Fanatics there are of so severe a cast of mind, that they would ignore all works of fiction; but those who, blessed with a wider expanse of mind, see in descriptions of the wonderful, the curious, and the interesting in

humanity, certain links which, if properly connected, will lead us

"Through nature, up to nature's God," will think that good service has been done to his kind by James Fennimore Cooper.

Or all the many distinguished poets and philosophers of Germany, the name and works of Schiller are most familiar to the English reader. And this preference is not a mere national liking of our own, arising from any consanguinity which the writings of Schiller have with English modes of thought and feeling. Its explanation is rather to be sought in the fact, that these writings bear on them the stamp of no peculiar nationality. They have had a prompt acceptance with all European nations, and the estimation in which they have been held has been permanent. Among modern authors Schiller is pre-eminently cosmopolitan. The poet of the Real, of actual life, of universal human sympathies, it was natural that his impression should be equally as wide as it was deep. Not a little of the hearty welcome with which Schiller has been universally received, may be attributed to the circumstance that the tone and temper of his writings, as also of his own interior nature, was wholly in harmony with the spirit of the age. He had a high estimation of the rights, duties, and privileges of the individual man. His notion of society was that of an ideal democracy. He loved freedom in his inmost heart, and his patriotism was as staunch as that of a Tell. The ardour with which he sympathized in the revolutionary movements of the day, made him worthy, in the eyes of the French nation, of being honoured with a diploma of citizenship.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller was born on the 10th of November, 1759, at Marbach, a small town of Würtemberg, situate on the banks of the Neckar. In the circumstances of his birth and parentage, he was rather fortunate than otherwise. Although the pecuniary circumstances of his parents were such as to place many

barriers to the free development of his nature, yet, on the whole, his childhood could not be otherwise than cheerful and happy. His parents were pious, affectionate, honest, true-hearted German folk. His father, stern and severe in demeanour, was fervent in his religious exercises, and warmly attached to his family. His mother was somewhat grave and serious, but her manners were peculiarly gentle and mild. Neither were without intellectual culture, or deficient in sound judgment and information. Surely this were enough to compensate for a thousand disadvantages in their worldly condition. The pliant nature of the boy Friedrich, formed and moulded under these influences,soon began to exhibit the promise of a rich and abundant harvest. He was early a lover of the picturesque, and of everything grand or instinct with life or motion.

At eight years

old, wandering in the woodlands with a boy about his own age, he exclaimed, "Oh, Karl, how beautiful is it here! All-all could I give, so that I might not miss this joy!" Another anecdote is told of this period, which is alike graceful and striking:-"Once, it is said, during a tremendous thunderstorm, his father missed him in the young group within doors; none of his sisters could tell what was become of Fritz, and the old man grew at length so anxious that he was forced to go out in quest of him. Fritz was scarcely past the age of infancy, and knew not the dangers of a scene so awful. His father found him at last in a solitary place of the neighbourhood, perched on the branch of a tree, gazing at the tempestuous face of the sky, and watching the flashes as in succession they spread their lurid gleam over it. To the reprimands of his parent, the whimpering truant pleaded in extenuation, that the lightning was very beautiful,

and he wished to see where it was coming from !""*

When Friedrich was six years old, his father was sent to Lorch as recruiting officer. Here the boy first learnt the rudiments of education. His teacher was Philip Mozer, the pastor and schoolmaster of the village, and whom Schiller afterwards immortalized in his "Robbers." This person seems to have exercised considerable influence over his pupil. His favourite companion was Karl Mozer, the pastor's son, who was himself destined to become a preacher. His conversation with these, the religious atmosphere in which he had been brought up from the earliest dawn of consciousness, and the warm and deep emotions which were now aroused in the boy's soul by the study of the Hebrew prophets, seem to have united together in determining him to become a clergyman. "A clergyman, indeed, he proved," says Carlyle," only the church he ministered in was the Catholic-a far more Catholic than that false Romish one!" This determination, as might be supposed, accorded well with the sentiments of his parents, and accordingly, in the public school of Ludwigsburg (whither the family now removed), his studies were regulated with that view. Here, for four successive years, he underwent the annual examination before the Stuttgard Commission, to which candidates for the ecclesiastical vocation were subjected. He had ere this read the classics with some diligence, but with no degree of appreciation. In his ninth year, we are told, he had ("not without rapturous amazement and a lasting remembrance,") seen the splendours of the Ludwigsburg theatre, thus unconsciously casting a dim, faroff glimpse into that world, where afterwards, with genuine inspiration and unfeigned joy, he was to achieve his noblest triumphs.

the

The Stuttgard examinators marked

young Friedrich in their records as puer bona spei-"a boy of good hope." This good hope, however, was to be realized in quite another fashion than was accordant with their intentions. Novel and unpleasant circumstances brought about a change in the domestic arrangements of the family. The boy's prospects for the future were to be

* Carlyle.

completely changed in all too short a time. His life now approaches a period of harshness, oppression, and isolation, in which the blossoms of hope are remorselessly crushed by the hand of Fate-the boy's spirit bent beneath the weight of an unloving discipline and stern dictatorship, and, under a quite contrary nurture to that which he had hitherto enjoyed, other and greater faculties developed within him. This, however, as will be clearly seen, is not to come and pass away without leaving its residue of good behindwithout shedding a strengthening and fertilizing influence over the whole career of our Friedrich. For there lies, in that boy-soul, GENIUS-" that alchemy, which converts all metals into gold-which from suffering educes strength-from error clearer wisdom."

Karl, Grand Duke of Würtemberg, had founded a free-school for certain branches of education, at Solitude, afterwards transferred to Stuttgard. It was called a military seminary, but was not wholly confined to the military profession. The majority of the pupils were the sons of officers, and even privates, in the Würtemberg army, who had a preferable claim to the benefits of the institution. Instructions were, however, given in both law and medicine; and the sons of civilians were consequently admitted. "The father of young Schiller," says one of his biographers, "had recently been promoted by the Grand Duke to the office of Inspector and Layer-out of the Grounds at Solitude, and was subsequently raised to the rank of Major. But these benefits were not cheaply purchased. The Duke, in return, desired to send Friedrich Schiller to his military seminary. This was tantamount to the rejection of the longcherished scheme of the clerical profession. After much painful embarrassment, the elder Schiller frankly represented to his prince the inclination of himself and his son. The Grand Duke, however, repeated his request, proposed to leave to Friedrich the choice of his studies at the academy, and promised him an appointment in the royal service. There was no resisting a petitioner, whose request was law, and from whose favour was derived the very bread of the family. Friedrich Schiller did not hesitate to sacrifice his own wishes to the interests

of his parents; but this renunciation of his young hopes, and the independence of his free-will, wounded alike his heart and his pride. With grief and resentment equally keen, he, at the age of fourteen, entered the academy as student in Jurisprudence. The studies thus selected were in themselves sufficiently uncongenial; but, to the dulness of the law-lecture was added the austerity of a corporal's drill. The youths were defiled in parade to meals, in parade to bed, in parade to lessons. At the word "March," they paced to breakfast. At the word "Halt," they arrested their steps. And, at the word "Front," they dressed their ranks before the table. In this miniature Sparta, the grand virtue to be instilled was subordination. Whoever has studied the character of Schiller, will allow that its leading passion was for intellectual liberty. Here, mind and body were alike to be machines. Schiller's letters at this time to his friend, Karl Mozer, sufficiently show the fiery tumults and agitation of his mind-sometimes mournful-sometimes indignant. Now sarcastic now impassioned. Weary disgust and bitter indignation are seen through all. The German works, not included in the school routine, were as contraband articles-the obstacles to obtain them only increased the desire. No barrier can ever interpose between genius and its affections. The love of Man to Woman is less irresistible than the love that binds Intellect to Knowledge. Schiller stole-but with the greater ardour for the secrecy-to the embraces of his mistress Poetry. Klopstock still charmed him; but newer and truer perceptions of the elements of poetry came to him in the "Goetz Von Berlichingen" of Goethe, with which, indeed, commenced the great literary revolution of Europe, by teaching each nation that the true classical spirit for each must be found in the genius of its own romance. "He who would really imitate Homer, must, in the chronicles of his native land, find out the Heroic Age."

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Schiller, at this period, whatever doubts or uncertainties might hover in his mind as to his true destination and reasonable outlook for the future, knew full well that it lay not in Law. This, to him an entirely foreign study, with which the tendencies of his mind had

no sort of keeping, it is natural to suppose came to be regarded by him, as the embodiment of all those evils, and their necessary cause. His dislike of it continues to increase, and he makes no secret of his feelings, once even venturing to give them public expression. "One of the exercises," says his biographer, "yearly prescribed to every scholar was a written delineation of his own character, according to his own views, to be delivered publicly at an appointed time. Schiller, on the first of these exhibitions, ventured to state his persuasion that he was not made to be a jurist, but called rather by his inclination and faculties to the clerical profession. This statement, of course, produced no effect; and he was forced to continue the accustomed course, and his dislike of the law kept fast approaching to absolute disgust." However the time came round (in 1775), when he was at last enabled to free himself from the burden. But it was only that he might take up another, which, however gladly he might at first make the exchange, he soon found was but one species of slavery substituted for another. He abandoned law for medicine; but neither presented a proper object for the faculties of his mind and the aspirations of his soul. He is gazing earnestly forward into some "far purer and higher region of activity, for which he has as yet no name; which he once fancied to be the church; which at length he discovers to be poetry."

All this is not to be mistaken for boyish wilfulness on the part of Schiller; something very different from that. Loving poetry with all the vehemence of a first passion; studying secretly the writings of Plutarch and Shakspeare, Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, and Goethe, with the whole galaxy of stars which illumined the dawn of German literature, there were awakened in him longings of future literary glory, which ill-consorted with his present position of mental subjection. He felt with overpowering conviction, that in this direction, and no other, lay the grand purpose of his existence

the true idea of his whole being. A mass of performances published in the periodicals of the time, or preserved among his papers, are sufficient to prove that this idea had taken firm hold of his mind. Schiller was mis

tion of "The Robbers" forms an era not only in Schiller's history, but in the literature of the world; and there seems no doubt that, but for so mean a cause as the perverted discipline of the Stutgard school, we had never seen this tragedy. Schiller commenced it in his nineteenth year; and the circumstances under which it was composed, are to be traced in all its parts.

"Translations of the work soon appeared in all the languages of Europe, and were read in all of them with a deep interest, compounded of admiration and aversion, according to the relative proportions of sympathy and judgment in the various minds which contemplated the subject. In Germany the enthusiasm which "The Robbers" excited was extreme. The young author had burst upon the world like a meteor; and surprise, for a time, suspended the power of cool and rational criticism. In the ferment produced by the universal discussion of the single topic, the poet was magnified above his natural dimensions, great as they were; and though the general sentence was loudly in his favour, yet he found detractors as well as praisers, and both equally beyond the limits of moderation.

With the publication of "The Robbers, the first period of the life of Schiller is properly closed; but from that fact the immediate results it brought about ought not to be separated; there were many annoyances yet to be borne before his deliverance from the tyrannous yoke, under which his youth had been blighted, could be consummated.

Schiller had finished the original sketch of this drama in 1778, but had kept it secret till 1780, in which year he obtained the post of surgeon in the Würtemberg army. This advancement enabled him to print it at his own expense, not having succeeded in finding any publisher who would undertake the risk. The universal interest which the work at once excited drew attention to the author. This popularity, however dazzling, was not favourable to Schiller's immediate interests. The aversion on the one hand, was as great as the admiration on the other. And, what was unfortunate for our poet, the former was on the side of power and authority. The vehement revolutionary spirit which found so fiery a mouth

piece in "The Robbers," daunted the superior powers. Its bold, uncompromising defiance of prescriptive despotism angered them. And, what made matters still worse, the ability of the author was unquestionable, and he had the sympathies of the great mass of the people. It was settled that Schiller was a very dangerous servant of His Highness, the Grand Duke of Würtemberg; and forthwith he was summoned before that authority, and commanded to abide by such subjects as befitted his profession; or, at least, to beware of writing any more poetry without submitting it to the inspection of his Prince.

Time wore on, and our poet had to bear all the mortifications and restraints incidental to being a suspected person. "His busy imagination aggravated the evil. He had seen poor Schubart wearing out his tedious eight years of durance in the fortress of Schönberg, because he had been 'a rock of offence to the powers that were.' The fate of this unfortunate author appeared to Schiller a type of his own. His free spirit shrank at the prospect of wasting his strength against the pitiful constraints, the minute and endless persecutions of men who knew him not, yet had his fortune in their hands. .. With the natural feeling of a young author, he had ventured to go in secret, and witness the first representation of his tragedy, at Manheim. His incognito did not conceal him; he was put under arrest, during a week, for this offence; and as the punishment did not deter him from again transgressing in a similar manner, he learned that it was in contemplation to try more rigorous measures with him. Dark hints were given to him of some exemplary as well as imminent severity; and Dalberg's aid, the sole hope of averting it by quiet means, was distant and dubious. Schiller saw himself reduced to extremities. Beleaguered with present distresses, and the most horrible forebodings, on every side; roused to the highest pitch of indignation, yet forced to keep silence, and wear the face of patience, he could endure this maddening constraint no longer. He resolved to be free at whatever risk; to abandon advantages which he could not buy at such a price; to quit his step-dame home, and go forth, though friendless