SCENE X.

LIONEL, JOANNA.

LIONEL. Accursed Sorceress, prepare for battle:

Not both of us shall leave the place alive.

Thou hast destroyed the chosen of my host;

Brave Talbot has breath'd out his mighty spirit

In my bosom. I will avenge the Dead,

Or share his fate. And wouldst thou know the man

Who brings thee glory, let him die or conquer,

I am Lionel, the last survivor

Of our chiefs; and still unvanquish'd is this arm.

[_He rushes towards her; after a short contest, she strikes the sword

from his hand._

Faithless fortune! [_He struggles with her._

JOANNA [_seizes him by the plume from behind, and tears his helmet

violently down, so that his face is exposed: at

the same time she lifts her sword with the right

hand_].

Suffer what thou soughtest!

The Virgin sacrifices thee through me!

[_At this moment she looks in his face; his aspect touches her; she

stands immovable, and then slowly drops her arm._

LIONEL. Why lingerest thou, and stayest the stroke of death?

My honour thou hast taken, take my life:

'Tis in thy hands to take it; I want not mercy.

[_She gives him a sign with her hand to depart._

Fly from _thee_? Owe _thee_ my life? Die rather!

JOANNA [_her face turned away_].

I will not remember that thou owedst

Thy life to me.

LIONEL. I hate thee and thy gift.

I want not mercy. Kill thy enemy,

Who meant to kill thee, who abhors thee!

JOANNA. Kill me, and fly!

LIONEL. Ha! How is this?

JOANNA [_hides her face_]. Woe's me!

LIONEL [_approaches her_].

Thou killest every Briton, I have heard,

Whom thou subdu'st in battle: why spare me?

JOANNA [_lifts her sword with a rapid movement against him,

but quickly lets it sink again, when she observes his

face_].

O Holy Virgin!

LIONEL. Wherefore namest thou

The Virgin? _She_ knows nothing of thee; Heaven

Has nought to say to thee.

JOANNA [_in violent anguish_]. What have I done!

My vow, my vow is broke! [_Wrings her hands in despair._

LIONEL [_looks at her with sympathy, and comes nearer_].

Unhappy girl!

I pity thee; thou touchest me; thou showedst

Mercy to me alone. My hate is going:

I am constrain'd to feel for thee. Who art thou?

Whence comest thou?

JOANNA. Away! Begone!

LIONEL. Thy youth,

Thy beauty melt and sadden me; thy look

Goes to my heart: I could wish much to save thee;

Tell me how I may! Come, come with me! Forsake

This horrid business; cast away those arms!

JOANNA. I no more deserve to bear them!

LIONEL. Cast them

Away, then, and come with me!

JOANNA [_with horror_]. Come with thee!

LIONEL. Thou mayst be sav'd: come with me! I will save thee.

But delay not. A strange sorrow for thee

Seizes me, and an unspeakable desire

To save thee. [_Seizes her arm._

JOANNA. Ha! Dunois! 'Tis they!

If they should find thee!--

LIONEL. Fear not; I will guard thee.

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

LIONEL. Am I

Dear to thee?

JOANNA. Saints of Heaven!

LIONEL. Shall I ever

See thee, hear of thee, again?

JOANNA. Never! Never!

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

[_He wrests the sword from her._

JOANNA. Madman!

Thou dar'st?

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

The introduction of supernatural agency in this play, and the final

aberration from the truth of history, have been considerably censured

by the German critics: Schlegel, we recollect, calls Joanna's end a

'rosy death.' In this dramaturgic discussion, the mere reader need

take no great interest. To require our belief in apparitions and

miracles, things which we cannot now believe, no doubt for a moment

disturbs our submission to the poet's illusions: but the miracles in

this story are rare and transient, and of small account in the general

result: they give our reason little trouble, and perhaps contribute to

exalt the heroine in our imaginations. It is still the mere human

grandeur of Joanna's spirit that we love and reverence; the lofty

devotedness with which she is transported, the generous benevolence,

the irresistible determination. The heavenly mandate is but the means

of unfolding these qualities, and furnishing them with a proper

passport to the minds of her age. To have produced, without the aid of

fictions like these, a Joanna so beautified and exalted, would

undoubtedly have yielded greater satisfaction: but it may be

questioned whether the difficulty would not have increased in a still

higher ratio. The sentiments, the characters, are not only accurate,

but exquisitely beautiful; the incidents, excepting the very last, are

possible, or even probable: what remains is but a very slender evil.

After all objections have been urged, and this among others has

certainly a little weight, the _Maid of Orleans_ will remain one of

the very finest of modern dramas. Perhaps, among all Schiller's plays,

it is the one which evinces most of that quality denominated _genius_

in the strictest meaning of the word. _Wallenstein_ embodies more

thought, more knowledge, more conception; but it is only in parts

illuminated by that ethereal brightness, which shines over every part

of this. The spirit of the romantic ages is here imaged forth; but the

whole is exalted, embellished, ennobled. It is what the critics call

idealised. The heart must be cold, the imagination dull, which the

_Jungfrau von Orleans_ will not move.

In Germany this case did not occur: the reception of the work was

beyond example flattering. The leading idea suited the German mind;

the execution of it inflamed the hearts and imaginations of the

people; they felt proud of their great poet, and delighted to

enthusiasm with his poetry. At the first exhibition of the play in

Leipzig, Schiller being in the theatre, though not among the

audience, this feeling was displayed in a rather singular manner. When

the curtain dropped at the end of the first act, there arose on all

sides a shout of "_Es lebe Friedrich Schiller!_" accompanied by the

sound of trumpets and other military music: at the conclusion of the

piece, the whole assembly left their places, went out, and crowded

round the door through which the poet was expected to come; and no

sooner did he show himself, than his admiring spectators, uncovering

their heads, made an avenue for him to pass; and as he waited along,

many, we are told, held up their children, and exclaimed, "_That is

he!_"[36]

[Footnote 36: Doering (p. 176);--who adds as follows:

'Another testimony of approval, very different in its nature,

he received at the first production of the play in Weimar.

Knowing and valuing, as he did, the public of that city, it

could not but surprise him greatly, when a certain young

Doctor S---- called out to him, "_Bravo, Schiller!_" from the

gallery, in a very loud tone of voice. Offended at such

impertinence, the poet hissed strongly, in which the audience

joined him. He likewise expressed in words his displeasure at

this conduct; and the youthful sprig of medicine was, by

direction of the Court, farther punished for his indiscreet

applause, by some admonitions from the police.']

This must have been a proud moment for Schiller; but also an

agitating, painful one; and perhaps on the whole, the latter feeling,

for the time, prevailed. Such noisy, formal, and tumultuous plaudits

were little to his taste: the triumph they confer, though plentiful,

is coarse; and Schiller's modest nature made him shun the public gaze,

not seek it. He loved men, and did not affect to despise their

approbation; but neither did this form his leading motive. To him art,

like virtue, was its own reward; he delighted in his tasks for the

sake of the fascinating feelings which they yielded him in their

performance. Poetry was the chosen gift of his mind, which his

pleasure lay in cultivating: in other things he wished not that his

habits or enjoyments should be different from those of other men.

At Weimar his present way of life was like his former one at Jena: his

business was to study and compose; his recreations were in the circle

of his family, where he could abandon himself to affections, grave or

trifling, and in frank and cheerful intercourse with a few friends. Of

the latter he had lately formed a social club, the meetings of which

afforded him a regular and innocent amusement. He still loved solitary

walks: in the Park at Weimar he might frequently be seen wandering

among the groves and remote avenues, with a note-book in his hand; now

loitering slowly along, now standing still, now moving rapidly on; if

any one appeared in sight, he would dart into another alley, that his

dream might not be broken.[37] 'One of his favourite resorts,' we are

told, 'was the thickly-overshadowed rocky path which leads to the

_Roemische Haus_, a pleasure-house of the Duke's, built under the

direction of Goethe. There he would often sit in the gloom of the

crags, overgrown with cypresses and boxwood; shady hedges before him;

not far from the murmur of a little brook, which there gushes in a

smooth slaty channel, and where some verses of Goethe are cut upon a

brown plate of stone, and fixed in the rock.' He still continued to

study in the night: the morning was spent with his children and his

wife, or in pastimes such as we have noticed; in the afternoon he

revised what had been last composed, wrote letters, or visited his

friends. His evenings were often passed in the theatre; it was the

only public place of amusement which he ever visited; nor was it for

the purpose of amusement that he visited this: it was his observatory,

where he watched the effect of scenes and situations; devised new

schemes of art, or corrected old ones. To the players he was kind,

friendly: on nights when any of his pieces had been acted successfully

or for the first time, he used to invite the leaders of the company to

a supper in the Stadthaus, where the time was spent in mirthful

diversions, one of which was frequently a recitation, by Genast, of

the Capuchin's sermon in _Wallenstein's Camp_. Except on such rare

occasions, he returned home directly from the theatre, to light his

midnight lamp, and commence the most earnest of his labours.

[Footnote 37: 'Whatever he intended to write, he first

composed in his head, before putting down a line of it on

paper. He used to call a work _ready_ so soon as its

existence in his spirit was complete: hence in the public

there often were reports that such and such a piece of his

was finished, when, in the common sense, it was not even

begun.'--_Joerdens Lexicon_, Sec. SCHILLER.]

The assiduity, with which he struggled for improvement in dramatic

composition, had now produced its natural result: the requisitions of

his taste no longer hindered the operation of his genius; art had at

length become a second nature. A new proof at once of his fertility,

and of his solicitude for farther improvement, appeared in 1803. The

_Braut von Messina_ was an experiment; an attempt to exhibit a modern

subject and modern sentiments in an antique garb. The principle on

which the interest of this play rests is the Fatalism of the ancients:

the plot is of extreme simplicity; a Chorus also is introduced, an

elaborate discussion of the nature and uses of that accompaniment

being prefixed by way of preface. The experiment was not successful:

with a multitude of individual beauties this _Bride of Messina_ is

found to be ineffectual as a whole: it does not move us; the great

object of every tragedy is not attained. The Chorus, which Schiller,

swerving from the Greek models, has divided into two contending parts,

and made to enter and depart with the principals to whom they are

attached, has in his hands become the medium of conveying many

beautiful effusions of poetry; but it retards the progress of the

plot; it dissipates and diffuses our sympathies; the interest we

should take in the fate and prospects of Manuel and Caesar, is

expended on the fate and prospects of man. For beautiful and touching

delineations of life; for pensive and pathetic reflections,

sentiments, and images, conveyed in language simple but nervous and

emphatic, this tragedy stands high in the rank of modern compositions.

There is in it a breath of young tenderness and ardour, mingled

impressively with the feelings of gray-haired experience, whose

recollections are darkened with melancholy, whose very hopes are

chequered and solemn. The implacable Destiny which consigns the

brothers to mutual enmity and mutual destruction, for the guilt of a

past generation, involving a Mother and a Sister in their ruin,

spreads a sombre hue over all the poem; we are not unmoved by the

characters of the hostile Brothers, and we pity the hapless and

amiable Beatrice, the victim of their feud. Still there is too little

action in the play; the incidents are too abundantly diluted with

reflection; the interest pauses, flags, and fails to produce its full

effect. For its specimens of lyrical poetry, tender, affecting,

sometimes exquisitely beautiful, the _Bride of Messina_ will long

deserve a careful perusal; but as exemplifying a new form of the

drama, it has found no imitators, and is likely to find none.

The slight degree of failure or miscalculation which occurred in the

present instance, was next year abundantly redeemed. _Wilhelm Tell_,

sent out in 1804, is one of Schiller's very finest dramas; it exhibits

some of the highest triumphs which his genius, combined with his art,

ever realised. The first descent of Freedom to our modern world, the

first unfurling of her standard on the rocky pinnacle of Europe, is

here celebrated in the style which it deserved. There is no false

timsel-decoration about _Tell_, no sickly refinement, no declamatory

sentimentality. All is downright, simple, and agreeable to Nature;

yet all is adorned and purified and rendered beautiful, without losing

its resemblance. An air of freshness and wholesomeness breathes over

it; we are among honest, inoffensive, yet fearless peasants, untainted

by the vices, undazzled by the theories, of more complex and perverted

conditions of society. The opening of the first scene sets us down

among the Alps. It is 'a high rocky shore of the Luzern Lake, opposite

to Schwytz. The lake makes a little bight in the land, a hut stands at

a short distance from the bank, the fisher-boy is rowing himself about

in his boat. Beyond the lake, on the other side, we see the green

meadows, the hamlets and farms of Schwytz, lying in the clear

sunshine. On our left are observed the peaks of the Hacken surrounded

with clouds: to the right, and far in the distance, appear the

glaciers. We hear the _rance des vaches_ and the tinkling of

cattle-bells.' This first impression never leaves us; we are in a

scene where all is grand and lovely; but it is the loveliness and

grandeur of unpretending, unadulterated Nature. These Switzers are not

Arcadian shepherds or speculative patriots; there is not one crook or

beechen bowl among them, and they never mention the Social Contract,

or the Rights of Man. They are honest people, driven by oppression to

assert their privileges; and they go to work like men in earnest, bent

on the despatch of business, not on the display of sentiment. They are

not philosophers or tribunes; but frank, stalwart landmen: even in the

field of Ruetli, they do not forget their common feelings; the party

that arrive first indulge in a harmless little ebullition of parish

vanity: "_We_ are first here!" they say, "we Unterwaldeners!" They

have not charters or written laws to which they can appeal; but they

have the traditionary rights of their fathers, and bold hearts and

strong arms to make them good. The rules by which they steer are not

deduced from remote premises, by a fine process of thought; they are

the accumulated result of experience, transmitted from peasant sire to

peasant son. There is something singularly pleasing in this exhibition

of genuine humanity; of wisdom, embodied in old adages and practical

maxims of prudence; of magnanimity, displayed in the quiet

unpretending discharge of the humblest every-day duties. Truth is

superior to Fiction: we feel at home among these brave good people;

their fortune interests us more than that of all the brawling, vapid,

sentimental heroes in creation. Yet to make them interest us was the

very highest problem of art; it was to copy lowly Nature, to give us a

copy of it embellished and refined by the agency of genius, yet

preserving the likeness in every lineament. The highest quality of art

is to conceal itself: these peasants of Schiller's are what every one

imagines he could imitate successfully; yet in the hands of any but a

true and strong-minded poet they dwindle into repulsive coarseness or

mawkish insipidity. Among our own writers, who have tried such

subjects, we remember none that has succeeded equally with Schiller.

One potent but ill-fated genius has, in far different circumstances

and with far other means, shown that he could have equalled him: the

_Cotter's Saturday Night_ of Burns is, in its own humble way, as

quietly beautiful, as _simplex munditiis_, as the scenes of _Tell_. No

other has even approached them; though some gifted persons have

attempted it. Mr. Wordsworth is no ordinary man; nor are his pedlars,

and leech-gatherers, and dalesmen, without their attractions and their

moral; but they sink into whining drivellers beside _Roesselmann the

Priest_, _Ulric the Smith_, _Hans of the Wall_, and the other sturdy

confederates of Ruetli.

The skill with which the events are concatenated in this play

corresponds to the truth of its delineation of character. The

incidents of the Swiss Revolution, as detailed in Tschudi or Mueller,

are here faithfully preserved, even to their minutest branches. The

beauty of Schiller's descriptions all can relish; their fidelity is

what surprises every reader who has been in Switzerland. Schiller

never saw the scene of his play; but his diligence, his quickness and

intensity of conception, supplied this defect. Mountain and

mountaineer, conspiracy and action, are all brought before us in their

true forms, all glowing in the mild sunshine of the poet's fancy. The

tyranny of Gessler, and the misery to which it has reduced the land;

the exasperation, yet patient courage of the people; their characters,

and those of their leaders, Fuerst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal; their

exertions and ultimate success, described as they are here, keep up a

constant interest in the piece. It abounds in action, as much as the

_Bride of Messina_ is defective in that point.

But the finest delineation is undoubtedly the character of Wilhelm

Tell, the hero of the Swiss Revolt, and of the present drama. In Tell

are combined all the attributes of a great man, without the help of

education or of great occasions to develop them. His knowledge has

been gathered chiefly from his own experience, and this is bounded by

his native mountains: he has had no lessons or examples of splendid

virtue, no wish or opportunity to earn renown: he has grown up to

manhood, a simple yeoman of the Alps, among simple yeomen; and has

never aimed at being more. Yet we trace in him a deep, reflective,

earnest spirit, thirsting for activity, yet bound in by the wholesome

dictates of prudence; a heart benevolent, generous, unconscious alike

of boasting or of fear. It is this salubrious air of rustic,

unpretending honesty that forms the great beauty in Tell's character:

all is native, all is genuine; he does not declaim: he dislikes to

talk of noble conduct, he exhibits it. He speaks little of his

freedom, because he has always enjoyed it, and feels that he can

always defend it. His reasons for destroying Gessler are not drawn

from jurisconsults and writers on morality, but from the everlasting

instincts of Nature: the Austrian Vogt must die; because if not, the

wife and children of Tell will be destroyed by him. The scene, where

the peaceful but indomitable archer sits waiting for Gessler in the

hollow way among the rocks of Kuessnacht, presents him in a striking

light. Former scenes had shown us Tell under many amiable and

attractive aspects; we knew that he was tender as well as brave, that

he loved to haunt the mountain tops, and inhale in silent dreams the

influence of their wild and magnificent beauty: we had seen him the

most manly and warm-hearted of fathers and husbands; intrepid, modest,

and decisive in the midst of peril, and venturing his life to bring

help to the oppressed. But here his mind is exalted into stern

solemnity; its principles of action come before us with greater

clearness, in this its fiery contest. The name of murder strikes a

damp across his frank and fearless spirit; while the recollection of

his children and their mother proclaims emphatically that there is no

remedy. Gessler must perish: Tell swore it darkly in his secret soul,

when the monster forced him to aim at the head of his boy; and he will

keep his oath. His thoughts wander to and fro, but his volition is

unalterable; the free and peaceful mountaineer is to become a shedder

of blood: woe to them that have made him so!

Travellers come along the pass; the unconcern of their every-day

existence is strikingly contrasted with the dark and fateful purposes

of Tell. The shallow innocent garrulity of Stuessi the Forester, the

maternal vehemence of Armgart's Wife, the hard-hearted haughtiness of

Gessler, successively presented to us, give an air of truth to the

delineation, and deepen the impressiveness of the result.

ACT IV. SCENE III.

_The hollow way at Kuessnacht. You descend from behind amid rocks; and

travellers, before appearing on the scene, are seen from the height

above. Rocks encircle the whole space; on one of the foremost is a

projecting crag overgrown with brushwood._

TELL [_enters with his bow_].

Here through the hollow way he'll pass; there is

No other road to Kuessnacht: here I'll do it!

The opportunity is good; the bushes

Of alder there will hide me; from that point

My arrow hits him; the strait pass prevents

Pursuit. Now, Gessler, balance thy account

With Heaven! Thou must be gone: thy sand is run.

Remote and harmless I have liv'd; my bow

Ne'er bent save on the wild beast of the forest;

My thoughts were free of murder. Thou hast scar'd me

From my peace; to fell asp-poison hast thou

Changed the milk of kindly temper in me;

Thou hast accustom'd me to horrors. Gessler!

The archer who could aim at his boy's head

Can send an arrow to his enemy's heart.

Poor little boys! My kind true wife! I will

Protect them from thee, Landvogt! When I drew

That bowstring, and my hand was quiv'ring,

And with devilish joy thou mad'st me point it

At the child, and I in fainting anguish

Entreated thee in vain; then with a grim

Irrevocable oath, deep in my soul,

I vow'd to God in Heav'n, that the _next_ aim

I took should be thy heart. The vow I made

In that despairing moment's agony

Became a holy debt; and I will pay it.

Thou art my master, and my Kaiser's Vogt;

Yet would the Kaiser not have suffer'd thee

To do as thou hast done. He sent thee hither

To judge us; rigorously, for he is angry;

But not to glut thy savage appetite

With murder, and thyself be safe, among us:

There is a God to punish them that wrong us.

Come forth, thou bringer once of bitter sorrow,

My precious jewel now, my trusty yew!

A mark I'll set thee, which the cry of woe

Could never penetrate: to _thee_ it shall not

Be impenetrable. And, good bowstring!

Which so oft in sport hast serv'd me truly,

Forsake me not in this last awful earnest;

Yet once hold fast, thou faithful cord; thou oft

For me hast wing'd the biting arrow;

Now send it sure and piercing, now or never!

Fail this, there is no second in my quiver.

[_Travellers cross the scene._

Here let me sit on this stone bench, set up

For brief rest to the wayfarer; for here

There is no home. Each pushes on quick, transient,

Regarding not the other or his sorrows.

Here goes the anxious merchant, and the light

Unmoneyed pilgrim; the pale pious monk,

The gloomy robber, and the mirthful showman;

The carrier with his heavy-laden horse,

Who comes from far-off lands; for every road

Will lead one to the end o' th' World.

They pass; each hastening forward on his path,

Pursuing his own business: mine is death! [_Sits down._

Erewhile, my children, were your father out,

There was a merriment at his return;

For still, on coming home, he brought you somewhat,

Might be an Alpine flower, rare bird, or elf-bolt,

Such as the wand'rer finds upon the mountains:

Now he is gone in quest of other spoil

On the wild way he sits with thoughts of murder:

'Tis for his enemy's life he lies in wait

And yet on you, dear children, you alone

He thinks as then: for your sake is he here;

To guard you from the Tyrant's vengeful mood,

He bends his peaceful bow for work of blood. [_Rises._

No common game I watch for. Does the hunter

Think it nought to roam the livelong day,

In winter's cold; to risk the desp'rate leap

From crag to crag, to climb the slipp'ry face

O' th' dizzy steep, glueing his steps in's blood;

And all to catch a pitiful chamois?

Here is a richer prize afield: the heart

Of my sworn enemy, that would destroy me.

[_A sound of gay music is heard in the distance; it approaches._

All my days, the bow has been my comrade,

I have trained myself to archery; oft

Have I took the bull's-eye, many a prize

Brought home from merry shooting; but today

I will perform my master-feat, and win me

The best prize in the circuit of the hills.

[_A wedding company crosses the scene, and mounts up through the Pass.

Tell looks at them, leaning on his bow; Stuessi the Forester joins

him._

STUeSSI. 'Tis Klostermey'r of Morlischachen holds

His bridal feast today: a wealthy man;

Has half a score of glens i' th' Alps. They're going

To fetch the bride from Imisee; tonight

There will be mirth and wassail down at Kuessnacht.

Come you! All honest people are invited.

TELL. A serious guest befits not bridal feasts.

STUeSSI. If sorrow press you, dash it from your heart!

Seize what you can: the times are hard; one needs

To snatch enjoyment nimbly while it passes.

Here 'tis a bridal, there 'twill be a burial.

TELL. And oftentimes the one leads to the other.

STUeSSI. The way o' th' world at present! There is nought

But mischief everywhere: an avalanche

Has come away in Glarus; and, they tell me,

A side o' th' Glarnish has sunk under ground.

TELL. Do, then, the very hills give way! On earth

Is nothing that endures.

STUeSSI. In foreign parts, too,

Are strange wonders. I was speaking with a man

From Baden: a Knight, it seems, was riding

To the King; a swarm of hornets met him

By the way, and fell on's horse, and stung it

Till it dropt down dead of very torment,

And the poor Knight was forced to go afoot.

TELL. Weak creatures too have stings.

[_Armgart's Wife enters with several children, and places herself at

the entrance of the Pass._

STUeSSI. 'Tis thought to bode

Some great misfortune to the land; some black

Unnatural action.

TELL. Ev'ry day such actions

Occur in plenty: needs no sign or wonder

To foreshow them.

STUeSSI. Ay, truly! Well for him

That tills his field in peace, and undisturb'd

Sits by his own fireside!

TELL. The peacefulest

Dwells not in peace, if wicked neighbours hinder.

[_Tell looks often, with restless expectation, towards the top of the

Pass._

STUeSSI. Too true.--Good b'ye!--You're waiting here for some one?

TELL. That am I.

STUeSSI. Glad meeting with your friends!

You are from Uri? His Grace the Landvogt

Is expected thence today.

TRAVELLER [_enters_]. Expect not

The Landvogt now. The waters, from the rain,

Are flooded, and have swept down all the bridges. [_Tell stands up._

ARMGART [_coming forward_].

The Vogt not come!

STUeSSI. Did you want aught with him?

ARMGART. Ah! yes, indeed!

STUeSSI. Why have you placed yourself

In this strait pass to meet him?

ARMGART. In the pass

He cannot turn aside from me, must hear me.

FRIESSHARDT [_comes hastily down the Pass, and calls into the Scene_].

Make way! make way! My lord the Landvogt

Is riding close at hand.

ARMGART. The Landvogt coming!

[_She goes with her children to the front of the Scene. Gessler and

Rudolph der Harras appear on horseback at the top of the Pass._

STUeSSI [_to Friesshardt_].

How got you through the water, when the flood

Had carried down the bridges?

FRIESS. We have battled

With the billows, friend; we heed no Alp-flood.

STUeSSI. Were you o' board i' th' storm?

FRIESS. That were we;

While I live, I shall remember 't.

STUeSSI. Stay, stay!

O, tell me!

FRIESS. Cannot; must run on t' announce

His lordship in the Castle. [_Exit._

STUeSSI. Had these fellows

I' th' boat been honest people, 't would have sunk

With ev'ry soul of them. But for such rakehells,

Neither fire nor flood will kill them. [_He looks round._] Whither

Went the Mountain-man was talking with me? [_Exit._

GESSLER _and_ RUDOLPH DER HARRAS _on horseback_.

GESSLER. Say what you like, I am the Kaiser's servant,

And must think of pleasing him. He sent me

Not to caress these hinds, to soothe or nurse them:

Obedience is the word! The point at issue is

Shall Boor or Kaiser here be lord o' th' land.

ARMGART. Now is the moment! Now for my petition!

[_Approaches timidly._

GESSLER. This Hat at Aldorf, mark you, I set up

Not for the joke's sake, or to try the hearts

O' th' people; these I know of old: but that

They might be taught to bend their necks to me,

Which are too straight and stiff: and in the way

Where they are hourly passing, I have planted

This offence, that so their eyes may fall on't,

And remind them of their lord, whom they forget.

RUDOLPH. But yet the people have some rights--

GESSLER. Which now

Is not a time for settling or admitting.

Mighty things are on the anvil. The house

Of Hapsburg must wax powerful; what the Father

Gloriously began, the Son must forward:

This people is a stone of stumbling, which

One way or t'other must be put aside.

[_They are about to pass along. The Woman throws herself before the

Landvogt._

ARMGART. Mercy, gracious Landvogt! Justice! Justice!

GESSLER. Why do you plague me here, and stop my way,

I' th' open road? Off! Let me pass!

ARMGART. My husband

Is in prison; these orphans cry for bread.

Have pity, good your Grace, have pity on us!

RUDOLPH. Who or what are you, then? Who is your husband?

ARMGART. A poor wild-hay-man of the Rigiberg,

Whose trade is, on the brow of the abyss,

To mow the common grass from craggy shelves

And nooks to which the cattle dare not climb.

RUDOLPH [_to Gessler_]. By Heaven, a wild and miserable life!

Do now! do let the poor drudge free, I pray you!

Whatever be his crime, that horrid trade

Is punishment enough.

[_To the Woman_] You shall have justice:

In the Castle there, make your petition;

This is not the place.

ARMGART. No, no! I stir not

From the spot till you give up my husband!

'Tis the sixth month he has lain i' th' dungeon,

Waiting for the sentence of some judge, in vain.

GESSLER. Woman! Wouldst' lay hands on me? Begone!

ARMGART. Justice, Landvogt! thou art judge o' th' land here,

I' th' Kaiser's stead and God's. Perform thy duty!

As thou expectest justice from above,

Show it to us.

GESSLER. Off! Take the mutinous rabble

From my sight.

ARMGART [_catches the bridle of the horse_].

No, no! I now have nothing

More to lose. Thou shalt not move a step, Vogt,

Till thou hast done me right. Ay, knit thy brows,

And roll thy eyes as sternly as thou wilt;

We are so wretched, wretched now, we care not

Aught more for thy anger.

GESSLER. Woman, make way!

Or else my horse shall crush thee.

ARMGART. Let it! there--

[_She pulls her children to the ground, and throws herself along with

them in his way._

Here am I with my children: let the orphans

Be trodden underneath thy horse's hoofs!

'Tis not the worst that thou hast done.

RUDOLPH. Woman! Art' mad?

ARMGART [_with still greater violence_].

'Tis long that thou hast trodden.

The Kaiser's people under foot. Too long!

O, I am but a woman; were I a man,

I should find something else to do than lie

Here crying in the dust.

[_The music of the Wedding is heard again, at the top of the Pass, but

softened by distance._

GESSLER. Where are my servants?

Quick! Take her hence! I may forget myself,

And do the thing I shall repent.

RUDOLPH. My lord,

The servants cannot pass; the place above

Is crowded by a bridal company.

GESSLER. I've been too mild a ruler to this people;

They are not tamed as they should be; their tongues

Are still at liberty. This shall be alter'd!

I will break that stubborn humour; Freedom

With its pert vauntings shall no more be heard of:

I will enforce a new law in these lands;

There shall not--

[_An arrow pierces him; he claps his hand upon his heart, and is about

to sink. With a faint voice_

God be merciful to me!

RUDOLPH. Herr Landvogt--God! What is it? Whence came it?

ARMGART [_springing up_].

Dead! dead! He totters, sinks! 'T has hit him!

RUDOLPH [_springs from his horse_].

Horrible!--O God of Heaven!--Herr Ritter,

Cry to God for mercy! You are dying.

GESSLER. 'Tis Tell's arrow.

[_Has slid down from his horse into Rudolph's arms, who sets him on

the stone bench._

TELL [_appears above, on the point of the rock_].

Thou hast found the archer;

Seek no other. Free are the cottages,

Secure is innocence from thee; thou wilt

Torment the land no more.

[_Disappears from the height. The people rush in._

STUeSSI [_foremost_]. What? What has happen'd?

ARMGART. The Landvogt shot, kill'd by an arrow.

PEOPLE [_rushing in_]. Who?

Who is shot?

[_Whilst the foremost of the wedding company enter on the Scene, the

hindmost are still on the height, and the music continues._

RUDOLPH. He's bleeding, bleeding to death.

Away! Seek help; pursue the murderer!

Lost man! Must it so end with thee? Thou wouldst not

Hear my warning!

STUeSSI. Sure enough! There lies he

Pale and going fast.

MANY VOICES. Who was it killed him?

RUDOLPH. Are the people mad, that they make music

Over murder? Stop it, I say!

[_The music ceases suddenly; more people come crowding round._

Herr Landvogt,

Can you not speak to me? Is there nothing

You would entrust me with?

[_Gessler makes signs with his hand, and vehemently repeats them, as

they are not understood._

Where shall I run?

To Kuessnacht! I cannot understand you:

O, grow not angry! Leave the things of Earth,

And think how you shall make your peace with Heaven!

[_The whole bridal company surround the dying man with an expression

of unsympathising horror._

STUeSSI. Look there! How pale he grows! Now! Death is coming

Round his heart: his eyes grow dim and fixed.

ARMGART [_lifts up one of her children_].

See, children, how a miscreant departs!

RUDOLPH. Out on you, crazy hags! Have ye no touch

Of feeling in you, that ye feast your eyes

On such an object? Help me, lend your hands!

Will no one help to pull the tort'ring arrow

From his breast?

WOMEN [_start back_]. _We_ touch him whom God has smote!

RUDOLPH. My curse upon you! [_Draws his sword._

STUeSSI [_lays his hand on Rudolph's arm_]. Softly, my good Sir!

Your government is at an end. The Tyrant

Is fallen: we will endure no farther violence:

We are free.

ALL [_tumultuously_]. The land is free!

RUDOLPH. Ha! runs it so?

Are rev'rence and obedience gone already?

[_To the armed Attendants, who press in._

You see the murd'rous deed that has been done.

Our help is vain, vain to pursue the murd'rer;

Other cares demand us. On! To Kuessnacht!

To save the Kaiser's fortress! For at present

All bonds of order, duty, are unloosed,

No man's fidelity is to be trusted.

[_Whilst he departs with the Attendants, appear six Fratres

Misericordiae._

ARMGART. Room! Room! Here come the Friars of Mercy.

STUeSSI. The victim slain, the ravens are assembling!

FRATRES MISERICORDIAE [_form a half-circle round the dead body,

and sing in a deep tone_].

With noiseless tread death comes on man,

No plea, no prayer delivers him;

From midst of busy life's unfinished plan,

With sudden hand, it severs him:

And ready or not ready,--no delay,

Forth to his Judge's bar he must away!

The death of Gessler, which forms the leading object of the plot,

happens at the end of the fourth act; the fifth, occupied with

representing the expulsion of his satellites, and the final triumph

and liberation of the Swiss, though diversified with occurrences and

spectacles, moves on with inferior animation. A certain want of unity

is, indeed, distinctly felt throughout all the piece; the incidents do

not point one way; there is no connexion, or a very slight one,

between the enterprise of Tell and that of the men of Ruetli. This is

the principal, or rather sole, deficiency of the present work; a

deficiency inseparable from the faithful display of the historical

event, and far more than compensated by the deeper interest and the

wider range of action and delineation, which a strict adherence to the

facts allows. By the present mode of management, Alpine life in all

its length and breadth is placed before us: from the feudal halls of

Attinghausen to Ruodi the Fisher of the Luzern Lake, and Armgart,--

The poor wild-hay-man of the Rigiberg,

Whose trade is, on the brow of the abyss,

To mow the common grass from craggy shelves

And nooks to which the cattle dare not climb,--

we stand as if in presence of the Swiss, beholding the achievement of

their freedom in its minutest circumstances, with all its simplicity

and unaffected greatness. The light of the poet's genius is upon the

Four Forest Cantons, at the opening of the Fourteenth Century: the

whole time and scene shine as with the brightness, the truth, and more

than the beauty, of reality.

The tragedy of _Tell_ wants unity of interest and of action; but in

spite of this, it may justly claim the high dignity of ranking with

the very best of Schiller's plays. Less comprehensive and ambitious

than _Wallenstein_, less ethereal than the _Jungfrau_, it has a look

of nature and substantial truth, which neither of its rivals can boast

of. The feelings it inculcates and appeals to are those of universal

human nature, and presented in their purest, most unpretending form.

There is no high-wrought sentiment, no poetic love. Tell loves his

wife as honest men love their wives; and the episode of Bertha and

Rudenz, though beautiful, is very brief, and without effect on the

general result. It is delightful and salutary to the heart to wander

among the scenes of _Tell_: all is lovely, yet all is real. Physical

and moral grandeur are united; yet both are the unadorned grandeur of

Nature. There are the lakes and green valleys beside us, the

Schreckhorn, the Jungfrau, and their sister peaks, with their

avalanches and their palaces of ice, all glowing in the southern sun;

and dwelling among them are a race of manly husbandmen, heroic without

ceasing to be homely, poetical without ceasing to be genuine.

We have dwelt the longer on this play, not only on account of its

peculiar fascinations, but also--as it is our last! Schiller's

faculties had never been more brilliant than at present: strong in

mature age, in rare and varied accomplishments, he was now reaping the

full fruit of his studious vigils; the rapidity with which he wrote

such noble poems, at once betokened the exuberant riches of his mind

and the prompt command which he enjoyed of them. Still all that he had

done seemed but a fraction of his appointed task: a bold imagination

was carrying him forward into distant untouched fields of thought and

poetry, where triumphs yet more glorious were to be gained. Schemes of

new writings, new kinds of writing, were budding in his fancy; he was

yet, as he had ever been, surrounded by a multitude of projects, and

full of ardour to labour in fulfilling them. But Schiller's labours

and triumphs were drawing to a close. The invisible Messenger was

already near, which overtakes alike the busy and the idle, which

arrests man in the midst of his pleasures or his occupations, _and

changes his countenance and sends him away_.

In 1804, having been at Berlin witnessing the exhibition of his

_Wilhelm Tell_, he was seized, while returning, with a paroxysm of

that malady which for many years had never wholly left him. The attack

was fierce and violent; it brought him to the verge of the grave; but

he escaped once more; was considered out of danger, and again resumed

his poetical employments. Besides various translations from the French

and Italian, he had sketched a tragedy on the history of Perkin

Warbeck, and finished two acts of one on that of a kindred but more

fortunate impostor, Dimitri of Russia. His mind, it would appear, was

also frequently engaged with more solemn and sublime ideas. The

universe of human thought he had now explored and enjoyed; but he

seems to have found no permanent contentment in any of its provinces.

Many of his later poems indicate an incessant and increasing longing

for some solution of the mystery of life; at times it is a gloomy

resignation to the want and the despair of any. His ardent spirit

could not satisfy itself with things seen, though gilded with all the

glories of intellect and imagination; it soared away in search of

other lands, looking with unutterable desire for some surer and

brighter home beyond the horizon of this world. Death he had no reason

to regard as probably a near event; but we easily perceive that the

awful secrets connected with it had long been familiar to his

contemplation. The veil which hid them from his eyes was now shortly,

when he looked not for it, to be rent asunder.

The spring of 1805, which Schiller had anticipated with no ordinary

hopes of enjoyment and activity, came on in its course, cold, bleak,

and stormy; and along with it his sickness returned. The help of

physicians was vain; the unwearied services of trembling affection

were vain: his disorder kept increasing; on the 9th of May it reached

a crisis. Early in the morning of that day, he grew insensible, and by

degrees delirious. Among his expressions, the word _Lichtenberg_ was

frequently noticed; a word of no import; indicating, as some thought,

the writer of that name, whose works he had lately been reading;

according to others, the castle of Leuchtenberg, which, a few days

before his sickness, he had been proposing to visit. The poet and the

sage was soon to lie low; but his friends were spared the farther pain

of seeing him depart in madness. The fiery canopy of physical

suffering, which had bewildered and blinded his thinking faculties,

was drawn aside; and the spirit of Schiller looked forth in its wonted

serenity, once again before it passed away forever. After noon his

delirium abated; about four o'clock he fell into a soft sleep, from

which he ere long awoke in full possession of his senses. Restored to

consciousness in that hour, when the soul is cut off from human help,

and man must front the King of Terrors on his own strength, Schiller

did not faint or fail in this his last and sharpest trial. Feeling

that his end was come, he addressed himself to meet it as became him;

not with affected carelessness or superstitious fear, but with the

quiet unpretending manliness which had marked the tenor of his life.

Of his friends and family he took a touching but a tranquil farewell:

he ordered that his funeral should be private, without pomp or parade.

Some one inquiring how he felt, he said "_Calmer and calmer_;" simple

but memorable words, expressive of the mild heroism of the man. About

six he sank into a deep sleep; once for a moment he looked up with a

lively air, and said, "_Many things were growing plain and clear to

him!_" Again he closed his eyes; and his sleep deepened and deepened,

till it changed into the sleep from which there is no awakening; and

all that remained of Schiller was a lifeless form, soon to be mingled

with the clods of the valley.

The news of Schiller's death fell cold on many a heart: not in Germany

alone, but over Europe, it was regarded as a public loss, by all who

understood its meaning. In Weimar especially, the scene of his noblest

efforts, the abode of his chosen friends, the sensation it produced

was deep and universal. The public places of amusement were shut; all

ranks made haste to testify their feelings, to honour themselves and

the deceased by tributes to his memory. It was Friday when Schiller

died; his funeral was meant to be on Sunday; but the state of his

remains made it necessary to proceed before. Doering thus describes

the ceremony:

'According to his own directions, the bier was to be borne by private

burghers of the city; but several young artists and students, out of

reverence for the deceased, took it from them. It was between midnight

and one in the morning, when they approached the churchyard. The

overclouded heaven threatened rain. But as the bier was set down

beside the grave, the clouds suddenly split asunder, and the moon,

coming forth in peaceful clearness, threw her first rays on the coffin

of the Departed. They lowered him into the grave; and the moon again

retired behind her clouds. A fierce tempest of wind began to howl, as

if it were reminding the bystanders of their great, irreparable loss.

At this moment who could have applied without emotion the poet's own

words:

Alas, the ruddy morning tinges

A silent, cold, sepulchral stone;

And evening throws her crimson fringes

But round his slumber dark and lone!'

So lived and so died Friedrich Schiller; a man on whose history other

men will long dwell with a mingled feeling of reverence and love. Our

humble record of his life and writings is drawing to an end: yet we

still linger, loth to part with a spirit so dear to us. From the

scanty and too much neglected field of his biography, a few slight

facts and indications may still be gleaned; slight, but distinctive of

him as an individual, and not to be despised in a penury so great and

so unmerited.

Schiller's age was forty-five years and a few months when he died.[38]

Sickness had long wasted his form, which at no time could boast of

faultless symmetry. He was tall and strongly boned; but unmuscular and

lean: his body, it might be perceived, was wasting under the energy of

a spirit too keen for it. His face was pale, the cheeks and temples

rather hollow, the chin somewhat deep and slightly projecting, the

nose irregularly aquiline, his hair inclined to auburn. Withal his

countenance was attractive, and had a certain manly beauty. The lips

were curved together in a line, expressing delicate and honest

sensibility; a silent enthusiasm, impetuosity not unchecked by

melancholy, gleamed in his softly kindled eyes and pale cheeks, and

the brow was high and thoughtful. To judge from his portraits,

Schiller's face expressed well the features of his mind: it is

mildness tempering strength; fiery ardour shining through the clouds

of suffering and disappointment, deep but patiently endured. Pale was

its proper tint; the cheeks and temples were best hollow. There are

few faces that affect us more than Schiller's; it is at once meek,

tender, unpretending, and heroic.

[Footnote 38: 'He left a widow, two sons, and two daughters,'

of whom we regret to say that we have learned nothing. 'Of

his three sisters, the youngest died before him; the eldest

is married to the Hofrath Reinwald, in Meinungen; the second

to Herr Frankh, the clergyman of Meckmuhl, in Wuertemberg.'

_Doering._]

In his dress and manner, as in all things, he was plain and

unaffected. Among strangers, something shy and retiring might

occasionally be observed in him: in his own family, or among his

select friends, he was kind-hearted, free, and gay as a little child.

In public, his external appearance had nothing in it to strike or

attract. Of an unpresuming aspect, wearing plain apparel, his looks as

he walked were constantly bent on the ground; so that frequently, as

we are told, 'he failed to notice the salutation of a passing

acquaintance; but if he heard it, he would catch hastily at his hat,

and give his cordial "_Guten Tag_."' Modesty, simplicity, a total want

of all parade or affectation were conspicuous in him. These are the

usual concomitants of true greatness, and serve to mitigate its

splendour. Common things he did as a common man. His conduct in such

matters was uncalculated, spontaneous; and therefore natural and

pleasing.

Concerning his mental character, the greater part of what we had to

say has been already said, in speaking of his works. The most cursory

perusal of these will satisfy us that he had a mind of the highest

order; grand by nature, and cultivated by the assiduous study of a

lifetime. It is not the predominating force of any one faculty that

impresses us in Schiller; but the general force of all. Every page of

his writings bears the stamp of internal vigour; new truths, new

aspects of known truth, bold thought, happy imagery, lofty emotion.

Schiller would have been no common man, though he had altogether

wanted the qualities peculiar to poets. His intellect is clear, deep,

and comprehensive; its deductions, frequently elicited from numerous

and distant premises, are presented under a magnificent aspect, in the

shape of theorems, embracing an immense multitude of minor

propositions. Yet it seems powerful and vast, rather than quick or

keen; for Schiller is not notable for wit, though his fancy is ever

prompt with its metaphors, illustrations, comparisons, to decorate and

point the perceptions of his reason. The earnestness of his temper

farther disqualified him for this: his tendency was rather to adore

the grand and the lofty than to despise the little and the mean.

Perhaps his greatest faculty was a half-poetical, half-philosophical

imagination: a faculty teeming with magnificence and brilliancy; now

adorning, or aiding to erect, a stately pyramid of scientific

speculation; now brooding over the abysses of thought and feeling,

till thoughts and feelings, else unutterable, were embodied in

expressive forms, and palaces and landscapes glowing in ethereal

beauty rose like exhalations from the bosom of the deep.

Combined and partly of kindred with these intellectual faculties was

that vehemence of temperament which is necessary for their full

development. Schiller's heart was at once fiery and tender; impetuous,

soft, affectionate, his enthusiasm clothed the universe with grandeur,

and sent his spirit forth to explore its secrets and mingle warmly in

its interests. Thus poetry in Schiller was not one but many gifts. It

was not the 'lean and flashy song' of an ear apt for harmony, combined

with a maudlin sensibility, or a mere animal ferocity of passion, and

an imagination creative chiefly because unbridled: it was, what true

poetry is always, the quintessence of general mental riches, the

purified result of strong thought and conception, and of refined as

well as powerful emotion. In his writings, we behold him a moralist, a

philosopher, a man of universal knowledge: in each of these capacities

he is great, but also in more; for all that he achieves in these is

brightened and gilded with the touch of another quality; his maxims,

his feelings, his opinions are transformed from the lifeless shape of

didactic truths, into living shapes that address faculties far finer

than the understanding.

The gifts by which such transformation is effected, the gift of pure,

ardent, tender sensibility, joined to those of fancy and imagination,

are perhaps not wholly denied to any man endowed with the power of

reason; possessed in various degrees of strength, they add to the

products of mere intellect corresponding tints of new attractiveness;

in a degree great enough to be remarkable they constitute a poet. Of

this peculiar faculty how much had fallen to Schiller's lot, we need

not attempt too minutely to explain. Without injuring his reputation,

it may be admitted that, in general, his works exhibit rather

extraordinary strength than extraordinary fineness or versatility. His

power of dramatic imitation is perhaps never of the very highest, the

Shakspearean kind; and in its best state, it is farther limited to a

certain range of characters. It is with the grave, the earnest, the

exalted, the affectionate, the mournful, that he succeeds: he is not

destitute of humour, as his _Wallenstein's Camp_ will show, but

neither is he rich in it; and for sprightly ridicule in any of its

forms he has seldom shown either taste or talent. Chance principally

made the drama his department; he might have shone equally in many

others. The vigorous and copious invention, the knowledge of life, of

men and things, displayed in his theatrical pieces, might have been

available in very different pursuits; frequently the charm of his

works has little to distinguish it from the charm of intellectual and

moral force in general; it is often the capacious thought, the vivid

imagery, the impetuous feeling of the orator, rather than the wild

pathos and capricious enchantment of the poet. Yet that he was capable

of rising to the loftiest regions of poetry, no reader of his _Maid of

Orleans_, his character of Thekla, or many other of his pieces, will

hesitate to grant. Sometimes we suspect that it is the very grandeur

of his general powers which prevents us from exclusively admiring his

poetic genius. We are not lulled by the syren song of poetry, because

her melodies are blended with the clearer, manlier tones of serious

reason, and of honest though exalted feeling.

Much laborious discussion has been wasted in defining genius,

particularly by the countrymen of Schiller, some of whom have narrowed

the conditions of the term so far, as to find but three _men of

genius_ since the world was created: Homer, Shakspeare, and Goethe!

From such rigid precision, applied to a matter in itself indefinite,

there may be an apparent, but there is no real, increase of accuracy.

The creative power, the faculty not only of imitating given forms of

being, but of imagining and representing new ones, which is here

attributed with such distinctness and so sparingly, has been given by

nature in complete perfection to no man, nor entirely denied to any.

The shades of it cannot be distinguished by so loose a scale as

language. A definition of genius which excludes such a mind as

Schiller's will scarcely be agreeable to philosophical correctness,

and it will tend rather to lower than to exalt the dignity of the

word. Possessing all the general mental faculties in their highest

degree of strength, an intellect ever active, vast, powerful,

far-sighted; an imagination never weary of producing grand or

beautiful forms; a heart of the noblest temper, sympathies

comprehensive yet ardent, feelings vehement, impetuous, yet full of

love and kindliness and tender pity; conscious of the rapid and fervid

exercise of all these powers within him, and able farther to present

their products refined and harmonised, and 'married to immortal

verse,' Schiller may or may not be called a man of genius by his

critics; but his mind in either case will remain one of the most

enviable which can fall to the share of a mortal.

In a poet worthy of that name, the powers of the intellect are

indissolubly interwoven with the moral feelings, and the exercise of

his art depends not more on the perfection of the one than of the

other. The poet, who does not feel nobly and justly, as well as

passionately, will never permanently succeed in making others feel:

the forms of error and falseness, infinite in number, are transitory

in duration; truth, of thought and sentiment, but chiefly of

sentiment, truth alone is eternal and unchangeable. But, happily, a

delight in the products of reason and imagination can scarcely ever be

divided from, at least, a love for virtue and genuine greatness. Our

feelings are in favour of heroism; we _wish_ to be pure and perfect.

Happy he whose resolutions are so strong, or whose temptations are so

weak, that he can convert these feelings into action! The severest

pang, of which a proud and sensitive nature can be conscious, is the

perception of its own debasement. The sources of misery in life are

many: vice is one of the surest. Any human creature, tarnished with

guilt, will in general be wretched; a man of genius in that case will

be doubly so, for his ideas of excellence are higher, his sense of

failure is more keen. In such miseries, Schiller had no share. The

sentiments, which animated his poetry, were converted into principles

of conduct; his actions were as blameless as his writings were pure.

With his simple and high predilections, with his strong devotedness to

a noble cause, he contrived to steer through life, unsullied by its

meanness, unsubdued by any of its difficulties or allurements. With

the world, in fact, he had not much to do; without effort, he dwelt

apart from it; its prizes were not the wealth which could enrich him.

His great, almost his single aim, was to unfold his spiritual

faculties, to study and contemplate and improve their intellectual

creations. Bent upon this, with the steadfastness of an apostle, the

more sordid temptations of the world passed harmlessly over him.

Wishing not to seem, but to be, envy was a feeling of which he knew

but little, even before he rose above its level. Wealth or rank he

regarded as a means, not an end; his own humble fortune supplying him

with all the essential conveniences of life, the world had nothing

more that he chose to covet, nothing more that it could give him. He

was not rich; but his habits were simple, and, except by reason of his

sickness and its consequences, unexpensive. At all times he was far

above the meanness of self-interest, particularly in its meanest

shape, a love of money. Doering tells us, that a bookseller having

travelled from a distance expressly to offer him a higher price for

the copyright of _Wallenstein_, at that time in the press, and for

which he was on terms with Cotta of Tuebingen, Schiller answering,

"Cotta deals steadily with me, and I with him," sent away this new

merchant, without even the hope of a future bargain. The anecdote is

small; but it seems to paint the integrity of the man, careless of

pecuniary concerns in comparison with the strictest uprightness in his

conduct. In fact, his real wealth lay in being able to pursue his

darling studies, and to live in the sunshine of friendship and

domestic love. This he had always longed for; this he at last enjoyed.

And though sickness and many vexations annoyed him, the intrinsic

excellence of his nature chequered the darkest portions of their gloom

with an effulgence derived from himself. The ardour of his feelings,

tempered by benevolence, was equable and placid: his temper, though

overflowing with generous warmth, seems almost never to have shown any

hastiness or anger. To all men he was humane and sympathising; among

his friends, open-hearted, generous, helpful; in the circle of his

family, kind, tender, sportive. And what gave an especial charm to all

this was, the unobtrusiveness with which it was attended: there was no

parade, no display, no particle of affectation; rating and conducting

himself simply as an honest man and citizen, he became greater by

forgetting that he was great.

Such were the prevailing habits of Schiller. That in the mild and

beautiful brilliancy of their aspect there must have been some specks

and imperfections, the common lot of poor humanity, who knows not?

That these were small and transient, we judge from the circumstance

that scarcely any hint of them has reached us: nor are we anxious to

obtain a full description of them. For practical uses, we can

sufficiently conjecture what they were; and the heart desires not to

dwell upon them. This man is passed away from our dim and tarnished

world: let him have the benefit of departed friends; let him be

transfigured in our thoughts, and shine there without the little

blemishes that clung to him in life.

Schiller gives a fine example of the German character: he has all its

good qualities in a high degree, with very few of its defects. We

trace in him all that downrightness and simplicity, that sincerity of

heart and mind, for which the Germans are remarked; their enthusiasm,

their patient, long-continuing, earnest devotedness; their

imagination, delighting in the lofty and magnificent; their intellect,

rising into refined abstractions, stretching itself into comprehensive

generalisations. But the excesses to which such a character is liable

are, in him, prevented by a firm and watchful sense of propriety. His

simplicity never degenerates into ineptitude or insipidity; his

enthusiasm must be based on reason; he rarely suffers his love of the

vast to betray him into toleration of the vague. The boy Schiller was

extravagant; but the man admits no bombast in his style, no inflation

in his thoughts or actions. He is the poet of truth; our

understandings and consciences are satisfied, while our hearts and

imaginations are moved. His fictions are emphatically nature copied

and embellished; his sentiments are refined and touchingly beautiful,

but they are likewise manly and correct; they exalt and inspire, but

they do not mislead. Above all, he has no cant; in any of its thousand

branches, ridiculous or hateful, none. He does not distort his

character or genius into shapes, which he thinks more becoming than

their natural one: he does not hang out principles which are not his,

or harbour beloved persuasions which he half or wholly knows to be

false. He did not often speak of wholesome prejudices; he did not

'embrace the Roman Catholic religion because it was the grandest and

most comfortable.' Truth with Schiller, or what seemed such, was an

indispensable requisite: if he but suspected an opinion to be false,

however dear it may have been, he seems to have examined it with rigid

scrutiny, and if he found it guilty, to have plucked it out, and

resolutely cast it forth. The sacrifice might cause him pain,

permanent pain; real damage, he imagined, it could hardly cause him.

It is irksome and dangerous to travel in the dark; but better so, than

with an _Ignis-fatuus_ to guide us. Considering the warmth of his

sensibilities, Schiller's merit on this point is greater than we might

at first suppose. For a man with whom intellect is the ruling or

exclusive faculty, whose sympathies, loves, hatreds, are comparatively

coarse and dull, it may be easy to avoid this half-wilful

entertainment of error, and this cant which is the consequence and

sign of it. But for a man of keen tastes, a large fund of innate

probity is necessary to prevent his aping the excellence which he

loves so much, yet is unable to attain. Among persons of the latter

sort, it is extremely rare to meet with one completely unaffected.

Schiller's other noble qualities would not have justice, did we

neglect to notice this, the truest proof of their nobility. Honest,

unpretending, manly simplicity pervades all parts of his character and

genius and habits of life. We not only admire him, we trust him and

love him.

'The character of child-like simplicity,' he has himself observed,[39]

'which genius impresses on its works, it shows also in its private

life and manners. It is bashful, for nature is ever so; but it is not

prudish, for only corruption is prudish. It is clear-sighted, for

nature can never be the contrary; but it is not cunning, for this only

art can be. It is faithful to its character and inclinations; but not

so much because it is directed by principles, as because after all

vibrations nature constantly reverts to her original position,

constantly renews her primitive demand. It is modest, nay timid, for

genius is always a secret to itself; but it is not anxious, for it

knows not the dangers of the way which it travels. Of the private

habits of the persons who have been peculiarly distinguished by their

genius, our information is small; but the little that has been

recorded for us of the chief of them,--of Sophocles, Archimedes,

Hippocrates; and in modern times, of Dante and Tasso, of Rafaelle,

Albrecht Duerer, Cervantes, Shakspeare, Fielding, and others,--confirms

this observation.' Schiller himself confirms it; perhaps more strongly

than most of the examples here adduced. No man ever wore his faculties

more meekly, or performed great works with less consciousness of their

greatness. Abstracted from the contemplation of himself, his eye was

turned upon the objects of his labour, and he pursued them with the

eagerness, the entireness, the spontaneous sincerity, of a boy

pursuing sport. Hence this 'child-like simplicity,' the last

perfection of his other excellencies. His was a mighty spirit

unheedful of its might. He walked the earth in calm power: 'the staff

of his spear was like a weaver's beam;' but he wielded it like a wand.

[Footnote 39: _Naive und sentimentalische Dichtung._]

Such, so far as we can represent it, is the form in which Schiller's

life and works have gradually painted their character in the mind of a

secluded individual, whose solitude he has often charmed, whom he has

instructed, and cheered, and moved. The original impression, we know,

was faint and inadequate, the present copy of it is still more so; yet

we have sketched it as we could: the figure of Schiller, and of the

figures he conceived and drew are there; himself, 'and in his hand a

glass which shows us many more.' To those who look on him as we have

wished to make them, Schiller will not need a farther panegyric. For

the sake of Literature, it may still be remarked, that his merit was

peculiarly due to her. Literature was his creed, the dictate of his

conscience; he was an Apostle of the Sublime and Beautiful, and this

his calling made a hero of him. For it was in the spirit of a true man

that he viewed it, and undertook to cultivate it; and its inspirations

constantly maintained the noblest temper in his soul. The end of

Literature was not, in Schiller's judgment, to amuse the idle, or to

recreate the busy, by showy spectacles for the imagination, or quaint

paradoxes and epigrammatic disquisitions for the understanding: least

of all was it to gratify in any shape the selfishness of its

professors, to minister to their malignity, their love of money, or

even of fame. For persons who degrade it to such purposes, the deepest

contempt of which his kindly nature could admit was at all times in

store. 'Unhappy mortal!' says he to the literary tradesman, the man

who writes for gain, 'Unhappy mortal, who with science and art, the

noblest of all instruments, effectest and attemptest nothing more than

the day-drudge with the meanest; who, in the domain of perfect

Freedom, bearest about in thee the spirit of Slave!' As Schiller

viewed it, genuine Literature includes the essence of philosophy,

religion, art; whatever speaks to the immortal part of man. The

daughter, she is likewise the nurse of all that is spiritual and

exalted in our character. The boon she bestows is truth; truth not

merely physical, political, economical, such as the sensual man in us

is perpetually demanding, ever ready to reward, and likely in general

to find; but truth of moral feeling, truth of taste, that inward truth

in its thousand modifications, which only the most ethereal portion of

our nature can discern, but without which that portion of it

languishes and dies, and we are left divested of our birthright,

thenceforward 'of the earth earthy,' machines for earning and

enjoying, no longer worthy to be called the Sons of Heaven. The

treasures of Literature are thus celestial, imperishable, beyond all

price: with her is the shrine of our best hopes, the palladium of pure

manhood; to be among the guardians and servants of this is the noblest

function that can be intrusted to a mortal. Genius, even in its

faintest scintillations, is 'the inspired gift of God;' a solemn

mandate to its owner to go forth and labour in his sphere, to keep

alive 'the sacred fire' among his brethren, which the heavy and

polluted atmosphere of this world is forever threatening to

extinguish. Woe to him if he neglect this mandate, if he hear not its

small still voice! Woe to him if he turn this inspired gift into the

servant of his evil or ignoble passions; if he offer it on the altar

of vanity, if he sell it for a piece of money!

'The Artist, it is true,' says Schiller, 'is the son of his age; but

pity for him if he is its pupil, or even its favourite! Let some

beneficent Divinity snatch him when a suckling from the breast of his

mother, and nurse him with the milk of a better time; that he may

ripen to his full stature beneath a distant Grecian sky. And having

grown to manhood, let him return, a foreign shape, into his century;

not, however, to delight it by his presence; but terrible, like the

Son of Agamemnon, to purify it. The Matter of his works he will take

from the present; but their Form he will derive from a nobler time,

nay from beyond all time, from the absolute unchanging unity of his

nature. Here from the pure aether of his spiritual essence, flows down

the Fountain of Beauty, uncontaminated by the pollutions of ages and

generations, which roll to and fro in their turbid vortex far beneath

it. His Matter caprice can dishonour as she has ennobled it; but the

chaste Form is withdrawn from her mutations. The Roman of the first

century had long bent the knee before his Caesars, when the statues of

Rome were still standing erect; the temples continued holy to the eye,

when their gods had long been a laughing-stock; and the abominations

of a Nero and a Commodus were silently rebuked by the style of the

edifice which lent them its concealment. Man has lost his dignity, but

Art has saved it, and preserved it for him in expressive marbles.

Truth still lives in fiction, and from the copy the original will be

restored.

'But how is the Artist to guard himself from the corruptions of his

time, which on every side assail him? By despising its decisions. Let

him look upwards to his dignity and his mission, not downwards to his

happiness and his wants. Free alike from the vain activity, that longs

to impress its traces on the fleeting instant; and from the

discontented spirit of enthusiasm, that measures by the scale of

perfection the meagre product of reality, let him leave to _common

sense_, which is here at home, the province of the actual; while _he_

strives from the union of the possible with the necessary to bring out

the ideal. This let him imprint and express in fiction and truth,

imprint it in the sport of his imagination and the earnest of his

actions, imprint it in all sensible and spiritual forms, and cast it

silently into everlasting Time.'[40]

[Footnote 40: _Ueber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen._]

Nor were these sentiments, be it remembered, the mere boasting

manifesto of a hot-brained inexperienced youth, entering on literature

with feelings of heroic ardour, which its difficulties and temptations

would soon deaden or pervert: they are the calm principles of a man,

expressed with honest manfulness, at a period when the world could

compare them with a long course of conduct. In this just and lofty

spirit, Schiller undertook the business of literature; in the same

spirit he pursued it with unflinching energy all the days of his life.

The common, and some uncommon, difficulties of a fluctuating and

dependent existence could not quench or abate his zeal: sickness

itself seemed hardly to affect him. During his last fifteen years, he

wrote his noblest works; yet, as it has been proved too well, no day

of that period could have passed without its load of pain.[41] Pain

could not turn him from his purpose, or shake his equanimity: in death

itself he was _calmer and calmer_. Nor has he gone without his

recompense. To the credit of the world it can be recorded, that their

suffrages, which he never courted, were liberally bestowed on him:

happier than the mighty Milton, he found 'fit hearers,' even in his

lifetime, and they were not 'few.' His effect on the mind of his own

country has been deep and universal, and bids fair to be abiding: his

effect on other countries must in time be equally decided; for such

nobleness of heart and soul shadowed forth in beautiful imperishable

emblems, is a treasure which belongs not to one nation, but to all. In

another age, this Schiller will stand forth in the foremost rank among

the master-spirits of his century; and be admitted to a place among

the chosen of all centuries. His works, the memory of what he did and

was, will rise afar off like a towering landmark in the solitude of

the Past, when distance shall have dwarfed into invisibility the

lesser people that encompassed him, and hid him from the near

beholder.

[Footnote 41: On a surgical inspection of his body after

death, the most vital organs were found totally deranged.

'The structure of the lungs was in great part destroyed, the

cavities of the heart were nearly grown up, the liver had

become hard, and the gall-bladder was extended to an

extraordinary size.' _Doering._]

On the whole, we may pronounce him happy. His days passed in the

contemplation of ideal grandeurs, he lived among the glories and

solemnities of universal Nature; his thoughts were of sages and

heroes, and scenes of elysian beauty. It is true, he had no rest, no

peace; but he enjoyed the fiery consciousness of his own activity,

which stands in place of it for men like him. It is true, he was long

sickly; but did he not even then conceive and body-forth Max

Piccolomini, and Thekla, and the Maid of Orleans, and the scenes of

_Wilhelm Tell_? It is true, he died early; but the student will

exclaim with Charles XII. in another case, "Was it not enough of life

when he had conquered kingdoms?" These kingdoms which Schiller

conquered were not for one nation at the expense of suffering to

another; they were soiled by no patriot's blood, no widow's, no

orphan's tear: they are kingdoms conquered from the barren realms of

Darkness, to increase the happiness, and dignity, and power, of all

men; new forms of Truth, new maxims of Wisdom, new images and scenes

of Beauty, won from the 'void and formless Infinite;' a [Greek: ktema

es aiei], 'a possession forever,' to all the generations of the

Earth.

SUPPLEMENT OF 1872.

HERR SAUPE'S BOOK.

[NOTE IN PEOPLE'S EDITION.]

In the end of Autumn last a considerately kind old Friend of mine

brought home to me, from his Tour in Germany, a small Book by a Herr

Saupe, one of the Head-masters of Gera High-School,--Book entitled

'Schiller and His Father's Household,'[42]--of which, though it has

been before the world these twenty years and more, I had not heard

till then. The good little Book,--an altogether modest, lucid, exact

and amiable, though not very lively performance, offering new little

facts about the Schiller world, or elucidations and once or twice a

slight correction of the old,--proved really interesting and

instructive; awoke, in me especially, multifarious reflections,

mournfully beautiful old memories;--and led to farther readings in

other Books touching on the same subject, particularly in these three

mentioned below,[43]--the first two of them earlier than Saupe's, the

third later and slightly corrective of him once or twice;--all which

agreeably employed me for some weeks, and continued to be rather a

pious recreation than any labour.

[Footnote 42: _Schiller und sein Vaeterliches Haus._ Von Ernst

Julius Saupe, Subconrector am Gymnasium zu Gera. Leipzig:

Verlagsbuchhandlung von J. J. Weber, 1851.]

[Footnote 43: _Schiller's Leben von Gustav Schwab_

(Stuttgart, 1841).

_Schiller's Leben, verfasst aus_, &c. By Caroline von

Wolzogen, _born_ von Lengefeld (Schiller's Sister-in-law):

Stuttgart und Tuebingen, 1845.

_Schiller's Beziehungen zu Eltern, Geschwistern und der

Familie von Wolzogen, aus den Familien-Papieren._ By Baroness

von Gleichen (Schiller's youngest Daughter) and Baron von

Wolzogen (her Cousin): Stuttgart, 1859.]

To this accident of Saupe's little Book there was, meanwhile, added

another not less unexpected: a message, namely, from Bibliopolic

Head-quarters that my own poor old Book on Schiller was to be

reprinted, and that in this "_People's Edition_" it would want (on

deduction of the German Piece by Goethe, which had gone into the

"_Library Edition_," but which had no fitness here) some sixty or

seventy pages for the proper size of the volume. _Saupe_, which I was

still reading, or idly reading-about, offered the ready

expedient:--and here accordingly _Saupe_ is. I have had him faithfully

translated, and with some small omissions or abridgments, slight

transposals here and there for clearness' sake, and one or two

elucidative patches, gathered from the three subsidiary Books already

named, all duly distinguished from Saupe's text;--whereby the gap or

deficit of pages is well filled up, almost of its own accord. And thus

I can now certify that, in all essential respects, the authentic

_Saupe_ is here made accessible to English readers as to German; and

hope that to many lovers of Schiller among us, who are likely to be

lovers also of humbly beautiful Human Worth, and of such an

unconsciously noble scene of Poverty made _richer_ than any

California, as that of the elder Schiller Household here manifests, it

may be a welcome and even profitable bit of reading.

Chelsea, Nov. 1872.

T. C.

SAUPE'S

"SCHILLER AND HIS FATHER'S HOUSEHOLD."

I. THE FATHER.

'Schiller's Father, Johann Caspar Schiller, was born at Bittenfeld, a

parish hamlet in the ancient part of Wuertemberg, a little north of

Waiblingen, on the 27th October 1723. He had not yet completed his

tenth year when his Father, Johannes Schiller, _Schultheiss_, "Petty

Magistrate," of the Village, and by trade a Baker, died, at the age of

fifty-one. Soon after which the fatherless Boy, hardly fitted out with

the most essential elements of education, had to quit school, and was

apprenticed to a Surgeon; with whom, according to the then custom, he

was to learn the art of "Surgery;" but in reality had little more to

do than follow the common employment of a Barber.

'After completing his apprenticeship and proof-time, the pushing young

lad, eager to get forward in the world, went, during the

Austrian-Succession War, in the year 1745, with a Bavarian Hussar

Regiment, as "Army-Doctor," into the Netherlands. Here, as his active

mind found no full employment in the practice of his Art, he willingly

undertook, withal, the duties of a sub-officer in small military

enterprises. On the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, when a part of

this Regiment was disbanded, and Schiller with them, he returned to

his homeland; and set himself down in Marbach, a pleasant little

country town on the Neckar, as practical Surgeon there. Here, in

1749, he married the Poet's Mother; then a young girl of sixteen:

Elisabetha Dorothea, born at Marbach in the year 1733, the daughter of

a respectable townsman, Georg Friedrich Kodweis, who, to his trade of

Baker adding that of Innkeeper and Woodmeasurer, had gathered a little

fortune, and was at this time counted well-off, though afterwards, by

some great inundation of the Neckar,' date not given, 'he was again

reduced to poverty. The brave man by this unavoidable mischance came,

by degrees, so low that he had to give-up his house in the

Market-Place, and in the end to dwell in a poor hut, as Porter at one

of the Toll-Gates of Marbach. Elisabetha was a comely girl to look

upon; slender, well-formed, without quite being tall; the neck long,

hair high-blond, almost red, brow broad, eyes as if a little sorish,

face covered with freckles; but with all these features enlivened by a

soft expression of kindliness and good-nature.

'This marriage, for the first eight years, was childless; after that,

they gradually had six children, two of whom died soon after birth;

the Poet Schiller was the second of these six, and the only Boy. The

young couple had to live in a very narrow, almost needy condition, as

neither of them had any fortune; and the Husband's business could

hardly support a household. There is still in existence a legal

Marriage Record and Inventory, such as is usual in these cases, which

estimates the money and money's worth brought together by the young

people at a little over 700 gulden (70_l._). Out of the same

Inventory, one sees, by the small value put upon the surgical

instruments, and the outstanding debts of patients, distinctly enough,

that Caspar Schiller's practice, at that point of time, did not much

exceed that of a third-class Surgeon, and was scarcely adequate, as

above stated, to support the thriftiest household. And therefore it is

not surprising that Schiller, intent on improving so bare a position,

should, at the breaking-out of the Seven-Years War, have anew sought a

military appointment, as withal more fit for employing his young

strength and ambitions.

'In the beginning of the year 1757 he went, accordingly, as Ensign and

Adjutant, into the Wuertemberg Regiment Prince Louis; which in several

of the campaigns in the Seven-Years War belonged to an auxiliary corps

of the Austrian Army.'--Was he at the _Ball of Fulda_, one wonders?

Yes, for certain! He was at the Ball of Fulda (tragi-comical Explosion

of a Ball, _not_ yet got to the dancing-point); and had to run for

life, as his Duke, in a highly-ridiculous manner, had already done.

And, again, tragically, it is certain that he stood on the fated

Austrian left-wing at the _Battle of Leuthen_; had his horse shot

under him there, and was himself nearly drowned in a quagmire,

struggling towards Breslau that night.[44]

[Footnote 44: See _Life of Friedrich_ (Book xix. chap. 8;

Book xviii. chap. 10), and Schiller Senior's rough bit of

Autobiography, called '_Meine Lebensgeschichte_,' in

_Schiller's Beziehungen zu Eltern, Geschwistern und der

Familie von Wolzogen_ (mentioned above), p. 1 et seqq.]

'In Bohemia this Corps was visited by an infectious fever, and

suffered by the almost pestilential disorder a good deal of loss. In

this bad time, Schiller, who by his temperance and frequent movement

in the open air had managed to retain perfect health, showed himself

very active and helpful; and cheerfully undertook every kind of

business in which he could be of use. He attended the sick, there

being a scarcity of Doctors; and served at the same time as Chaplain

to the Regiment, so far as to lead the Psalmody, and read the

Prayers. When, after this, he was changed into another Wuertemberg

Regiment, which served in Hessen and Thueringen, he employed every free

hour in filling up, by his own industrious study, the many deeply-felt

defects in his young schooling; and was earnestly studious. By his

perseverant zeal and diligence, he succeeded in the course of these

war-years in acquiring not only many medical, military and

agricultural branches of knowledge, but also, as his Letters prove, in

amassing a considerable amount of general culture. Nor did his

praiseworthy efforts remain without recognition and external reward.

At the end of the Seven-Years War, he had risen to be a Captain, and

had even saved a little money.

'His Wife, who, during these War-times, lived, on money sent by him,

in her Father's house at Marbach, he could only visit seldom, and for

short periods in winter-quarters, much as he longed for his faithful

Wife; who, after the birth of a Daughter, in September 1757, was

dearer to him than ever. But never had the rigid fetters of

War-discipline appeared more oppressive than when, two years later, in

November 1759, a Son, the Poet, was born. With joyful thanks to God,

he saluted this dear Gift of Heaven; in daily prayer commended Mother

and Child to "the Being of all Beings;" and waited now with impatience

the time when he should revisit his home, and those that were his

there. Yet there still passed four years before Father Schiller, on

conclusion of the Hubertsburg Peace, 1763, could return home from the

War, and again take up his permanent residence in his home-country.

Where, on his return, his first Garrison quarters were, whether at

Ludwigsburg, Cannstadt or what other place, is not known. On the other

hand, all likelihoods are, that, so soon as he could find it

possible, he carried over his Wife and his two Children, the little

Daughter Christophine six, and the little Friedrich now four, out of

Marbach to his own quarters, wherever these were.'

There is no date to the Neckar Inundation above mentioned; but we have

elsewhere evidence that the worthy Father Kodweis with his Wife, at

this time, still dwelt in their comfortable house in the Market-Place.

We know also, though it is not mentioned in the text, that their pious

Daughter struggled zealously to the last to alleviate their sore

poverty; and the small effect, so far as money goes, may testify how

poor and straitened the Schiller Family itself then was.

'With the Father's return out of War, there came a new element into

the Family, which had so long been deprived of its natural Guardian

and Counsellor. To be House-Father in the full sense of the word was

now all the more Captain Schiller's need and duty, the longer his

War-service had kept him excluded from the sacred vocation of Husband

and Father. For he was throughout a rational and just man, simple,

strong, expert, active for practical life, if also somewhat quick and

rough. This announced itself even in the outward make and look of him;

for he was of short stout stature and powerful make of limbs; the brow

high-arched, eyes sharp and keen. Withal, his erect carriage, his firm

step, his neat clothing, as well as his clear and decisive mode of

speech, all testified of strict military training; which also extended

itself over his whole domestic life, and even over the daily devotions

of the Family. For although the shallow Illuminationism of that period

had produced some influence on his religious convictions, he held fast

by the pious principles of his forebears; read regularly to his

household out of the Bible; and pronounced aloud, each day, the

Morning and Evening Prayer. And this was, in his case, not merely an

outward decorous bit of discipline, but in fact the faithful

expression of his Christian conviction, that man's true worth and true

happiness can alone be found in the fear of the Lord, and the moral

purity of his heart and conduct. He himself had even, in the manner of

those days, composed a long Prayer, which he in later years addressed

to God every morning, and which began with the following lines:

True Watcher of Israel!

To Thee be praise, thanks and honour.

Praying aloud I praise Thee,

That earth and Heaven may hear.[45]

[Footnote 45: