his prudence might still have taught him to smother this unrest, the never-failing inmate of every human breast, and patiently continue where he was: but various resources remained to him, and various hopes invited him from other quarters. The produce of his works, or even the exercise of his profession, would ensure him a competence any where; the former had already gained him distinction and good-will in every part of Germany. The first number of his Thalia had arrived at the court of Hesse-Darmstadt, while the Duke of Sachsen-Weimar happened to be there; the perusal of the first acts of Don Carlos had introduced the author to that enlightened prince, who expressed his satisfaction and respect by transmitting him the title of a counsellor. A less splendid but not less truthful or pleasing testimonial had lately reached him from Leipzig. Some days ago (he writes), I met with a very flattering and agreeable surprise. There came to me, out of Leipzig, from unknown hands, four parcels, and as many Jetters written with the highest enthusiasm towards me, and overflowing with devotion to poetry. They were accompanied by four miniature portraits, two of which are of very beautiful young ladies, and by a letter-pocket sewed in the finest taste. Such a present, from people who can have no interest in it, but to let me know that they wish me well, and thank me for some cheerful hours, I prize extremely; the loudest applause of the world could scarcely have flattered me so agreeably. Perhaps this incident, trifling as it was, might not be without effect in deciding the choice of his future residence. Leipzig had the more substantial charm of being a centre of activity and commerce of all sorts, that of literature not excepted; and it contained some more effectual friends of Schiller than these his unseen admirers. He resolved on going thither. His wishes and intentions are minutely detailed to Huber, his chief intimate at Leipzig, in a letter written shortly before his removal. We translate it for the hints it gives us of Schiller's tastes and habits at that period of his history. This then is probably the last letter I shall write to you from Manheim. The time from the fifteenth of March has hung upon my hands, like a trial for life; and, thank Heaven! I am now ten whole days nearer you. And now, my good friend, as you have already consented to take my entire confidence upon your shoulders, allow me the pleasure of leading you into the interior of my domestic wishes. In my new establishment at Leipzig, I purpose to avoid one error, which has plagued me a great deal here in Manheim. It is this: No longer to conduct my own housekeeping, and also no longer to live alone. The former is not by any means a business I excel in. It costs me less to execute a whole conspiracy, in five acts, than to settle my domestic arrangements; and poetry, you know yourself, is but a dangerous assistant in calculations of economy. My mind is drawn different my ideal ways; I come tumbling out of world, if a holed stocking remind me of the real world. As to the other point, I require for my private happiness to have a true warm friend that would be ever at my hand, like my better angel; to whom I could com municate my nascent ideas in the very act of conceiving them, not needing to transmit them, as at present, by letters or long visits. Nay, when this friend of mine lives without the four corners of my house, the trifling circumstance that, in order to reach him, I must cross the street, dress myself, and so forth, will of itself destroy the enjoyment of the moment, and the train of my thoughts is torn in pieces before I see him. Observe you, my good fellow, these are Petty matters; but petty matters often bear the weightiest result in the management of life. I know myself better than perhaps a thousand mothers' sons know themselves; I understand how much, and frequently how little, I require, to be completely happy. The question therefore is: Can I get this wish of my heart fulfilled in Leipzig? If it were possible that I could make a lodgment with you, all my cares on that head would be removed. I am no bad neighbour, as perhaps you imagine; I have pliancy enough to suit myself to another, and here and there withal a certain knack, as Yorick says, at helping to make him merrier and better. Failing this, if you could bring me to the knowledge of any body that would undertake my small economy, every thing would still be well. I want nothing more than a bed-room, which might also be my working-room and another chamber for receiving visits. chest of drawers, a desk, a bed and sofa, a The house-gear necessary for me are a good table, and a few chairs. With this, my convenience were sufficiently provided for. I cannot live on the ground-floor, nor close by the ridge-tile; also my windows positively must not look into the churchyard. I love men, and therefore like to see them crowding past me. If I cannot so arrange it that we (meaning the quintuple alliance*) shall mess together, I would engage at the table d'hôte of the inn; for I had rather fast than eat without company, large, or else particularly good. I write all this to you, my dearest friend, to forewarn you of my silly tastes; and, at all events, that I may put it in your power to take some preparatory steps, in one place or another, for my settlement. My demands are, in truth, absurd enough, but your goodness has spoiled me. The first part of the Thalia must already be in your possession; the doom of Carlos will ere now be pronounced. Yet I will take it orally. Had we five not been acquainted, who knows but we might have become so on occasion of this very Carlos. Schiller went accordingly to Leip zig, though whether Huber received him, or he found his humble necessaries elsewhere, we have not learned. He arrived in the end of March, 1785, after eighteen months' residence at Manheim. The reception he met with, his amusements, occupations, and prospects, are described, in a letter to the Kammerrath Schwann, a bookseller at Manheim, alluded to above. Except Dalberg, Schwann had been his earliest friend; he was now endeared to him by subsequent familiarity, not of letters and writings, but of daily intercourse; and what was more than all, by the circumstance that Laura was his daughter. The letter, it will be seen, was written with a weightier object than the pleasure of describing Leipzig: : it is dated 24th of April, 1785. You have an indubitable right to be angry at my long silence; yet I know your goodness too well to be in doubt that you will pardon me. When a man, unskilled as I am in the busy world, visits Leipzig for the first time, during the Fair, it is, if not excuseable, at least comprehensible, that among the multitude of strange things running through his head, he should for a few days lose recollection of himself. Such, my dearest friend, has till to-day been nearly my case; even now I have to steal the pleasing moments, which, in idea, I mean to spend with you at Manheim. Our journey hither, of which Herr Götz will give you a circumstantial description, was the most fatal you can imagine. Bog, Snow, and Rain, were the three wicked foes that by turns assailed us; and though we used an additional pair of horses, all the way from Bach, yet our travelling, which should have ended on Friday, was spun out In the very first week of my residence has been to visit Richter's coffee-house, From various quarters, I have had some Many families are in the habit here of spending the summer in some of the adjacent villages, and so enjoying the pleasures of the Gohlis, which lies only a quarter of a league country. I mean to pass a few months in from Leipzig, with a very pleasant walk leading to it, through the Rosenthal. Here I purpose being very diligent, working at Carlos and the Thalia; that so, which perhaps will please you more than any thing, I may gradually and silently return to my medical profession. I long impatiently for that epoch of my life, when my prospects may be settled and determined, when I may follow my darling pursuits merely for my own pleasure. At one time I studied medicine con amore: could I not do it now with still greater keenness ? This, my best friend, might of itself convince you of the truth and firmness of my purpose; but what should give you the most complete security on that point, what * Who the other three were is nowhere particularly mentioned. must banish all your doubts about my steadfastness, I have yet kept secret. Now or never I must speak it out. Distance alone gives me courage to express the wish of my heart. Frequently enough, when I used to have the happiness of being near you, has this confession hovered on my tongue; but my confidence always forsook me, when I tried to utter it. My best friend, your goodness, your affection, your generosity of heart have encouraged me in a hope, which I can justify by nothing but the friendship and respect you have always shown me. My free, unconstrained access to your house afforded me the opportunity of intimate acquaintance with your amiable daughter; and the frank, kind treatment, with which both you and she honoured me, tempted my heart to entertain the bold wish of becoming your son. My prospects have hitherto been dim and vague: they now begin to alter in my favour. I will strive with more continuous vigour when the goal is clear; do you decide whether I can reach it, when the dearest wish of my heart supports my zeal. Yet two short years, and my whole for tune will be determined. I feel how much I ask, how boldly, and with how little right I ask it. A year is past since this thought took possession of my soul, but my esteem for you and your excellent daughter was too high to allow room for a wish, which at that time I could found on no solid basis. I made it a duty with myself to visit your house less frequently, and to dissipate such feelings by absence; but this poor artifice did not avail me. The Duke of Weimar was the first person to whom I disclosed myself. His anticipating goodness, and the declaration that he took an interest in my happiness, induced me to confess that this happiness depended on a union with your noble daughter; and he expressed his satisfaction at my choice. I have reason to hope that he will do more, should it come to the point of fulfilling my wishes in this matter. I shall add nothing farther, except the assurance that perhaps hundreds of others might afford your good daughter a more splendid fate, than I at this moment can promise her; but I deny that any other heart can be more worthy of her. Your decision, which I look for with impatience and fearful expectation, will determine whether I may venture to write in person to your daughter. Fare you well, for ever loved by-Your FRIEDRICH SCHILLER. Concerning this proposal, we have no farther information to communicate; except that the parties did not marry, and did not cease being friends. That Schiller obtained the permission he concludes with requesting, appears from other sources: Three years afterwards, in writing to the same person, he alludes emphatically to his eldest daughter; and what is more ominous, apologizes for his silence to her. Schiller's situa tion at this period was such as to preclude the idea of present marriage; perhaps, in the prospect of it, Laura and he commenced corresponding; and, before the wished-for change of fortune had arrived, both of them, attracted to other objects, had lost each other in the vortex of life, and ceased to regard their finding one another as desirable. like Schiller's medical project, many which he formed, never came to any issue. In moments of anxiety, amid the fluctuations of his lot, the thought of this profession floated through his mind, as of a distant strong-hold, to which, in time of need, he might retire. But literature was too intimately interwoven with his dispositions and his habits to be seriously interfered with; it was only at brief intervals that the pleasure of pursuing it exclusively seemed overbalanced by its inconve niences. He needed a more certain income than poetry could yield him; but he wished to derive it from some pursuit less alien to his darling study. Medicine he never practised after leaving Stuttgard. In the meantime, whatever he might afterwards resolve on, he determined to complete his Carlos, the half of which, composed a considerable time before, had lately been running the gauntlet of criticism in the Thalia.* With this for his chief occupation, Gohlis or Leipzig for his residence, and a circle of chosen friends for his entertainment, Schiller's days went happily along. His Lied au die Freude (song to Joy), one of his most spirited and beautiful lyrical productions, was composed here: it bespeaks a mind impetuous even in its gladness, and overflowing with warm and earnest emotions. But the love of change is grounded on the difference between anticipa * Wieland's rather harsh and not too judicious sentence on it may be seen at large in Gruber's Wieland Geschildert, B. ii. S. 571. tion and reality, and dwells with man till the age when habit becomes stronger than desire, or anticipation ceases to be hope. Schiller did not find that his establishment at Leipzig, though pleasant while it lasted, would realize his ulterior views: he yielded to some of his " alluring invitations," and went to Dresden in the end of summer. Dresden contained many persons who admired him, more who admired his fame, and a few who loved himself. Among the latter, the Appellationsrath Körner deserves especial mention:* Schiller found a true friend in Körner, and made his house a home. He parted his time between Dresden and Loschwitz near it, where that gentleman resided: it was here that Don Carlos, the printing of which was meanwhile proceeding at Leipzig, received its completion, and last corrections.† It was published in 1786. The story of Don Carlos seems peculiarly adapted for dramatists. The spectacle of a royal youth condemned to death by his father, of which happily our European annals furnish but another example, is a mong the most tragical that can be figured; the character of that youth, the intermixture of bigotry and jealousy, and love, with the other strong passions, which brought on his fate, afford a combination of circum stances, affecting in themselves, and well calculated for the basis of deeply interesting fiction. Accordingly, they have not been neglected: Carlos has often been the theme of poets; particularly since the time when his history, recorded by the Abbé St. Réal, was exposed in more brilliant colours to the inspection of every writer, and almost of every reader. The Abbé St. Réal was a dextrous artist in that half-illicit species of composition, the historic novel: in the course of his operations, he lighted on these incidents; and, by filling up according to his fancy, what historians had only sketched to him, by amplifying, beautifying, suppressing and arranging, he worked the whole into a striking little narrative, distinguished by all the symmetry, the sparkling graces, the vigorous description and keen thought, which characterize his other writings. This French Sallust, as his countrymen have named him, has been a sort of benefactor to the dramatists. His Conjuraison contre Venise, furnished Otway with the outline of his best tragedy; Epicaris has more than once appeared upon the stage; and Don Carlos has been treated so in almost all the languages of Europe. Besides Otway's Carlos, so famous at its first appearance, many tragedies on this subject have been written; • The well-written Life, prefixed to the Stuttgard and Tübingen edition of Schiller's works, is by this Körner. In vol. 10 of the Vienna edition of Schiller, are some ludicrous verses, almost his sole attempt in the way of drollery, bearing a title equivalent to this: "To the Right Honourable the Board of Washers, the most humble memorial of a downcast Tragic Poet, at Loschwitz," of which Doering gives the following account. "The first part of Don Carlos being already printed, by Göschen, in Leipzig, the poet, pressed for the remainder, felt himself obliged to stay behind from an excursion, which the Körner family were making, in a fine autumn day. Unluckily, the lady of the house, thinking Schiller was to go along with them, had locked all her cupboards and the cellar. Schiller found himself without meat or drink, or even wood for fuel; still farther exasperated by the dabbling of some washer-maids beneath his window, he produced these lines." The poem is of the kind which cannot be translated; the first three stanzas are as follows: Die Wäsche klatscht vor meiner Thür, Und mich, mich führt das Flügelthier Ich eile durch die Gallerie Mit sehnellem Schritt, belausche Dort die Prinzessin Eboli Im süssen Liebesrausche. Schon ruft das schöne Weib: Triumpf! Was hör 'ich-einen nassen Strumpf most of them are gathered to their final rest; some are fast going thither; two bid fair to last for ages. Schiller and Alfieri have both drawn their plot from St. Réal; the former has expanded and added; the latter has compressed and abbreviated. Schiller's Carlos is the first of his plays that bears the stamp of complete maturity. The opportunities he had enjoyed for extending his knowledge of men and things, the sedulous practice of the art of composition, the study of purer models, had not been without their full effect. Increase of years had done something for him; diligence had done much more. The ebullience of youth is now chastened into the steadfast energy of manhood; the wild enthusiast, that spurned at the errors of the world, has now become the enlightened poet that laments their necessity, or endeavours to find out their remedy. A corresponding alteration is visible in the external form of the work, in its plot and diction. The plot is contrived with great ingenuity, embodying the result of much study, both dramatic and his torical. The language is blank verse, not prose, as in the former works; it is more careful and regular, less ambitious, but more certain of attaining its object. Schiller's mind had now reached its full stature he felt and thought more justly; he could better express what he felt and thought. The merit we noticed in Fiesco, the fidelity with which the scene of action is brought before us, is observable to a still greater degree in Don Carlos. The Spanish court, in the end of the sixteenth century; its rigid, cold formalities; its cruel, bigotted, but proud-spirited grandees; its inquisitors and priests; and Philip, its head, the epitome at once of its good and its bad qualities, in all his complex interests, are exhibited with wonderful distinctness and address. Nor is it at the surface or the outward movements alone that we look; we are taught the mechanism of their characters, as well as shown it in action. The stonyhearted despot himself must have been an object of peculiar study to the aut Narrow in his understandin in his affections, from his bi Europe, Philip has existed all his days above men, not among them. Locked up within himself, a stranger to every generous and kindly emotion, his gloomy spirit has had no employment but to strengthen or increase its own elevation, no pleasure but to gratify its own self-will. Superstition, harmonizing with these native tendencies, has added to their force, but scarcely to their hatefulness: it lends them a sort of sacredness in his own eyes, and even a sort of horrid dignity in ours. Philip is not without a certain greatness, the greatness of unlimited external power, and a relentless will. The scene of his existence is haggard, stern, and desolate; but it is all his own, and he seems fitted for it. We hate him and fear him; but the poet has taken care to secure him from contempt. The contrast both of his father's fortune and character are those of Carlos. Few situations of a more affecting kind can be imagined, than the situation of this young, generous, and ill-fated prince. From boyhood his heart had been bent on mighty things; he had looked upon the royal grandeur that awaited his maturer years, only as the means of realizing those projects for the good of men, which his beneficent soul was ever busied with. His father's dispositions, and the temper of the court, which admitted no development of such ideas, had given the charm of concealment to his feelings; his life had been in prospect; and we are the more attached to him, that deserving to be glorious and happy, he had but expected to be either. Bright days, however, seemed approaching; shut out from the communion of the Albas and Domingos, among whom he lived a stranger, the communion of another and far dearer object was to be granted him; Elizabeth's love seemed to make him independent even of the future, which it painted with still richer hues. But in a moment she is taken from him by the most terrible of all visitations: his bride becomes his mother; and the stroke that deprives him of her, while it ruins him for ever, is more deadly, because it cannot be complained of without sacrilege, and cannot be altered by the power of fate itself. Carlos, as the poet represents him, calls forth our tender |