testimony, before the English, to the energy of the French, to the virtues of the King of France, even though he had abandoned her. Her death was neither that of a warrior, nor that of a martyr; but, through the softness and timidity of her sex, she displayed in her last moments a force of inspiration almost equally astonishing with that, the supposition of which had brought down upon her the charge of witchcraft. However this might be, the simple recital of her end causes a much stronger emotion than the catastrophe imagined by Schiller When poetry takes upon herself to add to the lustre of an historical personage, she is bound at least carefully to preserve the physiognomy which characterizes it; for greatness is really striking only when it is known how to give it a natural air Now, in the subject of Joan of Arc, the real history not only has more of nature, but more of grandeur in it than the fictitious. The Bride of Messina was composed according to a dramatic system altogether different from that which Schiller had till then followed, and to which he happily returned. It was in order to admit choruses on the stage, that he chose a subject in which there is nothing of novelty but the names; for it is, fundamentally, the same thing as the Fréres Ennemis. Schiller has merely added to it a sister, whom her two brothers fall in love with, ignorant that she is their sister, and one kills the other from jealousy. This situation, terrible in itself, is intermingled with choruses, which make a part of the piece. These are the the servants of the two brothers, who interrupt and congeal the interest by their mutual discussions. The lyric poetry, which they recite, all at the same time, is superb; yet are they not the less, whatever may be said of it, choruses of chamberlains. The assembled people alone possesses that independent dignity which constitutes it an impartial spectator. The chorus ought to represent posterity. If it were animated by personal affections, it would necessarily become ridiculous; for it would be inconceivable how several different persons should say the same thing, at the same time 'f their voices were not supposed to be the unerring interpret ers of eternal truths. Schiller, in the preface to his Bride of Messina, complains, with reason, that our modern usages no longer possess those popular forms which rendered them so poetical among the ancients : "The palaces of kings are in these days closed; courts of justice have been transferred from the gates of cities to the interior of buildings; writing has narrowed the province of speech; the people itself-the sensibly living mass-when it does not operate as brute force, has become a part of the civil polity, and thereby an abstract idea in our minds; the deities have returned within the bosoms of mankind. The poet must reopen the palaces--he must place courts of justice beneath the canopy of heaven-restore the gods, reproduce every extreme which the artificial frame of actual life has abolishedthrow aside every factitious influence on the mind or condition of man which impedes the manifestation of his inward nature and primitive character, as the statuary rejects modern costume:—and of all external circumstances adopts nothing but what is palpable in the highest of forms-that of humanity." This desire of another time, another country, is a poetical sentiment. The religious man has need of heaven, and the poet of another earth; but it is difficult to say what religion, or what epoch, is represented to us by the Bride of Messina : it departs from modern manners, without placing us in the times of antiquity. The poet has confounded all religions together, and this confusion destroys the high unity of tragedy —that of an all-directing destiny. The events are atrocious, and yet the horror they inspire is of a tranquil cast. The dialogue is as long, as diffuse, as if it were the business of all to speak fine verses, and as if one loved, and were jealous, and hated one's brother, and killed him, without ever departing from the sphere of general reflections and philosophical sentiments. The Bride of Messina displays, nevertheless, some admirable traces of the fine genius of Schiller. When one of the brothers has been killed by the other, who is jealous of him, the dead 1 We use the version made for Mr. Bohn.-Ed body is brought into the mother's palace; she is yet ignorant that she has lost a son, and it is announced to her by the chorus which walks before the bier, in the following words: With Sorrow in his train, From street to street the King of Terror glides; With stealthy foot and slow, He creeps where'er the fleeting race In turn, at every gate Is heard the dreaded knock of Fate, "When in the sere And Autumn leaves decay'd, The mournful forest tells how quickly fade When in the silent tomb opprest, Frail man, with weight of days, Sinks to his tranquil rest, Contented nature but obeys Her everlasting law The general doom awakes no shuddering awe! But, mortals, oh! prepare For mightier ills with ruthless hand, The kindred tie: insatiate Death, With unrelenting rage, Bears to his bark the flower of blooming age! "When clouds athwart the lowering sky Yet oft the lightning's glare Darts sudden through the cloudless air :- Of bliss, oh! dread the treacherous snare ; The flowers that bloom but to decay! 1 We use the fine version of A. Lodge, Esq., A. M., which has been much praised by English critics -Ed. When the brother learns that the object of his love, for which he had slain his brother, is his sister, his despair knows. no bounds, and he resolves to die. His mother offers to pardon him, his sister entreats him to live; but a sentiment of envy mixes with his remorse, and renders him still jealous of him that is no more. He says: "When one common tomb The murderer and his victim closes round- Thine eyes of beauty weep, shall sanctify Alike our memories. Yes! In death are quench'd The fires of rage; and Hatred owns subdued, The mighty reconciler. Pity bends An angel form above the funeral urn, With weeping, dear embrace." His mother again conjures him not to abandon her. "No," he says― "I would not live the victim of despair; No! I must meet with beaming eye the smile Of happy ones, and breathe erect the air Of liberty and joy. While yet alike We shared thy love, then o'er my days of youth To the pure diamond of perfect virtue Sublimes the mortal, and with chastening fire Each gather'd stain of frail humanity Purges and burns away: high as the stars Tower o'er this earthly sphere, he soars above me; In memory marches on to times unborn !" The jealousy inspired by the dead is a sentiment full of refinement and truth. Who, in short, can triumph over regret? Will the living ever equal the beauty of that celestial image, which the friend who is no more has left engraven on our heart? Has he not said to us: "Forget me not?" Is he not defenceless? Where does he exist upon this earth, if not in the sanctuary of our soul? And who, among the happy of this world, can ever unite himself to us so intimately as his memory? CHAPTER XX. WILHELM TELL. SCHILLER'S Wilhelm Tell is clothed with those lively and brilliant colors which transport the imagination into the picturesque regions that gave birth to the venerable confederacy of the Rutli. In the very first verses we fancy ourselves to hear the horns of the Alps resound. The clouds which intersect the mountains and hide the lower earth from that which is nearer heaven; the chamois hunters pursuing their active prey from precipice to precipice; the life, at once pastoral and military, which contends with nature and remains at peace with men-every thing inspires an animated interest for Switzerland; and the unity of action, in this tragedy, consists in the art of making of the nation itself a dramatic character. The boldness of Tell is brilliantly displayed in the first act of the piece. An unhappy outlaw, devoted to death by one of the subaltern tyrants of Switzerland, endeavors to save himself on the opposite side of the lake, where he thinks he may find an asylum. The storm is so violent that no boatman dares risk the passage to conduct him to it. Tell sees his distress, exposes himself with him to the danger of the waves, and succeeds in landing him safely on the shore. Tell is a stranger to the conspiracy which the insolence of Gessler has excited. Stauffacher, Walter Furst, and Arnold of Melchthal lay the foundation of the revolt. Tell is its hero, but not its |