BOOKS.
PALLESEE'S LIFE OF SCHILLER.* LOVING and admiring veneration of human merit is a perennial characteristic of our common nature. If this instinct recede be- fore the growth of unbelief and persiflage, if, as the Great Men of a dead or superannuated regime cease to interest us, we lose our faith in the "demigods of fame," we have only "to possess our souls in patience and await what shall betide" ; and out of the mists of scepticism, slowly, as the new age evolves itself, men of heroic proportions rise once more to view. Unconsciously the stiff knees bend again, and if our enthusiasm be somewhat di- lettante, and our ceremonial all too fashionable, we yet find our- selves gathering round some central sacred figure, in reverence for the divine above, within, or around us, testifying, though in the poorest fashion, to the reality of the "religious fibre" in man. The birthdays of the nobles of thought and action are rallying points for these reverential emotions ; their returning centenaries recall their memories, when time has sufficiently tested their merits, and we can canonize them, free from precipitate partiality, as the martyrs and saints of beuificent power, of fruit-bearing truth, or of exalting beauty. Among the heroic men of the im- mediate past, whom we seem spontaneously to recognize as worthy of grateful commemoration, the most urgent example is Schiller, a German poet, yet not the less the poet of all countries and of all times. A record of the events of both his external and spiritual life, and a record worthy of the subject, comes seasonably to hand. Ample in detail, comprehensive in treatment, loving in spirit, and unaffected in style, Emil Palleske's Life and Works of &hiller, translated into pleasant and flowing English by Lady Wallace, is a fitting memorial of the genius and virtue of this eminent man. The narrative is told in two volumes divided into books, comprising the epochs or important passages of Schiller's life. "The Book of Childhood" opens for us the Protestant Church registers, in which the pedigree of our great poet is to be found. In the seventeenth century Schiller's ancestors were honest village bakers. Johannes Schiller, his grandfather, car- ried on this trade at Bittenfield, near Waiblingen, in Wiirtem- berg ; Johann Kasper, his father, broke the rule of an inherited vocation, and, left an orphan at ten years old, was apprenticed to a surgeon. After his medical apprenticeship was over, he went, during the Austrian War of Succession in 1745, to the Netherlands, where he served in a professional capacity. Four years after he married Elizabeth Kodweiss, whose father was "inspector of forests and landlord of the Lion inn." Born at Marbach on the 10th November, 1759, the anniversary of Luther's birth, Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller first sees light amid war and tumult. It is in this year that Pombal gives the signal for the expulsion of the Jesuits, and that Frederick the Great obeys the call. The picture of the hero King hangs in the cottage even of his enemies. Goethe, ten years old, studies the French drama in a German free city; Leasing, at the age of thirty, writes the first national play in his native language ; Wieland is occu- pied with Shakespeare ; Klopstock nods over the Messiah ; and Immanuel Kant prepares his system of philosophy. The Holy German Empire is dying. In forty years time the French Revo- lution shall come with universal explosion, and terrify men into realities again. Into such a world is the young poet born.
Schiller had the privilege of growing to manhood amid the rich nature of Southern Germany. The child's first glances fell on the glittering clusters of grapes, on hills and valleys, and on the lovely Neckar. In Suabia, the ear drinks in a luxuriance of me- lodious national airs, the imagination is attuned by the charms of nature and romantic traditions, and every tenth man is a poet. "In his childhood Schiller was delicate and suffering. His sweet young face wore an expression of devotion ; his bright blue eyes looking up to heaven, his light yellow hair encircling his pure white forehead, and his little bands devoutly clasped gave him the aspect of an angel." With all this seraphic appearance, Schiller was far from being a saint. At Lorch, when he was sent to school, the magic of woods, streams, and hills tempted him not unfrequently to play truant. In general, however, he was truthful, conscientious, and obedient, with one failing, a mania for giving away everything. There is no foundation, it would appear, for the anecdote of his climbing on a roof in a thunder- storm "to take a peep into the arsenal of creation." From Lorch the boy was transferred in his seventh year to a Latin school at Ludwigsburg. Here his progress in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew is described as extraordinary. If he ever knew Greek he must have forgotten it in after life, for we are told that he confided to Humboldt his wish to learn that language. In the second book of this biography, we enter with &hiller the Military Academy, and get a glimpse of Karl August and Karl Eugen, two remarkable princes with gifted sensual natures, "mighty hunters before the Lord." Karl August resisted the Circe of passion ; but Karl Eugen went from bad to worse, till he carried off Franziska, the beautiful and intelligent wife of an old man, the Baron von Leutrum. Her influence made him a better man. He loved her sincerely, and was eventually united to her by a Morganatic marriage. The Duke had a Military School at "Solitude," afterwards transferred to Stuttgart, into which Schiller was received at thirteen years of age, choosing jurisprudence for his profession as he had formerly chosen the ecclesiastical calling. Here he composed verses, studied Shakespeare, and drew in-
Schiller's Life arid Works. By Emil Palleske. Translated by Lady Wallace. In two volumes. Published by Long,nnan and Co. spiration from Rousseau, "that favourite of Nature and magician ut words." Here, too, he again changed his mind as to a pro- fession, and abandoned law to devote himself to medicine. He now became visionary, fantastic, and spasmodic. In 1777 he commenced The Robbers, founded on A Tale of the Human Heart, supposed to be by Schubert, the author of the frag- ment of the Wandering Jew ; which an early friend and late bio- grapher of Shelley's ignorantly or invidiously ascribes to that poet.. The third book of this biography commences with Schiller's appointment to the post of Army-burgeon in General Auge's Regiment of Grenadiers at Stuttgart. Here The Robbers was completed, published, and prepared for the stage. It was first represented at Mannheim, whither Schiller secretly repaired, with- out asking permission of his superiors. Schiller now became a notability, but the Duke wanted a medical man not a poet, and he commanded him to write no more plays or verses. A reflection on the Duke, in an elegy which Schiller composed on Rieger, whom the Duke had cruelly and unfairly imprisoned, combined, with other literary offences, to incense his princely patron. A second secret journey to Mannheim ended in a severe reprimand, and an arrest of fourteen days. Schiller had been prohibited all communication with a foreign state ; and in the Stuttgart theatre there was no opening for his dramatic powers. Moreover he was forbidden to publish any more literary works. He refused to abandon his true vocation ; he remained faithful to his Ideal. An appeal to the Duke woukl have only exasperated him further ; Schiller considered, determined, and fled, accompanied by
• Streicher, a true and tender friend.
The fourth book shows us Schiller, first in the vortex of the world at Mannheim, and then in retirement at Bauerbach. Meyer, the manager of the theatre at Mannheim, at once disappointed Schiller's hopes, by rejecting his tragedy of Fiesco ; a cherished hero with J. J. Rousseau, whose written admiration of the con- spirator of Genoa had probably recommended him to the dramatist, as a fit subject for a new exercise of his talent, during his re- sidence at Stuttgart. At this crisis a noble-minded woman, Fran Henriette von Wolzogen, touched by the misfortunes of the poet, granted him an asylum in her own house in the pastoral village of Bauerbaeh. Near her mansion was the castle of Herr von Stein, the guardian and uncle of the lady who subsequently as Charlotte von Kalb played so important a part in Schillees life. Here amid conflicting thoughts and cares he made but little pro- gress in his projected adaptation of _Luise Miillerin, a drama which -he had recently produced ; "Don 'Carlos," however, now engaged his attention, and he studied various historical works with a view to its composition. His affection for Lotte, the daughter of his benefactress, who "already loved another," fretted and depressed him. "His torments and longings followed him into lone forest paths, into fields and meadows." Schiller was at this time an indebted man ; with no certain prospects ; and in dis- grace with the Duke, who however wisely forebore "to persecute his former pupil." From the endless circle of painful and de- pressing thought he was extricated by a resolution, which seems to have grown out of a conversation with Frau von Wolzogen, to proceed at once to Mannheim. Here he resided for nearly two years, ending April 1785. Fairer days dawned. A third version of Fiesco was successful; Luise Miillerin, or "Cabal and Love," also received the homage of the public ; and Schiller was installed. as member of the managing committee. His biographer now fol- lows his fortunes as theatrical poet, till his resignation of that office ; describes his labours as journalist ; his presentation to the Duke of Weimar and appointment as Rath in the services of that prince. Charlotte von Wolzogen was now succeeded by a second. Lotte, Charlotte von Kalb, nee von Ostheim, a woman of rarely cul- tivated mind and greatly unhappy. Nor was this the only new love of the poet at Mannheim. No less than "four fair Rosalines in quick succession" had been admitted into the sanctuary of our Romeo's heart. Refused by the father of Margarette Schwan, Schiller ultimately married a third Lotte, Charlotte von Lenge- feld, Feb. 22, 1790. His vagrant and platonic affections were now followed by a genuine and ennobling love. He dreamt no more, if ever he had done so, of a " two-fold spiritual connection, but recognized in the law of unbroken unity,' in.marriage, an instance of conformity to a physiological rule of action, and in its fulfilment the condition of full and free development of the mental powers." Passion and desire vanished like the Furies before the Grove of Diana, for so he designated his love for Lotte, his tender- hearted and high-minded wife.
A glorious career in art now lay before Schiller ; a no less noble moral career invited him. He toiled with heroic en
Fourteen hours daily were spent in reading and writing. ills three present objects were—to provide a fund for the payment of his debts, a competence for his beloved wife, and the means of visiting his parents at Stuttgart. Is Professor of History at Jena, as the author of The Revolt of the Netherlands and editor of the Thalia, Schiller worked with all "the unsparing energy of his strong will," till the indefatigable man fairly broke down. For Schiller's further development, Moral and intellectual, for his grand capacity of labour, for his sufferings, his victories, his po-
tical views, his sacred and splendid friendships, we must refer to the charmed pages of our author's seventh book, where we find his hero "safe in haven at Weimar " ; to his eighth book, where we see how "the happy must learn to suffer" ; or mark Schiller's peculiar position with regard to the French Revolution ; or watch him, as his character reopens to completion, and he "consolidates himself between Humboldt and Fichte." The beautiful friend-
ship and famous literary alliance of Goethe and our poet are the topics of the ninth book. This book contains an excellent chap- ter on the Xenien, the epigrammatic Dunciad of the two great contributors' an account of Schiller's family ; dills father's and sister's death, and the dispersion of the circle of intimate friends. At the close of this period (1799) Tfrallenstein, sketched 1790, three years after the failure of Don Carlos, was produced on the stage. It was followed by Mary Stuart, the Maid of Orleans, the Bride of Messina, and William Tell, all of which appeared within about six years. The tenth and concluding book of Pal- leske's Life of Schiller is entitled "The Dramatist." It criticises and examines all these works ; appreciates the poet's merits in reference to the German stage, and exhibits his position and general procedure at the Weimar Court Theatre. In the very height of his magnificent career, Schiller, scarcely recovered from the effects of a violent chill from which he had suffered since the month of July, 1804, was again attacked by a severe cold on the November following. He lingered on, a patient though death- stricken invalid, genial and gay, hoping for renewed health, and planning fresh work for the spring. "On the 8th of May he wandered a good deal. Towards evening he ex- pressed a desire once more to see the setting sun. The curtain was drawn aside, and, gazing with a cheerful and serene air at the bright rays of even- ing, Nature thus received his last farewell. When Kuroline [his wife's sister] went up to his bed and asked how he felt, he said, Calmer and calmer.' . . . . At nine o'clock in the morning he became insensible. In the afternoon, Lotte strove to place his head in an easier position : he re- cognized her, smiled, and his eye had already a glorified expression. Lotte
sank down close beside him, and he kissed her Suddenly an electric shock seemed to vibrate through him, his head sank back, the most perfect peace lit up his countenance, his features were those of one calmly sleeping."
The biographer of Schiller has endeavoured to draw his hero "as large as life." He does not conceal his faults and his weak- nesses, but he shows us how he triumphed over them all and grew to a noble manhood of life and art. He summons him before the tribunal of history, convinced that "no immortal being can 'stand there' with a more lofty demeanour or more sublime com- posure than Johann Friedrich Schiller." He pronounces him a heaven-born poet. For him, he says, all hearts beat with sym- pathy. "The soldier finds in Schiller his battles and his camp ; the tender virgin her purest ideal ; the scholar his romance ; the Catholic his Rome ; the Protestant his Gustavus Adolphus ; free- dom her Tell ; almost every nation its renown, and humanity its noblest gifts." If we cannot accept all our author's criticisms we have no wish to extenuate his general eulogium. Schiller was undoubtedly a true poet, though a poet of culture more than of Nature. It was the intellect that sang in Schiller rather than the heart. He appears to have drawn his types from within, and to have sought to conform the outward world to them. Goethe pro- ceeded from Nature to man ; Schiller from man to Nature. "Schiller derived his intellectual form," says Humboldt, " prin- cipally from reason and his own powers but the Greeks from the senses and from Nature ; although Schiller's form also spoke to the senses and that of the Greeks likewise rested on the analogy of reason. Schiller's ideal is to unite both, but he will find it no easy task to fulfil such a conception." This was written Palleske remarks, before the appearance of Wallenstein. We allow that in this fine poem, and still more it may be in the drama of Tell, Schiller has nobly striven to achieve his arduous task. In his other plays the ideal predominates notably in his transition tra- gedy, Don Carlos, where Posa "the favourite hero, 'towers aloft, far-shining, clear, and also cold and vacant, as a sea beacon' ' " to borrow the sarcastic language of Carlyle. In the Maid of Orleans we must also repeat the old objection to the rose-coloured death of the heroine. In fact both in this play and that of Mary Stuart, the defiance of historic truth, or the misinterpretation of motive, incident, and character, seem to us as startling and pain- ful as some asserted violation of a great physical -law. His earlier dramas are to us only interesting as events in the poet's life, or illustrations of the literary development of Europe. Still, after all critical deductions, Schiller—the Schiller of Tell and Ifrallenstein, the Schiller of the Song of the Bell and other death- less poems—must be recognized as one of the inheritors of fulfilled renown ; one of those who have made the earth more beautiful by his genius' and humanity more admirable by his works, as poet, as well as by his deeds, as man. His claims to our love and gra- titude are worthily set forth in the present biography. There are some verbal blemishes in the translation which future care may easily remove in a second edition. Such we conceive to be the uncouth and obscure expression "plastic of form" ; Trachinier for Trachinite ; and 24th June (p. 442), which appears a clerical error or misprint for 24th January.
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