase vain worldly grandeurs, that I left The shepherd moors; not in my hair to bind The bridal garland, that I girt myself With warlike armour. To far other work Am I appointed: and the spotless virgin Alone can do it. I am the soldier Of the God of Battles; to no living man Can I be wife.

ARCHBISHOP. As kindly help to man Was woman born; and in obeying Nature She best obeys and reverences Heaven. When the command of God who summon'd thee To battle is fulfull'd, thou wilt lay down Thy weapons, and return to that soft sex Which thou deny'st, which is not call'd to do The bloody work of war.

JOANNA. Father, as yet I know not how the Spirit will direct me: When the needful time comes round, His voice Will not be silent, and I will obey it. For the present, I am bid complete the task. He gave me. My sov'reign's brow is yet uncrown'd, His head unwetted by the holy oil, He is not yet a King.

CHARLES. We are journeying Towards Rheims.

JOANNA. Let us not linger by the way. Our foes are busy round us, shutting up Thy passage: I will lead thee through them all.

DUNOIS. And when the work shall be fulfill'd, when we Have marched in triumph into Rheims, Will not Joanna then—

JOANNA. If God see meet That I return with life and vict'ry from These broils, my task is ended, and the herdsmaid Has nothing more to do in her King's palace.

CHARLES [taking her hand]. It is the Spirit's voice impels thee now, And Love is mute in thy inspired bosom. Believe me, it will not be always mute! Our swords will rest; and Victory will lead Meek Peace by th' hand, and Joy will come again To ev'ry breast, and softer feelings waken In every heart: in thy heart also waken; And tears of sweetest longing wilt thou weep, Such as thine eyes have never shed. This heart, Now fill'd by Heav'n, will softly open To some terrestrial heart. Thou hast begun By blessing thousands; but thou wilt conclude By blessing one.

JOANNA. Dauphin! Art thou weary Of the heavenly vision, that thou seekest To deface its chosen vessel, wouldst degrade To common dust the Maid whom God has sent thee? Ye blind of heart! O ye of little faith! Heaven's brightness is about you, before your eyes Unveils its wonders; and ye see in me Nought but a woman. Dare a woman, think ye, Clothe herself in iron harness, and mingle In the wreck of battle? Woe, woe to me, If bearing in my hand th' avenging sword Of God, I bore in my vain heart a love To earthly man! Woe to me! It were better That I never had been born. No more, No more of this! Unless ye would awake the wrath Of HIM that dwells in me! The eye of man Desiring me is an abomination And a horror.

CHARLES. Cease! 'Tis vain to urge her.

JOANNA. Bid the trumpets sound! This loit'ring grieves And harasses me. Something chases me From sloth, and drives me forth to do my mission, Stern beck'ning me to my appointed doom.

SCENE V.

A KNIGHT [in haste].

CHARLES. How now?

KNIGHT. The enemy has pass'd the Marne; Is forming as for battle.

JOANNA [as if inspired]. Arms and battle! My soul has cast away its bonds! To arms! Prepare yourselves, while I prepare the rest! [She hastens out

* * * * *

[Trumpets sound with a piercing tone, and while the scene is changing pass into a wild tumultuous sound of battle.]

SCENE VI.

[The scene changes to an open space encircled with trees. During the music, soldiers are seen hastily retreating across the background.]

TALBOT, leaning upon FASTOLF, and accompanied by Soldiers. Soon after, LIONEL.

TALBOT. Here set me down beneath this tree, and you Betake yourselves again to battle: quick! I need no help to die.

FASTOLF. O day of woe! [Lionel enters. Look, what a sight awaits you, Lionel! Our General expiring of his wounds!

LIONEL. Now God forbid! Rise, noble Talbot! This Is not a time for you to faint and sink. Yield not to Death; force faltering Nature By your strength of soul, that life depart not!

TALBOT. In vain! The day of Destiny is come That prostrates with the dust our power in France. In vain, in the fierce clash of desp'rate battle, Have I risk'd our utmost to withstand it: The bolt has smote and crush'd me, and I lie To rise no more forever. Rheims is lost; Make haste to rescue Paris.

LIONEL. Paris has surrender'd To the Dauphin: an express is just arriv'd With tidings.

TALBOT [tears away his bandages]. Then flow out, ye life-streams; I am grown to loathe this Sun.

LIONEL. They want me! Fastolf, bear him to a place of safety: We can hold this post few instants longer, The coward knaves are giving way on all sides, Irresistible the Witch is pressing on.

TALBOT. Madness, thou conquerest, and I must yield: Stupidity can baffle the very gods. High Reason, radiant Daughter of God's Head, Wise Foundress of the system of the Universe, Conductress of the stars, who art thou, then, If, tied to th' tail o' th' wild horse Superstition, Thou must plunge, eyes open, vainly shrieking, Sheer down with that drunk Beast to the Abyss? Cursed who sets his life upon the great And dignified; and with forecasting spirit Forms wise projects! The Fool-king rules this world.

LIONEL. O, Death is near you! Think of your Creator!

TALBOT. Had we as brave men been defeated By brave men, we might have consoled ourselves With common thoughts of Fortune's fickleness: But that a sorry farce should be our ruin!— Did our earnest toilsome struggle merit No graver end than this?

LIONEL [grasps his hand]. Talbot, farewell! The meed of bitter tears I'll duly pay you, When the fight is done, should I outlive it. Now Fate calls me to the field, where yet She wav'ring sits, and shakes her doubtful urn. Farewell! we meet beyond the unseen shore. Brief parting for long friendship! God be with you! [Exit.

TALBOT. Soon it is over, and to th' Earth I render, To the everlasting Sun, the atoms, Which for pain and pleasure join'd to form me; And of the mighty Talbot, whose renown Once fill'd the world, remains nought but a handful Of light dust. Thus man comes to his end; And our one conquest in this fight of life Is the conviction of life's nothingness, And deep disdain of all that sorry stuff We once thought lofty and desirable.

SCENE VII.

Enter CHARLES; BURGUNDY; DUNOIS; DU CHATEL; and Soldiers.

BURGUN. The trench is storm'd.

DUNOIS. The victory is ours.

CHARLES [observing Talbot]. Ha! who is this that to the light of day Is bidding his constrained and sad farewell? His bearing speaks no common man: go, haste, Assist him, if assistance yet avail.

[Soldiers from the Dauphin's suite step forward.

FASTOLF. Back! Keep away! Approach not the Departing, Whom in life ye never wish'd too near you.

BURGUN. What do I see? Lord Talbot in his blood!

[He goes towards him. Talbot gazes fixedly at him, and dies.

FASTOLF. Off, Burgundy! With th' aspect of a traitor Poison not the last look of a hero.

DUNOIS. Dreaded Talbot! stern, unconquerable! Dost thou content thee with a space so narrow, And the wide domains of France once could not Stay the striving of thy giant spirit?— Now for the first time, Sire, I call you King: The crown but totter'd on your head, so long As in this body dwelt a soul.

CHARLES [after looking at the dead in silence]. It was A higher hand that conquer'd him, not we. Here on the soil of France he sleeps, as does A hero on the shield he would not quit. Bring him away. [Soldiers lift the corpse, and carry it off. And peace be with his dust! A fair memorial shall arise to him I' th' midst of France: here, where the hero's course And life were finished, let his bones repose. Thus far no other foe has e'er advanced. His epitaph shall be the place he fell on.

* * * * *

SCENE IX.

Another empty space in the field of battle. In the distance are seen the towers of Rheims illuminated by the sun.

A Knight, cased in black armour, with his visor shut. JOANNA follows him to the front of the scene, where he stops and awaits her.

JOANNA. Deceiver! Now I see thy craft. Thou hast, By seeming flight, enticed me from the battle, And warded death and destiny from off the head Of many a Briton. Now they reach thy own.

KNIGHT. Why dost thou follow me, and track my stops With murd'rous fury? I am not appointed To die by thee.

JOANNA. Deep in my lowest soul I hate thee as the Night, which is thy colour. To sweep thee from the face of Earth, I feel Some irresistible desire impelling me. Who art thou? Lift thy visor: had not I Seen Talbot fall, I should have named thee Talbot.

KNIGHT. Speaks not the prophesying Spirit in thee?

JOANNA. It tells me loudly, in my inmost bosom, That Misfortune is at hand.

KNIGHT. Joanna d'Arc! Up to the gates of Rheims hast thou advanced, Led on by victory. Let the renown Already gain'd suffice thee! As a slave Has Fortune serv'd thee: emancipate her, Ere in wrath she free herself; fidelity She hates; no one obeys she to the end.

JOANNA. How say'st thou, in the middle of my course, That I should pause and leave my work unfinish'd? I will conclude it, and fulfil my vow.

KNIGHT. Nothing can withstand thee; thou art most strong; In ev'ry battle thou prevailest. But go Into no other battle. Hear my warning!

JOANNA. This sword I quit not, till the English yield.

KNIGHT. Look! Yonder rise the towers of Rheims, the goal And purpose of thy march; thou seest the dome Of the cathedral glittering in the sun: There wouldst thou enter in triumphal pomp, To crown thy sov'reign and fulfil thy vow. Enter not there. Turn homewards. Hear my warning!

JOANNA. Who art thou, false, double-tongued betrayer, That wouldst frighten and perplex me? Dar'st thou Utter lying oracles to me?

[The Black Knight attempts to go; she steps in his way.

No! Thou shalt answer me, or perish by me!

[She lifts her arm to strike him.

KNIGHT [touches her with his hand: she stands immovable]. Kill what is mortal!

[Darkness, lightning and thunder. The Knight sinks.

JOANNA [stands at first amazed: but soon recovers herself]. It was nothing earthly. Some delusive form of Hell, some spirit Of Falsehood, sent from th' everlasting Pool To tempt and terrify my fervent soul! Bearing the sword of God, what do I fear? Victorious will I end my fated course; Though Hell itself with all its fiends assail me, My heart and faith shall never faint or fail me. [She is going.

SCENE X.

LIONEL, JOANNA.

LIONEL. Accursed Sorceress, prepare for battle: Not both of us shall leave the place alive. Thou hast destroyed the chosen of my host; Brave Talbot has breath'd out his mighty spirit In my bosom. I will avenge the Dead, Or share his fate. And wouldst thou know the man Who brings thee glory, let him die or conquer, I am Lionel, the last survivor Of our chiefs; and still unvanquish'd is this arm.

[He rushes towards her; after a short contest, she strikes the sword from his hand.

Faithless fortune! [He struggles with her.

JOANNA [seizes him by the plume from behind, and tears his helmet violently down, so that his face is exposed: at the same time she lifts her sword with the right hand]. Suffer what thou soughtest! The Virgin sacrifices thee through me!

[At this moment she looks in his face; his aspect touches her; she stands immovable, and then slowly drops her arm.

LIONEL. Why lingerest thou, and stayest the stroke of death? My honour thou hast taken, take my life: 'Tis in thy hands to take it; I want not mercy. [She gives him a sign with her hand to depart. Fly from thee? Owe thee my life? Die rather!

JOANNA [her face turned away]. I will not remember that thou owedst Thy life to me.

LIONEL. I hate thee and thy gift. I want not mercy. Kill thy enemy, Who meant to kill thee, who abhors thee!

JOANNA. Kill me, and fly!

LIONEL. Ha! How is this?

JOANNA [hides her face]. Woe's me!

LIONEL [approaches her]. Thou killest every Briton, I have heard, Whom thou subdu'st in battle: why spare me?

JOANNA [lifts her sword with a rapid movement against him, but quickly lets it sink again, when she observes his face]. O Holy Virgin!

LIONEL. Wherefore namest thou The Virgin? She knows nothing of thee; Heaven Has nought to say to thee.

JOANNA [in violent anguish]. What have I done! My vow, my vow is broke! [Wrings her hands in despair.

LIONEL [looks at her with sympathy, and comes nearer]. Unhappy girl! I pity thee; thou touchest me; thou showedst Mercy to me alone. My hate is going: I am constrain'd to feel for thee. Who art thou? Whence comest thou?

JOANNA. Away! Begone!

LIONEL. Thy youth, Thy beauty melt and sadden me; thy look Goes to my heart: I could wish much to save thee; Tell me how I may! Come, come with me! Forsake This horrid business; cast away those arms!

JOANNA. I no more deserve to bear them!

LIONEL. Cast them Away, then, and come with me!

JOANNA [with horror]. Come with thee!

LIONEL. Thou mayst be sav'd: come with me! I will save thee. But delay not. A strange sorrow for thee Seizes me, and an unspeakable desire To save thee. [Seizes her arm.

JOANNA. Ha! Dunois! 'Tis they! If they should find thee!—

LIONEL. Fear not; I will guard thee.

JOANNA. I should die, were they to kill thee.

LIONEL. Am I Dear to thee?

JOANNA. Saints of Heaven!

LIONEL. Shall I ever See thee, hear of thee, again?

JOANNA. Never! Never!

LIONEL. This sword for pledge that I will see thee!

[He wrests the sword from her.

JOANNA. Madman! Thou dar'st?

LIONEL. I yield to force; again I'll see thee. [Exit.

The introduction of supernatural agency in this play, and the final aberration from the truth of history, have been considerably censured by the German critics: Schlegel, we recollect, calls Joanna's end a 'rosy death.' In this dramaturgic discussion, the mere reader need take no great interest. To require our belief in apparitions and miracles, things which we cannot now believe, no doubt for a moment disturbs our submission to the poet's illusions: but the miracles in this story are rare and transient, and of small account in the general result: they give our reason little trouble, and perhaps contribute to exalt the heroine in our imaginations. It is still the mere human grandeur of Joanna's spirit that we love and reverence; the lofty devotedness with which she is transported, the generous benevolence, the irresistible determination. The heavenly mandate is but the means of unfolding these qualities, and furnishing them with a proper passport to the minds of her age. To have produced, without the aid of fictions like these, a Joanna so beautified and exalted, would undoubtedly have yielded greater satisfaction: but it may be questioned whether the difficulty would not have increased in a still higher ratio. The sentiments, the characters, are not only accurate, but exquisitely beautiful; the incidents, excepting the very last, are possible, or even probable: what remains is but a very slender evil.

After all objections have been urged, and this among others has certainly a little weight, the Maid of Orleans will remain one of the very finest of modern dramas. Perhaps, among all Schiller's plays, it is the one which evinces most of that quality denominated genius in the strictest meaning of the word. Wallenstein embodies more thought, more knowledge, more conception; but it is only in parts illuminated by that ethereal brightness, which shines over every part of this. The spirit of the romantic ages is here imaged forth; but the whole is exalted, embellished, ennobled. It is what the critics call idealised. The heart must be cold, the imagination dull, which the Jungfrau von Orleans will not move.

In Germany this case did not occur: the reception of the work was beyond example flattering. The leading idea suited the German mind; the execution of it inflamed the hearts and imaginations of the people; they felt proud of their great poet, and delighted to enthusiasm with his poetry. At the first exhibition of the play in Leipzig, Schiller being in the theatre, though not among the audience, this feeling was displayed in a rather singular manner. When the curtain dropped at the end of the first act, there arose on all sides a shout of "Es lebe Friedrich Schiller!" accompanied by the sound of trumpets and other military music: at the conclusion of the piece, the whole assembly left their places, went out, and crowded round the door through which the poet was expected to come; and no sooner did he show himself, than his admiring spectators, uncovering their heads, made an avenue for him to pass; and as he waited along, many, we are told, held up their children, and exclaimed, "That is he!"[36]

[Footnote 36: Doering (p. 176);—who adds as follows: 'Another testimony of approval, very different in its nature, he received at the first production of the play in Weimar. Knowing and valuing, as he did, the public of that city, it could not but surprise him greatly, when a certain young Doctor S—— called out to him, "Bravo, Schiller!" from the gallery, in a very loud tone of voice. Offended at such impertinence, the poet hissed strongly, in which the audience joined him. He likewise expressed in words his displeasure at this conduct; and the youthful sprig of medicine was, by direction of the Court, farther punished for his indiscreet applause, by some admonitions from the police.']

This must have been a proud moment for Schiller; but also an agitating, painful one; and perhaps on the whole, the latter feeling, for the time, prevailed. Such noisy, formal, and tumultuous plaudits were little to his taste: the triumph they confer, though plentiful, is coarse; and Schiller's modest nature made him shun the public gaze, not seek it. He loved men, and did not affect to despise their approbation; but neither did this form his leading motive. To him art, like virtue, was its own reward; he delighted in his tasks for the sake of the fascinating feelings which they yielded him in their performance. Poetry was the chosen gift of his mind, which his pleasure lay in cultivating: in other things he wished not that his habits or enjoyments should be different from those of other men.

At Weimar his present way of life was like his former one at Jena: his business was to study and compose; his recreations were in the circle of his family, where he could abandon himself to affections, grave or trifling, and in frank and cheerful intercourse with a few friends. Of the latter he had lately formed a social club, the meetings of which afforded him a regular and innocent amusement. He still loved solitary walks: in the Park at Weimar he might frequently be seen wandering among the groves and remote avenues, with a note-book in his hand; now loitering slowly along, now standing still, now moving rapidly on; if any one appeared in sight, he would dart into another alley, that his dream might not be broken.[37] 'One of his favourite resorts,' we are told, 'was the thickly-overshadowed rocky path which leads to the Roemische Haus, a pleasure-house of the Duke's, built under the direction of Goethe. There he would often sit in the gloom of the crags, overgrown with cypresses and boxwood; shady hedges before him; not far from the murmur of a little brook, which there gushes in a smooth slaty channel, and where some verses of Goethe are cut upon a brown plate of stone, and fixed in the rock.' He still continued to study in the night: the morning was spent with his children and his wife, or in pastimes such as we have noticed; in the afternoon he revised what had been last composed, wrote letters, or visited his friends. His evenings were often passed in the theatre; it was the only public place of amusement which he ever visited; nor was it for the purpose of amusement that he visited this: it was his observatory, where he watched the effect of scenes and situations; devised new schemes of art, or corrected old ones. To the players he was kind, friendly: on nights when any of his pieces had been acted successfully or for the first time, he used to invite the leaders of the company to a supper in the Stadthaus, where the time was spent in mirthful diversions, one of which was frequently a recitation, by Genast, of the Capuchin's sermon in Wallenstein's Camp. Except on such rare occasions, he returned home directly from the theatre, to light his midnight lamp, and commence the most earnest of his labours.

[Footnote 37: 'Whatever he intended to write, he first composed in his head, before putting down a line of it on paper. He used to call a work ready so soon as its existence in his spirit was complete: hence in the public there often were reports that such and such a piece of his was finished, when, in the common sense, it was not even begun.'—Joerdens Lexicon, Sec. SCHILLER.]

The assiduity, with which he struggled for improvement in dramatic composition, had now produced its natural result: the requisitions of his taste no longer hindered the operation of his genius; art had at length become a second nature. A new proof at once of his fertility, and of his solicitude for farther improvement, appeared in 1803. The Braut von Messina was an experiment; an attempt to exhibit a modern subject and modern sentiments in an antique garb. The principle on which the interest of this play rests is the Fatalism of the ancients: the plot is of extreme simplicity; a Chorus also is introduced, an elaborate discussion of the nature and uses of that accompaniment being prefixed by way of preface. The experiment was not successful: with a multitude of individual beauties this Bride of Messina is found to be ineffectual as a whole: it does not move us; the great object of every tragedy is not attained. The Chorus, which Schiller, swerving from the Greek models, has divided into two contending parts, and made to enter and depart with the principals to whom they are attached, has in his hands become the medium of conveying many beautiful effusions of poetry; but it retards the progress of the plot; it dissipates and diffuses our sympathies; the interest we should take in the fate and prospects of Manuel and Caesar, is expended on the fate and prospects of man. For beautiful and touching delineations of life; for pensive and pathetic reflections, sentiments, and images, conveyed in language simple but nervous and emphatic, this tragedy stands high in the rank of modern compositions. There is in it a breath of young tenderness and ardour, mingled impressively with the feelings of gray-haired experience, whose recollections are darkened with melancholy, whose very hopes are chequered and solemn. The implacable Destiny which consigns the brothers to mutual enmity and mutual destruction, for the guilt of a past generation, involving a Mother and a Sister in their ruin, spreads a sombre hue over all the poem; we are not unmoved by the characters of the hostile Brothers, and we pity the hapless and amiable Beatrice, the victim of their feud. Still there is too little action in the play; the incidents are too abundantly diluted with reflection; the interest pauses, flags, and fails to produce its full effect. For its specimens of lyrical poetry, tender, affecting, sometimes exquisitely beautiful, the Bride of Messina will long deserve a careful perusal; but as exemplifying a new form of the drama, it has found no imitators, and is likely to find none.

The slight degree of failure or miscalculation which occurred in the present instance, was next year abundantly redeemed. Wilhelm Tell, sent out in 1804, is one of Schiller's very finest dramas; it exhibits some of the highest triumphs which his genius, combined with his art, ever realised. The first descent of Freedom to our modern world, the first unfurling of her standard on the rocky pinnacle of Europe, is here celebrated in the style which it deserved. There is no false timsel-decoration about Tell, no sickly refinement, no declamatory sentimentality. All is downright, simple, and agreeable to Nature; yet all is adorned and purified and rendered beautiful, without losing its resemblance. An air of freshness and wholesomeness breathes over it; we are among honest, inoffensive, yet fearless peasants, untainted by the vices, undazzled by the theories, of more complex and perverted conditions of society. The opening of the first scene sets us down among the Alps. It is 'a high rocky shore of the Luzern Lake, opposite to Schwytz. The lake makes a little bight in the land, a hut stands at a short distance from the bank, the fisher-boy is rowing himself about in his boat. Beyond the lake, on the other side, we see the green meadows, the hamlets and farms of Schwytz, lying in the clear sunshine. On our left are observed the peaks of the Hacken surrounded with clouds: to the right, and far in the distance, appear the glaciers. We hear the rance des vaches and the tinkling of cattle-bells.' This first impression never leaves us; we are in a scene where all is grand and lovely; but it is the loveliness and grandeur of unpretending, unadulterated Nature. These Switzers are not Arcadian shepherds or speculative patriots; there is not one crook or beechen bowl among them, and they never mention the Social Contract, or the Rights of Man. They are honest people, driven by oppression to assert their privileges; and they go to work like men in earnest, bent on the despatch of business, not on the display of sentiment. They are not philosophers or tribunes; but frank, stalwart landmen: even in the field of Ruetli, they do not forget their common feelings; the party that arrive first indulge in a harmless little ebullition of parish vanity: "We are first here!" they say, "we Unterwaldeners!" They have not charters or written laws to which they can appeal; but they have the traditionary rights of their fathers, and bold hearts and strong arms to make them good. The rules by which they steer are not deduced from remote premises, by a fine process of thought; they are the accumulated result of experience, transmitted from peasant sire to peasant son. There is something singularly pleasing in this exhibition of genuine humanity; of wisdom, embodied in old adages and practical maxims of prudence; of magnanimity, displayed in the quiet unpretending discharge of the humblest every-day duties. Truth is superior to Fiction: we feel at home among these brave good people; their fortune interests us more than that of all the brawling, vapid, sentimental heroes in creation. Yet to make them interest us was the very highest problem of art; it was to copy lowly Nature, to give us a copy of it embellished and refined by the agency of genius, yet preserving the likeness in every lineament. The highest quality of art is to conceal itself: these peasants of Schiller's are what every one imagines he could imitate successfully; yet in the hands of any but a true and strong-minded poet they dwindle into repulsive coarseness or mawkish insipidity. Among our own writers, who have tried such subjects, we remember none that has succeeded equally with Schiller. One potent but ill-fated genius has, in far different circumstances and with far other means, shown that he could have equalled him: the Cotter's Saturday Night of Burns is, in its own humble way, as quietly beautiful, as simplex munditiis, as the scenes of Tell. No other has even approached them; though some gifted persons have attempted it. Mr. Wordsworth is no ordinary man; nor are his pedlars, and leech-gatherers, and dalesmen, without their attractions and their moral; but they sink into whining drivellers beside Roesselmann the Priest, Ulric the Smith, Hans of the Wall, and the other sturdy confederates of Ruetli.

The skill with which the events are concatenated in this play corresponds to the truth of its delineation of character. The incidents of the Swiss Revolution, as detailed in Tschudi or Mueller, are here faithfully preserved, even to their minutest branches. The beauty of Schiller's descriptions all can relish; their fidelity is what surprises every reader who has been in Switzerland. Schiller never saw the scene of his play; but his diligence, his quickness and intensity of conception, supplied this defect. Mountain and mountaineer, conspiracy and action, are all brought before us in their true forms, all glowing in the mild sunshine of the poet's fancy. The tyranny of Gessler, and the misery to which it has reduced the land; the exasperation, yet patient courage of the people; their characters, and those of their leaders, Fuerst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal; their exertions and ultimate success, described as they are here, keep up a constant interest in the piece. It abounds in action, as much as the Bride of Messina is defective in that point.