Appendix 1

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_ APPENDIX I

NO. 1. DANIEL SCHUBART
NO. 2. LETTERS OF SCHILLER
NO. 3. FRIENDSHIP WITH GOETHE
NO. 4. DEATH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS

NO. 1. DANIEL SCHUBART.

The enthusiastic discontent so manifest in the Robbers has by some been in part attributed to Schiller's intercourse with Schubart. This seems as wise as the hypothesis of Gray's Alderman, who, after half a century of turtle-soup, imputed the ruin of his health to eating two unripe grapes: 'he felt them cold upon his stomach, the moment they were over; he never got the better of them.' Schiller, it appears, saw Schubart only once, and their conversation was not of a confidential kind. For any influence this interview could have produced upon the former, the latter could have merited no mention here: it is on other grounds that we refer to him. Schubart's history, not devoid of interest in itself, unfolds in a striking light the circumstances under which Schiller stood at present; and may serve to justify the violence of his alarms, which to the happy natives of our Island might otherwise appear pusillanimous and excessive. For these reasons we subjoin a sketch of it.

Schubart's character is not a new one in literature; nor is it strange that his life should have been unfortunate. A warm genial spirit; a glowing fancy, and a friendly heart; every faculty but diligence, and every virtue but 'the understrapping virtue of discretion:' such is frequently the constitution of the poet; the natural result of it also has frequently been pointed out, and sufficiently bewailed. This man was one of the many who navigate the ocean of life with 'more sail than ballast;' his voyage contradicted every rule of seamanship, and necessarily ended in a wreck.

Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart was born at Obersontheim in Swabia, on the 26th of April 1739. His father, a well-meaning soul, officiated there in the multiple capacity of schoolmaster, precentor, and curate; dignities which, with various mutations and improvements, he subsequently held in several successive villages of the same district. Daniel, from the first, was a thing of inconsistencies; his life proceeded as if by fits and starts. At school, for a while, he lay dormant: at the age of seven he could not read, and had acquired the reputation of a perfect dunce. But 'all at once,' says his biographer, 'the rind which enclosed his spirit started asunder;' and Daniel became the prodigy of the school! His good father determined to make a learned man of him: he sent him at the age of fourteen to the Nordlingen Lyceum, and two years afterwards to a similar establishment at Nürnberg. Here Schubart began to flourish with all his natural luxuriance; read classical and domestic poets; spouted, speculated; wrote flowing songs; discovered 'a decided turn for music,' and even composed tunes for the harpsichord! In short, he became an acknowledged genius: and his parents consented that he should go to Jena, and perform his cursus of Theology.

Schubart's purposes were not at all like the decrees of Fate: he set out towards Jena; and on arriving at Erlangen, resolved to proceed no farther, but perform his cursus where he was. For a time he studied well; but afterwards 'tumultuously,' that is, in violent fits, alternating with fits as violent of idleness and debauchery. He became a Bursche of the first water; drank and declaimed, rioted and ran in debt; till his parents, unable any longer to support such expenses, were glad to seize the first opening in his cursus, and recall him. He returned to them with a mind fevered by intemperance, and a constitution permanently injured; his heart burning with regret, and vanity, and love of pleasure; his head without habits of activity or principles of judgment, a whirlpool where fantasies and hallucinations and 'fragments of science' were chaotically jumbled to and fro. But he could babble college-latin; and talk with a trenchant tone about the 'revolutions of Philosophy.' Such accomplishments procured him pardon from his parents: the precentorial spirit of his father was more than reconciled on discovering that Daniel could also preach and play upon the organ. The good old people still loved their prodigal, and would not cease to hope in him.

As a preacher Schubart was at first very popular; he imitated Cramer; but at the same time manifested first-rate pulpit talents of his own. These, however, he entirely neglected to improve: presuming on his gifts and their acceptance, he began to 'play such fantastic tricks before high Heaven,' as made his audience sink to yawning, or explode in downright laughter. He often preached extempore; once he preached in verse! His love of company and ease diverted him from study: his musical propensities diverted him still farther. He had special gifts as an organist; but to handle the concordance and to make 'the heaving bellows learn to blow' were inconsistent things.

Yet withal it was impossible to hate poor Schubart, or even seriously to dislike him. A joyful, piping, guileless mortal, good nature, innocence of heart, and love of frolic beamed from every feature of his countenance; he wished no ill to any son of Adam. He was musical and poetical, a maker and a singer of sweet songs; humorous also, speculative, discursive; his speech, though aimless and redundant, glittered with the hues of fancy, and here and there with the keenest rays of intellect. He was vain, but had no touch of pride; and the excellencies which he loved in himself, he acknowledged and as warmly loved in others. He was a man of few or no principles, but his nervous system was very good. Amid his chosen comrades, a jug of indifferent beer and a pipe of tobacco could change the earth into elysium for him, and make his brethren demigods. To look at his laughing eyes, and his effulgent honest face, you were tempted to forget that he was a perjured priest, that the world had duties for him which he was neglecting. Had life been all a may-game, Schubart was the best of men, and the wisest of philosophers.

Unluckily it was not: the voice of Duty had addressed him in vain; but that of Want was more impressive. He left his father's house, and engaged himself as tutor in a family at Königsbronn. To teach the young idea how to shoot had few delights for Schubart: he soon gave up this place in favour of a younger brother; and endeavoured to subsist, for some time, by affording miscellaneous assistance to the clergy of the neighbouring villages. Ere long, preferring even pedagogy to starvation, he again became a teacher. The bitter morsel was sweetened with a seasoning of music; he was appointed not only schoolmaster but also organist of Geisslingen. A fit of diligence now seized him: his late difficulties had impressed him; and the parson of the place, who subsequently married Schubart's sister, was friendly and skilful enough to turn the impression to account. Had poor Schubart always been in such hands, the epithet 'poor' could never have belonged to him. In this little village-school he introduced some important reforms and improvements, and in consequence attracted several valuable scholars. Also for his own behoof, he studied honestly. His conduct here, if not irreprehensible, was at least very much amended. His marriage, in his twenty-fifth year, might have improved it still farther; for his wife was a good, soft-hearted, amiable creature, who loved him with her whole heart, and would have died to serve him.

But new preferments awaited Schubart, and with them new temptations. His fame as a musician was deservedly extending: in time it reached Ludwigsburg, and the Grand Duke of Würtemberg himself heard Schubart spoken of! The schoolmaster of Geisslingen was, in 1768, promoted to be organist and band-director in this gay and pompous court. With a bounding heart, he tossed away his ferula, and hastened to the scene, where joys for evermore seemed calling on him. He plunged into the heart of business and amusement. Besides the music which he taught and played, publicly and privately, with great applause, he gave the military officers instruction in various branches of science; he talked and feasted; he indited songs and rhapsodies; he lectured on History and the Belles Lettres. All this was more than Schubart's head could stand. In a little time he fell in debt; took up with virtuosi; began to read Voltaire, and talk against religion in his drink. From the rank of genius, he was fast degenerating into that of profligate: his affairs grew more and more embarrassed; and he had no gift of putting any order in them. Prudence was not one of Schubart's virtues; the nearest approximation he could make to it was now and then a little touch of cunning. His wife still loved him; loved him with that perverseness of affection, which increases in the inverse ratio of its requital: she had long patiently endured his follies and neglect, happy if she could obtain a transient hour of kindness from him. But his endless course of riot, and the straits to which it had reduced their hapless family, at length overcame her spirits: she grew melancholy, almost broken-hearted; and her father took her home to him, with her children, from the spendthrift who had been her ruin. Schubart's course in Ludwigsburg was verging to its close; his extravagance increased, and debts pressed heavier and heavier on him: for some scandal with a young woman of the place, he was cast into prison; and let out of it, with an injunction forthwith to quit the dominions of the Grand Duke.

Forlorn and homeless, here then was Schubart footing the hard highway, with a staff in his hand, and one solitary thaler in his purse, not knowing whither he should go. At Heilbronn, the Bürgermeister Wachs permitted him to teach his Bürgermeisterinn the harpsichord; and Schubart did not die of hunger. For a space of time he wandered to and fro, with numerous impracticable plans; now talking for his victuals; now lecturing or teaching music; kind people now attracted to him by his genius and misfortunes, and anon repelled from him by the faults which had abased him. Once a gleam of court-preferment revisited his path: the Elector Palatine was made acquainted with his gifts, and sent for him to Schwetzingen to play before him. His playing gratified the Electoral ear; he would have been provided for, had he not in conversation with his Highness happened to express a rather free opinion of the Mannheim Academy, which at that time was his Highness's hobby. On the instant of this luckless oversight, the door of patronage was slammed in Schubart's face, and he stood solitary on the pavement as before.

One Count Schmettau took pity on him; offered him his purse and home; both of which the way-worn wanderer was happy to accept. At Schmettau's he fell in with Baron Leiden, the Bavarian envoy, who advised him to turn Catholic, and accompany the returning embassy to Munich. Schubart hesitated to become a renegade; but departed with his new patron, upon trial. In the way, he played before the Bishop of Würzburg; was rewarded by his Princely Reverence with gold as well as praise; and arrived under happy omens at Munich. Here for a while fortune seemed to smile on him again. The houses of the great were thrown open to him; he talked and played, and fared sumptuously every day. He took serious counsel with himself about the great Popish question; now inclining this way, now that: he was puzzling which to choose, when Chance entirely relieved him of the trouble. 'A person of respectability' in Munich wrote to Würtemberg to make inquiries who or what this general favourite was; and received for answer, that the general favourite was a villain, and had been banished from Ludwigsburg for denying that there was a Holy Ghost!—Schubart was happy to evacuate Munich without tap of drum.

Once more upon the road without an aim, the wanderer turned to Augsburg, simply as the nearest city, and—set up a Newspaper! The Deutsche Chronik flourished in his hands; in a little while it had acquired a decided character for sprightliness and talent; in time it became the most widely circulated journal of the country. Schubart was again a prosperous man: his writings, stamped with the vigorous impress of his own genius, travelled over Europe; artists and men of letters gathered round him; he had money, he had fame; the rich and noble threw their parlours open to him, and listened with delight to his overflowing, many-coloured conversation. He wrote paragraphs and poetry; he taught music and gave concerts; he set up a spouting establishment, recited newly-published poems, read Klopstock's Messias to crowded and enraptured audiences. Schubart's evil genius seemed asleep, but Schubart himself awoke it. He had borne a grudge against the clergy, ever since his banishment from Ludwigsburg; and he now employed the facilities of his journal for giving vent to it. He criticised the priesthood of Augsburg; speculated on their selfishness and cant, and took every opportunity of turning them and their proceedings into ridicule. The Jesuits especially, whom he regarded as a fallen body, he treated with extreme freedom; exposing their deceptions, and holding up to public contumely certain quacks whom they patronised. The Jesuitic Beast was prostrate, but not dead: it had still strength enough to lend a dangerous kick to any one who came too near it. One evening an official person waited upon Schubart, and mentioned an arrest by virtue of a warrant from the Catholic Bürgermeister! Schubart was obliged to go to prison. The heads of the Protestant party made an effort in his favour: they procured his liberty, but not without a stipulation that he should immediately depart from Augsburg. Schubart asked to know his crime; but the Council answered him: "We have our reasons; let that satisfy you:" and with this very moderate satisfaction he was forced to leave their city.

But Schubart was now grown an adept in banishment; so trifling an event could not unhinge his equanimity. Driven out of Augsburg, the philosophic editor sought refuge in Ulm, where the publication of his journal had, for other reasons, already been appointed to take place. The Deutsche Chronik was as brilliant here as ever: it extended more and more through Germany; 'copies of it even came to London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Petersburg.' Nor had its author's fortune altered much; he had still the same employments, and remunerations, and extravagances; the same sort of friends, the same sort of enemies. The latter were a little busier than formerly: they propagated scandals; engraved caricatures, indited lampoons against him; but this he thought a very small matter. A man that has been three or four times banished, and as often put in prison, and for many years on the point of starving, will not trouble himself much about a gross or two of pasquinades. Schubart had his wife and family again beside him, he had money also to support them; so he sang and fiddled, talked and wrote, and 'built the lofty rhyme,' and cared no fig for any one.

But enemies, more fell than these, were lurking for the thoughtless Man of Paragraphs. The Jesuits had still their feline eyes upon him, and longed to have their talons in his flesh. They found a certain General Ried, who joined them on a quarrel of his own. This General Ried, the Austrian Agent at Ulm, had vowed inexpiable hatred against Schubart, it would seem, for a very slight cause indeed: once Schubart had engaged to play before him, and then finding that the harpsichord was out of order, had refused, flatly refused! The General's elevated spirit called for vengeance on this impudent plebeian; the Jesuits encouraged him; and thus all lay in eager watch. An opportunity ere long occurred. One week in 1778, there appeared in Schubart's newspaper an Extract of a Letter from Vienna, stating that 'the Empress Maria Theresa had been struck by apoplexy.' On reading which, the General made instant application to his Ducal Highness, requesting that the publisher of this 'atrocious libel' should be given up to him and 'sent to expiate his crime in Hungary,' by imprisonment—for life. The Duke desired his gallant friend to be at ease, for that he had long had his own eye on this man, and would himself take charge of him. Accordingly, a few days afterwards, Herr von Scholl, Comptroller of the Convent of Blaubeuren, came to Schubart with a multitude of compliments, inviting him to dinner, "as there was a stranger wishing to be introduced to him." Schubart sprang into the Schlitten with this wolf in sheep's clothing, and away they drove to Blaubeuren. Arrived here, the honourable Herr von Scholl left him in a private room, and soon returned with a posse of official Majors and Amtmen, the chief of whom advanced to Schubart, and declared him—an arrested man! The hapless Schubart thought it was a jest; but alas here was no jesting! Schubart then said with a composure scarcely to be looked for, that "he hoped the Duke would not condemn him unheard." In this too he was deceived; the men of office made him mount a carriage with them, and set off without delay for Hohenasperg. The Duke himself was there with his Duchess, when these bloodhounds and their prey arrived: the princely couple gazed from a window as the group went past them, and a fellow-creature took his farewell look of sun and sky!

If hitherto the follies of this man have cast an air of farce upon his sufferings, even when in part unmerited, such sentiments must now give place to that of indignation at his cruel and cold-blooded persecutors. Schubart, who never had the heart to hurt a fly, and with all his indiscretions, had been no man's enemy but his own, was conducted to a narrow subterraneous dungeon, and left, without book or pen, or any sort of occupation or society, to chew the cud of bitter thought, and count the leaden months as they passed over him, and brought no mitigation of his misery. His Serene Transparency of Würtemberg, nay the heroic General himself, might have been satisfied, could they have seen him: physical squalor, combined with moral agony, were at work on Schubart; at the end of a year, he was grown so weak, that he could not stand except by leaning on the walls of his cell. A little while, and he bade fair to get beyond the reach of all his tyrants. This, however, was not what they wanted. The prisoner was removed to a wholesome upper room; allowed the use of certain books, the sight of certain company, and had, at least, the privilege to think and breathe without obstruction. He was farther gratified by hearing that his wife and children had been treated kindly: the boys had been admitted to the Stuttgard school, where Schiller was now studying; to their mother there had been assigned a pension of two hundred gulden. Charles of Würtemberg was undoubtedly a weak and heartless man, but we know not that he was a savage one: in the punishment of Schubart, it is possible enough that he believed himself to be discharging an important duty to the world. The only subject of regret is, that any duty to the world, beyond the duty of existing inoffensively, should be committed to such hands; that men like Charles and Ried, endowed with so very small a fraction of the common faculties of manhood, should have the destiny of any living thing at their control.

Another mitigating circumstance in Schubart's lot was the character of his gaoler. This humane person had himself tasted the tender mercies of 'paternal' government; he knew the nature of a dungeon better even than his prisoner. 'For four years,' we are told, 'he had seen no human face; his scanty food had been lowered to him through a trap-door; neither chair nor table were allowed him, his cell was never swept, his beard and nails were left to grow, the humblest conveniences of civilised humanity were denied him!'[67] On this man affliction had produced its softening, not its hardening influence: he had grown religious, and merciful in heart; he studied to alleviate Schubart's hard fate by every means within his power. He spoke comfortingly to him; ministered to his infirmities, and, in spite of orders, lent him all his books. These, it is true, were only treatises on theosophy and mystical devotion; but they were the best he had; and to Schubart, in his first lonely dungeon, they afforded occupation and solace.

[Footnote 67: And yet Mr. Fox is reported to have said: There was one FREE Government on the Continent, and that one was—Würtemberg. They had a parliament and 'three estates' like the English.—So much for paper Constitutions!]

Human nature will accommodate itself to anything. The King of Pontus taught himself to eat poison: Schubart, cut out from intemperance and jollity, did not pine away in confinement and abstemiousness; he had lost Voltaire and gay company, he found delight in solitude and Jacob Böhm. Nature had been too good to him to let his misery in any case be unalloyed. The vague unguided ebullience of spirit, which had so often set the table in a roar, and made him the most fascinating of debauchees, was now mellowed into a cloudy enthusiasm, the sable of which was still copiously blended with rainbow colours. His brain had received a slight though incurable crack; there was a certain exasperation mixed with his unsettled fervour; but he was not wretched, often even not uncomfortable. His religion was not real; but it had reality enough for present purposes; he was at once a sceptic and a mystic, a true disciple of Böhm as well as of Voltaire. For afflicted, irresolute, imaginative men like Schubart, this is not a rare or altogether ineffectual resource: at the bottom of their minds they doubt or disbelieve, but their hearts exclaim against the slightest whisper of it; they dare not look into the fathomless abyss of Infidelity, so they cover it over with the dense and strangely-tinted smoke of Theosophy. Schubart henceforth now and then employed the phrases and figures of religion; but its principles had made no change in his theory of human duties: it was not food to strengthen the weakness of his spirit, but an opiate to stay its craving.

Schubart had still farther resources: like other great men in captivity, he set about composing the history of his life. It is true, he had no pens or paper; but this could not deter him. A fellow-prisoner, to whom, as he one day saw him pass by the grating of his window, he had communicated his desire, entered eagerly into the scheme: the two contrived to unfasten a stone in a wall that divided their apartments; when the prison-doors were bolted for the night, this volunteer amanuensis took his place, Schubart trailed his mattress to the friendly orifice, and there lay down, and dictated in whispers the record of his fitful story. These memoirs have been preserved; they were published and completed by a son of Schubart's: we have often wished to see them, but in vain.

By day, Schubart had liberty to speak with certain visitors. One of these, as we have said above, was Schiller. That Schubart, in their single interview, was pleased with the enthusiastic friendly boy, we could have conjectured, and he has himself informed us. 'Excepting Schiller,' said the veteran garreteer, in writing afterwards to Gleim, 'I scarcely know of any German youth in whom the sacred spark of genius has mounted up within the soul like flame upon the altar of a Deity. We are fallen into the shameful times, when women bear rule over men; and make the toilet a tribunal before which the most gigantic minds must plead. Hence the stunted spirit of our poets; hence the dwarf products of their imagination; hence the frivolous witticism, the heartless sentiment, crippled and ricketed by soups, ragouts and sweetmeats, which you find in fashionable balladmongers.'

Time and hours wear out the roughest day. The world began to feel an interest in Schubart, and to take some pity on him: his songs and poems were collected and published; their merit and their author's misery exhibited a shocking contrast. His Highness of Würtemberg at length condescended to remember that a mortal, of wants and feelings like his own, had been forced by him to spend, in sorrow and inaction, the third part of an ordinary lifetime; to waste, and worse than waste, ten years of precious time; time, of which not all the dukes and princes in the universe could give him back one instant. He commanded Schubart to be liberated; and the rejoicing Editor (unacquitted, unjudged, unaccused!) once more beheld the blue zenith and the full ring of the horizon. He joined his wife at Stuttgard, and recommenced his newspaper. The Deutsche Chronik was again popular; the notoriety of its conductor made amends for the decay which critics did not fail to notice in his faculties. Schubart's sufferings had in fact permanently injured him; his mind was warped and weakened by theosophy and solitude; bleak northern vapours often flitted over it, and chilled its tropical luxuriance. Yet he wrote and rhymed; discoursed on the corruption of the times, and on the means of their improvement. He published the first portion of his Life, and often talked amazingly about the Wandering Jew, and a romance of which he was to form the subject. The idea of making old Joannes a temporibus, the 'Wandering,' or as Schubart's countrymen denominate him the 'Eternal Jew,' into a novel hero, was a mighty favourite with him. In this antique cordwainer, as on a raft at anchor in the stream of time, he would survey the changes and wonders of two thousand years: the Roman and the Arab were to figure there; the Crusader and the Circumnavigator, the Eremite of the Thebaid and the Pope of Rome. Joannes himself, the Man existing out of Time and Space, Joannes the unresting and undying, was to be a deeply tragic personage. Schubart warmed himself with this idea; and talked about it in his cups, to the astonishment of simple souls. He even wrote a certain rhapsody connected with it, which is published in his poems. But here he rested; and the project of the Wandering Jew, which Goethe likewise meditated in his youth, is still unexecuted. Goethe turned to other objects: and poor Schubart was surprised by death, in the midst of his schemes, on the 10th of October 1791.

Of Schubart's character as a man, this record of his life leaves but a mean impression. Unstable in his goings, without principle or plan, he flickered through existence like an ignis-fatuus; now shooting into momentary gleams of happiness and generosity, now quenched in the mephitic marshes over which his zig-zag path conducted him. He had many amiable qualities, but scarcely any moral worth. From first to last his circumstances were against him; his education was unfortunate, its fluctuating aimless wanderings enhanced its ill effects. The thrall of the passing moment, he had no will; the fine endowments of his heart were left to riot in chaotic turbulence, and their forces cancelled one another. With better models and advisers, with more rigid habits, and a happier fortune, he might have been an admirable man: as it is, he is far from admirable.

The same defects have told with equal influence on his character as a writer. Schubart had a quick sense of the beautiful, the moving, and the true; his nature was susceptible and fervid; he had a keen intellect, a fiery imagination; and his 'iron memory' secured forever the various produce of so many gifts. But he had no diligence, no power of self-denial. His knowledge lay around him like the plunder of a sacked city. Like this too, it was squandered in pursuit of casual objects. He wrote in gusts; the labor limæ et mora was a thing he did not know. Yet his writings have great merit. His newspaper essays abound in happy illustration and brilliant careless thought. His songs, excluding those of a devotional and theosophic cast, are often full of nature, heartiness and true simplicity. 'From his youth upwards,' we are told, 'he studied the true Old-German Volkslied; he watched the artisan on the street, the craftsman in his workshop, the soldier in his guardhouse, the maid by the spinning-wheel; and transferred the genuine spirit of primeval Germanism, which he found in them, to his own songs.' Hence their popularity, which many of them still retain. 'In his larger lyrical pieces,' observes the same not injudicious critic, 'we discover fearless singularity; wild imagination, dwelling rather on the grand and frightful than on the beautiful and soft; deep, but seldom long-continued feeling; at times far-darting thoughts, original images, stormy vehemence; and generally a glowing, self-created, figurative diction. He never wrote to show his art; but poured forth, from the inward call of his nature, the thought or feeling which happened for the hour to have dominion in him.'[68]

[Footnote 68: Jördens Lexicon: from which most part of the above details are taken.—There exists now a decidedly compact, intelligent and intelligible Life of Schubart, done, in three little volumes, by Strauss, some years ago. (Note of 1857.)]

Such were Schubart and his works and fortunes; the disjecta membra of a richly-gifted but ill-starred and infatuated poet! The image of his persecutions added speed to Schiller's flight from Stuttgard; may the image of his wasted talents and ineffectual life add strength to our resolves of living otherwise!

 

2. LETTERS OF SCHILLER.

A few Extracts from Schiller's correspondence may be gratifying to some readers. The Letters to Dalberg, which constitute the chief part of it as yet before the public, are on the whole less interesting than might have been expected, if we did not recollect that the writer of them was still an inexperienced youth, overawed by his idea of Dalberg, to whom he could communicate with freedom only on a single topic; and besides oppressed with grievances, which of themselves would have weighed down his spirit, and prevented any frank or cordial exposition of its feelings.

Of the Reichsfreiherr von Dalberg himself, this correspondence gives us little information, and we have gleaned little elsewhere. He is mentioned incidentally in almost every literary history connected with his time; and generally as a mild gentlemanly person, a judicious critic, and a warm lover of the arts and their cultivators. The following notice of his death is extracted from the Conversations-Lexicon, Part III. p. 12: 'Died at Mannheim, on the 27th of December 1806, in his 85th year, Wolfgang Heribert, Reichsfreiherr von Dalberg; knighted by the Emperor Leopold on his coronation at Frankfort. A warm friend and patron of the arts and sciences; while the German Society flourished at Mannheim, he was its first President; and the theatre of that town, the school of the best actors in Germany, of Iffland, Beck, Beil, and many others, owes to him its foundation, and its maintenance throughout his long Intendancy, which he held till 1803. As a writer and a poet, he is no less favourably known. We need only refer to his Cora, a musical drama, and to 'the Monch von Carmel.'—These letters of Schiller were found among his papers at his death; rescued from destruction by two of his executors, and published at Carlsruhe, in a small duodecimo, in the year 1819. There is a verbose preface, but no note or comment, though some such aid is now and then a little wanted.

The letters most worthy of our notice are those relating to the exhibition of the Robbers on the Mannheim stage, and to Schiller's consequent embarrassments and flight. From these, accordingly, the most of our selections shall be taken. It is curious to see with what timidity the intercourse on Schiller's part commences; and how this awkward shyness gradually gives place to some degree of confidence, as he becomes acquainted with his patron, or is called to treat of subjects where he feels that he himself has a dignity, and rights of his own, forlorn and humble as he is. At first he never mentions Dalberg but with all his titles, some of which to our unceremonious ears seem ludicrous enough. Thus in the full style of German reverence, he avoids directly naming his correspondent, but uses the oblique designation of 'your Excellency,' or something equally exalted: and he begins his two earliest letters with an address, which, literally interpreted, runs thus: 'Empire-free, Highly-wellborn, Particularly-much-to-be-venerated, Lord Privy Counsellor!' Such sounding phrases make us smile: but they entirely depend on custom for their import, and the smile which they excite is not by any means a philosophic one. It is but fair that in our version we omit them, or render them by some more grave equivalent.

The first letter is as follows:

[No date.]

'The proud judgment, passed upon me in the flattering letter which I had the honour to receive from your Excellency, is enough to set the prudence of an Author on a very slippery eminence. The authority of the quarter it proceeds from, would almost communicate to that sentence the stamp of infallibility, if I could regard it as anything but a mere encouragement of my Muse. More than this a deep feeling of my weakness will not let me think it; but if my strength shall ever climb to the height of a masterpiece, I certainly shall have this warm approval of your Excellency alone to thank for it, and so will the world. For several years I have had the happiness to know you from the public papers: long ago the splendour of the Mannheim theatre attracted my attention. And, I confess, ever since I felt any touch of dramatic talent in myself, it has been among my darling projects some time or other to remove to Mannheim, the true temple of Thalia; a project, however, which my closer connection with Würtemberg might possibly impede.

'Your Excellency's very kind proposal on the subject of the Robbers, and such other pieces as I may produce in future, is infinitely precious to me; the maturing of it well deserves a narrower investigation of your Excellency's theatre, its special mode of management, its actors, the non plus ultra of its machinery; in a word, a full conception of it, such as I shall never get while my only scale of estimation is this Stuttgard theatre of ours, an establishment still in its minority. Unhappily my economical circumstances render it impossible for me to travel much; though I could travel now with the greater happiness and confidence, as I have still some pregnant ideas for the Mannheim theatre, which I could wish to have the honour of communicating to your Excellency. For the rest, I remain,' &c.

From the second letter we learn that Schiller had engaged to theatrilise his original edition of the Robbers, and still wished much to be connected in some shape with Mannheim. The third explains itself:

'Stuttgard, 6th October 1781.

'Here then at last returns the luckless prodigal, the remodelled Robbers! I am sorry that I have not kept the time, appointed by myself; but a transitory glance at the number and extent of the changes I have made, will, I trust, be sufficient to excuse me. Add to this, that a contagious epidemic was at work in our military Hospital, which, of course, interfered very often with my otia poetica. After finishing my work, I may assure you I could engage with less effort of mind, and certainly with far more contentment, to compose a new piece, than to undergo the labour I have just concluded. The task was complicated and tedious. Here I had to correct an error, which naturally was rooted in the very groundwork of the play; there perhaps to sacrifice a beauty to the limits of the stage, the humour of the pit, the stupidity of the gallery, or some such sorrowful convention; and I need not tell you, that as in nature, so on the stage, an idea, an emotion, can have only one suitable expression, one proper tone. A single alteration in a trait of character may give a new tendency to the whole personage, and, consequently, to his actions, and the mechanism of the piece which depends on them.

'In the original, the Robbers are exhibited in strong contrast with each other; and I dare maintain that it is difficult to draw half a dozen robbers in strong contrast, without in some of them offending the delicacy of the stage. In my first conception of the piece, I excluded the idea of its ever being represented in a theatre; hence came it that Franz was planned as a reasoning villain; a plan which, though it may content the thinking Reader, cannot fail to vex and weary the Spectator, who does not come to think, and who wants not philosophy, but action.

'In the new edition, I could not overturn this arrangement without breaking-down the whole economy of the piece. Accordingly I can predict, with tolerable certainty, that Franz when he appears on the stage, will not play the part which he has played with the reader. And, at all events, the rushing stream of the action will hurry the spectator over all the finer shadings, and rob him of a third part of the whole character.

'Karl von Moor might chance to form an era on the stage; except a few speculations, which, however, work as indispensable colours in the general picture, he is all action, all visible life. Spiegelberg, Schweitzer, Hermann, are, in the strictest sense, personages for the stage; in a less degree, Amelia and the Father.

'Written and oral criticisms I have endeavoured to turn to advantage. The alterations are important; certain scenes are altogether new. Of this number, are Hermann's counter-plots to undermine the schemes of Franz; his interview with that personage, which, in the first composition of the work, was entirely and very unhappily forgotten. His interview with Amelia in the garden has been postponed to the succeeding act; and my friends tell me that I could have fixed upon no better act than this, no better time than a few moments prior to the meeting of Amelia with Moor. Franz is brought a little nearer human nature; but the mode of it is rather strange. A scene like his condemnation in the fifth act has never, to my knowledge, been exhibited on any stage; and the same may be said of the scene where Amelia is sacrificed by her lover.

'If the piece should be too long, it stands at the discretion of the manager to abbreviate the speculative parts of it, or here and there, without prejudice to the general impression, to omit them altogether. But in the printing, I use the freedom humbly to protest against the leaving out of anything. I had satisfactory reasons of my own for all that I allowed to pass; and my submission to the stage does not extend so far, that I can leave holes in my work, and mutilate the characters of men for the convenience of actors.

'In regard to the selection of costume, without wishing to prescribe any rules, I may be permitted to remark, that though in nature dress is unimportant, on the stage it is never so. In this particular, the taste of my Robber Moor will not be difficult to hit. He wears a plume; for this is mentioned expressly in the play, at the time when he abdicates his office. I have also given him a baton. His dress should always be noble without ornament, unstudied but not negligent.

'A young but excellent composer is working at a symphony for my unhappy prodigal: I know it will be masterly. So soon as it is finished, I shall take the liberty of offering it to you.

'I must also beg you to excuse the irregular state of the manuscript, the incorrectness of the penmanship. I was in haste to get the piece ready for you; hence the double sort of handwriting in it; hence also my forbearing to correct it. My copyist, according to the custom of all reforming caligraphers, I find, has wofully abused the spelling. To conclude, I recommend myself and my endeavours to the kindness of an honoured judge. I am,' &c.

'Stuttgard, 12th December 1781.

'With the change projected by your Excellency, in regard to the publishing of my play, I feel entirely contented, especially as I perceive that by this means two interests that had become very alien, are again made one, without, as I hope, any prejudice to the results and the success of my work. Your Excellency, however, touches on some other very weighty changes, which the piece has undergone from your hands; and these, in respect of myself, I feel to be so important, that I shall beg to explain my mind at some length regarding them. At the outset, then, I must honestly confess to you, I hold the projected transference of the action represented in my play to the epoch of the Landfried, and the Suppression of Private Wars, with the whole accompaniment which it gains by this new position, as infinitely better than mine; and must hold it so, although the whole piece should go to ruin thereby. Doubtless it is an objection, that in our enlightened century, with our watchful police and fixedness of statute, such a reckless gang should have arisen in the very bosom of the laws, and still more, have taken root and subsisted for years: doubtless the objection is well founded, and I have nothing to allege against it, but the license of Poetry to raise the probabilities of the real world to the rank of true, and its possibilities to the rank of probable.

'This excuse, it must be owned, is little adequate to the objection it opposes. But when I grant your Excellency so much (and I grant it honestly, and with complete conviction), what will follow? Simply that my play has got an ugly fault at its birth, which fault, if I may say so, it must carry with it to its grave, the fault being interwoven with its very nature, and not to be removed without destruction of the whole.

'In the first place, all my personages speak in a style too modern, too enlightened for that ancient time. The dialect is not the right one. That simplicity so vividly presented to us by the author of Götz von Berlichingen, is altogether wanting. Many long tirades, touches great and small, nay entire characters, are taken from the aspect of the present world, and would not answer for the age of Maximilian. In a word, this change would reduce the piece into something like a certain woodcut which I remember meeting with in an edition of Virgil. The Trojans wore hussar boots, and King Agamemnon had a pair of pistols in his belt. I should commit a crime against the age of Maximilian, to avoid an error against the age of Frederick the Second.

'Again, my whole episode of Amelia's love would make a frightful contrast with the simple chivalry attachment of that period. Amelia would, at all hazards, need to be re-moulded into a chivalry maiden; and I need not tell you that this character, and the sort of love which reigns in my work, are so deeply and broadly tinted into the whole picture of the Robber Moor, nay, into the whole piece, that every part of the delineation would require to be re-painted, before those tints could be removed. So likewise is it with the character of Franz, that speculative, metaphysico-refining knave.

'In a word, I think I may affirm, that this projected transposition of my work, which, prior to the commencement, would have lent it the highest splendour and completeness, could not fail now, when the piece is planned and finished, to change it into a defective quodlibet, a crow with peacock's feathers.

'Your Excellency will forgive a father this earnest pleading in behalf of his son. These are but words, and in the long-run every theatre can make of any piece what they think proper; the author must content himself. In the present case, he looks upon it as a happiness that he has fallen into such hands. With Herr Schwann, however, I will make it a condition that, at least, he print the piece according to the first plan. In the theatre I pretend to no vote whatever.

'That other change relating to Amelia's death was perhaps even more interesting to me. Believe me, your Excellency, this was the portion of my play which cost me the greatest effort and deliberation, of all which the result was nothing else than this, that Moor must kill his Amelia, and that the action is even a positive beauty, in his character; on the one hand painting the ardent lover, on the other the Bandit Captain, with the liveliest colours. But the vindication of this part is not to be exhausted in a single letter. For the rest, the few words which you propose to substitute in place of this scene, are truly exquisite, and altogether worthy of the situation. I should be proud of having written them.

'As Herr Schwann informs me that the piece, with the music and indispensably necessary pauses, will last about five hours (too long for any piece!), a second curtailment of it will be called for. I should not wish that any but myself undertook this task, and I myself, without the sight of a rehearsal, or of the first representation, cannot undertake it.

'If it were possible that your Excellency could fix the general rehearsal of the piece some time between the twentieth and the thirtieth of this month, and make good to me the main expenses of a journey to you, I should hope, in some few days, I might unite the interest of the stage with my own, and give the piece that proper rounding-off, which, without an actual view of the representation, cannot well be given it. On this point, may I request the favour of your Excellency's decision soon, that I may be prepared for the event.

'Herr Schwann writes me that a Baron von Gemmingen has given himself the trouble and done me the honour to read my piece. This Herr von Gemmingen, I also hear, is author of the Deutsche Hausvater. I long to have the honour of assuring him that I liked his Hausvater uncommonly, and admired in it the traces of a most accomplished man and writer. But what does the author of the Deutsche Hausvater care about the babble of a young apprentice? If I should ever have the honour of meeting Dalberg at Mannheim, and testifying the affection and reverence I bear him, I will then also press into the arms of that other, and tell him how dear to me such souls are as Dalberg and Gemmingen.

'Your thought about the small Advertisement, before our production of the piece, I exceedingly approve of; along with this I have enclosed a sketch of one. For the rest, I have the honour, with perfect respect, to be always,' &c.

This is the enclosed scheme of an Advertisement; which was afterwards adopted:

'THE ROBBERS,

'A PLAY.

'The picture of a great, misguided soul, furnished with every gift for excellence, and lost in spite of all its gifts: unchecked ardour and bad companionship contaminate his heart; hurry him from vice to vice, till at last he stands at the head of a gang of murderers, heaps horror upon horror, plunges from abyss to abyss into all the depths of desperation. Great and majestic in misfortune; and by misfortune improved, led back to virtue. Such a man in the Robber Moor you shall "bewail and hate, abhor and love. A hypocritical, malicious deceiver, you shall likewise see unmasked, and blown to pieces in his own mines. A feeble, fond, and too indulgent father. The sorrows of enthusiastic love, and the torture of ungoverned passion. Here also, not without abhorrence, you shall cast a look into the interior economy of vice, and from the stage be taught how all the gilding of fortune cannot kill the inward worm; how terror, anguish, remorse, and despair follow close upon the heels of the wicked. Let the spectator weep today before our scene, and shudder, and learn to bend his passions under the laws of reason and religion. Let the youth behold with affright the end of unbridled extravagance; nor let the man depart from our theatre, without a feeling that Providence makes even villains instruments of His purposes and judgments, and can marvellously unravel the most intricate perplexities of fate.'

Whatever reverence Schiller entertained for Dalberg as a critic and a patron, and however ready to adopt his alterations when they seemed judicious, it is plain, from various passages of these extracts, that in regard to writing, he had also firm persuasions of his own, and conscientiousness enough to adhere to them while they continued such. In regard to the conducting of his life, his views as yet were far less clear. The following fragments serve to trace him from the first exhibition of his play at Mannheim to his flight from Stuttgard:

'Stuttgard, 17th January 1782.

'I here in writing repeat my warmest thanks for the courtesies received from your Excellency, for your attention to my slender efforts, for the dignity and splendour you bestowed upon my piece, for all your Excellency did to exalt its little merits and hide its weaknesses by the greatest outlay of theatric art. The shortness of my stay at Mannheim would not allow me to go into details respecting the play or its representation; and as I could not say all, my time being meted out to me so sparingly, I thought it better to say absolutely nothing. I observed much, I learned much; and I believe, if Germany shall ever find in me a true dramatic poet, I must reckon the date of my commencement from the past week.' * * *

* * * * *

'Stuttgard, 24th May 1782.

* * * 'My impatient wish to see the piece played a second time, and the absence of my Sovereign favouring that purpose, have induced me, with some ladies and male friends as full of curiosity respecting Dalberg's theatre and Robbers as myself, to undertake a little journey to Mannheim, which we are to set about tomorrow. As this is the principal aim of our journey, and to me a more perfect enjoyment of my play is an exceedingly important object, especially since this would put it in my power to set about Fiesco under better auspices, I make it my earnest request of your Excellency, if possible, to procure me this enjoyment on Tuesday the 28th current.' * * *

* * * * *

'Stuttgard, 4th June 1782.

'The satisfaction I enjoyed at Mannheim in such copious fulness, I have paid, since my return, by this epidemical disorder, which has made me till today entirely unfit to thank your Excellency for so much regard and kindness. And yet I am forced almost to repent the happiest journey of my life; for by a truly mortifying contrast of Mannheim with my native country, it has pained me so much, that Stuttgard and all Swabian scenes are become intolerable to me. Unhappier than I am can no one be. I have feeling enough of my bad condition, perhaps also feeling enough of my meriting a better; and in both points of view but one prospect of relief.

'May I dare to cast myself into your arms, my generous benefactor? I know how soon your noble heart inflames when sympathy and humanity appeal to it; I know how strong your courage is to undertake a noble action, and how warm your zeal to finish it. My new friends in Mannheim, whose respect for you is boundless, told me this: but their assurance was not necessary; I myself in that hour of your time, which I had the happiness exclusively to enjoy, read in your countenance far more than they had told me. It is this which makes me bold to give myself without reserve to you, to put my whole fate into your hands, and look to you for the happiness of my life. As yet I am little or nothing. In this Arctic Zone of taste, I shall never grow to anything, unless happier stars and a Grecian climate warm me into genuine poetry. Need I say more, to expect from Dalberg all support?

'Your Excellency gave me every hope to this effect; the squeeze of the hand that sealed your promise, I shall forever feel. If your Excellency will adopt the two or three hints I have subjoined, and use them in a letter to the Duke, I have no very great misgivings as to the result.

'And now with a burning heart, I repeat the request, the soul of all this letter. Could you look into the interior of my soul, could you see what feelings agitate it, could I paint to you in proper colours how my spirit strains against the grievances of my condition, you would not, I know you would not, delay one hour the aid which an application from you to the Duke might procure me.

'Again I throw myself into your arms, and wish nothing more than soon, very soon, to have it in my power to show by personal exertions in your service, the reverence with which I could devote to you myself and all that I am.'

The 'hints' above alluded to, are given in a separate enclosure, the main part of which is this:

'I earnestly desire that you could secure my union with the Mannheim Theatre for a specified period (which at your request might be lengthened), at the end of which I might again belong to the Duke. It will thus have the air rather of an excursion than a final abdication of my country, and will not strike them so ungraciously. In this case, however, it would be useful to suggest that means of practising and studying medicine might be afforded me at Mannheim. This will be peculiarly necessary, lest they sham, and higgle about letting me away.'

'Stuttgard, 15th July 1782.

'My long silence must have almost drawn upon me the reproach of folly from your Excellency, especially as I have not only delayed answering your last kind letter, but also retained the two books by me. All this was occasioned by a harassing affair which I have had to do with here. Your Excellency will doubtless be surprised when you learn that, for my last journey to you, I have been confined a fortnight under arrest. Everything was punctually communicated to the Duke. On this matter I have had an interview with him.

'If your Excellency think my prospects of coming to you anywise attainable, my only prayer is to accelerate the fulfilment of them. The reason why I now wish this with double earnestness, is one which I dare trust no whisper of to paper. This alone I can declare for certain, that within a month or two, if I have not the happiness of being with you, there will remain no further hope of my ever being there. Ere that time, I shall be forced to take a step, which will render it impossible for me to stay at Mannheim.'

* * *

* * * * *

The next two extracts are from letters to another correspondent. Doering quotes them without name or date: their purport sufficiently points out their place.

'I must haste to get away from this: in the end they might find me an apartment in the Hohenasperg, as they have found the honest and ill-fated Schubart. They talk of better culture that I need. It is possible enough, they might cultivate me differently in Hohenasperg: but I had rather try to make shift with what culture I have got, or may still get, by my unassisted efforts. This at least I owe to no one but my own free choice, and volition that disdains constraint.'

* * * * *

'In regard to those affairs, concerning which they wish to put my spirit under wardship, I have long reckoned my minority to be concluded. The best of it is, that one can cast away such clumsy manacles: me at least they shall not fetter.'

* * * * *

[No date.]

'Your Excellency will have learned from my friends at Mannheim, what the history of my affairs was up to your arrival, which unhappily I could not wait for. When I tell you that I am flying my country, I have painted my whole fortune. But the worst is yet behind. I have not the necessary means of setting my mishap at defiance. For the sake of safety, I had to withdraw from Stuttgard with the utmost speed, at the time of the Prince's arrival. Thus were my economical arrangements suddenly snapped asunder: I could not even pay my debts. My hopes had been set on a removal to Mannheim; there I trusted, by your Excellency's assistance, that my new play might not only have cleared me of debt, but have permanently put me into better circumstances. All this was frustrated by the necessity for hastening my removal. I went empty away; empty in purse and hope. I blush at being forced to make such disclosures to you; though I know they do not disgrace me. Sad enough for me to see realised in myself the hateful saying, that mental growth and full stature are things denied to every Swabian!

'If my former conduct, if all that your Excellency knows of my character, inspires you with confidence in my love of honour, permit me frankly to ask your assistance. Pressingly as I now need the profit I expect from my Fiesco, it will be impossible for me to have the piece in readiness before three weeks: my heart was oppressed; the feeling of my own situation drove me back from my poetic dreams. But if at the specified period, I could make the play not only ready, but, as I also hope, worthy, I take courage from that persuasion, respectfully to ask that your Excellency would be so obliging as advance for me the price that will then become due. I need it now, perhaps more than I shall ever do again throughout my life. I had near 200 florins of debt in Stuttgard, which I could not pay. I may confess to you, that this gives me more uneasiness than anything about my future destiny. I shall have no rest till I am free on that side.

'In eight days, too, my travelling purse will be exhausted. It is yet utterly impossible for me to labour with my mind. In my hand, therefore, are at present no resources.

* * * * *

'My actual situation being clear enough from what I have already said, I hold it needless to afflict your Excellency with any importuning picture of my want. Speedy aid is all that I can now think of or wish. Herr Meyer has been requested to communicate your Excellency's resolution to me, and to save you from the task of writing to me in person at all. With peculiar respect, I call myself,' &c.

* * * * *

It is pleasing to record that the humble aid so earnestly and modestly solicited by Schiller, was afforded him; and that he never forgot to love the man who had afforded it; who had assisted him, when assistance was of such essential value. In the first fervour of his gratitude, for this and other favours, the poet warmly declared that 'he owed all, all to Dalberg;' and in a state of society where Patronage, as Miss Edgeworth has observed, directly the antipodes of Mercy, is in general 'twice cursed,' cursing him that gives and him that takes, it says not a little for the character both of the obliged and the obliger in the present instance, that neither of them ever ceased to remember their connexion with pleasure. Schiller's first play had been introduced to the Stage by Dalberg, and his last was dedicated to him.[69] The venerable critic, in his eighty-third year, must have received with a calm joy the tragedy of Tell, accompanied by an address so full of kindness and respect: it must have gratified him to think that the youth who was once his, and had now become the world's, could, after long experience, still say of him,

And fearlessly to thee may Tell be shown,
For every noble feeling is thy own.

[Footnote 69: It clearly appears I am wrong here; I have confounded the Freiherr Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg, Director of the Mannheim Theatre, with Archduke and Fürst Primas Karl Theodor Dalberg, his younger Brother,—a man justly eminent in the Politico-Ecclesiastical world of his time, and still more distinguished for his patronage of letters, and other benefactions to his country, than the Freiherr was. Neither is the play of Tell 'dedicated' to him, as stated in the text; there is merely a copy presented, with some verses by the Author inscribed in it; at which time Karl Theodor was in his sixtieth year. A man of conspicuous station, of wide activity, and high influence and esteem in Germany. He was the personal friend of Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Wieland; by Napoleon he was made Fürst Primas, Prince Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine, being already Archbishop, Elector of Mentz, &c. The good and brave deeds he did in his time appear to have been many, public and private. Pensions to deserving men of letters were among the number: Zacharias Werner, I remember, had a pension from him,—and still more to the purpose, Jean Paul. He died in 1817. There was a third Brother also memorable for his encouragement of Letters and Arts. "Ist kein Dalberg da, Is there no Dalberg here?" the Herald cries on a certain occasion. (See Conv. Lexicon, B. iii.)

To Sir Edward Bulwer, in his Sketch of the Life of Schiller (p. c.), I am indebted for very kindly pointing out this error; as well as for much other satisfaction derived from that work. (Note of 1845.)]

Except this early correspondence, very few of Schiller's letters have been given to the world.[70] In Doering's Appendix, we have found one written six years after the poet's voluntary exile, and agreeably contrasted in its purport with the agitation and despondency of that unhappy period. We translate it for the sake of those who, along with us, regret that while the world is deluged with insipid correspondences, and 'pictures of mind' that were not worth drawing, the correspondence of a man who never wrote unwisely should lie mouldering in private repositories, ere long to be irretrievably destroyed; that the 'picture of a mind' who was among the conscript fathers of the human race should still be left so vague and dim. This letter is addressed to Schwann, during Schiller's first residence in Weimar: it has already been referred to in the Text.

[Footnote 70: There have since been copious contributions: Correspondence with Goethe, Correspondence with Madam von Wolzogen, and perhaps others which I have not seen. (Note of 1845.)]

* * * * *

'Weimar, 2d May 1788.

'You apologise for your long silence to spare me the pain of an apology. I feel this kindness, and thank you for it. You do not impute my silence to decay of friendship; a proof that you have read my heart more justly than my evil conscience allowed me to hope. Continue to believe that the memory of you lives ineffaceably in my mind, and needs not to be brightened up by the routine of visits, or letters of assurance. So no more of this.

'The peace and calmness of existence which breathes throughout your letter, gives me joy; I who am yet drifting to and fro between wind and waves, am forced to envy you that uniformity, that health of soul and body. To me also in time it will be granted, as a recompense for labours I have yet to undergo.

'I have now been in Weimar nearly three quarters of a year: after finishing my Carlos, I at last accomplished this long-projected journey. To speak honestly, I cannot say but that I am exceedingly contented with the place; and my reasons are not difficult to see.

'The utmost political tranquillity and freedom, a very tolerable disposition in the people, little constraint in social intercourse, a select circle of interesting persons and thinking heads, the respect paid to literary diligence: add to this the unexpensiveness to me of such a town as Weimar. Why should I not be satisfied?

'With Wieland I am pretty intimate, and to him I must attribute no small influence on my present happiness; for I like him, and have reason to believe that he likes me in return. My intercourse with Herder is more limited, though I esteem him highly as a writer and a man. It is the caprice of chance alone which causes this; for we opened our acquaintance under happy enough omens. Besides, I have not always time to act according to my likings. With Bode no one can be very friendly. I know not whether you think here as I do. Goethe is still but expected out of Italy. The Duchess Dowager is a lady of sense and talent, in whose society one does not feel constrained.

'I thank you for your tidings of the fate of Carlos on your stage. To speak candidly, my hopes of its success on any stage were not high; and I know my reasons. It is but fair that the Goddess of the Theatre avenge herself on me, for the little gallantry with which I was inspired in writing. In the mean time, though Carlos prove a never so decided failure on the stage, I engage for it, our public shall see it ten times acted, before they understand and fully estimate the merit that should counterbalance its defects. When one has seen the beauty of a work, and not till then, I think one is entitled to pronounce on its deformity. I hear, however, that the second representation succeeded better than the first. This arises either from the changes made upon the piece by Dalberg, or from the fact, that on a second view, the public comprehended certain things, which on a first, they—did not comprehend.

'For the rest, no one can be more satisfied than I am that Carlos, from causes honourable as well as causes dishonorable to it, is no speculation for the stage. Its very length were enough to banish it. Nor was it out of confidence or self-love that I forced the piece on such a trial; perhaps out of self-interest rather. If in the affair my vanity played any part, it was in this, that I thought the work had solid stuff in it sufficient to outweigh its sorry fortune on the boards.

'The present of your portrait gives me true pleasure. I think it a striking likeness; that of Schubart a little less so, though this opinion may proceed from my faulty memory as much as from the faultiness of Lobauer's drawing. The engraver merits all attention and encouragement; what I can do for the extension of his good repute shall not be wanting.

'To your dear children present my warmest love. At Wieland's I hear much and often of your eldest daughter; there in a few days she has won no little estimation and affection. Do I still hold any place in her remembrance? Indeed, I ought to blush, that by my long silence I so ill deserve it.

'That you are going to my dear native country, and will not pass my Father without seeing him, was most welcome news to me. The Swabians are a good people; this I more and more discover, the more I grow acquainted with the other provinces of Germany. To my family you will be cordially welcome. Will you take a pack of compliments from me to them? Salute my Father in my name; to my Mother and my Sisters your daughter will take my kiss.'

* * * * *

'And with these hearty words,' as Doering says, 'we shall conclude this paper.'

 

FRIENDSHIP WITH GOETHE.

The history of Schiller's first intercourse with Goethe has been recorded by the latter in a paper published a few years ago in the Morphologie, a periodical work, which we believe he still occasionally continues, or purposes to continue. The paper is entitled Happy Incident; and may be found in Part I. Volume 1 (pp. 90-96) of the work referred to. The introductory portion of it we have inserted in the text at page 109; the remainder, relating to certain scientific matters, and anticipating some facts of our narrative, we judged it better to reserve for the Appendix. After mentioning the publication of Don Carlos, and adding that 'each continued to go on his way apart,' he proceeds:

'His Essay on Grace and Dignity was yet less of a kind to reconcile me. The Philosophy of Kant, which exalts the dignity of mind so highly, while appearing to restrict it, Schiller had joyfully embraced: it unfolded the extraordinary qualities which Nature had implanted in him; and in the lively feeling of freedom and self-direction, he showed himself unthankful to the Great Mother, who surely had not acted like a step-dame towards him. Instead of viewing her as self-subsisting, as producing with a living force, and according to appointed laws, alike the highest and the lowest of her works, he took her up under the aspect of some empirical native qualities of the human mind. Certain harsh passages I could even directly apply to myself: they exhibited my confession of faith in a false light; and I felt that if written without particular attention to me, they were still worse; for in that case, the vast chasm which lay between us gaped but so much the more distinctly.

'There was no union to be dreamed of. Even the mild persuasion of Dalberg, who valued Schiller as he ought, was fruitless: indeed the reasons I set forth against any project of a union were difficult to contradict. No one could deny that between two spiritual antipodes there was more intervening than a simple diameter of the sphere: antipodes of that sort act as a sort of poles, and so can never coalesce. But that some relation may exist between them will appear from what follows.

'Schiller went to live at Jena, where I still continued unacquainted with him. About this time Batsch had set in motion a Society for Natural History, aided by some handsome collections, and an extensive apparatus. I used to attend their periodical meetings: one day I found Schiller there; we happened to go out together; some discourse arose between us. He appeared to take an interest in what had been exhibited; but observed, with great acuteness and good sense, and much to my satisfaction, that such a disconnected way of treating Nature was by no means grateful to the exoteric, who desired to penetrate her mysteries.

'I answered, that perhaps the initiated themselves were never rightly at their ease in it, and that there surely was another way of representing Nature, not separated and disunited, but active and alive, and expanding from the whole into the parts. On this point he requested explanations, but did not hide his doubts; he would not allow that such a mode, as I was recommending, had been already pointed out by experiment.

'We reached his house; the talk induced me to go in. I then expounded to him with as much vivacity as possible, the Metamorphosis of Plants,[71] drawing out on paper, with many characteristic strokes, a symbolic Plant for him, as I proceeded. He heard and saw all this with much interest and distinct comprehension; but when I had done, he shook his head and said: "This is no experiment, this is an idea." I stopped with some degree of irritation; for the point which separated us was most luminously marked by this expression. The opinions in Dignity and Grace again occurred to me; the old grudge was just awakening; but I smothered it, and merely said: "I was happy to find that I had got ideas without knowing it, nay that I saw them before my eyes."

[Footnote 71: A curious physiologico-botanical theory by Goethe, which appears to be entirely unknown in this country; though several eminent continental botanists have noticed it with commendation. It is explained at considerable length in this same Morphologie.]

'Schiller had much more prudence and dexterity of management than I: he was also thinking of his periodical the Horen, about this time, and of course rather wished to attract than repel me. Accordingly he answered me like an accomplished Kantite; and as my stiff necked Realism gave occasion to many contradictions, much battling took place between us, and at last a truce, in which neither party would consent to yield the victory, but each held himself invincible. Positions like the following grieved me to the very soul: How can there ever be an experiment that shall correspond with an idea? The specific quality of an idea is, that no experiment can reach it or agree with it. Yet if he held as an idea the same thing which I looked upon as an experiment, there must certainly, I thought, be some community between us, some ground whereon both of us might meet! The first step was now taken; Schiller's attractive power was great, he held all firmly to him that came within his reach: I expressed an interest in his purposes, and promised to give out in the Horen many notions that were lying in my head; his wife, whom I had loved and valued since her childhood, did her part to strengthen our reciprocal intelligence; all friends on both sides rejoiced in it; and thus by means of that mighty and interminable controversy between object and subject, we two concluded an alliance, which remained unbroken, and produced much benefit to ourselves and others.'

The friendship of Schiller and Goethe forms so delightful a chapter in their history, that we long for more and more details respecting it. Sincerity, true estimation of each other's merit, true sympathy in each other's character and purposes appear to have formed the basis of it, and maintained it unimpaired to the end. Goethe, we are told, was minute and sedulous in his attention to Schiller, whom he venerated as a good man and sympathised with as an afflicted one: when in mixed companies together, he constantly endeavoured to draw out the stores of his modest and retiring friend; or to guard his sick and sensitive mind from annoyances that might have irritated him; now softening, now exciting conversation, guiding it with the address of a gifted and polished man, or lashing out of it with the scorpion-whip of his satire much that would have vexed the more soft and simple spirit of the valetudinarian. These are things which it is good to think of: it is good to know that there are literary men, who have other principles besides vanity; who can divide the approbation of their fellow mortals, without quarrelling over the lots; who in their solicitude about their 'fame' do not forget the common charities of nature, in exchange for which the 'fame' of most authors were but a poor bargain.

No. 4. Page 125.

 

DEATH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.

As a specimen of Schiller's historical style, we have extracted a few scenes from his masterly description of the Battle of Lützen. The whole forms a picture, executed in the spirit of Salvator; and though this is but a fragment, the importance of the figure represented in it will perhaps counterbalance that deficiency.

'At last the dreaded morning dawned; but a thick fog, which lay brooding over all the field, delayed the attack till noon. Kneeling in front of his lines, the King offered up his devotions; the whole army, at the same moment, dropping on their right knees, uplifted a moving hymn, and the field-music accompanied their singing. The King then mounted his horse; dressed in a jerkin of buff, with a surtout (for a late wound hindered him from wearing armour), he rode through the ranks, rousing the courage of his troops to a cheerful confidence, which his own forecasting bosom contradicted. God with us was the battle-word of the Swedes; that of the Imperialists was Jesus Maria. About eleven o'clock, the fog began to break, and Wallenstein's lines became visible. At the same time, too, were seen the flames of Lützen, which the Duke had ordered to be set on fire, that he might not be outflanked on this side. At length the signal pealed; the horse dashed forward on the enemy; the infantry advanced against his trenches.

* * * * *

'Meanwhile the right wing, led on by the King in person, had fallen on the left wing of the Friedlanders. The first strong onset of the heavy Finland Cuirassiers scattered the light-mounted Poles and Croats, who were stationed here, and their tumultuous flight spread fear and disorder over the rest of the cavalry. At this moment notice reached the King that his infantry were losing ground, and likely to be driven back from the trenches they had stormed; and also that his left, exposed to a tremendous fire from the Windmills behind Lützen, could no longer keep their place. With quick decision, he committed to Von Horn the task of pursuing the already beaten left wing of the enemy; and himself hastened, at the head of Steinbock's regiment, to restore the confusion of his own. His gallant horse bore him over the trenches with the speed of lightning; but the squadrons that came after him could not pass so rapidly; and none but a few horsemen, among whom Franz Albert, Duke of Sachsen-Lauenburg, is mentioned, were alert enough to keep beside him. He galloped right to the place where his infantry was most oppressed; and while looking round to spy out some weak point, on which his attack might be directed, his short-sightedness led him too near the enemy's lines. An Imperial sergeant (gefreiter), observing that every one respectfully made room for the advancing horseman, ordered a musketeer to fire on him. "Aim at him there," cried he; "that must be a man of consequence." The soldier drew his trigger; and the King's left arm was shattered by the ball. At this instant, his cavalry came galloping up, and a confused cry of "The King bleeds! The King is shot!" spread horror and dismay through their ranks. "It is nothing: follow me!" exclaimed the King, collecting all his strength; but overcome with pain, and on the point of fainting, he desired the Duke of Lauenburg, in French, to take him without notice from the tumult. The Duke then turned with him to the right wing, making a wide circuit to conceal this accident from the desponding infantry; but as they rode along, the King received a second bullet through the back, which took from him the last remainder of his strength. "I have got enough, brother," said he with a dying voice: "haste, save thyself." With these words he sank from his horse; and here, struck by several other bullets, far from his attendants, he breathed out his life beneath the plundering hands of a troop of Croats. His horse flying on without its rider, and bathed in blood, soon announced to the Swedish cavalry the fall of their King; with wild yells they rush to the spot, to snatch that sacred spoil from the enemy. A deadly fight ensues around the corpse, and the mangled remains are buried under a hill of slain men.

'The dreadful tidings hasten in a few minutes over all the Swedish army: but instead of deadening the courage of these hardy troops, they rouse it to a fierce consuming fire. Life falls in value, since the holiest of all lives is gone; and death has now no terror for the lowly, since it has not spared the anointed head. With the grim fury of lions, the Upland, Smäland, Finnish, East and West Gothland regiments dash a second time upon the left wing of the enemy, which, already making but a feeble opposition to Von Horn, is now utterly driven from the field.

* * * * *

'But how dear a victory, how sad a triumph! Now first when the rage of battle has grown cold, do they feel the whole greatness of their loss, and the shout of the conqueror dies in a mute and gloomy despair. He who led them on to battle has not returned with them. Apart he lies, in his victorious field, confounded with the common heaps of humble dead. After long fruitless searching, they found the royal corpse, not far from the great stone, which had already stood for centuries between Lützen and the Merseburg Canal, but which, ever since this memorable incident, has borne the name of Schwedenstein, the Stone of the Swede. Defaced with wounds and blood, so as scarcely to be recognised, trodden under the hoofs of horses, stripped of his ornaments, even of his clothes, he is drawn from beneath a heap of dead bodies, brought to Weissenfels, and there delivered to the lamentations of his troops and the last embraces of his Queen. Vengeance had first required its tribute, and blood must flow as an offering to the Monarch; now Love assumes its rights, and mild tears are shed for the Man. Individual grief is lost in the universal sorrow. Astounded by this overwhelming stroke, the generals in blank despondency stand round his bier, and none yet ventures to conceive the full extent of his loss.'

The descriptive powers of the Historian, though the most popular, are among the lowest of his endowments. That Schiller was not wanting in the nobler requisites of his art, might he proved from his reflections on this very incident, 'striking like a hand from the clouds into the calculated horologe of men's affairs, and directing the considerate mind to a higher plan of things.' But the limits of our Work are already reached. Of Schiller's histories and dramas we can give no farther specimens: of his lyrical, didactic, moral poems we must take our leave without giving any. Perhaps the time may come, when all his writings, transplanted to our own soil, may be offered in their entire dimensions to the thinkers of these Islands; a conquest by which our literature, rich as it is, might be enriched still farther. _

Read next: Appendix 2. Goethe's Introduction To German Translation Of This Life of Schiller

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