pathy with the three chief characters of the piece.*

Soon after the publication of Wallenstein, Schiller once more changed his abode. The "mountain air of Jena" was conceived by his physicians to be prejudicial in disorders of the lungs; and partly in consequence of this opinion, he determined henceforth to spend his winters in Weimar. Perhaps a weightier reason in favour of this new arrangement was the opportunity it gave him of being near the theatre; a constant attendance on which, now that he had once more become a dramatist, seemed highly useful for his farther improvement. The summer he, for several years, continued still to spend in Jena; to which, especially its beautiful environs, he declared himself peculiarly attached. His little garden-house was still his place of study during summer; till at last he settled constantly at Weimar. Even then he used frequently to visit Jena; to which there was a fresh attraction in later years, when Goethe chose it for his residence, which we understand it yet to be. With Goethe he often staid for months.

This change of place produced little change in Schiller's habits or employments: he was now as formerly in the pay of the Duke of Weimar; now as formerly engaged in dramatic composition as the great object of his life. What the amount of his pension was we know not: that the Prince behaved to him in a princely manner we have proof sufficient. Four years before, when invited to the university of Tübingen, Schiller had received a promise, that, in case of sickness or any other cause preventing the continuance of his literary labour, his salary should be doubled. It was actually increased on occasion of the present removal; and again still farther in 1804, some advantageous offers being made to him from Berlin. Schiller seems to

have been, what he might have wished to be, neither poor nor rich: his simple unostentatious œconomy went on without embarrassment; and this was all that he required. To avoid pecuniary perplexities was constantly among his aims: to amass wealth, never. We ought also to add that, in 1802, by the voluntary solicitation of the Duke, he was ennobled ; a fact which we mention, for his sake by whose kindness this honour was procured; not for the sake of Schiller, who accepted it with gratitude, but had neither needed nor desired it.

The official services expected of him in return for so much kindness seem to have been slight, if any. Chiefly or altogether of his own accord, he appears to have applied himself to a close inspection of the theatre, and to have shared with Goethe the task of superintending its concerns. The rehearsals of new pieces commonly took place at the house of one of their friends; they consulted together on all such subjects, frankly and copiously. Schiller wasnot slow to profit by the means of improvement thus afforded him; in the mechanical details of his art he grew more skilful; by a constant observation of the stage, he became more acquainted with its capabilities and its laws. It was not long till, with his characteristic expansiveness of enterprise, he set about turning this new knowledge to account. In conjunction with Goethe, he remodelled his own Don Carlos, and his friend's Count Egmont, altering both according to his latest views of scenic propriety. It was farther intended to treat in the same manner the whole series of leading German plays, and thus to produce a national stock of dramatic pieces, formed according to the best rules; a vast project, in which some progress continued to be made, though other labours often interrupted it. For the present, Schil

ler was engaged with his Marig Stuart: it appeared in 1800.

in all that he intended, Schiller has succeeded: Maria Stuart is a beautiful tragedy; it would have formed the glory of a meaner man, but it cannot materially alter his. Compared with Wallenstein its purpose is narrow, and its result is common. We have no manners or true historical delineation. The figure of the English court is not given; and Elizabeth is depicted more like one of the French Medici than like our own politic, capricious, coquettish, imperious, yet on the whole true-hearted, "good Queen Bess." With abundant proofs of genius, this tragedy produces a comparatively small effect, especially on English readers. We have already wept enough for Mary Stuart, both over prose and verse; and the persons likely to be deeply touched with the moral or the interest of her story, as it is recorded here, are rather a separate class than men in general. Madame de Staël, we observe, is her principal admirer.

This tragedy will not detain us long. It is upon a subject, the incidents of which are now getting trite, and the moral of which has little that can peculiarly recommend it. To exhibit the repentance of a lovely but erring woman, to show us how her soul may be restored to its primitive nobleness, by sufferings, devotion, and death, is the object of Maria Stuart. It is a tragedy of sombre and mournful feelings; with an air of melancholy and obstruction pervading it; a looking backward on objects of remorse, around on imprisonment, and forward on the grave. Its object is undoubtedly attained. We are forced to pardon and to love the heroine; she is beautiful, and miserable, and lofty-minded; and her crimes, however dark, have been expiated by long years of weeping and woe. Considering also that they were the fruit not of calculation, but of passion acting on a heart not dead, though blinded for a time to their enormity, they seem less hateful than the cold, premeditated villany of which she is the victim. Elizabeth is selfish, heartless, envious; she violates no law, but she has no virtue, and she lives triumphant: her arid, artificial character serves by contrast to heighten our sympathy with her warm-hearted, forlorn, illfated rival. These two queens, particularly Mary, are well delineated; their respective qualities are vividly brought out, and the feelings they were meant to excite arise within us. There is also Mortimer, a fierce, impetuous, impassioned lover; driven onward chiefly by the heat of his blood, but still interesting by his vehemence and unbounded daring. The dialogue moreover has many beauties; there are scenes which have merited peculiar commendation. Of this kind is the interview between the queens; and more especially the first entrance of Mary, when, after long seclusion, she is once more permitted to behold the cheerful sky. In the joy of a moment's freedom, she forgets that she is still a captive; she addresses the clouds, the "sailors of the air," who "are not subjects of Elizabeth," and bids them carry tidings of her to the hearts that love her in other lands. Without doubt,

Next year, Schiller took possession of a province more peculiarly his own: in 1801, appeared his Maid of Orleans (Jungfrau von Orleans); the first hint of which was suggested to him by a series of documents, relating to the sentence of Jeanne d'Arc and its reversal, first published about this time by De l'Averdy of the Académie des Inscriptions. Schiller had been moved in perusing them: this tragedy gave voice to his feelings.

Considered as an object of poetry or history, Jeanne d'Arc, the most singular personage of modern times, presents a character capable of being viewed under a great variety of aspects, and with a corresponding variety of emotions. To the English of her own age, bigoted in their belief and baffled by her prowess, she appeared inspired by the Devil, and was naturally burnt as a sorceress. In this light, too, she is painted in the poems of Shakspeare. To Voltaire, again, whose trade it was to war with every kind of superstition, this child of fanatic ardour seemed no better than a moon-struck zealot; and the people who followed her, and believed in her, something worse than lunatics. The glory of what she had achieved was forgotten, when the means of achieving it were recollected; and the Maid of Orleans was deemed the fit subject of a poem, the

phetess, and a sacrifice doomed to perish for her country. She resembled, in Schiller's view, the Iphigenia of the Greeks; and as such, in some respects, he has treated her.

The woes and desolation of the land have kindled in Joanna's keen and fervent heart a fire, which the loneliness of her life, and her deep feelings of religion, have nourished and fanned into a holy flame. She sits in solitude with her flocks, beside the mountain chapel of the Virgin, under, the ancient Druid oak a wizard spot, the haunt of evil spirits as well as of good; and visions are revealed to her such as human eyes behold not. It seems the force of her own spirit expressing its feelings in forms which re-act upon itself. The strength of her impulses persuades her that she is called from on high to deliver her native France; the intensity of her own faith persuades others; she goes forth on her mission-all bends to the fiery vehemence of her will-she is inspired because she thinks herself so. There is something beautiful and moving in the aspect of a noble enthusiasm fostered in the secret soul, amid obstructions and depressions, and at length bursting forth with an overwhelming force to accomplish its appointed end: the impediments which long hid it are now become testimonies of its power: the very ignorance, and meanness, and error, which still in part adhere to it, increase our sympathy without diminishing our admiration; it seems the triumph, hardly contested and not wholly carried, but still the triumph of mind over fate of human volition over material necessity.

All this Schiller felt, and has presented with even more than his usual skill. The secret mechanism of Joanna's mind is concealed from us in a dim religious obscurity; but its active movements are distinct; we behold the lofty heroism of her feelings; she affects us to the very heart. The quiet, devout, innocence of her early years, when she lived silent, shrouded in herself, meek and kindly, not communing with others, makes us love her; the celestial splendour which illuminates her after-life adds reverence to our love. Her words and actions combine an overpowering force with a calm unpre

tending dignity: we seem to understand how they must have carried in their favour the universal conviction. Joanna is the most noble being in tragedy. We figure her with her slender lovely form, her mild but spirit-speaking countenance; "beautiful and terrible," bearing the banner of the Virgin before the hosts of her country; travelling in the strength of a rapt soul; irresistible by faith; "the lowly herdsmaid," greater in the grandeur of her simple spirit than the kings and queens of this world. Yet her breast is not entirely insensible to human feeling, nor her faith never liable to waver. When that inexorable vengeance, which had shut her ear against the voice of mercy to the enemies of France, is suspended at the sight of Lionel, and her heart experiences the first touch of mortal affection, a baleful cloud overspreads the serene of her mind; it seems as if Heaven had forsaken her, or from the beginning permitted demons or earthly dreams to deceive her. The agony of her spirit, involved in endless and horrid labyrinths of doubt, is powerfully pourtrayed. She has crowned the king at Rheims; and all is joy, and pomp, and jubilee, and almost adoration of Joanna: but Joanna's thoughts are not of joy. The sight of her poor but kind and true-hearted sisters in the crowd, moves her to the soul. Amid the tumult and magnificence of this royal pageant she sinks into a reverie; her small native dale of Arc, between its quiet hills, rises on her mind's-eye, with its straw-roofed huts and its clear green sward; where the sun is even then shining so brightly, and the sky is so blue, and all is so calm, and safe, and motherly. She sighs for the peace of that sequestered home; then shudders to think that she shall never see it more. Accused of witchcraft by her own ascetic melancholic father, she utters no word of denial to the charge; for her heart is dark, it is tarnished by earthly love, she dare not raise her thoughts to heaven. Parted from her sisters; cast out with horror by the people she had lately saved from despair; she wanders forth, desolate, forlorn, not knowing whither. Yet she does not sink under this sore trial: as she suffers from without, and is forsaken

of men, her mind grows clear and strong, her confidence returns. She is now more firmly fixed in our admiration than before; tenderness is united to our other feelings; and her faith has been proved by sharp vicis situde. Her countrymen recognize their error; Joanna closes her career by a glorious death; we take farewell of her in a solemn mood of heroic pity.

Joanna is the animating principle of this tragedy; the scenes employed in developing her character and feelings constitute its great charm. Yet there are other personages in it, that leave a distinct and pleasing impression of themselves in our memory. Agnes Sorel, the soft, languishing, generous mistress of the Dauphin, relieves and heightens by comparison the sterner beauty of the Maid. Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, the lover of Joanna, is a blunt, frank, sagacious soldier, and well described. And Talbot, the grey veteran, delineates his dark, unbelieving, indomitable soul, by a few slight but expressive touches: he sternly passes down, as he thinks, to the land of utter nothingness, contemptuous even of the fate that destroys him, and—

On the soil of France in death reposes,
As a hero on the shield he would not quit.

The introduction of supernatural agency in this play, and the final aberration from the truth of history, have been considerably censured by the German critics: Schlegel, we recollect, calls Joanna's end a "rosy death." In this dramaturgic discussion, the mere reader need take no great interest. To require our belief in apparitions and miracles, things which we cannot here believe, no doubt for a moment disturbs our submission to the poet's illusions: but the miracles in this story are rare and transient, and of small account in the general result: they give our reason little trouble, and perhaps contribute to exalt the heroine in our imaginations. It is still the mere human grandeur of Joanna's spirit that we love and reverence; the lofty devotedness with which she is transported, the generous benevolence, the irresistible determination. The heavenly mandate is but the means of unfolding these quali

ties, and furnishing them with a proper passport to the minds of her age. To have produced, without the aid of fictions like these, a Joanna so beautified and exalted, would undoubtedly have yielded greater satisfaction: but it may be questioned whether the difficulty would not have increased in a still higher ratio. The sentiments, the characters, are not only accurate, but exquisitely beautiful; the incidents, excepting the very last, are possible, or even probable: what remains is but a very slender evil.

After all objections have been urged, and this among others has certainly a little weight, the Maid of Orleans will remain one of the very finest of modern dramas. Perhaps, among all Schiller's plays, it is the one whch evinces most of that quality denominated genius in the strictest meaning of the word. Wallenstein embodies more thought, more knowledge, more conception; but it is only in parts illuminated by that ethereal brightness which shines over every part of this. The spirit of the romantic ages is here imaged forth; but the whole is exalted, embellished, ennobled. It is what the critics call idealized. The heart must be cold, the imagination dull, which the Jungfrau von Orleans will not move.

When

In Germany this case did not occur: the reception of the work was beyond example flattering. The leading idea suited the German mind; the execution of it inflamed the hearts and imaginations of the people; they felt proud of their great poet, and delighted to enthusiasm with his poetry. At the first exhibition of the play in Leipzig, Schiller being in the theatre, though not among the audience, this feeling was manifested in a rather singular manner. the curtain dropped at the end of the first act, there arose on all sides a shout of "Es lebe Friedrich Schiller!" accompanied by the sound of trumpets and other military music: at the conclusion of the piece, the whole assembly left their places, went out, and crowded round the door through which Schiller was expected to come; and no sooner did the poet appear, than his admiring spectators, uncovering their heads, made a lane for him, and as he passed along, many, we are told, held up their