'But nothing did the Mother forward with more eagerness, by every

opportunity, than the kindling inclination of her Son to become a

Preacher; which even showed itself in his sports. Mother or Sister had

to put a little cowl on his head, and pin round him by way of surplice

a bit of black apron; then would he mount a chair and begin earnestly

to preach; ranging together in his own way, not without some traces of

coherency, all that he had retained from teaching and church-visiting

in this kind, and interweaving it with verses of songs. The Mother,

who listened attentively and with silent joy, put a higher meaning

into this childish play; and, in thought, saw her Son already stand in

the Pulpit, and work, rich in blessings, in a spiritual office. The

spiritual profession was at that time greatly esteemed, and gave

promise of an honourable existence. Add to this, that the course of

studies settled for young Wuertemberg Theologians not only offered

important pecuniary furtherances and advantages, but also morally the

fewest dangers. And thus the prudent and withal pious Father, too, saw

no reason to object to this inclination of the Son and wish of the

Mother.

'It had almost happened, however, that the Latin School, in

Ludwigsburg (where our Fritz received the immediately preparatory

teaching for his calling) had quite disgusted him with his destination

for theology. The Teacher of Religion in the Institute, a

narrow-minded, angry-tempered Pietist,' as we have seen, 'used the sad

method of tormenting his scholars with continual rigorous, altogether

soulless, drillings and trainings in matters of mere creed; nay he

threatened often to whip them thoroughly, if, in the repetition of the

catechism, a single word were wrong. And thus to the finely-sensitive

Boy instruction was making hateful to him what domestic influences had

made dear. Yet these latter did outweigh and overcome, in the end; and

he remained faithful to his purpose of following a spiritual career.

'When young Schiller, after the completion of his course at the Latin

School, 1777, was to be confirmed, his Mother and her Husband came

across to Ludwigsburg the day before that solemn ceremony. Just on

their arrival, she saw her Son wandering idle and unconcerned about

the streets; and impressively represented to him how greatly his

indifference to the highest and most solemn transaction of his young

life troubled her. Struck and affected hereby, the Boy withdrew; and,

after a few hours, handed to his Parents a German Poem, expressive of

his feelings over the approaching renewal of his baptismal covenant.

The Father, who either hadn't known the occasion of this, or had

looked upon his Son's idling on the street with less severe eyes, was

highly astonished, and received him mockingly with the question, "Hast

thou lost thy senses, Fritz?" The Mother, on the other hand, was

visibly rejoiced at that poetic outpouring, and with good cause. For,

apart from all other views of the matter, she recognised in it how

firmly her Son's inclination was fixed on the study of Theology.'--(This

anecdote, if it were of any moment whatever, appears to be a little

doubtful.)

'The painfuler, therefore, was it to the Mother's heart when her Son,

at the inevitable entrance into the Karl's School, had to give-up

Theology; and renounce withal, for a long time, if not forever, her

farther guidance and influence. But she was too pious not to recognise

by degrees, in this change also, a Higher Hand; and could trustfully

expect the workings of the same. Besides, her Son clung so tenderly to

her, that at least there was no separation of him from the Mother's

heart to be dreaded. The heart-warm attachment of childish years to

the creed taught him by his Mother might, and did, vanish; but not the

attachment to his Mother herself whose dear image often enough charmed

back the pious sounds and forms of early days, and for a time scared

away doubts and unbelief.

'Years came and went; and Schiller, at last, about the end of 1780,

stept out of the Academy, into the actual world, which he as yet knew

only by hearsay. Delivered from that long unnatural constraint of body

and spirit, he gave free course to his fettered inclinations; and

sought, as in Poetry so also in Life, unlimited freedom! The tumults

of passion and youthful buoyancy, after so long an imprisonment, had

their sway; and embarrassments in money, their natural consequence,

often brought him into very sad moods.

'In this season of time, so dangerous for the moral purity of the

young man, his Mother again was his good Genius; a warning and

request, in her soft tone of love sufficed to recall youthful levity

within the barriers again, and restore the balance. She anxiously

contrived, too, that the Son, often and willingly, visited his

Father's house. Whenever Schiller had decided to give himself a good

day, he wandered out with some friend as far as Solituede.' (Only some

four or five miles.) '"What a baking and a roasting then went on by

that good soul," says one who witnessed it, "for the dear Prodigy of a

Son and the comrade who had come with him; for whom the good Mother

never could do enough! Never have I seen a better maternal heart, a

more excellent, more domestic, more womanly woman."

'The admiring recognition which the Son had already found among his

youthful friends, and in wider circles, was no less grateful to her

heart than the gradual perception that his powerful soul, welling

forth from the interior to the outward man, diffused itself into his

very features, and by degrees even advantageously altered the

curvatures and the form of his body. His face about this time got rid

of its freckles and irregularities of skin; and strikingly improved,

moreover, by the circumstance that the hitherto rather drooping nose

gradually acquired its later aquiline form. And withal, the youthful

Poet, with the growing consciousness of his strength and of his worth,

assumed an imposing outward attitude; so that a witty Stuttgart Lady,

whose house Schiller often walked past, said of him: "Regiment's Dr.

Schiller steps out as if the Duke were one of his inferior servants!"

'The indescribable impression which the _Robbers_, the gigantic

first-born of a Karl's Scholar, made in Stuttgart, communicated itself

to the Mother too; innocently she gave herself up to the delight of

seeing her Son's name wondered at and celebrated; and was, in her

Mother-love, inventive enough to overcome all doubts and risks which

threatened to dash her joy. By Christophine's mediations, and from the

Son himself as well, she learned many a disquieting circumstance,

which for the present had to be carefully concealed from her Husband;

but nothing whatever could shake her belief in her Son and his talent.

Without murmur, with faithful trust in God, she resigned herself even

to the bitter necessity of losing for a long time her only Son; having

once got to see, beyond disputing, that his purpose was firm to

withdraw himself by flight from the Duke's despotic interference with

his poetical activity as well as with his practical procedures; and

that this purpose of his was rigorously demanded by the circumstances.

Yet a sword went through her soul when Schiller, for the last time,

appeared at Solituede, secretly to take leave of her.' Her feelings on

this tragic occasion have been described above; and may well be

pictured as among the painfulest, tenderest and saddest that a

Mother's heart could have to bear. Our Author continues:

'In reality, it was to the poor Mother a hard and lamentable time.

Remembrance of the lately bright and safe-looking situation, now

suddenly rent asunder and committed to the dubious unknown; anxiety

about their own household and the fate of her Son; the Father's just

anger, and perhaps some tacit self-reproach that she had favoured a

dangerous game by keeping it concealed from her honest-hearted

Husband,--lay like crushing burdens on her heart. And if many a thing

did smooth itself, and many a thing, which at first was to be feared,

did not take place, one thing remained fixed continually,--painful

anxiety about her Son. To the afflicted Mother, in this heavy time,

Frau von Wolzogen devoted the most sincere and beneficent sympathy; a

Lady of singular goodness of heart, who, during Schiller's eight

hidden months at Bauerbach, frequently went out to see his Family at

Solituede. By her oral reports about Schiller, whom she herself several

times visited at Bauerbach, his Parents were more soothed than by his

own somewhat excited Letters. With reference to this magnanimous

service of friendship, Schiller wrote to her at Stuttgart in February

1783: "A Letter to my Parents is getting on its way; yet, much as I

had to speak of you, I have said nothing whatever" (from prudent

motives) "of your late appearance here, or of the joyful moments of

our conversation together. You yourself still, therefore, have all

that to tell, and you will presumably find a pair of attentive

hearers." Frau von Wolzogen ventured also to apply to a high court

lady, Countess von Hohenheim' (Duke's _finale_ in the _illicit_ way,

whom he at length wedded), 'personally favourable to Schiller, and to

direct her attention, before all, upon the heavy-laden Parents. Nor

was this without effect. For the Countess's persuasion seems

essentially to have contributed to the result that Duke Karl, out of

respect for the deserving Father, left the evasion of his own Pupil

unpunished.

'It must, therefore, have appeared to the still-agitated Mother, who

reverenced the Frau von Wolzogen as her helpful guardian, a flagrant

piece of ingratitude, when she learnt that her Son was allowing

himself to be led into a passionate love for the blooming young

Daughter of his Benefactress. She grieved and mourned in secret to see

him exposed to new storms; foreseeing clearly, in this passion, a

ready cause for his removal from Bauerbach. To such agitations her

body was no longer equal; a creeping, eating misery undermined her

health. She wrote to her Son at Mannheim, with a soft shadow of

reproof, that in this year, since his absence, she had become ten

years older in health and looks. Not long after, she had actually to

take to bed, because of painful cramps, which, proceeding from the

stomach, spread themselves over breast, head, back and loins. The

medicines which the Son, upon express account of symptoms by the

Father, prescribed for her, had no effect. By degrees, indeed, these

cramps abated or left-off; but she tottered about in a state of

sickness, years long: the suffering mind would not let the body come

to strength. For though her true heart was filled with a pious love,

which hopes all, believes and suffers all, yet she was neither blind

to the faults of her Son, nor indifferent to the thought of seeing her

Family's good repute and well-being threatened by his non-performances

and financial confusions.

'With the repose and peace which the news of her Son's appointment to

Jena, and intended marriage, had restored to his Family, there

appeared also (beginning of 1790) an improvement to be taking place in

the Mother's health. Learning this by a Letter from his Father,

Schiller wrote back with lightened heart: "How welcome, dearest

Father, was your last Letter to me, and how necessary! I had, the very

day before, got from Christophine the sad news that my dearest

Mother's state had grown so much worse; and what a blessed turn now

has this weary sickness taken! If in the future _regimen vitae_ (diet

arrangements) of my dearest Mother, there is strict care taken, her

long and many sufferings, with the source of them, may be removed.

Thanks to a merciful Providence, which saves and preserves for us the

dear Mother of our youth. My soul is moved with tenderness and

gratitude. I had to think of her as lost to us forever; and she has

now been given back." In reference to his approaching marriage with

Lottchen von Lengefeld, he adds, "How did it lacerate my heart to

think that my dearest Mother might not live to see the happiness of

her Son! Heaven bless you with thousandfold blessings, best Father,

and grant to my dear Mother a cheerful and painless life!"

'Soon, however, his Mother again fell sick, and lay in great danger.

Not till August following could the Father announce that she was

saved, and from day to day growing stronger. The annexed history of

the disorder seemed so remarkable to Schiller, that he thought of

preparing it for the public; unless the Physician, Court-Doctor

Consbruch, liked better to send it out in print himself. "On this

point," says Schiller, "I will write to him by the first post; and

give him my warmest thanks for the inestimable service he has done us

all, by his masterly cure of our dear Mamma; and for his generous and

friendly behaviour throughout." "How heartily, my dearest Parents,"

writes he farther, "did it rejoice us both" (this Letter is of 29th

December; on the 20th February of that year he had been wedded to his

Lotte), "this good news of the still-continuing improvement of our

dearest Mother! With full soul we both of us join in the thanks which

you give to gracious Heaven for this recovery; and our heart now gives

way to the fairest hopes that Providence, which herein overtops our

expectations, will surely yet prepare a joyful meeting for us all once

more."

'Two years afterwards this hope passed into fulfilment. The Mother

being now completely cured of her last disorder, there seized her so

irresistible a longing for her Son, that even her hesitating Husband,

anxious lest her very health should suffer, at last gave his consent

to the far and difficult journey to Jena. On the 3d Sept. 1792,

Schiller, in joyful humour, announces to his friend in Dresden, "Today

I have received from home the very welcome tidings that my good

Mother, with one of my Sisters, is to visit us here this month. Her

arrival falls at a good time, when I hope to be free and loose from

labour; and then we have ahead of us mere joyful undertakings." The

Mother came in company with her youngest Daughter, bright little Nane,

or Nanette; and surprised him two days sooner than, by the Letters

from Solituede, he had expected her. Unspeakable joy and sweet sorrow

seized Mother and Son to feel themselves, after ten years of

separation, once more in each other's arms. The long journey, bad

weather and roads had done her no harm. "She has altered a little, in

truth," writes he to Koerner, "from what she was ten years ago; but

after so many sicknesses and sorrows, she still has a healthy look. It

rejoices me much that things have so come about, that I have her with

me again, and can be a joy to her."

'The Mother likewise soon felt herself at home and happy in the

trusted circle of her children; only too fast flew-by the beautiful

and happy days, which seemed to her richly to make amends for so many

years of sorrows and cares. Especially it did her heart good to see

for herself what a beneficent influence the real and beautiful

womanhood of her Daughter-in-law exercised upon her Son. Daily she

learnt to know the great advantages of mind and heart in her; daily

she more deeply thanked God that for her Son, who, on account even of

his weak health, was not an altogether convenient Husband, there had

been so tender-hearted and so finely-cultivated a Wife given him as

life-companion. The conviction that the domestic happiness of her Son

was secure contributed essentially also to alleviate the pain of

departure.

'Still happier days fell to her when Schiller, stirred up by her

visit, came the year after, with his Wife, to Swabia; and lived there

from August 1793 till May 1794. It was a singular and as if

providential circumstance, which did not escape the pious Mother, that

Schiller, in the same month in which he had, eleven years ago, hurried

and in danger, fled out of Stuttgart to Ludwigsburg, should now in

peace and without obstruction come, from Heilbronn by the same

Ludwigsburg, to the near neighbourhood of his Parents. With bitter

tears of sorrow, her eye had then followed the fugitive, in his dark

trouble and want of everything; with sweet tears of joy she now

received her fame-crowned Son, whom God, through sufferings and

mistakes and wanderings, had led to happiness and wisdom. The birth of

the Grandson gave to her life a new charm, as if of youth returned.

She felt herself highly favoured that God had spared her life to see

her dear Son's first-born with her own eyes. It was a touching

spectacle to see the Grandmother as she sat by the cradle of the

little "Gold Son," and listened to every breath-drawing of the child;

or when, with swelling heart, she watched the approaching steps of her

Son, and observed his true paternal pleasure over his first-born.

'Well did the excellent Grandmother deserve such refreshment of heart;

for all-too soon there came again upon her troublous and dark days.

Schiller had found her stronger and cheerfuler than on her prior visit

to Jena; and had quitted his Home-land with the soothing hope that his

good Mother would reach a long and happy age. Nor could he have the

least presentiment of the events which, three years later, burst-in,

desolating and destroying, upon his family, and brought the health and

life of his dear Mother again into peril. It is above stated, in our

sketch of the Husband, in what extraordinary form the universal public

misery, under which, in 1796, all South Germany was groaning, struck

the Schiller Family at Solituede. Already on the 21st March of this

year, Schiller had written to his Father, "How grieved I am for our

good dear Mother, on whom all manner of sorrows have stormed-down in

this manner! But what a mercy of God it is, too, that she still has

strength left not to sink under these circumstances, but to be able

still to afford you so much help! Who would have thought, six or seven

years ago, that she, who was so infirm and exhausted, would now be

serving you all as support and nurse? In such traits I recognise a

good Providence which watches over us; and my heart is touched by it

to the core."

'Meanwhile the poor Mother's situation grew ever frightfuler from day

to day; and it needed her extraordinary strength of religious faith to

keep her from altogether sinking under the pains, sorrows and toils,

which she had for so many weeks to bear all alone, with the help only

of a hired maid. The news of such misery threw Schiller into the

deepest grief. He saw only one way of sending comfort and help to his

poor Mother, and immediately adopted it; writing to his eldest Sister

in Meiningen, as follows:

"Thou too wilt have heard, dearest Sister, that Luise has

fallen seriously ill; and that our poor dear Mother is

thereby robbed of all consolation. If Luise's case were to

grow worse, or our Father's even, our poor Mother would be

left entirely forsaken. Such misery would be unspeakable.

Canst thou make it possible, think'st thou, that thy

strength could accomplish such a thing? If so, at once make

the journey thither. What it costs I will pay with joy.

Reinwald might accompany thee; or, if he did not like that,

come over to me here, where I would brother-like take care

of him.

"Consider, my dear Sister, that Parents, in such extremity

of need, have the justest claim upon their children for

help. O God, why am not I myself in such health as in my

journey thither three years ago! Nothing should have

hindered me from hastening to them; but that I have scarcely

gone over the threshold for a year past makes me so weak

that I either could not stand the journey, or should fall

down into sickness myself in that afflicted house. Alas, I

can do nothing for them but help with money; and, God knows,

I do that with joy. Consider that our dear Mother, who has

held up hitherto with an admirable courage, must at last

break down under so many sorrows. I know thy childlike

loving heart, I know the perfect fairness and equitable

probity of my Brother-in-law. Both these facts will teach

you better than I under the circumstances. Salute him

cordially.--Thy faithful Brother,

"SCHILLER."

Christophine failed not to go, as we saw above. 'From the time of her

arrival there, no week passed without Schiller's writing home; and his

Letters much contributed to strengthen and support the heavy-laden

Mother. The assurance of being tenderly loved by such a Son was

infinitely grateful to her; she considered him as a tried faithful

friend, to whom one, without reluctance, yields his part in one's own

sorrows. Schiller thus expressed himself on this matter in a Letter to

Christophine of 9th May. "The last Letter of my dear good Mother has

deeply affected me. Ah, how much has this good Mother already

undergone; and with what patience and courage has she borne it! How

touching is it that she opened her heart to me; and what woe was mine

that I cannot immediately comfort and soothe her! Hadst thou not gone,

I could not have stayed here. The situation of our dear ones was

horrible; so solitary, without help from loving friends, and as if

forsaken by their two children, living far away! I dare not think of

it. What did not our good Mother do for _her_ Parents; and how greatly

has she deserved the like from us! Thou wilt comfort her, dear Sister;

and me thou wilt find heartily ready for all that thou canst propose

to me. Salute our dear Parents in the tenderest way, and tell them

that their Son feels their sorrows."

'The excellent Christophine did her utmost in these days of sorrow.

She comforted her Mother, and faithfully nursed her Father to his last

breath; nay she saved him and the house, with great presence of mind,

on a sudden inburst of French soldiers. Nor did she return to

Meiningen till all tumult of affairs was past, and the Mother was

again a little composed. And composure the Mother truly needed; for in

a short space she had seen a hopeful Daughter and a faithful Husband

laid in their graves; and by the death of her Husband a union severed

which, originating in mutual affection, had for forty-seven years been

blessed with the same mutual feeling. To all which in her position was

now added the doubly-pressing care about her future days. Here,

however, the Son so dear to her interposed with loving readiness, and

the tender manner natural to him:

"You, dear Mother," he writes, "must now choose wholly for yourself

what your way of life is to be; and let there be, I charge you, no

care about me or others in your choice. Ask yourself where you would

like best to live,--here with me, or with Christophine, or in our

native country with Luise. Whithersoever your choice falls, there will

we provide the means. For the present, of course, in the circumstances

given, you would remain in Wuertemberg a little while; and in that time

all would be arranged. I think you might pass the winter months most

easily at Leonberg" (pleasant Village nearest to Solituede); "and then

with the Spring you would come with Luise to Meiningen; where,

however, I would expressly advise that you had a household of your

own. But of all this, more next time. I would insist upon your coming

here to me, if I did not fear things would be too foreign and too

unquiet for you. But were you once in Meiningen, we will find means

enough to see each other, and to bring your dear Grandchildren to you.

It were a great comfort, dearest Mother, at least to know you, for the

first three or four weeks after Christophine's departure, among people

of your acquaintance; as the sole company of our Luise would too much

remind you of times that are gone. But should there be no Pension

granted by the Duke, and the Sale of Furniture, &c. did not detain you

too long, you might perhaps travel with both the Sisters to Meiningen;

and there compose yourself in the new world so much the sooner. All

that you need for a convenient life must and shall be yours, dear

Mother. It shall be henceforth my care that no anxiety on that head be

left you. After so many sorrows, the evening of your life must be

rendered cheerful, or at least peaceful; and I hope you will still, in

the bosom of your Children and Grandchildren, enjoy many a good day."

In conclusion, he bids her send him everything of Letters and MSS.

which his dear Father left; hereby to fulfil his last wish; which also

shall have its uses to his dear Mother.

'The Widow had a Pension granted by the Duke, of 200 gulden' (near

20_l._); 'and therein a comfortable proof that official people

recognised the worth of her late Husband, and held him in honour. She

remained in her native country; and lived the next three years,

according to her Son's counsel, with Luise in the little village of

Leonberg, near to Solituede, where an arrangement had been made for

her. Here a certain Herr Roos, a native of Wuertemberg, had made some

acquaintance with her, in the winter 1797-8; to whom we owe the

following sketch of portraiture. "She was a still-agreeable old person

of sixty-five or six, whose lean wrinkly face still bespoke

cheerfulness and kindliness. Her thin hair was all gray; she was of

short" (middle) "stature, and her attitude slightly stooping; she had

a pleasant tone of voice; and her speech flowed light and cheerful.

Her bearing generally showed native grace, and practical acquaintance

with social life."

'Towards the end of 1799, there opened to the Mother a new friendly

outlook in the marriage of her Luise to the young Parson, M. Frankh,

in Clever-Sulzbach, a little town near Heilbronn. The rather as the

worthy Son-in-law would on no account have the Daughter separated from

the Mother.' Error on Saupe's part. The Mother Schiller continued to

occupy her own house at Leonberg till near the end of her life; she

naturally made frequent little visits to Clever-Sulzbach; and her

death took place there.[60] 'Shortly before the marriage, Schiller

wrote, heartily wishing Mother and Sister happiness in this event. It

would be no small satisfaction to his Sister, he said, that she could

lodge and wait upon her good dear Mother in a well-appointed house of

her own; to his Mother also it must be a great comfort to see her

children all settled, and to live up again in a new generation.

[Footnote 60: _Beziehungen_, p. 197, n.]

'Almost contemporary with the removal of the Son from Jena to Weimar

was the Mother's with her Daughter to Clever-Sulzbach. The peaceful

silence which now environed them in their rural abode had the most

salutary influence both on her temper of mind and on her health; all

the more as Daughter and Son-in-law vied with each other in respectful

attention to her. The considerable distance from her Son, when at

times it fell heavy on her, she forgot in reading his Letters; which

were ever the unaltered expression of the purest and truest

child-love. She forgot it too, as often, over the immortal works out

of which his powerful spirit spoke to her. She lived to hear the name

of Friedrich Schiller celebrated over all Germany with reverent

enthusiasm; and ennobled by the German People sooner and more

gloriously than an Imperial Patent could do it. Truly a Mother that

has had such joys in her Son is a happy one; and can and may say,

"Lord, now let me depart in peace; I have lived enough!"

'In the beginning of the year 1802, Schiller's Mother again fell ill.

Her Daughter Luise hastened at once to Stuttgart, where she then

chanced to be, and carried her home to Clever-Sulzbach, to be under

her own nursing. So soon as Schiller heard of this, he wrote, in

well-meant consideration of his Sister's frugal economies, to Dr.

Hoven, a friend of his youth at Ludwigsburg; and empowered him to take

his Mother over thither, under his own medical care: he, Schiller,

would with pleasure pay all that was necessary for lodging and

attendance. But the Mother stayed with her Daughter; wrote, however,

in her last Letter to Schiller: "Thy unwearied love and care for me

God reward with thousandfold love and blessings! Ah me! another such

Son there is not in the world!" Schiller, in his continual anxiety

about the dear Patient, had his chief solace in knowing her to be in

such tender hands; and he wrote at once, withal, to his Sister: "Thou

wilt permit me also that on my side I try to do something to lighten

these burdens for thee. I therefore make this agreement with my

Bookseller Cotta that he shall furnish my dear Mother with the

necessary money to make good, in a convenient way, the extra outlays

which her illness requires."

'Schiller's hope, supported by earlier experiences, that kind Nature

would again help his Mother, did not find fulfilment. On the contrary,

her case grew worse; she suffered for months the most violent pains;

and was visibly travelling towards Death. Two days before her

departure, she had the Medallion of her Son handed down to her from

the wall; and pressed it to her heart; and, with tears, thanked God,

who had given her such good children. On the 29th April 1802, she

passed away, in the 69th year of her age. Schiller, from the tenor of

the last news received, had given up all hope; and wrote, in

presentiment of the bitter loss, to his Sister Frankh at

Clever-Sulzbach:

"Thy last letter, dearest Sister, leaves me without hope of

our dear Mother. For a fortnight past I have looked with

terror for the tidings of her departure; and the fact that

thou hast not written in that time, is a ground of fear, not

of comfort. Alas! under her late circumstances, life was no

good to her more; a speedy and soft departure was the one

thing that could be wished and prayed for. But write me,

dear Sister, when thou hast recovered thyself a little from

these mournful days. Write me minutely of her condition and

her utterances in the last hours of her life. It comforts

and composes me to busy myself with her, and to keep the

dear image of my Mother living before me.

"And so they are both gone from us, our dear Parents; and we

Three alone remain. Let us be all the nearer to each other,

dear Sister; and believe always that thy Brother, though so

far away from thee and thy Sister, carries you both warmly

in his heart; and in all the accidents of this life will

eagerly meet you with his brotherly love.

"But I can write no more today. Write me a few words soon. I

embrace thee and thy dear Husband with my whole heart; and

thank him again for all the love he has shown our departed

Mother.

"Your true Brother,

"SCHILLER."

'Soon after this Letter, he received from Frankh, his Brother-in-law,

the confirmation of his sad anticipations. From his answer to Frankh

we extract the following passage: "May Heaven repay with rich interest

the dear Departed One all that she has suffered in life, and done for

her children! Of a truth she deserved to have loving children; for she

was a good Daughter to her suffering necessitous Parents; and the

childlike solicitude she always had for them well deserved the like

from us. You, my dear Brother-in-law, have shared the assiduous care

of my Sister for Her that is gone; and acquired thereby the justest

claim upon my brotherly love. Alas, you had already given your

spiritual support and filial service to my late Father, and taken on

yourself the duties of his absent Son. How cordially I thank you!

Never shall I think of my departed Mother without, at the same time,

blessing the memory of him who alleviated so kindly the last days of

her life." He then signifies the wish to have, from the effects of his

dear Mother, something that, without other worth, will remain a

continual memorial of her. And was in effect heartily obliged to his

Brother, who sent him a ring which had been hers. "It is the most

precious thing that he could have chosen for me," writes he to Luise;

"and I will keep it as a sacred inheritance." Painfully had it touched

him, withal, that the day of his entering his new house at Weimar had

been the death-day of his Mother. He noticed this singular

coincidence, as if in mournful presentiment of his own early decease,

as a singular concatenation of events by the hand of Destiny.

'A Tree and a plain stone Cross, with the greatly-comprehensive short

inscription, "Here rests Schiller's Mother," now mark her grave in

Clever-Sulzbach Churchyard.'

III. THE SISTERS.

Saupe has a separate Chapter on each of the three Sisters of Schiller;

but most of what concerns them, especially in relation to their

Brother, has been introduced incidentally above. Besides which,

Saupe's flowing pages are too long for our space; so that instead of

translating, henceforth, we shall have mainly to compile from Saupe

and others, and faithfully abridge.

_Christophine (born 4 Sept. 1757; married 'June 1786;' died 31 August

1847)._[61]

[Footnote 61: Here, from Schiller Senior himself

(_Autobiography_, called "_Curriculum Vitae_," in

_Beziehungen_, pp. 15-18), is a List of his six

Children;--the two that died so young we have marked in

italics:

1. 'ELISABETH CHRISTOPHINE FRIEDERICKE, born 4 September

1757, at Marbach.

2. 'JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH, born 10 November 1759, at

Marbach.

3. 'LUISE DOROTHEA KATHARINA, born 24 January 1766, at Lorch.

4. '_Maria Charlotte, born 20 November 1768, at Ludwigsburg:

died 29 March 1774; age 5 gone._

5. '_Beata Friedericke, born 4 May 1773, at Ludwigsburg: died

22 December, same year._

6. 'CAROLINE CHRISTIANE, born 8 September 1777, at

Solituede;'--(this is she they call, in fond diminutive,

_Nane_ or _Nanette_.)]

Till Schiller's flight, in which what endless interest and industries

Christophine had we have already seen, the young girls,--Christophine

25, Luise 16, Nanette a rosy little creature of 5,--had known no

misfortune; nor, except Christophine's feelings on the death of the

two little Sisters, years ago, no heavy sorrow. At Solituede, but for

the general cloud of anxiety and grief about their loved and gifted

Brother and his exile, their lives were of the peaceablest

description: diligence in household business, sewing, spinning,

contented punctuality in all things; in leisure hours eager reading

(or at times, on Christophine's part, drawing and painting, in which

she attained considerable excellence), and, as choicest recreation,

walks amid the flourishing Nurseries, Tree-avenues, and fine solid

industries and forest achievements of Papa. Mention is made of a

Cavalry Regiment stationed at Solituede; the young officers of which,

without society in that dull place, and with no employment except

parade, were considerably awake to the comely Jungfers Schiller and

their promenadings in those pleasant woods: one Lieutenant of them

(afterwards a Colonel, 'Obrist von Miller of Stuttgart') is said to

have manifested honourable aspirations and intentions towards

Christophine,--which, however, and all connection with whom or his

comrades, the rigorously prudent Father strictly forbade; his piously

obedient Daughters, Christophine it is rather thought with some

regret, immediately conforming. A Portrait of this Von Miller, painted

by Christophine, still exists, it would appear, among the papers of

the Schillers.[62]

[Footnote 62: _Beziehungen_, p. 217 n.]

The great transaction of her life, her marriage with Reinwald, Court

Librarian of Meiningen, had its origin in 1783; the fruit of that

forced retreat of Schiller's to Bauerbach, and of the eight months he

spent there, under covert, anonymously and in secret, as 'Dr. Ritter,'

with Reinwald for his one friend and adviser. Reinwald, who commanded

the resources of an excellent Library, and of a sound understanding,

long seriously and painfully cultivated, was of essential use to

Schiller; and is reckoned to be the first real guide or useful

counsellor he ever had in regard to Literature. One of Christophine's

Letters to her Brother, written at her Father's order, fell by

accident on Reinwald's floor, and was read by him,--awakening in his

over-clouded, heavy-laden mind a gleam of hope and aspiration. "This

wise, prudent, loving-hearted and judicious young woman, of such clear

and salutary principles of wisdom as to economics too, what a blessing

she might be to me as Wife in this dark, lonely home of mine!" Upon

which hint he spake; and Schiller, as we saw above, who loved him

well, but knew him to be within a year or two of fifty, always ailing

in health, taciturn, surly, melancholy, and miserably poor, was

rebuked by Papa for thinking it questionable. We said, it came about

all the same. Schiller had not yet left Mannheim for the second and

last time, when, in 1784, Christophine paid him a visit, escorted

thither by Reinwald; who had begged to have that honour allowed him;

having been at Solituede, and, either there or on his road to Mannheim,

concluded his affair. Streicher, an eyewitness of this visit, says,

"The healthy, cheerful and blooming Maiden had determined to share her

future lot with a man whose small income and uncertain health seemed

to promise little joy. Nevertheless her reasons were of so noble a

sort, that she never repented, in times following, this sacrifice of

her fancy to her understanding, and to a Husband of real worth."[63]

They were married "June 1786;" and for the next thirty, or indeed, in

all, sixty years, Christophine lived in her dark new home at

Meiningen; and never, except in that melancholy time of sickness,

mortality and war, appears to have seen Native Land and Parents again.

[Footnote 63: _Schwab_, p. 173, citing Streicher's words.]

What could have induced, in the calm and well-discerning Christophine,

such a resolution, is by no means clear; Saupe, with hesitation, seems

to assign a religious motive, "the desire of doing good." Had that

abrupt and peremptory dismissal of Lieutenant Miller perhaps something

to do with it? Probably her Father's humour on the matter, at all

times so anxious and zealous to see his Daughters settled, had a chief

effect. It is certain, Christophine consulted her Parish Clergyman on

the affair; and got from him, as Saupe shows us, an affirmatory or at

least permissive response. Certain also that she summoned her own best

insight of all kinds to the subject, and settled it calmly and

irrevocably with whatever faculty was in her.

To the candid observer Reinwald's gloomy ways were not without their

excuse. Scarcely above once before this, in his now longish life, had

any gleam of joy or success shone on him, to cheer the strenuous and

never-abated struggle. His father had been Tutor to the Prince of

Meiningen, who became Duke afterwards, and always continued to hold

him in honour. Father's death had taken place in 1751, young Reinwald

then in his fourteenth year. After passing with distinction his

three-years curriculum at Jena, Reinwald returned to Meiningen,

expecting employment and preferment;--the rather perhaps as his

Mother's bit of property got much ruined in the Seven-Years War then

raging. Employment Reinwald got, but of the meanest _Kanzlist_

(Clerkship) kind; and year after year, in spite of his merits, patient

faithfulness and undeniable talent, no preferment whatever. At length,

however, in 1762, the Duke, perhaps enlightened by experience as to

Reinwald, or by personal need of such a talent, did send him as

_Geheimer Kanzlist_ (kind of Private Secretary) to Vienna, with a

view to have from him reports "about politics and literary objects"

there. This was an extremely enjoyable position for the young man; but

it lasted only till the Duke's death, which followed within two years.

Reinwald was then immediately recalled by the new Duke (who, I think,

had rather been in controversy with his Predecessor), and thrown back

to nearly his old position; where, without any regard had to his real

talents and merits, he continued thirteen years, under the title of

_Consistorial Kanzlist_; and, with the miserablest fraction of yearly

pay, 'carried on the slavish, spirit-killing labours required of him.'

In 1776,--uncertain whether as promotion or as mere abridgment of

labour,--he was placed in the Library as now; that is to say, had

become _Sub_-Librarian, at a salary of about 15_l._, with all the

Library duties to do; an older and more favoured gentleman, perhaps in

lieu of pension, enjoying the Upper Office, and doing none of the

work.

Under these continual pressures and discouragements poor Reinwald's

heart had got hardened into mutinous indignation, and his health had

broken down: so that, by this time, he was noted in his little world

as a solitary, taciturn, morose and gloomy man; but greatly respected

by the few who knew him better, as a clear-headed, true and faithful

person, much distinguished by intellectual clearness and veracity, by

solid scholarly acquirements and sterling worth of character. To bring

a little help or cheerful alleviation to such a down-pressed man, if a

wise and gentle Christophine could accomplish it, would surely be a

bit of well-doing; but it was an extremely difficult one!

The marriage was childless; not, in the first, or in any times of it,

to be called unhappy; but, as the weight of years was added,

Christophine's problem grew ever more difficult. She was of a

compassionate nature, and had a loving, patient and noble heart;

prudent she was; the skilfulest and thriftiest of financiers; could

well keep silence, too, and with a gentle stoicism endure much small

unreason. Saupe says withal, 'Nobody liked a laugh better, or could

laugh more heartily than she, even in her extreme old age.'--Christophine

herself makes no complaint, on looking back upon her poor Reinwald,

thirty years after all was over. Her final record of it is: "for

twenty-nine years we lived contentedly together." But her rugged

hypochondriac of a Husband, morbidly sensitive to the least

interruption of his whims and habitudes, never absent from their one

dim sitting-room, except on the days in which he had to attend at the

Library, was in practice infinitely difficult to deal with; and seems

to have kept her matchless qualities in continual exercise. He

belonged to the class called in Germany _Stubengelehrten_ (Closet

Literary-men), who publish little or nothing that brings them profit,

but are continually poring and studying. Study was the one consolation

he had in life; and formed his continual employment to the end of his

days. He was deep in various departments, Antiquarian, Philological,

Historical; deep especially in Gothic philology, in which last he did

what is reckoned a real feat,--he, Reinwald, though again it was

another who got the reward. He had procured somewhere, 'a Transcript

of the famous Anglo-Saxon Poem _Heliand_ (Saviour) from the Cotton

Library in England,' this he, with unwearied labour and to great

perfection, had at last got ready for the press; Translation,

Glossary, Original all in readiness;--but could find no Publisher,

nobody that would print without a premium. Not to earn _less_ than

nothing by his labour, he sent the Work to the Muenchen Library; where,

in after years, one Schmeller found it, and used it for an _editio

princeps_ of his own. _Sic vos non vobis_; heavy-laden Reinwald![64]--

[Footnote 64: _Schiller's Beziehungen_ (where many of

Christophine's _Letters_, beautiful all of them, are given).]

To Reinwald himself Christophine's presence and presidency in his dim

household were an infinite benefit,--though not much recognised by

him, but accepted rather as a natural tribute due to unfortunate

down-pressed worth, till towards the very end, when the singular merit

of it began to dawn upon him, like the brightness of the Sun when it

is setting. Poor man, he anxiously spent the last two weeks of his

life in purchasing and settling about a neat little cottage for

Christophine; where accordingly she passed her long widowhood, on

stiller terms, though not on less beneficent and humbly beautiful,

than her marriage had offered.

Christophine, by pious prudence, faith in Heaven, and in the good

fruits of real goodness even on Earth, had greatly comforted the

gloomy, disappointed, pain-stricken man; enlightened his darkness, and

made his poverty noble. _Simplex munditiis_ might have been her motto

in all things. Her beautiful Letters to her Brother are full of

cheerful, though also, it is true, sad enough, allusions to her

difficulties with Reinwald, and partial successes. Poor soul, her

hopes, too, are gently turned sometimes on a blessed future, which

might still lie ahead: of her at last coming, as a Widow, to live with

her Brother, in serene affection, like that of their childhood

together; in a calm blessedness such as the world held no other for

her! But gloomy Reinwald survived bright Schiller for above ten years;

and she had thirty more of lone widowhood, under limited conditions,

to spend after him, still in a noble, humbly-admirable, and even

happy and contented manner. She was the flower of the Schiller

Sisterhood, though all three are beautiful to us; and in poor Nane,

there is even something of poetic, and tragically pathetic. For one

blessing, Christophine 'lived almost always in good health.' Through

life it may be said of her, she was helpful to all about her, never

hindersome to any; and merited, and had, the universal esteem, from

high and low, of those she had lived among. At Meiningen, 31st August

1847, within a few days of her ninety-first year, without almost one

day's sickness, a gentle stroke of apoplexy took her suddenly away,

and so ended what may be called a _Secular_ Saintlike existence,

mournfully beautiful, wise and noble to all that had beheld it.

_Nanette (born 8th September 1777, died 23d March 1796; age not yet

19)._

Of Nanette we were told how, in 1792, she charmed her Brother and his

Jena circle, by her recitations and her amiable enthusiastic nature;

and how, next year, on Schiller's Swabian visit, his love of her grew

to something of admiration, and practical hope of helping such a rich

talent and noble heart into some clear development,--when, two years

afterwards, death put, to the dear Nanette and his hopes about her, a

cruel end. We are now to give the first budding-out of those fine

talents and tendencies of poor Nanette, and that is all the history

the dear little Being has. Saupe proceeds:

'Some two years after Schiller's flight, Nanette as a child of six or

seven had, with her elder Sister Luise, witnessed the first

representation of Schiller's _Kabale und Liebe_ in the Stuttgart

theatre. With great excitement, and breath held-in, she had watched

the rolling-up of the curtain; and during the whole play no word

escaped her lips; but the excited glance of her eyes, and her

heightened colour, from act to act, testified her intense emotion. The

stormy applause with which her Brother's Play was received by the

audience made an indelible impression on her.

'The Players, in particular, had shone before her as in a magic light;

the splendour of which, in the course of years, rather increased than

diminished. The child's bright fancy loved to linger on those

never-to-be-forgotten people, by whom her Brother's Poem had been led

into her sight and understanding. The dawning thought, how glorious it

might be to work such wonders herself, gradually settled, the more she

read and heard of her dear Brother's poetic achievements, into the

ardent but secret wish of being herself able to represent his

Tragedies upon the stage. On her visit to Jena, and during her

Brother's abode in Swabia, she was never more attentive than when

Schiller spoke occasionally of the acting of his Pieces, or unfolded

his opinion of the Player's Art.

'The wish of Nanette, secretly nourished in this manner, to be able,

on the stage, which represents the world, to contribute to the glory

of her Brother, seized her now after his return with such force and

constancy, that Schiller's Sister-in-law, Caroline von Wolzogen, urged

him to yield to the same; to try his Sister's talent; and if it was

really distinguished, to let her enter this longed-for career.

Schiller had no love for the Player Profession; but as, in his then

influential connections in Weimar, he might steer clear of many a

danger, he promised to think the thing over. And thus this kind and

amiable protectress had the satisfaction of cheering Nanette's last

months with the friendly prospect that her wishes might be

fulfilled.--Schiller's hope, after a dialogue with Goethe on the

subject, had risen to certainty, when with the liveliest sorrow he

learnt that Nanette was ill of that contagious Hospital Fever, and, in

a few days more, that she was gone forever.'[65]

[Footnote 65: _Saupe_, pp. 150-5.]

Beautiful Nanette; with such a softly-glowing soul, and such a brief

tragically-beautiful little life! Like a Daughter of the rosy-fingered

Morn; her existence all a sun-gilt soft auroral cloud, and no sultry

Day, with its dusts and disfigurements, permitted to follow. Father

Schiller seems, in his rugged way, to have loved Nanette best of them

all; in an embarrassed manner, we find him more than once recommending

her to Schiller's help, and intimating what a glorious thing for her,

were it a possible one, education might be. He followed her in few

months to her long home; and, by his own direction, 'was buried in the

Churchyard at Gerlingen by her side.'

_Luise (born 24th January 1766; married 20th October 1799; died 14th

September 1836)._

Of Luise's life too, except what was shown above, there need little be

said. In the dismal pestilential days at Solituede, while her Father

lay dying, and poor Nanette caught the infection, Luise, with all her

tender assiduities and household talent, was there; but, soon after

Nanette's death, the fever seized her too; and she long lay

dangerously ill in that forlorn household; still weak, but slowly

recovering, when Christophine arrived.

The Father, a short while before his death, summoned to him that

excellent young Clergyman, Frankh, who had been so unweariedly kind to

them in this time of sickness when all neighbours feared to look in,

To ask him what his intentions towards Luise were. It was in presence

of the good old man that they made solemn promise to each other; and

at Leonberg, where thenceforth the now-widowed Mother's dwelling was,

they were formally betrothed; and some two years after that were

married.

Her Mother's death, so tenderly watched over, took place at their

Parsonage at Clever-Sulzbach, as we saw above. Frankh, about two years

after, was promoted to a better living, Moeckmuehl by name; and lived

there, a well-doing and respected Parson, till his death, in 1834;

which Luise's followed in September of the second year afterwards.

Their marriage lasted thirty-five years. Luise had brought him three

children; and seems to have been, in all respects, an excellent Wife.

She was ingenious in intellectuals as well as economics; had a taste

for poetry; a boundless enthusiasm for her Brother; seems to have been

an anxious Mother, often ailing herself but strenuously doing her best

at all times.

A touching memorial of Luise is Schiller's last Letter to her, Letter

of affectionate apology for long silence,--apology, and hope of doing

better,--written only a few weeks before his own death. It is as

follows:

"Weimar, 27th March 1805.

"Yes, it is a long time indeed, good dear Luise, since I

have written to thee; but it was not for amusements that I

forgot thee; it was because in this time I have had so many

hard illnesses to suffer, which put me altogether out of my

regular way; for many months I had lost all courage and

cheerfulness, and given up all hope of my recovery. In such

a humour one does not like to speak; and since then, on

feeling myself again better, there was, after the long

silence, a kind of embarrassment; and so it was still put

off. But now, when I have been anew encouraged by thy

sisterly love, I gladly join the thread again; and it shall,

if God will, not again be broken.

"Thy dear Husband's promotion to Moeckmuehl, which I learned

eight days ago from our Sister" (Christophine), "has given

us great joy, not only because it so much improves your

position, but also because it is so honourable a testimony

for my dear Brother-in-law's deserts. May you feel

yourselves right happy in these new relations, and right

long enjoy them! We too are got thereby a few miles nearer

you; and on a future journey to Franconia, which we are

every year projecting, we may the more easily get over to

you.

"How sorry am I, dear Sister, that thy health has suffered

so much; and that thou wert again so unfortunate with thy

confinement! Perhaps your new situation might permit you,

this summer, to visit some tonic watering-place, which might

do thee a great deal of good."--

"Of our Family here, my Wife will write thee more at large.

Our Children, this winter, have all had chicken-pox; and

poor little Emilie" (a babe of four months) "had much to

suffer in the affair. Thank God, things are all come round

with us again, and my own health too begins to confirm

itself.

"A thousand times I embrace thee, dear Sister, and my dear

Brother-in-law as well, whom I always wish from the heart to

have more acquaintance with. Kiss thy Children in my name;

may all go right happily with you, and much joy be in store!

How would our dear Parents have rejoiced in your good

fortune; and especially our dear Mother, had she been spared

to see it! Adieu, dear Luise. With my whole soul,

"Thy faithful Brother,

"SCHILLER."

Schiller's tone and behaviour to his Sisters is always beautifully

human and brotherlike, as here. Full of affection, sincerity and the

warmest truest desire to help and cheer. The noble loving Schiller;

so mindful always of the lowly, from his own wildly-dangerous and

lofty path! He was never rich, poor rather always; but of a spirit

royally munificent in these respects; never forgets the poor

"birthdays" of his Sisters, whom one finds afterwards gratefully

recognising their "beautiful dress" or the like!--

* * * * *

Of date some six weeks after this Letter to Luise, let us take from

Eyewitnesses one glimpse of Schiller's own deathbed. It is the eighth

day of his illness; his last day but one in this world:

'_Morning of 8th May 1805._-- --Schiller, on awakening from sleep,

asked to see his youngest Child. The Baby' Emilie, spoken of above,

'was brought. He turned his head round; took the little hand in his,

and, with an inexpressible look of love and sorrow, gazed into the

little face; then burst into bitter weeping, hid his face among the

pillows; and made a sign to take the child away.'--This little Emilie

is now the Baroness von Gleichen, Co-editress with her Cousin Wolzogen

of the clear and useful Book, _Beziehungen_, often quoted above. It

was to that same Cousin Wolzogen's Mother (Caroline von Wolzogen,

Authoress of the Biography), and in the course of this same day, that

Schiller made the memorable response, "Calmer, and calmer."--'Towards

evening he asked to see the Sun once more. The curtain was opened;

with bright eyes and face he gazed into the beautiful sunset. It was

his last farewell to Nature.

'_Thursday 9th May._ All the morning, his mind was wandering; he spoke

incoherent words, mostly in Latin. About three in the afternoon,

complete weakness came on; his breathing began to be interrupted.

About four, he asked for naphtha, but the last syllable died on his

tongue. He tried to write, but produced only three letters; in which,

however, the character of his hand was still visible. Till towards

six, no change. His Wife was kneeling at the bedside; he still pressed

her offered hand. His Sister-in-law stood, with the Doctor, at the

foot of the bed, and laid warm pillows on his feet, which were growing

cold. There now darted, as it were, an electrical spasm over all his

countenance; the head sank back; the profoundest repose transfigured

his face. His features were as those of one softly sleeping,'--wrapt

in hard-won Victory and Peace forevermore![66]--

[Footnote 66: _Schwab_, p. 627, citing Voss, an eyewitness;

and Caroline von Wolzogen herself.]

APPENDIX I.

NO. 1. PAGE 31.

DANIEL SCHUBART.

The enthusiastic discontent so manifest in the _Robbers_ has by some

been in part attributed to Schiller's intercourse with Schubart. This

seems as wise as the hypothesis of Gray's Alderman, who, after half a

century of turtle-soup, imputed the ruin of his health to eating two

unripe grapes: 'he felt them cold upon his stomach, the moment they

were over; he never got the better of them.' Schiller, it appears, saw

Schubart only once, and their conversation was not of a confidential

kind. For any influence this interview could have produced upon the

former, the latter could have merited no mention here: it is on other

grounds that we refer to him. Schubart's history, not devoid of

interest in itself, unfolds in a striking light the circumstances

under which Schiller stood at present; and may serve to justify the

violence of his alarms, which to the happy natives of our Island might

otherwise appear pusillanimous and excessive. For these reasons we

subjoin a sketch of it.

Schubart's character is not a new one in literature; nor is it strange

that his life should have been unfortunate. A warm genial spirit; a

glowing fancy, and a friendly heart; every faculty but diligence, and

every virtue but 'the understrapping virtue of discretion:' such is

frequently the constitution of the poet; the natural result of it also

has frequently been pointed out, and sufficiently bewailed. This man

was one of the many who navigate the ocean of life with 'more sail

than ballast;' his voyage contradicted every rule of seamanship, and

necessarily ended in a wreck.

Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart was born at Obersontheim in

Swabia, on the 26th of April 1739. His father, a well-meaning soul,

officiated there in the multiple capacity of schoolmaster, precentor,

and curate; dignities which, with various mutations and improvements,

he subsequently held in several successive villages of the same

district. Daniel, from the first, was a thing of inconsistencies; his

life proceeded as if by fits and starts. At school, for a while, he

lay dormant: at the age of seven he could not read, and had acquired

the reputation of a perfect dunce. But 'all at once,' says his

biographer, 'the rind which enclosed his spirit started asunder;' and

Daniel became the prodigy of the school! His good father determined to

make a learned man of him: he sent him at the age of fourteen to the

Nordlingen Lyceum, and two years afterwards to a similar establishment

at Nuernberg. Here Schubart began to flourish with all his natural

luxuriance; read classical and domestic poets; spouted, speculated;

wrote flowing songs; discovered 'a decided turn for music,' and even

composed tunes for the harpsichord! In short, he became an

acknowledged _genius_: and his parents consented that he should go to

Jena, and perform his _cursus_ of Theology.

Schubart's purposes were not at all like the decrees of Fate: he set

out towards Jena; and on arriving at Erlangen, resolved to proceed no

farther, but perform his _cursus_ where he was. For a time he studied

well; but afterwards 'tumultuously,' that is, in violent fits,

alternating with fits as violent of idleness and debauchery. He became

a _Bursche_ of the first water; drank and declaimed, rioted and ran in

debt; till his parents, unable any longer to support such expenses,

were glad to seize the first opening in his _cursus_, and recall him.

He returned to them with a mind fevered by intemperance, and a

constitution permanently injured; his heart burning with regret, and

vanity, and love of pleasure; his head without habits of activity or

principles of judgment, a whirlpool where fantasies and hallucinations

and 'fragments of science' were chaotically jumbled to and fro. But

he could babble college-latin; and talk with a trenchant tone about

the 'revolutions of Philosophy.' Such accomplishments procured him

pardon from his parents: the precentorial spirit of his father was

more than reconciled on discovering that Daniel could also preach and

play upon the organ. The good old people still loved their prodigal,

and would not cease to hope in him.

As a preacher Schubart was at first very popular; he imitated Cramer;

but at the same time manifested first-rate pulpit talents of his own.

These, however, he entirely neglected to improve: presuming on his

gifts and their acceptance, he began to 'play such fantastic tricks

before high Heaven,' as made his audience sink to yawning, or explode

in downright laughter. He often preached extempore; once he preached

in verse! His love of company and ease diverted him from study: his

musical propensities diverted him still farther. He had special gifts

as an organist; but to handle the concordance and to make 'the heaving

bellows learn to blow' were inconsistent things.

Yet withal it was impossible to hate poor Schubart, or even seriously

to dislike him. A joyful, piping, guileless mortal, good nature,

innocence of heart, and love of frolic beamed from every feature of

his countenance; he wished no ill to any son of Adam. He was musical

and poetical, a maker and a singer of sweet songs; humorous also,

speculative, discursive; his speech, though aimless and redundant,

glittered with the hues of fancy, and here and there with the keenest

rays of intellect. He was vain, but had no touch of pride; and the

excellencies which he loved in himself, he acknowledged and as warmly

loved in others. He was a man of few or no principles, but his nervous

system was very good. Amid his chosen comrades, a jug of indifferent

beer and a pipe of tobacco could change the earth into elysium for

him, and make his brethren demigods. To look at his laughing eyes, and

his effulgent honest face, you were tempted to forget that he was a

perjured priest, that the world had duties for him which he was

neglecting. Had life been all a may-game, Schubart was the best of

men, and the wisest of philosophers.

Unluckily it was not: the voice of Duty had addressed him in vain; but

that of Want was more impressive. He left his father's house, and

engaged himself as tutor in a family at Koenigsbronn. To teach the

young idea how to shoot had few delights for Schubart: he soon gave up

this place in favour of a younger brother; and endeavoured to subsist,

for some time, by affording miscellaneous assistance to the clergy of

the neighbouring villages. Ere long, preferring even pedagogy to

starvation, he again became a teacher. The bitter morsel was sweetened

with a seasoning of music; he was appointed not only schoolmaster but

also organist of Geisslingen. A fit of diligence now seized him: his

late difficulties had impressed him; and the parson of the place, who

subsequently married Schubart's sister, was friendly and skilful

enough to turn the impression to account. Had poor Schubart always

been in such hands, the epithet 'poor' could never have belonged to

him. In this little village-school he introduced some important

reforms and improvements, and in consequence attracted several

valuable scholars. Also for his own behoof, he studied honestly. His

conduct here, if not irreprehensible, was at least very much amended.

His marriage, in his twenty-fifth year, might have improved it still

farther; for his wife was a good, soft-hearted, amiable creature, who

loved him with her whole heart, and would have died to serve him.

But new preferments awaited Schubart, and with them new temptations.

His fame as a musician was deservedly extending: in time it reached

Ludwigsburg, and the Grand Duke of Wuertemberg himself heard Schubart

spoken of! The schoolmaster of Geisslingen was, in 1768, promoted to

be organist and band-director in this gay and pompous court. With a

bounding heart, he tossed away his ferula, and hastened to the scene,

where joys for evermore seemed calling on him. He plunged into the

heart of business and amusement. Besides the music which he taught and

played, publicly and privately, with great applause, he gave the

military officers instruction in various branches of science; he

talked and feasted; he indited songs and rhapsodies; he lectured on

History and the Belles Lettres. All this was more than Schubart's head

could stand. In a little time he fell in debt; took up with virtuosi;

began to read Voltaire, and talk against religion in his drink. From

the rank of genius, he was fast degenerating into that of profligate:

his affairs grew more and more embarrassed; and he had no gift of

putting any order in them. Prudence was not one of Schubart's virtues;

the nearest approximation he could make to it was now and then a

little touch of cunning. His wife still loved him; loved him with that

perverseness of affection, which increases in the inverse ratio of its

requital: she had long patiently endured his follies and neglect,

happy if she could obtain a transient hour of kindness from him. But

his endless course of riot, and the straits to which it had reduced

their hapless family, at length overcame her spirits: she grew

melancholy, almost broken-hearted; and her father took her home to

him, with her children, from the spendthrift who had been her ruin.

Schubart's course in Ludwigsburg was verging to its close; his

extravagance increased, and debts pressed heavier and heavier on him:

for some scandal with a young woman of the place, he was cast into

prison; and let out of it, with an injunction forthwith to quit the

dominions of the Grand Duke.

Forlorn and homeless, here then was Schubart footing the hard highway,

with a staff in his hand, and one solitary _thaler_ in his purse, not

knowing whither he should go. At Heilbronn, the Buergermeister Wachs

permitted him to teach his Buergermeisterinn the harpsichord; and

Schubart did not die of hunger. For a space of time he wandered to and

fro, with numerous impracticable plans; now talking for his victuals;

now lecturing or teaching music; kind people now attracted to him by

his genius and misfortunes, and anon repelled from him by the faults

which had abased him. Once a gleam of court-preferment revisited his

path: the Elector Palatine was made acquainted with his gifts, and

sent for him to Schwetzingen to play before him. His playing gratified

the Electoral ear; he would have been provided for, had he not in

conversation with his Highness happened to express a rather free

opinion of the Mannheim Academy, which at that time was his Highness's

hobby. On the instant of this luckless oversight, the door of

patronage was slammed in Schubart's face, and he stood solitary on the

pavement as before.

One Count Schmettau took pity on him; offered him his purse and home;

both of which the way-worn wanderer was happy to accept. At

Schmettau's he fell in with Baron Leiden, the Bavarian envoy, who

advised him to turn Catholic, and accompany the returning embassy to

Munich. Schubart hesitated to become a renegade; but departed with his

new patron, upon trial. In the way, he played before the Bishop of

Wuerzburg; was rewarded by his Princely Reverence with gold as well as

praise; and arrived under happy omens at Munich. Here for a while

fortune seemed to smile on him again. The houses of the great were

thrown open to him; he talked and played, and fared sumptuously every

day. He took serious counsel with himself about the great Popish

question; now inclining this way, now that: he was puzzling which to

choose, when Chance entirely relieved him of the trouble. 'A person of

respectability' in Munich wrote to Wuertemberg to make inquiries who or

what this general favourite was; and received for answer, that the

general favourite was a villain, and had been banished from

Ludwigsburg for denying that there was a Holy Ghost!--Schubart was

happy to evacuate Munich without tap of drum.

Once more upon the road without an aim, the wanderer turned to

Augsburg, simply as the nearest city, and--set up a Newspaper! The

_Deutsche Chronik_ flourished in his hands; in a little while it had

acquired a decided character for sprightliness and talent; in time it

became the most widely circulated journal of the country. Schubart was

again a prosperous man: his writings, stamped with the vigorous

impress of his own genius, travelled over Europe; artists and men of

letters gathered round him; he had money, he had fame; the rich and

noble threw their parlours open to him, and listened with delight to

his overflowing, many-coloured conversation. He wrote paragraphs and

poetry; he taught music and gave concerts; he set up a spouting

establishment, recited newly-published poems, read Klopstock's

_Messias_ to crowded and enraptured audiences. Schubart's evil genius

seemed asleep, but Schubart himself awoke it. He had borne a grudge

against the clergy, ever since his banishment from Ludwigsburg; and he

now employed the facilities of his journal for giving vent to it. He

criticised the priesthood of Augsburg; speculated on their selfishness

and cant, and took every opportunity of turning them and their

proceedings into ridicule. The Jesuits especially, whom he regarded as

a fallen body, he treated with extreme freedom; exposing their

deceptions, and holding up to public contumely certain quacks whom

they patronised. The Jesuitic Beast was prostrate, but not dead: it

had still strength enough to lend a dangerous kick to any one who came

too near it. One evening an official person waited upon Schubart, and

mentioned an _arrest_ by virtue of a warrant from the Catholic

Buergermeister! Schubart was obliged to go to prison. The heads of the

Protestant party made an effort in his favour: they procured his

liberty, but not without a stipulation that he should immediately

depart from Augsburg. Schubart asked to know his crime; but the

Council answered him: "We have our reasons; let that satisfy you:" and

with this very moderate satisfaction he was forced to leave their

city.

But Schubart was now grown an adept in banishment; so trifling an

event could not unhinge his equanimity. Driven out of Augsburg, the

philosophic editor sought refuge in Ulm, where the publication of his

journal had, for other reasons, already been appointed to take place.

The _Deutsche Chronik_ was as brilliant here as ever: it extended more

and more through Germany; 'copies of it even came to London, Paris,

Amsterdam, and Petersburg.' Nor had its author's fortune altered much;

he had still the same employments, and remunerations, and

extravagances; the same sort of friends, the same sort of enemies. The

latter were a little busier than formerly: they propagated scandals;

engraved caricatures, indited lampoons against him; but this he

thought a very small matter. A man that has been three or four times

banished, and as often put in prison, and for many years on the point

of starving, will not trouble himself much about a gross or two of

pasquinades. Schubart had his wife and family again beside him, he had

money also to support them; so he sang and fiddled, talked and wrote,

and 'built the lofty rhyme,' and cared no fig for any one.

But enemies, more fell than these, were lurking for the thoughtless

Man of Paragraphs. The Jesuits had still their feline eyes upon him,

and longed to have their talons in his flesh. They found a certain

General Ried, who joined them on a quarrel of his own. This General

Ried, the Austrian Agent at Ulm, had vowed inexpiable hatred against

Schubart, it would seem, for a very slight cause indeed: once Schubart

had engaged to play before him, and then finding that the harpsichord

was out of order, had refused, flatly refused! The General's elevated

spirit called for vengeance on this impudent plebeian; the Jesuits

encouraged him; and thus all lay in eager watch. An opportunity ere

long occurred. One week in 1778, there appeared in Schubart's

newspaper an Extract of a Letter from Vienna, stating that 'the

Empress Maria Theresa had been struck by apoplexy.' On reading which,

the General made instant application to his Ducal Highness, requesting

that the publisher of this 'atrocious libel' should be given up to him

and 'sent to expiate his crime in Hungary,' by imprisonment--for life.

The Duke desired his gallant friend to be at ease, for that _he_ had

long had his own eye on this man, and would himself take charge of

him. Accordingly, a few days afterwards, Herr von Scholl, Comptroller

of the Convent of Blaubeuren, came to Schubart with a multitude of

compliments, inviting him to dinner, "as there was a stranger wishing

to be introduced to him." Schubart sprang into the _Schlitten_ with

this wolf in sheep's clothing, and away they drove to Blaubeuren.

Arrived here, the honourable Herr von Scholl left him in a private

room, and soon returned with a posse of official Majors and Amtmen,

the chief of whom advanced to Schubart, and declared him--_an arrested

man_! The hapless Schubart thought it was a jest; but alas here was no

jesting! Schubart then said with a composure scarcely to be looked

for, that "he hoped the Duke would not condemn him unheard." In this

too he was deceived; the men of office made him mount a carriage with

them, and set off without delay for Hohenasperg. The Duke himself was

there with his Duchess, when these bloodhounds and their prey arrived:

the princely couple gazed from a window as the group went past them,

and a fellow-creature took his farewell look of sun and sky!

If hitherto the follies of this man have cast an air of farce upon his

sufferings, even when in part unmerited, such sentiments must now give

place to that of indignation at his cruel and cold-blooded

persecutors. Schubart, who never had the heart to hurt a fly, and with

all his indiscretions, had been no man's enemy but his own, was

conducted to a narrow subterraneous dungeon, and left, without book or

pen, or any sort of occupation or society, to chew the cud of bitter

thought, and count the leaden months as they passed over him, and

brought no mitigation of his misery. His Serene Transparency of

Wuertemberg, nay the heroic General himself, might have been satisfied,

could they have seen him: physical squalor, combined with moral agony,

were at work on Schubart; at the end of a year, he was grown so weak,

that he could not stand except by leaning on the walls of his cell. A

little while, and he bade fair to get beyond the reach of all his

tyrants. This, however, was not what they wanted. The prisoner was

removed to a wholesome upper room; allowed the use of certain books,

the sight of certain company, and had, at least, the privilege to

think and breathe without obstruction. He was farther gratified by

hearing that his wife and children had been treated kindly: the boys

had been admitted to the Stuttgard school, where Schiller was now

studying; to their mother there had been assigned a pension of two

hundred gulden. Charles of Wuertemberg was undoubtedly a weak and

heartless man, but we know not that he was a savage one: in the

punishment of Schubart, it is possible enough that he believed himself

to be discharging an important duty to the world. The only subject of

regret is, that any duty to the world, beyond the duty of existing

inoffensively, should be committed to such hands; that men like

Charles and Ried, endowed with so very small a fraction of the common

faculties of manhood, should have the destiny of any living thing at

their control.

Another mitigating circumstance in Schubart's lot was the character of

his gaoler. This humane person had himself tasted the tender mercies

of 'paternal' government; he knew the nature of a dungeon better even

than his prisoner. 'For four years,' we are told, 'he had seen no

human face; his scanty food had been lowered to him through a

trap-door; neither chair nor table were allowed him, his cell was

never swept, his beard and nails were left to grow, the humblest

conveniences of civilised humanity were denied him!'[67] On this man

affliction had produced its softening, not its hardening influence: he

had grown religious, and merciful in heart; he studied to alleviate

Schubart's hard fate by every means within his power. He spoke

comfortingly to him; ministered to his infirmities, and, in spite of

orders, lent him all his books. These, it is true, were only treatises

on theosophy and mystical devotion; but they were the best he had; and

to Schubart, in his first lonely dungeon, they afforded occupation and

solace.

[Footnote 67: And yet Mr. Fox is reported to have said:

_There was one_ FREE _Government on the Continent, and that

one was--Wuertemberg._ They had a parliament and 'three

estates' like the English.--So much for paper Constitutions!]

Human nature will accommodate itself to anything. The King of Pontus

taught himself to eat poison: Schubart, cut out from intemperance and

jollity, did not pine away in confinement and abstemiousness; he had

lost Voltaire and gay company, he found delight in solitude and Jacob

Boehm. Nature had been too good to him to let his misery in any case be

unalloyed. The vague unguided ebullience of spirit, which had so often

set the table in a roar, and made him the most fascinating of

debauchees, was now mellowed into a cloudy enthusiasm, the sable of

which was still copiously blended with rainbow colours. His brain had

received a slight though incurable crack; there was a certain

exasperation mixed with his unsettled fervour; but he was not

wretched, often even not uncomfortable. His religion was not real; but

it had reality enough for present purposes; he was at once a sceptic

and a mystic, a true disciple of Boehm as well as of Voltaire. For

afflicted, irresolute, imaginative men like Schubart, this is not a

rare or altogether ineffectual resource: at the bottom of their minds

they doubt or disbelieve, but their hearts exclaim against the

slightest whisper of it; they dare not look into the fathomless abyss

of Infidelity, so they cover it over with the dense and

strangely-tinted smoke of Theosophy. Schubart henceforth now and then

employed the phrases and figures of religion; but its principles had

made no change in his theory of human duties: it was not food to

strengthen the weakness of his spirit, but an opiate to stay its

craving.

Schubart had still farther resources: like other great men in

captivity, he set about composing the history of his life. It is true,

he had no pens or paper; but this could not deter him. A

fellow-prisoner, to whom, as he one day saw him pass by the grating of

his window, he had communicated his desire, entered eagerly into the

scheme: the two contrived to unfasten a stone in a wall that divided

their apartments; when the prison-doors were bolted for the night,

this volunteer amanuensis took his place, Schubart trailed his

mattress to the friendly orifice, and there lay down, and dictated in

whispers the record of his fitful story. These memoirs have been

preserved; they were published and completed by a son of Schubart's:

we have often wished to see them, but in vain.

By day, Schubart had liberty to speak with certain visitors. One of

these, as we have said above, was Schiller. That Schubart, in their

single interview, was pleased with the enthusiastic friendly boy, we

could have conjectured, and he has himself informed us. 'Excepting

Schiller,' said the veteran garreteer, in writing afterwards to Gleim,

'I scarcely know of any German youth in whom the sacred spark of

genius has mounted up within the soul like flame upon the altar of a

Deity. We are fallen into the shameful times, when women bear rule

over men; and make the toilet a tribunal before which the most

gigantic minds must plead. Hence the stunted spirit of our poets;

hence the dwarf products of their imagination; hence the frivolous

witticism, the heartless sentiment, crippled and ricketed by soups,

ragouts and sweetmeats, which you find in fashionable balladmongers.'

Time and hours wear out the roughest day. The world began to feel an

interest in Schubart, and to take some pity on him: his songs and

poems were collected and published; their merit and their author's

misery exhibited a shocking contrast. His Highness of Wuertemberg at

length condescended to remember that a mortal, of wants and feelings

like his own, had been forced by him to spend, in sorrow and inaction,

the third part of an ordinary lifetime; to waste, and worse than

waste, ten years of precious time; time, of which not all the dukes

and princes in the universe could give him back one instant. He

commanded Schubart to be liberated; and the rejoicing Editor

(unacquitted, unjudged, unaccused!) once more beheld the blue zenith

and the full ring of the horizon. He joined his wife at Stuttgard, and

recommenced his newspaper. The _Deutsche Chronik_ was again popular;

the notoriety of its conductor made amends for the decay which critics

did not fail to notice in his faculties. Schubart's sufferings had in

fact permanently injured him; his mind was warped and weakened by

theosophy and solitude; bleak northern vapours often flitted over it,

and chilled its tropical luxuriance. Yet he wrote and rhymed;

discoursed on the corruption of the times, and on the means of their

improvement. He published the first portion of his Life, and often

talked amazingly about the Wandering Jew, and a romance of which he

was to form the subject. The idea of making old _Joannes a

temporibus_, the 'Wandering,' or as Schubart's countrymen denominate

him the 'Eternal Jew,' into a novel hero, was a mighty favourite with

him. In this antique cordwainer, as on a raft at anchor in the stream

of time, he would survey the changes and wonders of two thousand

years: the Roman and the Arab were to figure there; the Crusader and

the Circumnavigator, the Eremite of the Thebaid and the Pope of Rome.

Joannes himself, the Man existing out of Time and Space, Joannes the

unresting and undying, was to be a deeply tragic personage. Schubart

warmed himself with this idea; and talked about it in his cups, to the

astonishment of simple souls. He even wrote a certain rhapsody

connected with it, which is published in his poems. But here he

rested; and the project of the Wandering Jew, which Goethe likewise

meditated in his youth, is still unexecuted. Goethe turned to other

objects: and poor Schubart was surprised by death, in the midst of his

schemes, on the 10th of October 1791.

Of Schubart's character as a man, this record of his life leaves but a

mean impression. Unstable in his goings, without principle or plan, he

flickered through existence like an _ignis-fatuus_; now shooting into

momentary gleams of happiness and generosity, now quenched in the

mephitic marshes over which his zig-zag path conducted him. He had

many amiable qualities, but scarcely any moral worth. From first to

last his circumstances were against him; his education was

unfortunate, its fluctuating aimless wanderings enhanced its ill

effects. The thrall of the passing moment, he had no will; the fine

endowments of his heart were left to riot in chaotic turbulence, and

their forces cancelled one another. With better models and advisers,

with more rigid habits, and a happier fortune, he might have been an

admirable man: as it is, he is far from admirable.

The same defects have told with equal influence on his character as a

writer. Schubart had a quick sense of the beautiful, the moving, and

the true; his nature was susceptible and fervid; he had a keen

intellect, a fiery imagination; and his 'iron memory' secured forever

the various produce of so many gifts. But he had no diligence, no

power of self-denial. His knowledge lay around him like the plunder of

a sacked city. Like this too, it was squandered in pursuit of casual

objects. He wrote in gusts; the _labor limae et mora_ was a thing he

did not know. Yet his writings have great merit. His newspaper essays

abound in happy illustration and brilliant careless thought. His

songs, excluding those of a devotional and theosophic cast, are often

full of nature, heartiness and true simplicity. 'From his youth

upwards,' we are told, 'he studied the true Old-German _Volkslied_; he

watched the artisan on the street, the craftsman in his workshop, the

soldier in his guardhouse, the maid by the spinning-wheel; and

transferred the genuine spirit of primeval Germanism, which he found

in them, to his own songs.' Hence their popularity, which many of them

still retain. 'In his larger lyrical pieces,' observes the same not

injudicious critic, 'we discover fearless singularity; wild

imagination, dwelling rather on the grand and frightful than on the

beautiful and soft; deep, but seldom long-continued feeling; at times

far-darting thoughts, original images, stormy vehemence; and generally

a glowing, self-created, figurative diction. He never wrote to show

his art; but poured forth, from the inward call of his nature, the

thought or feeling which happened for the hour to have dominion in

him.'[68]

[Footnote 68: _Joerdens Lexicon_: from which most part of the

above details are taken.--There exists now a decidedly

compact, intelligent and intelligible _Life of Schubart_,

done, in three little volumes, by Strauss, some years ago.

(_Note of_ 1857.)]

Such were Schubart and his works and fortunes; the _disjecta membra_

of a richly-gifted but ill-starred and infatuated poet! The image of

his persecutions added speed to Schiller's flight from Stuttgard; may

the image of his wasted talents and ineffectual life add strength to

our resolves of living otherwise!

LETTERS OF SCHILLER.

A few Extracts from Schiller's correspondence may be gratifying to

some readers. The _Letters to Dalberg_, which constitute the chief

part of it as yet before the public, are on the whole less interesting

than might have been expected, if we did not recollect that the writer

of them was still an inexperienced youth, overawed by his idea of

Dalberg, to whom he could communicate with freedom only on a single

topic; and besides oppressed with grievances, which of themselves

would have weighed down his spirit, and prevented any frank or cordial

exposition of its feelings.

Of the Reichsfreiherr von Dalberg himself, this correspondence gives

us little information, and we have gleaned little elsewhere. He is

mentioned incidentally in almost every literary history connected with

his time; and generally as a mild gentlemanly person, a judicious

critic, and a warm lover of the arts and their cultivators. The following

notice of his death is extracted from the _Conversations-Lexicon_,

Part III. p. 12: 'Died at Mannheim, on the 27th of December 1806, in

his 85th year, Wolfgang Heribert, Reichsfreiherr von Dalberg; knighted

by the Emperor Leopold on his coronation at Frankfort. A warm friend

and patron of the arts and sciences; while the German Society

flourished at Mannheim, he was its first President; and the theatre of

that town, the school of the best actors in Germany, of Iffland, Beck,

Beil, and many others, owes to him its foundation, and its maintenance

throughout his long Intendancy, which he held till 1803. As a writer

and a poet, he is no less favourably known. We need only refer to his

_Cora_, a musical drama, and to 'the _Monch von Carmel_.'--These

letters of Schiller were found among his papers at his death; rescued

from destruction by two of his executors, and published at Carlsruhe,

in a small duodecimo, in the year 1819. There is a verbose preface,

but no note or comment, though some such aid is now and then a little

wanted.

The letters most worthy of our notice are those relating to the

exhibition of the _Robbers_ on the Mannheim stage, and to Schiller's

consequent embarrassments and flight. From these, accordingly, the

most of our selections shall be taken. It is curious to see with what

timidity the intercourse on Schiller's part commences; and how this

awkward shyness gradually gives place to some degree of confidence, as

he becomes acquainted with his patron, or is called to treat of

subjects where he feels that he himself has a dignity, and rights of

his own, forlorn and humble as he is. At first he never mentions

Dalberg but with all his titles, some of which to our unceremonious

ears seem ludicrous enough. Thus in the full style of German

reverence, he avoids directly naming his correspondent, but uses the

oblique designation of 'your Excellency,' or something equally

exalted: and he begins his two earliest letters with an address,

which, literally interpreted, runs thus: 'Empire-free, Highly-wellborn,

Particularly-much-to-be-venerated, Lord Privy Counsellor!' Such

sounding phrases make us smile: but they entirely depend on custom for

their import, and the smile which they excite is not by any means a

philosophic one. It is but fair that in our version we omit them, or

render them by some more grave equivalent.

The first letter is as follows:

[No date.]

'The proud judgment, passed upon me in the flattering letter

which I had the honour to receive from your Excellency, is

enough to set the prudence of an Author on a very slippery

eminence. The authority of the quarter it proceeds from,

would almost communicate to that sentence the stamp of

infallibility, if I could regard it as anything but a mere

encouragement of my Muse. More than this a deep feeling of my

weakness will not let me think it; but if my strength shall

ever climb to the height of a masterpiece, I certainly shall

have this warm approval of your Excellency alone to thank for

it, and so will the world. For several years I have had the

happiness to know you from the public papers: long ago the

splendour of the Mannheim theatre attracted my attention.

And, I confess, ever since I felt any touch of dramatic

talent in myself, it has been among my darling projects some

time or other to remove to Mannheim, the true temple of

Thalia; a project, however, which my _closer_ connection with

Wuertemberg might possibly impede.

'Your Excellency's very kind proposal on the subject of the

_Robbers_, and such other pieces as I may produce in future,

is infinitely precious to me; the maturing of it well

deserves a narrower investigation of your Excellency's

theatre, its special mode of management, its actors, the _non

plus ultra_ of its machinery; in a word, a full conception of

it, such as I shall never get while my only scale of

estimation is this Stuttgard theatre of ours, an

establishment still in its minority. Unhappily my

_economical_ circumstances render it impossible for me to

travel much; though I could travel now with the greater

happiness and confidence, as I have still some _pregnant

ideas_ for the Mannheim theatre, which I could wish to have

the honour of communicating to your Excellency. For the rest,

I remain,' &c.

From the second letter we learn that Schiller had engaged to

_theatrilise_ his original edition of the _Robbers_, and still wished

much to be connected in some shape with Mannheim. The third explains

itself:

'Stuttgard, 6th October 1781.

'Here then at last returns the luckless prodigal, the

remodelled _Robbers_! I am sorry that I have not kept the

time, appointed by myself; but a transitory glance at the

number and extent of the changes I have made, will, I trust,

be sufficient to excuse me. Add to this, that a contagious

epidemic was at work in our military Hospital, which, of

course, interfered very often with my _otia poetica_. After

finishing my work, I may assure you I could engage with less

effort of mind, and certainly with far more contentment, to

compose a new piece, than to undergo the labour I have just

concluded. The task was complicated and tedious. Here I had

to correct an error, which naturally was rooted in the very

groundwork of the play; there perhaps to sacrifice a beauty

to the limits of the stage, the humour of the pit, the

stupidity of the gallery, or some such sorrowful convention;

and I need not tell you, that as in nature, so on the stage,

an idea, an emotion, can have only one suitable expression,

one proper tone. A single alteration in a trait of character

may give a new tendency to the whole personage, and,

consequently, to his actions, and the mechanism of the piece

which depends on them.

'In the original, the Robbers are exhibited in strong

contrast with each other; and I dare maintain that it is

difficult to draw half a dozen robbers in strong contrast,

without in some of them offending the delicacy of the stage.

In my first conception of the piece, I excluded the idea of

its ever being represented in a theatre; hence came it that

Franz was planned as a _reasoning_ villain; a plan which,

though it may content the thinking Reader, cannot fail to vex

and weary the Spectator, who does not come to think, and who

wants not philosophy, but action.

'In the new edition, I could not overturn this arrangement

without breaking-down the whole economy of the piece.

Accordingly I can predict, with tolerable certainty, that

Franz when he appears on the stage, will not play the part

which he has played with the reader. And, at all events, the

rushing stream of the action will hurry the spectator over

all the finer shadings, and rob him of a third part of the

whole character.

'Karl von Moor might chance to form an era on the stage;

except a few speculations, which, however, work as

indispensable colours in the general picture, he is all

action, all visible life. Spiegelberg, Schweitzer, Hermann,

are, in the strictest sense, personages for the stage; in a

less degree, Amelia and the Father.

'Written and oral criticisms I have endeavoured to turn to

advantage. The alterations are important; certain scenes are

altogether new. Of this number, are Hermann's counter-plots

to undermine the schemes of Franz; his interview with that

personage, which, in the first composition of the work, was

entirely and very unhappily forgotten. His interview with

Amelia in the garden has been postponed to the succeeding

act; and my friends tell me that I could have fixed upon no

better act than this, no better time than a few moments prior

to the meeting of Amelia with Moor. Franz is brought a little

nearer human nature; but the mode of it is rather strange. A

scene like his condemnation in the fifth act has never, to my

knowledge, been exhibited on any stage; and the same may be

said of the scene where Amelia is sacrificed by her lover.

'If the piece should be too long, it stands at the discretion

of the manager to abbreviate the speculative parts of it, or

here and there, without prejudice to the general impression,

to omit them altogether. But in the _printing_, I use the

freedom humbly to protest against the leaving out of

anything. I had satisfactory reasons of my own for all that I

allowed to pass; and my submission to the stage does not

extend so far, that I can leave _holes_ in my work, and

mutilate the characters of men for the convenience of actors.

'In regard to the selection of costume, without wishing to

prescribe any rules, I may be permitted to remark, that

though in nature dress is unimportant, on the stage it is

never so. In this particular, the taste of my Robber Moor

will not be difficult to hit. He wears a plume; for this is

mentioned expressly in the play, at the time when he

abdicates his office. I have also given him a baton. His

dress should always be noble without ornament, unstudied but

not negligent.

'A young but excellent composer is working at a symphony for

my unhappy prodigal: I know it will be masterly. So soon as

it is finished, I shall take the liberty of offering it to

you.

'I must also beg you to excuse the irregular state of the

manuscript, the incorrectness of the penmanship. I was in

haste to get the piece ready for you; hence the double sort

of handwriting in it; hence also my forbearing to correct it.

My copyist, according to the custom of all _reforming_

caligraphers, I find, has wofully abused the spelling. To

conclude, I recommend myself and my endeavours to the

kindness of an honoured judge. I am,' &c.

'Stuttgard, 12th December 1781.

'With the change projected by your Excellency, in regard to

the publishing of my play, I feel entirely contented,

especially as I perceive that by this means two interests

that had become very alien, are again made one, without, as

I hope, any prejudice to the results and the success of my

work. Your Excellency, however, touches on some other _very_

weighty changes, which the piece has undergone from your

hands; and these, in respect of myself, I feel to be so

important, that I shall beg to explain my mind at some length

regarding them. At the outset, then, I must honestly confess

to you, I hold the projected transference of the action

represented in my play to the epoch of the _Landfried_, and

the Suppression of Private Wars, with the whole accompaniment

which it gains by this new position, as infinitely better

than mine; and must hold it so, although the whole piece

should go to ruin thereby. Doubtless it is an objection, that

in our enlightened century, with our watchful police and

fixedness of statute, such a reckless gang should have arisen

in the very bosom of the laws, and still more, have taken

root and subsisted for years: doubtless the objection is well

founded, and I have nothing to allege against it, but the

license of Poetry to raise the probabilities of the real

world to the rank of true, and its possibilities to the rank

of probable.

'This excuse, it must be owned, is little adequate to the

objection it opposes. But when I grant your Excellency so

much (and I grant it honestly, and with complete conviction),

what will follow? Simply that my play has got an ugly fault

at its birth, which fault, if I may say so, it must carry

with it to its grave, the fault being interwoven with its

very nature, and not to be removed without destruction of the

whole.

'In the first place, all my personages speak in a style too

modern, too enlightened for that ancient time. The dialect is

not the right one. That simplicity so vividly presented to us

by the author of _Goetz von Berlichingen_, is altogether

wanting. Many long tirades, touches great and small, nay

entire characters, are taken from the aspect of the present

world, and would not answer for the age of Maximilian. In a

word, this change would reduce the piece into something like

a certain woodcut which I remember meeting with in an edition

of Virgil. The Trojans wore hussar boots, and King Agamemnon

had a pair of pistols in his belt. I should commit a _crime_

against the age of Maximilian, to avoid an _error_ against

the age of Frederick the Second.

'Again, my whole episode of Amelia's love would make a

frightful contrast with the simple chivalry attachment of

that period. Amelia would, at all hazards, need to be

re-moulded into a chivalry maiden; and I need not tell you

that this character, and the sort of love which reigns in my

work, are so deeply and broadly tinted into the whole picture

of the Robber Moor, nay, into the whole piece, that every

part of the delineation would require to be re-painted,

before those tints could be removed. So likewise is it with

the character of Franz, that speculative,

metaphysico-refining knave.

'In a word, I think I may affirm, that this projected

transposition of my work, which, prior to the commencement,

would have lent it the highest splendour and completeness,

could not fail now, when the piece is planned and finished,

to change it into a defective _quodlibet_, a crow with

peacock's feathers.