Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn Er ist bey uns wohl auf dem Plan Gut', Ehr', Kind und Weib, Sie haben's kein Gewinn, Das Reich Gottes muss uns bleiben. A safe stronghold our God is still, With force of arms we nothing can, Ask ye, Who is this same? The Lord Zebaoth's Son, Shall conquer in the battle. And were this world all Devils o'er God's Word, for all their craft and force; But spite of Hell, shall have its course, And though they take our life, SCHILLER.* [FRASER'S MAGAZINE, 1831.] ted and imbibed by the human species daily ;if every secret-history, every closed-door's conversation, how trivial soever, has an interest for us, then might the conversation of a Schiller with a Goethe, so rarely do Schillers meet with Goethes among us, tempt Honesty itself into eaves-dropping. To the student of German Literature, or consider the boundless ocean of Gossip (im. of Literature in general, these volumes, pur-perfect, undistilled Biography) which is emitporting to lay open the private intercourse of two men eminent beyond all others of their time in that department, will doubtless be a welcome appearance. Neither Schiller nor Goethe has ever, that we have hitherto seen, written worthlessly on any subject, and the writings here offered us are confidential Letters, relating moreover to a highly important period in the spiritual history, not of the parties themselves, but of their country likewise; full of topics, high and low, on which far meaner talents than theirs might prove interesting. We have heard and known so much of both these venerated persons; of their friendship, and true co-operation in so many noble endeavours, the fruit of which has long been plain to every one: and now are we to look into the secret constitution and conditions of all this; to trace the public result, which is Ideal, down to its roots in the Common; how Poets may live and work poetically among the Prose things of this world, and Fausts and Tells be written on rag-paper, and with goose-quills, like mere Minerva Novels, and songs by a Person of Quality! Virtuosos have glass bee-hives, which they curiously peep into; but here truly were a far stranger sort of honey-making. Nay, apart from virtuosoship, or any technical object, what a hold have such things on our universal curiosity as men! If the sympathy we feel with one another is infinite, or nearly so,-in proof of which, do but Unhappily the conversation flits away for ever with the hour that witnessed it; and the Letter and Answer, frank, lively, genial as they may be, are only a poor emblem and epitome of it. The living dramatic movement is gone; nothing but the cold historical net-product remains for us. mains for us. It is true, in every confidential Letter, the writer will, in some measure, more or less directly depict himself: but nowhere is Painting, by pen or pencil, so inadequate as in delineating spiritual Nature. The Py ramid can be measured in geometric feet, and the draughtsman represents it, with all its environment, on canvas, accurately to the eye, nay Mont-Blanc is embossed in coloured stucco; and we have his very type, and miniature fac-simile, in our fac-simile, in our museums. But for great Men, let him who would know such, pray that he may see them daily face to face: for, in the dim distance, and by the eye of the imagination, our vision, do what we may, will be too imperfect. How pale, thin, ineffectual do the great figures we would fain summon from History rise before us! Scarcely as palpable men does our utmost effort body them forth; oftenest only like Ossian's ghosts, in * Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe, in den jah-hazy twilight, with "stars dím twinkling ren 1794 bis 1805. (Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe in the years 1794-1805.) 1st-3d Volumes through their forms." Our Socrates, our Lu(1794-1797.) Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1828, 1829. ther, after all that we have talked and argued become apparent till a future age, when the of them, are to most of us quite invisible; the view, the “ Correspondence of Schiller and Sage of Athens, the Monk of Eisleben: not Goethe" may have, we shall not attempt dePersons but Titles. Yet such men, far more termining here; the rather as only a portion than any Alps or Coliseums, are the true of the work, and to judge by the space of time world-wonders, which it concerns us to behold included in it, only a small portion, is yet beclearly, and imprint for ever on our remem-fore us. Ny, perhaps its full worth will not brance. Great men are the Fire-pillars in this dark pilgrimage of mankind; they stand as heavenly Signs, ever-living witnesses of what has been, prophetic tokens of what may still be, the revealed, imbodied Possibilities of human nature; which greatness he who has never seen, or rationally conceived of, and with his whole heart passionately loved and reverenced, is himself for ever doomed to be little. How many weighty reasons, how many innocent allurements attract our curiosity to such men! We would know them, see them visibly, even as we know and see our like: no hint, no notice that concerns them is superfluous or too small for us. Were Gulliver's conjurer but here, to recall and sensibly bring back the brave Past, that we might look into it, and scrutinize it at will! But, alas, in Nature there is no such conjuring: the great spirits that have gone before us can survive only as disembodied Voices; their form and distinctive aspect, outward and even in many respects inward, all whereby they were known as living, breathing men, has passed into another sphere; from which only History, in scanty memorials, can evoke some faint resemblance of it. The more precious, in spite of all imperfections, is such History, are such memorials, that still in some degree preserve what had otherwise been lost without reco-interest, of ordinary human concerns, and the very. One valuable quality these letters of Schiller and Goethe everywhere exhibit, that of truth: whatever we do learn from them, whether in the shape of fact or of opinion, may be relied on as genuine. There is a tone of entire sincerity in that style: a constant natųral courtesy nowhere obstructs the right freedom of word or thought; indeed, no ends but honourable ones, and generally of a mutual interest, are before either party; thus neither needs to veil, still less to mask himself from the other; the two self-portraits, so far as they are filled up, may be looked upon as real likenesses. Perhaps, to most readers, some larger intermixture of what we should call domestic hopes, fears, and other feelings these excite, For the rest, as to the maxim, often enough in- would have improved the work; which as it is, culcated on us, that close inspection will abate not indeed without pleasant exceptions, turns our admiration, that only the obscure can be sub- mostly on compositions, and publications, and lime, let us put small faith in it. Here, as in other philosophies, and other such high matters. provinces, it is not knowledge, but a little know- This, we believe, is a rare fault in modern ledge, that puffeth up, and for wonder at the Correspondences; where generally the oppothing known substitutes mere wonder at the site fault is complained of, and except mere knower thereof: to a sciolist, the starry hea- temporalities, good and evil hap of the correvens revolving in dead mechanism, may be sponding parties, their state of purse, heart, less than a Jacob's vision; but to the Newton and nervous system, and the moods and huthey are more; for the same God still dwells mours these give rise to,-little stands recordenthroned there, and holy Influences, like An-ed for us. It may be too that native readers gels, still ascend and descend; and this clearer will feel such a want less than foreigners do, vision of a little but renders the remaining whose curiosity in this instance is equally mimystery the deeper and more divine. So like-nute, and to whom so many details, familiar wise is it with true spiritual greatness. On the whole, that theory of "no man being a hero to his valet," carries us but a little way into the real nature of the case. With a superficial meaning which is plain enough, it essentially holds good only of such heroes as are false, or else of such valets as are too genuine, as are shoulder-knotted and brass-lackered in soul as well as in body: of other sorts it does not hold. Milton was still a hero to the good Elwood. But we dwell not on that mean doctrine, which, true or false, may be left to itself the more safely, as in practice it is of little or no immediate import. For were it never so true, yet, unless we preferred huge bug-bears to small realities, our practical course were still the same: to inquire, to investigate by all methods, till we saw clearly. What worth in this biographical point of enough in the country itself, must be unknown. At all events, it is to be remembered that Schiller and Goethe are, in strict speech, Literary Men; for whom their social life is only as the dwelling-place and outward tabernacle of their spiritual life; which latter is the one thing needful; the other, except in subserviency to this, meriting no attention, or the least possible. Besides, as cultivated men, perhaps even by natural temper, they are not in the habit of yielding to violent emotions of any kind, still less of unfolding and depicting such, by letter, even to closest intimates; a turn of mind which, if it diminished the warmth of their epistolary intercourse, must have increased their private happiness, and so, by their friends, can hardly be regretted. He who wears his heart on his sleeve, will often have to lament aloud that daws peck at it: he who does not, will spare himself such lamenting. Of Rousseau's Confessions, whatever value we assign that sort of ware, there is no vestige in this Correspondence. : tion for him is of old standing, and has not abated, as it ripened into calm, loving estimation. But to English expositors of Foreign Literature, at this epoch, there will be many Meanwhile, many cheerful, honest little do- more pressing duties than that of expounding mestic touches are given here and there; Schiller. To a considerable extent, Schiller which we can accept gladly, with no worse may be said to expound himself. His greatcensure than wishing that there had been more. ness is of a simple kind; his manner of disBut this Correspondence has another and more playing it is, for most part, apprehensible to proper aspect, under which, if rightly consi- every one.-Besides, of all German Writers, dered, it possesses a far higher interest than ranking in any such class as his, Klopstock most domestic delineations could have impart scarcely excepted, he has the least nationality : ed. It shows us two high, creative, truly poetic his character indeed is German, if German minds, unweariedly cultivating themselves, un- mean true, earnest, nobly-humane; but his weariedly advancing from one measure of mode of thought, and mode of utterance, all strength and clearness to another; whereby to but the mere vocables of it, are European. such as travel, we say not on the same road, Accordingly, it is to be observed, no German for this few can do, but in the same direction, Writer has had such acceptance with foreignas all should do, the richest psychological anders; has been so instantaneously admitted practical lesson is laid out; from which men into favour, at least any favour which proved of every intellectual degree may learn some-permanent. Among the French, for example, thing, and he that is of the highest degree will probably learn the most. What value lies in this lesson, moreover, may be expected to increase in an increasing ratio as the Correspondence proceeds, and a larger space, with broader differences of advancement, comes into view; especially as respects Schiller, the younger and more susceptive of the two; for whom, in particular, these eleven years may be said to comprise the most important era of his culture; indeed, the whole history of his progress therein, from the time when he first found the right path, and properly became progressive. Schiller is almost naturalized; translated, commented upon, by men of whom Constant is gne; even brought upon the stage, and by a large class of critics vehemently extolled there. Indeed, to the Romanticist class, in all countries, Schiller is naturally the pattern man and great master; as it were a sort of ambassador and mediator, were mediation possible, between the Old School and the New; pointing to his own Works, as to a glittering bridge, that will lead pleasantly from the Versailles gardening and artificial hydraulics of the one, into the true Ginnistan and wonderland of the other. With ourselves too, who are troubled with no controversies on Romanticism and Classicism,-the Bowles controversy on Pope having long since evaporated without result, and all critical guild-brethren now working diligently with one accord, in the calmer sphere of Vapidism, or even Nullism,-Schiller is no less universally esteemed by persons of any feeling for poetry. To readers of German, and these are increasing everywhere a hundred fold, he is one of the earliest studies; and the dullest cannot study him without some perception of his beauties. For the un-German, again, we have Translations in abundance and supera. bundance; through which, under whatever distortion, however shorn of his beams, some image of this poetical sun must force itself; and in susceptive hearts, awaken love, and a desire for more immediate insight. So that now, we suppose, anywhere in England, a man who denied that Schiller was a Poet would Indeed, had we considered only his impor- himself be, from every side, declared a Prosatance in German, or we may now say, in Eu-ist, and thereby summarily enough put tc ropean Literature, Schiller might well have demanded an earlier notice in our Journal. As a man of true poetical and philosophical genius, who proved this high endowment both in his conduct, and by a long series of Writings which manifest it to all; nay, even as a man so eminently admired by his nation, while he lived, and whose fame, there and abroad, during the twenty-five years since his decease, has been constantly expanding and confirming itself, he appears with such claims as can belong only to a small number of men. If we have seemed negligent of Schiller, want of affection was nowise the cause. Our admira But to enter farther on the merits and special qualities of these Letters, which, on all hands, will be regarded as a publication of real value, both intrinsic and extrinsic, is not our task now. Of the frank, kind, mutually-respectful | relation that manifests itself between the two Correspondents; of their several epistolary styles, and the worth of each, and whatever else characterizes this work as a series of biographical documents, or of philosophical views, we may at some future period have occasion to speak; certain detached speculations and indications will of themselves come before us in the course of our present undertaking. Meanwhile to British readers, the chief object is not the Letters, but the writers of them. Of Goethe the public already know something of Schiller, less is known, and our wish is to bring him into closer approximation with our readers. silence. . All which being so, the weightiest part of our duty, that of preliminary pleading for Schiller of asserting rank and excellence for him while a stranger, and to judges suspicious of counterfeits, is taken off our hands. The knowledge of his works is silently and rapidly proceeding; in the only way by which true knowledge can be attained, by loving study of them, in many an inquiring, candid mind. Moreover, as remarked above, Schiller's works, generally speaking, require little commentary: for a man of such excellence, for a true Poet we should say that his worth lies singularly open; nay, in great part of his writings, beyond such open universally recognisable worth, there is no other to be sought. : : Yet doubtless if he is a Poet, a genuine interpreter of the Invisible, Criticism will have a deeper duty to discharge for him. Every Poet, be his outward lot what it may, finds himself born in the midst of Prose; he has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an Actual world, into the freedom and infinitude of an Ideal; and the history of such struggle, which is the history of his life, cannot be other than instructive. His is a high, laborious, unrequited, or only self-requited endeavour, which, however, by the law of his being, he is compelled to undertake, and must prevail in, or be permanently wretched; nay the more wretched, the nobler his gifts are. For it is the deep, inborn claim of his whole spiritual nature, and will not and must not go unanswered. His youthful unrest, that "unrest of genius,” often | so wayward in its character, is the dim anticipation of this; the mysterious, all-powerful mandate, as from Heaven, to prepare himself, to purify himself, for the vocation wherewith he is called. And yet how few can fulfil this mandate, how few ever earnestly give heed to it! Of the thousand jingling dilettanti, whose jingle dies with the hour which it harmlessly or hurtfully amused, we say nothing here: to these, as to the mass of men, such calls for spiritual perfection speak only in whispers, drowned without difficulty in the din and dissipation of the world. But even for the Byron, for the Burns, whose ear is quick for celestial messages, in whom "speaks the prophesying spirit,” in awful prophetic voice, how hard is it to "take no counsel with flesh and blood," and instead of living and writing for the Day that passes over them, live and write for the Eternity that rests and abides over them; instead of living commodiously in the Half, the Reputable, the Plausible, "to live resolutely in the Whole, the Good, the True!"* Such Halfness, such halting between two opinions, such painful, altogether fruitless negotiating between Truth and Falsehood, has been the besetting sin, and chief misery, of mankind in all ages. Nay, in our age, it has christened itself Moderation, a prudent taking of the middle course; and passes current among us as a virtue. How virtuous it is, the withered condition of many a once ingenious nature that has lived by this method-the broken or breaking heart of many a noble nature that could not live by it-speak aloud, did we but listen. For any thorough or final answer to such questions, it is evident enough, neither our own means, nor the present situation of our readers, in regard to this matter, are in any measure adequate. Nevertheless, the imperfect beginning must be made, before the perfect result can appear. Some slight far-off glance over the character of the man, as he looked and lived, in Action and in Poetry, will not, perhaps, be unacceptable from us: for such as know little of Schiller, it may be an opening of the way to better knowledge; for such as are already familiar with him, it may be a stating in words of what they themselves have often thought; and welcome, therefore, as the confirming testimony of a second witness. Of Schiller's personal history there are accounts in various accessible publications; so that, we suppose, no formal Narrative of his Life, which may now be considered generally known, is necessary here. Such as are curious on the subject, and still uninformed, may find some satisfaction in the Life of Schiller, (London, 1824;) in the Vie de Schiller, (prefixed to the French Translation of his Dramatic Works;) in the Account of Schiller, (prefixed to the English Translation of his Thirty-Years' War, Edinburgh, 1828;), and, doubtless, in many other Essays, known to us only by title. Nay, in the survey we propose to make of his character, practical as well as speculative, the main facts of his outward history will of themselves come to light. Schiller's Life is emphatically a literary one; that of a man existing only for Contemplation; guided forward by the pursuit of ideal things, and seeking and finding his true welfare therein. A singular simplicity characterizes it,-a remoteness from whatever is called business; an aversion to the tumults of business, an indifference to its prizes, grows with him from year to year. He holds no office; scarcely for a little while a University Professorship; he covets no promotion; has no stock of money; and shows no discontent with these arrangements. Nay, when permanent sickness, continual pain of body, is added to them, he still seems happy: these last fifteen years of his life are, spiritually considered, the clearest and most productive of all. We might say, there is something priest-like in that Life of his: under quite another colour and environment, yet with aims differing in form rather than in essence, it has a priest-like stillness, a priestlike purity; nay, if for the Catholic Faith, we substitute the Ideal of Art, and for Convent And now, when from among so many ship-Rules, Moral, Esthetic Laws, it has even wrecks and misventures one goodly vessel comes to land, we joyfully survey its rich cargo, and hasten to question the crew on the fortunes of their voyage. Among the crowd of uncultivated and miscultivated writers, the high, pure Schiller stands before us with a like distinction. We ask, how was this man successful? From what peculiar point of view did he attempt penetrating the secret of spiritual Nature? From what region of Prose rise into Poetry? Under what outward accidentswith what inward faculties-by what methods -with what result? * Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren resolut zu leben.-Goethe. с something of a monastic character. By the three monastic vows he was not bound; yet vows of as high and difficult a kind, both to do and to forbear, he had taken on him; and his happiness and whole business lay in observing them. Thus immured, not in cloisters of stone and mortar, yet in cloisters of the mind, which separate him as impassably from the vulgar, he works and meditates only on what we may call Divine things; his familiar talk, his very recreations, the whole actings and fancyings of his daily existence, tend thither. " As in the life of a Holy Man, too, so in that of Schiller, there is but one great epoch: that of taking on him these Literary Vows; of finally | for there is in genius that alchymy which conextricating himself from the distractions of the verts all metals into gold; which from sufferworld, and consecrating his whole future daysing educes strength, from error clearer wisdom, to Wisdom. What lies before this epoch, and from all things good. what lies after it, have two altogether different "The Duke of Wurtemberg had lately characters. The former is worldly, and occu-founded a free seminary for certain branches pied with worldly vicissitudes; the latter is spiritual, of calm tenor, marked to himself only by his growth in inward clearness, to the world only by the peaceable fruits of this. It is to the first of these periods that we shall here chiefly direct ourselves. ༣ of professional education: it was first set up at Solitude, one of his country residences; and had now been transferred to Stuttgard, where, under an improved form, and with the name of Karls-schule, we believe it still exists. The Duke proposed to give the sons of his military officers a preferable claim to the benefits of this institution; and having formed a good opinion both of Schiller and his father, he invited the former to profit by this opportunity. The offer occasioned great embarrassment: the young man and his parents were alike determined in favour of the Church, a project with which this new one was inconsistent. Their embarrassment was but in In his parentage, and the circumstances of his earlier years, we may reckon him fortunate. His parents, indeed, are not rich, nor even otherwise independent: yet neither are they meanly poor; and warm affection, a true honest character, ripened in both into religion, not without an openness for knowledge, and even considerable intellectual culture, makes amends for every defect. The Boy, too, is himself of a character in which, to the ob-creased, when the Duke, on learning the servant, lies the richest promise. A modest, still nature, apt for all instruction in heart or head; flashes of liveliness, of impetuosity, from time to time breaking through. That little anecdote of the Thunder-storm is so graceful in its littleness, that one cannot but hope it may be authentic. nature of their scruples, desired them to think well before they decided. It was out of fear, and with reluctance that his proposal was accepted. Schiller enrolled himself in 1773; and turned, with a heavy heart, from freedom and cherished hopes, to Greek, and seclusion, and Law. "His anticipations proved to be but too just: the six years which he spent in this Establishment were the most harassing and comfortless of his life. The Stuttgard system of education seems to have been formed on the principle, not of cherishing and correcting nature, but of rooting it out, and supplying its place by something better. The process of teaching and living was conducted with the Once, it is said, during a tremendous thunder-storm, his father missed him in the young group within doors; none of the 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 passed 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 neigh-stiff formality of military drilling; every thing bourhood, 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 gloom over it. To the reprimands of his parent, the whimpering truant pleaded in extenuation, that the Lightning was so beautiful, and he wished to see where it was coming from!" In his village-school he reads the Classics with diligence, without relish; at home, with far deeper feelings, the Bible; and already his young heart is caught with that mystic grandeur of the Hebrew Prophets. His devout nature, moulded by the pious habits of his parents, inclines him to be a clergyman: a clergyman, indeed, he proved; only the Church he ministered in was the Catholic, a far more Catholic than that false Romish one. But already in his ninth year, not without rapturous amazement, and a lasting remembrance, he had seen the "splendours of the Ludwigsburg Theatre;" and so, unconsciously, cast a glimpse into that world, where, by accident or natural preference, his own genius was one day to work out its noblest triumphs. Before the end of his boyhood, however, begins a far harsher era for Schiller; wherein, under quite other nurture, other faculties were to be developed in him. He must enter on a scene of oppression, distortion, isolation; under which, for the present, the fairest years of his existence are painfully crushed down. But this too has its wholesome influences on him; 1 went on by statute and ordinance; there was no scope for the exercise of free-will, no allowance for the varieties of original structure. A scholar might possess what instincts or capacities he pleased; the regulations of the school' took no account of this; he must fit himself into the common mould, which, like the old Giant's bed, stood there, appointed by superior authority, to be filled alike by the great and the little. The same strict and narrow course of reading and composition was marked out for each beforehand, and it was by stealth if he read or wrote any thing beside. Their domestic economy was regulated in the same spirit as their preceptorial: it consisted of the same sedulous exclusion of all that could border on pleasure, or give any exercise to choice. The pupils were kept apart from the conversation or sight of any person but their teachers; none ever got beyond the precincts of despotism to snatch even a fearful joy; their very amusements proceeded by the word of command. How grievous all this must have been it is easy to conceive. To Schiller it was more grievous than to any other. Of an ardent and impetuous, yet delicate nature, whilst his dis contentment devoured him internally, he was too modest to give, it the relief of utterance by deeds or words. Locked up within himself, he suffered deeply, but without complaining Some of his Letters written during this period have been preserved: they exhibit the inef |