Great Writers : Life of Schiller. By Henry W. Nevinson.
(W. Scott.)—As a cabinet portrait of Schiller, this volume will be welcome to the English reader, and all the more so since, in com- mon with the series to which it belongs, it contains a bibliography compiled by Mr. Anderson, of the British Museum. When Carlyle published his Life of Schiller, more than sixty years ago, the literature of Germany was but rarely studied in this country. It was reasonable, therefore, that in writing about the poet he should also give copious translations from his works. Now, Schiller is not only known to English students, but is a school classic, and Mr. Nevinson's analyses of his writings and occasional transla- tions from them are perhaps a little superfluous. Apart from this objection—and no doubt there are readers who will not deem it to be one—there is little that we could wish omitted in this volume. The growth of Schiller's character through the discord and doubt of the Sturm and Drang period to the ideality and noble optimism that transformed his life and lifted his verse into a higher atmo- sphere, is admirably described by Mr. Nevinson. A comparison of Schiller with the greatest of the world's poets would be unjust to him, but his influence on German literature at a time when vagueness and sentimentality threatened to de- prive it of manliness and backbone, is only to be surpassed by that of Goethe. And if his influence was less powerful, it was more wholesome. It is remarkable that none of Schiller's finest work was achieved until sickness and pain had claimed him for a victim. It would seem as if his intellect was at once quickened and purified by suffering ; and, no doubt, too, the almost daily intercourse with Goethe during the later years of his life was a powerful stimulus to exertion. And it is pleasant to remember that, as Mr. Nevinson reminds us, the advantage of this friendship to Goethe was at least equally great. He called it the greatest blessing fortune had given him, and said that Schiller had converted him again into a poet when he had as good as ceased to be one. Never was there a more memorable friendship between men of letters, or one more free from jealousy ; and the copious correspondence between the poets, which has, of course, no place in Mr. Nevinson's monograph, is to the student of Schiller one of the most attractive features of his biography. On the whole, the author's estimate of Schiller is sufficiently high, and he is, we think, justified in the remark that, " unlike Wordsworth as Schiller was in nearly every point, a German may almost say of him as Professor Seeley has said of Wordsworth, that no modern writer has done more to redeem our life from vulgarity."
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