The Prestige of Schiller in England. 1788-1859 9780231896481

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

THE PRESTIGE IN

OF

SCHILLER

ENGLAND

THE PRESTIGE OF SCHILLER IN E N G L A N D 1788-1859

BY

FREDERIC

EWEN

D E P A R T M E N T OF E N C L I S H , C O L L E C E IN T H E

NEW YORK C O L U M B IA

BROOKLYN

C I T Y OF NEW

YORK

M-CM- XXXII

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

COPYRIGHT COLUMBIA

1932

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

Published October, 1932

PRINTED I N T H E UNITED STATES 01 AMERICA CEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY, MENASHA, WISCONSIN

TO DOROTHEA WERKER EWEN LEWIS FREEMAN MOTT AND

CAMILLO VON KLENZE

FOREWORD

It is a pleasant, though not an easy, task to make adequate acknowledgment of my great indebtedness. Professor Ernest Hunter Wright of Columbia University was my most openhanded creditor throughout the composition of this book: he placed much of his time, his learning and his ñne critical sense at my service. But for him this book would have emerged a much poorer thing than it is. Professor Camillo von Klenze of the University of Munich first aroused me to a study of comparative literature, and neither time nor distance has succeeded in diminishing his interest in the present work or in its author. To both of these I am very, very grateful. I also wish to thank Professors Ashley Horace Thorndike, Robert Herndon Fife, and Frederick W. J. Heuser, who helped me considerably with much pertinent criticism; Professor Arthur Dickson of the College of the City of New York for reading the manuscript and the proofs; Mr. Frederick B. Erb of the Columbia University Library and his assistants for their most generous aid; and the Libraries of Harvard and Yale, the Library of Congress in Washington, the Boston Public Library, the Montague Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and the New York Public Library for the use of their rich collections. FREDERIC EWEN BROOKLYN,

NEW

June 1, 1932

YORK

CONTENTS

xi

INTRODUCTION PART ONE "BLOOD AND THUNDER": 1788-1813 I . GERMAN LITERATURE IN ENGLAND BEFORE S C H I L -

3

LER

1788-1805 . . . 1. Henry Mackenzie and the First Penetration. 2. Opposition to Schiller and to German Literature. 3. The Defenders of Schiller: the Periodicals.

I I . T H E COMING OF S C H I L L E R :

I I I . PROPAGANDISTS AND ROMANTICS

10

27

1. William Taylor of Norwich. 2. Henry Crabb Robinson. 3. Ann Radcliffe. 4. Matthew Gregory Lewis. 5. Richard Cumberland, William Mudford, William Robert Spencer, and Others. 6. Sir Walter Scott. 7. Coleridge. 8. Wordsworth. 9. Southey and Campbell. 10. Hazlitt and De Quincey. PART T w o NATURE'S NOBLEMAN: 1813-1844 I V . MADAME DE STAËL AND T H E YOUNGER ROMANTICS:

1813-1823 1. Retrospect. 2. Madame de Staël. 3. Reception of Germany. 4. Gillies, Lockhart, and Christopher North. 5. Byron, Shelley, and Maturin. 6. Travelers. V . CARLYLE

VI.

134

1823-1844 . . 1823-1831. 2. Schiller's

T H E SWELLING OF T H E STREAM:

1. Periodical Opinion:

99

148

χ

CONTENTS

Works: 1823-1831. 3. Goethe and Schiller: 18311844. 4. The Plays and the Poems: 1831-1844. 166

V I I . SOME M E N OF L E T T E R S

1. Around Carlyle: Sterling, the Hares, Mill. 2. Thomas Lovell Beddoes and Other Poets. 3. Critics, Novelists, and Actors: a) Sarah Austin, b) John Stuart Blackie. c) Macaulay and Thackeray, d) A Motley Crew, e) Pilgrims of the Rhine. PART THREE THE SAINTHOOD OF SCHILLER: 1844-1855 V I I I . BULWER LYTTON AND T H E RELIGION OF SCHILLER IX. THE

SAINTHOOD OF S C H I L L E R :

1844-1854

.

.

197 207

1. Periodical Opinion. 2. Schiller and Some Englishwomen: a) Mrs. Shelley and Felicia Hemans. b) Frances Ann Kemble and Anna Jameson, c) Charlotte Williams-Wynn, Mary Russell Mitford, George Eliot, and Others. 3. Poets, Novelists, and Critics: a) James Clarence Mangan, b) Kingsley and Ruskin. c) A Miscellany of Men. PART FOUR THE FIRST CENTENARY: 1859 X.

G . H . L E W E S AND T H E COMPROMISE

.

.

.

.

X I . T H E FIRST CENTENARY

Goethe and Schiller: Festival: 1859. 1.

241 247

1 8 5 5 - 1 8 5 9 . 2.

The Schiller

BIBLIOGRAPHY

255

INDEX

273

INTRODUCTION The present study attempts to trace the course of the literary reputation—the "legend," as the French prefer to call it—of Schiller in England; to note the successive aspects under which Englishmen came to view him, to limn the image which they formed of him, and to account, wherever possible, for the revaluation or the shift in perspective which took place between 1788 and 1859. What was it that drew Englishmen to, or repelled them from, Schiller in those years? What elements of his work or of his character did they apprehend and absorb at various times? It is not therefore with an enumeration or a criticism of the numerous translations of Schiller that the author of this book has primarily concerned himself. That work has been well done by others. Nor has he been employed in trailing down every mark of Schiller's "influence," though he has made it his business to point out the occurrence of actual assimilation of Schiller's ideas, themes, or method, wherever the latter have thrown additional light on his central thesis. The name of Schiller occurs with such bewildering frequency in the literature of this period, that an inclusion of all the references to him would have swelled this volume to twice its size, without the compensation of added clarity or force. Much material which was merely repetitive in character and tone had to be rejected. It became clear upon examination of the available contemporary evidence that the course of Schiller's fortunes in England was resolvable into four distinct phases, each clearly defined and marked by a revision of a previous view. In this gradual unfolding of Schiller's prestige in England, Goethe's

xii

INTRODUCTION

standing there played a very significant rôle: the problem being in the end which of the two would emerge supreme. Henry Mackenzie introduced Schiller into England in 1788, and thereafter, until 1813, the German writer was in the eyes of Englishmen preeminently the author of The Robbers, Cabal and Love, and The Ghost-Seer. Schiller came to represent the highly emotional, eruptive child of the Sturm und Drang; creator of "sublime" horrors and pathos—an elemental, titanic, unsettling force. His most ardent admirers in England rarely saw beyond this circumscribed conception: Hazlitt, Southey, De Quincey, and even Shelley and Byron were swayed almost completely by an acquaintance with Schiller's earlier works. Coleridge alone seems to have broken through the barrier and come to a knowledge of the maturer Schiller, the author of Wollenstem and of the philosophical essays. The "legend" of Schiller as the fretful rebel persisted until 1813. In that year Madame de Staël published Germany and brought a new and superior gospel. Before her passionate onslaught, the older notion that Schiller was an "untutored," vehement genius gave way. In its place arose a new vision: Schiller was the minister of high idealism, a philosophical thinker of amplitude, and, what is perhaps more important, an impeccable character. In short, Schiller was nature's nobleman. It is this view which was henceforth to dominate over the minds of the newer generation. Madame de Staël may be said to have converted England to an almost unqualified acceptance of the German. Ten years after her, Carlyle affirmed her interpretation in his own Lije oj Schiller. The sway of the "noble" Schiller continued; if anything, gaining in strength, though not unchallenged by the adherents of Goethe and the enemies of both. In 1844 Bulwer published The Poems and Ballads oj Schiller. The book marks the entrance of the third phase. Schiller, already ennobled, must now be sanctified. To the character of perfect devotion to the ideal,

INTRODUCTION

xiii

Bulwer now added a sterling orthodoxy of faith and religious concentration. Schiller emerged a Christian saint. The conviction that there was something holy about Schiller was not new; it was adumbrated in the reviews of the day. Bulwer gave it the force of his eloquence. The triumph of Schiller was now complete. Goethe's star had, in the meanwhile, had no such victorious course. Indeed, Goethe's fortune in England, his struggles for recognition—so painful and hopeless at first—set off Schiller's greater success as something in the nature of a miracle. Slowly, however, a knowledge and an intelligent appreciation of Goethe's works spread, and the childish legends concerning his inhumanity, immorality, and ungodliness became staled. Now he stood as a rival with a worthy claim to intellectual primacy. T h e fourth and last phase of Schiller's reputation came with the publication of G. H. Lewes' Life of Goethe in 1855. The approaching centenary of Schiller's birth warmed the hearts of Englishmen to a renewed contemplation of his high virtues and nobility. But the serious challenge contained in Lewes' book—it did for Goethe what Carlyle had done for Schiller thirty years before—the high claims put forward there, already anticipated in Carlyle's own words, may be said to mark the turning point. With the celebration of the first centenary, Schiller took his rightful place—immediately below Goethe. Thereafter it was Goethe who dominated the English literary fields. Matthew Arnold, George Meredith, John Morley, and a host of others are eloquent witnesses that the new dynasty stood confirmed. If the first half of the century was incontestably Schiller's property, the second half was through the allegiance of its most brilliant representatives the unquestioned possession of Goethe. It is at that moment, when the "legend" of Schiller had received its final configuration, when Schiller's place in England had been firmly and justly established, that we take leave of him.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Anglia Archiv Angl. Forsch. ES GerAmAn GoeJ JEGP Margraf MLN MLR MP NeSp PEnGoeS PhQ PMLA Rea RGer Stockley Stokoe StzvgLit Werke

Zeiger

Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, Halle. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, Braunschweig. Anglistische Forschungen, Heidelberg. Englische Studien, Heilbronn. German American Annais, Philadelphia. Goethe Jahrbuch, Frankfurt a. M. Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Urbana, Illinois. Margraf. Einfluss der deutschen Literatur auf die englische. Modern Language Notes, Baltimore. Modern Language Review, Cambridge, England. Modern Philology, Chicago. Die neueren Sprachen, Marburg. Publications of the English Goethe Society, London. Philological Quarterly, Iowa City. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, New York. Rea. Schiller's Dramas and Poems in England. Revue Germanique, Paris. Stockley. German Literature as Known in England. Stokoe. German Influence in the English Romantic Period. Studien zur vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte, Berlin. Schillers Werke, im Verein mit Robert Petsch, Albert Leitzmann und Wolfgang Stammler, herausgegeben von Ludwig Bellermann. Zeiger. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutsch-englischen Literaturbeziehungen, StzvgLit, I.

PART ONE BLOOD AND T H U N D E R " 1788-1813

CHAPTER I GERMAN LITERATURE IN ENGLAND BEFORE SCHILLER D e 1780 à 1830 l'Allemagne a produit toutes les idées de notre âge historique, et pendant un demi-siccle encore, pendant un siècle peut-être, notre grande affaire sera de les repenser.—TAINE 1 Morality has yielded to German philosophy.—The Miniature, 1805

I t was the kinship of religious sentiment which brought England closer to Germany. The first important penetration of German literature and thought into England did not take place until the Protestant Revolt. 2 I n the age of controversy which followed it, Germany had much to offer. The borrowings, where they occurred, were mostly of a theological and controversial nature; though in the realm of folk-lore and imaginative literature, too, much was gleaned from German lands. Luther's hymns were adapted by Miles Coverdale; H a n s Sachs was translated by Anthony Scoloker; the Latin school drama of the Germans was transplanted to English soil, as was the semilegendary lore which had gathered around the marvelous doings of Doctor Faustus, Fortunatus, and the rascally Eulenspiegel. One of the most celebrated books of the day, Brandt's Ship of Fools, brought into England by Watson and Barclay, shared, in the words of Herford, "with no second English book of its day 'Histoire de la littérature ' C. H. Herford, Literary Sixteenth Century.

anglaise, Paris, 1897-99, V, 268. Relations of England and Germany

in the

4

BEFORE

SCIIILLER

the privilege of being read for nearly a century after it was written."3 The broad and racy coarseness of Dedekind's Grobianus was naturalized for Englishmen by Dekker's Gull's HornBook and by other works of a like kidney. The whole migration was sporadic, sudden, and shortlived. "In lyric, in dialogue, in drama, the imaginative language which the genius of German Protestantism had shaped for itself was caught up with fitful and momentary energy, and then as rapidly forgotten."4 The Thirty Years' War aroused Englishmen to a renewed curiosity concerning Germany and its inhabitants. References to the war are frequent in the plays of Middleton, Shirley, and Massinger. The figure of YVallenstein loomed large in the imagination of certain English writers; Glapthome wrote a tragedy around him in 1639. Nor did the religious opinions of Germany lose their appeal. There were numerous translations of the writings of Luther and Jacob Boehme.5 But in the following age the tables were turned. "Whereas in the sixteenth century England borrowed from Germany, in the eighteenth the positions are reversed and the influence of English literature and English philosophy grows stronger as the years roll on." 0 Intellectually the early eighteenth century was the property of France and England ; and Germany, save for its single luminary Leibniz, remained a "forest dark." Where Germans were not looked upon as barbarians, they were made the subjects of ready and bluff jests, especially on the part of the French. The Abbé Bouhours spitefully inquired whether Germans were, after 3 Herford, op. cit., p. 368. See also Pompen, The English Versions oj the Ship oj Fools, London, 1925. 4 Herford, op. cit., p. xxv. * Watcrhouse, Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Seventeenth Century, p. 73 ; Herzfeld, "Zur Geschichte der deutschen Literatur in England," Archiv, CV (1900), 30 ff. " Waterhou?e. op. cit., p. 144.

BEFORE

SCIIILLER

0

all, capable of "esprit"; and Voltaire's jibe is as celebrated as it is malicious. Having asked that "human beings" be sent down to him at Ferney, he was outraged at the stupidity which had sent him Germans instead! The legend of German uncouthness, wildness, and barbarism, we shall see, persisted long after the publication of Laocoim, The Critique of Pure Reason, and Wilhelm Meister. And were not the disdain which Frederick the Great himself avowed for the literature of his land and his preference for things and thoughts of Gallic origin additional confirmation of foreign suspicions? After all, what had Germany to offer her English neighbor in the first half of the eighteenth century? A hybrid literature, born of French and English parents, altogether unoriginal and derivative. Yet, for all that, it is somewhat startling that some of the more acrimonious controversies which agitated German minds, and which touched England closely, should have found no echo in English periodicals. "It seems . . . almost incredible that no rumor of the Gottsched-Bodmer controversy, which resulted in a decisive victory for English models over the French, should have pierced the seeming dullness of British ears, or that Brockes's imitation of Thomson's Seasons in Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott . . . should not have been reviewed in one, at least, of the many English periodicals, which pretended to furnish their readers with an accurate account of the events in the literary world both at home and abroad."7 Slowly, however, the tide crept up.3 Here and there, hesitant and uncertain, German works made their appearance in English dress—chiefly such books as did not violate the accepted standards of decorum and refinement, characteristic of the age. Geliert was translated in 1752, Rabener in 1757; and then in 'Baker, (1909),

"Some

References to

German Literature,"

MLN,

XXIV

112.

" For chronological detail sec especially Stocklcy, German Literature Known in England, passim, and Appendix B.

as

6

B E F O R E

S C H I L L E R

1761, Gessner,· who of all eighteenth century Germans evoked the heartiest response in England. The reasons for his success are not very difficult to find: they lie in his close resemblance to Thomson. Like the latter, Gessner was the creator of descriptive poetry. And like his English predecessor, the German was morally inspiring. In reading Gessner, one was led to "believe in virtue."10 Klopstock, too, was welcomed; the affinity between him and Milton seemed less distant in those days than it does today. Schönaich, Bodmer, Haller, and Wieland were known in English translations before 1770. Lessing was soon added to the list.11 In 1779 came Goethe's Werther, and the floodgates were opened. This book commenced the actual German invasion of England, the open-armed and joyful acceptance of German works by one group, and the embittered and ever-waxing resistance to them by another. The violence of the struggle is sufficient commentary on the strength of the invasion. After Gessner and Wieland and Klopstock, the newcomers—Goethe, Schiller, and even Kotzebue—seemed to strike out new harmonies to the English ear—wilder, more unrestrained than those heard before; fraught, it seemed to some, with grave danger and threatening the moral and political stability of the kingdom—to others, enchanting and soul-satisfying. There were many reasons why German literature was greeted at that moment with greater cordiality—certainly with greater interest—than ever before." It appealed strongly to those who * For Gessner's vogue in England see Reed, The Influence oj Gessner upon English Literature (somewhat uncritical). 10 Texte, J. J. Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature, London, 1899, p. 299. 11 Stockley, op. cit., passim, and W. Todt, Lessing in England; also, S. H. Kenwood, "Lessing in England," MLR, I X (1914), 197 ff., 344 ff. "Zeiger, "Beiträge," StzvgLit, 1901, p. 243; Stokoe, German Influence in the English Romantic Period, Cambridge, 1926, chap, ii; Stockley, pp. 4 ff.

B E F O R E

S C H I L L E R

7

had already reacted against the formalism of much of the literary output of the century. The voice of protest, which was to culminate full-throated in the Lyrical Ballads of 1798, found a kindred note in the work of the Sturm und Drang. Goethe, Schiller, and Kotzebue had much in common with the tradition of terror and wonder generated by Walpole, and continued by his successors. The heart which beat responsively to Julia in The New Heloïse, and was touched by Ftngal, could not fail to be stirred by the love-pangs of Werther and Charlotte, and the madly magnificent effusions of Karl Moor. Werther, like many another German book, came into England by way of France, and acceptance in Paris was a patent of nobility which England could not disdain. The marriage of George III to a German princess, Charlotte of Mecklenburg, in 1760, can scarcely have proved of significance in the change of literary taste. There had been German kings on the English throne before this. And literature was perhaps the last thing on which they looked favorably. It is possible, as a writer in the Edinburgh Review suggests, that the American Revolution, which brought Englishmen and Germans together physically, may also have militated for a closer intellectual contact and awakened in the hearts of British soldiers some curiosity concerning German books.13 A notion like this is sentimentally and patriotically attractive, but scarcely stands the test of closer scrutiny. Politically, however, the Germans were more desirable to deal with. The Germans were soon to become the allies of England in the struggle against France. "Above all, Germany had that to provide for which all Europe was craving, a distinctly individual note in the theatre." 14 The German language, long considered barbarous and cacophonous, gained considerably in prestige. German was discov" Edinburgh

Review,

III (1804), 345.

" Allardyce Nicoli, British

Drama,

p. 310.

8

BEFORE

S C H I L L E R

e red to be a more forceful vehicle for the conveyance of ideas than French,15 just as German taste was found to be more akin to English than the French.18 Granting that Germans lacked "wit," they offered something which was much more precious, "those pathetic touches that irresistibly soften the heart." Germans "build their reputation not on perishable wit, but on durable nature."17 France, which had been "undone by Rousseau and Voltaire,"18 was soon to become England's enemy. It was not long, however, before the cry was raised that England was being "undone." This time it was by Goethe and Schiller. The story of the reception of Goethe's Werther in England has been told more than once, and well.1· It needs no repetition here. The numerous translations, adaptations, and refashionings which the narrative underwent testify to the power it exercised over its English readers. Frederick Reynolds rewrote it for the stage in 1785. Perhaps the most startling and conclusive proof of its vogue was the adoption of gloves à-la-Werther and the manufacture of pottery on which were limned the most pathetic scenes of the story.20 "Goethe," says M. Carré, "brought to the English public an emotion which was not new, he touched a chord which had already been set vibrating by Rousseau, Ossian and Young."21 The story of the unfortunate German lovers soon acquired the aura of legend. Thomas Campbell, on the eve of a journey to Germany, in 1800, wrote, "I shall see Schiller, and Goethe— the banks of the Rhine—and the mistress of Werther."22 Great as was the vogue of Werther in England, it was far u

Tytler's translation of The Robbers, pref., p. xviii. " The English Review, I X (1787), 66-67. "Ibid., X X (1792), 225. "Gentleman's Magazine, LXIII (1793), 2SS, and LXIV (1794), 251. "See in particular Carré, Goethe en Angleterre, chap, i, and our bibliography, s. v. Brandl and Appell. M "Carré, op. cit., pp. 7, 12. I b i d . , p. 13. "William Beattie, Life and Letters o/ Thomas Campbell, I, 275.

B E F O R E

S C H I L L E R

9

outdistanced by that of Kotzebue's plays.2* The hectic enthusiasm which greeted the works of this mediocrity is one of the incomprehensible occurrences in a period which offers much to amaze one. Mr. L. F. Thompson has well described his reputation at the time: "It was a time when Kotzebue's name was a household word from John o'Groat's to Land's End, and Kotzebue's plays . . . were represented not only in London season after season for twenty-five years, but on the boards of the theater of every market town that could boast such an ornament. During the period under review (1790-1810) there were approximately 170 editions of Kotzebue's works, his plays, his novels, and his biographies, equal in number to the aggregate of the editions of all other German writers translated at that time.'" 4 Between 1796 and 1842 thirty-six plays were translated, and of these twenty-two were produced.'5 In approximately the same period there were French versions of forty-two of his plays. 2 ' The Monthly Mirror hailed him as the Shakespeare of Germany—an epithet in the use of which the period was a little over-generous.27 The incomparable Mrs. Siddons made her appearance in Kotzebue's dramas, one of which, Pizarro, ran for thirty-one successive nights.28 Kotzebue's most zealous translator, Anne Plumptre, claimed for him a place beside Schiller, Schröder, Wieland, and Klopstock.29 The retributive storm which raged against extravagance of this sort was not, of course, utterly unjustified. Unfortunately it was directed also against literary works which had little in common with the outpourings of Kotzebue. Schiller and Goethe were made to suffer for sins not altogether of their own making. It took a quarter of a century and Carlyle to install Goethe in a place accordant with his genius. Schiller was more fortunate. " L. F. Thompson, Kotzebue, and Walter Sellier, Kotzebue in England. u Thompson, op. cit., p. SS. "Ibid., p. 58. "Ibid., p. 156. "Monthly Mirror, VII (1799), 195. "James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, pp. 421 ff. * Kotzebue, The Natural Son, p. 79.

CHAPTER

II

T H E COMING OF SCHILLER 1788-1805 Germany, where everybody believes in everything, except the Catechism.—WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER, Urania1 1. HENRY MACKENZIE

On the 21st of April, 1788, the celebrated author of The Man of Feeling2 delivered an address before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In this "Account of the German Theatre" occurs the first traceable mention of Schiller in England. What it was that turned Henry Mackenzie's gaze in the direction of Germany is something of a puzzle. He knew no German; his acquaintance with the German drama was derived from French versions. Perhaps the temperament which had conceived the lachrymose figure of Harley in The Man of Feeling found sentimental congeniality in the emotional outbursts of the new German literature. Whatever the reason for the attraction, the address was of signal importance. Upon Schiller and The Robbers Mackenzie seized avidly. "The most remarkable, and the most strongly impressive of all pieces contained in these vol1

Page 8. ' F o r Henry Mackenzie, see our bibliography under H a n s Schwarz, and Johannes Kluge; also Stokoe, German Influence in the English Romantic Period, chap, ii ; Rea, Schiller's Dramas and Poems in England, chap, i; and Harold William Thompson, Λ Scottish Man of Feeling, London, 1931, especially chap. ix.

TIIE

COMING

OF

SCHILLER

II

umes, is . . . 'Les Voleurs,' a tragedy, by Mr. Schiller. . . The author has drawn from the sources of an ardent and creative imagination, characters and situations of the most interesting and impressive kind, and has endowed those characters with a language in the highest degree eloquent, impassioned and sublime." His praise is, however, not unqualified—and the qualification is important, for it struck the key in which much of the future censure of Schiller was to be expressed. The Robbers, Mackenzie continues, is not without its dangers, for "it covers natural deformity of criminal actions with the veil of high sentiment and virtuous feeling." Yet it is "one of the most uncommon productions of untutored genius that modern times can boast." 3 There is not a little incongruity in the situation: An enthusiastic Scotsman descanting on German drama which he had read in a French translation! The address aroused much contemporary interest. It was frequently reprinted, 4 and served as the source-book of much subsequent comment. The Critical Review, in a discussion of The Robbers, not long thereafter, unguardedly ascribed the play to Lessing, but it echoed Mackenzie's words concerning the sublimity, horror, and pathos to be found in it. 5 Only a year after Mackenzie's address, the Gentleman's Magazine turned its gaze—if only for a moment—on Schiller and his Revolt of the Netherlands. "We scarcely know a book," said the eager reviewer, "that has excited in us so eager a wish to see its conclusion.'" Two years later, the same review was still zealous in the cause of German letters. It found the con* "Account of the German Theatre," in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, I I (1790), 180, 191-92. * For example, Literary Magazine and British Review, V and I X (1791-92); and Hibernian Magazine, 1790, no. 2. 'Critical Review, 2d ser., I (1791), 129. ' Gentleman's Magazine, LIX (1789), 639.

12

THE

COMING

OF

SCHILLER

tempt with which German books had been regarded previously, "misplaced and undeserved.'" The most serious, and at the same time the most penetrating appraisal of Schiller's genius is to be found, in this period, in Edward Ash's Speculator. The very first volume of this unfortunately too short-lived review serves to reveal the writer's especial fondness for German literature. For 1790, which is the year in which the first issue of the Speculator appeared, the sympathy, the warmth, and the intelligent interest which it manifested toward German books and toward Schiller especially are nothing short of remarkable. Ash was struck by the greater naturalness of the German drama, which, unlike the French, was never afraid of being too tragic or too emotional. He was willing to grant that in point of nicety and refinement the German drama lagged behind the French. But, he added, "a picture, strong, though sometimes harsh, of the powers of unfettered genius, artlessly and vigorously exerted in the boldest strokes of passion and feeling, is ever presented."8 More striking than this championship of the German drama are the writer's acquaintance with and perspicacious appreciation of Schiller's plays. Like many of his contemporaries he was struck with the rugged strength—bordering on violence— which Schiller manifests in his earlier work. Schiller's vivid and daring imagery, his management of the dramatic situations, at once singular and impressive; his rich and nervous language, never devoid of dignity, "the verbum ardens pushed almost to rashness"—all these captivate and stir the imagination of the reader. Like Shakespeare, Schiller seems to have delighted in the violation of rule, decorum and propriety, "satisfied to bid the human heart glow with the fire of communicated passion, or the imagination expand to the grandeur of conception."8 Schiller transmits boldness and virile power to his characters, 7 Ibid., LXI (1791), 1126. 'Ibid., p. 238.

' The Speculator, I ( 1790),112-13.

T H E

C O M I N G

OF

S C H I L L E R

I3

who may lack nicety and delicacy, but possess truth and reality. For Schiller is the Aeschylus of German drama. Those scenes of horror and affright, which have dismayed minds less energetic than his, were the natural soil of his creation. "Fiery and unfettered, his genius has delighted to seek the loftier and more inaccessible regions of tragic poetry; to expand, as in its native element, amidst the shock and tempest of the fiercer passions, which convulse the soul and lay desolate the breast of man." Schiller strikes the "strings of the human heart" with a boldness verging on temerity. 10 As a specimen of Schiller's work, Ash included a translation of the fifth act of Ftesco. The first translation of The Robbers—the first translation, in fact, of a complete work of Schiller's—appeared in 1792,11 and was hailed with open arms by the Critical ReviewAgain the emphasis on the terror and pathos of the action. True, the improbability of certain scenes repels one very strongly. Yet it mast be admitted that if in general the German drama knows 10

Ibid., p. 239. "Compare Rea, p. 10; Willoughby, "English Translations of Schiller's Robbers," MLR, XVI (1921), 297 ff.; Cooke, "Schiller's Robbers in England," MLR, XI (1916), 1S6 ff. Following is a list of the more important early translations of Schiller's works : Die Räuber, tr. by A. F. Tytler, 1792 ; W. Render, 1790; B. Thompson, 1800-1S01 ; J. G. Holman (under title The Red Cross Knights), 1799. Fiesko, tr. by G. H. Noehden and J. Stodart, 1796. Kabale und Liebe, translator unknown, 1795; by M. G. Lewis (under title The Minister), 1797. Don Carlos, translator unknown, 179S; tr. by Noehden and Stodart, 1798; translator unknown, 1798; tr. by B. Thompson, 1801. Wallenstein, tr. by Coleridge, 1800. Maria Stuart, tr. by J. C. Mellish, 1801. Der Dreissigjährige Krieg, tr. by Capt. Blaquiere, 1799. Der Geisterseher, tr. by [D. Boileaul, 1795; W. Render, 1800. "Critical Review, 2d ser., VI (1792), 209-17.

14

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little of the delicacy of the passions, this play at any rate thrills one with horror and melts to tears." The Monthly Review, destined to be a most genial and hospitable friend of German literature in England, was inclined to admit freely that Goethe and Schiller partook "in no considerable degree of the genius of our Shakespeare."14 Somewhat later it turned to The Robbers," and applauded Schiller for his unique genius in exciting pity and fear. But the reviewer could not stomach the violent and shocking imprecations which he found in the pages of the tragedy; they made him "shudder with dread," instead of inspiring him with awe. Two years later, the Monthly Review still found cause to deplore the prevalent ignorance of German literature in England and the preference for second-rate books, to the complete neglect of works of merit, like Schiller's Ghost-Seer.1β In the following year this weird tale was translated by Boileau," and though it was fated to rival The Robbers by reason of its note of mystery and terror, and invite emulation from Coleridge and Beddoes, it struck the British Critic as an indifferent performance. The book was adjudged dull (which it certainly is not), and disappointing to the sad commentator who had expected "more entertainment" from Schiller.18 When Cabal and Love appeared in English, William Taylor, of whom we shall have much to say later, made it, in the pages of the Monthly Review, the occasion of a fervent plea in behalf of German letters. "Frederic Schiller is the poet with whom it is impossible for the reader not to be most stricken." 19 "Ibid., p. 217. "Monthly Review, 2d ser., VII (1792), 212. "Ibid., IX (1792), 275. "Ibid., XV (1794), 21. " Stockley, p. 320. "British Critic, VI (179S), 189. "Monthly Review, 2d ser., XVII (1795), 310. See also Willoughby, "Kabole und Liebe in English Translations," PEnGocS, Ν. S., I (1924), 44, and Rea, chap. iii.

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I5

Even as late as 1797, Schiller was still the "celebrated author of The Robbers."™ His other plays, when they were examined at all, were discussed in the light of his earliest work. Criticism of their intrinsic merits was subordinated to a carping censure of some minor flaws. Thus Cabal and Love was found defective because it terminates "in the melancholy catastrophe of suicide."21 In some cases it was assigned a place far below The Robbers, because it seemed to possess, like so many German creations, a "certain uncouthness," and "a want of elegance," which prevented its pleasing an English reader.22 The British Critic, a little uncertain in its attitude toward Schiller, lauded, in one instance, the "ardent and copious imagination . . . the vigor of thought, and the richness of expression" displayed by Schiller in Fiesco." Only a hundred pages later, the kind temper of the review had chilled considerably, and in dramatic fashion it asserted, "We have always thought the tragedies of Schiller coarse and overcharged, notwithstanding the fame they have obtained. . . We cannot think that the English taste is likely to be improved by such importations." 24 The Critical Review, on the other hand, looked with favor upon Germans and with pleasure on "their surpassing merit in every department of literature" and on the increasing eagerness of the English to acquaint themselves with the German language and with German letters.25 Schiller was then primarily the author of one tragedy. Fiesco, Cabal and Love, though mentioned and sometimes praised, stood in the shadow of The Robbers. Schiller was a master in "Monthly Review, 2d ser., X X I (1796), 574; British Critic, IX (1797), 97. "British Critic, VII (1796), 31S. * Critical Review, 2d ser., X I V (1795), 146; and the Monthly Mirror, III (1797), 356-57. "British Critic, X (1797), 432. "Ibid., p. 551. *Critical Revinv, 2d ser., X V I I (1796), 520.

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the evocation of feelings of terror and pity, and therein not inferior to Shakespeare. But his genius was "untutored," wild, rugged. "He has more genius than taste, more imagination than judgment."2· 2 . OPPOSITION TO SCHILLER

Traces of hostility to German literature are recorded before 1797, but the full storm of resentment and revulsion reached its apogee in the years between 1798 and 1800. The militant labors of such pioneers as William Taylor of Norwich and Henry Crabb Robinson27 availed little to stem the rising, and for a time irresistible fury of the antagonism, which for the moment threatened to engulf whatever of German thought had penetrated into England. The hectic fear of French republicanism, of Jacobinism, of anything that smacked of liberalism in politics, religion, or morality turned with fury upon the literature of the Sturm und Drang, upon Werther and Goetz von Berlichingen, upon The Robbers and the plays of Kotzebue. Germany became in the troubled eyes of her contemners the land of ungodliness and immorality, the country which tolerated all beliefs except those that were orthodox.28 Illuminism, metaphysics, pantheism were wicked enough. But emanating from Germany, they were twice damnable. The reaction swept aside much that was spurious and worthless. But for a time at least, it did not shrink from laying violent hands on such works as Goethe's Iphigenia, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and Schiller's Wallenstein. It was at this inauspicious hour that Coleridge's translation of the last-mentioned book appeared— to fall still-bom from the press. A scourging-rod of uncommon efficacy was soon found. The Anti-Jacobin, or the Weekly Examiner, was founded in 1797 " Monthly Mirror, II (1796), 358. " See below, chap. iii. * William Robert Spencer, Urania, p. 8.

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17

by the conservatives under the leadership of Canning, and it made all unorthodoxy, and, of course, German literature, its chosen victims. In June 1798 appeared in its pages that most brilliant parody, The Rovers, written by Canning, Frere, and Ellis. To judge from its title, The Rovers seems primarily directed against The Robbers; but in substance, it is more fully a savage thrust at Goethe's Stella.29 What conception the AntiJacobin had formed of German literature may be seen from the prefatory note to the parody. This, says the author, is "a play, which, if it has a proper run, will . . . do much to unhinge the present notions of men with regard to the obligations of Civil Society and to substitute in lieu of a sober sentiment, and regular discharge of duties incident to each man's particular situation, a wild desire of undefinable latitude and extravagance."30 There are in this play, he continues, "the usual ingredients of imprisonments, post-houses, and horns, and appeals to Angels and Devils." Reference is made to The Robbers, "a tragedy in which robbery is put in so fascinating a light that the whole of a German university went upon the highway in consequence of it" (a legend, by the way, which found eager acceptance in England). Cabal and Love is a German tragedy, "very severe against prime ministers and reigning dukes of Brunswick." It would be superfluous here to rehearse the plot of The Rovers, which, as we have said, turns with delicious ingenuity upon the ménage à trois which Goethe conveniently introduced in Stella. Not the least ludicrous bit of the parody is the song of Rogero with its catching refrain, At the University of Gottingen. In the play itself and in the summarizing plot which is offered, Schiller comes in for his share of derision. There can be "Flohr, Die Satire, The Rovers, Weimar, 1907. "Anti-Jacobin, 1798, pp. 416, 419, 421.

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little doubt that Roderic, that "bloody tyrant with red hair," and his minister Gaspar are a take-off on the characters of the duke and his minister in Cabal and Love.31 The subterranean dungeon in the abbey of Quedlinburg must have brought to the mind of the reader of the Anti-Jacobin an unforgettable scene in The Robbers—that in which old Moor is released from his prison. And Rogero's song is itself a sly thrust at Karl's song in the fourth act. 32 The Rovers is as brilliant as it is malicious; one does not know which to admire more: its droll wit or its pernicious satire. It gave the cue to others, in particular a periodical called the Meteors?3 in which appeared, in 1799, "The Benevolent Cut-Throats" by Klotzboggenhaggen, with "a prologue to any German play," which reminds us that Robbers of gentle manners and polite Teach you to steal and prove 'tis just and right. What particularly irked the Anti-Jacobin Review (successor to the short-lived Anti-Jacobin) was the fact that the German dramatists found virtue housed only with the lower classes, while none "but noblemen are guilty of seduction in these enlightened days." 34 The opposition of the Anti-Jacobin bore rich fruit. J. G. Holman, having translated The Robbers and made "curtailments, and such variations as most dramas require that are not native productions," was astonished to find its production "prohibited by the licenser." It was the morality of the play that had been found defective. Holman himself was at a loss "to conceive how a more forcible lesson of morality [could] be inculcated" than was done in Schiller's tragedy. Accordingly he revised his version, and in its chastened demeanor, saw it performed at the Haymarket Theatre in 1799. In the process of moral reformation, the locale of the play was shifted to 51

Flohr, op. cit., p. 51. "Ibid., pp. 65, 68. "Anti-Jacobin Review, I (1798), 479, 481.

"Rea, p. 14.

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9

Spain, and the robbers were miraculously converted into knightserrant. Hence the new title, The Red Cross Knights. The wicked half-brother was in the end brought to task, and the virtuous one rewarded.35 Holman's procedure did not, however, escape censure at the hands of certain critics, such as that reviewer who, while commending, in the European Magazine, the morality of the revised text, remarked plaintively that the interest had been sacrificed.39 The Anti-Jacobin Review did not cease its baiting. Having condemned Schiller, the author of The Robbers and Cabal and Love, it insisted on making of him an irreclaimable sinner. Speaking of Mary Stuart, one of its reviewers remarked, "Certain it is that Schiller has, in all his pieces, presented some vice, and especially the want of chastity in women, under attractive colors. . . Mary is represented as a strumpet tolerably interesting, and the author has endeavored through the whole piece, to accept her as a good-natured frail one." 37 The scene in which Melvil assumes the functions of a priest was branded as "absurd, improper, and indecent." And then the writer of this article addressed his fellow-Englishmen in stirring words: "We trust so much to the good sense and delicacy of our countrymen as to hope, confidently, that such a piece will never be a favourite with them. It is an additional and striking proof of the licentiousness of the German Drama in general and of that author in particular." 38 33

J. G. Holman, The Red Cross Knights, Advertisement, pp. i-iii. According to Brandl (Coleridge, p. 108), the prohibition emanated from Pitt. This is hard to reconcile with the alleged admiration of the statesman for The Robbers, noted by C. A. Goede (quoted by Stockley, p. 8). It may be of interest to remark here that Charles James Fox was disappointed in the play (cf. Samuel Rogers, Recollections, London, 1859, p. 8 ) . M European Magazine and London Review, X X X V I (1799), 188. " Anti-Jacobin Review, VI (1800), 496. 38 Ibid., pp. 497-98.

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A correspondent, signing himself Juvenis, cries "Amen" to the sentiments of the Anti-Jacobin Review, and bitterly mourns that "the immortal bard of Britain should give place, on our theatres, to the mad effusions of such distempered heads as Kotzebue and Schiller . . . a most mortifying reflection to every Briton, capable of appreciating the merits of literary productions." 39 In November 1800, William Preston read a paper before the Royal Irish Academy, entitled, "Reflections on the Peculiarities of Style and Manner in the Late German Writers." 40 Preston was the author of a fervent and rabid royalist tragedy, Democratic Rage; or, Louis the Unfortunate,*1 and his distempered vision was no doubt due to the political prejudices which he harbored. Panic-stricken, he inveighs against the invasion from Germany, and the "poison" of the German drama, whose general character, he claims, is one of sombreness and gloom and horror; a drama which seeks its subjects not in the realm of the noble and the moral, but "dives into the cellar for its heroes and its heroines and is founded on the loves and heroic acts of beggars, and bunters, or thieves and cut-purses, of tailors and seamstresses."42 As for The Robbers of Schiller, what is that but "the Beggar's Opera tragedised and amplified, with a little sprinkling of imitation from Fielding and Shakespeare?" "Charles de Moor" is impure, sacrilegious—an incendiary and murderer. 43 Heated by his own warm eloquence, which becomes in places almost apocalyptic, Preston noted in the German drama and especially in The Robbers of Schiller and in Cabal and Love tendencies which seemed destined to undermine "virtue and sobriety, decency and good order," and to deprave the taste of upright Englishmen.41 He foresaw the "Ibid., VII (1800), S16. 40 Reprinted in the Transactions oj the Royal Irish Academy, V I I I (1802), 15-79. "British Critic, I I (1793), 401. " Transactions, pp. 15, 18, 20, 24. " Ibid., pp. 25-26. ** Ibid., pp. 45, 50.

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21

eventual overthrow of moral and civil government. And he concluded with these prognostic words: Who knows "but this preternatural appetite for the irregular, the indecorous, the boisterous, the sanguinary, and the terrific may be the precursor of some strange moral, or political convulsion?" 45 This was the year 1800. By now Schiller had completed all of his major works, with the exception of The Maid oj Orleans and William Tell. To judge from contemporary British opinion, he had never written Don Carlos, Wallenstein and The Song of the Bell. The lack of discrimination on the part of certain periodicals is well illustrated by the praise which the AntiJacobin Review was ready to bestow on nonsense of this kind: Robbers claim our admiration By actions full of consternation.

This was hailed as showing evidence of "good taste and sound principle." 48 Many of the other periodicals were in substantial agreement with the Anti-Jacobin Review. The Critical Review, which went to Schiller's Cabal and Love in search of sublimity and passion, was distressed to find instead extravagance and madness.47 The prospect of young minds attracted to plays like this and Fiesco, whose heroes "act like beings of a superior order," was staggering. It was evident that Schiller's efforts at sublimity resulted frequently in nothing more than unnaturalness and bombast 48 Accustomed as it was to Schiller's gigantic beauties and faults, the Critical Review was repelled by Don Carlos, which it hastened to pronounce the worst of his plays.49 The judgment is not particularly offensive coming as it does from a critical mind which found Kotzebue more true to nature than Schiller,50 and stubbornly insisted on coupling their names for 45

Ibid., p. 79. * Anti-Jacobin Review, XIII (1802), 418-19. *' Critical Review, 2d ser., XXII (1798), 104. "Ibid., XXII, 201-2. "Ibid., XXIV (1798), ISS. M ibid., XXV (1799), 31.

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some years.51 A little later the magazine pounced on Coleridge's translation of The Piccolomini, asking, in savage wonder, whether this "nonsense" was attributable to the "incomparable" Schiller or to the translator. "These gentlemen, between them, have dished up such a farrago of absurdities as we have seldom witnessed."52 The British Critic exhibited even more antagonism. The charges of wildness and extravagance were repeated; this time they were directed at Don CarlosStrangely enough, Mary Stuart was found "less exceptionable" than any of the other German dramas which had fallen within the reviewer's notice.54 Wallenstein, however, was a different matter. "May the critic," exclaimed one writer, "for his highest offences be doomed to review a German historical play."55 The British Critic was, at any rate, consistent. Four years after this, in reviewing The Piccolomini, it addressed pontifical reproof to the translator. If he and the other friends of German literature "can present us with nothing better than the piece before us, it may be as well to have done with it altogether." The Prologue is as "dull and flat" as possible.5· Even the sterilized version of The Robbers prepared by J. G. Holman seemed too violent to the Gentleman's Magazine." The vicious tendency of the play, it urged, was to clothe "rapine, impiety, and assassination in splendid and imposing garb. Vain and criminal attempt!" 58 The Monthly Register found in Lewis' adaptation of Cabal and Love, performed in March 1803, nothing of the genius of Schiller.59 Many a reader was outraged by what seemed to be "Ibid., 3d ser., I (1804), 117. "British Critic, XIII (1799), 190. "Ibid., X V I I I (1801), 666. "Ibid., X X V (1805), 684-85. "Gentleman's Magazine, L X X , no. "Ibid., L X X I I I (1803), 747. "Monthly Register, III (1803), 32,

"Ibid.,

3d ser., V (1805), IOS.

"Ibid.,

pp. 542-43.

1 (1800), 7. and Rea, p. 37.

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23

Schiller's anti-moral intention. Thus one of them addressed a letter to this same review. For the beauties of Schiller's Robbers he professed the highest admiration. But its moral implications he discovered to be most revolting. "Of the morality of this production, but little can be said; it possesses a direct tendency to favour the tenets of fatalism, and destroy the idea of the free agency of man." 80 Others may rally to this dramatist ; but Schiller, he boldly prophesies, will soon be forgotten. The very venerable Hannah More, whose instructions on right living served for many years to preserve the moral health of the young, was also startled by Schiller. "The newspapers announce," she exclaimed with consternation, "that Schiller's tragedy of the Robbers, which inflamed the young nobility of Germany to inlist themselves into a band of highwaymen to rob in the forests of Bohemia, is now acting in England by persons of quality!"" 1 3 . T H E D E F E N D E R S OF SCHILLER

Schiller and the German drama were not, however, without their eloquent defenders. "Upon the whole," Mrs. Trench wrote in 1800, "I love the German character." 82 There were others for whom Germany exercised a strong appeal. For these Schiller was not a monster lying in wait, ravenous to devour spotless and righteous Englishmen: the fascination of The Robbers was strong upon them, and the pathos of the memorable scene by the Danube touched them profoundly. Nathan Drake grew rhapsodic over the play; and it was this scene above all others which he singled out for especial praise. The Robbers, he ex" Monthly Register, III, 175-76. " Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern tion, London, 1799, I, 40 n. Cf. also Dibdin's for similar sentiments concerning The Robbers: wickedness." Mrs. Richard Trench, Remains, p. 90.

System of Female EducaDirector, II ( 1 8 0 7 ) , 235, "Unnatural and incredible

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claimed, "is a drama that does honor to Germany and to modern genius." As for the Danube scene, "there cannot be a nobler subject for a picture."63 Stephen Porter, translator of Kotzebue, censured British taste for finding The Robbers too rugged.®4 The Monthly Magazine did not hesitate to assert that Schiller "among our contemporaries approaches nearest to Shakespeare."®5 In 1806 this review devoted a lengthy article to Schiller, in which it again set him by the side of the English dramatist.6® In The Robbers, it extolled Schiller's profound love of liberty, his unworldliness, and his selflessness. Schiller was "neither narrow-minded nor prosaic enough to scrape money together."67 The feeling was strong that there was much of Schiller and Goethe still unknown in England, and that all of their works deserved translation.®8 "The Robbers of Schiller," wrote the New London Review toward the end of the century, "has been justly celebrated as one of the most distinguished productions of the German drama. In the vigorous effusion of manly sentiment and corresponding strength of language it is unequalled, and the part of Charles de Moor, the hero of the play, is delineated with such impassioned energy and skilful discrimination as to excite our admiration of the genius and judgment of the author."6* Here, apparently, the Anti-Jacobin's word had little sway. Elsewhere the names of Schiller and Shakespeare were frequently coupled, "Literary Hours (1799), II, 3. Cf. also Maria and R. L. Edgeworth, Practical Education, 2d ed., London, 1801, III, 145: "Young Charles De Moor, in 'The Robbers,' commands our sympathy; even the enormity of his guilt exempts him from all ordinary modes of trial; we forget the murderer, and see something like a hero." " Thompson, Kotzebue, p. 103. K Monthly Magazine, XV (1803), 686. "Ibid., X X I (1806), 42. "Ibid., pp. 43, 48. "Annual Review and History of Literature, IV (180S), 639. "New London Review, II (1799), 294.

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25

though not always for the best reasons. But enthusiastic intention sometimes compensates for a little gaucherie; the name of Kotzebue was not infrequently added as a fitting third. To others it seemed that the dramatic muse had forsaken the land of Shakespeare and Jonson and had found harborage in other countries. Where dost thou wander? Exil'd in disgrace Find'st thou in foreign realms some happier place?

queried George Dyer in his Poetic Sympathies. And regretfully he added that the muse had apparently migrated to Germany. But even the dramatists of that land were "characterized by a wildness bordering on extravagance, attendant on a state of half-civilization. Schiller and Kotzebue, amid some faults, possess great excellencies."70 The Monthly Register for 1802 was in receipt of a letter signed "A Gentleman resident in one of the most popular universities" of Germany. 71 The "gentleman" was none other than Henry Crabb Robinson, of whose work we are destined to hear more. In the letter he called English taste to strict account. "You know nothing about German literature." Kotzebue is not Germany's Shakespeare! The greatest poet of Germany is Goethe.72 (At least thirty years were to elapse before many other Englishmen came to share Robinson's point of view.) This was just reproof to the shallow taste and obtuse criticism which we have had occasion to cite. The opponents of Schiller had concentrated on The Robbers and on one or two of the other plays. Schiller's protagonists were, on the whole, more judicious because they were better informed. Thus, the Monthly Register called attention to the workmanship of The Thirty Years' War, for which it claimed superiority over Robertson's :o

George Dyer, Poems, London, 1801, p. 292. " Monthly Register, I (1802), 397. 72 Ibid., pp. 398, 400.

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History of Charles V,73 and adjudged The Revolt of the Netherlands an excellent work.74 In this war of defense, the German Museum waged knightly battle in the cause of German letters. It is not too fantastic to imagine that had this review lived longer, the fate of German thought in England might, at the beginning of the century at least, have been considerably altered. In its all-too-brief career—it lasted only one year—the German Museum was singularly alive to the intellectual ferment on the continent, and in its frequent notices, reviews, and announcements kept its readers awake to the literary happenings there. Though it did not devote to Schiller an extended review or analysis, it rarely lost sight of him: there were numerous references to the man and his work, and occasional translations. The onslaughts of the Anti-Jacobin and other magazines of a like temper, far-reaching and destructive as they undoubtedly were, did not succeed in silencing the opposing camp. Certainly the Monthly Register, the Monthly Magazine, the Monthly Review, and the German Museum labored stalwartly and not unsuccessfully to offset the ravages caused by the opposition. If anything, the controversy served to stimulate a growth of interest in German letters. It compelled the defenders of German literature to assume a more critical attitude, especially in view of the fact that the strictures of the enemy factions, frequently so wide of the mark, still contained much of truth and justice. "Ibid., II (1803), 312. "Ibid., p. 61. See also the Monthly X I I I (1802), 659.

Magazine,

X (1801), 621; and

CHAPTER

III

PROPAGANDISTS AND ROMANTICS I.

WILLIAM TAYLOR OF NORWICH

[William Taylor of Norwich] encouraged in me a growing taste for German literature. I had already thought of visiting Germany, and m y desire to go was

strengthened.—HENRY

CRABB

ROBINSON1

Carlyle's splenetic and not wholly unjustified assault on William Taylor of Norwich has done much to impair the latter's reputation as the authoritative intermediary between England and Germany, and as an interpreter of German genius.2 It is true that much of what William Taylor wrote 3 is, as criticism, immature, lacking in vision, catholicity and refinement of taste; and the authority of his opinions is sadly vitiated by his excessive admiration of such writers as Southey and Kotzebue and his failure to grasp the true significance of Goethe. At the same time it is undeniable that he was one of the earliest, one of the most fervent and enthusiastic propagandists of German literature at a time when such a one was needed, and that in his own erring way he did much to domesticate German thought in England. Fourteen years before the author of Sartor Resartus was born, William Taylor commenced his preoccupation with Ger1

Diary, I, 42. Carlyle's review of Taylor's Historic Survey of German Poetry appeared in the Edinburgh Review, LIII (1831), and is included in the Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (Centenary Edition), II. 1 For William Taylor see the Memoir by Robberds, the study by Georg Herzfeld, and Stokoe, pp. 38-43. 1

28

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man letters. In 1782 he visited Germany and returned to his own country fully converted to the literature he had come to know. In 1790 he translated Bürger's Lenore, in 1791 Lessing's Nathan the Wise, and in 1793 Goethe's Iphigenia. In this year began his amazing and prolific journalistic activity, which was to yield between 1795 and 1824 almost eighteen hundred articles, most of them contributions to the pages of the Monthly Review, the Critical Review, the Annual Review, and the Monthly Magazine. What drew him to Germany and German thought was at bottom a sense of spiritual kinship. Here he found both confirmation and support of his own pronounced religious and political liberalism, and fuel for his slightly revolutionary predilections. We have already made mention of one of his early utterances on German literature and on Schiller in the Monthly ReviewS He had then pleaded warmly the cause of Schiller and had expressed the hope that antagonism to German letters had "at last subsided." Two years later he was roused to a high pitch of enthusiasm by a reading of Fiesco.5 He extolled its compass, its variety of characters, the multiplicity of its situations, and their pathos. This tragedy he thought superior to The Robbers, and less extravagant, though he found the essential characteristics of Schiller present in both plays. There was Schiller's delight in the enormous, in the violent, and his dislike of "discipline and civilisation." Don Carlos struck Taylor even more forcefully, especially the magnificence with which Schiller had portrayed the figure of Posa.® If Goethe was the German Euripides, he thought Schiller might well be considered the "Gothic Aeschylus."7 Schiller was the only worthy competitor of Shake4

Monthly Review, 2d ser., XVII (1795), 31, and above, chap. K, sec. 1. 1 Monthly Review, N. S., XXII (1797), 205 ff. 'Ibid., X X I X (1799), 144. ' Robberds, op. cit., II, 100.

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

29

speare,8 and his ideas were "more heroic and colossal. When they quit nature, it is in the right direction." Taylor's Historic Survey oj German Poetry appeared between 1828 and 1830. It was this work which Carlyle made the subject of his annihilating review. Most of the material in these volumes was drawn from Taylor's innumerable articles; little was changed of their phraseology or ideas. He reverted to The Robbers, and added that it was "nobler to err with Schiller, than to be correctly right in the tamer forms of Lessing." At least one scene of Schiller's Robbers was worthy of the author of the Apocalypse." As before, so now he was carried away by the figure of Marquis Posa in Don Carlos, that true and "disinterested friend of mankind," who set himself the "sacred end of ameliorating the conditions of his countrymen." 10 The Maid oj Orleans William Taylor thought the feeblest of Schiller's efforts.11 Wallenstein, however, did not fall below any of Shakespeare's historical plays. The work which set him afire was William Tell}2 It was the best of Schiller's dramas, he believed, and unsurpassed for majesty of subject, for compass and pathos, for truth to nature and to history. Why was it that Schiller appealed so strongly to William Taylor? What element in the work of that writer drew him most strongly? Essentially, it was the note of revolt, the advocacy of the rights of the heart—the plea for freedom and justice. Taylor wanned most to those plays which urged the claims of liberty with passion: plays whose temper was most in accord with his own leanings. "Schiller," he once said, "has produced much which will, ever be prized by friends of freedom, of wisdom, and of virtue." William Taylor was himself a friend, in a smaller way, of these. His are not miserly words of faint praise. Schiller, the friend of freedom, belongs in the 'Letter to Southey, ibid.,

II, 108.

"Historic Survey, III, 177. '"Ibid., p. 106. "Ibid., pp. 214, 220.

"Ibid., p. 231.

3o

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

company of the elect: with Shakespeare, Aeschylus, and the author of the Apocalypse! 2 . H E N R Y CRABB ROBINSON J'ai voulu connaître la philosophie allemande, j'ai frappé à la porte de tout le monde, Robinson seul me l'a ouverte.—MADAME DE STAËL"

Of Henry Crabb Robinson it may with justice be said that he sat in converse with the wisest and greatest minds of two countries. He had met and spoken with Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland; and in England he was the familiar of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hazlitt, Lamb, and Carlyle. Had he been less diffident of his own natural powers and left us something more than the almost casual (though fortunately very extensive) comments in his diaries and correspondence, some longer first-hand study of the men whom he had seen face to face, there would indeed have been much to be grateful for. As it is, his literary offerings are very fragmentary. But he did much by word of mouth to bring German thought home to his English friends, and doubtless enlivened many an evening with Coleridge and Lamb by some vivid recollection of his residence abroad, or by the excessive missionary zeal with which he pleaded the cause of his demigod, Goethe. He had much cause to be proud. He was the first Englishman to gauge the true worth of Goethe. And throughout the rest of his life he walked in the shadow of the incomparable German—his most devout worshipper in England. His youthful interest in German literature was kindled to a flame by William Taylor, and in 1800 he set out for Germany. In Weimar he met Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland. Later, in Jena, he came to know Schelling. Robinson's literary activity began in the pages of the Monthly Register, with some " Quoted by Margraf, p. 40.

PROPAGANDISTS

SI

notices of German books. One letter of his we have already mentioned. He returned to England, and dedicated himself to the law, never, however, forgetting the high passion of his youth. Time and again he made excursions to the continent, forever in love with Weimar, the German Athens, ever hovering within the living presence of Goethe. Robinson's first noteworthy contact with the works of Schiller came in Frankfort on the Main. Here he witnessed in 1800 a performance of Cabal and Love, which he then thought "one of the noblest productions of the age." 14 However, this early enthusiasm for the dramatist was not to live very long. Only a year later, speaking again of Schiller, he had come to reject him as a dramatist, but lauded him as a philosophical poet. "Schiller is properly the poet of thought . . . He wants classical simplicity and taste. All his dramatical pieces have great faults." The only qualification he made was in favor of The Maid oj Orleans"Write me word, that this original and incomparable character, unquestionably the most genial of Schiller's poetical productions, is to be performed in Drury Lane, by our great actress Siddons; and you will perhaps succeed in making me abruptly break up my study of transcendental philosophy and instantly cross the Channel; but I shall hardly endure the temptation." 16 He was in the land of poets, and he made it his business to visit them. On the 13th of January, 1802, he wrote: "On the Saturday afternoon, I paid my respects to the remaining poet, and in order of my admiration the second man in Weimar— " Crabb Robinson in Germany, p. 21. For the personality and work of Robinson, see, in addition to the all-important Diary, our bibliographical references under Carré, Eitler, Fischer, Benson ; also Carré, Goethe en Angleterre, pt. 1, chap, vi; Stokoe, pp. S3-60; and F. Norman, "Henry Crabb Robinson and Goethe," pt. 1, PEnGoeS, N . S., VI, London, 1930. 15 Crabb Robinson in Germany, p. 90, and Monthly Register, I I (1803), 207. " Monthly Register, I I (1803), 207.

32

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

Schiller. And he too corresponded with my previous idea of him. His features are large and irregular. And he has a mixture of the wildness of genius and the awkwardness of a student. In his reception of us he did not imitate his friend Goethe, but was prévenant and polite. I of course contrived to compliment him on his works and spoke of their effect in England." Robinson was led to a consideration of the comparative dramatic talents of Schiller and Goethe. Schiller, he believed, "has not Goethe's ease and grace and fascinating development of character without effort." The former loves tumult and agitation, and "succeeds in displaying gigantic characters."17 Robinson's judgment of Schiller's dramas wavered considerably. The Maid of Orleans "is one of the boldest effusions of German genius I have ever read . . . and the reader is carried away." It is much superior to Wallenstein. "I had the good fortune to see the third part, or Wallenstein's Death, played at Weimar." In March 1803 he attended a performance of The Bride of Messina, and he recorded his profound emotion on witnessing this tragedy. He was, however, destined to change his opinion of the play.18 The Maid of Orleans he again lauded as a "glorious work" made doubly impressive through the magnificent acting of Fräulein Jagemann.1® In Jena he caught occasional glimpses of Schiller, who "had always the appearance of being unwell." He noted the varying reactions of Germans toward Schiller and Goethe; the latter was always regarded with awe, while Schiller was treated with love and pity.20 When Schiller died, Robinson was in Weimar. The sense of sorrow at the irremediable loss of a great luminary pervaded the entire duchy. "Schiller's death and character w e r e the sole subjects of conversation." The Englishman, too, felt that "the glory of Weimar" was rapidly passing away.21 Robinson's revulsion from the drama of Schiller grew apace. " Crabb Robinson m Germany, p. 100. " Diary, March 20, 1803, I, 162. "Ibid., 1803, I, 153. * Ibid., 1804, I, 186.

" Ibid.,

180S, I, 214.

PROPAGANDISTS

33

"It is possible," he said in 1805, "that a severe criticism may not allow him a high place among dramatic poets. He had a more decided tum for lyrical poetry . . . His tragedies are too declamatory, stuffed with fine sentences and splendid tirades." Had Schiller been content with a subordinate reputation, or had he been willing to confine himself to a more restricted sphere, "he might have been more than the Lucretius of Germany."22 To Henry Crabb Robinson, Goethe was the great poet. Beside him, Schiller assumed a secondary station. "Infinitely below Goethe as Schiller must be deemed in intellect and poetical power, yet as a man, he engrosses our affection. . . Schiller was raised by Goethe and Goethe was sustained by Schiller."23 Had Crabb Robinson been more willing to trust his talents, he and not Carlyle might have become the first really authoritative interpreter of Goethe (and in a lesser measure of Schiller) in England. In 1824 Carlyle urged him to set down his recollections of Schiller, so that they might be included in Carlyle's biography. Sadly enough, Robinson found "nothing worth recollection."24 His passion for the German poets never abated.25 When, in 1824, Coleridge, in a somewhat irresponsible remark, depreciated the gifts of Goethe, and placed him below Schiller, Robinson was highly incensed.29 In 1832 he wrote his only extended utterance on the subject of Schiller. At the request of Bellender Ker he agreed to contribute two articles on Goethe and Schiller to a series of biographies published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.27 In his discussion of Schiller, Robinson contrasted 3

Crabb Robinson in Germany, p. 170. Diary, 1829, I I , 429. " Ibid., 1824, I I , 287. " Ibid., 1826, I I , 367. " Ibid., II, 274. 3 "Distinguished Men of Modem Times," IV, 148-62, London, 1838. This is the later title of the series, originally called "Gallery of Portraits with Memoirs," London, 1833-37. a

34

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

his genius with that of Goethe. "Each one idealised in his own way; but the idea of one (Goethe) was framed according to a law of natural, that of the other, according to a law of moral beauty." 28 Concerning the drama of Schiller, he did not say much that was new or important. Don Carlos and Wallenstein are barely mentioned. Schiller, according to Robinson, shines forth chiefly as a philosophic poet. He never wrote "under the influence of the love of truth, but was impelled by moral feelings, always generous and noble."2* Henry Crabb Robinson remained throughout his life a consistent worshipper of Goethe. His loyalty to the greatest poet of the age never wavered. His admiration for Schiller extended, as we have seen, chiefly to his poems and to one or two of his plays. For the high morality and idealism of Schiller he had words of sincere respect. But the broader, more universal genius of Goethe evoked in him a feeling of reverence, even of adoration. He had lived in the midst of the intellectual and literary stir of Weimar ; was, so to speak, a part of it. He was present when many a newly created thought was uttered. His sympathies were wide and refined; and in the mere knowledge of the German language and of German literature he was second to no Englishman of his day. 3. ANN RADCLIFFE He smiled, too. . . Oh! there is every danger when the villain smiles.—LEWIS, The Castle Spectre"

The two most successful purveyors of delicious shudders in England, Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis, found much in German lands to stimulate their midnight imagination and to reenforce the somewhat muddied streams of their fancy. "Ibid.,

p. 156.

"Ibid.,

pp. 15S-56.

" P a g e SI.

PROPAGANDISTS

35

M u c h h a r m has been done the good repute of scholarship in the past by an over-zealous passion to discover "influences." No one would wish to add another drop of sin to the brimming cup. In the case of Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolphothe ascription of German influence is not beyond doubt, and is closely involved with the question of her knowledge of German before 1794. T h e first translation of The Ghost-Seer appeared in 179S. The Mysteries of Udolpho came out in 1794. Obviously, if Mrs. Radcliffe borrowed from Schiller's story, she must have done so from the original. Mr. L. F. Thompson has shown, I believe with some persuasion, that Mrs. Radcliffe had sufficient knowledge of German to read books in that language. 32 Whatever the explanation, the chief correspondence between certain passages in the two narratives is startling. A description of a trip on the Brenta occurs, as Miss McIntyre has pointed out, 3 3 in both stories. The verdant banks of the Brenta exhibited a continued landscape of beauty, gaiety and splendor. Emily gazed with admiration on the villas of the Venetian noblesse, with their cool porticos and colonnades, overhung with poplars and cypresses of majestic height and lively verdure; on their rich orangeries, whose blossoms perfumed the air; and on the luxuriant willows, that dipped their light leaves in the wave, and sheltered from the sun the gay parties whose music came at intervals on the breeze.34

In The Ghost-Seer, the Prince and his merry company also undertake a promenade on the Brenta. Die Fahrt war die angenehmste. Eine malerische Landschaft, die mit jeder Krümmung des Flusses sich an Reichtum und Schönheit " In general, see the studies of Clara F. Mclntyre, A. A. S. Wieten, Helene Richter, Die englische Romantik, I, 234 ff., and Railo, The Haunted Castle, p. 338. " M L R , X X (1925), 190-91. "Ann Radcliffe, p. 62. "The Mysteries of Udolpho, "Old Novelists," London (n. d.), pp. 85-86.

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

36

zu übertreffen schien . . . reizende Gärten und geschmackvolle Landhäuser ohne Zahl, welche beide Ufer der Brenta schmücken—hinter uns das majestätische Venedig . . . Eine lustige Musik schallte uns entgegen, als wir einige italienische Meilen von der Stadt ans Land stiegen.85 In each story there is a carnival, and music is wafted from the shore. The Carnival did, indeed, appear to extend from Venice along the whole line of these enchanting shores; the river was gay with boats passing to that city, exhibiting the fantastic diversity of a masquerade in the dresses of the people within them; and towards evening, groups of dancers frequently were seen beneath the trees.38 The Prince, in The Ghost-Seer, on landing, is also greeted by a carnival crowd, gay and exuberant: Hier wimmelte es von Gesellschaft aller Art. Ein Trupp junger Mädchen und Knaben, alle theaterlich gekleidet, bewillkommte uns mit einem pantomimischen Tanz.37 Perhaps a question of greater interest is the indebtedness of the sinister figure Montoni in The Mysteries oj Udolpho to the incomprehensible Armenian in Schiller's tale. That he owes something to Karl and Franz Moor in The Robbers is extremely probable. He seems to be, in fact, an amalgam of the worst qualities of both. Professionally, he is allied to Karl; personally he has the wickedness and brutality of Franz. His mysterious origin and something of his attraction may be laid, perhaps, to his descent from the Armenian. At best, Montoni's literary paternity is questionable. 38 In Mrs. Radcliffe's other thriller, The Italian, we are on surer K

Der Geisterseher, "Werke," III, 320. " Udolpho, p. 86. " Geisterseher, p. 320. " M i s s Mclntyre and Buyers (ES, XLVIII [1914-15], 386-87), incline to the opinion that there is here some indebtedness, though of a general rather than a specific nature. Railo, loc. cit., p. 338, brusquely dismisses the suggestion that Mrs. Radcliffe may be in debt to The Robbers.

PROPAGANDISTS

37

ground. The mysterious voice of warning and prophecy which dismays the Prince and his follower in The Ghost-Seer, ominously foretelling the hour of death of the Prince's cousin,39 resounds hollow again in The Italian. Vivaldi, the hero of the story, is startled by the ever fugitive monk of Paluzzi: He heard a sudden sound near him, and, raising his head from his cloak, he perceived the same figure! . . . "Go not to Villa Altieri," said he in a solemn voice, ''lest you meet the fate you ought to dread." 40

A little later, the same figure sweeps past him. "Go not to Villa Altieri," it said solemnly, "for death is in the house." 41

But the most forceful reminder of the fact that the monk is related to the Armenian comes in the third encounter: "You are too late," said a sudden voice beside Vivaldi, who instantly recognized the thrilling accents of the monk. . . "It is past midnight; she departed an hour ago. Look to your steps." 42

Vivaldi, like the Prince, is astounded at the warning voices. "I am warned of evils that await me," continued Vivaldi musing; "of events that are regularly fulfilled; the being who warns me, crosses my path perpetually. . ."

And the Prince: A superior power attends me. Omniscience surrounds me. . , 43

Schedoni, in Mrs. Radcliffe's story, is the villain; a monk, black and heinous through and through, mysterious and sinister; rooted in sin thrice as vile as that of his predecessor MonM

"Neun Uhr . . . Wiinschcn Sie sich Glück Prinz. . . . Um neun Uhr ist er gestorben." Geisterseher, p. 313. "The Italian, 2d ed., London, 1797, I, 42-43; also Mclntyre, loc. cit., p. 63. "Ibid., p. 119. "Ibid., p. 211. "The Italian, I, p. 222; Geisterseher, p. 321; Mclntyre, loc. cit., p. 63.

38

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

toni. He it is who frustrates Vivaldi's attempts to obtain Ellena. He it is who, finally unmasked, is brought to judgment. In his younger days, he had committed a foul crime: I had once a brother. . . That brother had a wife ! N o w listen, father, and say, whether guilt like mine may hope for absolution! She was beautiful—I loved her; she was virtuous, and I despaired.. . M y brother died . . . at a distance from home. . . Father, I was his murderer! 4 4

Schedoni "contrived a plausible history of the shipwreck of his brother upon the Adriatic, and of the loss of his whole crew."45 The reader of Schiller's The Ghost-Seer will at once remember a celebrated episode, the Sicilian's story, in which a similar incident is recounted.46 Here, too, one brother covets the bride of another, and slays him. In this case, however, it is pirates upon whom the suspicion is cast. One more touch of The Ghost-Seer is to be detected in The Italian. It is in the description of the Chambers of the Inquisition, into which Vivaldi has been conducted. Vivaldi found himself in a spacious apartment, where only two persons were visible, who were seated at a large table, that occupied the center of the room. They were both habited in black. . , 47

A book, with some instruments of singular appearance, lay before the inquisitor. The Prince, likewise, is brought before the Court. Wir befanden uns in einem Kreise ehrwürdiger alter Männer, alle schwarz gekleidet, der ganze Saal mit schwarzen Tüchern behangen und sparsam erleuchtet. 48 " The Italian, III, pp. 227-28. ** Geisterseher, pp. 348 ff. "Geisterseher, p. 317.

"Ibid., p. 290. " The Italian, II, 200-201.

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

39

4 . M A T T H E W GREGORY L E W I S Oh, Lewis! still may gen'rous zeal refine, And Nature's noblest feelings glow in thine; True may'st thou prove to bright Religion's laws, And teach ev'n Passion to promote her cause. —MRS. G. SEWELL, "To M. G. Lewis""

For William Taylor, and, in a greater measure, for Henry Crabb Robinson, Germany was an intellectual adventure, the land of inspiriting visions and mental emancipation. For Matthew Gregory Lewis, Germany was the country of mystery and wonder. The greater glories of enlightenment and of philosophy, the rich strain of song, inevitably associated with the mention of Weimar and its demigods, were matters of profound indifference to him. "Germany appeared to him as the land of mystery, and he went there at the age of seventeen, in 1792, to learn the language which would yield him its literary treasures." 50 The literary treasures of which Matthew Gregory Lewis was to make himself the possessor were those which ministered most to a taste which revelled in the nebulousness and extravagance and nightmares of The Monk. Matthew Gregory Lewis51 was drawn to Germany by the enchantment which the names of Goethe and Schiller exercised over certain of the younger minds. In Weimar he met Goethe, "the celebrated author of Werther," and in a letter to his mother, he warned her not to be surprised if he should commit suicide "one of these fine mornings," obviously in emulation of the melancholic hero in Goethe's story.52 Toward the end of 1793, Schiller's Cabal and. Love caught his fancy, and "Mrs. George Sewell, Poems, London, 1803, I, 263. M Carré, Goethe en Angleterre, p. 33. 51 For Lewis, see the Life by Mrs. Baron Wilson, and the dissertation of Rentsch, M. G. Lewis, Leipzig, 1902. 13 Wilson, op. cit., I, 71-72.

4°

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

he was soon at work on an English version of the play. ' Ί have translated," he wrote, again to his mother, "part of a German tragedy, which you have heard me extol so highly, and have already made some progress in the fourth act; so that I have some hopes of being able to ñnish it. I am sure you will like it, for both characters, incidents, and style of the whole play seem exactly adapted to your taste."" One year later Mrs. Radcliffe's Udolpho fell into his hands (what young soul failed to thrill to it in those days?) and stirred his original talent to fruition. In 1795 appeared Lewis' sensational thriller, The Monk. Pitched in the key of horror, mystery and suspense, so well in accord with the taste of the time, only a little sharper, more daring and more improper, it could not fail of immediate succès de scandale. Having so gloriously blazed his trail with "darkness visible," Lewis continued in the same darkling paths, with an insistence and with a fertility as astounding as they were misguided. In 1797 The Castle Spectre was produced at the Covent Garden Theatre, and in the same year appeared his translation of Kabale und Liebe with the title of The Minister. "The nobler immaturities of Schiller and Goethe," says Herford with a great deal of justice, "supplied grist to the melodramatic mill. Goetz and the crowd of Ritterdramen which it evoked, were fantastically caricatured in Lewis, and somewhat lamely in Scott's House of Aspen; while the gigantesque shadow of Schiller's Karl Moor stretches over a full generation."54 Lewis' taste was "almost unexampled in its finished, imperturbable depravity; and he had the accomplished criminal's faculty of doing bad things exceedingly well."55 The sources of Lewis' unquenchable inspiration were patent to his contemporaries. The Critical Review very early pointed "Ibid., pp. 92-93. " Herford, The Age of Wordsworth, »Ibid., p. 94.

p. 140.

PROPAGANDISTS

41

out the indebtedness of The Monk to Schiller's Ghost-Seer, the former of which it thought was "copied as to its more prominent features from Schiller's incomprehensible Armenian." 58 The originals of The Monk have been traced with great detail, if not without some academic acrimony. Among Lewis' chief creditors are, without doubt, Mrs. Radcliffe, Goethe, Schubart, and Schiller.57 Only the last of these concerns us here. Schiller's GhostSeer is with us again, even more prominently than in the case of Mrs. Radcliffe's Italian. Again we are conducted to a Chamber of the Inquisition, which is reminiscent of both these authors. He was conducted into a spacious hall hung with black cloth. At the table sat three, grave, stern-looking men, also habited in black. . 5 8

One of the most impressive episodes in Lewis' novel recounts the awful appearance of the Wandering Jew. He stopped and looked at me earnestly.—"Youth," said he in a solemn voice, "he whom you seek has found that which he would fain lose. My hand alone can dry up the blood. Bid your master wish for me when the clock strikes one."59

The inscrutable Armenian in Schiller's novelette speaks in these very weird tones,90 though Lewis, with eclectic generosity, undoubtedly drew from more than one source. Ambrosio the Monk gazes with rapt admiration on a paint* Critical Review, X I X (1797), 194; Mclntyre, Ann Radcliffe, p. 64. " F o r the sources, cf. Carre, Goethe en Angleterre, pp. 35-36; and the articles by Herzfeld and Ritter in Archiv, CIV, CXI, CXIII, and CXV; also our bibliography under Killen, Hoffman, and Ritter. M The Monk, London, 1924, III, 185; Geisterseher, pp. 317-18; The Italian, II, 200-201. The Monk, II, 53. " C f . Ritter, in Archiv, CXI, 115-16; Geisterseher, p. 313.

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42

ing of the Madonna, from the hand of Martin Galuppi. " 'If such a creature existed, and existed but for me . . . ,' " he muses. Soon he will discover in Matilda the original of the masterpiece. Thus also the Prince, in The Ghost-Seer, is enchanted by a painting of the Madonna by a Florentine, and after much hardship discovers the model.*1 Finally, the interpolated poem, which Antonia reads, recounts the story of the return of the dead Alonzo, on the wedding night of his faithless Imogine. Alonzo S p o k e not, he m o v e d not, he looked not around, B u t earnestly gazed at the bride. . .

No one who has read Schiller's story will forget the horrifying appearance of the Franciscan, in the Sicilian's narrative. The dead man stands motionless, fixing an earnest and sorrowful gaze upon the bridal pair. 92 Miss Scarborough professes to discover in The Monk the pervasive influence of The Robbers. It is true that the atmosphere in both works is surcharged with the same morbidity and nebulousness ; but the borrowing, if it really exists, is hard to particularize. 83 The Castle Spectre, however, shows unmistakable traces of kinship with The Robbers. Setting aside, for the moment, a footnote in the printed version of the play, expressive of the most voluble praise of Schiller's tragedy, we shall have no difficulty in finding other evidences of Lewis' literary devotion to Schiller. Here also we encounter two brothers, the younger of whom envies the more fortunate lot of the older. Here, too, they are rivals in love. Here also is a gruesome scene of imprisonment, paralleling that in The Robbers. " The Monk, ™ The beweglich

Monk,

I, 4 0 ; Geisterseher,

I I I , 4 8 ; Geisterseher,

. . . einen

Beheftet." T h i s

p. 409.

ernsten

correspondence

p. 3 6 0 : "Der M ö n c h stand

und traurigen is pointed

Blick

out b y

auf

das

Ritter, Archiv,

( 1 9 0 3 ) , 115-16. 03

The Supernatural

in Modern

English

Fiction,

pp. 16-17.

un-

Brautpaar CXI

PROPAGANDISTS

43

T h e lineage of Lewis' characters becomes even less dubious when we compare the monologue of Osmond, in the second act, with that of Franz Moor in the first act of The Robbers: Osmond (aside): Yes, I am guilty!—Heaven, how guilty! Yet lies the fault with me? Did mine pleasure plant in my bosom these tempestuous passions? No! they were given me at my birth; they were sucked in with my existence! Nature formed me the slave of wild desires; and Fate as she frowned upon my cradle, exclaimed, Ί doom this babe to be a villain and a wretch.' 64 T h e imprisonment of the elder brother Reginald with the connivance of the villainous Osmond evokes visions of the gruesome fate of Karl Moor's father; the subterranean dungeon in one play is not at a far remove from the chamber of horrors in Schiller's tragedy. In The Castle Spectre, Reginald receives food secretly, scarcely ever seeing his preserver. Through yon wicket he gives my food, then flies as if this dungeon held a serpent.05 In the fourth act, Lewis himself makes confession of his debt, in unmistakable terms: Osmond (distracted): Oh! how I hate thee, Sleep!—Friend of Virtue, oh, how I dread thy coming! In a footnote, Lewis adds, This scene will doubtless have reminded the reader of Clarence's dream, Richard's dream. . . But it bears a much closer resemblance to the Dream oj Francis in Schiller's Robbers, which, in my opinion, is surpassed by no vision ever related upon the Stage. Were I asked to produce the instance of the terrific and sublime, I should name the Parricide's confession—"Ich kannte den Mann!"6* "The Castle 1, "Werke," I I , c The Castle pp. 139-40; and " The Castle pp. 146-48.

Spectre, act ii, scene 3, p. 3 3 ; Die Räuber, act i, scene pp. 30-31. Spectre, act v, scene 3, p. 89; Die Räuber, act iv, scene S, Railo, The Haunted Castle, p. 357. Spectre, act iv, scene 1, p. 6 9 ; Die Räuber, act v, scene 1,

4 4

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

In Adelmorn, the Outlaw (1801) the general features of The Robbers are also present. The situations are somewhat changed. There is, of course, the villain, Ulric, who has murdered the Duke Roderic; there is the righteous Adelmorn, who, suspected of the crime, flees and turns outlaw. The murderer himself has imprisoned his accomplice, Cyprian, to silence him forever. One need not pursue the story to the eventual vindication of justice. In the end things happen as they would inevitably if dramatists were gods. The traces of The Robbers in Alfonso, King of Castile ( 1802 ) are of the slightest. I am tempted to find in the exiled Orsino's words of rage hurled at a hypocritical world, "Show me nature as she is, a monster!" echoes of the torrential fury of Karl Moor, when he inveighs against a scribbling, apathetic, and false age.®7 This then appears to be the sum of Lewis' indebtedness to Schiller. The Ghost-Seer, The Robbers, Cabal and Love, the works of Schiller's apprenticeship, supplied Lewis with much matter to season his own sensational taste and to sate his appetite for the horrifying. Wallenstein and Don Carlos, not to speak of the Philosophical Letters, have no meaning for him. For Lewis never outgrew a spectacular and very talented immaturity of intellect. 5 . RICHAKD CUMBERLAND, W I L L I A M ROBERT SPENCER, WILLIAM

MUDFORD, AND

OTHERS

"I think," said Mr. Carson, "he never excelled t h e Robbers."—MUDFORD,

Nubilia

Richard Cumberland belongs in a great measure to an age which antedated the violent shudders of The Robbers and The Monk; but he lived long enough to fall a prey to the blandishments of both Schiller and Kotzebue. His Don Pedro (1796) is " Alfonso, act ii, scene 3, p. 31 ; Die Räuber, act i, scene 2, pp. 33-34.

P R O P A G A N D I S T S

45

foolish and innocuous, and were it not for the adventitious interest it possesses because of its relationship to The Robbers, it could be left to the generous oblivion which has entombed it. Cumberland was not naturally a friend of the German drama, and his surrender in this instance is additional proof, if such were necessary, of the force of the foreign invasion.®8 Don Pedro indecorously upsets a sacrosanct precedent. For in this play, the robber, after whom the drama is named, is actually wicked and dishonest! He has, however, a good brother, a student at the University of Salamanca, who distantly resembles Karl Moor. There is the usual rivalry in love. Otherwise, Cumberland's play departs from its more famous archetype. The righteous brother falls into the unscrupulous hands of Don Pedro, who stabs him, but not, as he believes, mortally. Don Pedro then impersonates his unfortunate brother and returns to sue for the hand of his uncle's daughter. In the end all is set right, and the villain conveniently commits suicide. The Robbers was the staple food of many a young man destined later in life to achieve fame. Both Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law Rhymer,00 and John Gait, the author of The Entail, were ravished by the tragedy, at the beginning of the century. John Gait, writing many years later, recalled how in his youth he had yielded to the seduction of Schiller's mighty lines. "I fell in with Schiller's Robbers—one of those works of genius that should only be read once, and that is sufficient for life, if it be understood. . . With the exception of the Robbers " I am indebted to Baker's Biographia Dramalica, II, 170, for the hint as to the relationship of Don Pedro to The Robbers. Don Pedro will be found in Cumberland's Posthumous Work;, London, 1813, II. Cumberland was opposed to the German drama on the score of its "false writing and false moral." (Cf. Genest, Some Account oj the English Stage, VII, p. 476.) " J o h n Walkins, Life, Poetry and Letters

of Ebenezer

Elliott, p. 2-1.

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and Werther. I was never very strongly excited by any productions of the German school." He could not bring himself to reread the play, for he did not wish to "weaken by a second perusal the fine horror" produced by the first contact.70 One of the most enthusiastic defenders of The Robbers was William Mudford, the novelist. In 1809 he published Nubilia in Search of a Husband, obviously a counterblast to the impeccable Hannah More's edifying book, Coelebs in Search of a Wife. Toward the end of his book, in one of those intellectual conversations designed to set off not only the wit of the author, but that of his characters as well, Mudford introduces a very learned discussion of German literature. One of his figures, Mr. Vaughan, descanting on perseverance, especially when applied to the mastery of German, is of the opinion that Schiller alone would be ample recompense for the energies expended. The heroine of the book is a passionate worshipper of Schiller as well as a devout admirer of German letters in general. Zealously, and of course charmingly, she takes up his defence against the obtuse onslaughts of her uncle, who fails to find in Schiller that genius with which his admirers would invest him. Schiller's genius, says our heroine, "is bold, terrible, and commanding; his fancy is vivid, forceful, and creative. His Robbers is an astonishing production. But of all this you can be no judge. I have looked into and compared the best translations of him," she continues learnedly, if not modestly,71 "and they only additionally convinced me, that an author of genius is not translatable. . . Tell me," she adds, no doubt flushing with missionary zeal, "if a miserable sign-painter should attempt to trace one of the fine pieces of Raffaelle or Titian, and show it to me, who have never seen the original, should I have any idea of those powers which receive such universal homage and admiration? Just so it is with Schiller. All his 11

Literary Life and Miscellanies, I, 23-24, 121. It is only fair to Mudford to add that the parentheses are mine.

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works abound with touches of peculiar grace; with imagery of an uncommon stamp; with language beyond idea beautiful and energetic." 72 " Ί think,' said Mr. Carson, 'he never excelled the Robbers. . . . This is the perfection of dramatic writing . . . He possessed a genius of peculiar sublimity: that, and pathos, I conceive to be two qualities in which he eminently excelled." The scene in which Francis recounts his dream is lauded for its sublimity. The heroine of Mudford's novel is not provincial in her reading. She knows Wallenstein too, and loves particularly "the beautiful simple melody" which Thekla sings. She even attempted, on one occasion, to render a portion of the play into English, but her version did not please her and she destroyed it. Mr. Carson grows ecstatic in his praise of Schiller's "happy employment of single expressions," in which felicity "he resembles Shakespeare, as he does in many other respects." Mr. Vaughan is inclined to agree with Mr. Carson. "His Don Carlos," he says, "is constructed more critically than the Robbers; but it has none of its wild energy; it has too few fine passages. Wallenstein is a very unequal performance. Next to his Robbers, I should be inclined to place his Kabale und Liebe Our heroine is charmingly dogmatic. "I place Schiller unconditionally at the head of German literature, in works of genius and imagination. . . He has no equal that I know of. . Who would say nay to such engaging finality? A discourse like this, abounding with wit, learning and charm, deserves no less reward than a husband capable of appreciating these qualities. Somewhat less reverent toward Schiller was William Robert Spencer. His Urania, or The Illuminé (1802) was produced at 71

Nubilia in Search of a Husband, Philadelphia, 1809, p. 219. "Ibid., pp. 220-23. " Ibid., p. 223.

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the Drury Lane Theatre—a wild and extravagant comedy, not totally devoid of humor. It aims its shaft chiefly at Schiller's Ghost-Seer, and in particular at that most enigmatic figure, the Armenian. In the preface to the play, Spencer apologized for the liberties he had taken with the character of Germans. " I trust that an attempt to ridicule the only failings of a great, learned, and a virtuous nation, cannot be misconstrued; the slight shades of error, which mark the German character are rendered more conspicuous by the brilliant qualities which surround them." For the year 1802 this is not ungenerous. The plot of Urania hinges on the madcap delusions of Manfred, prince of Colonna, whose father, to cure him of his propensity to trust in magic, devises a plan whereby, in the guise of an Armenian, he raises the spirit of Urania, with whom Manfred falls in love, and who, in the end, proves to be the Princess of Tarentum, in the flesh. The appearance of the Armenian is significant. He is a man "with a long beard and a strange dress."75 He is our old and inscrutable friend who stalks through Schiller's story, uttering those horrifying forecasts to the Prince. In fact, the whole scene in which Urania is invoked is a faithful parody of the episode in The Ghost-Seer in which the Sicilian succeeds in hoodwinking the Prince.76 The ascription of German paternity to literary offspring became so prevalent that some writers were forced to an emphatic disclaimer of the charges. Thus Joanna Baillie defended herself against the imputation that her De Montfort (1798) and Rayner (1804) owed something to Schiller. In the preface to the latter play she states, "A play with the scene laid in Germany, and opening with a noisy meeting of midnight robbers over their wine, will I believe suggest to my readers certain sources from which he will suppose my ideas have been taken. ™ Urania, p. 7.

™ Geisterseher,

pp. 328 ff.

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Will he give me perfect credit when I assure him, at the time this play was written, I had not only never read any German plays, but was even ignorant that such things as German plays of any reputation existed?"77 The Reverend T. S. Whalley's The Castle of Montval (1799) likewise suggests—in even stronger measure—close affinity with The Robbers. But Dr. Whalley is equally emphatic. The tragedy, he says, "was written sometime before he read the play of the Robbers.'" 8 If Dr. Whalley had not read The Robbers when he sat down to compose his own literary work, some dribblings of the plot of Schiller's play must have come to him, perhaps indirectly. Certainly the echoes are strikingly familiar. Young Count de Montval, under the vicious influence of Lapont, immures his father. His bride, roaming through the castle, comes upon the living corpse and thus discovers the secret. The reader's mind will at once leap reminiscently to the fourth act of The Robbers, in which the living corpse of old Moor is brought to light. Both characters have suffered at the hands of their evil sons. The parallelism is striking, but it may be accidental. Even more startling is the correspondence between these two passages: "A soporific I administered," young de Montval confesses, Which simulating death, made all believe, AH but Lapont and me, my father dead. Now turn to old Moor: Höre weiter! Ich ward unmächtig bei der Botschaft. Man muss mich für tot gehalten haben, denn als ich wieder zu mir selber kam, lag ich schon in der Bahre und ins Leichentuch gewickelt wie ein Toter. . ,79 " Margaret S. Carhart, Life and Works of Joanna Baillie, p. 78. 11 Preface, p. vii. The Castle of Montval, p. 78; Die Räuber, act iv, scene 5, p. 139.

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SCOTT

I do not know anything of a play of mine, my dear friend, unless it be a sort of half-mad German tragedy which I wrote many years ago, when my taste was very green and when, like the rest of the world, I was taken in with the bombast of Schiller. —SCOTT to Lady Abercom™

The seed strewn by Henry Mackenzie did not fall on barren soil; it was destined to bear rich fruitage in a countryman of his, fated not long thereafter to throw the author of The Man of Feeling into the shadow and to reign for many years as undisputed master of romance. Walter Scott's curiosity concerning German literature was awakened by Mackenzie's account; it ran a prolonged and varied career, beginning, as befits youth, with the ebullience of enthusiasm, relapsing thereafter into something of revulsion, and finally resolving itself into a calm and matured acceptance. 81 In his "Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballads," Scott has left us a genial portrayal of the glowing stir of those early days. Mackenzie had fired his imagination with the names of Goethe and Schiller, and it was not long before Scott was assiduously at work over their plays, though, as he confesses, he inclined temperamentally with greater affection toward German ballad poetry. 82 His fancy was captivated in 1794 by Biirger's "Lenore" in William Taylor's version. Soon he tried his hand at an indeM

FamUiar Letters, I, 218 (May 17, 1811). For Scott's relation to Germany, see Koch, "Sir Walter Scotts Beziehungen zu Deutschland," GRM XV (1927), 36 ff., and 117 ff.; Sommerkamp in Archiv, CXLVIII (1925), 196 ff.; Macintosh, Scott and Goethe, Galashiels and Glasgow (n. d.) ; Margaret Ball, Sir Walter Scott as a Critic oj Literature, New York, 1907; L. K. Roesel, Die literarischen und persönlichen Beziehungen Sir Walter Scotts zu Goethe, Leipzig, 1901 ; Stokoe, chap, iv; Margraf, pp. 12 ff.; Louis Reynaud, Le Romantisme, pp. 180-81. ""Essay on Imitations," in Poctical Works, IV, 64. M

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pendent translation of this poem and of "Der wilde Jäger." Thence he turned to Goethe's "Erlkönig" (1797) and Goetz von Berlichingen (1799). His feverish appetite fed indiscriminately on good things and bad: Iffland, Veit Weber, and Schubart, and Tschudi! No wonder it was soon glutted. At about this time he attempted a translation of Fiesco, of which there is now unfortunately no trace, save the few retrospective words in which Scott recalled his effort: "When Lockhart and Sophia leave," he wrote to Mrs. Hughes in 1827, "I will send you some similar attempts never published ; one I think is a fine subject, the Fiesco of Schiller. I remember I used to read it to sobbing and weeping audiences and no wonder; for whatever may be thought of the translation, the original is sublime. These were the works of my nonage—not quite literally, but when I was about twenty two or twenty three." 83 "I admire," he says in another letter, "your patience in copying out old Goetz, and I am sorry I have given away or lost a translation of Fiesco, which is I think a finer thing." 84 Like many of his contemporaries, he labored under the impression that Coleridge's version of Wallenstein was superior to the original,85 and when someone mentioned a report "that Coleridge was engaged on a translation of the Faust," he remarked, "I hope it is so . . . Coleridge made Schiller's Wallenstein far finer than he found it, and so he will do by this!" 89 No small tribute! To be considered genius enough to improve both Schiller and Goethe should have solaced Coleridge in some measure for many an unfulfilled promise. Scott's judgment of Schiller and Goethe underwent many M Mrs. Hughes, Letters "Ibid., p. 224.

and

Recollections,

p. 222.

M

"Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk," in Miscellaneous Prose Works, V, 307 : "that drama, more grand in the translation of Coleridge than in the original of Schiller." * Lockhart, Memoirs

oj Sir Waller

Scott,

III, 381.

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changes; and there can be little doubt that, as Mr. Stokoe suggests, his final and just recognition of the claims of both poets may be laid to the credit of his son-in-law Lockhart, whose insistent championship of Goethe was not to go unrewarded. Yet aside from his opinion of Wallenstein, Scott's enthusiastic acclaim of Schiller's works takes a rather conventional form. Thus he characterizes both The Ghost-Seer, and The Song of the Bell, vaguely enough, as "fine."87 A late judgment on the German drama emphasizes particularly "the sublimity of Goethe, the romantic strength of Schiller . . . [and] the deep tragic pathos of Lessing."88 If Scott's explicit evaluation of Schiller smacks somewhat of indecision and is devoid of emphatic touch, his regard for the German poet must nevertheless have been great—if we can judge from the frequency with which he either quotes from him or imitates him. There can be little doubt that Schiller held sway over him. But we must guard against overestimating the strength of that influence. M. Louis Reynaud, with characteristic brilliance and recklessness, would make of Schiller's dramas the Leit-motif of all of Scott's novels. I quote of M. Reynaud's opinion in full in order to point a moral—to show what happens when critics of Romanticism succumb to romantic generali sations and (what is perhaps worse) to hot-headedness. Schiller a plus prêté encore. Kenilworth . . . est plein de Marie Stuart, qui a fourni les traits généraux d'Elisabeth et de Leicester à l'écrivain anglais. La même pièce, chère à Walter Scott en sa qualité d'Écossais, l'a inspiré encore dans Y Abbé, où nous retrouvons la Marie Stuart spirituelle, mordante et ensorceleuse de Schiller. D e Wallenstein Walter Scott a tiré maint type de soudard, notamment le Dalgetty de la Légende de Montrose en outre les prédicants bur" Lockhart, op. cit., IV, 126; Memoir oj Mrs. Radcliffe in Scott's "Miscellaneous Works,'' III, 374. " Essay on Ihe Drama, "Miscellaneous Prose Works," VI, 386.

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lesques qu'il a semés un peu partout dans les Puritains d'Ëcosse, dans Woodstock . . . et qui sortent du capucin de Schiller,—enfin l'astrologue de Quentin Dunvard. Le roman d'Anne de Geierstein est tout chargé de réminiscences de Guillaume Tell. On peut même se demander si certains types caractéristiques qui reviennent sans cesse chez Walter Scott: le jeune homme engagé par l'amour dans un parti qui ne devrait pas être le sien, le révolté ou même le brigand "généreux", la belle amazone idéaliste, ne lui ont pas été suggérés par des personnages de Schiller, tels que Max Piccolomini, Rari Moor, Bertha von Bruneck. En tout cas, on le voit, l'imagination de Scott était littéralement hantée par les pièces historiques de Goethe et de Schiller."9 Now it is true that Scott derived much from Schiller. But to affirm, as M. Reynaud does, that Scott's work is charged throughout with reminiscences and influences drawn from the German seems to show an undue tendency to stretch correspondences into evidences of indebtedness. In certain particulars M. Reynaud argues correctly. Scott's narrative method, for example, the employment of history and romance in Waverley and its fruitful succession may owe something to his assiduous reading of Schiller's and Shakespeare's historical dramas, and there can be no question that some portions of Schiller's works impinged sufficiently on Scott's creative imagination to lend certain scenes of his novels a character easily traceable to the German source. The Maid of Orleans did something to suggest a prominent situation in Ivanhoe (1819). The vivid chapter describing the siege of Torquilstone in the latter work is headed by two lines from Schiller's play. Ascend the watch tower yonder, valiant soldier, Look on the field, and say how goes the battle. And just as in Schiller's tragedy the soldier reports the progress of the battle to the captive Joan and to Isabeau, so does "Reynaud, I.c Romantisme, p. 181.

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Rebecca, in Scott's novel, bring word to the wounded Ivanhoe. 90 Kenilworth (1821) owes at least one of its features to Wallenstein. As in Ivanhoe, so here the superscription which heads the chapter strikes the dominant key. Schiller's lines introduce the scene in which Leicester has come to consult the astrologer. The moment comes— It is already come, when thou must write The absolute total of thy life's vast sum.®1 Leicester and Wallenstein both half believe, and half disbelieve, the forecasts of astrology; both, in times of supreme crises, come to consult their astrologers of whom they are distrustful. The astrological tower in Scott's novel seems to be a reflection of that in Wallensteins Tod.92 As long ago as 1839, Mrs. Eilet pointed out what she thought was a parallelism between Quentin Durward (1823) and Wallenstein. [Louis XI's] confidence in the honor and integrity of others makes him venture into the power of his bitter enemy, the Duke of Burgundy. . . [This is true of Wallenstein]. [Louis'] reason for trusting the unknown Scottish youth [Quentin] resembles Wallenstein's source of confidence in Octavio. Just as Wallenstein relates to Ilio and Terzky his peculiar vision before the battle of Lützen and how Octavio saved his life, so Louis relates to Oliver his vision of Saint Julian presenting the youth to him and says that their destinies are guarded by the same planet.03 "Ivanhoe, II, chap, vi, "Works," X V I I ; Die Jungfrau von Orleans, act ν, scene 11, "Werke," V, 322 ff.; Brewer, Shakespeare's Influence on Sir Walter Scott, pp. 23-24; Macintosh, op. cit., p. 95. Inexplicably, these correspondences escaped the notice of Roland Abramczyk, Über die Quellen zu Walter Scotts Ivanhoe, Halle, 1903. " Wallensteins Tod, ridge's translation.

act i, scene 7, ' Werke," IV. The above is Cole-

K Kenilworth, II, chap, i, "Works," X X I I I ; Wallensteins Tod, act i, scene 1, "Werke," I V ; Macintosh, op. cit., p. I l l ; Brewer, op. cit., p. 327.

" J a e k h , Madame de Staël, p. 166; Mrs. Eilet, Characters pp. 142-45; Quentin Durward, chap, xii, "Works," X X X I ; Tod, act ii, scene 3, "Werke," IV, 227.

of Schiller, Wallensteins

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There is a humorous discussion of Schiller and his Robbers in the prefatory passages to The Surgeon's Daughter (1827). Here Mr. Croftangry, the supposed author of the subsequent tale, and his friend, Mr. Fairscribe, discuss the author of The Robbers. Mr. Fairscribe has just chanced on the play and has become sinfully absorbed in it. " I am told," he says, "that it was the Germans who first brought in such a practice of choosing their heroes out of the Porteous Roll. . . The first was, I am credibly informed, M r . Scolar, as they call h i m ; a scholar-like piece of work he has made of it, with his Robbers and thieves." "Schiller," said I, "my dear sir, let it be Schiller." "Shiller, or what you like," said Mr. Fairscribe; " I found the book where I wish I had found a better one, and that is in K a t e ' s work-basket. I sat down, and like an old fool, began to read; but there I grant, you have the better of Shiller, Mr. Croftangry. . . But faith, this Shiller, sir, does not let you off so easily. I forgot one appointment on particular business, and I wilfully broke through another, that I might stay at home and finish his confounded book, which, after all, is about two brothers, the greatest rascals I ever heard of. T h e one, sir, goes near to murder his own father, and the other (which you would think still stranger) sets about to debauch his own wife!" 9 4

In My Aunt Margaret's Mirror (1828) Scott drew, for one situation, on Schiller's Ghost-Seer. He imitated closely the spirit-raising scene which we have had occasion to mention before. Lady Jemima Forester, at a loss for news of her husband, who has gone on a journey, engages the services of an Italian wonder-worker. By means of a magic mirror and appropriate incantations the latter calls up the image of her husband—at that very moment in the act of marrying another woman. The evocation of the image and the vision are accompanied with music, "of some instrument with which they were unw The Surgeon's p. 484.

Daughter,

"Works," XLVIII, 173-74; Brewer, op.

cit.,

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acquainted." In The Ghost-Seer, too, the ceremonies are suitably accompanied with music of some strange instrument.05 The room in which the mysterious rites are conducted is thus described by Scott: A large room hung with black . . . the altar . . . on which lay divers objects resembling the usual implements of sorcery . . . two naked swords laid crosswise. . . A mirror reflected the mysterious articles which were laid upon it.

In Schiller's story, the scene is thus depicted: Ein Altar mit schwarzem Tuch behangen. . . Eine chaldäische Bibel lag bei einem Totenkopf aufgeschlagen auf dem Altar, und ein silbernes Kruzifix war darauf festgemacht. . . D e n Engländer und mich . . . ersuchte er, zwei blosse Degen . . . kreuzweise . . . über seiner Scheitel zu halten. 9 6

Finally, Anne of Geierstein (1829) suggests affinity with William Tell, generally in its setting and in its theme, as well as specifically in the description of the meeting of the conspirators in the mountains.97 Sir Walter Scott, then, showed a not unnatural susceptibility to the more romantic elements in Schiller's plays. His knowledge of Schiller's works was extensive. He knew The Robbers, Cabal and Love, Fiesco, Wallenstein, The Maid of Orleans, The Ghost-Seer, and probably Mary Stuart. The unaccountable absence of any mention of Schiller's ballad poetry, is, to say the least, surprising. That the future author of Marmion and The Lady oj the Lake should have taken to Blirger's Lenore was to be expected. But that he should have overlooked Die Bürgschaft, Die Kraniche des Ibykus, or Der Gang nach dem "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, "Works," XLI, 329; Geisterseher, p. 356 : "mit dem Gebrauch eines gewissen noch unbekannten musikalischen Instruments." It is possible that Scott had before him Coleridge's Remorse. See below p. 62. "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, pp. 330-31; Geisterseher, pp. 328-29. " Anne of Geierstein, "Works," XLIV, chap, x; Wilhelm Tell, act ii, scene 2, "Werke," VI, 51 ff.; Macintosh, op. cit., p. 141.

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Eisenhammer, with all their striking possibilities for narrative treatment, with all their lively movement and dramatic impetus, is amazing. But despite this oversight, Scott's use of material derived from Schiller is more than generous; though it may not be quite so inclusive as some believe. The unrest and the fret of German literary works may have repelled him as the critical onlooker—especially when he grew older—but they no doubt attracted the romancer who saw unfolding before him enchanting possibilities and dazzling horizons. This may be the reason for the contrast observable between Scott's artistic employment and absorption of Schiller and his almost tentative and casual critical estimate of him. 7. COLERIDGE Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity) Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood Wandering at eve with finely frenzied eye Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging w o o d ! Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood: Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy! —COLERIDCE, "To the Author of The Robbers"

The many-faceted tragedy which is, in a word, Coleridge's life, a tragedy of spiritual, intellectual, and physical thwartings, is at the bottom resolvable into a helpless dichotomy— of faith and reason, out of which there was no escape for him save in death. All his life long he weis torn between the rival claims of Spinoza and the Gospels. Much more than Shelley, Coleridge was the ineffectual angel of Matthew Arnold's visioning, beating his wings in a void—nerveless and weak, torn at every flight between the aspirations for glorious summits and the dread frailty of his physical and moral being.98 ** Biographia Literaria, chap, x, "Works," ΠΙ, 296: "For a very long time, indeed, I could not reconcile personality with infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul and John." By 1807, Spinoza had taken his place beside Descartes in the ranks of the atheists. Cf. Letter to Cottle, Biographic Epistolaris, Π, 18.

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Did not Coleridge seem, by virtue of poetic, philosophic, and intellectual eminence, the very man destined to absorb the values of German thought and to interpret it to Englishmen? He might have accelerated the fructification of English philosophical soil by two generations. He knew Kant, Fichte, Schelling. He had assimilated the German poets. He was almost unexcelled as a translator. And in point of critical acumen he was second to no Englishman of his day. Gifts like these come to one man but rarely. Comparative criticism, recent and old, has ruthlessly, though not unjustly, stripped little by little the incomplete mansion which Coleridge had erected, divesting it of much of its intellectual panoply and allotting main portions of it to the credit of Kant, Schelling, Fichte, Schlegel, and Schiller. As early as the third decade of the last century, the cry of plagiarism was raised, and close examination of a later date has not only corroborated the first suspicions, but has added to them. Professor Elton has, with his customary sobriety, passed just sentence: [Coleridge's plagiarisms] . . . are enough to discount his services as a contributor to general thought. . . But he deepened and ennobled what he took, adding poetry and psychology of his own; and the very parallels often show his own supremacy as a critic, the blunter thinking and set eloquence of the German writers becoming .subtilised and only serving as a point of departure."

It was natural that Coleridge's first enthusiasm for German literature should have been kindled by Schiller's Robbers.100 This was in 1794, and a rhapsodic letter to Southey is testimony to the first spark. 'Tis past one o'clock in the morning. I sat down at twelve o'clock to read the "Robbers" of Schiller. I had read, chill and trembling, "Oliver Elton, A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830, II, 126. ""The most important literature on Coleridge's relation to Germany will be found listed in our bibliography. See, especially, Brandl, Coleridge;

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when I came to the part where the Moor fixes a pistol over the robbers who are asleep. I could read no more. M y God, Southey, who is this Schiller, this convulser of the heart? Did he write his tragedy amid the yelling of fiends? I should not like to be able to describe such characters. I tremble like an aspen leaf. Upon my soul, I write to you because I am frightened. I had better go to bed. Why have we ever called Milton sublime? that Count de Moor horrible wielder of heart-withering virtues? Satan is scarcely qualified to attend his execution as gallows chaplain. 1 0 1 Elsewhere, Coleridge h a s given a m o r e c i r c u m s t a n t i a l a c c o u n t of this indelible e n c o u n t e r . One night in Winter, on leaving a College-friend's room with whom I had supped, I carelessly took away with me "The Robbers," a drama, the very name of which I had never before heard of:—A winter midnight—the wind high—and "The Robbers" for the first time!—The readers of Schiller will conceive what I felt. Schiller introduces no supernatural beings; yet his human beings agitate and astonish more than all the goblin rout—even of Shakespeare. 1 0 2 As if this were n o t e n o u g h , h e n e e d s m u s t c o m p o s e a s o n n e t in honor of Schiller, effusive, y o u t h f u l , h e r e a n d t h e r e i n e p t — b u t witness t h r o u g h o u t to a h i g h degree of e n t h u s i a s m . J. L. Haney, The German Influence on Coleridge; Herford, The Age of Wordsworth, pp. 172 ff.; Henry Crabb Robinson, Diary; A. C. Dunstan, "The German Influence on Coleridge," MLR, XVII, pp. 272 ff. and XVIII, 183 ff., 1922-23; Wylie, The Evolution of English Criticism, chap, iii; J. Shawcross, Introduction to his edition of Biographia Literaria (an exemplary piece of work); A. A. Helmholtz Phelan, The Indebtedness of S. T. Coleridge to A. W. Schlegel, "University of Wisconsin Bulletin of Philology and Literature," III, no. 4, 1907; J. H. Muirhead, Coleridge as Philosopher, New York, 1930. In addition, Stokoe, chap, v; Margraf, pp. 20-30, and bibliography, s.i>. Brandl, Richter, Pizzo, Wilde. A good study of Coleridge's total indebtedness to German thought, in the spirit and manner of Shawcross, is desirable, as is a new edition of his prose works. For this section I have drawn liberally on Brandl, Haney, Shawcross, and Dunstan. 101

Letters, I, 96-97. '""Note to "To the Author of The Robbers," Poetical Works, ed. by J. D. Campbell, p. 572.

6o

P R O P A G A N D I S T S Schiller! that hour I would have wished to die, If thro' the shuddering midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent That fearful voice, a famished Father's cry— Lest in some after moment aught more mean Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black Horror scrcamed, and all her goblin rout Diminished shrunk from the more withering scene! Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood Wandering at eve with finely-frenzied eye Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood: Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy!

Not long thereafter he came upon Cabal and Love, and again Schiller's "tremendous sublimity" amazed him.103 At that moment Schiller was very much a living presence with him. Already, Coleridge had embarked on that stormy sea of promises which were to be his own darling delusion throughout the rest of his life. No sooner had he begun the serious study of German in 1796, than he toyed with the notion of translating "all the works of Schiller," and was on the verge of making the proposal to Robinson, "the great London bookseller."104 Need it be said, even at the risk of anticipating somewhat, that the translation of the complete works of Schiller was destined to take its station beside the proposed Life of Lessing, the version of Faust, and that vast encyclopedia of human knowledge—in the realm of shadows, never fated to take on earthly flesh? Coleridge's intellectual hunger led him to Lessing, that "most formidable of heretics," to Gessner, Biirger, and Wieland. In 1797 he read Schiller's Ghost-Seer, and soon had thoroughly absorbed its substance into his own ambitious tragedy Osorio. m

"Conciones ad Populum," Essays in His Own Time, I, SO. Letter to Poole, May 6, 1796, in Biographia Epistolaris, I, 78.

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In the fall of the same year, he finished the play and at once dispatched it to Sheridan. The tragedy was rejected as altogether too obscure in three of its five acts. Many years later, in January 1813, Remorse, a refashioned and somewhat clarified Osorio, was performed at the Drury Lane, and ran for twenty nights. But by this time, Coleridge himself had traveled far from the frenetic and unfathomable motives and crimes of his youthful play. Osorio shows evidence throughout of the impress of Schiller's Ghost-Seer.105 Its plot is drawn bodily from the incident, so well known to us already, of the rivalry of two brothers for the hand of a woman, and of the murder of one of them by the other. Osorio is under the impression that he has done away with his brother Albert, and fervently presses his suit for the hand of Albert's betrothed, seconded therein by his father, who sees no reason why the irrevocable should stand in the way of the happiness of the living. Maria, however, is steadfast in her love, harboring the bitter-sweet hope that her beloved may yet return. She will not be persuaded by the blasting words of Osorio's and Albert's father, who cites Osorio's own testimony: Nay, nay—how aptly thou forgett'st a tale Thou ne'er didst wish to learn—my brave Osorio Saw them both founder in (he storm that parted Him and the pirate: both the vessels founder'd. Gallant Osorio! 100

Osorio, in other words, has spread the tale of the capture of Albert by pirates. This is exactly the situation in The GhostSeer, except that in the latter story, the murder has actually been committed. But Albert is not dead. He returns disguised as a Moresco, '"" See Brandi. Coleridge,

pp. 171 ff.; J. L. Lowes, The Road

p. 243 ; Margraf, pp. 20 ff. '"'Osorio, act i, sccnc 1, "Poctical Works," p. 480.

to

Xanadu,

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convinced that Maria herself had connived at his undoing and that she is already the bride of his would-be murderer. In Schiller's tale it is the dead man who returns, in the garb of a Franciscan, at the very moment when his former love is about to bestow her hand on the murderer.107 Osorio, made desperate by Maria's exasperating fidelity to the dead, resorts to Albert, whom he believes, in his ignorance, to be a magician, and proposes to him a stratagem whereby Maria is to be fully persuaded that her lover has perished. The magician is to call up the dead man, and at the same time, as visible proof of the credibility of the wonder, he is to produce an amulet, Maria's portrait, which had been taken from the presumably dead Albert. W i t h a strange With fumes of Then leave, as This portrait. .

W e will wind her up music, that she knows not of, frankincense, and mummery, one sure token of his death, ,108

In the third act, which takes place in " a hall of armory with an altar in the part farthest from the stage," the evocation of the spirit is consummated. With the trick practised by Albert— to wit, his substitution of a picture of the attempted murder in place of Maria's portrait—we have no concern at present. The more interesting matter is the similarity between this scene and that one in The Ghost-Seer where a parallel action takes place. Here, too, the dead man's ghost is invoked; the corroborative token, however, is a ring. In both instances, the mummery performed is accompanied with weird music from some strange instrument. Here a strain of music is heard from behind the scenes, from an instrument of glass or steel—the harmonica or Celestina stop, or Clagget's metallic organ. 1 0 9

In both cases, the vision is punctuated by a thunderclap. 107 Der Geisterseher, l w Osorio, act ii, scene 1, p. 487. p. 359. '"Ibid., act ili, scene 1, p. 492; Geisterseher, p. 356.

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The shadow of another of Schiller's villains, it seems to me, falls across the pages of Coleridge's tragedy. There is some trace of Franz Moor's dark passion in the villainous character of Osorio. Both strike a note of rebellion, charging Nature with responsibility in the formation of their characters. Thus, Osorio, speaking of himself, says, Nature had made him for some other planet, And press'd his soul into a human shape By accident or malice. In this world He found no fit companion! Franz, too, indicts Nature for having set him below his brother, in birth as well as in features: Ich habe grosse Rechte, über die Natur ungehalten zu sein, und, bei meiner Ehre ! ich will sie geltend machen.—Warum bin ich nicht der erste aus Mutterleib gekrochen? . . . Warum ging sie so parteilich zu Werke?110 The clamant appeal of Germany was no longer to be resisted. Already Coleridge had tasted of the alluring fruit; nothing but the sight of the delectable orchards would satisfy him now. "In Germany he found the final satisfaction for the intellectual needs which had impelled him from system to system throughout his eager youth." 111 In September 1798, Coleridge and Wordsworth set out for the land of their heart's desire, and on the 19th of the same month they were in Hamburg. Only a few days before that date a modest volume of poetry had made its appearance in England. It was entitled Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems. The sojourn in Germany was to mean very much to Coleridge. For Wordsworth it was to be of almost nugatory significance. Coleridge, dividing his time between Ratzeburg and Göttingen, studied assiduously, concentrating on German literature, ""Osorio,

act iv, scene 1, p. 500; Die Räuber, act i, scene 1, pp. 30-31. The Age of Wordsworth, p. 177.

'"Herford,

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theology, and metaphysics. It was now that he felt impelled to write a life of Lessing, a task which he commenced with befitting fanfare, and which did not get much beyond the stage of its first annunciation. Even without this life of Lessing, Coleridge's visit to Germany was of incalculable import. Thereafter, consciously and unconsciously, he was to weave into every pattern of his thought the multicolored strands, philosophical and critical, which he had gathered there. He had no sooner returned from Germany than the publishing house of Longmans turned to him with a proposal to translate Schiller's Wallenstein from the original manuscript. How magnificent the prospect would have seemed—and how incredible—to the author of the sonnet to Schiller in 1794! But he had, in the meantime, cooled his early ardors. He had not, while in Göttingen, thought it worth while to visit Weimar, and meet the author whose "tremendous sublimity" had kept him awake! The translation of Wallenstein proved anything but an exhilarating task to him: concentrated labor of any nature was for Coleridge a burden and a visitation. Very soon he began to wail. The play, he complained, was "full of long speeches" (which was, of course, true), 112 it "wasted and depressed" his spirits, and "left a sense of wearisomeness and disgust which unfitted" him for "anything but sleeping or immediate society." 113 This is both astonishing and tragic—especially in view of the fact that he came to look upon this task as the culpable source of his subsequent "intellectual barrenness." 1 " The translation of The Piccolomini and Wallenstein's Death was finished in April 1800, and left Coleridge in a petulant mood with Germans, with Schiller, and with himself. A letter to "'Letter to Southey, February 28, 1800; Letters, I, 331. ""To Godwin, May 21, 1800; Biographie Epistolaris, I, 193. " ' T o Josiah Wedgwood, May 1, 1800; ibid., p. 213.

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the Monthly Review, which had examined the published book, indicates how much his task had embittered him. In the review of my translation of Schiller's Wallenstein . . . I am numbered among the Partizans of the German theatre. As I am confident there is no passage in my Preface or Notes from which such a notion can be legitimately formed; and, as the truth would not have been exceeded, if the direct contrary had been affirmed, I claim it of your justice that in your answers to Correspondents, you would remove this misrepresentation. The mere circumstance of translating a manuscript play is not even evidence that I admired that one play, much less that I am a general admirer of the plays in that language.'15 The book went almost unnoticed, coming, as we have seen, at a time when German drama was looked at askance. It was a financial failure. Longmans lost two hundred and fifty pounds by the work, of which fifty went to the wearied translator— "poor pay, Heaven knows! for a thick octavo volume of blank verse." 116 Coleridge's version of Wallenstein has been examined with scrupulous exactitude and compared with the original,117 so that it is needless to enter here upon a detailed consideration of its accuracy and literary merits. Suffice it to say that for all its linguistic and stylistic errors (of which there is no inconsiderable number), it stands with the preëminent versions of German works in English. It is not, however, as Scott and some of our own contemporaries claim, superior to the original. 118 But where was that essay on the genius of Schiller which had been promised readers of The Piccolomini? 115 Monthly Review, X X X I I I (1800), 356; reprinted in Biographia Epistolaris, I , 218-19. ""Letter to Sotheby, September 10, 1802; Letters, I , 403. By Paul Machule, "Coleridge's Wallenstein-übersetzung," ES, X X X I (1902), 182-239. "* See above, p. SI. Rea (op. cit., p. S3) calls attention to the similar opinions of Saintsbury and Gosse. Both these critics are, we believe, better judges of French than of German literature.

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Besides Wallenstein, Coleridge also translated three unimportant poems of Schiller.119 It is something of sad fatality that in the collected works of Coleridge, Schiller's great drama should constitute the longest single work, original or translated, which Coleridge was destined to complete. Coleridge's attitude toward Goethe was not, in its quality, different from that of most of his contemporaries. It was marred by a mental and moral provincialism, of which he was never to rid himself, and which led him continually to berate the great German and to set him far below Schiller. This procedure must have proved galling to Goethe's high priest in England, Henry Crabb Robinson, who, in at least this one respect, proved himself a keener-sighted critic than Coleridge. What would one not give to have been present at one of those gatherings so dispassionately recorded by Robinson in his invaluable Diary? On the 15th of November, 1811, for example, they were "at Lamb's." The inimitable flow of conversation—in greater part a monologue from Coleridge's lips ("he would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor cease till far midnight," Lamb recalled after Coleridge's death, "yet who would interrupt him?")—a monologue, unbroken, save perhaps by some sacrilegious question from Robinson or the stammer of Lamb, brimful of wit. The unsentimental pages of Robinson do not tell us how irked he himself must have been when Coleridge "conceded to Goethe universal talent, but felt his want of moral lije, the defect of his poetry. Schiller he spoke more kindly of. He quoted 'Nimmer, das glaubt mir, erscheinen die Götter.' . . . He censured the Graeco-manie of Schiller's last dramas." 120 On another occasion, Coleridge joined the names of Schiller *" "The Homeric Hexameter," "The Ovidian Hexameter," and "The Visit of the Gods." Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lamb . . . ed. by Edith J. Morley, p. 31.

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and Spinoza in honorable partnership, praising both, especially the former's Die Sendung Moses.121 As late as 1824, when his judgment should have been mellow, he still persisted in setting Schiller above Goethe. Even Crabb Robinson was led to protest. "Coleridge," he recalled, "was unfriendly to the Germans, and called Herder a coxcomb, setting Schiller above Goethe, granting the great poet only the merit of exquisite taste and denying him principle. It requires," Robinson adds, no doubt aggrieved, "great modification and great qualification to render this just. There is something of truth in such assertions, but they are more false than true." 122 The fact obviously was that as Coleridge grew older, he, like Wordsworth, became more and more distrustful of dissidence, whether in literature, morals, or philosophy. In this general reaction, Schiller came off rather well, though the youthful eruptive enthusiasm which marked the first encounter with The Robbers had, like so much of Coleridge's thought at that time, the marks of weariness and pallor. For The Robbers he preserved something of an old man's indulgence toward the follies of his youth. In fact, he censured Schiller's more mature revulsion from his early work and felt that in this regard Schiller exhibited more than "needful asperity." 123 He also warmed a little toward the greatness of Wallenstein, which he praised in the presence of Crabb Robinson. 124 Beside Shakespeare, Schiller appeared to him the inferior artist, greater in gesture than in execution of his design. Schiller has the material Sublime; to produce an effect, he sets you a whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into m

M Ibid., p. 34. Ibid., p. 84. Critique on Bertram, in Biographia Literaria, "Complete Works," I I I . 557. 1:1 Blake, Wordsworth . . . p. 62 (August 13, 1812). m

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the flames, or locks up a father in an old tower. But Shakspeare drop« a handkerchief, and the same or greater effects follow. 1 2 5

Schiller's blank verse was bad. "He moves in it as a fly in a glue bottle. . . How different from Shakespeare's endless rhythms."12· And a parting shot at Goethe again raised echoes of the old and invidious notion concerning Schiller's superiority over Goethe. The young men in Germany and England who admire Lord Byron prefer Goethe to Schiller; but you may depend upon it Goethe does not, nor ever will command the common mind of the people of Germany as Schiller does. Schiller had two legitimate phases in his intellectual character: the first as author of the Robbers—a piece which must not be considered with reference to Shakspeare, but as a work of the mere material sublime, and in that line it is undoubtedly very powerful indeed. It is quite genuine, and deeply imbued with Schiller's own soul. After this he outgrew the composition of such plays as the Robbers, and at once took his true and only rightful stand in the grand historical drama, the Wallenstein—not the intense drama of passion—he was not master of that—but the diffused drama of history, in which alone he had ample scope for his varied powers. The Wallenstein is the greatest of his works; it is not unlike Shakspeare's historical plays—a species by itself. Y o u may take up any scene, and it will please you by itself ; just as you may in Don Quixote, which you read through once or twice only, but which you read in repeatedly. After this point it was that Goethe and other writers injured by their theories the steadiness and originality of Schiller's mind; and in every one of his works after the Wallenstein you may perceive the fluctuations of his taste and principles of composition. H e got the notion of re-introducing the characterlessness of the Greek tragedy with a chorus, as in the Bride of Messina, and he was for infusing more lyric verse into it. Schiller sometimes affected to despise the Robbers and the other works of his first youth; whereas he ought to have spoken of them as of works not in a right line, but full of excellence in their way. In his ballads and ** Table Talk, "Complete Works," VI, 25S-S6 (December 29, 1822). 1J " Ibid., p. SIS (June 2, 1834).

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lighter lyrics Goethe is most excellent. It is impossible to praise him too highly in this respect. I like the Wilhelm Meister the best of his prose works. But neither Schiller's nor Goethe's prose style approaches to Lessing's whose writings, for manner, are absolutely perfect. . . Schiller is a thousand times more hearty than Goethe.127 The more fascinating question of Coleridge's philosophic indebtedness to Schiller is shrouded in great uncertainty. It must face the problem of why Coleridge, for all his vast acquaintance with the German poet's work, should make no mention of those prose writings which might have been expected to touch him and to impress him most profoundly. Nor can it avoid the infinitely more difficult task of disengaging those elements in Coleridge which can with precision be assigned to the authority of Schiller from those which had become romantic commonplaces in Coleridge's day—a portion, so to speak, of the "mental climate." Had it ever occurred to Coleridge that of all his contemporaries and near-contemporaries, it was Schiller to whom he bore the closest resemblance? Both men had begun as poets; both had gradually drifted into metaphysics, not with unmixed benefit. In both men, the range of speculation had been enlarged and their insight refined by a first encounter with Kant. In both the predilection for metaphysical thought, more and more potent as they grew older, seemed to dry up the wellsprings of their purely creative poetry. Finally, both had, in their separate ways, found enrichment of the emotions and of the mind through the instrumentality of a great friendship. Sadly enough, when set beside the corporate entity of Schiller's life-work, Coleridge's own achievement has much of the character of a building unfinished and untenanted, suggesting, however, in its mere framework the magnificent vision which animated its luckless builder. Both Schiller and Coleridge had concerned themselves proIbid., pp. 424-25 (February 16, 1833).

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foundly with the problem of beauty and style. And it is here that we have a right to expect a common meeting ground. Mr. A. C. Dunstan, in an unusually perspicacious paper, has shown with some finality how much of Coleridge may with certainty be attributed to the philosophic works of Schiller.128 Thus, there can be no doubt that Coleridge knew Schiller's Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung. For in discussing the difference between ancient—naïve—and modern—complex and introspective—poetry, Coleridge drew for illustration upon the celebrated incident of the encounter of Glaucus and Diomede, in the Iliad, and set it beside the similar encounter between Rinaldo and Ferrau in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso}29 Now this is the very illustration employed by Schiller to support an analogous thesis.130 In his view of ancient and modern poetry Coleridge is not far removed from Schiller. Both regard ancient poetry as complete, integral and harmonious in its reconciliation of feeling and thought. The Greeks reared a structure, which in its parts, and as a whole, filled the mind with the calm and elevated impression of perfect beauty, and symmetrical proportion. The moderns also produced a whole, a more striking whole; but it was by blending materials and '""The German Influence on Coleridge," MLR, XVII (1922), 272-81. ** Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare, "Complete Works," IV, 29091; Dunstan, op. cit., p. 274. Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, "Werke," VII, 466 : "Ich erinnere mich jetzt der merkwürdigen Stelle im sechsten Buch der 'Ilias,' wo Glaukus und Diomed im Gefecht aufeinander stossen und, nachdem sie sich als Gastfreunde erkannt, einander Geschenke geben. Diesem rührenden Gemälde der Pietät, mit der die Gesetze des Gastrechts selbst im Kriege beobachtet wurden, kann eine Schilderung des ritterlichen Edelmuts im Ariost an die Seite gestellt werden, wo zwei Ritter und Nebenbuhler, Ferrau and Rinald, dieser ein Christ, jener ein Sarazene, nach einem heftigen Kampf und mit Wunden bedeckt Friede machen und, um die flüchtige Angelika einzuholen, das nämliche Pferd besteigen. . . ."

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fusing the parts together. And as the Pantheon is to York Minster or Westminster Abbey, so is Sophocles compared with Shakespeare ; in the one a completeness, a satisfaction, an excellence, on which the mind rests with complacency; in the other a multitude of interlaced materials, great and little, magnificent and mean, accompanied, indeed, with the sense of a falling short of perfection, and yet, at the same time, so promising of our social and individual progression, that we would not, if we could, exchange it for that repose of the mind which dwells on the forms of symmetry in the acquiescent admiration of grace. 131 [Die antike Poesie] zerlegte zwar die menschliche Natur und warf sie in ihrem herrlichen Götterkreis vergrössert auseinander, aber nicht dadurch, dass sie sie in Stücken riss, sondern dadurch, dass sie sie verschiedentlich mischte, denn die ganze Menschheit fehlte in keinem einzelnen Gott. Wie ganz anders bei uns Neuern! Auch bei uns ist das Bild der Gattung in den Individuen vergrössert auseinander geworfen—aber in Bruchstücken, nicht in veränderten Mischungen, dass man von Individuum zu Individuum herumfragen muss, um die Totalität der Gattung zusammenzulesen. 132 The striking contrast exhibited by Greek and modern art is apprehended in similar terms by both Coleridge and Schiller. "The Greeks," says the former, "idolized the finite, and therefore were the masters of all grace, elegance, proportion, fancy, dignity, majesty—of whatever, in short, is capable of being definitely conveyed by defined forms or thoughts." The moderns, however, "revere the infinite." These are almost Schiller's exact words. Drawing on Homer and Milton for examples, Schiller asserts that the first is mighty by virtue of restraint, the second by virtue of the infinite. 133 U1

Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare, p. 58. Cf. also the passage with similar purport, p. 291. 1)2 Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, "Werke," VII, 281; see also Naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, p. 470. m Coleridge, Lecture on the Greek Drama, "Works," IV, 29 ; Schiller, Naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, p. 473 : "Jener, möchte ich es ausdrücken, ist mächtig durch die Kunst der Begrenzung, dieser ist es durch die Kunst des Unendlichen.'' See also Dunstan, op. cit., p. 277.

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The conception of genius is an important one for the Romantics, especially for those in Germany; and here too we find Coleridge and Schiller in accord. To both, genius means something integrally naive: simple, direct, natural, and instinctive. "The poet is he," affirms Coleridge, "who carries the simplicity of childhood into the powers of manhood." "In every work of art there is a reconcilement of the external and the internal; the conscious is so impressed on the unconscious as to appear in it. . . . There is in genius itself an unconscious activity; nay, that is the genius in the man of genius."134 But genius is not without law; "for it is this that constitutes it genius—the power of acting creatively under laws of its own origination."135 Schiller insists upon the same qualities as requisite in genius: naïveté, instinctive character, childlike nature, freedom from the necessities of external rule.13® May not Schiller's doctrine, modified, no doubt, and richly IM

Lecture on Poesy or Art, "Works," IV, 332. Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare, "Works," IV, 54. Naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, pp. 454-55 : "Naiv muss jedes wahre Genie sein, oder es ist keines. Seine Naivetät allein macht es zum Genie, und was es im Intellektuellen und Ästhetischen ist, kann es im Moralischen nicht verleugnen. Unbekannt mit den Regeln, den Krücken der Schwachheit und den Zuchtmeistern der Verkehrtheit, bloss von der Natur oder dem Instinkt, seinem schützenden Engel, geleitet, geht es ruhig und sicher durch alle Schlingen des falschen Geschmackes, in welchen, wenn es nicht so klug ist, sie schon von weitem zu vermeiden, das Nichtgenie unausbleiblich verstrickt wird. Nur dem Genie ist es gegeben, ausserhalb des Bekannten noch immer zu Hause zu sein und die Natur zu erweitern, ohne über sie hinauszugehen. . . . Dadurch allein legitimiert es sich als Genie, dass es durch Einfalt über die verwickelte Kunst triumphiert. Es verfahrt nicht nach erkannten Prinzipien, sondern nach Einfällen und Gefühlen ; aber seine Einfälle sind Eingebungen eines Gottes (alles, was die gesunde Natur tut, ist göttlich), seine Gefühle sind Gesetze für alle Zeiten und für alle Geschlechter der Menschen. Den kindlichen Charakter, den das Genie in seinen Werken abdrückt, zeigt es auch in seinem Privatleben und in semen Sitten." 115

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charged with German Romanticism, be the root of Coleridge's whole conception of original genius—its simplicity and naturalness, its closeness to nature, and therefore, its greater authority to interpret her; its greater right to legislate for itself and for its art? 137 Coleridge and Schiller entertain kindred doctrines relative to the "schöne Seele." To Coleridge, happiness is "the state of that person who, in order to enjoy his nature in the highest manifestations of conscious feeling, has no need of doing wrong, and who in order to do right, is under no necessity of abstaining from enjoyment." 13 ' Is not this Schiller's classic definition of the "schöne Seele"—that soul which can abandon the direction of its will to its feelings without ever incurring the danger of a clash?139 For both thinkers the ideal art serves as the reconciliation of the sensual and the spiritual, the resolution of the conflict between duty and inclination, "the reconcilement of the external and the internal"; the fusion of "man as an animal into man as a power of reason and self-government." 140 In the aesthetics of both Coleridge and Schiller, joy (Freude) occupies a significant place. In fact, Schiller would make the end of art sheer joy. And Coleridge seems to echo him when he m

Herford, Age of Wordsworth, p. 85. '"James Oilman, Life of Coleridge, London, 1838, I, 178 (quoted by Shawcross, op. cit., Introduction, p. xxxix). Anmut und Würde, "Werke," VII, 134: "Eine schöne Seele nennt man es, wenn sich das sittliche Gefühl aller Empfindungen des Menschen endlich bis zu dem Grad versichert hat, dass es dem Affekt die Leitung des Willens ohne Scheu überlassen darf und nie Gefahr läuft, mit den Entscheidungen desselben im Widerspruch zu stehen." Cf. also Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, p. 280. ""These are Coleridge's words, "Works," IV, 25, 332. Schiller has the following: "Die Schönheit ist das Produkt der Zusammenstimmung zwischen dem Geist und den Sinnen." Naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, p. 531.

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affirms that "the proper and immediate object of poetry is the communication of immediate pleasure.'" 4 1 T h e two poets have given to this view, enlarged to include all of life, poetic expression; Schiller in the "Ode to J o y " {An die Freude) made doubly unforgettable by Beethoven, and Coleridge in "Dejection; an Ode": Freude, schöner Götterfunken, T o c h t e r aus E l y s i u m ,

Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum. Less rhapsodic, because born of moments of extreme anguish and lassitude and disenchantment, Coleridge's Ode hymns its own tribute to the pregnant powers of joy. O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be! What, and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power. Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given, Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power, Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower, A new Earth and a new Heaven . . . Finally, and I offer this suggestion with extreme trepidation, Coleridge may have been actuated in his rejection of Kantian rigorism, of the categorical imperative, by Schiller's example and by his attempt to transcend it by harmonizing the claims of duty and inclination in the realm of art. 142 Coleridge, Notes and Lectures ort Shakespeare, p. 19. Schiller, Preface to Die Braut von Messina, "Werke," V, 342: "Alle Kunst ist der Freude gewidmet . . ; der höchtse Genuss . . . ist die Freiheit des Gemüts in dem lebendigen Spiel aller seiner Kräfte." "'Coleridge, Letter to Green, December 1817, Letters, II, 681-82. "I reject Kant's stoic principle as false, unnatural, and even immoral. . . [ H e ]

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It would be presumptuous to claim that the correspondences noted above between the ideas and views of Coleridge and Schiller point to a definite indebtedness on the part of the Englishman. Students of the period know that the notions proclaimed by Schiller and repeated by Coleridge were to a great extent "in the air," part of the atmosphere which the Romantics breathed. Yet the parallelism in certain cases is strong enough to justify tentative conclusions that Coleridge may not have been altogether unaware of what Schiller had himself uttered. Coleridge towers above his contemporaries in his luminous interpretation of German thought. He was one of the first Englishmen to pass beyond The Robbers and Wallenstein to the metaphysical portions of Schiller's work. But his attitude toward that poet and toward Goethe was never purged of a congenital puritanical bias of mind. What is a venial offence in his less percipient coevals, must be adjudged in him a mental blindness not easily pardonable. Yet his intellect was so seminal that for all its waywardness it served to impregnate English soil for many generations to come. 8 . WORDSWORTH I believe I shall have to trouble you . . . to make up a parcel before long : Mr. Wordsworth wants to read a little of Schiller with me, and he is not to be had at Ambleside.—MRS. HEMANS"'

Beside the brilliant, if erratic, cosmopolitanism of Coleridge's mind, Wordsworth appears parochial and circumscribed. Wordsworth's intellect was self-sufficient, assimilating only whatever was germane to it, and warding off with violence whatever it would persuade us that a man, who disliking and without any feeling of love for virtue, yet acted virtuously, because and only because of his duty, is more worthy of our esteem, than the man whose affections were aidant and congruous with his conscience." '"Henry F. Chorley, Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, II, 124.

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felt encroaching on its autonomy. Nothing proves the insularity of his poetic spirit more than the trip to Germany, of which we have spoken, and which was fraught with so much spiritual import for Coleridge. Wordsworth was ill at ease in the intellectual atmosphere of Germany, and looked forward with yearning to the seclusion, mental and physical, of his native hills and lakes. He never felt the urgent need to acquaint himself with the revolutionary philosophy which was agitating thoughtful minds around him, and concerning which he must have heard something even from his narrow retreat in Goslar. Kant, Fichte, Schelling—transcendentalism, subjective idealism, objective idealism—were to him so many names, troublesome to the spirit, insufficient guerdon for the energy and zeal expended in apprehending them. Memories of his own revolutionary leanings were not altogether obliterated in 1798; he had himself been caught by the infection of Rousseau's thought and swept away by the upheaval in France. He might easily have been forgiven for yielding to the persuasive voices of Schiller and Goethe and Herder. Here and there, it is true, a runlet of German thought or sentiment has been permitted to trickle through. It would have been strange indeed, if, living in the vicinity of Coleridge, he had escaped unscathed that man's metaphysical passion and "hunger for eternity." Wordsworth's relation to continental thought is on the whole very slight. Rousseau is perhaps the most dominant factor here.144 The Germans occupy a very slight place in his poetic creation. 145 I am aware that the question of Rousseau's place in Wordsworth's poetic and mental development is by no means settled. Professor Harper, in other respects so satisfactory as a guide to the poet's life, scarcely does justice to this most important problem. Surely here is a fruitful field for definitive and convincing exploitation. 1,1 For Wordsworth's relation to Germany, see Max J. Herzberg, "William Wordsworth and German Literature," PMLA, X L (1925), 30245; also Zeiger, pp. 273-90; Margraf, pp. 30-35; Stokoe, pp. 114-16;

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Bürger, Friederike Brun, Schiller, and perhaps Gessner are the sole contributors to the enrichment of his poetic fancy; and with them the catalogue of German infiltration is probably exhausted. 146 Goethe remained to the end of Wordsworth's days a dearest abomination. Faust, which Wordsworth may at one time have read, he characterized as marked by "profligacy" and "inhuman sensuality," and Wilhelm Meister "was full of all manner of fornication." 147 Sit venia! It is not too unjust to assert that in this opinion of Faust, Wordsworth was echoing the more august pronouncements of Coleridge. Toward Schiller Wordsworth remained non-committal. There is only one important mention of the German poet in all of Wordsworth's work. It occurs in the account given by him of a visit to Klopstock. The aged and somewhat doddering author of Der Messias was rather perfunctory in his judgment of Schiller's achievements. "Schiller's Robbers he found so extravagant, that he could not read it. I spoke of the scene of the setting sun. He did not know it. He said Schiller could not live." 148 Apparently the Danube scene in The Robbers was still, in 1798, a vivid memory, shared alike by Wordsworth and Coleridge. It was in 1795 that Wordsworth became acquainted with The Robbers. Whether it was the first meeting with Coleridge which had evoked from the latter ringing words of praise for the German tragedy, or whether the play was an independent discovery of Wordsworth's—the impression which The Robbers and A. C. Bradley, "English Poetry and German Philosophy in the Age of Wordsworth," A Miscellany, London, 1929, pp. 105-38. Biirger's "Lenore" and Wordsworth's "Ellen Irwin"; "Der wilde Jäger" and the sonnet, "Though Narrow be that Old Man's Cares"; Friederike Brun's "Die Sieben Hügel," and Wordsworth's "Seven Sisters." See Herzberg, loc. cit., pp. 330-37. Herzberg, loc. cit., p. 326. "" "Satyrane's Letters," in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, "Works," III, 548.

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produced was profound. And just as Coleridge had assimilated Schiller's Ghost-Seer and woven it into his tragedy, Osorio, so Wordsworth proceeded to make The Robbers a fundamental portion of The Borderers (1795-96). 149 Coleridge was the first to note the dependence of The Borderers on Schiller's play, and he made haste to praise Wordsworth's poetic drama for the "profound touches of the human heart" which were discoverable there, and which he found "three or four times in the Robbers of Schiller, and often in Shakespeare; but in Wordsworth," he added, "there are no inequalities." 150 Wordsworth's Borderers is saturated with Godwinian influences, and traces, not always successfully or aptly, the course of evil in the character of Oswald. In the arrangement of characters, Wordsworth has followed the scheme which he found in The Robbers: Oswald being the counterpart of Franz Moor, Marmaduke of Karl, old Herbert of the father, and Idonea of Amelia. The background, too, is chosen with an eye on Schiller's play; as in the second act, where the scene represents the "area of a half-ruined castle—on one side the entrance to a dungeon." 151 The villainy of Oswald leads him to attempt to pervert the honest Marmaduke and to undermine his faith in old Herbert, whose daughter, Idonea, Marmaduke loves. The latter is the leader of a robber band, gathered not for mean and selfish ends, but for the vindication of human rights and the M

* The Borderers was not published until 1842 (see Poetical Works, ed. by Knight, I, 108-98). For the sources and analogues of The Borderers, cf. Sanftleben, Wordsworths Borderers; E. de Sélincourt, "The Hitherto Unpublished Preface to Wordsworth's Borderers," The Nineteenth Century, C (1926), 723-41; and B. S. Allen, "Analogues of Wordsworth's Borderers," PMLA, X X X V I I I (1923), 267-77. 130 Letter to Cottle, June 8, 1797, Biographia Epistolaris, I, 13S. 131 The Borderers, act ii, scene 2, p. 137.

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punishment of oppression and tyranny. 152 The motivation and the plotting bear a close resemblance to those of Schiller's Robbers. The deep-rooted perversity of Oswald bears rich, though very tragic fruit. Like Franz Moor, he succeeds in bringing disaster on an old man; but for a fortunate confession at the end he might have ensnared others who were innocent; to wit, Idonea and Marmaduke. The fourth act is singularly reminiscent of The Robbers. Old Herbert has been left to starve in the same manner in which old Moor has been beguiled and tortured by his conscienceless son. 153 The Borderers represents the most extensive borrowing on Wordsworth's part of material from Schiller's works. One might be tempted to add, the only borrowing—were there not learned opinion to the contrary. Thus, some critics have professed to discover the source of Wordsworth's sonnet, " I grieved for Buonaparté," in a passage of Schiller's Piccolomini. Professor Harper finds the root of the "Ode to Duty" in Schiller's conception of the "schöne Seele," expressed in Anmut und Würde. I doubt whether Wordsworth had ever heard of Anmut und Würde, much less read it. Margraf traces Wordsworth's "Ode" to Kant's categorical imperative, perhaps picked up, crumb-wise, from the generous hand of Coleridge.1®4 13

Ibid., act i, p. 113. Ibid., act iv, pp. 172 ff., and Die Räuber, act iv, scene 5. 1M Here are the pertinent passages : "I grieved for Buonaparté, with a vain And an unthinking grief I The tenderest mood Of that Man's mind—what can it be? What food Fed his first hopes? What knowledge could he gain? 'Tis not in battles that from youth we train The Governor who must be wise and good, And temper with the sternness of the brain Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. Wisdom doth live with children round her knees: Books, leisure, perfect freedom and the talk 151

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Toward the year 1830, Mrs. Felicia Hemans, herself an ardent admirer of German books, undertook the extremely ungrateful task of converting the aged poet to her own favorites —an attempt as touching as it was futile. I hope, on his (i.e., Wordsworth's) return, to read with him some of my own first loves in Schiller, "The Song of the Bell," "Cassandra," or "Thekla's Spirit-voice," with none of which he is acquainted. Indeed, I think he is inclined to undervalue German Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk Of the mind's business; these are the degrees By which true Sway doth mount; this is the stalk True Power doth grow on ; and her rights are these." Compare this with Octavio's words to Max: "My son, the nursling of the camp spoke in thee ! A war of fifteen years Hath been thy education and thy school. Peace hast thou never witnessed! There exists An higher than the warrior's excellence. In war itself war is no ultimate purpose. The vast and sudden deeds of violence, Adventures wild, and wonders of the moment, These are not they, my son, that generate The Calm, the Blissful, and the enduring Mighty." —Ptccolommi, tr. by Coleridge, act i, scene 4, "Poetical Works," p. 23S. It was J. G. Lockhart who first suggested a relationship between the two. Cf. Blackwood's, XIV (1823), 395. In justice to Margraf, Zeiger, and Weddigen (from whom I have learned much), it should be stated that they believe they have detected other traces of infiltration. Thus, Margraf sees the impress of The Robbers, and of Karl Moor especially, in Wordsworth's Guilt and Sorrow (Margraf, p. 32). Zeiger observes a kinship between Schiller's "Spaziergang" and Wordsworth's The Excursion (Zeiger, p. 289, so also, before him Weddigen, "Vermittler deutsches Geistes," Archiv, LIX [1878], 137); as well as a thematic and verbal relationship between "Die Götter Griechenlands" and The Excursion, book v, lines 859 Β. I regard these correspondences as too nebulous to permit of any conjectures whatever.

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literature from not knowing its best and purest masterpieces. "Goethe's writings cannot live," he one day said to me, "because they are not holy." I found that he had unfortunately adopted this opinion from an attempt to read Wilhelm Meister, which had inspired him with irrepressible disgust. However, I shall try to bring him into a better way of thinking, if only out of my deep love for what has been to me a source of joy so cheering and elevating.155 Glorious and unquenchable intrepidity of womanhood! To aspire to success where the poet's own friend Coleridge had tried and failed ! What the Wordsworth of the first years of the century had rejected, it was inconceivable that the sexagenarian prospective poet-laureate would accept. 9 . SOUTHEY AND CAMPBELL Y o u have made me hunger and thirst after German poetry.—SOUTHEY to William Taylor 13 *

That other lapsing pantisocrat, Robert Southey, friend of Coleridge and Wordsworth, conceived a youthful fervor for German literature, and nourished it, like his coevals, on Werther and Lenore.15T The two most precious friendships of his lifetime, those with Coleridge and William Taylor, did much to keep that interest alive, though they did not succeed in spurring him to a study of German until 1815. To judge from Southey's perfervid utterances to William Taylor, one might have predicted a long and seasoned apprenticeship to German letters. But Southey's later development in this direction fell pathetically short of the early roseate promises. His more mature opinions on German literature, even when they are correct, are marked by an irritating insensibility to the finer aesthetic qualiHenry F. Chorley, Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, II, 129. ""Robberds, Memoir of Wüliam Taylor, I, 255 (February 24, 1799). m Life and Correspondence, ed. by the Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey ; Haller, The Early Life of Robert Southey; Helene Richter, "Southey," Anglia, X L I (1929), 288 ff., and 440 ff.; and for his relation to German literature, Margraf, pp. 36 ff., and Zeiger, pp. 290-305.

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ties sufficient to invalidate whatever occasional merit or justice his criticism might otherwise possess. It was Southey who was the recipient of Coleridge's ecstatic letter in praise of Schiller's Robbers in 1794; and if he was then unfamiliar with the object of his friend's ebullient enthusiasm, there can be little doubt that it soon engendered similar interest in him. Thereafter, Southey came to know, if not always to admire, Cabal and Love, Fiesco, Don Carlos, and, of course, Wallenstein. Many an hour was spent by the youthful collaborators, then planning a revolutionary drama on the subject of Robespierre, in the emulative attempt to rival the sensational "sublimities" of The Robbers. Southey's conversion to German letters, greatly stimulated by Coleridge's predilections, was destined to receive additional impetus at the hands of William Taylor. The final success of that conversion is, to say the least, questionable. It is a true measure of Southey's critical perceptions that as he grew older he became more and more an admirer of the genius of Kotzebue, to the prejudice of Schiller. And there seems to be something more than mere coincidence in the fact that both in his passion for Kotzebue and in his growing insensibility to Goethe, he should so much resemble his mentor William Taylor. Fiesco captivated him in those early days, as is evidenced by an incident which took place in 1796. There had been some difference between Southey and Coleridge. "Southey made the first motion toward a reconciliation. He is said to have sent up to Coleridge a slip of paper with the lines from the translation of Schiller's Conspiracy oj Fiesco: 'Fiesco! Fiesco! thou leavest a void in my bosom, which the human race, thrice told, will never fill up." 158 The example of Schiller stirred him to a desire to write a tragedy "of the Banditti." Cabal and Love inspired him with 151

Haller, op. cit., p. 181.

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genuine enthusiasm and admiration. "Have you read Cabal and. Love?" he asked his friend Bedford in 1796. "In spite of a translation for which the translator deserves hanging, the fifth act is dreadfully affecting." 159 Southey's prolific contributions to the Critical Review undoubtedly included many notices of German books. Most of these defy definite attribution of authorship. But there is a likelihood that at least two articles devoted to Schiller are from his pen. 160 If, as Professor Haller is inclined to believe, the appraisal of Fiesco in the Critical Review for 1798 is by Southey, then it is apparent that an early enthusiasm has cooled considerably. The writer finds this the least interesting of all the dramas of Schiller that "have yet appeared in English. . . . It possesses the same faults and excellencies as The Robbers. The author is ever attempting to be sublime, and the language is therefore frequently unnatural and bombastic." 161 The plot is full of improbabilities, and it is not until the last scene "that we discover the genius of Schiller." Schiller is the favorite author of young people, as "his forced conceptions, the extremes of virtue and vice in his characters, and the strange energy of his heroes, who feel and act like beings of a superior order, must powerfully affect minds more under the influence of imagination than of judgment." 162 Southey was repelled by Don Carlos. "I do not much like Don Carlos," he wrote to Wynn in 1798. "It is by far the worst of Schiller's plays." 163 This very sentiment, almost in the same words, is voiced in an anonymous article in the Critical Re" Life and Correspondence I, 287. Haller, Early Life 0) Robert Southey, pp. 226-27, believes that the review of Fiesco may be attributed to Southey. This is very probable. I shall try to show that the notice of Don Carlos may likewise be Southey's. M1 Critical Review, 2d ser., X X I I (1798), 202. "'Ibid., pp. 201, 203-4. '"Life and Correspondence, I, 346.

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view for that year. "In Don Carlos we have the last of his plays that remained untranslated; and we do not scruple to pronounce it the worst."1®4 "We are accustomed," the reviewer continues, "to his gigantic beauties and gigantic faults. Of his dramas the general effect is powerful ; and while we perceive their absurdities, we acknowledge their merit."1"5 Wallenstein, in Coleridge's version, met with a better fate. "The Monthly Magazine speaks with shallow-pated pertness of your Wallenstein," he wrote to Coleridge; "it interests me much, and what is better perhaps, invited me to a frequent reperusal of its parts: will you think me wrong in preferring it to Schiller's other plays? It appears to me more dramatically true. Max may, perhaps, be overstrained, and the woman is like all German heroines; but in Wallenstein is that greatness and littleness united, which stamp the portrait."1®" Many, many years later, Robert Southey, the poet laureate, expressed himself on the subject of Goethe. "There is perhaps no other writer," he wrote to Caroline Bowles in 1833, "with whom I find myself so often in sympathy and in dyspathy as with Goethe." He was especially offended by the latter's infidelity.1®7 To which sentiment Caroline Bowles made a reply befitting a modest candidate for the hand of the poet laureate. She attributed Southey's reaction to his "heart and nobler nature and nobler aspirations which revolt against the earthly "·Critical Review, 2d ser., XXIV (1798), 155. It is on the score of this verbal correspondence that I am inclined to ascribe the review to Southey. Now, there is also a striking correspondence between this review and that of Fiesco mentioned above, which further confirms me in my conjecture. In the latter, the author says, "Of the dramas of Schiller which have yet appeared in English, this is the least interesting." '"Ibid., p. 155. M Lije and Correspondence, II 139 (March 28, 1801). Correspondence oj Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles, ed. by Edward Dowden, p. 275.

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and sensual character [of Goethe]," and added, "Do you not think Schiller, as a tragic writer, far superior to Goethe and Körner in some of his lyrical pieces?" 188 There is something irritating and unsatisfactory in all of Southey's criticism of Schiller, something, to use his own expression, of shallow-pated pertness. The solacing thing about it is that when Southey erred he erred with magnificent obtuseness. "Coleridge's ballad of 'The Ancient Mariner' is, I think, the clumsiest attempt at German sublimity I ever saw."1®· After a verdict like this, one is ready to condone the literary taste that found Kotzebue superior to Schiller.170 Like Robert Southey, Thomas Campbell began his courtship of the German literary muse with an insistent ardor which augured well for their future relations—an augury which, unfortunately, was never to be fulfilled. 171 On the eve of his first journey to Germany, he exclaimed, "I shall see Schiller, and Goethe—the banks of the Rhine, and the mistress of Werther." The unrest and military activities on the Continent did not permit of a realization of all of that ambition. He saw the banks of the Rhine, and acquired some knowledge of German. Goethe and Schiller he never met; and he remained content with the friendship of A. W. Schlegel, delighting to play the ,e

Ibid.., July 19, 1833, pp. 276-77. Letter to William Taylor, September S, 1798; Robberds, Memoir oj William Taylor, I, 223. 170 Cf. Haller, op. cit., p. 226. I am tempted to assign yet another article in the Critical Review to Southey's credit. It is that one in which Kotzebue is adjudged to be "more true to nature than Schiller. . . . If he astonish us less, he delights us more; inferior to Goethe in correctness of taste, he appeals with more effect to the feelings." Critical Review, 2d ser., X X V (1799), 31. This is altogether in keeping with Southey's sentiment. 1,1 1 have drawn on the biographies of Cyrus Redding and William Beattie. Campbell's connection with German literature is discussed most satisfactorily by Daniel B. Shumway, in The Schelling Anniversary Papers, pp. 233-61. See also Zeiger, pp. 256 ff., and Margraf, pp. 42-43.

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host to him when the latter visited England, and to engage him in controversy on Shakespearean questions. Is it necessary to state that Campbell began with a passionate admiration of Schiller's Robbers? In his first work of importance, The Pleasures of Hope (1799), he makes that admiration articulate. Speaking of "some pleasing page to charm" a solemn hour, he wanders to the recollection of the two most touching characters in the play. Or they will learn how generous worth sublimes The robber Moor, and pleads for all his crimes! How poor Amelia kissed, with many a tear, His hand blood-stained, but ever, ever dear! Hung on the tortur'd bosom of her lord, And wept, and prayed perdition from his sword! Nor sought in vain! at that heart-piercing cry The strings of Nature cracked with agony! He, with delirious laugh, the dagger hurled, And burst the ties that bound him to the world.172 On the Continent, Campbell plunged into Kant, but found his metaphysics impenetrable to his own unphilosophical intellect. He took more readily to Wieland, than whom he could not "conceive a more perfect poet." 173 Wieland, Schiller and Bürger represented his "relaxation from the severer study of Kant," which, one may be led to assume, never tempted him too far astray in the mazes of transcendentalism. He seems to have had a true passion for Germany, for he made that country the object of his visits on three occasions. To the end of his day he remained a zealous defender of Germans and German literature. In 1834, looking back upon the early antagonism to German tragedy rampant at the beginning of the century, he was aroused by the stupid and ignorant opposition to Germans, "a people, who, in kindness of heart and domestic morality, Poetical Works, ed. by J. L. Robertson, pt. 2, p. 26, 11. 15S-64. Beattie, op. cit., I, 342.

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yield to none on the face of the earth: always, of course, excepting ourselves. . . Vehement was the outcry against Schiller for investing Charles de Moore [ sic!] with tragic honors; and care was taken to prevent the tragedy of 'The Robbers' from being acted, in the very theatres that had echoed applause to Macheath,"17< Of Madame de Staël he was kindly critical. Before she visited England in 1813, she made sure to warm his heart with one of her flatteries—as penetrating as they were pertinent—of The Pleasures oj Hope, "le poème qui ne me quittait jamais." 175 But neither her subsequent epoch-making book nor the ponderous sentences of A. W. Schlegel were adequate to goad him to a more concerted attack on German thought and literature. In 1825 he revisited Germany and witnessed a performance of Mary Stuart. He found the piece so "dull" that he could "scarcely sit it out."17® Had Madame de Staël been alive, she would have been immeasurably grieved. 1 0 . WILLIAM HAZLITT AND THOMAS D E

QUINCEY

Hazlitt, one of the best writers in periodicals of the day, died this year. If a love of the better literature of the country should revive in England, Hazlitt will be more highly estimated . . . and more liberally judged.—CYRUS REDDING"'

Like his career, so were William Hazlitt's 178 judgments of men and letters: brilliant, coruscating, magnificently individual; but very frequently erratic and unsatisfactory because they Life of Mrs. Siddons, I I , 220. " 5 Beattie, op. cit., II, 223. Ibid., I I , 450. m Literary Reminiscences of Thomas Campbell, I I , 233-34. " 8 P. P. Howe's biography of Hazlitt has superseded all previous attempts. Hazlitt's relation t o German literature has never, to my knowledge, been treated before. The present writer has in preparation a study of this subject.

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emanated from an intense personality, which did not always permit imagination to dance attendance on sobriety. He possessed a pertinacity of opinion and an independence which dismayed and finally estranged many of his early friends—men like Coleridge and Wordsworth, who could not understand or sympathize with that passionate absorption with ideals which they themselves had long ago rejected as too revolutionary or immature. Here, one might have said, was the man to do justice at last to German letters; a man unconfined by the traditional prejudices which dimmed the clarity of Coleridge; unfettered, many-sided and cosmopolitan—the very person to establish and fortify the relative positions of Goethe and Schiller, and the remaining hierarchy of German writers. Unfortunately, Hazlitt falls far short of our anticipations. Perhaps the combined influence of the Lake School, concerted in its assault on Goethe, was potent enough to sway even a mind as independent as his. Coleridge, Wordsworth, De Quincey, Lamb (even the gentlest of these spoke with severity of the immorality of Faust) turn with more or less revulsion from Goethe. Hazlitt, too, acquiesced in their opinion. Sometimes he permitted himself verdicts which are appalling in their lack of clarity and justness. "Finding that Shakespeare had something which Schiller and Kotzebue wanted, [Goethe] seemed to imagine that not to be Schiller or Kotzebue was to be Shakespeare."17® He could not understand why some Germans ranked Goethe with Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare—as one of the four Poets. "Why [Goethe] should have this high rank assigned him, I do not know. He is placed by the Germans themselves far above Schiller." 180 "* Review of De l'Allemagne, Morning Chronicle, November 13, 1813 ; reprinted in New Writings by William Hazlitt, 2d ser., ed. by P. P. Howe, p. 33. '"Life of Thomas Holcrojt, chap, viii, "Collected Works of William Hazlitt," ed. by A. R. Waller and Arnold Glover, Π, 229.

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Of Goethe's books it is Werther to which Hazlitt accords the most persistent and voluble praise. It is "the best of all of Goethe's works." Egmont is "a most insipid and preposterous composition."181 Faust is below criticism. Hazlitt speaks with evident satisfaction of the agreement which prevailed in his circle as to the true merits of Goethe's masterpiece. "I found that they [i.e., Coleridge and Lamb] were of my mind with respect to the celebrated Faust—that it is a mere piece of abortive perverseness, a wilful evasion of the subject and omission of the characters. . . The German play is not to be named in a day with Marlowe's."182 In the light of this and similar judgments, the true achievement of Carlyle, at a later date, stands out with luminous potency. For Schiller merely had to be reinterpreted; but Goethe —Goethe had to be apprehended anew and his true worth established in the face of almost irresistible oppugnancy on the part of some of the best minds in England. Yet how much of Schiller did Hazlitt truly absorb? The Robbers, of course. The memory of his first encounter with the play remained lucent for him throughout all his dàys. He never experienced that more mature revulsion from the object of his youthful affections which characterized other readers of Schiller. "Who among us," he asks in 182S, "in reading Schiller's Robbers for the first time asked if it was German or not?" 183 A very eloquent passage in his essay "On Reading Old Books" is dedicated to a fond recollection of the roseate impression of his early days. How eagerly I slaked m y thirst of German sentiment "as the hart that panteth for the water-springs"; how I bathed and revelled, and added my floods of tears to Goethe's The Sorrows of Werter, and to Schiller's Robbers— '"Schlegel on the Drama, "Collected Works," X, 119. "'The Plain Speaker, "Collected Works," VII, 313. The Plain Speaker, p. 328.

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Giving my stock of more to that which had too much! I read and assented with all my soul to Coleridge's fine sonnet. . .184 Again and again he recurs to the epochal moment in his life when he chanced on Schiller's play. "The first reading of that play is an event in everyone's life, which is not to be forgotten. 185 Nor can he understand the later misprision of Werther and The Robbers by their respective authors, 188 feeling it to be a slight upon his own undiminished love of these works. His literary reading had begun with The Robbers, and the play had become somewhat sanctified by virtue of his youthful enthusiasm and the emotions which it thereafter evoked. The Robbers was the first play I ever read: and the effect it produced upon me was the greatest. It stunned me like a blow, and I have not recovered enough from it to describe how it was. There are impressions which neither time nor circumstances can efface. Were I to live much longer than I have any chance of doing, the books which I have read when I was young, I can never forget. Five-and-twenty years have elapsed since I first read the translation of the Robbers, but they have not blotted the impression from my mind: it is here still, an old dweller in the chambers of the brain. The scene in particular in which Moor looks through his tears at the evening sun from the mountain's brow, and says in his despair, "It was my wish like him to live, like him to die, it was an idle thought, a boy's conceit," took fast hold of my imagination, and that sun has to me never set!187 He cannot easily forget the dazzling and tragic character of Karl Moor, and all that "hurricane of passion and eloquence." 188 ,M Ibid., p. 226. ™ Schlegel on the Drama, "Collected Works," X, 119. '"The Round Table, "Collected Works," I, 76: "The conceits in Shakespeare were his greatest delight; and improving upon this perverse method of judging, the German writers Goethe and Schiller, look upon Werter and The Robbers as the worst of their works, because they are the most popular." Lectures on the Literature oj the Age of Elizabeth, "Collected Works," V, 362. M Fugitive Writings, "Collected Works," XII, 67.

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of Schiller approximates in intensity the I t is Don Carlos. the strength of the impression made by stirring vividness.

The last interview in Don Carlos between the two lovers, in which the injured pride struggles to burst the prison-house of her destiny, in which her hopes and youth lie coffined, and buried, as it were, alive, under the oppression of unspeakable anguish, I remember gave me a deep sense of suffering and a strong desire after good, which has haunted me ever since. 189 In the celebrated essay " O n the Fear of D e a t h , " Hazlitt reverts to his early heaviness of spirit when it touched on the thought of dying and decay, and calls to mind an instance which wrought upon his mind vehemently. " I remember once, in particular, having this feeling in reading Schiller's D o n Carlos, where there is a description of death, in a degree t h a t almost stifled me." 1 9 0 Wallenstein, even in the translation of Coleridge, failed to stir him to the same depths. For the translation he has words of praise, 1 9 1 b u t the play itself falls short of the hopes aroused by The Robbers and Don Carlos. He admits its stateliness, its thought, its imagination. " B u t where," he asks, "is the enthusiasm, the throbbing of hope and fear, the mortal struggle between the passions, as if all the happiness or misery of a life were crowded into a moment, and the die was to be cast that instant?" 1 9 2 No, he cannot agree with Schlegel that Wallenstein is superior to The Robbers. "We cannot so readily give u p our old attachment to the Robbers." 1 9 3 With that persistence with which he clung to his youthful radicalism and his early passionate admiration of the French Revolution, Hazlitt adhered to the "old attachments" in matM

Age of Elizabeth, p. 362-63. '""'Collected Works," VI, 32S n. Spirit of the Age, "Collected Works," IV, 219. Age of Elizabeth, p. 363. '"Schlegel on the Drama, "Collected Works," X, 119.

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ters literary. His appraisement of Schiller is injudicious; and his condemnation of the greater work in favor of his earlier attempts is juvenile. His enthusiasm is wrong-headed; and the only extenuation of which it allows is that it was undeniably genuine, and thoroughly in keeping with the pathetic tenacity which characterized the man. His great contemporary (not always his gentlest critic), Thomas De Quincey, lived long enough to survive into a generation which had altered fundamentally its attitude toward both Goethe and Schiller; and his major utterances on both came at a date when the voice of Carlyle was no longer crying in a wilderness unheeded. But his point of view is that of 1800, and even at that time would not have been remarkable for its individuality or its liberality. True, he did not disdain, when the spirit was upon him, to avail himself of the labors of Carlyle; but the sentiment which he makes vocal is that of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Hazlitt, rather than that of the author of the first great English life of Schiller. It was a noteworthy—though a sardonic—coincidence which ordained that De Quincey's notorious onslaught on Goethe and Wilhelm Meister should appear in the very numbers of the London Magazine which so hospitably housed the last installments of Carlyle's Lije of Schiller. Rarely has a great man been so virulently and crudely attacked as was Goethe in De Quincey's review. Nor did the anonymous translator of Wilhelm Meister come off more easily. It is small matter for gratulation that years later, when De Quincey had come to know Carlyle better (and Carlyle had made his way), he made amends by suppressing some passages which reflected on the translator, though he retracted little of what he had expressed concerning the original work. To have at once perceived the great merit of the translation from the hands of a writer totally unknown, and to have justly appraised the real worth of the

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book, to have apprehended its golden pricelessness—that would have been an achievement indeed! Had Goethe been a Grub-Street hack of the most unsavory repute, De Quincey's judgments and epithets could perhaps have been condoned. But the article was written in 1824. And for that year its temper and its obtuseness are unforgivable. "No other of Goethe's works," he thunders, "is likely to be more revolting to English good sense; the whole prestige of his name must now totter. . . Not the baseness of Egyptian superstition, not Titania under enchantment, not Caliban in drunkenness, ever shaped to themselves an idol more weak or hollow than modem Germany has set up for its worship in the person of Goethe."18* This violence is especially regrettable as it emanated from a critic whose knowledge of German letters was not negligible, and who was not, at other times, unaware of their richness and ored depths.195 On one occasion, he had not hesitated to pronounce German literature and philosophy of his day "the wealthiest in the world." 198 De Quincey came to know German literature very early in life. The recently published Diary affords us an interesting, if not a too important, glimpse of his first encounter with Schiller. With the meticulous care which was habitual with him in 1803, De Quincey recorded various expenditures for that year, '"The London Magazine, August, 1824. It must be remembered that the review as taken up in the Collected Writings in 1859 was materially altered. Professor Masson has preserved, in a footnote, some specimens of the earlier opinions. "Collected Works," XI, pp. 223-24. See also Susanne Howe, Wilhelm Meister and his English Kinsmen, p. 98. ' " T h e principal authorities for this section are H. A. Page, Thomas De Quincey, His Life and Writings; W. A. Dunn, Thomas De Quincey's Relation to German Literature and Philosophy ; Zeiger, pp. 249-50, and Margraf, pp. 38 £f. '"Page, op. cit., I, 212.

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among them 4d. for a translation of Schiller's Ghost-Seer. For some time thereafter he was haunted by the story, for in the following month (May 1803), his fancy wove for him an imaginary tale with a dying heroine and a vision of "a banquet or carousal of feodal magnificence—such (for instance) as in Schiller's Ghost-Seer, in ye middle of which a mysterious stranger should enter, on whose approach hangs fate and the dark roll of many woes."197 He had also heard of Schiller's Mary Stuart, and his roving eye had rested covetously on a copy of a play of that name in the window of a bookseller. But the half-guinea which he had with him was bad, and the young enthusiast had to content himself with the play borrowed from a library. A month later he obtained the much-desired volume, only to discover to his dismay that it was the work of one James Graham! 198 After De Quincey had come to know some of the greater personalities of his time, he was not at all backward in airing his own opinions of Goethe and Schiller in their presence. The inevitable Crabb Robinson recalled his abuse of both poets, and of German "great men" in general, with no little irritation. In the light of De Quincey's life-long attachment to Schiller and his impending official pronouncements on the subject of this poet in the Encyclopedia Britannica, this action appears particularly treasonable, if not incomprehensible.199 In 1837 the editor of the seventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica turned to De Quincey for contributions on Goethe and Schiller. Among the inscrutable actions of man this is almost unrivaled. The obvious procedure would have been, of course, to approach the author of the only English Life oj Schiller and the critic whose evaluation of Goethe had been marked by penetration, sweep and sympathy. The less obvious ,,T The Diary oj Thomas 148, 1S6. "· Ibid., pp. 189, 199.

De Quincey, m

ed. by Horace A. Eaton, pp.

Blake, Coleridge . . . p. 68 (1816).

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and comprehensible act was to turn to the man who had written what was well nigh a scurrilous attack on a literary figure whose name and fame he was now ready to perpetuate in a learned work. As for De Quincey's attitude toward Schiller, it could scarcely be adjudged percipient or discriminating. But unwittingly, he set things right. For the best portions of his essay are very effective reminiscences of pages in Carlyle's biography. Much cannot be said for, or of, this contribution. De Quincey begins it by reaffirming his belief in the superiority of Schiller over Goethe. "For us, who are aliens to Germany, Schiller is the representative of the German intellect in its highest form." 200 More than one half of the essay is devoted to a survey of German literature before Schiller, of almost negligible value and no originality. The rest is sheer fustian. A page is allotted to a discussion of The Robbers, "beyond doubt the most tempestuous, the most volcanic we might say, of all juvenile creations anywhere recorded." 201 But not Fiesco, nor Cabal and Love, nor Don Carlos, nor Mary Stuart, is "so far free from faults of The Robbers as to merit a separate notice; for, with less power, they are almost equally licentious. . . Finally, however, he brought out his Wallenstein, an immortal drama, and beyond all competition, the nearest in point of excellence to the dramas of Shakespeare." 202 This is the full extent of the criticism offered. No mention of Schiller's philosophical or aesthetic work, with which De Quincey, as the reputedly learned interpreter in England of Lessing and transcendental philosophy, should have had some acquaintance. And not a word concerning Schiller's ballad poetry! The concluding passage of the article echoes the sentiments of Carlyle. "We have said enough of his intellectual merit; ""'Collected Writings," IV, 423. Ibid., p. 435.

M

" Ibid., p. 437.

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which places him, in our judgment, at the head of the TransRhenish literature. But we add, in concluding, that Frederick von Schiller was something more than a great author; he was also in an eminent sense a great man; and his works are not more worthy of being studied for their singular force and originality than his moral character for its nobility and aspiring grandeur." 203 De Quincey was obviously beyond his depth. Had he been a little more generous in his borrowings from Carlyle, his contribution to the Encyclopaedia Britannica might have had more substance and blood. 101

Ibid., p. 439.

PART TWO NATURE'S NOBLEMAN 1813-1844

CHAPTER

IV

MADAME DE STAËL AND T H E YOUNGER ROMANTICS 1813-1823 1. RETROSPECT Eliza, Fred is a fool, a German fool, unconsciously violating both decorum and decency; so instead of sitting there, staring, sighing, and gasping for breath, I think you had better quit the room.—FREDERICK REYNOLDS1

Schiller's intellectual fortunes in England have now been traced somewhat beyond the epochal year 1813; and it is right that we stop and take a glance backward. Though in comparison with the hardships which Goethe's reputation and works endured in England, Schiller's own fate there seems a far happier one, it cannot be said that the greater part of the cordiality accorded him between 1788 and 1813 was especially flattering to his true stature as poet and dramatist. His intellectual claims were glimpsed, if at all, distantly and hesitantly. For the greatest number of Englishmen Schiller was, as we have seen, preeminently the author of The Robbers and The Ghost-Seer. Amid this stammering and undiscriminating, if eager, chorus of acclaim, Coleridge's finer perception and critical absorption of Schiller's works stand out with unquestionable force. But he too, though able to penetrate beyond the outer chambers of Schiller's thought and bold enough to obtain sight of the profounder mysteries of his philosophical creations, was, like all his contemporaries, too much the wor1

Life and Times of Frederick

Reynolds,

I, 293.

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shipper of the early works. And so, even his appraisal of Schiller lacks breadth and inclusiveness. Of Goethe's true height Coleridge seems almost unaware. In this respect he falls deplorably short of Crabb Robinson's just and astonishingly clear-sighted admiration of the author of Faust and Wilhelm Meister. Many of the persons whom we have had occasion to study witnessed the publication of Madame de Staël's De l'Allemagne in 1813. Some of them lived to see Carlyle's Lije of Schiller. But their mental attitudes had become rigid, and their utterances concerning Schiller were conditioned by their intellectual reactions of the early part of the century, and were of a piece with them. Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hazlitt, Southey, Campbell, De Quincey, and a host of others less notable, knew Schiller, and in their way admired him. But their knowledge was partial and defective, and their admiration for his work frequently misdirected. Nor was periodical criticism between 1805 and 1813 gracious or effusive in its treatment of German literature and of Schiller. At no time was the attitude toward German letters so perfunctory, and attention so scanty. 2 The apathy of the times was fatal to the recognition of Wallenstein in Coleridge's version; and the suspicious and exasperating indifference continued for some years. The legend of "the extravagant horror of the German school"3 haunted the pages of the reviews, and the warning was frequently sounded to beware of the Circean seduction and wiles of the most "infamous precepts of German atheism,"4 so ready to ensnare the unguarded young. Stammering apologies were offered to excuse even a nascent curiosity concerning German literature. "Although the prevalent taste of Germany may be corrupt," said one translator, "and fraught with moral and political turpitude, beauty may be ' Stokoe, pp. 44 fi. 1

The European Magazine and London Review, XLIII (1803), 370.

'¡bid., XLVIII (1805), 327.

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gathered from her writers, as honey from the flower, whose root is poisonous." 5 The Robbers was again cited for its pernicious tendencies, and the author of Nubilta in Search of a Husband was reprimanded for his undisguised enthusiasm in championing a play "of such abominable tendency."® The note struck is monotonously familiar to us; the censure of German literature for its rudeness, violence, delirium, enormity, and horror, 7 would be irritating, were it not so impotent. In the year preceding the publication of Madame de Staël's book, the Biographia Dramatica, brought up to date by Stephen Jones, surveyed the drama in general, and incidentally commented on the individual plays of Schiller. J. G. Holman's réchauffé of The Robbers was adjudged unimpeachable in morality, but alas! "for the fine spirit of the original we look in vain." 8 The opinions expressed concerning Cabal and Love are a little hard to reconcile. Lewis' version of the tragedy, The Minister, was praised for its faithful rendering of "an excellent play." The play was produced in 1803 at the Covent Garden Theatre as The Harper's Daughter. In its new garb, however, it was found to possess "much extravagant horror of the German school."® Fiesco was rejected as unfit for production; it was considered inferior to The Robbers, though it was thought some passages might afford pleasure in the closet.10 Don Carlos came off surprisingly well. True, it was too long and declamatory, and "the author's hatred of kings and priests is visible in almost every scene,"—still, it was "extremely interesting."11 'William Herbert, Translations from the Italian, London, 1806, pt. 2, p. viii. ' The British Critic, X X X V (1810), 188. 'Quarterly Review, IV (1810), 156. ' Biographica Dramatica, III, 195-96. ' Ibid., III, 43-44; II, 28S. "Ibid., II, 239. "Ibid., II, 170.

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The Theatrical Inquisitor of 1812 took up the cudgels in defence of the much-maligned drama of Germany. In an unusually intelligent article it derided the efforts of those critics who, in judging the German theatre, invariably drew upon Kotzebue and Iffland for illustration. "Schiller is but seldom mentioned, or, if spoken of, we hear only of his Robbers, which they have chosen to hunt down as a mere exotic in the drama. . . Whatever species of drama the reader may prefer, he will hardly be able to deny the superiority of Schiller." After all, The Robbers was no more extravagant or far-fetched than many a Greek tragedy—Medea, for example. And as for the morality of the German play, "vice is indeed painted in glowing colors in this play, but the punishment, which it carries with it, is portrayed with as firm a hand." 12 True yeoman's strokes—unfortunately too rare in that day. 2. MADAME DE STAËL D o you know Madame de Staël's Allemagne f That for a guidebook:—and persist and prosper!—CARLYXE to William Allingham"

"The great object of curiosity now in London is Madame de Staël," wrote Mrs. Trench in July 1813." The "whirlwind in petticoats," the female pansophist, author of questionable books, more celebrated perhaps as the living embodiment of a career in which convention and humdrum morality played a small part, in short, one of the most startling women of the day, had come to England a second time. Almost a quarter of a century before, in 1791, she had crossed the Channel; but her reception at that time, though not devoid of curious attention, was not characterized by especial warmth. For had she not in an adventurous and brief career unbecomingly given expression to notions not at all suited to womanhood, not at all in keeping with the distaff and spindle? That suspicion was 12

The Theatrical Inquisitor, I (1812), 127-28. "Letters to William Allingham, London, 1911, p. 133 1850). "Remains, p. 27S.

(September

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sufficiently justified by the publication of Delphine in 1803. The Reverend Sydney Smith outdid himself on that occasion in castigating the book and hurling against it some of the choicest bits of invective it was the pleasure of Madame de Staël ever to receive. Between that date and the hour of her much-announced second arrival in London, she had not been irreproachably domestic in her habits. In the winter of 1803 she had made her historic entry into Weimar; her crossing of the Rhine and her invasion of Germany being of a nature not to be resisted by force of arms. At Weimar, Crabb Robinson attempted to enlighten her concerning the somewhat impenetrable mists of German metaphysics; and her keen intellect assimilated enough to fumish matter for much conversation and a few chapters of a book, though fortunately not enough to endanger the traditional view of her sex's charming incapacity in that direction. She bearded the literary lions in their dens; and with conversational selfpossession and pertinacity she tamed some of them, and even succeeded in carrying off August Wilhelm von Schlegel as her personal pet. Though she was rarely content to play the part of a passive listener, as Goethe had occasion to remark, her verve, her savoir-jaire, the clarity of her intellect occasioned some favorable comment. Schiller found her interesting; and she returned the compliment, as we shall see, by allotting to him some of the choicest pages in her Germany Her second entry into London was marked by a reception " In this section I o w e much to Lady Blennerhasset's Life of Madame de Staël, to George Brandes, Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature, I ; Joseph Texte, J. J. Rousseau, passim; Jaekh, Madame de Staël, Robert C. Whitford, Madame de Staël's Literary Reputation in England; Stokoe, pp. 51-53; C o m t e d'Haussonville, Mme. de Staël et l'Allemagne, Paris, 1928; D . G. Larg, "H. C. Robinson and M a d a m e de Staël," in the Review of English Studies, V (1929), 22-35. I o w e nothing to Lillian R. Brown, "Mme. de Staël and Germany" in The Nineteenth Century, L X X X I V (1918), 539 ff. (to be condoned only on the ground that it w a s written to help win the World War).

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at once more cordial and less critical. The times had changed. In 1791, she had been merely a literary Frenchwoman of questionable opinions and still more questionable morals. In 1813, Englishmen suddenly recalled that she was the daughter of a great statesman, a Swiss Protestant, and—what was far more important—the woman who, according to legend, had made Napoleon tremble. Add the appeal of injured innocence. . . For had not England's most dreadful abomination swooped down on Madame's book and almost succeeded in eradicating every trace of it? Literary, political, intellectual, and even feminine London flocked to catch a glimpse of this marvelous woman. Sir James Mackintosh capitulated to her mental eminence and became her foremost champion in England. She captivated her eminent visitors by expressing an admiration of their work which did not always betray an acquaintance with it. The stage was set for a great event, and Madame de Staël was no second-rate actress. Germany was published in November 1813. Intrinsic merit aside, there can be no question that the book is of epochal importance in the history of European literature. It is of equal importance for England. What William Taylor and Crabb Robinson and Coleridge had striven long to establish, and none too successfully, Madame de Staël succeeded in doing well—and with éclat. She made England and the Continent aware of Germany. The book was noticed at length by all the important reviews; and not a few of these were effusive in its praise. Here and there we come upon a weak note of protest that the author was making too much of the land of her heart's desire. The ultimate significance of her work was recognized immediately. True and surprising fact—the book did not sell so well as Murray had in his generosity anticipated. It had, however, the rarer fortune—it fell into hands that were destined to make good and lasting use of it.

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When we consider the general public apathy toward German letters and thought which prevailed in England between 1800 and 1813, the scantiness of attention paid to them in the reviews, the fitful and partial comprehension by even the more sensitive men of letters, the magnitude of Madame de Staël's achievement assumes truly magnificent proportions. Here was the first complete, organized, unified, and eloquent expression of an admiration, doubly astonishing because it was directed by a Frenchwoman toward a nation held, till then, in something which verged on contempt. Here was the literary confession of a woman who had not hesitated to speak of the most abstruse things with assurance, and who had not, in the attainment of her object, hesitated to confront the great men she was to describe. Of the many errors in the book it would be futile to speak. Goethe was not apprehended at his true height. Kantian philosophy was discussed with the perfumed assurance and superficiality of the salonnière of the Ancien Régime. But no book on Germany had ranged so boldly and so sympathetically over a new domain ; and no book had brought report of such rich fruit and vintage. No wonder one or two spoke of the author of Germany as a second Tacitus. 18 Like the Roman, she had gone into the land of the "barbarian" and had brought back tidings of a race upright and virtuous, great in character and in thought, and rich in wisdom and in song. She found that the German language was a more fitting tool for poetry than for prose; 17 that the Germans as a people were more universal in matters of literature and thought, but were thoroughly unfitted for practical affairs.18 She then proceeded to a detailed survey of German literature, and spread before her readers the names of Wieland, Less" The British Critic, N. S., I (1814), SOS. John Stuart Blackie spoke of her in the same vein. 17 Germany, London, 1813, I, 12S-26. "Ibid., p. 134.

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ing, Klopstock, Winckelmann, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Kant, Fichte, Schelling. "Welch reicher Himmel!" Here was indeed adequate justification of her enthusiasm. Her definitions of classic and romantic poetry supported her preferences for the literature of the North: Classic literature—and French literature—was indirect and derivative; founded on antiquity, therefore imitative. Romantic poetry, on the contrary, was drawn from original, indigenous sources; as such, it alone was . . . capable of further improvement, because being rooted in our own soil, that alone can continue to grow and acquire fresh life; it expresses our religion; it recalls our history; its origin is ancient, although not of classical antiquity. Classic poetry, before it comes home to us, must pass through our recollections of paganism; that of the Germans is the Christian era of the fine arts; it employs our personal impressions to excite strong and vivid emotions; the genius by which it is inspired addresses itself immediately to our hearts; and seems to call forth the spirit of our own lives, of all phantoms at once the most powerful and the most terrible. 19 The tribute to Goethe was sincere, though not exultant. Madame de Staël adjudged him to be a man of universal mind; he possessed within himself the genius of the German people: "a great depth of ideas, that grace which springs from imagination—a grace far more originili than that which is formed by the spirit of society." 20 To Schiller, however, she warmed with peculiar fervor. He was, she said, . . . a man of uncommon genius and of perfect sincerity . . . There is not a nobler course than that of literature, when it is pursued as Schiller pursued it. . . His Muse was Conscience. . . His writings were himself: they expressed his soul. . . With degrading sentiments he held no intercourse. He lived, he spoke, he acted, as if the wicked did not exist. . . Schiller was the best of friends, the best of fathers, the best of husbands; no quality was wanting to complete that gentle "Ibid., "Ibid.,

I, 311-12. p. 271.

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and peaceful character which was animated by the fire of genius alone; the love of liberty, respect for the female sex, enthusiastic admiration of the fine arts inspired his mind.21 Of the dramas of Schiller's early period she discussed at length (and perspicaciously) The Robbers and Don Carlos, about the last of which she has some very pointed and thoughtful remarks. She was not entirely satisfied with the play; its plot was too complicated ; Marquis Posa occupied too prominent a rôle; the tragedy fell somewhat indecisively between history and poetry, without proper allegiance to either. But she recognized the nobility of the sentiments, and the significance of Marquis Posa for the light he threw on the character and ideas of Schiller. Many of the scenes filled her with breathless admiration. 22 What is perhaps more striking is the pains she took to do justice to the other and later plays of Schiller. Here for the first time the English reader could view the whole panorama of Schiller the dramatist. Wallenstein, Mary Stuart, The Maid, oj Orleans, The Bride 0j Messina, and William Tell were in turn subjected to her exacting scrutiny. She recognized in Wallenstein the most national of German plays; she lauded its nobility and beauty of verse, and the grandeur of its subject. 23 Mary Stuart seemed to her, of all German tragedies, the most pathetic and the best conceived. "The very beauty of this story, so favorable to genius, would crush mediocrity." 24 She looked with genuine admiration upon the last scene, and judged the adieu of Mary to the Earl of Leicester to be "one of the finest situations to be met with on the stage." 25 The Maid oj Orleans also aroused her to enthusiasm, somewhat qualified, however, by what she considered the only serious fault of the drama: Schiller's departure from historic accuracy in the " Ibid., pp. 273-76. " Ibid.,

II, 65-66.

35

Ibid.,

chap. xvii.

Ibid.,

p. 96.

a

Ibid.,

chap, xviii.

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dénouement.™ She was disappointed in The Bride of Messina, and repelled by its calmness and classical repose; though she reluctantly admitted the presence of some traces of Schiller's genius.27 William Tell transported her in imagination to Switzerland. Her generous appreciation of Schiller ended fittingly with a reminder of his pellucid nobility.28 Such was the fervor of Madame de Staël. Outside of Germany, for the first time, full justice was done the dramatist and historian. It is true that she overlooked Schiller's philosophical genius; but the portion of her work dedicated to philosophy is the flimsiest in the whole book. Of singular importance is her insistence on the quality of Schiller's moral character. He was the nobleman of literature, a moral exemplar whose life and work were interpenetrated by the great dignity and goodness visible in every act. Madame de Staël—woman to the very core—was drawn by the chivalrous element in Schiller. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why she never found Goethe equally congenial. Whatever her faults, and the faults of her book, she revealed for the first time the full power and wealth of German letters. She had formulated the first unified conception of Schiller, and the finest fruit that conception of the noble poet was destined to bring forth was Carlyle's Life of Schiller. 3 . RECEPTION OF "GERMANY" We think that her book, like that of Tacitus on the same subject, is a work that forms an era in the great history of international appreciation—a history naturally, and almost necessarily synonymous with the history of civilisation.—JOHN STUART BLACKIE"

There can be but little doubt that the publication of Madame de Staël's Germany marks the turning point in the appreciation and acceptance of German works in England. Unfavorable and "Ibid.,

pp. 115-16.

"Ibid.,

" Review of Weber's Germany, XLVIII

(1840), 122.

pp. 119-20. in Blackwood's

"Ibid., Edinburgh

pp. 136-37. Magazine,

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even inimical as some of the reviews may have been, their very asperity was in itself a betrayal of deep interest in the work, and far better than the smug indifference which had marked the periodical attitude toward German literature before 1813. A few tender souls were pricked to the quick by this unbecomingly ecstatic admiration of things German, so boldly proclaimed in Madame de Staël's book. The British Review, to cite one instance, refused to share in the general Hosanna. We will venture to intimate, that were we to provide for this "careful education," we should with all our might exclude every novel and play which Germany for this last half century has produced, and our young ladies should hear no more of the Sorrows oj Werther, or of the Devil and Dr. Faustus. 3 0

Others, on the contrary, yielded to the gentle flattery which Madame de Staël had extended to England in her inclusive praise of the literatures of the North.' 1 James Mackintosh, who had unconditionally surrendered to the charms of the new Tacitus, wrote one of the most effusive notices of her book. That he had read Germany to some advantage is well revealed in his remarks on Schiller. "Schiller," he says, "presents . . . the genius of a great poet and the character of a virtuous man."32 Some critics, snatching all too eagerly at her partisan words of praise for Schiller's character, outdid even her in the comparisons they established between that poet and Goethe. The latter was conceded versatility and power; but Schiller was "a man of superior virtue, as well as of superior genius."33 " The British Review, and London Critical Journal, V (1813), 430. " "Her sentiments of admiration for the Germans were such as to imply a still higher admiration of the English." Gentleman's Magazine, LXXXIII (1813), 460. " Edinburgh Review, X X I I (1813), 215. Goethe's Faust he calls "that most odious of the works of genius, in which the whole power of imagination is employed to dispel the charms which poetry bestows on human life." Ibid., p. 216. " The British Critic, N. S., I (1814), 646.

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The Quarterly Review, ever on the watch against anything tending to subvert the morals of the nation (and soon to whet its teeth on daintier morsels), grew strangely indulgent toward German morality, and more than indulgent toward Schiller. The Germans, one of its writers contended, were more wise, certainly more learned and moral than the French, though in the last of these qualities both would do well to go to school to England. "In morals . . . the Englishwomen as yet may claim undoubtedly the preference." 34 Indeed, he continued, readers of Schiller's Robbers will be unwilling to believe that the private life of the author was blameless and humble as that of Klopstock. Yet such it was! Then follows a rhapsodic passage on Schiller's works. "Don Carlos was undoubtedly at the time of its appearance the finest play which Europe had seen for above a century," 35 and Wallenstein comes closest to Shakespeare. The reviewer's zeal was so consuming, that he reproached Madame de Staël for her indifference to The Bride of Messina. "So perfectly has the author imbibed the spirit of the ancient drama, that many of the choric songs might pass as translations from some recovered fragments of Euripides." 36 But Werther and Faust are still, to his mind, unregenerate.37 The Critical Review obtusely reproached Madame de Staël for preferring Goethe to Schiller. She had failed, in the eyes of the writer, to do justice to the multiple achievement of Schiller in history and poetry. "One of the most enlightened females of the age" (so she is graciously called) has slighted the true worth and merits of the "parent of the lyrical poetry of Germany." 38 Pity indeed that she has subordinated him to that genius, "so original, so elevated, and so comprehensive," who has assisted "in undermining the superstructure of human happiness." 39 "The Quarterly Review, X (1814), 358, 367. "Ibid., p. 382. "Ibid., p. 387. "Ibid., "Critical Review, 4th ser., V (1814), 361. " Ibid., p. 362.

p. 390.

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Consistency is not one of the major vices of the reviews of that time. We are therefore scarcely surprised that another writer in the Quarterly Review was of the opinion that all this hubbub over the moral and literary qualities of Schiller was scarcely to the point. He, at any rate, was not the gullible fool of fashion. Between the earlier work and the later vaunted masterpieces of the German dramatist he could see little difference. "All abound in situations of terrific effect, all are filled with profound and philosophical reflections, all are marked with striking defects." 40 In Don Carlos he found "the discussions tedious, the arrangement confused, and the catastrophe pantomimical." Wallenstein, compared with Shakespeare's historical plays, was "cold and uninteresting." But after all, Germans are Germans: always deficient in the subtler qualities of judgment and taste! 41 These dissenting voices were few in number and pathetically weak. The onward rush of breathless interest in German letters, and especially in the works of Schiller, continued unabated, culminating, for this period, in the publication of Carlyle's Lije of Schiller. "His glory as a dramatic poet," jubilantly proclaimed the Literary Gazette, "is established." 42 Even The Robbers received a greater measure of respect and critical fairness. It is "the work . . . of a great mind; it had the raciness of a soil unfilled; the very luxuriance of it naturally engendered weeds."43 This is encouraging enthusiasm, unfortunately not always emulated elsewhere. One is a little staggered to find Schiller compared to Aeschylus in one breath; in the next coupled with Goethe and Joanna Baillie—a strange ménage à trois among immortals! and elsewhere brushed aside, with cosmic gesture, along with Lessing and Klopstock, as nothing more than a meteor.44 "Quarterly Review, XII (1814), 145. "ibid., p. 145. "Literary Gazette, 1817, p. 90. "The Theatrical Inquisitor, VI (1815), 353. " The Monthly Review, L X X X I (1816), 127, 270; Quarterly Review, XIV (1816), 365.

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But for all that remonstrance, Schiller had triumphed. Of this there can be no doubt. And with him all of German literature acquired an added dignity, only unwillingly conceded it heretofore. "Schiller gives a lofty and contemptuous answer to our prejudices against German plays. The fact is, we have transplanted the rank and poisonous weeds, and left the nobler plants to their native soil." 45 A few voices might hesitate to take part in this chorus of generous approval; but rarely did they deny the full worth of Schiller's genius. Thus, Sir Francis Cohen Palgrave, in a review of Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit, passed this judicial verdict on German literature: With the single exception of Schiller, they (i.e., the Germans) have no writer of chaste or elegant prose. . . Goethe is a faithful representative of the general character of his country. He possesses great and versatile talents, though he is far from applying them to the best advantage:—he could not escape the influence of the fogs which surround him. Schiller alone had vigour to soar into a purer sky." German literature was now extolled at the expense of that of France; German thought was more vigorous, more youthful. "Evidently we should cultivate an intercourse with that literature of Europe which has most of a juvenile constitution. Now that is beyond all doubt the German." 47 For are not the greatest works of German genius in harmony with those of England? Had we but worthy translations of German masterpieces, we should much sooner have perceived their qualities. 48 But remarkable literary works cannot be adequately translated; else Schiller would have become the property of many more admiring Englishmen.49 Schiller, Kant, and Jean Paul were, for one writer, the mighty triad of German thought. "In the case of 45

British Critic, 2d ser., V (1816), 306. "Edinburgh Review, X X V I (1816), 306, 310. "London Magazine, IV (1821), 607. M British Review, XVIII (1821), 204. "Ibid., p. 20S.

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Schiller," he confessed, "I love his works chiefly because I venerate the memory of the man." 50 He was "solemn, pensive, and sublime." 51 It would be tedious and profitless to follow in detail each particular expression of opinion in the periodicals of the day. Schiller's name appeared with a frequency which, only a decade before, would have been viewed with astonishment and dismay. His name and his works were on the lips of men, as those of no other Germans, and of few Englishmen. The New Monthly Magazine launched its first volume in 1821 with a notice of the poet, 52 and kept his name alive for many of its succeeding issues. Two of Schiller's dramas were actually produced at this time. The Robbers found its way to Sadler's Wells in 1821. The Theatrical Inquisitor urged its readers to "embrace this opportunity of seeing one of . . . the finest specimens [of German drama]. . . For pictures of intense passion, highly-wrought character, and powerful incidents, it is a spectacle, that emulates the noblest productions of any time or stage." 53 The year before, Mary Stuart had been produced at Covent Garden; but in this case the Theatrical Inquisitor had been less kind. The version was that of 1801, revised by the inexhaustible Frederick Reynolds; but even in its mangled form, the play was found to be "still liable to the severest accusations of immoral argument, and historical infidelity." 54 The European Magazine was somewhat more generous to Schiller, whose fine genius, it claimed, had passed "through a most merciless process." 55 "London Magazine, IV (1821), 607. "British Review, XVI (1820), 183. " New Monthly Magazine, I (1821), 206 ft. "Theatrical Inquisitor, XVII (1821), 243. "Ibid., XVI (1820), 60. The celebrated actress Miss O'Neill had some time before this declined to act the parts of Mary Stuart and Imogen. Cf. The Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds, II, 399. "The European Magazine and London Review, L X X V I (1819), 541.

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Now and then the opposition succeeded in putting in a word. A little of the old venom had survived, though it made its appearance with startling rarity. The Modern Dunctad, by George Daniel, revived the ancient charges and castigated the German stage for its "counts, gamesters, princes, jostling side by side," its "low-bom offal" and its "high-dutch pride." 56 Again we hear the old cackle censuring the German drama for its glorification of the "virtues of a Robber," of "horrific murders," as well as for its "utmost barbarism of taste." 57 Even the Examiner flared up (strangely enough) at the "sentimental, ultra-Jacobinical German school . . . with their maudlin Platonics and maudlin metaphysics." 58 But what could these cries of the adversary avail—so weak as to be lost in the din of acclaim? Pathetic voices in the wilderness! On the other side, listen to the shouts of triumph. "We suspect that German philosophy is at present the noblest in Europe; and we are sure that German criticism is at present the best." 59 4 . GILLIES, LOCKHART, AND CHRISTOPHER NORTH I remember well my vain quest after German books and German professors. . . —GILLIES"0

Of the most noteworthy journalists of the first and second decades of the nineteenth century, Robert Pearse Gillies and John Gibson Lockhart were among the staunchest supporters of the invading German literature. Of these two, Gillies has left us a vivid, if not always accurate, account of his intellectual Lehr- und Wander jähret He recalled later in life his first " The Modem Dunciad, Virgil in London, and Other Poems, London, 1815, p. 90. " The Monthly Review, L X X X I X (1819), 416-17; The Theatrical Review, I (1822), 118. "The Examiner, 1816, p. S86. " The London Magazine, II (1820), 66. Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, II, 223. " R. P. Gillies, Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols., London, 1851.

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attempts to glean something of a knowledge of those startling new works which were then emanating from Germany; and it is interesting to observe that his introduction to German literature came by way of Schiller's Song oj the Bell. Undismayed by the difficulties he encountered in obtaining books, he continued an irrepressible devotee of German thought, acquiring, in the end, a mastery of the language and of the literature. In 1819 he inaugurated in the pages of Blackwood's a momentous series of papers, the "Horae Germanicae," which he continued till 1827. Thereafter he transferred his zealous activity to the Foreign Quarterly Review, of which he became editor. His range of interest in German literature may be judged from the writers whom he considered critically at one time or another: Klingemann, Heine, Kleist, Tieck, Grabbe, Gerstenberg, Müllner, and Schiller.62 For Schiller he had high praise and a great affection. Schiller was the "facile princeps" in German dramatic literature, and Don Carlos was adjudged his "most finished composition," unfortunately too little known in England. "Whether his genius is or is not fully understood in England, his name is at all events never mentioned among us, but in terms of highest respect and admiration." 63 Gillies scornfully derides the prim English reader whose "over-fastidious delicacy" cannot forgive that boldness in Schiller of which he so readily approves in the minor authors of his own country, provided they are of a past generation. 64 The Robbers was, after all, a most venial error of youthful genius.65 But even this tragedy contains a scene which Schiller never surpassed or even equalled, that See Max Batt, "Contributions to the History of English Opinion of German Literature," MLN, XVII (1902), 165 ff.; and XVIII (1903), 65 ff. "Foreign Quarterly Review, I (1827), 573-74. "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, XVI (1824), 194 (review of Fiesco). "Ibid., XVII (1825), 299.

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scene "wherein Moor, amid wild forest scenery, contemplates and apostrophizes the setting sun."" John Gibson Lockhart was a contributor to the "Horae Germanicae," and in the field of German letters his fealty was sworn unequivocally to Goethe. Toward Schiller, his attitude swerved; he saw him at first completely overshadowed by the greater majesty of Goethe. Schiller, Lockhart thought in 1819, "has produced no works more perfect or satisfactory in form than Goethe's—and while neither Wallenstein nor the William Tell, nor the Mary Stuart, can be placed above the Egmont—nor the Bride oj Messina above Iphigenia—it must be confessed, that among the whole creations of his genius, he has left nothing that can sustain for richness of invention, for purity and variety and strength of language, any comparison with the Faustus This is a sufficiently sweeping statement to challenge objection. But Lockhart had entered the service of Goethe with generous enthusiasm and must be forgiven for his consuming zeal, especially as it was directed against the uncritical twaddle of the times, which insisted on confusing moral and literary values, and hailed in Schiller the greater poet, because he appeared unspotted as a lamb. Fitting, too, was the reproof Lockhart administered to Francis Jeffrey and his minions on the Edinburgh Review for their persistently offensive abuse of Goethe, "a good, a great, and an old man," said Lockhart, "whose name will be reverenced by the world many hundred years after all the reviewers that ever insulted his genius shall be forgotten." 48 Lockhart was too keen a critic to allow his judgment of Schiller to stand unmodified. In a review of Wallenstein in 1823, he qualified his first intransigeance; indeed, his conversion to Schiller's cause is as astonishing as it is unfathomable. Not only was Schiller hailed as one of the "true masters of tragedy." "Ibid., XII (1822), 225. "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, "Ibid., IV (1818), 212.

VI (1819), 122.

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He was "by far the greatest master of tragedy that has appeared in Europe since the death of Calderón. In many particulars he is the inferior of Goethe—but in the drama, the real living drama of tragic action, he is, we cannot doubt it, his illustrious countryman's superior." ββ The last scene of Wallenstein's Death is "imagined almost as if the spirit of Shakespeare had been near to Schiller in his midnight dreams. Oh! Si sic omnia! " 70 Indeed, to find the peer of this tragedy at all, we should have to turn to our own greatest dramatist. It was superior to any one of Goethe's dramatic works, except Faust. And Coleridge's version, noble as it was, had not surpassed the original ; though Sir Walter Scott might believe otherwise.71 Though WaUenstein was Schiller's "most powerful and effective" dramatic work,72 William Tell was not to be disdained. Great and numerous were its beauties, though it possessed "strange faults." 73 But for Lockhart, the peak of Schiller's art was attained in Wallenstein, Don Carlos, and Thè Bride oj Messina.7* The Ghost-Seer was superior by far to both Godwin's St. Leon and Maturin's Montorio; "Schiller was a thousand times a cleverer man than Godwin."75 "Christopher North"—Professor John Wilson—was likewise a contributor to Blackwood's, where his Ν oc tes Ambrosianae, couched in pithy homespun, did much to establish and ruin reputations. 7 ' Like his Scotch compeers, he exhibited a lively " T h e authorship of this article in Blackwood's Edinburgh if agazine, XIV (1823), long a matter of doubt and conjecture (see Batt, loc. cit., XVIII, 65), has been definitely established in favor of Lockhart by M. Clive Hildyard, Lockhart's Literary Criticism, Oxford, 1931. For the above passage, see Blackwood's, loc. cit., p. 377. " Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, loc. cit., p. 395. '"Ibid., pp. 377-78, 383. "Quarterly Review, X X X I V (1826), 357. n Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, XVII (1825), 436. u Ibid., XIV (1823), 378. 71 Ibid., XVI (1824), 56. The judgment, one suspects, is not altogether dispassionate. " See the Memoir by Mrs. Gordon.

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interest in German letters. In 1819 he glanced over the dramatic horizon of his own time, and in a paper on Shakespeare bewailed the fact that England had not a single tragic poet. Schiller is, perhaps, the only great tragic poet who has lived in the same day with ourselves. And wild and portentous as his shapes of life often are, who is there that does not feel that the strange power by which they hold us is derived from the very motions of our blood, and that the breath by which we live breathes in them? H e has thrown back his scenes into other times of the world; but we find ourselves there. It is from real, present life, that he has borrowed that terrible spell of passion by which he shakes so inwardly the very seat of feeling and thought. The tragic poets of England in the age of our dramatic literature, have shewn the same power, and they drew it from the same source; from imagination submitted to human life, and dwelling in the midst of it. . 5. BYRON, SHELLEY, AND MATURIN

On the tablet of the recess lay Voltaire's, Shakespeare's, Boileau's and Rousseau's works complete; Volney's Ruins of Empires, Zimmermann, in the German language, Klopstock's Messiah; Kotzebue's novels; Schiller's play of the Robbers.—POLIDORI, An Account o) Lord Byron's Residence in the Island of Mitylene."

Shelley and Byron each found intimate satisfaction in the works of German men of letters; the first, as might have been " "A Few Words on Shakespeare" in Essays, Critical and Imaginative, IV, 430 (reprinted from Blackwood's, V [1819], 231). In 1832 an unknown contributor to the Nodes Ambrosianae, L X I (a paper not attributed by Wilson's editor, J . F. Ferner, to "Christopher North") expressed himself with much less respect concerning the genius of Schiller. He censured the latter for lack of creative imagination ; and found Wallenstein to be the work of a great mind rather than of a great genius. He set Schiller below both Otway and Rowe ! Strangely enough, these words are placed in the mouth of "Christopher North." (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, X X X I [1832], 696.) " J . W. Polidori, The Vampire

. . . , London, 1819, pp. 77-78.

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expected, seizing critically upon the more glorious and essential part of it, and as he grew older, less and less susceptible to the secondary, the fitful, and the misty. So that naturally enough, a partial culmination of Shelley's search for the central core of German literature is to be found in the fragmentary translation of Goethe's Faust. Byron's more fitful, demoniac, and wayward temper fed on the earlier Schiller, and of Goethe's Faust he absorbed only the more superficial demonism and fretfulness of spirit. But both poets were cradled in the cumbrous cloudiness of The Robbers, The Ghost-Seer, and their multiform progeny, and Shelley's Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne, no less than Byron's Werner and The Giaour are eloquent testimony to the fertile and scarcely salutary effects of that influence. The weird magnetism of The Ghost-Seer drew Byron early, and kept him spellbound for many years. As late as 1817 he wrote to John Murray concerning "Schiller's Armenian, a novel which took a great hold of me when a boy. It is also called the 'Ghost Seer,' and I never walked down Saint Mark's by moonlight without thinking of it, and 'at nine o'clock he died.!' " 7 9 This sentiment he reiterates in the fourth canto of Childe Harold, where he recalls how "Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare" had stamped the image of Venice on his mind. In Hours of Idleness (1807) he had already betrayed an absorption in the strange Armenian, and had modeled a poem, Oscar of Alva, very faithfully on the most famous episode in that story. He merely shifted the scene to Scotland; and the ™ Letters and Journals, ed. by R . E. Prothero, IV, 92-93. For Byron's relation to German literature the reader may turn to Manfred Eimer, "Byrons persönliche und geistige Beziehungen zu den Gebieten deutscher Kultur," Anglia, X X X V I (1912), 313 ff., and 397 ff.; L. Fuhrmann, Die Belesenheit des jungen Byron, Berlin, 1903 ; Margraf, pp. 44-53 ; Jaekh, Madame de Staël, pp. 177-87; and Reynaud, Le Romantisme, pp. 188-89.

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two brothers he renamed Oscar and Allan. Oscar's beloved, Mora, too readily accepts the affections of the younger brother when her betrothed disappears. On the wedding day, the spirit of the murdered Oscar suddenly rises up; and Allan dies of grief and remorse, as is meet. The Robbers impressed itself as firmly on his imagination. His diary is witness to his sessions with Schiller in 1814. "Yawned now and then, and redde the Robbers. F i n e - but Fiesco is even better; and Alfieri, and Monti's Aristodemo best." 80 Unfortunately Byron's preoccupation with German letters was sadly impeded by his ignorance of the language, which not even Shelley's tireless example could serve to banish. He was forced to read works in translations—he read The Robbers in French on one occasion—and the inadequacy of his knowledge of German literature irked him, though he did little enough to correct it. 81 "I have read nothing of Adolph Milliner's (the author of Guilt)," he complained in 1821, "and much less of Goethe, and Schiller, and Wieland, than I could wish. I only know them through the medium of English, French, and Italian translations. . . Of the real language I know absolutely nothing,—except oaths learned from postillions and officers in a squabble!" 82 He was distantly acquainted with The Bride of Messina and Don Carlos, for he cites them both in extenuation of the moral license he permitted himself in The Bride oj Abydos and Parisina.™ " Letters and Journals, II, 388. " Letters and Journals, III, 356 (1816). Ibid., V, 171-72. "Letters and Journals, II, 3 0 9 : "Though the wild passions East, and some great examples in Alfieri, Ford, and Schiller . . have pleaded in favor of a copyist, yet time and the north . . . me to alter their consanguinity [i. e., of Selim and Zuleika] and them to cousinship."

of the . might induced confine

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His knowledge of both plays may have been derived from Madame de Staël's copious paraphrases. 84 At best, Byron's understanding of Schiller was both shallow and inadequate. Much ingenuity, it is true, has been expended by his commentators, French and German, in settling his debt to The Robbers—considerable or negligible according to the particular bias of the critic's mind. M. Reynaud is again too generous when he places The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Lara, "etc.," under obligation to Scott, the novel of terror, and "plus encore au Charles Moor de Schiller."85 Margraf spies the impress of The Ghost-Seer in Lara and Werner,86 The disinterested reader, afflicted with no doctrinaire mania, will come to the conclusion that while Byron's works do in their way reflect the shadows and terrors of The Robbers and The Ghost-Seer, their specific indebtedness to these is open to question. For the literary antecedents are difficult to trace. In a greater or lesser measure, many of Byron's poetic romances deal with the outcast, the rover, or robber knight. That Schiller was the original, though very distant, stimulating force in the composition of these is possible. But no more than possible. Werner, of all of Byron's compositions, is most reminiscent of Schiller and of Goethe. Goetz von Berlichingen is there, after a fashion ; and Karl Moor. The plot turns upon dispossession of a rightful heir, and upon outlawry. There is a murder of the usurper. There is a robber band led by a mysterious captain. Advertisement to Parisina (1816) : "I am aware, that in modern times the delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. The Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old English writers were of a different opinion: as Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, upon the Continent." " A s suggested by Eimer, op. cit., p. 414. " R e y n a u d , Le Romantisme, p. 188. " M a r g r a f , p. 45.

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Werner has been supplanted by Stralheim, just as Karl Moor has been cheated by Franz. Ulric, Werner's son, is the chief of the robber band which infests the country-side.—But all these elements are to be found in the story of Sophia Lee from which Byron helped himself to the plot! 87 Even if much is conceded, Byron cannot lay claim to having apprehended Schiller's true worth or perceived the greatness of his masterpieces. He approached Schiller as one who had not read Coleridge very attentively. 88 In the same vague, indefinable way the early abortive attempts of Shelley, his two romances, Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne, are related to Schiller's Robbers; their kinship with Mrs. Radcliffe's and "Monk" Lewis' horrors is less disputable. The Wandering Jew, a Poem, was unquestionably stimulated by Schubart's Ahasvérus, der ewige Jude,8β but it also owes some17 "Kruitzner" in the Canterbury Talcs, by Harriet and Sophia Lee, London, 1797-1805. β Ε. H . Coleridge notes a parallelism between Byron's Aristomenes and some lines of the Ptccolomini. In his poem, Byron mourns the passing of the Mighty Pan. " H o w much died with him ! false or true—the dream Was beautiful which peopled every stream With more than finny tenants, and adorned The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorned Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace Of gods brought forth the high heroic race Whose names are on the hills and o'er the seas."

—"Aristomenes," in Poetical Works, ed. by E. H . Coleridge, IV, 566. "Die Fabel ist der Liebe Heimatwelt, Gern wohnt sie unter Feen, Talismanen, Glaubt gern an Götter, weil sie göttlich ist. Die alten Fabelwesen sind nicht mehr, Das reizende Geschlecht is ausgewandert." —Ptccolomini, act iii, scene 4, "Werke," IV, 140-41. " Margraf, p. 55.

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thing to the figure of the Wandering Jew in Lewis' Monk. If Shelley drew on The Ghost-Seer at all, it may have been for the figure of Paulo, who seems a dimly recalled and very indistinct Armenian. The incantation scene in which Vittorio participates is reminiscent of a similar scene in The Ghost-Seer. Shelley's admiration for German was profound, and he valued it far beyond French. Writing to a "Lady," in 1821, he urged her to study the ancient and modem languages, so that she might read Ariosto, Tasso,. Petrarch, Machiavelli, Goethe, Schiller, Wieland—as for French, he adds, "if the great name of Rousseau did not redeem it, it would have been perhaps as well that you had remained entirely ignorant of it."90 That Schiller had something to do with Shelley's personal development was perceived by his friends, though it seems to me Thomas Love Peacock went too far in asserting that "Brown's four novels, Schiller's Robbers, and Goethe's Faust took the deepest root in Shelley's mind and had the strongest influence in the formation of his character."91 With The Maid oj Orleans Shelley was likewise acquainted; he thought it a fine play despite its weak fifth act.®2 He had probably read Wallenstein; though the evidence which one German scholar adduces in support of this supposition in tenuous enough.93 "Complete Works," ed. by Ingpen and Peck, X , 267-68. " Dowden, Life of Shelley,

I, 472.

" L e t t e r to John Gisborne, October 22, 1821, "Works," X , 334. " According to Zeiger, p. 310, H ellas, 11. 601 ff.: "Ominous signs Are blazoned broadly on the noonday s k y : One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun; It has rained blood. . ." may have been derived from Wallensteins

Lager, scene 8, 11. S07 ff. ;

"Am Himmel geschehen Zeichen und Wunder, U n d aus den Wolken, blutigrot, Hängt der Herrgott den Kriegsmantel 'runter.

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Of much greater moment and cogency, I believe, is a hitherto unremarked correspondence, which may point to a knowledge on Shelley's part of the philosophical writings of Schiller. One of the most resplendent stanzas of Adonais, the underlying ideas of which are, of course, in their origin Platonic, touches on the unity of nature and on immortality. The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly, Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments. 8 4 Who does not know these lines? T u m now to Schiller's Philosophical Letters, to that passage where he, too, comes to consider the subjects of God and D e a t h and Immortality. Wie sich im prismatischen Glase ein weisser Lichtstreif in sieben dunklere Strahlen spaltet, hat sich das göttliche Ich in zahllose empfindende Substanzen gebrochen. Wie sieben dunklere Strahlen in einen hellen Lichtstreif wieder zusammenschmelzen, würde aus der Vereinigung aller dieser Substanzen ein göttliches Wesen hervorgehen. Die vorhandene Form des Naturgebäudes ist das optische Glas und alle Tätigkeiten der Geister nur ein unendliches Farbenspiel jenes einfachen göttlichen Strahles. Gefiel' es der Allmacht dereinst, dieses Prisma zu zerschlagen, so stürzte der D a m m zwischen ihr und der Welt ein, alle Geister würden in einem Unendlichen untergehen, alle Akkorde in einer Harmonie ineinander fliessen, alle Bäche in einem Ozean aufhören. 9 5 Schiller's Philosophical Letters were scarcely known to Englishmen. Is it possible that Shelley, spurred b y his passion for Plato, may have been tempted to explore the less accessible thought of Schiller, to strike happily upon an image which he could transmute into imperishable verse? Den Kometen steckt er wie eine Rute Drohend am Himmelsfenster aus." "Stanza 52. "Philosophische Briefe, "Werke," XV, 150-51.

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Leigh Hunt was never to find in German literature congenial dwelling places,86 but he must have been markedly impressed by the figure of Schiller to be prompted, as he was, to compare him with Shelley. Strange enough company! "Mr. Shelley," Leigh Hunt wrote, "when he died, was in his thirtieth year. His figure was tall and slight; and his constitution consumptive. He was subject to violent spasmodic pains, which would sometimes force him to lie on the ground till they were over; but he had always a kind word to give to those about him, when his pangs allowed him to speak. In this organisation, as well as in some other respects, he resembled the German poet, Schiller."97 Knowing, as we do, the extent of Hunt's worship of Shelley, we cannot fail to be impressed by the force with which Schiller struck even those who were but distantly aware of his true intellectual achievement. Charles Robert Maturin, immortalized in some violent passages in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, and less questionably by the early Balzac, belongs clearly in the tradition of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis; and he was not the least talented of this school.88 Coleridge's ire was roused by Maturin's play Bertram, produced at the Drury Lane in 1816. In its own day it was suspected for its immoral tendencies; today, while it has not altogether forfeited its power, it seems rather moribund and stale. Professor Herford has observed that the hero, who is a "See Foliage, or Poems, Original and Translated, 1818, pref., pp. 38-39, where it seems that Hunt's knowledge of German literature ends with "Wieland and others," and the pref. to Table Talk, 1851, p. vi, where in a palinode, he hails the Germans as the leading thinkers of the century, and names Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Kant, Herder, Richter, and Fichte. Carlyle had not worked in vain ! " Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries, 2d ed., London, 1828, I, 294. "Nilo Idman, Charles Robert Maturin, His Lije and Works, Helsingfors, 1923; and Herford, The Age of Wordsworth, pp. 9S-97.

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robber chief, is something of a blend of Karl Moor and Milton's Satan,®· and there is some support for the first part of the statement. Bertram has been forsaken by his beloved, who, to prop the "sinking fortunes of her house," has married Aldobrand. A shipwreck casts Bertram, now a robber chieftain, on the shores adjacent to Aldobrand's castle, where he and his sailors are welcomed, in Aldobrand's absence, by his wife, Imogene. The passion of the lovers bums afresh; and before the tragedy is ended it has brought destruction to all concerned. Bertram kills Aldobrand; Imogene, tortured by conscience, goes mad; and Bertram dies by his own hand. Bertram's blood-kinship with Karl Moor is not hard to discover. Both have been cruelly wronged, and in consequence turn outlaws. In both has grown up a hatred of mankind, and an utter revulsion from its artifices and hypocrisy.100 Both are swayed by passions over which they have no control. Even in their fiercest moments they are "more sinned against than sinning." Maturin's next dramatic effort, was, if anything, less fortunate. Manuel (1817) must have been a listless performance even in its day; today it is insupportable. Much indebted to Coleridge's Osorio, it is consequently a distant cousin of Schiller's Ghost-Seer. The scene takes place in Spain; and the machinery is now thrice familiar: murder for the possession of a realm, vile dungeons and imprisonments, and the final unmasking of the murderer. Much closer to Schiller, however, is Maturin's early novel, Fatal Revenge, or The Family oj Montorio (1807). It is damnably prolonged to three volumes; but I am not sure that its last portion may not be classed with the masterpieces of the "Herford, op. cit., p. 97. Idman (op. cit., pp. 120-21) believes that the influence of The Robbers is uncertain. ""Compare act i, scene 3, p. 7: Bertram: "Off—ye are men—there's poison in your touch!" These words are strongly reminiscent of Karl Moor's sentiments, already referred to in these pages.

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school of "horror." Orazio, the villainous hero of the story, betrayed in his faith by his own brother and led by him to suspect the fidelity of his wife, too late discovers the perfidy. His vengeance, which forms the best portion of the story, is horrible and thorough. He returns, after he is believed dead, in the garb of a monk, and through the use of his hypnotic powers finally brings his enemy's children to the point where they murder their own father, Orazio's brother. Too late Orazio discovers that it is his own children with whose passions he has been toying. The idea of the book is not without attractive power. Reminiscences abound of both Mrs. Radcliffe and Schiller. Montorio's son Ippolito is approached by a mask in a manner which recalls other famous encounters in The Ghost-Seer and in The Italian}01 Orazio's return as a monk is too apparent a reflection of a frequently discussed episode of The Ghost-Seer to require added comment. Schiller's monk returns from the dead; Orazio from the realm of the presumably dead. The plan has been altered; The Ghost-Seer remains. Samuel Rogers, too, was haunted by the Armenian, and, like Byron, he has recorded the fact in his poems. He visited St. Mark's in Venice: Who answered me just now? who, when I said, " 'Tis nine," turned round and said so solemnly, "Signor, he died at nine!"—'Twas the Armenian; The mask that follows thee, go where thou wilt.102 Schiller's noble robber makes his appearance once more, at this time, in a little-known poem by Mary Amald Houghton. Emilia of Lindinau, or, The Field oj Leipsic appeared in 1815, a memorable year for other reasons than this. It is a monoto101

Fatal Revenge,

102

"San Mark's Place," in Italy,

p. 233.

L o n d o n , 1807, I, 17 ff. and 2Q3 ff. "Poetical Works," ed. b y Edward Bell,

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nous poem in four cantos, interesting to us only for the figure of Osmond, noble, gallant, much maligned robber-knight, who makes one of those redoubtable, sudden, yet necessary appearances in time to rescue his beloved Emilia. The background is the contemporary war; but Osmond harks back to an earlier date. He has been injured by a half-brother, has slain him and turned outlaw. But he has managed to preserve all those noble qualities so requisite to gentlemen of his stamp and profession. 10 ' 6 . TRAVELERS Wenn jemand eine Reise thut, So kann er was verzählen. —CLAUDIUS, Urions Reise um die Welt

The personal records of travelers of this period are an excellent index of the state of public opinion. It is not altogether insignificant that such published records of travel in Germany and Austria show an astonishing increase in the decade following the publication of Germany.10* The political situation both before and immediately after 1815 tended to divert tourists from Paris to Berlin and Vienna and Weimar; and popular taste, much encouraged by opinion at home, might excusably turn to an exploration of regions now much belauded, and still, save in few instances, virgin. In the realm of literature proper the words of these tourists occupy a rather modest corner; but it is not for their literary merit that we shall now consider them. 10

*Mary Arnald H o u g h t o n , Emilia of Lindinau; or, The Field of Leipsic, London, 1815. 101 The literature of travel in this and the following decade deserves much more consideration than it has hitherto received, and offers a fruitful soil for further study. The limited scope of this work, has, unfortunately, permitted a discussion of such literature only in so far as it throws light on the attitude toward Schiller.

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The diary of Mrs. Richard Trench offers us glimpses of the affection with which she regarded Germans; 105 but she belongs to the generation of 1800, rather than to that after Madame de Staël's book. Francis Hare-Naylor's Civil and Military History of Germany is a ponderous and formal work, a fact which did not prevent the author from venting an enthusiastic, if momentary, sentiment concerning Schiller's poetry. 108 Another traveler, George Downes, paid his respects to Klopstock and Werther, but he did not forget his reading of William Tell, especially the beautiful opening scene.107 These, it is true, are but trifling remarks, but they speak in their way eloquently of the hold Schiller was obtaining on the generality of intelligent readers. With Charles Edward Dodd we reach a more prolonged and exuberant enthusiasm. In his book, An Autumn near the Rhine (1818), he gave much space to German literature, and included a judgment of the relative merits of Goethe and Schiller. Goethe, idolized as he is in Germany, as the poet, is b y no means personally the object of the universal love inspired by Schiller. People speak of the latter with a fondness and respect as m u c h called forth b y his character as his genius. H e was a good m a n , — a good German—simple as a child—with a noble and high-minded nature. 1 0 8

Of Goethe, he could not bring himself to speak so highly. He was repelled by his vanity which he believed militated against that poet's popularity. Schiller's character was distinguished for lx Remains of the laie Mrs. Richard Trench. On p. 355 she betrays an acquaintance with Wallenstein. ""Published in 1816. Francis Hare-Naylor, whose remarkable sons we shall discuss later, was a zealous Weimarian. In the second volume of his Civil and Military History, p. 114, he speaks of Wallenstein, and of his belief in astrology, and adds, "This characteristic weakness is beautifully painted by Schiller, in all the splendour of animated versification." m Letters from Mecklenburg and Holstein, London, 1822, p. 80. IM An Autumn near the Rhine, 2d ed., London, 1821, pp. 35-36.

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its elevation; yet it succeeded in uniting with the possession of a "vast genius" childish simplicity and artlessness. Schiller was rendered more "natural" and effective for him by the magnificent fusion of the real and the ideal, by his ability to make the visionary vivid and apprehensible, by his power of suffusing all his creations with the fervor and passion of his soul. Schiller comes home to us. Goethe dazzles and stupefies; Schiller "is intent on penetrating and touching us." Schiller trusts to nature; and it is not from mere caprice or bizarre fancy that he sometimes seems to be overstepping her limits. Dodd contrasted his depiction of love with that of Goethe, and was struck by the "earnest, ennobled tone" of the first, and by the profound virtuosity and curious insight of the other, vitiated, however, by a lack of reticence and by a capriciousness, peculiar to Goethe's genius only.10® Of Schiller's poems, The Song of the Bell took precedence in his affections—a poem, unequalled, he believed, by anything in Goethe.110 And as a tangible evidence of his literary preferences he appended a number of translations of Schiller's poems—among them The Glove, Expectation, Roland oj Hildegonda, Cassandra—and of Goethe's The God and the Bayadere. Schiller writes "front the heart and to the heart." 111 John Russell, Edinburgh advocate and traveler, was at one with Dodd in his opinions.112 He had been to Weimar and had observed the adulation with which the old Goethe was surrounded on all sides. He remembered Schiller and was deeply touched when he recalled the arduous and painful existence of that poet, who, struggling for the palm of immortality, gladly 1,0 111 Ibid., pp. 219, 223. Ibid., p. 223. Ibid., p. 219. A Tour in Germany and Some of the Southern Provintes of the Austrian Empire, in 1820, 1821, 1822. I have used the 2d ed., Edinburgh, 1828. See also E. C. Perry, "Friedrich Schiller in America," GerAmAn, VII (1905), 113-14.

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forfeited the pleasures of this world. Schiller's was not a trivial soul ; mere elegance it looked upon with contempt. Had he but lived long enough, his works would have approached still nearer to perfection. To judge Schiller merely from The Robbers is to do him scant justice. "It is impossible to form any idea of the German dramatist without knowing his Don Carlos, Mary Stuart, The Bride of Messina, and higher than them all, Wallenstein. . . " Great and versatile as is Goethe's genius, Schiller's unquestionably takes precedence in the realm of the drama. He, and not Goethe, is Germany's national dramatic poet, and "ages will probably elapse" before his peer will rise in dramatic art. 113 Another far less enthusiastic visitor to Germany, Thomas Hodgskin, emerged from his visit with the edifying conviction that on the whole Germans were "improving in morality, and improving quickly." He must have returned home with a sense of elation. His literary taste, however, seems to have profited less from the visit than his moral sense; for he repeated opinions staled by custom and withered by age—with the judicial earnestness of an innovator. Having convinced himself that German was neither harsh nor unmasculine, he proceeded to pass judgment on the literature. He unearthed the old charge that in general it was overstrained, unnatural, horrible; that its characters were outrageous and extravagant—more extravagant, in fact, than virtuous or vicious. Of course, he was thinking of Charles Moore (!) ; but he added Don Carlos to the list, as well as Marquis Posa, and Cabal and Love. From this charge he exempted Faust, Goetz von Berlichingen, Wallenstein, and Mary Stuart; but lest we credit him with too much sense, he hastened to add that Faust was "an old woman's tale, all the circumstances of which are carefully preserved and put into elegant language." After this, we even condone his praise of "*A Tour in Germany, I, 51-52, 54-55.

3

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the beauties of the "little poem" by Schiller, which he calls "Die Glocke" ( ! ) , and of Hermann und Dorothea.11* It is good to tum from this futile volubility and ignorance, to the laconic appreciation of Schiller in William Beattie's Journal. Like many another Englishman he had come to Weimar, and on the way he had paid his respects to the sculptor Dannecker. Beattie, too, was enchanted by the latter's immense bust of Schiller. "Such a bust of the first poet, well becomes the first sculptor of Germany." 1 " Captain Moyle Sherer did not know German, but he exhibited a liveliness of interest and a keen appreciation of the places he visited—rare even in more accomplished travelers. In Vienna he ventured into the theatre and witnessed a presentation of Wallensteins Tod, which he could follow well because he knew the English version of the play. He was ravished by the performance, especially by the pathetic scene in which Thekla listens to the sad narrative of the fate of her lover. He thought it as effective "as any in the whole range of the drama."116 He recalled the animated description of Wallenstein's campaigns in Schiller's Thirty Years' War, a book he praised for its vividness and reality. But he was saddened by the thought that German literature was so little regarded in his mother country, that even Coleridge's version of Wallenstein was no longer procurable.117 A. B. Granville, M.D., visited Weimar toward the end of the decade and was pained by the apparent neglect of the poet Schiller which he observed there. " I cast my eyes around me," '"Thomas Hodgskin, Travels in the North II, 327, 379, 382, 461. UI Journal of a Residence in Germany . . . William Beattie, London, 1831,1, 65. m Notes and Reflections during a Ramble I have used the Boston reprint of the same Ibid., pp. 200, 219.

of Germany,

London, 1820,

in 1822, 1825, and 1826, by in Germany, London, 1827. year. See pp. 162-63.

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he wrote, "in hopes of discovering some sumptuous or impressive monument erected to the memory of the great German dramatist, the immortal Schiller; but in vain. . . . Even my humble guide . . . pointed with indignation . . . to the place where rest, unhonoured, the mortal remains of the German Shakespeare." On his return from Russia he was much relieved and gratified to learn that the ignominy had been removed.118 "'St. Petersburgh: A Journal 0} Travels to and from that Capital . . . London, 1828, I, 225; II, 673. In an earlier stage of the joumey, he had attended a performance of one of Schiller's "most celebrated dramatic productions, 'The Robbers'" (I, 133). He visited Goethe, and was favorably impressed with the man. Fortunate Goethe!

CHAPTER

V

CARLYLE Arthegall: Pray, who writes those articles in the Foreign Review about the Germans? Phedon: Mr. Carlyle, of Edinburgh, the translator of "Wilhelm Meister," and the author of an indifferent "Life of Schiller," the same who wrote that excellent answer to Mr. Jeffrey's attack on Bums.— The Athenaeum'

It was eminently in the fitness of things that the first extended and the most significant English study of Schiller should have come from a countryman of Henry Mackenzie, who had discovered the German poet for the English-speaking world. It is doubly significant that Carlyle's Lije of Schiller came as a result not of a dilettante preoccupation with belles-lettres, but as the first fruit of a tremendous and profound experience, as the first ringing answer to a blinding, fretful and feverish questioning concerning the meaning and ends of life. The greatest interpreter of German thought in England sought—and believed he had found—in Schiller, Goethe, Kant, Fichte, and some others an illumination of the true life. But Carlyle's mind was of a sturdy Presbyterian mould, and it did not readily surrender to soul-stirring onslaughts from abroad. He brought to the new thought a stock of principles as firmly rooted as that which he took; and though he surveyed the fresh fields of German thought of his own day from a high vantage point, he never forgot the soil upon which he stood, nor the ' N o . 101 (1829), p. 613.

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Calvinistic strain within him. He was no philosopher, in the legitimate meaning of the word, but he knew how to find in his uncertain way something of the essential in German transcendentalism, and thus succeeded in transforming the tenor of English thought for the next generations. For right or wrong, he ever impressed upon his reader a sense of the seriousness of the things with which he was dealing, and of the deep meaning of German thought for his own soul's pilgrimage and salvation.2 Carlyle's persistent admiration for Madame de Staël's Germany, long after he had transcended its limitations and its positive contributions, is a very eloquent testimony to a capital source of indebtedness. It was probably here that he found the first stimulus to a more confirmed study of German literature; and it was undoubtedly here that he was first confronted with the personality of the man who was to color his own early thought experience as few others did—Friedrich Schiller. Carlyle began his studies of German toward the end of 1818, and for some time thereafter he confessed to "living riotously" in Schiller's and Goethe's works. He was swept away by Faust.3 But Schiller impressed him most. A letter to Irving, in 1821, conveyed his feeling of high elation at this time. "Schiller . . . you most certainly would like. He has all the innocence and purity of a child, with the high talents and strong volitions of a man: a rare union, of which I never but in one instance 1

Dyer's Bibliography lists all that has been done in Carlyle research. For the present study the most important aids have been Frohwalt Kiichler's excellent study, "Carlyle und Schiller," Anglia, X X V I (1903), 1-93 and 393-446; the biographical works of Froude and David Alec Wilson, and the correspondence. Additionally, C. E. Vaughan, "Carlyle and his German Masters,"Essays and Studies of the English Association, I (1910); Max Batt, "Carlyle's Life of Schiller," MP, I (1904), 391-92; Margaret Storr, The Relation of Carlyle to Kant and Fichte, Bryn Mawr, 1929; and Norwood Young, Carlyle, Bis Rise and Fall, especially chap. ix. 'Wilson, Carlyle till Marriage,

pp. 201-2, 212.

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saw anything like a living example."4 His first gift to Jane Welsh was a copy—in German of course—of Don Carlos.· His own fervent worship kindled a responsive enthusiasm in her breast. "I feel clearly," she wrote to Carlyle, "that I wish to be loved as well as admired. To be loved as I love Schiller and de Staël!"6 Like Coleridge, but more realistically, Carlyle toyed with the notion of translating all of Schiller's work; but an even more realistic bookseller turned a deaf ear to the offer.7 Carlyle did, however, complete a version of The Thirty Years' War, which he submitted to Longmans.· Wallenstein, "the colossal," and Thekla, "the angelical," stirred him to a high fever, which soon infected his future wife." For her this became "the most tragical of tragedies." It was not long after this that Carlyle experienced the soulshattering spiritual crisis from which he emerged a new man, ready, like Bunyan before him and Tolstoy in his own later day, to grapple with the demon of negation. It would be pleasant to believe with his biographers that in this emergence of his soul from annihilation, Schiller and Goethe had been the active saving forces. Certainly the contemplation of Schiller's heroic life, of his undaunted soul fretting a fragile body, rising above its little sorrows and pains to a serene affirmation of things eternal, must have stirred him to greater faith in the dignity of man and in his own future destiny. When in the throes of composition of the Life of Schiller, he turned from his own struggles to contemplate those of the man he was interpreting, Carlyle exclaimed: 'Ibid., p. 212. Is not this the kernel of the Life of Schillerf 'Ibid., p. 232. 'Ibid., p. 268. * Froude, Thomas Carlyle, A History of the First Forty Years of his Life, New York, 1906, I, 78. ' Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, ed. C. E. Norton, I, 311. ' Ibid., p. 332, and Early Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, p. 68.

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Iß?

Oh Schiller! what secret hadst thou for creating such things as Max and Thekla when thy body was wasting with disease? I am well nigh done, I think. To die is hard enough at this age. To die by inches is very hard. But I will not. Though all things human and divine are against me, I will not.10 And so, full of a new-found life, in which Jane Welsh's ministrations are not to be overlooked, Carlyle was ready for his great venture. It occurred fortunately through the intercession of his friend Edward Irving, who recommended Carlyle's proposal for a series of "portraits of men of genius and character" to Taylor, the proprietor of the London Magazine.u The Life of Schiller was to be the first of the series. At the beginning of 1823 he set to work on it, and the first installment appeared in the London Magazine in October, soon to be followed by the others, until the whole Life was completed in September 1824. In March of the following year the entire work was revised and issued in book form. The Life of Friedrich Schiller, Comprehending an Examination of his Works, appeared anonymously.12 For his information Carlyle went to many German sources: in particular to Heinrich Döring's Friedrich Schillers Leben, Körner's Nachrichten von Schillers Leben, and, of course, Schiller's works, in Cotta's edition.13 In his interpretation of the poet, Carlyle was still very much in the tradition defined by Madame de Staël. It will be remembered that Germany had laid impressive emphasis on the moral elements in Schiller, on the sturdiness of conscience, on the purity of soul, on the love of liberty—in short, on the moral perfection of the German.14 It was with these notes ringing in his ear that Carlyle com" F r o u d e , loc. cit., I, 160.

u

Ibid., I, 129.

" T h e number of revisions in the published book is considerable; but their importance is small. See Batt, "Carlyle's Life of Schiller," MP, I, 391-92. u Küchler, op. cit., pp. 21-22. 14 See above, chap, iii, sec. 2.

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menced his study of the poet. Schiller was to be appraised as the supreme exemplification of intellectual nobility. "It is worth inquiring, whether he, who could represent noble actions so well, did himself act nobly." 15 Again and again, in the course of the study, the attention of the reader is drawn to the correlation existing between the work of the genius and his character: his triumphant war against affliction, his subordination of daily fretfulness to the nobler dignity of far-reaching thought. "He who would write heroic poems, should make his whole life a heroic poem," Carlyle repeated after Milton, and added, "To this august series, in his own degree, the name of Schiller may be added." 1 " To those who envisage the whole horizon of Carlyle's life, there is something disturbing in this conscious insistence that Schiller was something of a high-minded Puritan, whose whole preoccupation at every moment of his life was with that image of perfection which he had formed in his heart, and which it was his life's task to approximate, if never to surpass. Carlyle championed the orthodoxy of Schiller's heart. "The whole universe was for him a temple." Yet even in the German poet are to be observed those terrible moments of doubt, when the soul is chilled to its very depths.17 Here and there is to be found a flaw in an otherwise perfect manhood. "Schiller is too elevated, too regular and sustained in his elevation to be altogether natural." 18 Otherwise, the portrait is that drawn by Madame de Staël; but enlarged to ultra-heroic moral and spiritual proportions. Schiller was preoccupied with the "universal interests of man"; 18 "he does not thrill, but he exalts us. His genius is impetuous, exuberant, majestic; and a heavenly fire gleams 15

Life of Schüler, " Ibid., p. 44. " Ibid., p. 78.

Centenary Edition, New York, 1899, p. 2. " Ibid., p. SO. Ibid., p. 66.

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through all his creations. He transports us into a holier and higher world than our own; everything around us breathes of force and solemn beauty." 2 0 Schiller's ardor was vehement, and he had no equal in his ability to arouse lofty and earnest emotions. At his best, he was overwhelming. 21 With sympathetic approval Carlyle viewed Schiller's idealism. Not things seen, not the outwardly real, ever satisfied the great poet. Schiller soared beyond, ever hungry for a brighter home for his imagination. 22 His mind was of a grand order; but his character was child-like in its simplicity. Open him where you will, you will be struck by his universal vision, his immense horizon, his mental and moral seriousness. 23 Thus we return to the motif sounded at the beginning. " T h e poet, who does not feel nobly and justly, as well as passionately, will never prominently succeed in making others feel. . ." Concerning the quality of Schiller's sentiments there can be no doubts. "His actions were as blameless as his writings were pure." Surely he, if any one, must be numbered among the "heroes"—this "Apostle of the Sublime, and Beautiful." 24 Few Germans had written of Schiller with such consuming ardor. Carlyle was often carried away by the onward rush of his emotions, deafened by his own torrent and thunders. One must be pardoned some misgivings at this panegyric flood. What of Schiller? How much of him had Carlyle actually made vital and significant—how much deeper had this apostle of German thought seen? Carlyle examined the plays, of course, and adjudged Wallenstein and William Tell the best. He then turned to Schiller's poetry and found more confirmation for his estimate of the character and quality of the German. He touched on Schiller's view of history. But where he might have been most useful, "Ibid., p. 78. "Ibid., p. ISO. "Ibid., pp. 195 ff. "Ibid., pp. 195 ff., 198. " Ibid., pp. 195, 200.

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where he was most needed, he fails us completely. N o final, authoritative utterance on Schiller could be complete without some illuminating words concerning his philosophy—aesthetic and moral. N o nearly adequate analysis of Schiller's thought could without embarrassment eschew the vital question of Kantian influence. Carlyle did not avoid the problem. But the light he brought was pathetically like Milton's "darkness visible." His estimate of Kant's philosophy is almost painful, both for what it reveals and what it hides. 25 Obviously Carlyle was, in at least this direction, but ill prepared. Almost coincidentally with the publication of the first part of the Lije of Schiller, scruples seem to have assailed its author. As if a spirit of revulsion had come over him, he began a dissection of Schiller's thought. An entry in his Journal throws some light on this interesting problem: Schiller was a very worthy character, possessed of great talents, and fortunate in always finding means to employ them in the attainment of worthy ends. The pursuit of the Beautiful, the representing it in suitable forms, and the diffusion of the feelings arising from it, operated as a kind of religion in his soul. He talks in some of his essays about the aesthetic being a necessary means of improvement among political societies. His efforts in this cause accordingly not only satisfied the restless activity, the desire of creating and working upon others which forms the great want of an elevated mind, but yielded a sort of balsam to his conscience. He viewed himself as an apostle of the Sublime. Pity that he had no better way of satisfying it. A playhouse shows but indifferently as an arena for the moralist. It is even inferior to the synod of the theologian. One is tired to death with his and Goethe's palabra about the nature of the fine arts. 26 β Miss Storrs has shown in The Relation of Carlyle to Kant and Fichte, pp. 29 S., how inadequate was Carlyle's assimilation of Kant even at a much later date. * Froude, op. cit., I, 1S7-S8. Had Carlyle completely forgotten the Greek drama?

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Schiller's aesthetic philosophy, whatever its merits (and I am not sure that it can be rejected quite so readily as is done by Carlyle), can be approached, if at all, only on the highway which leads through an understanding of Kant. As for the latter, we have Carlyle's own words, frankly uttered. " I wish I fully understood the philosophy of Kant. Is it a chapter in the history of human folly? or the brightest in the history of human wisdom? or both mixed?" 27 No wonder this mental discomfort (or intellectual honesty?) betrayed him, in another entry in his Journal, into a confidential suspicion that his Life of Schiller was "in the wrong vein—laborious, partly affected, meagre, bombastic. Too often it strives by lofty words to hide littleness of thought." 28 This is undoubtedly too harsh. But it is, at any rate, a realization that the fulsome explosiveness of epithet upon epithet left little room for a reasoned consideration of the poet's actual intellectual achievement. Temperamentally, Carlyle seized (and which of us does not?) upon those very qualities which he could extol to his heart's content. But a religion of the Beautiful—that was another matter! Granting that Carlyle overshot the mark, that in overstressing the puritanical element in Schiller, he misconceived him in part; granting also that some of the subtler qualities of the German poet's thought escaped him ; granting all these, we are still faced with the undeniable importance of Carlyle's work for his own and for a later day. The sweep of its passionate enthusiasm is not to be overlooked or minimized. From The Robbers to William Tell, each work of Schiller's (barring the philosophical) is considered, appraised, and set in proper relation to the rest of the author's poetic and dramatic creation. The composition of The Robbers is recognized as forming an era in the history of European literature and in Schiller's literary life. The play is treated "Ibid.,

p. 159.

"Ibid., p. 159.

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neither with haughty contempt nor with adolescent overemphasis. One may question whether Fiesco evidences "great philosophic penetration";2* but one cannot be insensible to Carlyle's astute perception of the force and the actual merit of the early plays. Like Madame de Staël, he hailed Don Carlos as the first of the great plays of Schiller's maturity; nor did he fail to point to the identity of Marquis Posa and Schiller.30 But it was Wallenstein which evoked the highest reaches of his enthusiasm. The last portion especially overwhelmed him. With all the details of Carlyle's judgment one need not agree; with its essential validity there can be no quarrel. "This tragedy of Wallenstein, published at the close of the eighteenth century, may safely be rated as the greatest dramatic work of which that century can boast. . . . " In the light of so many other sober estimates, one can ever forgive his calling Faust "but a careless effusion" when compared with Wallensteinone condones the somewhat too affectionate predilection for William Teil. When, in 1831, Carlyle came to reconsider Schiller, an appreciable change in his attitude was at once apparent. Between the year of publication of his Lije of Schiller and of his essay on the poet in Fräset's Magazine he had penetrated into the inner sanctuary of Goethe's world, and had come away a devout worshipper of the greater god. Superficially he continued his adoration of at least one quality of Schiller's mind, and his expression of that admiration was still vibrant and declamatory. But his strictures in other directions were more rigorous; and Schiller, weighed in a more delicate scale than before, was found wanting. Carlyle came to reconsider Schiller in 1831, spurred by the publication in 1828 and 1829 of the correspondence between the latter and Goethe. Again he was awed by the magnificence of Schiller's character, his persistent quest of the ideal, his "Life of Schüler, p. 32.

"Ibid.,

p. 66.

u

Ibid., p. ISO.

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priest-like nature. Again his words recall us to a contemplation of a blameless heart, high purposes, and the perfect unity of a poetic life. 3 2 W e are reminded of the tragic contrast between the lofty search and the fretful encumbrances of quotidian existence ; the glorious triumphs of the soul when most harassed by a sickly body. 3 3 W h a t a heart-rending struggle! Out of it Schiller emerged not "so much a great character as a holy one." 3 * Great and noble too was Schiller's conception of the function of the poet in modern life, 3 5 and nobly did Schiller himself fulfill the high duties of one. " H e was a high ministering servant at Truth's altar; and bore him worthily of the office he held." 3 6 His intellect was at one with his moral nature. Thus far we are still dealing with the Schiller of Carlyle's view of 1825. I t was when Carlyle began to scrutinize the actual intellectual achievement of Schiller that he perceived his shortcomings. For then he saw that Schiller was limited in scope, and that his music was one in which "no full choral harmony is to be heard." 3 7 He perceived that what Schiller lacked in a great measure was the gift of spontaneity; his muse seems to be laboring all the time, and the births are difficult indeed. I t appears as if his genius were predominantly reflective rather than poetic. " T o the last, there is a stiffness in him, a certain infusibility." 3 8 Schiller's philosophic vision is sadly restricted. True, he possesses a "philosophic eye," but the horizon which it commands is narrow. For he looks "aloft rather than around." 3 ® This, in fact, is what distinguishes him in such a measure from Goethe. The latter envisages the common things of life and departs from them, having made them into the basis of his world-view. Goethe has enabled us to look at them under new aspects; he "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Centenary Edition, New York, 1899, II, 17S-76, 185-86. "Ibid., p. 188. "Ibid., p. 193. "Ibid., p. 196. B Ibid., p. 198. "Ibid., p. 197. "Ibid., p. 198. "Ibid., p. 198.

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has constrained lis to understand them anew. Schiller, however, is ever on a flight from the common; and he lives not by absorbing and revivifying it, but by casting it aside, or by extracting what is ideal in it.40 This is what makes his great works, nay, his very greatest, inadequate: they are too elevated, consciously elevated, almost beyond the reach of the sympathetic mind. This is what makes of Marquis Posa so unsatisfying a character. Schiller himself perceived the great void in his poetic genius, and in after years, under the influence of Goethe, strove to fill it. Witness the perfection of The Song of the Bell and William Tell.*1 That single-mindedness and "labored earnestness" went hand in hand with a pathetic lack of humor,42—a grievous deficiency in a poet. It will never permit him to see things that are about him or below him, though it may not hinder him from looking above.41 Yet Schiller has great, positive qualities: a noble sense for truth, a deep insight into nature, an over-mastering ability to portray the pathetic, the tragic, and the truly elevating.44 But great as is Schiller's genius in the drama, Carlyle feels that his true vocation is epic rather than dramatic. We come to the natural and inevitable comparison between Goethe and Schiller. The conclusions might have been anticipated: Goethe is the born poet; Schiller, in greater part, the made poet.45 How vast the range of the first! "Schiller can seem higher than Goethe only because he is narrower." Enough, however, remains even for Schiller. As a poet and thinker he has "attained to a perennial Truth, and ranks among the noblest productions of his century and nation."4· What, one may be tempted to ask, of Schiller's philosophy? The question remains again unanswered. Schiller is conceded uncommon philosophic talent ("which we must not enter upon "Ibid., p. 199. "Ibid., p. 200. ** Ibid., pp. 214-15.

"Ibid., "Ibid.,

p. 200. pp. 201-2.

"Ibid., "Ibid.,

pp. 200-1. p. 214.

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here" 4 7 ), and his Aesthetic Letters are adjudged as "one of the deepest, most compact pieces of reasoning we are anywhere acquainted with." 48 This is all. This conception of Schiller and of his "chivalry of thought" remained with Carlyle to the end. He had promised his readers a more satisfying and inclusive version of Schiller's philosophical and aesthetic thought, but his major preoccupations after 1832 led him far from the German poet, and inclined him less and less to a retracing of the way. In the vicinity of Goethe, too, Schiller's star seems to have dimmed, and its glory but a reflection of the astonishing luminousness of the greater planet. "Schiller . . . could not have written one good poem if he had not met with Goethe." 49 The truth was, of course, that Carlyle's own adhérences had, if not completely shifted, certainly altered in the intensity of their loyalty. Schiller was to remain with him the great prince of thought; but at best holding, so to speak, his brevet by the grace of a more potent majesty. 50 What then had Carlyle actually learned from Schiller? For his early life, it may be answered, Carlyle had found in Schiller one of the great emancipating forces, destined to stir him to an awareness to the existence of the affirmative, the "yea," to his own convulsive questionings—resolving for him the great perplexity through the example of a magnificent activity and tragic heroism. Carlyle's constant insistence on the heroic quality of Schiller's life, on his struggle with the phantoms of disillusionment and negation, is nothing less than a personal confession of discipleship. In Schiller he saw a prototype of Thomas Carlyle. This is why, even when his own exultation had somewhat "Ibid.,

p. 211.

β

Ibid.,

p. 212.

"Lectures on the History of Literature [delivered in 1838], p. 209. " T h e r e are other references to Schiller in the later Carlyle, but none of them is especially important. T h e y may all be found listed in Küchler, op. cit., passim.

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diminished, he could still gaze with admiration on the figure of the man. The poet may no longer have enthralled him. But the great A firmer held him to the end. Carlyle could not have failed to be struck profoundly by the high reverence for poetry and the poet expressed in the career and in the utterances of Schiller. Like the latter he believed in the divine mission of the poet to illumine for his generation the way to the ideal life and to interpret it in his works. The poet may be the child of his time; but he must not be its favorite. He will turn to his own age to lend it a guiding hand toward the "freedom and infinitude" of the ideal. But he will condemn the littleness and the "prose" of his day, and preserve the integrity of his vision unmarred by the sordid and the mean. He will ever look upward, to his dignity and to a higher law; not downward, to fortune and base necessity. 51 For both Carlyle and Schiller the function of poetry is to bring harmony into existence; though each has his own interpretation of the meaning of harmony. The highest art achieves for us a reconciliation of the senses and reason, provides man with a balance between thought and emotion, between thought and action. 52 For Schiller, too, the dualism born of man's civilization, the dichotomy of feeling and thinking, which has destroyed his pristine harmony, is resolved in the realm of the ideal—in the realm of art. 53 Genius is, in the view of both Carlyle and Schiller, a secret, " Compare Schiller, Briefe über die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen, Brief 9, "Werke," VII, and Carlyle, Essay on Schiller, especially pp. 172 ff. • Characteristics, Centenary ed., pp. 24 ff. "Naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, p. 470: "Die Übereinstimmung zwischen seinem Empfinden und Denken, die in dem ersten Zustande wirklich stattfand, existiert bloss idealisch; sie ist nicht mehr in ihm, sondern ausser ihm, als ein Gedanke, der erst realisiert werden soll, nicht mehr als Tatsache seines Lebens."

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even to itself. The artist is not aware of the motivating forces of his creativeness. He works "unconsciously." 54 From Schiller's insistence on the importance of the aesthetic life Carlyle revolted very early. Much as he desired some conciliating philosophy which would mediate between inclination and duty and resolve the revolting ultimatum of Kant's categorical imperative, he could not bring himself to accept art as the full realization of that reconcilement. Hence his contemptuous words concerning Schiller's and Goethe's "palabra about the nature of the fine arts." 55 Carlyle was outraged at the thought that Schiller conceived that a healthy poetic nature "wants . . . no Moral Law, no Rights of Man . . . no Deity, no Immortality . . . to stay and uphold itself withal." After all, it is not strange that Carlyle should have recoiled so utterly from an aesthetic philosophy of life. He was, of the great English writers of the nineteenth century, perhaps the most impervious to the sheer sensuous qualities of the fine arts. To painting, sculpture, and music he appears especially insensitive. His gallery of "heroes" has no room for Beethoven, Michelangelo, or Rembrandt. Carlyle lived long, and was stridently articulate; so that his tortured visions and his troubled wrestlings with evil spirits were not without their mighty effect on the century in which he lived. And despite some very flagrant errors, he, more than any one else before him in England, made of Goethe and Schiller, and in a lesser way of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, inescapable realities. " Naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, p. 4SS ; Characteristics, p. 5. See also our remarks on Coleridge, above, p. 72. M Froude, op. cit., I, IS8.

CHAPTER

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T H E SWELLING OF THE STREAM 1823-1844 1. PERIODICAL OPINION: 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 3 1 Not a translation, but an imperishable and original record of the finest genius which Germany, prolific of genius, has brought forth.—Review of Carlyle's Schüler3

If it may be said that Madame de Staël's Germany set the "motif," so to speak, for the treatment of German men of letters, and of Schiller especially, during the second decade of the nineteenth century, it is not too far from the truth to assert that Carlyle's Lije oj Schiller lent that "motif" its full development and orchestration for the two succeeding decades. The reviews of Carlyle's volume were quick to note the full implications of his conception of Schiller and the profound meaning of the interpretation. They praised the book for its spirit, its soundness, and above all, for its thorough knowledge of its subject matter.2 But they were quick to seize on the emphatic pronouncements concerning Schiller's moral perfection; some of them going indeed beyond the intention of Carlyle's words and setting up comparisons between Schiller and Goethe, rarely (need it be added) to the advantage of the latter. But that, we suppose, was the way of world then—an inclusive literary adherence which would find room for both men was not commonly thought of. Perhaps the juxtaposition is now a little less Gentleman's Magazine, XCV (1825), 151. 'Eclectic Review, N. S., X X I V (1825), 259. 1

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touched by asperity. "If there be any real advantage on the side of the latter (i.e., Goethe)," the Eclectic Review suggested, "it must lie in some of those minor details of which we can scarcely deem ourselves competent judges." 3 There is, however, no doubt, this writer continues, that Schiller takes precedence over his rival in the ability to delineate character, construct plot, combine the details into a whole, and produce interesting and impressive situations. 4 The Gentleman's Magazine approached Carlyle's Schiller with enthusiastic sympathy. The book was lauded as the finest analysis of the writings of a master spirit "among master spirits of the century"—of a poet worthy of being "admitted to a place among the chosen of all centuries." 5 But in point of fervent acclaim the Monthly Magazine led the way. This book of Carlyle's, it asserted, is a biography of one of those lights of the age, "who have not only created, for successive ages and myriads yet unborn, new sources of intellectual gratification, but who have left, as it were, the elements of their own superior minds behind them, to mingle with the social atmosphere which their survivors and their posterity must breathe, and which must, consequently, have an influence on the future progress and history of mankind."®

It is therefore scarcely surprising that for the next generations the enthusiasm for Schiller should, on the whole, be overwhelming. Natural, too, that on this wave of friendliness for German letters, comparisons should be set afloat between German and English writers. How far we have drifted from the parochialism of a decade before may be judged from a letter written to the Gentleman's Magazine in 1828. Its author has looked over the literary landscape of Europe. "Turning to Germany," he continues, "how different a prospect presents itself. 'Ibid., p. 248. 'Ibid., p. 259. 'Gentleman's Magazine, X C V (182S), 150-51. 'Monthly Magazine, L I X ( 1 8 2 5 ) , 352.

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Its modem literature is second only to our own, and certainly superior to our own at any period except the Elizabethan age, that of Queen Anne, and the present." 7 There were those who felt that since much of the greater German literature from the pens of Goethe and Schiller had not yet been appropriated for English readers, one might without great loss leave the lesser "pupils" alone, and turn to the masters. 8 The Repository of Modern Literature was scandalized by the slight respect shown in his own country to the mortal remains "of the immortal Schiller, the glory of Germany"— which were permitted to lie unhonored and unblessed in an obscure churchyard.® The "slander" which would connect Schiller's passion for Greek life with an espousal of pagan infidelity was laughed down. "Grecian mythology will always be the religion of poets." 10 The note which insisted on the kinship of Shakespeare and Schiller became commonplace in its frequency, and was varied only by the inclusion of the name of Wordsworth, as worthy of membership in the group. 11 William Taylor was reproached for his critical obtuseness in mentioning the names of Kotzebue and Schiller in the same breath. 12 It is time now, one writer exclaimed, that we had the whole of Schiller's works in English! 13 Where are the voices of the scoffers? In the tumult it is a little hard to catch these: for they are so rare as to be almost inaudible. Here is a voice of protest against the extravagance of the idealism which Schiller and Goethe represented. There 7

Gentleman's Magazine, XCVIII (1828), 100. 'Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, XIV (1823), 39. 'Repository of Modern Literature, I (1823), 554. 10 Westminster Review, I (1825), 558. 11 Athenaeum, 1829, p. 329. "Ibid., 1831, p. 119. "Gentleman's Magazine, X C I X (1829), 309.

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a voice deriding the collocation of the names of Shakespeare and Schiller. "The distance between Shakespeare and Schiller . . . is infinite; and it may be doubted, whether, in real dramatic merit, the German author, considering his extravagances and other national defects, really ranks above Ford or Webster." 14 2. SCHILLER'S WORKS:

1823-1831

When the clouds roll from before that goal, God grant that our nineteenth century may show us (what assuredly, our eighteenth century cannot), a dramatic poet, whose name is worthy to be mentioned with the names of Goethe and of Schiller. —The Edinburgh Reviewu

In his Lije of Schiller Carlyle had marked for emphatic praise two of Schiller's plays above all the others—Wallenstein and William Tell. For the next decade these two were the centers around which most of the periodical criticism of Schiller's drama revolved. Upon these two will be lavished all the praise once reserved for Don Carlos and The Robbers. Between 1827 and 1831, three versions of Wallenstein appeared. Two of these were in English,1" and one in French. All of them were apparently of great interest to reviewers, if we may judge from the numerous notices allotted them. Great, indeed, had been the revolution wrought in the public mind since the day when Coleridge's version of the play appeared, to be greeted with an inhospitable silence. Now the case was different. The Literary Gazette, for example, did not stint superlatives when it came to consider Wallenstein, in 1827. "Perhaps we do not go too far in our admira14

Quarterly Review, X X I X (1823), 428. " LII (1830), 261. "Those of George Moir and Leveson Gower.

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tion of one of the human mind's noblest efforts when we say that Germany never produced a greater man than Frederic Schiller, and that Schiller never produced a finer work than Wallenstein."" Others, a little more circumspect, refused to crown the work as the first of its age; but they were not slow in adding that none other of its time contained "greater beauties, and those too of a kind strictly dramatic." 18 The play was marred by the metaphysical propensity of its author, 19 and fell short of the masterpieces of Shakespeare—yet it could be discussed and judged only with reference to these.20 There were a few who looked back with nostalgia on the earlier Schiller, with his unbridled and fiery energy, and longed for a little of the same spirit in his later works; something of the irrepressible frenzy of The Robbers in Wallenstein. Few went so far as the writer in the Gentleman's Magazine who recalled with regretful sigh his first ecstasy in coming upon The Robbers. "Schiller was the blazing star that shot across the firmament, and men wondered at it: the poetic atmosphere was calm, when suddenly he burst forth.—The sublime, the terrible, and the heroic, appeared in The Robbers, and man was made God and devil, and grand beyond description in the soul of Charles Moor." Not for this reader the tameness of metaphysical, philosophical literature. He must have works bursting with emotion, setting the heart aflame! "But Wallenstein," he continues, "is pronounced his best work. So they may think who imagine that Gibraltar would be improved by being chisseled [ ! ] , smoothed, and cut into patterns like a marble chimney-piece. . . . Luckily, nothing could spoil Schiller; and we see his gigantic soul still animating Wallenstein." There is "Literary u London "Ibid., p. 10 London

Gazette, 1827, p. 549. Magazine, X V I I (1827), 460. 461, and Quarterly Review, X X X V (1827), 547. Magazine, loc. cit., p. 463.

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much of the same greatness in Milton's Samson Agonistes and in Wallenstein's soliloquies.21 George Moir, himself the translator of Wallenstein, is credited with a very intelligent article in the Foreign Quarterly Review for 1829, a review of P. Ch. Liadières' version, in French, of Wallenstein.22 After castigating the French translator for his supercilious attitude toward the play—his notion that the original trilogy was "endurable only by the phlegm of a German"—and after pointing to the more honorable example set by Benjamin Constant, Moir (if indeed he is the writer) turned to a comparison of the various stages in the poetic development of Schiller. He, too, found regretfully that the poet transcended youthful passion and energy, not without tragic results to his genius. "His plays, partaking of the sobriety of his mind, became, in parts at least, too didactic and philosophical." 23 With no mean skill Moir traced the gradual cooling of youthful ardor, observed the decline of that surging wave of emotion which threatened for a while to sweep away both its author and his work, and noted the gradual emergence of a chastened attitude, which looked upon fiery energy and determination as a hopeless struggle against fate. This subdued and restrained emotional view he found evidenced in Wallenstein.2* The year before, George Moir had published a translation of the historical works of Schiller, and in an introduction had urged with much forcefulness the claims of Schiller as dramatist and historian. The voice is the voice of Carlyle, it is true— and Moir admitted his debt to the Life of Schiller; but the sin* Gentleman's Magarne, XCVII (1827), 333-34. a

Herbert Smith, "Two English in MLR, I X (1914), 243, where review, as well as for his priority pleaded very convincingly. *Foreign Quarterly Review, V "Ibid., p. 45.

Translations of Schiller's Wallenstein," the case for Moir's authorship of this as translator of the complete play, is (1829), 44.

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cerity of Moir's admiration is not to be questioned. Wallenstein held, of course, preëminence in his affections, but not to the exclusion of other plays of Schiller. In fact, he was not sure that The Maid, of Orleans was not more pleasing "to some minds" than Schiller's greatest play, Wallenstein. The only one of Schiller's works which he viewed with some displeasure was The Bride of Messina, and even this tragedy was redeemed for him by its "exquisite specimens of lyric poetry," and its "maxims of morality and wisdom." The Thirty Years' War appeared to him a "magnificent monument of Schiller's historical powers." Concerning Schiller's moral and spiritual integrity he had no doubts. "Schiller was no sceptic; on the contrary, never did any one possess a deeper and holier sense of religion, or vindicate his belief more fully by the tenour of his practice." 25 The publication of a translation of Wallenstein's Camp,2' hitherto unknown save in the German, stirred up in the bosom of the Athenaeum a ripple of pleasant surprise. There is only one poem, it claimed, in English to which the Camp may be compared. It is Burns's Jolly Beggars. The Camp is a "wild strange, and peculiar work." 27 William Tell was likewise subjected to renewed attention— though this was never over-effusive. Its effectiveness on the stage was questioned; but its literary merits were rated high.28 And The Robbers had not been forgotten, though one is scarcely prepared for a note like the following, written, it must be remembered, in 1823! Schiller's Robbers, said one who signed himself W. L—e (he had read an essay of Hazlitt's to great advantage) is "the highest triumph of dramatic literature." 29 " The Historical Works of Frederick Schiller, from the German by George Moir, Edinburgh, 1828,1, xiv, xxii, xxiv, xxvii. * By Lord Leveson Gower, in 1830. " Athenaeum, 1830, pp. 401, 403. " Monthly Review, N. S., CVIII (182S), 34S. " The Mirror, II (1823), 7.

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The reign of sentimentality is over; and patriotism, virtue, and religion are once more the themes by which alone the German nation can be influenced. —The Athenaeum"

Carlyle was not alone in noticing and appraising the Correspondence of Goethe and Schiller when its first volumes were published. Two years before Carlyle's essay saw the light, the Monthly Review, ever alive to the intellectual stir on the Continent, had paused to consider the letters, and in substance its verdict, prolonged with commendable enthusiasm over nine pages, anticipated much of what Carlyle was destined to say more pontifically. The reviewer perceived in every line of the younger poet a "love of virtue and truth, the earnest attachment to all that is noble and beautiful in art, the philosophical turn of mind seeking to give a reason for every feeling, but also a strong sensitiveness, and at times, sickly irritability which are known to have characterized him." 31 It was this book, more than any other perhaps, that set men comparing the relative excellence of the two poets. Bracing, indeed, is the balance and the essential justice with which matters are viewed. For solid sense we should have far to go before we found the line so nicely drawn as in an article in the Foreign Quarterly Review. The author of this paper, while not at all blind to Schiller's resplendent intellectual qualities and to the sterling nobility of character, could not forget that Goethe had greater claims to the admiration of mankind. For Goethe possessed, in the eyes of the reviewer, a greater versatility, a finer catholicity of taste, a more measured calm and universatility of judgment and a rarer classical sense than his friend. "Schiller with more of that irregular strength still clinging to him with which he had at first entered the field of literature, hardly yet M

1832, p. 243. "Monthly Review, 3d ser., X (1829), 526.

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settled in his notions, either of philosophy, life, or art itself, and, therefore, constantly changing his principles of composition; yet, from his industry and fervour" makes "a deeper, if not a wider, impression on the public of Germany," and certainly is far more generally read and understood in Europe. 32 The Edinburgh Review devoted more than twenty pages to the Correspondence, in a singularly clear-sighted article by W. Empson." Inevitably, like the others, Empson was tempted to the path of comparative evaluation, and he recognized, if not too explicitly, the fundamental difference between Schiller and Goethe. He perceived in Schiller the greater philosophical mind, and in Goethe the wiser man. This, it seems to me, is the purport of the words in which he desired to characterize each writer. Schiller is given, according to him, to "logical sequence," "amplitude," "patient and progressive research"; Goethe, on the other hand, is remarkable for a rapidity, a lightness of imagination, which does not loiter on the way.34 It had been the gracious habit of Schiller's commentators and admirers to dwell with zealous delight on the hardship of the poet's early life and to rhapsodize on the final triumph of the soul over the flesh. Carlyle had himself made this text a favorite one by reason of certain obvious parallel reminiscences. Empson, however, viewed these hardships as the root of much evil in the later life of Schiller, not merely for the harm they brought to his physical organism. He recognized that they bred in Schiller a certain hardening of the moral imagination, a lack of balance, and blighted his sympathy with the lighter aspects of life, irremediably damaging the complete man and the creative artist. 35 "Foreign Quarterly Review, VII (1831), 181. " I owe this identification to J.-M. Carré. RCer, X (1914), 319. "Edinburgh Review, LIII (1831), 83.

"Ibid., p. 87.

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Nor could he bring himself to regard Schiller's almost febrile occupation with transcendental philosophy as an unmixed blessing. It parched the ground soil of the creative imagination. The "airy creations" of the poet's fancy, to use Empson's figure, "arrested in mid air, and suddenly subjected to a strict analysis beneath the cold gray light of philosophy, fade away into unsubstantial things."3® Both Schiller and Goethe are idealists: the ideal of one consisting of a "repose arising from variety and quick succession of emotions, none of which are allowed to become predominant or lasting; that of the other, in the entire banishment or sequestration of some classes of ideas, and the refining or rendering more intense those which remain to be developed." 37 Unlike Goethe, Schiller seems to be moving in a straight line, certain of the goal toward which he is tending, "turning neither to the right hand nor to the left . . . gaining his mark at last with unerring certainty." 38 This is, at least, sanity and critical percipience. This is indeed a rare departure from the old banality and the humdrum moralizing we have encountered in the past. Assuredly, we may reason, we are on the road to justice. . . Goethe died in 1832. Carlyle wrote a touching eulogy of the Master, a confession of profound woe at the loss of an intellectual and moral guide. In Germany, the chorus of mourning was not unbroken by words of obloquy—these not altogether unanticipated. Wolfgang Menzel had already in 1827 stridently denounced the great man, and laid violent hands on the reputation of the genius whose boots he was scarcely fit to polish. The Romantics, too—Jean Paul especially—had not spared him their bitter taunts. And now Young Germany, Heine and Börne, with their revolutionary battle hymns, turned completely away from Goethe, who appeared too aristocratic and reactionary and Olympian ; nor did they hesitate to pelt him with stinging "¡bid.,

p. 87.

" I b i d . , pp. 88-89.

"Ibid.,

p. 89.

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epithets of scorn and condemnation. Had the eclipse of the Master set in? 39 The younger generation of Germans had little need of Jovian graces and Olympian calm. It craved the fighter, the idealist, the lover of freedom. Not Faust, nor even Wilhelm, Meister could guide them now! The times clamored for a Marquis Posa —for a Schiller.40 The mighty rumblings of discontent were heard in England, and some of Young Germany's fair visions of political and social emancipation went not unheeded there. That a new Germany was in the making was recognized by all who were openeyed; that in the fostering of the new spirit the agency of great poets was of predominant significance was realized by many. What share had the great German classics in the new birth? In the year of Goethe's death the Athenaeum took occasion to consider the "Influence and Writings of Goethe." Without very much ado, the writer proceeded to strip the great German of his major brevets. A great genius he weis, no doubt. . . But the moral effect of his works was "pernicious"! Goethe was accused of a partiality for "low life," and adjudged "of the earth earthy." 41 This is, of course, a twice-told tale. What is, perhaps, more important is the recognition that Goethe had apparently no place in the creation of the new German Weltanschauung; that neither his "sentimentality" nor his "epicurean wisdom" were proper nourishment of this youngling. "This present generation, young Germany, is not the Germany of Goethe. . . These great and eventful times were prepared by the genius of a Herder, a Schiller, a Fichte; Goethe neither " Scherer-Walzel, Geschichte

der deutschen

Literatur,

3d ed., Berlin,

1921, pp. 562 ff. " Schiller's fate in Germany is excellently described by Albert Ludwig, Schiller und die deutsche Nachwelt, Berlin, 1909. "Athenaeum, 1832, p. 242.

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foresaw their coming, nor desired to produce or hasten them." 42 Wolfgang Menzel's Deutsche Literatur, published in 1827, revised and embellished in 1836, came to be the locus classicus, we have already noticed, of Goethe detraction and Schiller adulation for the generation which had witnessed the appearance of Heine's Buch der Lieder. English eyes fell upon Menzel's book (it was not translated until 1840), and a few hearts beat in response to the words of the frantic Literaturhistoriker. John Stuart Blackie attempted, in judging the book, a perilous golden mean, and censured Menzel for underrating Goethe's magnificent genius and Carlyle for overrating it. But on the subject of Schiller he saw eye to eye with Menzel. "Many a warm heart will glow, and many a bright eye beam with sympathy, as the eulogy of that purest of poets flows in ready translation from our pen." 48 Others were not so wary. The Edinburgh Review was pleased with Herr Menzel, but especially pleased with his kind words concerning Schiller. Roused by the book, the reviewer turned a prophetic gaze into the future and foresaw the time when the fame of Goethe, "great as it will justly remain," would, however, be measurably dimmed, while that of Schiller would continue fully luminous to the end.44 The thought was obviously fathered by a wish not unfamiliar to us: Schiller's earnestness, depth, sincerity, simplicity, purity, dignity, etc., etc., must eventually triumph. 45 The Athenaeum did not fail to reprove Menzel for his attitude toward Goethe; the portrait of Schiller went unchallenged. It was "true and beautiful"—a worthy tribute to the memory of that "great poet and noble-hearted man." 4 " A one-sided battle, at best, this. For Goethe must be de41

Ibid., p. 232. "Foreign Quarterly Review, XVI (183S), 20. "Edinburgh Review, LXIII (1836), 46S. "Ibid., p. 466. " A t h e n a e u m , 1841, pp. 187-88.

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fended, if at all, tooth and nail; Schiller requires few champions: his eminence is rarely challenged. German concurrence in this evaluation served only to confirm a faith already strong. The New Monthly Magazine temerariously went the whole way, casting doubt upon Goethe's value to general literature. "Schiller is a noble name in a nobler class of productions."*7 A writer in another review noted with some satisfaction that Goethe was gone, and prophesied that his poems would soon follow him, "heresy though this may seem." 48 A third reviewer concluded that it was time to reject both Wilhelm Meister and Faust, both of these being "too German." 49 "A word in favor of Schiller may not at present be altogether uncalled for, to neutralize the superabundant Faustism of the times."50 The young students of Germany were justly enthusiastic over Schiller. Who was so well fitted to fill their minds with stirring thoughts of emancipation? He arose for the regeneration of Germany, a "master spirit," "their god during his life," to impregnate them with his philosophy and poetry. 51 Yet here and there a voice of dissent was audible, clear and unafraid; like that of the writer on Coleridge in the Dublin University Magazine. "We regard it as actually impossible," he says of Coleridge's literary preferences, "that in any one faculty of the poet—except intensity of purpose—Coleridge should have regarded Schiller as at all approaching Goethe. Between particular works of Schiller's and of Goethe's there may be numberless points of comparison, and causes of just preference, too, of the inferior writer; but in every power of the poet, Schiller was inferior—immeasurably inferior." 52 Another "New

Monthly

"Fraser's

Magazine,

Magazine,

"Blackwood's

LII (1838), 568.

X X I (1840), 103.

Edinburgh

Magazine,

XLIII (1838), 91.

"•Ibid., XXXVIII (183S), 649. "Monthly "Dublin

Chronicle, II (1838), 574. University

Magazine,

VI (1835), 257.

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still small voice will challenge Schiller's precedence as a dramatist, charging him with being a poet of the study rather than of the theatre, his dramatic characters with a lack of reality, and his whole dramatic work with deficiency in harmony and artistry. But for tender enthusiasm, his equal in England would be hard to find; and it is this quality of "refined and tender enthusiasm," which is the soul of Schiller's poetry and which English literature lacks in so astonishing a degree." Certain writers could not forget that Schiller's dramas, for all their brilliance of execution, were violent, passionate, extravagant and improbable.34 When the scales in which Schiller and Goethe are weighed are tipped evenly, it has become the fashion to speak of the first as the idealist, and of the second as the realist.55 But what force had these few voices of dissent? Schiller was on the eve of canonization as the saint of Germany; and his upward flight and aspiration seemed to bring him often within the gates of heaven. The figures of his creation "become loftier and as it were, unearthlier, the more he advances in his poetical career; till at last they have all that heavenly ideality by which he captivates our whole souls, and in which he buried the broken heart of a bold active patriot. The idea of Schiller became the idea of Germany; the despotism and miserable state of existing Germany was called prose, and poetry became the name of freedom." 5 " It was but one step from this to holiness. "Schiller it is," exclaimed the Dublin University Magazine, "the high and holy Schiller—that breathes himself into every one of the characters which he represents. . . The life which he him" Edinburgh Review, L X V I I I (1839), 361-64. "The Mirror of Literature, X X X I V (1839), 374. ™Dublin University Magazine, V I I (1836), 2; Gentleman's CXV (1839), 361. "Westminster Review, X X X I (1835), 187.

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self lived, or would have lived, was that which Schiller gave his heroes." 57 Shall we thereafter be shocked by the gentle adoration of L. E. L.: Thrice blessed be the sleep Of him who knew our hearts so well 58

—or at the frantic exaltation of Schiller above the pagan Euripides? 5 · The beginning of a new decade brought with it the recognition, stronger than ever, that Schiller and not Goethe was the poet of the age. Coincidentally, new biographies of Schiller by Hoffmeister and others gave Englishmen an added impetus to an iteration of those enthusiasms with which we are, almost to the point of weariness, acquainted. Schiller was now the European ambassador of intellectual Germany, her classic representative abroad, 60 —a moral and spiritual force destined to reawaken Europe's consciousness; a genius whose works reinvigorate as the waters of some "healthgiving fountain," 61 whose high moral dignity, lofty principles and self-respect must be of particular significance for the times.®2 There is something about Schiller which stamped every act of his, even the smallest, with the impress of the titanic and mighty." One observes here and there evidence of a suspicion that Schiller possessed an importance in philosophy: that perhaps in the field of aesthetic thought lay his real strength" 4 —a sug" Dublin University Magazine, VII (1836), 2. ™ "Lines to Schiller," by L. E. L. (the highly elegant and popular Laetitia E. Landon) in the Mirror of Literature, XXVII (1836), 95. " The Penny Cyclopedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, XXI (1841), 30. " Edinburgh Review, LXXIII (1841), 151. "Ibid., p. 188. "Ibid., p. 151. "Foreign Quarterly Review, XXX (1842), 301. "Dublin Review, XI (1841), 503.

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gestion at once touched with a note of dismay that Schiller should have been misled into believing in an aesthetic philosophy of life and that he should have possessed so little of the true faith. But he lived in the "shadow of the great moral eclipse that darkened over the past century.'"® 4 . T H E PLAYS AND THE POEMS:

1831-1844

The greatness of Schiller consecrates all his works. —MANCAN**

The rising tide of affection and reverence for Schiller renewed a zest for his works, reaffirmed their position of eminence, and resurrected those which had been allowed to escape popular acceptance. The supremacy of Wallenstein among Schiller's works remained unchallenged ; if anything, it was doubly fortified by repeated comparisons with Shakespeare's works. The intensity of approval seized upon the individual characters, especially upon that of Thekla, who evoked in some minds the vision of Juliet, as a fitting compeer of Schiller's pathetic heroine; 67 Thekla was "as true a portrait" in her way "as Juliet herself." 68 It is in point of universality, perhaps, more than in any other respect, that Schiller appeared to approach the greatest of English dramatists. That, and common humanity, were characteristic of both, though in the first of these qualities, Schiller was felt to be far behind Shakespeare. Wallenstein would "ultimately constitute the permanent claim of Schiller to fame among his own fellow-countrymen" ;βΒ Wallenstein, whose gigantic proportions had been "magnified," if anything, by Coleridge's version.70 " Ibid., p. 505. "Dublin University Magazine, Vili (1836), 722. "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, X X X V I I (1835), 526. "Edinburgh Review, L X (1834), 190. "Quarterly Review, LII (1834), 19-20. w Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, X X X V I (1834), 562.

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Nor were the other works of Schiller overlooked. Fiesco, for example, pushed into oblivion by the greater masterpieces, was now retranslated,71 and achieved the rare distinction of a representation on a British stage. Its production in December 1832 in Dublin' 2 threw one exultant reviewer into a frenzy, so that he dubbed the play "one of the finest tragedies which Germany, or we might say, which the world ever produced"; "one of the noblest performances that the genius of man ever accomplished," possessing both the "fire" of The Robbers and the depth of Wallenstein; and well fitted to be placed before the "wiser few" as a "model of taste," calculated in the end to "ennoble and refine our stage."" The Maid of Orleans, too, fell heir to belated praise as one of the "masterpieces of European tragedy," if only for its unapproachable fourth act.74 The Bride of Messina, the most scorned of all of Schiller's plays, was noticed with some approval, which might have been heartier, if Schiller had not mingled Christian and pagan elements so indiscriminately.75 By the side of this continued adherence to Schiller's dramas, the taste of the time took keener note of his poetry. The ballads and some of the lyrics had of course appeared in the magazines of the day. But no concentrated emphasis had been laid on them. Yet the pattern of favoritism is clearly traceable. The Song of the Bell more than any other poem of Schiller's aroused admiration. With persistence it made its appearance in translation, in quotation, and in comment. "A most extraordinary poem," Chambers' Edinburgh Journal called it; 7 " its moral " B y Colonel D'Aguilar in 1832. See New Monthly Magazine, X X X I V (1832), 521 ff. ™ Mrs. Hemans wrote a prologue for this production. See the Athenaeum, 1833, p. 104. ™ New Monthly Magazine, X X X I V , 521, 528. " Athenaeum, 1842, p. 786. "Ibid., p. 830. " V I I I (1839), 331-32.

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and didactic tone endeared it to the Eclectic ReviewFridolin (Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer) stirred many with its high nobility and its characteristic Schillerian mood.78 It was high time that Schiller's poems should come into their own. In Dublin Clarence Mangan was working on his Anthologia Germanica. And the day was not distant which would give us Bulwer's Poems and Ballads of Schiller. "LXII (183S), S3. Saturday Magazine, IX (1836), 177-78.

n

CHAPTER

VII

SOME MEN OF LETTERS 1825-1843 1. ABOUND CARLYLE I continue to feel more interest in poetical composition than in any other pursuit, and have been reading chiefly Goethe and Schiller, with an increasing conviction that, however far from them, it is in their course I must travel.—JOHN STERLING1

John Sterling lives by virtue of a memorable biography from the pen of his friend and guiding spirit, Thomas Carlyle; but his own life, frustrate and enigmatical as it appears, gave sufficient promise of a talent of no inconsiderable range. He was a strange mixture of Don Quijote and Saint Francis; and he underwent, in his earlier years, a spiritual crisis from which he was never destined to recover—cut off as he was when almost within reach of some concrete achievement. The two men who loved him most and tried to preserve his memory from oblivion, naturally saw two different facets of his versatile promise. Julius Charles Hare seized upon the early Sterling, the restless theological student of liberal persuasion; and Carlyle on the later, the fretful, almost homeless wayfarer, after he had drifted from anchorage. In this fashion, then, Sterling stood midway between two opposing camps, both at one in this, that they loved him and German thought. Sterling's quest for certitude was never, as we have already suggested, completely fulfilled; but we have sufficient indica* Essays and Tales, I, elvi.

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tions in his correspondence of what its direction might have been, and what the determining influences actually were.2 From two sides, from that of the theologians, Julius and Francis Hare, and from that of the transcendentalist Carlyle, the pressure exerted upon him necessarily turned him toward Germany. Stray comments of his leave little doubt that he found in Goethe and Schiller, in Goethe predominantly, the liberating forces; though his loyalty to the latter did not remain unshaken to the end. 3 In a review of Carlyle's "Writings" in the Westminster Review for 1839, he considered some German writers, and seemed singularly impressed by figures like Goethe, Schiller, Jean Paul, whose wondrous insight and depth and whose marvelous unity he stopped to admire. 4 More and more the lofty example of Goethe and Schiller appeared to promise illumination in Sterling's own perplexity and to impel him to original composition.5 The creative intellect and instinct of these geniuses, as well as those of Tieck and Jean Paul, amazed him for their intuitive insight into the true nature of things, "which reflective thought could never have revealed to any man, who had not either felt them in his heart before his head took notice of them, or found them in human life before he generalized them into a theory."® Schiller and Goethe became for him the criteria of a good life. If Channing, he wrote to Emerson in 1844, "would read diligently the correspondence of Schiller and Goethe, he would learn much, and would either cease to be a 1

See Carlyle's Life of John Sterling; the Essays and Tales of John Sterling, ed. with a memoir by Julius Charles Hare ; Sterling's correspondence with Emerson; Georg Herzfeld, "John Sterling," in NeSp, X X X (1922), 305-27 ; Susanne H o w e , Wilhelm Meister and his English Kinsmen, chap, viii ; and Caroline Fox, Memories of Old Friends. ' See especially "The Onyx Ring," in Essays and Tales, II. 4 Essays and Tales, I, 266. "See quotation at the head of this section. " Review of Mrs. Austin's Characteristics of German Genius, Essays and Tales, I, 407.

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poet or would become a good one. At least one hopes so. That book had to me greater value," he continues, "than any or all those on the theory of art—besides the beautiful, mild, and solid humanity which it displays in every word."7 John Sterling's tutor, later vicar of his parish, and in the end his editor and biographer, Julius Charles Hare, was of much greater significance for the fortunes of German thought in England—especially of religious thought. He was cradled in German ways, his parents having brought him to Weimar when he was scarcely five, and into the magnificent vicinage of Goethe and Schiller. His father, Francis Hare-Naylor, had himself contributed something to the better understanding of Germany in England, and the children never lost sight of their capital allegiance. Julius Charles Hare's predilections, later turning into a vocation, were theological, and here perhaps more than many another he came to represent a significant force for the dissemination in his mother country of liberal German theological thought. His magnificent library of twelve thousand volumes became in its day something mythical and incredible, especially because of its unprecedented German representation. Hare was also well acquainted with German literature, for he had received his first knowledge of it in early life.* Julius Charles Hare was at Weimar when Schiller died; and "his childish ambition and enthusiasm were aroused by seeing this great loss received as a national calamity by his mourning fellow-countrymen."9 Goethe he worshipped in the same spirit as he did Raphael, for his "exquisiteness of art." 10 He was the "mightiest spirit that this earth has seen, since Shakespeare * A Correspondence between John Sterling and Ralph Waldo Emerson, pp. 83-84. 'There is unfortunately, so far as I know, no appreciation of the labors of the Hares in the field of comparative theology and literature. The chief source of my information is Augustus J. C. Hare, Memorials of a Quiet Life; I, 149. 'Memorials, p. 191. "Ibid., p. 192.

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left it. . . Dear, glorious old man," Hare mournfully reflected, "would I had seen him before he was taken away; would I had heard the voice, and beheld the calm majesty of his face." 11 His admiration for Germany verged perilously on worship. He believed that Germans surpassed other nations "in the power of discerning and understanding the spirits of other climes and times." 12 That, for all his enthusiasm, he was somewhat suspicious of Goethe's tendencies, and of Schiller's too, becomes apparent from a criticism directed at both. He had read the letters of Goethe and Schiller, and observed "some questionable positions . . . above all, the exaggerated depreciation of the northern spirit, and exaltation of the classical, from which misjudgment Goethe in his youth was one of our first deliverers, though in after years he gave it too much encouragement, and which exercised a noxious influence upon Schiller, as we see in The Bride of Messina, and in the frantic paganism of The Gods of Greece."13 He was even less in sympathy with The Robbers, "Schiller's Titanic first-birth," which he blamed because of the self-conscious boasting and villainy of Franz Moor.14 With Schiller's conception of the unconsciousness of genius he was, however, in total agreement.15 On the question of the relative rank of Goethe and Schiller he was without doubts. "When one is told that Schiller must be a greater poet than Goethe, because he is more popular in Germany, one may reply, that, were he less popular, one might perhaps be readier to suppose that there may be something more in him, than what thrusts itself so prominently on the public view."16 11 Ibid., pp. 429-30. "Julius Charles Hare and Augustus William Hare, Guesses at Truth, 5th ed., London, 1859, p. 320. "Ibid., p. 380. " Ibid., p. 402. "Ibid., p. 389. "Ibid., p. 409.

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That there was "something more" in Schiller, John Stuart Mill, friend of Carlyle and Sterling, was ready to affirm staunchly, especially against the doubting aspersions of the French positivist Auguste Comte. The latter had in correspondence dismissed Schiller as little more than a gauche imitator of the great Shakespeare, and as particularly offensive by reason of a silly metaphysical sentimentality too reminiscent of Rousseau. Goethe, on the other hand, was a true example of aesthetic genius, fundamentally creative.17 To which general condemnation of Schiller, Mill offered rebuttal. Comte's judgment, he claimed, was valid only for the first half of Schiller's works, which were, after all, most severely condemned by their very author. He who would discover the presence of a real talent should turn to Wallenstein, to Joan oj Arc, to William Tell; a talent, it is true, of the second order, and a shadow of the creative genius of Goethe; possessed, however, of "a moral elevation which is not generally to be found in the latter, or at least is far from being so prominent." 18 2 . THOMAS LOVELL

BEDDOES AND OTHER

Which way lies the grave?—BEDDOES, The Tragedy

POETS

Brides'

It is not likely that Beddoes will soon receive his full measure of justice; and this despite the faithful ministrations of the late Sir Edmund Gosse and the penetrating studies by Arthur " G o e t h e . . . me semble le seul génie esthétique vraiment créateur; le fameux Schiller ne m'a jamais paru, d'après les traductions, qu'une sorte de gauche imitateur du grand Shakespeare, bien plutôt qu'un vrai poète; sa niaise sentimentalité métaphysique, réchauffé par l'influence de Rousseau, m'est d'ailleurs insupportable." Lettres inédites de John Stuart Mill à Auguste Comte, publiées . . . par L. Lévy-Bruhl, p. 175. M " J e crois pourtant que le jugement sévère que vous portez sur Schiller n'est pleinement mérité que pour la première moitié de ses écrits, très hautement condamnés par lui-même à un âge plus mûr. Vous trouverez,

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Symons, Lytton Strachey, and Oliver Elton. 19 Thomas Lovell Beddoes belongs in the company of the exotic and homeless; born, perhaps, a belated Elizabethan, partly also of the fellowship of Shelley and Byron. Much of his life is shrouded in darkness, as is the reason for his self-inflicted death; and his work partakes of the unsettled disruption of the genius of its author —presentment of a perverse mixture of some of the loftiest lyrical flights to be found between Shelley and Tennyson, and of the most abysmal graveyard horror before Baudelaire. In more ways than one he reminds us of Novalis: in the brevity of his life, in his incessant brooding on death and the grave; in his passionate devotion to science, and in his pursuit of the inexplicable, unattainable morrow—Novalis' own "blue flower." Beddoes came to German literature independently of Carlyle, commencing the study of German in 1824, when he was twenty-one. Very soon thereafter he claimed sufficient mastery to enable him to translate the Nibelungenlied. He was not long in discovering Schiller, whose poetry at once captivated him. "Learn it," he \vrote to his life-long friend Kelsall in 1825, "by all means—it's literature touches the heaven of the Greek in many places. . . We ought to look back with late repentance and remorse on our intoxicated praise, now cooling, of Lord Byron—such a man to be spoken of when the world possessed peut-être, dans son Wallenstein, dans sa Jeanne d'Arc, dans son Guillaume Tell, et dans ses poesies lyriques une capacité rcelle, quoique du second ordre, et une ombre même du génie créateur de Goethe, avec une elevation que généralement on ne reconnaît pas dans ce dernier, ou qui, du moins est loin d'y être aussi saillante." Ibid., p. 182. " T o which may be added, as of lesser importance, the biographicocritical study by Royall H. Snow, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Eccentric and Poet, N e w York, 1928, marred by crude errors; and the article by F. E. Pierce, "Beddoes and the Continental Romanticists," I'hQ, VI (1027), 123 ff. Sir Edmund Gosse edited the works of Beddoes twice, most recently as The Complete Works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes, 2 vols., London (n. d., 1928?), the edition here used.

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Goethe, Schiller, and Shelley!" 20 Schiller drew him more than Goethe; especially by virtue of his admirable character. "In thinking of Schiller you have more to admire than the paper he has written on." 2 1 His perfervid nature led him to do what no one had attempted in England before him—to translate Schiller's Philosophical Letters. The only portion of that work he ever completed appeared in the Oxford Quarterly Magazine in 1825.22 T h e words with which he prefaced his version are characteristic. "All men of intellect and imagination will feel, if they dare not avow it, that at some crisis in their earlier years, they were shaken by the same tempest, and haunted by similar phantoms. Still, some expressions will appear extravagant, some feelings overstretched, let us remember, that they are poured out of one of the most extraordinary minds of an extraordinary nation. T h a t they are the early visions of the Michael Angelo of German literature, the young Titan, Frederic Schiller. . ," 23 His reading of Schiller continued unabated, and his attachment to him almost exclusive. For Goethe, Beddoes had at first a middling contempt, rating him as a poet below Byron, and as a novelist, with the unforgettable Mackenzie! 24 In the same year he made his way to Germany, and with some interruptions he spent the rest of his life there and in Switzerland. He devoted himself to the study of medicine with such proficiency that he almost obtained a professorial appointment in Zurich. It is not always easy to trace his steps at this time, nor to penetrate into the motives for many of his actions. It was in Zurich that, in 1848, he inflicted an injury on himself which necessitated the removal of a leg. He seemed 20

Complete Works, " Ibid., I, 30.

I, 28. (Beddoes' punctuation is rather carefree!)

Ibid., p. 33 (letter to Kelsall, June 8, 1825). "Oxford Quarterly Magazine, 1825, pt. 2, pp. 168-69. "Complete Works, I, 36 (September 29, 1825).

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then weary of life and hungry for the grave. Not long thereafter he took poison, and died in January 1849. His literary tastes and preferences were no less capricious and startling than his life. In Göttingen he underwent a revulsion from Schiller's works, and a partial conversion to those of Goethe. "I have given up Schiller, he's never original. Goethe is something like, though not very." 25 He felt himself attracted to the German character, on one occasion even speaking of himself as a German. But he did not share the German enthusiasm for the dramatic efforts of Schiller, and he slighted the theatrical revival for which the German poet was responsible.29 His most notable single work, Death's Jestbook, chaotic, uneven, but incontestably resplendent in parts, owes much to Schiller—though this time to the author of The Ghost-Seer rather than of The Philosophical Letters. Death's Jestbook, or The Fool's Tragedy, that nightmare of horror, insanity, Schauerromantik, relieved in its utter blackness and formlessness by lightning flashes of real poetry, is reminiscent of the tragedy of John Webster. Its central theme is woven around the story of the Sicilian in Schiller's GhostSeer, varied but not disguised. The scene of the tragedy is, for the greater part, laid in Munsterberg in the thirteenth century. Melveric, Duke of Munsterberg, has usurped the rule of the duchy, rightfully the property of Isbrand and Wolfram ; but not content with this treachery, he has slain the latter, who had come to rescue him from the Saracens, and has carried off Wolfram's love, the beautiful Sibylla. Melveric returns to his city disguised as a pilgrim, and observes his own sons disporting themselves rebelliously, each of them eager to become master. But Death is a frightful jester, and Wolfram, dead though "Ibid., "Ibid.,

p. 47 (letter to Bryan Waller Procter, March 7, 1826). pp. 53-54 (to Kelsall, October 5, 1826).

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he is, returns in the garb of a friar on the anniversary of his own death. When the work of his unsparing vengeance is completed, the dead clutter the stage with their bodies. For sheer horror one would have to return to some of the Jacobean playwrights in search of a parallel. But all this twisted terror cannot obscure the magnificent, if diabolic, grandeur of verse and imagery. One need merely compare Death's Jestbook with Coleridge's Osorio—founded though they both are on the same story of Schiller—to be struck by the infinite superiority of the former. Beddoes' two friends, the poets George Darley and Bryan Waller Procter, showed no very great interest in German literature. Darley's sole mention of it is scarcely commendatory of German drama, "where everything," he wrote ironically, "is gentle and alluring. What a sweet man is Robber Moor! 'Made to engage all hearts and charm all eyes.' "2T Sufficient measure of his German interests! Little more can be said for Bryan Waller Procter. His play of Mirandola points to a possible acquaintance with Schiller's Don Carlos, its theme being the marriage of a father to a bride originally destined for his son. Otherwise, in treatment and in substance, there is no reason to suspect an indebtedness. But there is no doubt that Robert Stephen Hawker drew upon Schiller. In 1827 he wrote an Oxford prize poem, Pompeii, which obviously derived much from Schiller's Pompeji und Herculaneum. Hawker had even before this translated some of Schiller's poems.28 The prize poem—like so many works of its class—is distinguished neither by egregious faults nor by startling merit. It follows faithfully its more inspired original, and " C . C. Abbott, Life and Letters of George Darley, Oxford, 1928, p. 24. M C. E. Byles, Lije and Letters of R. S. Hawker, p. 34 ; Margaret F. Burrows, R. S. Hawker, p. 11.

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both in its beginning and in its close shows the extent of its indebtedness. Oh! may their treasures burst the darkling mine; Glow in the living voice, the breathing line ; Their vestal fire each midnight lamp illume, And kindle Learning's torch from sad Pompeii's doom! recalls the concluding lines of Schiller's Pompeji laneutn:

und

Hercu-

Die Altare sie stehen noch da, o kommet, o zündet, Lang schon entbehrte der Gott, zündet die Opfer ihm an! 29 Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton, was keenly appreciative of German literature; but temperamentally he was drawn more to Goethe and Heine than to Schiller. His correspondence with Varnhagen von Ense betrays a steady, if at no time a consuming, preoccupation with German letters and philosophy, in which he sought hopefully for liberation from the common-sense school of Locke and his followers. He believed he had found it in the Schlegels, in Tieck, Heine, Schiller, and "above all," in Goethe. 30 The only tangible evidence of his preoccupation with Schiller is a sonnet of his, The Grecian Youth, which is an inconsequential dilution of Schiller's poem, Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais.31 Other poets of this period, great and small, throve on Schiller, at least in their fledgling days, and had their enthusiasm kindled by the German's aspirations. Thus Sir Henry Taylor, author of a once celebrated tragedy, Philip van Artevelde, and " R . S. Hawker, Poetical Works, ed. by Alfred Wallis, pp. 5-13, and Schiller, "Werke," I, 162. M T. Wemyss Reid, Life, Letters and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, first Lord Houghton, I, 116, and Walther Fischer, "Die Briefe Richard Monckton Milnes' an Varnhagen von Ense," Angl. Forsch., H . 57. "Fischer, op. cit., p. 8, and Milnes, Poems of Many Years, p. 128.

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a poet of astonishing vogue in his own day (Macaulay was struck by a resemblance between his and Schiller's poetry), recalled his youthful reading, which included, in 1815, the inevitable Robbers, and the more unexpected Don Carlos—by both of which Taylor was "charmed." 32 Arthur Hugh Clough, too, commenced his German reading with Schiller, but somewhat more unconventionally with the Votivtajeln. For many years he preserved the exalted opinion of that poet which he had formed in his youth. 83 And Dante Gabriel Rossetti, long before he had discovered his poetic and artistic vocation, fed on Goethe's Faust and Schiller's Fridolin, both made more palatable to young minds by the accompanying illustrations of Retzsch. When in 1831 he was formally launched on his German reading, he began, very properly with the poetry of Schiller.34 The lure of The Robbers had not perished utterly. In 1823 Edward Gandy published a refashioned version of the play, altering the names of the characters; replacing old Moor with a Count Tibaldi, Karl with Lorenzo, Franz with a Francesco, the last of whom was made doubly ignoble by bastardy; and Amalie with Teresa. The whole play was then transfused into pedestrian blank-verse, and concluded with a triumphant redemption of the hero, who renounces his allegiance to the robber band and falls a victim of their rage. "The work," the author confessed, "originated in the usual captivation which befalls young minds on the first perusal of Schiller's Robbers. It was written about 1815," and though since that year the n

Sir Henry Taylor, Autobiography, I, 30. Goethe, he believed, missed the "romance of life," because he was a "shallow-hearted sentimentalist" (ibid., II, 120). Macaulay's letter will be found in Taylor's Correspondence, ed. by Edward Dowden, p. 135. "Arthur Hugh Clough, Letters and Remains, London, 1865, pp. 42, 85.

" Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Family

Letters,

I, 59, 87.

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author had changed or modified his enthusiasm, he still clung to the play, for "its interest . . . rivets attention." 35 3 . C R I T I C S , N O V E L I S T S , AND ACTORS T h e characteristics of German literature are dispassionateness of inquiry and reality of knowledge, and these are singularly valuable to a native of a country where everything is impatiently pushed forward to answer the ends of immediate gain.—SARAH AUSTIN"

a) Sarah Austin.—A most intrepid Germanophile by early environment, education, and marriage, Sarah Austin belongs with William Taylor and that group of Norwich enthusiasts whose missionary zeal in the cause of German letters brought rich fruitage at the beginning of the century. Her literary predilections were strengthened after marriage to John Austin, the distinguished jurist; and her sojourn in Germany served to cement in the end a loyalty grown almost unwavering in its intensity. Her multiform literary labors, for the most part those of a translator, varied in range from selections from the Old Testament to the more significant Characteristics of Goethe, the ambitious Germany from 1760 to 1814, and a translation of Ranke's History oj the Popes (praised by both Macaulay and Milman) ; and they did much, in their way, to make accessible to English minds the less purely literary, but no less important, contributions of great German historians. Her inexhaustible activity extended from 1833 to 1867, and was marked by an independence of judgment and a variety of interests delightfully bracing. She began with a devotion to Goethe, and remained faithful Edward Gandy, Lorenzo, vii-ix.

the Outcast

Son,

London, 1823 ; pref., pp.

" L e t t e r to Susan Reeve, 1829: Janet Ross, Three lish Women, p. 79.

Generations

of

Eng-

178

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to him all her life long, though her reverence did not utterly preclude a critical dissatisfaction with what she conceived to be her deity's shortcomings.37 In Germany she found what she believed to be the highest exemplification of disinterested thought and a passionate respect for it, as well as a consistent practice of Christian charity, contrasting very sharply with the attitudes and practices she observed elsewhere. "In no country have thought and speculation so free and wide a field . . . in none is Christian liberty so respected and Christian charity so practised. . . The contrast between the freedom of action, and the absence in it of speculation, in England, with the converse in Germany, is one of the most curious problems in the history of mankind." 38 Though she was not inclined to place Schiller in the immediate vicinity of Goethe, she had warm words of praise for him. Her feminine fastidiousness, which had on occasions been affronted by Goethe's moral lapses, was flattered by the integrity of Schiller's character, his nobility, earnestness, his zeal for knowledge, his pure taste and conscience,39 which everyone who followed Madame de Staël's edifying direction was ready to laud. "Schiller's merits are far more within the compass of popular apprehension: his genius never soars out of reach and his character presents no difficulties or stumbling-blocks." 40 Obviously she was thinking, albeit a little sadly, of the complexity and the contradictions in Goethe's character. Yet the paganism of Schiller made her uncomfortable, especially when she saw it exemplified in The Bride oj Messina. In November 1841, she noted in her diary: "I went to " Janet Ross, Three Generations o) English Women, and H. Mutschmann, "Sarah Austin und die deutsche Literatur," in NeSp, X X V I I (1919), 97-128. Athenaeum, "Letters of Travel," 1843, pp. 631-32. "Fragments from the German Prose Writers, p. 326. "Ibid., p. 327.

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1 7 9

see Schiller's Braut von Messina. I expected little. The piece is especially lyric rather than dramatic. The long speeches, thought I, will be dull, the choruses will be absurd. The sentiments are pagan. . . Well, I was wrong. . . Such was the beauty of [Mile. Berg's] declamation of Schiller's majestic verse, such the solemnity, propriety, grace and dignity of her action, that at every moment one's interest rose. . . Anything more thoroughly heathenish than the play I cannot conceive, and I question whether an English audience would sit it out. We should find it our duty to be shocked. . . " " Yet she was won over by its sublimity to a toleration of its paganism. Struck by "majestic, harmonious, composed beauty," she saw in the tragedy "the eternal beauty of truth and virtue." 42 So that she may be numbered with the elect few among the readers of Schiller in England who had not only read or seen The Bride of Messina but had also learned to admire it. *

*

I have seen t o - d a y Goethe's house, and Schiller's house and Wieland's house, and Herder's house and all the Heiligthiimer.—BLACKIE"

b) John Stuart Blackie.—Of the many Scotchmen who betrayed a zealous curiosity concerning German literature and thought, John Stuart Blackie was—Carlyle always excepted— the most consistently devoted to them. After his first initiation, he remained to the end loyal to their high claims, and no small share of his numerous literary efforts, diverse as these were, was dedicated to imparting to his English contemporaries " J a n e t Ross, op. cit., pp. 169-70. "Janet Magazine,

Ross, "German Society Forty Years Since," in XXXVI

( 1 8 7 7 ) , 414.

" A n n a M. Stoddart, John

Stuart

Blackie,

I, 268.

Macmillan's

ΐ8θ

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OF

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some of his own interest in the intellectual productions of Germany. Much of his life-work in this realm is, unfortunately, to be found only in the transient pages of periodicals; and a perusal of these papers reveals a startling variety and catholicity of taste and appreciation. He discussed Menzel's book and such figures as Rahel and Varnhagen von Ense, and Uhland, and Schiller. Goethe occupied him more than any other German literary figure. But his first pilgrimage to Germany, undertaken in 1829, was dedicated in a great measure to Schiller. 44 In Göttingen he began with Schiller's works; and the intimate contact with German letters soon proved very fruitful. He attended the theatre regularly, and seems to have acquired considerable proficiency in the language. 45 "Goethe and Schiller, Lessing and Herder, are more familiar to me than my own poets," he wrote in 18 30. 46 In 1834 he published his noteworthy translation of Faust, the first tangible evidence of that reverence for Goethe which he was to manifest to the end of his life, and which he was publicly to reaffirm in his Wisdom oj Goethe, almost a half century later. We have already had occasion to refer to his attitude toward Menzel's offensive utterances concerning Goethe's genius. Blackie had on that occasion taken a middle ground, but he had not hesitated to lend his voice to swell the chorus of praise in honor of Schiller, avowing that his own heart and feelings warmed and his eyes glowed, as he retranslated Menzel's eulogy of "that purest of poets." 47 "Anna M. Stoddart, John Stuart Blackie, I, 67. in general (and there is room for an appreciation of in behalf of German literature), I have used Miss well as the Letters oj J. S. Blackie to his Wife, and J. a Lije, both ed. by A. S. Walker.

For Blackie's work his missionary work Stoddart's book, as S. Blackie, Notes oj

45 Not, however, so considerable as he himself believed ; for he wrote to his wife in 1843, and addressed her as "Meine gute Weibchen." For his early experiences in Germany, see the Letters, pp. 30 and 38. 44 41 Ibid., p. 45. See above, chap, vi, sec. 3.

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l8l

In 1841 he contributed to Blackwood's a lengthy survey of "Traits and Tendencies of German Literature"—a survey marked by that clear sanity of judgment and cool-headedness characteristic of all of his critical utterances. He found the German drama marred by a certain inferiority in "dramatic" quality—a deficiency he ascribed to the lack of "dramatic" life in the German people. "To write drama well, a people must live dramatically." 48 Naturally, he was led to consider Schiller's genius, and his Wallenstein in particular. "Take Schiller's Wallenstein, for instance, one of the most obvious, and we presume, one of the most esteemed masterpieces of the German stage; it is in many places literally a 'building up' of rhyme— lofty, indeed, but heavy. The genius of Schiller may, in this respect, serve as a representative of German genius generally. . . We do forgive him, because he is a German, and because he wrote for a Weimarian, and not for a London audience."" It was Goethe, rather than Schiller, to whom he felt drawn; for in Goethe he saw the perfection of that "equipoise" for which he was ever seeking. And though in the middle of the journey of his life he withdrew from the German, and followed in the way of Wordsworth, he was, before very long, to return to his first harborage. He expressed clearly what he had sought and what he had not found in Schiller: "This equipoise of the soul [i.e., Goethe's] was what I had long been struggling after in my own dim way, and which I seemed to catch a glimpse of among all my German Gods, who were then supreme with me, chiefly in Goethe. In Schiller there was great moral nobility and intense heroic fervor; but I could not but be aware of a certain uncomfortable element of struggle in his works, which showed that he was not in possession of the keystone to that perfect mental peace which I seemed to discover in 48

Blackwood's Edinburgh "Ibid., pp. 1 5 0 - 5 1 .

Magazine,

L ( 1 8 4 1 ) , 150.

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Goethe." 50 This was written late in life; and it is of significance for an understanding of the change in the mental and moral attitude in England, which was soon to grow somewhat hostile to Schiller and more congenially receptive to Goethe. 51 *

*

*

T h e good Schiller and the great

Goethe.—THACK-

ERAY"

c) Macaiday and Thackeray.—Thomas Babington Macaulay's interest in German literature—never too dangerously serious—was born of his voyage from Calcutta to England; to the four months which he spent at sea he owed his knowledge of German and his first reading of Schiller. " I have determined," he wrote to Macvey Napier in 1836, "to employ four months of my voyage in mastering the German language." He asks for a grammar, a dictionary, a German Bible, Schiller's and Goethe's works, and Niebuhr's history "in the original and in the translation." 53 It is to be questioned whether Macaulay learned very much from German literature, and from Goethe and Schiller in particular. His positivistic liberalism, totally anti-metaphysical, and not a little superficial, would certainly have warred against any too thorough absorption. But he nurtured certain deep en" A. S. Walker, J. S. Blockte,

Notes

of a Life,

pp. 81-82.

" It m a y not be altogether impertinent at this point to remark on the German interests (also much neglected by historians) of another of Blackie's distinguished countrymen, the philosopher J a m e s Frederick Fcrrier, w h o , though he never, to my knowledge, showed any curiosity c o n cerning Schiller, wrote an article of some importance on the "Plagiarisms of Coleridge," Blackwood's, X L V I I ( 1 8 4 0 ) , and a survey of Faust translations. M

Letter to Lewes, in the latter's Life and Works of Goethe, II, 446. " M a c v e y Napier, Selections from the Correspondence, p. 181.

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thusiasms, for Lessing's Laocoön, for example, and for Goethe's criticism of Hamlet; holding the first of these writers to be the "greatest of modern critics." 54 In general, however, he was somewhat sceptical of Germans a n d of German literature. " I feel a sort of presentiment, a kind of admonition of the Deity, which assures me that the final cause of my existence—the end for which I was sent into this vale of tears—was to make game of certain Germans." 5 5 But he could never look at statues without thinking of Mignon's yearning. 56 Schiller he read intensely, and his admiration for his works was both high and fervent. It was some years before he reached Don Carlos, but when he did, in 1845, he found it a fine play, "with all its faults." It was a composite and uneven work, he thought; one half traceable to the hand which wrote The Robbers and the other to that which composed Wallenstein. "Schiller's good and evil genius struggled in it; as Shakespeare's good and evil genius, to compare greater things with smaller, struggle in 'Romeo and Juliet.' " 5T For Mary Stuart he harbored unqualified admiration. He aligned Schiller's plays in an order of merit, placing Wallenstein first; and thereafter, William Tell, Don Carlos, Mary Stuart, and The Maid oj Orleans. "At a great interval comes The Bride 0/ Messina; and then, at another great interval, Fieschi,58 Cabal and Love I never could get through. The Robbers is a mere school-boy rant, below serious criticism, but not without indications of mental vigor which requires to be disciplined by much thought and study." 5 9 He thought the Fotheringay scenes of the fifth act of Mary Stuart equal to anything " ¡bid.,

pp. 257, 464.

53

G. Otto Trevelyan, Life and Letters 1876, I, 404 (letter to Ellis, 1837). M

Ibid., II, 26. "Ibid., II, 182.

of Lord

" Ibid., p. 202.

Macaulay,

N e w York, M

Sit

venia!

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Schiller ever wrote; in fact, "equal to any thing dramatic that has been produced in Europe since Shakespeare. I hope," he concludes the letter to his niece Margaret, "that you will feel the wonderful truth and beauty of that part of the play." 80 Much more varied and impressive was Thackeray's appreciation of German literature. In 1820 he came to Weimar. Goethe was still alive, and Thackeray had seen the marvelous man, and come away impressed and awed.41 At Erfurt he witnessed a performance of The Robbers with the great Devrient in the rôle of the wicked Franz Moor. "An actor of this place," he wrote at this time, " . . . introduced me to Devrient, the Kean of Germany, who in several particulars resembles his illustrious brother of the buskin. His great character is Franz Moor in the 'Robbers,' and I think I never saw anything so terrible. There is a prayer which Franz makes while his castle is being attacked, which has the most awful effect which can well be fancied: Ί am no common murderer, mein Herr Gott.' " β2 Weimar and its charming society captivated him. Ottilie von Goethe took him under her wing (she had a special fondness for Englishmen), and brought him into the presence of her father-in-law. "I think," Thackeray wrote later, "I have never seen a society more simple, charitable, courteous, and gentlemanlike, than that of the dear little Saxon city, where the good Schiller and the great Goethe lived and lie buried." He regretted that he had come at least twenty years too late. "It must have been a fine sight twenty years ago, this little court with Goethe " Ibid.,

p. 182.

" For Thackeray's relation to Germany, see Heinrich Frisa, Deutsche Kulturverhältnisse in der Auffassung W. M. Thackerays (Wiener Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, H . 27) 1908; Walter Vulpius, "Thackeray und Weimar," in Westermanns Monatshefte, C X X I X , pt. 2, pp. 579-92. Centenary Biographical Ed. of the "Works," I, xxv-xxvi ; sec also Frisa, op. cit., p. 4.

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and Schiller and Wieland, and the old Grand Duke and Duchess to ornament it."®3 He was fortunate in not having come too late to see its principal ornament, whose living presence spurred him to an acquaintance with his works. He came to know many of Goethe's books, among them Werther, Die Wahlverwandschajten, Faust, and Wilhelm Meister For the first of these he had little liking; and Faust he found less astonishing than he had expected it to be. Schiller he admired without bounds. He was driven by a desire to translate all of his poetry—a desire never to be realized. He did, however, imitate one of his lyrics, Thekla's lovely lament from The Piccolomini, rendering it thus: This world is empty, This heart is dead, Its hopes and its ashes Forever are fled.

"As Schiller says," he continues, "or rather as is said in an admirable translation of that great poet by a rising man of the name of Thackeray."®5 Wallenstein was much in his mind, especially Thekla's song, which never failed to evoke tender memories.66 William Tell and its note of liberty affected him profoundly; though the "sweet presentment of love of home" might, as his biographers imagine, have had something to do with this preference." The Song oj the Bell he also quoted with pleasant recollec" Merivalc and Marzials, Life of William M. Thackeray, p. 83. " F r i s a , op. cit., pp. 10-15. " M e r i v a l e , op. cit., p. 82. "Virginians, chap. 33, "Works," X V I , p. 348; Legend of the Rhine, X X I V , p. 4SI. " M e r i v a l e and Marzials, op. cit., p. 81. I quote the rest of the comment of these pcntlemen because it is interesting: "Loose-livers like the older poet (i.e., Goethe) were not to Thackeray's mind, with his chivalrous respect for w o m e n , his simple and living faith, and his sympathy with tears and pain. H e liked good people best, and Schiller's life was

186

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tion.®8 These and other references testify to his delight in the great poet, whom he placed above Goethe, and not much below Shakespeare. " I have been reading Shakespeare in German; if I could ever do the same for Schiller in English, I should be proud of having conferred a benefit on my country. . . I do believe him to be, after Shakespeare, T h e Poet." 08 * *

*

As I replace in my shelves this mountain of volumes, "dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight," I have a presentiment that their pages will seldom again be disturbed b y

me

or b y

others.—JOHN

MORLEY™

d) A Motley Crew.—Schiller came home to many men ; most of these have left no testimonial of their pleasure or exhilaration; many of those who have spoken are still remembered; and some have become mere names, to be rescued for a moment from oblivion by the prying curiosity of scholarship, and relegated thereafter to the grateful shadows of mortality. Thomas Roscoe is, however, still recalled, if dimly, as the collector and translator of stories, Spanish, Italian, and German, and as the not untalented historian of the Italian Renaissance. He was not the first, by any means, to interest himself in German story, 71 but his collection of German Novelists was blameless as his own. Beyond that—perhaps as a necessary consequence of it—his literary sympathies took the same flight. William Tell spoke more to his heart than Faust, with the former's sweet presentment of the love of home. There are many of us who in our hearts cherish much the same weakness of preference for the lesser name, and feel a gratitude to Thackeray for his outspoken opinion." See also The Newcomes, "Works," XIII, 363. " " A Week's Holiday" in Roundabout Papers, "Works," X X , 189. ™ Merivale and Marzials, op. cit., p. 81. 10 Diderot, I, 247. " S e e Max Batt, "German Story in England about 1828," MP, V (1907-08), 169-76, and Roscoe's German Novelists, London, 1826.

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the most complete attempt, before Carlyle, to survey the field of German story-telling. The third volume of Roscoe's collection contained the inevitable Ghost-Seer and a translation of The Criminal; or, Martyr to Lost Honour, neither of them entirely new to the English reading public. In the course of his introduction to Schiller's narratives, he took occasion to express his own judgment of the general qualities of Schiller's work. He valued The Robbers and Wallenstein almost equally; and with a little more courage, would probably have confessed to a preference for the first. "The Robbers of Schiller's youth is the Wallenstein of his maturer powers." 72 The height and "dimensions" of his true genius were obviously present in his early work, though this lacked the manliness and the "consummate strength" of his latter productions. "With the single exception of Wallenstein, The Robbers is justly, we think, one of the most popular of his dramas." 73 Despite its immaturity and its extravagance, it was unquestionably prophetic of greater fulfilment, and showed in its every line "the struggle of a lofty mind at issue with its destiny." There was nothing of the meretricious or the merely dilettante about Schiller's productions. He was "too serious and sincere in all he felt and did, to write either for his own amusement or that of others."74 But as no judgment of Schiller seemed complete without at least one reference to Schiller's outstanding virtues, Roscoe found room to refer graciously to the "noble harmony and consistency" of his intellectual labors, particularly gratifying to men of that day. The Reverend John Genest is still remembered by students of the drama for his highly informative, if insufficiently inspired, Account oj the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830. He, too, threw some light on the reception of Schiller's plays in England, adding thereto curt comment of his own " German Novelists, Ibid., p. 110.

71

I I I , 109. "Ibid.,

p. 117.

l88

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appraisal. Thus, he conceded some merit to Cabal and Love, which, in Lewis's version of 1803, was produced as The Harper's Daughter. He found it well-written, animated, and interesting; but his moral sense was outraged, for it was, he thought, "sadly profane." 75 Concerning The Robbers he shared the opinion of many Englishmen of a half-century before: the play was "grand, horrid and disgusting," and Holman's adaptation scarcely did it much good, except to improve it morally.76 Fiesco, however, he pronounced a "fine tragedy." 77 The great actor William Charles Macready never appeared in any of Schiller's dramas, though he did consider for purposes of production D'Aguilar's translation of Fiesco in 1833, and even "spoke about it" at the theatre. 78 He was much impressed by the German poet and dramatist, especially by his Wallenstein, the first part of which he finished "in bed" in 1834.78 A year later, he reverted to the play, spurred to it by a reading of Madame de Staël, and found it "for grand and natural thoughts, and intimate development of character" worthy of ranking with the "first specimens of dramatic poetry." He could have done so much to convey his enthusiasm to Englishmen of his day, and might have done much worse than appear in the rôle of Wallenstein. He toyed with Coleridge's version, in the hope of turning it "to account in representation"; but he found the play spread "over too much space to be contracted within reasonable dimensions," and so for all its "noble passages and beautiful scenes," Wallenstein went unacted.80 He came across Carlyle's Life oj Schiller rather late (not until 1845), and was delighted with the book, "excited by n

Account oj the English Stage, VII, 583. 71 ™ Ibid., p. 455. Ibid., X, 204. " The Diaries oj W. C. Macready, I, 66, 86. ™ Ibid., p. 170. " Macready's Reminiscences, ed. by Sir Frederick Pollock, pp. 346, 382 (November 1835).

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the author, and deeply interested in the character and fate of Schiller."81 The Thirty Years' War did not impress him much; it was "little, if more, than an extended gazette." But he gratefully confessed that the book taught him something. Pity that Macready did not muster enough energy to impersonate Don Carlos, or Marquis Posa, or Wallenstein! Abraham Hayward is still remembered as the translator of Faust. About the year 1840, he visited the great Italian novelist Manzoni, and naturally engaged him in conversation on the subject of Goethe. "He than talked," Hayward recalled, "of Goethe's dramas, when I ventured to express a doubt whether Goethe's genius, with all its universality, could effectively adapt itself to the stage. He said he gave preference to Schiller in this respect and cited Maria Stuart and Dort Carlos. Here we coincided: but I told him an Englishman could hardly be expected to sympathize with the enthusiasm of a people like the Germans, just struggling into liberty, for the character of Marquis von Posa." Hayward never explained why. In 1833 he had witnessed a performance of Don Carlos at Frankfort, and "the effect produced by the character of von Posa was astonishing. Almost every sentiment he uttered elicited a cheer."82 But who now remembers G. F. Richardson, author of Sketches in Prose and Verse? He too was thrilled by German literature, and read a paper at a Sussex conversazione, entitled "A Sketch of the German Language and Literature." How the address must have warmed the hearts of the listeners! "With whom," asked the author, "shall we commence?" He was embarrassed by the riches which German literature discovers. "Shall we," he continued, "commence with Schiller, the greatest tragic poet of this or any modern age?" He is breathless with Diaries, II, 299. "A Selection from

the Correspondence

oj Abraham

Hayward,

I, 44.

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rhetorical questions. "Shall we call your attention to his romantic Robbers, to his inimitable Don Carlos, or in his Mary Stuart point out the celebrated passage in which, using a pardonable freedom with historic fact, he brings on the same celebrated scene, the relentless Elizabeth and her hapless victim, the ill-fated Mary; or shall we direct you to that still more affecting scene, the last confession of that unhappy Mary, a passage which Madame de Staël has so splendidly and deservedly eulogized? Passing by the other works of this immortal man, his admirable historical writings, and his inimitable ballads, shall we next contemplate Goethe? . . ," 83 For him and for Klopstock he has more unanswered questions, witnesses to an enthusiasm he could not easily master. Precious and dusty fervor! Entombed in these two volumes of Prose and Verse, it will probably wait its tum for many years, perhaps till Judgment Day, for resurrection. Much of the same obscurity has settled on Franz J. L. Thimm's Literature oj Germany. He too was captivated by Schiller, for whom he has fulsome praise. "His ideal," we read, "was the purest and most sublime that was ever created in a German soil." It furnished "topics no less enchanting to the mind than purifying to the soul."84 * *

*

"Wohin willst du dich wenden?" Nach Weimar-Jena, der grossen Stadt. . . —GOETHE, Zahme Xenien, V

e) Pilgrims oj the Rhine.—The Scotchman John Strang came to Germany in 1831, an avowed intellectual and literary pilgrim, and like his fellows he weis not unprepared for adven" Sketches in Prose and Verse, London, 1838, I I , 113-14. * The Literature of Germany from its Earliest Period to the Time, by F. J . L. T h i m m , London, 1844, p. 142.

Present

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MEN

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IÇI

ture. He knew of Goethe, a performance of whose Faust at Hamburg had stirred him to seven pages of comment; he was aware of Heine, Börne, Klopstock, Voss, Körner, and Lessing— by no means a despicable list of preferences. His comments on German literary figures, to be found in his Germany in 1831, are in general marked by justice and an absence of critical servility. He recognized Schiller's remarkable place in the history of German drama, his kinship with Calderón and Shakespeare as the great revolutionary influence.85 Yet he was not ready to accede to those who would hold him up as the regnant primate of German letters. "Were I called upon to institute a comparison between the merits of Goethe, and those of his celebrated contemporaries, I confess, that while I would prefer Schiller, Wieland, and Schlegel, in the particular departments of literature to which they have devoted their attention, I must at the same time assign to the author of Faust the highest place in the temple of letters on account of the universality of his genius."86 But he was willing to grant that Wallenstein and Mary Stuart were superior to either Goetz or Torquato Tasso. For there was but little doubt that Schiller was "Germany's most celebrated dramatist." 87 Another traveler, Captain Edmund Spencer, who visited Germany a few years later, displayed no diffidence in expressing his adherences. His Sketches of Germany and the Germans opens with a quotation from Schiller, and another page makes Schiller the actual founder of modern German literature, "which," Spencer held, "could hardly be called respectable, till Schiller made his appearance"—an oversight, to speak gently, of the earlier contributions of Goethe, which is not a little astonishing. He was a pious pilgrim, and a visit to the cottage in which "the immortal Schiller wrote Don Carlos," stirred him " Germany in 1831, London, 1836, I, 224. M Ibid., II, 74. " Ibid., p. 136.

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to a sad contemplation of the spectre of "penury and misfortune" which haunted the poet at the time.88 Unlike John Strang, from whom he could have learned much, he plunged at once into a comparative estimate of Goethe and Schiller. "Schiller arose, and at once placed the dramatic literature of his country on the pinnacle of excellence." His acquaintance with the poet's work seems to be extensive; for he speaks of his dramas, his translation of Macbeth, and of his ballads, setting all of them in the "temple of fame."6® But when he turned his gaze on Goethe, he was saddened that the latter did not "imitate the example of his illustrious contemporary, Sir Walter Scott, in preserving unsullied the purity of his muse." Spencer had met Goethe a few years before the latter's death (as who had not?), but the encounter did not in any way modify his judgment that the "immoral tendency of several of his novels and romances" would "bar forever their perusal to the pure-minded and virtuous." 90 When Spencer calne to Stuttgart, he religiously betook himself to the house where The Robbers had been written, that play which was the first fruit of Germany's Shakespeare. 91 What pious soul could fail to be touched by these sanctuaries? The Reverend G. R. Gleig, theologian and historian, visited Germany in 1837. Like Spencer, he came to Loschwitz, the village in which Schiller had composed a portion of Don Carlos. "Who could be aware of all this," he asks, "and not feel he was passing over holy ground?" 92 Bisset Hawkins' Germany and the Spirit oj her History, Literature, and Social Conditions is not a book of travel; but it may safely find a place here, because its judgments are neither "*Sketches oj Germany and the Germans, 2d ed., London 1836, I, 169, 255. -Ibid., I, 275. "Ibid., pp. 276-77. " Ibid., II, 338. " Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, visited in 1837, 3 vols., London, 1839; I, 211.

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I93

particularly important, nor impressive enough to warrant more respectful inclusion elsewhere.®3 They have all the casualness and gracious insouciance of the person whose knowledge and taste weigh lightly on his conscience. The Robbers Hawkins found to be a "Titanic poem"; Cabal and Love abounds in "convulsive demonstrations of passion"; Don Carlos is good so far as the outline is concerned; its plot is powerful. "Its versification, however, is indifferent throughout."®4 William Tell is the "last and best play" of Schiller; but the Ballads are "among the worst which we possess."®5 He seemed a little outraged by the paganism of Goethe and Schiller, especially because they looked upon Christianity with "indifference, if not with repugnance." 98 It is with great relief that one turns to the solid and sensible labors of William Howitt, the apostle, together with his wife Mary, in behalf of "wholesome" literature. William and Mary Howitt spent two years in Germany, the greater part of them in Heidelberg. The first fruit of William Howitt's sojourn there was The Student Life of Germany, followed soon by The Rural and Domestic Life of Germany, and German Experiences. He had more than one occasion to speak of Schiller, and gave evidence not only of a solid knowledge of his works, but also of a deep reverence for the poet. Dannecker's bust of Schiller stirred him, as it had so many others, to a rhapsody both on the poet and on his sculptor. The "fine philosophic calm, the lofty, pure and gentle humanity which breathes from every feature, are wholly worthy of both the poet and the sculptor. The author of Wallenstein and The Robbers stands before us as we imagine him in the moment when he had sketched the lovely character of Thekla, or the erratic nobility of Karl Moor," in the moment in which he seems aware of the "perpetual addition" which "The book was published in London in 1838. "Germany . . . p. 111. ™ Ibid., p. 113.

"Ibid.,p.

1 IS.

194

SOME

M E N

OF

L E T T E R S

he has just made to mankind's objects of admiration and affection.97 To Howitt, Schiller appears the greatest writer of Germany, for his "godlike use of godlike faculties and qualities," for his independence and nobility, magnanimity and freedom of intellect, and incorruptible soul. Goethe, it is true, is more varied, more experienced; but Schiller is "more sublimely great by the full and conscientious embodiment in himself of all that is high, and pure, and magnanimous in the heart and soul of maui."9* The roots of this opinion are not difficult to discover. We have already adverted to the seeming insufficiency on Goethe's part to answer the crying needs of the time. Howitt's residence in Germany had made him in many respects sympathetic to the national stir of the younger generation, as well as to their renewed enthusiasm for Schiller. In a noteworthy passage, in another book, he mirrors this very attitude. Schiller's "noble soul," he writes in his German Experiences, "thoroughly permeated by all that was great and generous, acted on the mind of his contemporaries like the summer heat, making it thrust forth its shoots on all sides, and ripening it to richness, even when no political word was spoken. . Goethe . . . had sunk into the worldling and the courtier, and while the thunders of the war of oppression and of the war of freedom bellowed around his study, sate calmly, lifting neither hand nor voice for the Fatherland." 88 " Rural and Domestic Lije of Germany, London, 1842, pp. 272-73. "Ibid., pp. 273-74. " German Experiences, Addressed to the English, 2d ed., London, 1844, p. 236.

PART THREE T H E SAINTHOOD OF SCHILLER 1844-1855

CHAPTER

Vili

BUL WER L Y T T O N A N D T H E RELIGION OF SCHILLER The Life of Schiller came into my hands just at the moment I wanted something of the kind. I never shall forget what [it] then gave me—the sense of a wider horizon, an anticipation of Germany, the opening into the great world—just what Macaulay with his unmixed Englishism . . . could not give me.—MATTHEW ARNOLD to Bulwer Lytton 1

The mental life of Edward Bulwer Lytton was profoundly affected by Goethe and his Wilhelm Meister. Yet it was inevitable that the writer whose major business it was to sketch the Lehr- und Wanderjahre of many of his characters, should himself, in the pursuit of the "beautiful, the virtuous, and the great," approach with equal reverence that German poet who personified, for Englishmen and Germans, those very qualities. In Bulwer Lytton's pantheon Goethe and Schiller stood as coequals. 2 Edward Bulwer was already in 1826 occupied with the idea ' Earl of Lytton, Life of Edward

Buluier Lytton,

II, 446 (February

22, 1 8 6 8 ) .

' Susanne Howe, Wilhelm Meister and his English Kinsmen, chap, vi ; H. Goldhan, "Uber die Einwirkung des Goethischen Werthers und Wilhelm Meisters auf die Entwicklung Edward Bulwers," Anglia, XVI (1893-94), 267 ff.; Carré, Goethe en Angleterre, pp. 205 ff., and Böddeker, "Über Bulwers Übersetzung Schillerscher Gedichte," Archiv, X L I X (1872), 241 ff.; Rea, pp. 26, 112 ff., 127 ff., 136 ff., and the biographies of Bulwer Lytton by the Earl of Lytton and Robert Bulwer Lytton.

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of perfectibility, the improvement of mankind, and Wilhelm Meister? His first novel, Falkland, Wertherian throughout, he considered an intellectual and moral purgative. His longing for "many-sidedness" he justified by frequent glances in the direction of Goethe, though its realization in the young Englishman left much to be desired. In 1828 he contributed to the Monthly Chronicle an article on the "Art of Fiction," in which he pointed with approval to the example set by Schiller. Contrasting the schools of terror, French and German, he added, "Such of the Germans, on the contrary, as follow the school of Schiller, will often stop as far short of the true boundaries of terror, as the French romanticists would go beyond it." 4 A more explicit approval of Schiller, however, soon follows. Discussing the rôle of accident in the novel and the drama, Bulwer came to the conclusion that the aesthetics of the novel admitted of it, but that the drama necessarily excluded it. His mind reverted to Fiesco. "When Schiller adapted Fiesco for the stage, he felt that accident was not admissible, and his Fiesco falls by the hand of the patriot Verrina. The whole dialogue preceding the fatal blow is one of the most masterly adaptations of moral truth to the necessity of historical infidelity, in European literature." 5 At this moment his mind was full of Schiller. "Is not the Ghost-Seer," he asked, "a successful novel? Does it not afford the highest and most certain testimony of what Schiller could have done as a writer of narrative fiction, and are not Wallenstein, and Fiesco, and Don Carlos great plays by the same author?" For Bulwer, an intellectual hierarchy of his age had perforce to include the names of Goethe, Schiller, and Hugo, the "three greatest geniuses, that, in our time, the continent * Howe, op. cit., p. 132. 4 Critical and Miscellaneous • Ibid., p. 80.

Writings,

I, 75.

B U L W E R

L Y T T O N

I99

has produced," all of them both novelists and dramatists— "equally great in each department."* Schiller and Goethe stand linked in greatness and distinction, "separated from the herd of horror-writers, with whom they had previously been confounded . . . great German wells of intellect and imagination." 7 If much of German literature revolts by reason of a notorious absence of "taste," certainly these, and Schiller especially, must be exempted from the charge.8 Paul Clifford, (1830) bears definite stamp of Schiller's Robbers, though rather in its generili traits than in particular details. It is the story of the moral lapse of a hero, brought about not by reason of a congenital villainy, but through the flaws in our social organism, this time embodied in Paul Clifford's father, a judge. Like Karl Moor, Paul becomes enmeshed in the coils of thievery; like him he is, at bottom, noble and whole-hearted. The resolution of Bulwer's novel, which seems on the verge of horrid tragedy, turns, happily for the hero and his heroine, into something which approaches poetical justice. It is the father, who has condemned his own son to the gallows, who dies. That Bulwer had been absorbing Schiller more and more became apparent at once with the publication in 1842 of his translation of the Poems and Ballads oj Schiller in the pages of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. A brief but eloquent appreciation prefaced these poems.9 Schiller's poetry rather than that of Goethe, Bulwer believed, arouses the sympathies and popular appreciation of Englishmen; especially since their style challenges sharply the "uniformatism" so prevalent in the writings of the time. "In his richness, Schiller is simple; and in his simplicity, he is not 'Ibid., p. 81 n. * Ibid., I, 335, "The Present State of Literature." "Pilgrims of the Rhine (1840), chap, xviii. 'Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, LII (1842), 285-98; continued in LIV.

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Β U L \V E R L Υ Τ Τ Ο Ν

vulgar; in his sentiment he is manly; and in his philosophy, he is broad and large." In his earlier work, it must be confessed, Schiller was wild, "more German"; but he outgrew this cnideness, and his later development reveals him as more simple, more natural, and "more English." 10 For Schiller is a poet, whom "not the cant of cliques and critics—but the Heart of Man and Voice of Time proclaim to be really GREAT." The Poems and Ballads of Schiller appeared in book form in 1844, with an appreciation of the poet which extended beyond a hundred pages. This, the most significant utterance concerning Schiller since Carlyle's Lije, marks an acceptance of the German poet at once complete and unqualified. The notes struck in Bulwer's first estimate were made more emphatic; the accents were still those of Carlyle. But Bulwer had gone even beyond Carlyle. Where the latter had affirmed the primacy of the dramatist, Bulwer affirmed the supremacy of the poet. For Bulwer, Schiller was the author of the poems and ballads; the dramatist was of secondary importance. The sentiments of the introduction to the Poems and Ballads are ardent. The nobility and the "chivalry of thought," which for Carlyle had formed the central kernel of Schiller's whole creative body, are here reëmphasized. Schiller's soul was tested, and he emerged from the crucible without a flaw: he was found "ever observant of beauty, ever on the search for truth; ever brave in difficulties; ever fierce against restraint." 11 In Bulwer's estimation Goethe is frequently morbid in his outlook and in his creations; but of the integrity of Schiller's vision there can be no question; there is in his case no preoccupation, as in Goethe, with the "diseased infirmity of an intellectual character." 12 Schiller's moral and spiritual development, rooted as it was 10

Ibid., LH, 286. " The Poems and Ballads of Schiller, New York, 1844, p. 18. 13 Ibid., p. 29.

B U L WER

LYTTON

201

in an early turbulence of passion and unrestraint, soon took a nobler tum. The upward flight may be observed with the composition of Don Carlos, with which play Schiller acquired "loftier conceptions of the aims and duties of the poet." 13 The youthful turmoil of the spirit was a harbinger not of moral chaos, but of the eventual attainment of spiritual peace. Schiller soon outgrew the "illogical yet brilliant fallacy of Pantheism," which he embodied in his Philosophical Letters, and which "bewildered hopelessly the far smaller and more erratic intellect of Shelley."" If Schiller, the poet, is more worthy of admiration than the dramatist, then the writer of the ballads is most significant of all. These are his greatest, though simplest, poetical productions." 15 And of these, The Diver is the "sublimest ballad in the world." What is a little recklessness when so much is at stake? The plays may occupy a secondary place, but they are not to be slighted. True, Mary Stuart is mediocre; its chief characters have something of the "narrowness and tinsel" of heroines of French tragedy. 16 But turn to William Tell, for the homely idealism of which Bulwer is all aglow; contrast it with the more rabid libertarianism of The Robbers! William Tell is a picture of true liberty, the liberty of "life and soil."17 The other plays are likewise passed in review and duly breveted. Wallenstein is the "grandest in point of intellect"; The Maid 0} Orleans surpasses in point of "feeling and conception"; The Bride oj Messina in its "verbal poetry, the music, and the expression. . . But the one in which Schiller, with the fullest success, emancipates art from himself—in which his own individuality the least moulds and influences his creations,— seems to us the Wilhelm Tell."1" It was Bulwer's notion that Schiller's vast and dominating " Ibid., p. 54. "Ibid., p. 96.

" Ibid., p. 64. "Ibid., p. 101.

" Ibid., p. 94. "Ibid., pp. 114-15

202

BULWER

LYTTON

moral earnestness—so much praised by Englishmen—militated against his success as a dramatist. This moral earnestness was less of an impediment in his poetry than in the drama—why, Bulwer does not make clear. It seems, however, to support his favorite conception that Schiller was "on the whole, greater as a poet than a dramatist." 18 Yet it was this "moral earnestness" which contained the "real secret of his greatness. This combination of philosophy and poetry, this harmony between genius and conscience, sprang out of almost perfect, almost unrivalled equality of proportions which gave symmetry to his various faculties." 20 Schiller was versatile, many-faceted; and those who see in him only the author of Wallenstein and The Song of the Bell little appreciate his variety. "Wherever the genius of his age was astir, we see the flight of his wing and the print of his footsteps." 21 How many know his historical works? Yet Schiller's ideas concerning history are worth whole libraries of histories.22 The reader of Bulwer's essay might, at this point, have been excused a certain breathlessness, an expectancy. Surely Bulwer was about to say something of Schiller's philosophical works! A word there is, it is true, concerning Schiller's thought; but scarcely a word of importance. The German is brushed aside as a not very original philosophical essayist, who in borrowing from Kant had added much. "Rigid metaphysicians have complained of his vagueness and obscurity." 23 Bulwer's interest was first and last, not in the philosophical Schiller, but in Schiller the "religious"; the orthodox, the adherent of a definite faith: Schiller in his certitude. Seen in this transfigured light, Schiller became, for his English admirer, a great religious reformer, whose mission and gospel it was to "increase, to widen, and to sanctify the reverent disposition that inclines to Faith." 24 In the fulfilment of this mission, he "Ibid., p. 115. 22 Ibid., p. 110.

20

Ibid., p. 108. "Ibid., p. 110.

21

Ibid., p. 109. "Ibid., p. 111.

BULWER

LYTTON

203

was successful as no writer "simply theological" had ever been. For about Schiller's entire approach there was much of the same otherworldliness and holiness which characterized medieval saints. "What holy meditation was to the saints of old, the ideal of aesthetic art was to the creed of Schiller. Therefore, his philosophy, in strict accordance with his poetry, was designed not so much to convince as to ennoble; it addresses the soul rather than the understanding." 25 Yet he himself attained to the ideal existence of which he dreamed. He became "pure form, the archetype, the Gestalt, that he has described in his poem of the 'Ideal and the Actual.' " 2 e The older he grew, the more profound and firm became his convictions. "His faith increased as his life drew nearer to its goal."27 If Goethe stood as the embodiment of beauty of the "outward form and mental accomplishments," Schiller incarnated the nobility of both. 28 At all times Schiller was orthodox in his faith ; and even in moments of unsettlement and turbulence, in the stormy "interval of doubt," he never contemplated the "dangerous and dark ambition of unsettling the religious convictions of others."2® His path was ever one marked out for serenity and the ideal life. It found its triumphant goal in a "Christian heaven"—illumined thereunto by the ennobling philosophy of Kant. For with Schiller's assimilation of that philosophy, came the third period of his career, the most glorious, because the most devout; "a Catholic, all-mild, allcomprehensive religion surrounds his writings as with a lucid atmosphere." 30 Where, one asks, in the neighborhood of such dazzling splendor, does Goethe take his place? Bulwer answers, They stand side by side, Goethe and Schiller, gloriously different in their several ways, yet each autonomous and omnipotent in his own domain. It is futile to compare them. "Brothers they were in "Ibid., p. 111. "Ibid., p. 67.

"Ibid., p. 113. "Ibid., p. 76.

* Ibid., p. 103. "Ibid., pp. 86-87.

204

B U L WER

LYTTON

life, let them shine together in equal lustre, the immortal Dioscuri, twin stars." 3 1 And so the rhapsody closes with a final paean, fully cadenced. Much we may learn from Schiller's poetry. Here is to be found a "great and forcible intellect ever appealing to the best feelings," exalting, edifying, and strengthening man in his struggle, "uniting with a golden chain the outer world and the inner to the Celestial Throne. . . T h e vocation of his Muse is a religious mission. . . Her power to convert and to enlighten, to purify and to raise, depends not on the splendor of her appearance, but on the truth that she proclaims." 3 2 T h e canonization of Schiller at the hands of Bulwer Lytton was not consummated without some distortion of the real values in Schiller's life and thought. T o make of Schiller a great religious leader and to preserve him, as Bulwer wished, for Christianity, one had perforce to shut one's eyes to certain palpable and very clamorous objections raised by none other than Schiller himself. For if anything is clear at all, it is this: Schiller was not an orthodox Christian; certainly not in the sense in which Bulwer wished us to understand the words. T h e existence of a poem like The Gods of Greece is adequate rebuttal of such a designation. No man who wrote Schöne W e l t , w o bist du? Kehre wieder, H o l d e s Blütenalter der N a t u r ! . . . Alle j e n e B l ü t e n sind gefallen V o n des N o r d e s schauerlichem W e h n ; Einen zu bereichern unter allen, M u s s t e diese Götterwelt vergehn . . . Ja, sie kehrten heim, und alles Schöne, Alles H o h e nahmen sie mit fort, Alle Farben, alle Lebenstöne, U n d uns blieb nur das entseelte Wort. . , "Ibid.,

p. 118.

52

Ibid., pp. 122-23.

B U L W E R

L Y T T O N

205

no man who mourned the destruction of a pagan poetic world by the "North's horrid blast," who regretted the usurpation of Olympus by the Crucified of Galilee, can, without courting challenge, be called a true Christian. I turn, almost at random, to one of Schiller's biographers: "Dieses Gedicht," says Fritz Strich, "ist nicht nur eine Klage um den Verlust, den die Kunst durch den Untergang der griechischen Götter erlitten hat, sondern auch eine Klage um den Verlust, den das Leben durch den Untergang des Griechentums erlitten hat." 33 To regard the poem as "only . . . a poet's lament for mythology which was the fount of poetry, and certainly not as a reasoner's defence of paganism to the disparagement of Christianity" may be well-intentioned, but it is a trifle disingenuous. Nor was Bulwer more just to Schiller's philosophic and aesthetic contributions, for the simple reason that his own mental temper was distinctly unphilosophical and certainly unmetaphysical. "Schiller rocked me to sleep last night," he wrote in 1870, "on the boundless deep of the aesthetics." 34 There is no reason to believe that Bulwer Lytton would not have slept so well twenty-five years before. But for all this shortsightedness, Bulwer Lytton achieved what no one of significance in England had done before him. He struck a balance. He found room in his intellectual heaven for both Goethe and Schiller in a confraternity of stars, valuing each for his distinctive and intrinsic light. Perhaps, in an unguarded moment, he averred that Schiller was superior to Goethe; 35 but he must have done so only because he was obsessed by the "moral earnestness" and the "Christianity" which he had discovered in Schiller's works. For this belief his son took him to task. "There are two things I object to in poetry. "Fritz Strich, Schiller, sein Leben und Werk, Leipzig, [η. d.], p. 16S. " Earl of Lytton, Life of Edward Bulwer Lytton, II, 473-74. K As his grandson intimates; ibid., II, S3.

206

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One is a display of moral purpose," he wrote to his father in 1866. "That is what I dislike in Schiller, more or less . . . and the other is the absence of moral power."38 Certain it is that in the pages of Bulwer's appreciation Schiller stands out in lucid perfection. The faults are entirely eliminated. Not Madame de Staël, not even Carlyle, had spoken with the same breathless adoration of the German poet. "Nature's nobleman" had achieved "sainthood." " L a d y Betty Balfour, The Personal First Earl of Lytton, I, 213.

and Literary

Letters

o/

Robert,

CHAPTER

I X

T H E SAINTHOOD OF SCHILLER 1844-1854 1. PERIODICAL OPINION Seid umschlungen, Millionen!—SCHILLER, An Freude

die

Bulwer's fervid exaltation of Schiller met with instant sympathy. As if waiting for so persuasive a justification of an enthusiasm already regnant, the periodical press of the day made his book, and its introduction especially, the starting point for a renewal of a glorification of Schiller's virtues. The affection for the poet was fanned to a greater flame by Bulwer's fiery words. For Schiller had become, as perhaps never before, the people's poet; he touched men's hearts, where Goethe, greater genius though he was, failed to warm them, for all his "austere calm grandeur. . . The heroic agitation of Schiller strikes home. The less perfect genius leaves the most human lesson." In the poems lies the essence of Schiller's true greatness. "If Shakespeare had written Sonnets at every period and vicissitude of his life, they only might have excelled these Poems and Ballads of Schiller." 1 The German is glorious in his idealism and in his luminous spirit beyond all poets "whom later times have produced." 2 His qualities are diffused and shine through every act of his heroic life; and most magnificently in his lyrics and ballads. Here he is unrivaled and alone. What measure of moral 'The

Examiner,

1344, p. 180.

'Athenaeum,

1844, p. 285.

2O8

SAINTHOOD

perfection is here revealed! "The contemplation of a character so noble and lovely, and of a life so truly bright and consistent in all its parts, is a lesson which it is no common privilege to attend." 8 What nobler spirit has death ever taken? What spirit can be likened to his for a prosaic nature which yet succeeded in arriving "at the highest point of poetic perfection?" 4 Compare him with Goethe, and observe how passionately the younger genius is intent on thought and on the mind, "as the only materials at his command," while in Goethe we notice "nothing but materialism." 5 Everything that Schiller touched he turned to golden thought; nothing issued from that mind of his but it at once assumed the character of "deep philosophy."6 What man was ever so drunk with truth; what man pursued it with such insistence and ardor? "All the yearning of his soul arid straining of his intellect were bent in earnest and sincere desire to embrace truth." 7 "Philosophy, neither before nor since his time, assumed so magnificent, dignified, and so charming an appearance." 8 Yet Schiller was both deep and acute.® What poet ever came closer to Englishmen than Schiller, and what better model could Englishmen follow? "As certainly as the German language spreads over this island, so certainly will Schiller enthrone himself in the hearts of its people." 10 Is there one line in William. Tell that a Briton would wish to blot? 11 He is the German poet most in "unison with English hearts"; possessor of manliness, tenderness, appealing to "a healthy condition of English character." 12 Nor were the reviews to be outdone by Bulwer in their lauda4 ' Ibid., p. 285. Eclectic Review, 4th ser., XVI (1844), 180. 'Ibid., p. 180. ' North British Review, I I I (1845), 162. ''Ibid., p. 162. 'Eclectic Review, loc. cit., p. 181. 'Athenaeum, 1844, p. 285. 10 North British Review, I I I (1845), 162. "Ibid., p. 160. "Ibid., p. 15Q

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tion of Schiller's poetry. Here they found the true genius of the poet. This is the "noblest fruit of his mind," exclaimed the Eclectic Review, "the most exquisite flower of lyrical poetry in generell. . . No poet is more remarkable for fervour and genuine feeling." Schiller's poetry was the "philosophy of imagination."13 "The flower and crown" of his poetic nature, his lyrics were the truest utterances of his own pure spirit and beautiful life.14 Schiller was Germany's greatest lyric and tragic poet,15 and his poetry was the living voice of the whole history of German literature and philosophy.14 When the reviewers came to consider the merits of Bulwer's translations, they were divided in their opinions. Some found them unsatisfying and rough; and preferred the contemporary versions of Merivale." Others, as "admirers of German literature," were thankful to the translator for the services he had rendered.18 "Schiller the poet is made truly, feelingly, and characteristically known to us by the transfusion of his ancient into our modern Saxon in this translation. . . The sketch of Schiller's life prefixed is a masterly memoir."19 Yet they had all seized on the essentials of Bulwer's position, fortifying it in fact in their reaffirmation of his judgment. True, a disturbed reviewer in the Foreign Quarterly Review cried out against this acclamation of him whom he considered a pernicious thinker, author of magisterial preachments which were a far cry from art. "No artist, not even a church organist, ought, as such, to attempt to preach."20 Especially offensive was this "Eclectic Review, loc. cit., p. 182. "Athenaeum, 1844, p. 285. "Eclectic Review, loc. cit., p. 177. " Aim-worth's Magazine, V (1844), 532. "Athenaeum, 1844, pp. 285-86; Dublin University Magazine, XXIV (1844), 381. 18 Ainsworth's Magazine, V (1844), 535. •*Literary Gazette, 1844, p. 265. "Foreign Quarterly Review, X X X I I I (1844), 480-81.

2 IO

SAINTHOOD

moral tone when directed toward establishing the indefensible notion that art is "a refuge from the troubles of the world," and that its importance is supreme. Yet even this carping writer was constrained to grant that Schiller himself possessed an "almost faultless" character. 21 Yet how rare was this faultfinding! For one who found Schiller's thought pernicious, there were ten who would rise to defend it.22 "He will escape scatheless from German philosophy," one writer averred, "whatever it may be, who has traversed and digested it on the principles and with the convictions of Schiller."23 Thus strengthened, the sway of Schiller continued, impeded and challenged only in stray moments, until the publication of G. H. Lewes' Ufe of Goethe. The elements of this appreciation are, in general, well known to us already. But the repetition of praise continued, in the reviews and magazines of the period, with an intensive iteration that is almost wearying. The proud claim of Schiller's admirers was echoed and re-echoed, and comparisons were set up not only between him and Goethe, but even, more pretentiously, between him and Shakespeare. "Schiller rivals Shakespeare himself in the energy with which, by a word or an epithet, he paints the fiercest or tenderest passions of the heart." 24 In reading Schiller's tragedies we feel "that a new intellectual soil has been turned up in the Fatherland; the human soul in its pristine beauty, comes forth from beneath his hand; it reappears like the exquisite remains of Grecian statuary, which, buried for ages in superincumbent ruins, emerge pure and unstained in virgin snow, when a re!1

Ibid., p. 489.

K

See Dublin University Magazine, X X I V (1844), 395-96, where Schiller's orthodoxy is championed. "North British Review, III (184S), 162. "Blackwood's

Edinburgh

Magazine,

L I X (1846), 72.

S A I N T H O O D

21 I

newal of cultivation has again exposed them to the light." 25 Could Schiller have sustained greatness in all his plays, he would have had no rival in the drama—he would have been the most perfect dramatist of modern times.26 At a time like the present, when the stage seems to have fallen on evil days, another writer urged, one could do worse than tum to the greatest of modern European dramatists for example and guidance.27 Those who are athirst for noble imagery of the ideal will resort to him, for like no other writer of his time he worked consistently in a morally elevated realm, sure and (save for The Robbers) unsullied.28 This appeal to the moral element in Schiller was renewed again and again; frequently to the disadvantage and discredit of Goethe—as might have been expected. Many held that the latter did not enlist the sympathies on the side of virtue and courage, as did Schiller, who viewed his genius as "a sacred trust lent him for a time, to be expended only on themes that might support, instruct, or elevate his fellowmen. He has found his reward," the writer continued (with a seriousness somewhat appalling!). "He is eminently the favourite poet of his countrywomen." 20 But not only the "gentler portion of creation" must find Schiller their darling; all others who have preserved the "heart unstained and all the affections unchilled and unperverted" will forever tum to him, to his chaste and noble fancy, and to the images he has created, images as perfect and unstained as their creator himself.30 Schiller's strong faith was contrasted with Goethe's glaring unbelief and Epicureanism—vices which kept the latter from complete perfection. "What he wanted to make him perfect," "Ibid., p. 73. "Ibid., p. 73. " Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, LXIX (1851), 659. "Ibid., pp. 655-57. "Hogg's Weekly Instructor, I (1845), 293. "Ibid., p. 293.

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one reviewer wrote of Goethe, "was a few chapters of Seneca, and a slight tincture of Christianity" 31 —a charmingly simple prescription! Schiller, on the other hand, wanted neither of these; he was a "poet of deep moral feelings . . . with Christian and evangelical sympathies decidedly strong." 32 His triumph in popularity over his great contemporary was no more than a just reward for his greater moral seriousness, certainly a more precious possession than "that pictorial luxuriousness, and sensuous voluptuousness, of which his great rival was at once the most cunning, and the most graceful of exhibitors." 33 Nor must we forget another salient quality of Schiller's mind—his consuming love for his fellowmen." The publication of Schiller's correspondence with Kömer in 1847 must have delighted the hearts of all Schiller worshippers. Here, too, was a vivid confirmation (if any were needed) of the marvelous grandeur of the poet. The New Monthly Magazine hailed it with becoming approbation. "A book of more varied matter has been seldom left by a man to posterity. It is full of the finest criticisms upon poetry, literature, art and philosophy, and it is altogether one of the most comprehensive pictures yet given to the public, of the German mind during its most remarkable literary epoch—its Augustan age." 35 Here was to be found the true mirror of Schiller's great nature, of his "rich overflowing imagination, and all the warmth of his pure and feeling heart." 36 How splendid is the picture which the letters reveal of the man, of his moral dignity, the strength of will, the compass of his genius! 37 They were of a piece with the rest of his works (with which everyone is now acquainted) in their high morality. There is "scarcely a line " Tail's Edinburgh E

Ibid., p. 98.

Magazine,

X I I I (1846), 98.

" Ibid., p. 98.

M

The People's Journal, I I (1847), 21. " The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, "Literary Gazette, 1847, p. 705, " Ibid., p. 70S.

L X X X V (1849), 390.

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which we should desire to efface." 38 Schiller has not labored in vain. "He has left behind him an immortal name, bright and pure, both as a man and a poet." But the Gentleman's Magazine refused to join in the acclaim. With a fury reminiscent of the year 1799 it turned upon Schiller, making this book the occasion of vituperation which, distasteful though it may be and unjust, is, merely for variety's sake, bracing. "We do not think that book will tend much to encourage the taste for German literature, certainly not for German morality, at the period referred to in the letters which it contains." Swept away by the storm of his emotions, the writer continues, "There is a spirit of petty literary intrigue . . . a lax tone of morals, and want of religious principle." And then a little more timidly he betrays the wish which fathered his thoughts. "We cannot help thinking that German literature has been somewhat overrated, and its pursuit too much encouraged, very frequently to the neglect of those rich mines of deep and earnest thought, sound morality, and high religious principle, which are to be found in our own country." 38 How this writer would have fumed had he come across this utterance of the rival New Monthly Magazine: "The works of the greatest genius of Germany constitute a most essential part of standard literature." 40 The note of remonstrance did, however, find support elsewhere. Sometimes it took the form of a deprecation of Schiller's too absorbing interest in philosophy—Kantism, especially, being taxed with having curbed the "finest impulses of his genius."41 A later more embittered critic carped at Schiller's want of "precision and vivacity," 42 and he rejoiced in the thought that the frenzy for German literature had died down, " Ibid., 1848, p. 57. "Gentleman's Magazine, N. S., X X X I I (1849), 509. "New Monthly Magazine, LXXVIII (1846), 252. "Athenaeum, 1848, p. 186. "Edinburgh Review, L X X X I I (1845), 457.

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a demise particularly gratifying because German letters lacked distinct purpose, masculinity, and chastity of style.43 Others rose up in the defense of Goethe's slighted name. Herman Merivale, for example, consigned Schiller to a place among the Di minores of literature. Goethe, on the other hand, he would seat with the "superior Divinities," even if not among the highest.44 Yet even Merivale could not deny the great and noble Schiller a measure of admiration for having burst the bonds of "worldly philosophy," and for having had the courage to appeal to our sense of the beautiful, our love of glory, virtue, and patriotism. Schiller brings man back to the times "of which we dream rather than read, when genius, and virtue, and crime itself, wore the colouring of romance." 45 Yet great as was the impression created by Bulwer Lytton's interpretation of Schiller, and warm as was its affirmation of the supremacy of Schiller the poet, it did not succeed altogether in coaxing contemporary opinion into a lesser regard for the plays. What Bulwer had, however, succeeded in doing was to round out the conception of Schiller and to give the poems and ballads a station of equality with the drama. The hold of Wallenstein continued strong; 46 its preeminence among Schiller's other works was strongly upheld. It was still the noblest work of the German dramatist, and its material and style were exquisite.47 The other plays were not slighted. The Maid of Orleans, "that singularly beautiful poem," 48 and the frequently con41

Ibid., pp. 451-52. "Edinburgh Review, X C I I (1850), 202. " Ibid., p. 203. ""Schiller's highest work" (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, L X X Y I [1854], 704). "Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review, I X (1847), 257. "Athenaeum, 1844, p. 32; see also Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, LVI (1814), pp. 216 ff.

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temned Mary Stuart came in for their share of praise; the latter was now extolled as a "noble drama," of which Germany might well be proud. 49 Don Carlos had not been forgotten, 50 nor (of course) William Tell, that "song of the Germanic Swan, expressing the purest aspirations and sentiments which ennobled his soul." 51 Of the reception of the Poems and Ballads we have already spoken sufficiently. The translation of Schiller's Philosophical and A esthetic Letters and Essays aroused little attention. Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine was one of the very few to notice it at all, though scarcely to appraise it at its true worth. 52 On the stage Schiller achieved, at this time, what was for him an unprecedented number of performances. John Anderson, manager of Drury Lane from 1849 to 1851, produced among other German plays Schiller's Fiesco.53 In 1852 and 1853, a German troupe, including the celebrated Devrient, visited London, and at the Saint James Theatre produced Wilhelm Tell, Fiesco, Don Carlos, Die Braut von Messina, the first of these three times ; 54 as well as Kabale und Liebe, a dramatic version of Das Lied von der Glocke, and Die Räuber.™ A very free version of Cabal and Love, Morris Bamett's Power and Principle, was presented at the New Strand Theatre in 1850. Among the very late converts to the major glories of Schiller was the Quarterly Review. Already on the scent of a fresh quarry—this time French literature—it could with gracious condescension forget the once terrifying errors of the German "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, L X I X (1851), 46. " " O n e of Schiller's finest tragedies" (Fraseas Magazine, XXVIII [1843], 263). "Dublin University Magazine, LUI (1859), 77. "Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine, II (1845), 277-78. M The Dramatic Essays of John Forster and G. H. Lewes, p. 79 n. "Ibid., p. 255, n. 1. " H e n r y Morley, Journal of a London Playgoer, pp. 31, 42.

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monster. "The theatre," the Review cried, in a voice distressingly familiar, "at the present moment, is more in danger from the social and sentimental corruptions of the French stage, than from the exhibitions of open ruffianism, or the coarser species of vice and crime." 58 And then these tender words for an old foe: "How does it fare, on the other hand, with the drama of which we justly boast . . . which stimulated the genius of Alfieri, and filled with wonder and emulation on the far loftier and deeper souls of Goethe and Schiller?" 57 A belated guest, with hands and conscience not unsullied ! More welcome are the words of the Foreign and Colonial Review. "Germany now boasts, perhaps, the noblest poetical literature of any modern land or people, with the sole exception of our own favoured England. . . First arose Lessing. Lessing the great, the severe, the solemn! Then followed the graceful Wieland, and after him came the giants of German literature—the glorious Schiller and Goethe the immortal." 58 2. SCHILLER AND SOME ENGLISHWOMEN Ehret die Frauen! Sie flechten und weben Himmliche Rosen ins irdische Leben. —SCHILLER, Würde der Frauen Goethe seldom pleases the fair sex; Schiller is their admiration. —The Eclectic Review"

It was natural that after Madame de Staël's exulting championship of Schiller's nobility and higher virtues, other women should range themselves on her side and espouse as ardently the cause of the great German poet. To some of these feminine voices we have already hearkened. Not that all women were "Quarterly Review, XCV (1854), 75. " Ibid., p. 76. "Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review, III (1844), 427. "Fourth ser., XVI (1844), 183.

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willing to join forces even here. Sarah Austin, for example, had tried to do justice to both Goethe and Schiller. A few independent minds even now refused to yield to the overwhelming clamor. But the generality of articulate womanhood inclined, as we shall soon see, in the direction in which Madame de Staël had so eloquently pointed. They took Schiller to their bosoms with touching affection. a) Mrs. Shelley and Felicia Hemans.—Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was, like her husband, interested in German letters, though she was never converted to a complete acceptance of Goethe or of his Faust. But she loved Schiller. In 1815 she read Werther, and Madame de Staël's Germany; but Schiller's Don Carlos twice.60 Her pervasive interest was not, however, in German literature, and it was not till very much later—long after the death of her husband—that she reverted to the subject of Goethe and Schiller. In 1840 she undertook an extended continental tour, and set down her impressions in two volumes. Her journey revived memories within her of her earlier reading, especially of the two German poets. She came to the conclusion that Schiller was "the greater man," because he was "more complete." Goethe had marvelous insight into the depths of the human mind; but for all his power of depicting scenes of the most touching pathos, he lacked "completeness," and never achieved "the whole."®1 By far more whole-hearted and soul-absorbing was the appreciation of Felicia Hemans, at one time England's favorite nightingale.*2 " Mrs. Julian Marshall, Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, I, 123-24. "Mrs. Shelley, Rambles in Germany and Italy, London, 1844, I, 211. " I am very much the debtor to Werner K. Ruprecht's "Felicia H e mans und die englischen Beziehungen zur deutschen Literatur im ersten Drittel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts," Anglia, X L V I I I (1924), 1 ff., 169 ff., 297 ff.; and to Henry F. Chorley's Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, 2d ed., London, 1837.

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Mrs. Hemans' knowledge of German, which she acquired early in life, was extensive. Germany unfolded before her eyes magic lands; "a new world of thought and feeling" was opened to her. 93 "I believe," she said later in life, speaking of the German language, "I could talk it forever." 64 Her admiration for German literature did not preclude an equally ardent worship of German music: Beethoven, Mozart, and Weber were her especial favorites. She found time in an unusually busy poetic career to acquaint herself with the writings of many Germans, such as Schlegel, Jean Paul, Novalis, Tieck, Fouqué, and Winckelmann. 65 Goethe touched her but lightly.6® Faust apparently disturbed her. "Some of the scenes," she writes, "are so bewildering, as to leave the author's views and intentions a complete mystery."®7 Schiller haunted her "like a passion." Her first perceptible assimilation of him came in 1823, and was the seed of a growing preoccupation and zealous absorption which were to last till death. 68 Again and again she revealed in her poems the magnetism which Schiller exercised over her. When she did not adapt his ideas and his imagery, she quoted from his works in superscriptions to her own poems. Thekla's lament and sorrow touched her most deeply: she used her prayer, "Ich habe gelebt und geliebet," as a motto for the verses on "Edith"; 6 9 and the motive of the lament and of other lines of Thekla's wind themselves through her poems, such as "The Lady of Provence" 70 and "The Italian Girl's Hymn to the Virgin." 71 Thekla's refusal to stir from the body of her lover is remembered in the words of Moraima in De Chatillon: " Ruprecht, op. cit., p. 34. "Ibid., p. 34. "Ibid., "Ibid., p. 302-3. " M e m o r i a l s , I, 100-101. ** Ruprecht, op. cit., p. 303. "Works, Edinburgh and London, 1857, V, 172. 70 71 Ibid., VI, 17. Ibid., p. 22.

p. 315.

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There is no place but this for me on earth ! Where shall I go? There is no place but this!72 Thekla's words are prefixed to "The Peasant Girl of the Rhone"; 73 and Mrs. Hemans herself wrote an original "Thekla at her Lover's Grave"; while another poem, "The Nightingale's Death," she introduced with some lines from "Thekla, a Spirit Voice."7-' Lines and ideas from others of Schiller's works recur with striking frequency; as if she were writing in the shadow of the greater poet, haunted by his lovelier words.75 She was passionately fond of Coleridge's version of Wallenstein, of which she could not speak enough. It was not, she claimed, "a translation, but a transfusion from one language to another, of one of the noblest works of modern times."7® She was almost obsessed by Thekla's words, "Das Herz ist gestorben, die Welt is leer." 77 Das Lied von der Glocke (how could she have misnamed it "Glocke"?) she adjudged "magnificent." 78 Don Carlos both pleased and displeased her. She found the most famous scene in the play, the interview between Philip and Marquis Posa, "destroyed by a sense of utter impossibility." "Not even Schiller's mighty spells," she continued, "can, I think, win the most 'unquestioning spirit,' to suppose that such a voice of truth and freedom could have been lifted up, and n

lbid„ IV, 314. "Ibid., V, 188. " Ibid., V 1,128. " T h u s The Maid of Orleans is recalled in Joan of Arc in Rheims, "Works," V, 195, and in The Forest Sanctuary, ibid., IV, 1 ; Wallenstein in The King of Aragon's Lament, VI, 31, and Nature's Farewell, VI, 114; The Robbers in The Soldier's Deathbed, VI, 61 ; Don Carlos in Ivan the Czar, V, 234; The Bride of Messina and William Tell in The Switzer's Wife, V, 155, The Indian Woman's Death-Song, V, 192, The League of the Alps, VII, 102, and The Shepherd Poet of the Alps, VI, 227. See Ruprecht, op. cit., pp. 305-13. n Memorials, I, 75. " Ibid., p. 193. " Ibid., p. 98.

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endured, in the presence of the cold, stem, Philip the Second."7" Mrs. Hemans never in her life regretted her dedication to German literature. Writing toward the end of her career, she recalled her first encounter with it in glowing words. "I have been much thrown back," she remarked in 1831, "upon our old friends, especially the Germans, Goethe, and Schiller, and Oehlenschlaeger more especially, and I think to love them more and more for every perusal, so that I cannot regret the causes which have rendered my connection with them more intimate than ever."80 In Dublin she witnessed a performance of Fiesco, which was, "considering the undramatic taste of the place, well received." But she thought that "a hero should never be seen tumbling down."81 She was not destined, as we have already seen, to convert the aged Wordsworth to an appreciation of her own favorites. But her faith in her German idols continued, and her last wish—in a great measure unfulfilled—was to write a defense of "all embracing Christianity," The Christian Temple, the idea for which she derived from Schiller's Gods of Greece.*2 *

*

*

I have been revelling in that divine devildom, "Faust." Suppose it does send one to bed with a side-ache, a head-ache, and a heart-ache, isn't it worth while?—FANNY KEMBLE"

b) Frances Ann Kemble and Anna Jameson.—That excellent actress, Frances Ann Kemble, shared with Anna Jameson a reverence for Goethe which amounted to Schwärmerei; the brilliant Fanny, dividing it, however, almost equally with a weak™Ibid., pp. 268-69. "Ibid., II, 316.

"Ibid., Π , 231. "Record of a Girlhood,

" Ibid., II, 267. I, 226.

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ness for Schiller. She was of those unusually sensitive personalities who come by their estimates of men and books, one fancies, instinctively; and amaze one by the essentiell justice of their perceptions. 84 Thus she was a fervent reader of both Dichtung und Wahrheit and Wilhelm Meister; but, what is more interesting, she appreciated them at their true worth. 85 She had come by her predilections for German literature early; her father's library (it must be remembered she was the daughter of an actor, and the niece of John Philip Kemble, and of Mrs. Siddons) offering its wealth of drama in English and French translations. Brought up in a theatrical atmosphere, it is small wonder that she seized eagerly on Wilhelm Meister! "My chief delight," she wrote of those moments in the year 1825, "was in such German literature as translations enabled me to become acquainted with. La Motte Fouqué, Tieck, Wieland's Oberon, Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, were my principal studies; soon to be followed by a sort of foretaste of Jean Paul Richter that Mr. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus gave his readers." 88 Faust she believed was "worth while"; and in Torquato Tasso it seemed to her that Goethe had "literally transcribed" her own thoughts and feelings, "her mind and being." 87 No mean acquaintance—even if at second hand—with German works! Some years later she read Schiller's Fiesco and was herself spurred to the composition of a tragedy on the same subject as that of "Schiller's noble play." 88 She was then in the fever of an "enthusiastic admiration" for Goethe and Schiller,8" and regretted the fact that she was compelled to read them in " She has left copious autobiographical material, of which I have used chiefly the Record of a Girlhood, London, 3d ed., 1878, the Journal of Frances Ann Butler, 2 vols., London, 1835, Records of a Later Life, New York, 1882, and Further Records, London, 1891. M Record of a Girlhood, I, 24. " Ibid., I, 130. "Ibid., I, 226. The entry refers to the year 1828. "Ibid., I, 275. " I b i d . , p. 275.

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translations—"for," she wrote much later, " I knew then no German." But she was not long to remain in ignorance of the language. At first dismayed by its difficulties, she finally mastered it sufficiently to be able to translate "without difficulty" Schiller's Mary Stuart and some minor poems. 90 But her real desire at this time was to produce an original version of Fiesco. " D e a r m e ! " she wrote in 1843, "through how long a lapse of years your desire that I would undertake a translation of Schiller's 'Fiesco,' leads me! When I was between sixteen and seventeen years old, I actually began an adaptation of it to the English stage;®1 but partly from thinking the catastrophe unmanageable, and from various other motives, I never finished it: but it was an early literary dream of mine, and you have recalled to me a very happy period of my life.. . . I am not," she continues, "of your opinion, that 'Fiesco' is the best of Schiller's plays. I think 'Don Carlos' and 'William Tell,' and especially 'Wallenstein,' finer; the last, indeed, the finest of them all. M y own especial favorite, however, for many years, (although I do not think it his best play) was 'Joan of Arc.' " But like her friend, Mrs. Jameson, she thought that Schiller was singularly insensible to the "glory of the French heroine's death, which," she adds sadly, "is the more remarkable because he generally, above most poets, especially recognizes the sublimity of moral greatness.'! 92 Thekla's loveliness and ideality struck her forcefully. " I think you are quite mistaken," she writes in the same letter, "in calling Thekla a 'merely ideal' woman; she is a very real German woman—rarely perhaps, to be found in all the branches of the Anglo-saxon tree, in England certainly, and even in America." 93 Her fondness for Schiller led her to preserve a number of " ¡bid., II, 211. " Records of a Later Lije, p. 396.

" From an English version.

" Ibid., p. 397.

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translations she had made of his poems; her version of Mary Stuart she did not publish until 1863. "Do you know Schiller's exquisite poem of the 'Division of the E a r t h ? " she wrote to "Hal" in 1848. "I will send you a translation, if you do not— a rough one I made of it when it was one of my German lessons. My version is harsh and poor enough, but the thoughts are preserved, and the thought is worthy of that noble poet.'*" Her adherence to Goethe seems not to have been without its moments of questioning: she sometimes felt him to be, for all his splendor, possessed of a quality of "unhumanity" and an aloofness which distressed her.®5 But her estimates—whatever their nature—were marked by a fine balance and a taste none too frequent in her day. Her friend, Anna Jameson, still remembered in England and America for genteel criticism of Christian art and a study of Shakespearean womanhood, was no less a partisan of German literature. Between 1828 and 1860, the year of her death, she visited Germany no less than six times, and her affection for that land knew no limits. Here Ottilie von Goethe was her particular friend, and opened her eyes to the greatness of Goethe.96 Among Englishwomen of her time, she seems especially dazzled by the brightness of Germany's greatest poet. Goethe and Art stood at the center of her life. But she did not undervalue the lesser powers of Schiller, and extolled—as might have been expected—his spiritual nobility. When she saw Dannecker's bust of the poet, she was stirred to rhapsodic flight. "What a noble bequest to posterity," she exclaimed, "is the effigy of a great man, when executed in such a spirit as this of Schiller. I assure you I could not look at it, without feeling my heart w Ibid., p. 624. " Record of a Girlhood, II, 252 ff. " See Gerardine Macpherson, Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson; and Mrs. Steuart Erskine, Anna Jameson, Letters and Friendships.

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'overflow in silent worship' of moral and intellectual power, till the deification of great men in the old times appeared to me rather a religion than idolatry."®7 She was gratefully conscious of the debt England and France owed Madame de Staël; and on occasions attempted to convince her German friends "that they were exceedingly ungrateful" in abusing the author of Germany, but it was in vain. "So," she continued, " I sat swelling with indignation to hear my idol traduced, called-—O profanation!—'cette Staël!"9* Schiller, too, gave her an occasion to "swell with indignation," for she took umbrage at his conception of Joan in The Maid of Orleans—at his infidelity both to her character and to historical accuracy. "Schiller . . . not only missed . . . the character, he has deliberately falsified both character and fact. His 'Johanna' might have been called by any other name; the scene of his tragedy might have been placed anywhere in the wide world with just the same probability and truth . . . 9 9 She vowed that not all the fine writing in the play would ever reconcile her to its "absolute and revolting falsehood." Her heart was staggered by this act of Schiller's—his taking a "sublime, simple-hearted girl," who regarded herself as the instrument of a Divine Will, and traducing her by making her into "a victim of an insane passion for a young Englishman." As for Schiller's version of Joan's death, Mrs. Jameson (like Fanny Kemble) joins Madame de Staël in her amazement and dismay. How much more glorious as well as more pathetic was the French heroine's death in reality; "but it offended against Schiller's aesthetic conception of the dignity of tragedy." 100 "Anna Jameson, Visits and Sketches, 2d ed., London, 1835, I, 144. "Ibid., I, 57. "Anna Jameson, A Commonplace Book, p. 361. 100 Ibid., pp. 361-62.

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Once when she and Miss Sibree were reading Schiller, she took the volume a n d placed his w o r k s t o gether, saying, "Oh, if / had given these t o t h e world, how h a p p y I should be."—DEAKIN, Early Life of George Eliot"'

c) Charlotte WiUiams-Wynn, Mary Russell Mitford, George Eliot, and others.—Among Varnhagen von Ense's English correspondents, one in particular must have delighted his German heart and fed his national pride. Charlotte Williams-Wynn was insatiable in her appetite for German books; but she was unusually fastidious in her taste. A good number of her literary favorites were to be found among German philosophers—a predilection for philosophy, and German idealism, in particular, being then nothing less than astonishing in a woman. In the year 1839 she avowed without trepidation that she was "too much engrossed with Hegel to think of anything else"; she was especially taken with his Introduction to the Philosophy 0} History.102 This reading of Hegel seems to have kept her from no less a diversion than a perusal of some volumes of Kant, which she had recently acquired! It would be, I suppose, indecorous to inquire too closely into the extent of her apprehension of either Kant or Hegel; particularly in view of the fact that at least a quarter of a century was to elapse before the "secret" of the latter was to be revealed—if only partially— to curious Englishmen and Englishwomen.103 Charlotte was breathless with enthusiasm and hungry for knowledge. She read Schleiermacher and Novalis; was "delighted" by Goethe; 104 and became in a month's time converted 101

Page 65. Letter t o Varnhagen, in Memorials of Charlotte Williams-lVynn, by her Sister, p. 3. " " J . Hutcheson Stirling's The Secret of Hegel appeared in 1865. ,w Memorials, p. 11.

ed.

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from a suspicion that Wilhelm Meister was not "in bad taste," to a conviction that it was "the most extraordinary proof of genius" that she had ever come across. Her unusual range permitted an admiration for both Werther and Fichte.105 Yet inconceivably enough, her enthusiasm stopped short of Schiller! She thought that poet, whom England was now acclaiming as perhaps never before for his heart, his soul and his virtue, both "cold and hard"! "I have finished," she wrote to her German friend in 1847 concerning Schiller's correspondence with Körner, "the two first volumes of Schiller, which have greatly interested me . . . Kömer . . . is far more loveable than the poet, who is cold and hard—at least so he appears to me; cold in his friendship, cold in his love, ever calculating upon what will produce him the greatest amount of happiness. There is a want of self-devotion about him which astonishes me. . . Is it not singular that in the intimate correspondence of two such men, there should be no reference to any apparent sense of a higher power, or a providence, or a God?" And then she thrusts with might. "Goethe is a far more religious mind to me,—at which I dare-say you, like others, will be surprised." 106 The heretical notion that Schiller was not a "good" man stayed with her for years. A decade later, after she had read a new biography of the poet by Palleske, she was still unmoved. "For Schiller himself," she confessed, "I have never cared much. . . [He] appears to have had very little notion as to right and wrong himself." 107 This is courageous and unconventional—and written only a year before the poet's centenary was to be solemnized with unprecedented parade! Charlotte's hectic likes and dislikes (not at bottom devoid of insight) would have seemed unfeminine, one suspects, to the author of Our Village. Mary Russell Mitford was engaged—at 101

Ibid., pp. 31, 61, 205.

Ibid.,

pp. S4-S5.

""Ibid.,

p. 253.

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about the time when Charlotte Williams-Wynn affirmed her conviction of Goethe's religiousness—in reading many German books in translation, though she vowed she could not "really get on with them." 108 "Except, of course," she added parenthetically, "Schiller and Goethe, especially the first." The bulk of German literature she found to be "incomplete as art; poor, bald, coarse, without life or character or power." Schiller's ballads she valued highly, setting them above those of Uhland. 109 Not even poor translations could completely spoil them. 110 Her opinion throws into vivid relief the immense vogue of Schiller in her day. Discussing some manuscript translations of the German poet's work made by one of her acquaintances, she added, "I felt sure that no great magazine would ever accept translations of anything so hackneyed as Don Carlos, which everybody knows as well as Macbeth."111 The continental predilections of George Eliot—surely the most intellectual Englishwoman of the nineteenth century—are well known: they play a predominant part in the moral and mental transformation which she herself underwent in the middle of the century. Her versions of Strauss' Leben Jesu and Feuerbach's Das Wesen des Christentums are significant contributions to the cultural history of England. The course of her development was much affected by the forceful intellect of G. H. Lewes, who brought her closer both to Comte and to Goethe.112 German, she felt, was a language most congenial to her; more congenial even than Italian. 113 And she began her reading m

Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, I, 147. "•Ibid., p. UT. Ibid., p. 153. H. F. Chorley, Letters of Mary Russell Mitford, 2d ser., II, 49. George Eliot's German interests are exhaustively treated in Sibilla Pfeiffer's George Eliots Beziehungen zu Deutschland, Heidelberg, 1925. 1U J. W. Cross, Life of George Eliot as related in her Letters. . , "Works," XI, 60.

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naturally enough, with Schiller, launching at once into Mary Stuart and The Robbers."* For The Maid oj Orleans she professed an especial fondness; and her acquaintance with Schiller's more obscure works, such as Der Nefje als Onkel, seems extensive.115 Though Schiller was never to occupy the center of her intellectual world, he came to permeate a portion of it with a gentle influence. Stray mentions of him are testimony to the persistence with which his nobility and chivalry impressed themselves on her. His name seems to associate itself, at least in one of her novels, with spiritual edification. Two of her characters speak of him with emphatic fondness, even with reverence. In Daniel Derotida, Mab Meyrick, after listening to a reading of Erckmann-Chatrian's Histoire d'un conscrit, exclaims, "It makes me sorry for everybody. It makes me like Schiller.—I want to take the world in my arms and kiss it." 116 (Schiller had done so in his Ode to Joy!) And was not the beautiful Jewess Mira preserved in her candid purity, partly at least, by her literary idols? "I gathered thoughts," she recalls, "very fast because I read many things—plays and poetry, Shakespeare and Schiller, and learned evil and good."117 When George Eliot visited Weimar in 1855, she was very much stirred by a sight of Schiller's house, especially by an inscription over it, "Hier wohnte Schiller." Lesser women, too, were impressed by Schiller's nobility. Harriet Countess Granville was enamoured of Schiller's Ideale, a poem which she herself rendered into English and which she read to Francis Egerton, thus "persuading him to learn the tongue."118 "I think it," she continued, "the most '"Ibid., pp. 60, 296. 111 Pfeiffer, op. cit., p. 181; Middlemarch, "Works," X I V , chap. xix. There is also an unimportant reference to Schiller in Scenes from Clerical Life, "Works," X X I I , 56. Daniel Deronda, I, 297. Ibid., p. 317. 118 Letters of Harriet Countess Granville, I, 331-32.

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beautiful thing I ever read in any language." And Sara Coleridge, looking upon a picture of Schiller's countenance, was struck by the unforgettable nobility mirrored in it.11" 3 . POETS, NOVELISTS, AND CRITICS Denn er w a r unser ¡—GOETHE"*

a) James Clarence Mangan.—In Dublin, James Clarence Mangan was pleading passionately the cause of German poetry some years before the publication of Bulwer's translations from Schiller.121 Mangan had come to German literature early, when still in his twenties—no doubt stimulated by Carlyle's stirring words. Schiller from the first stood at the core of his literary activity. With marked energy and zeal Mangan began his work of translation, which appeared in various Dublin magazines, such as the Dublin Literary Gazette, the Dublin Penny Journal, and the Dublin Satirist.122 In 1834 commenced his life-long association with the Dublin University Magazine, in whose pages some of his best efforts in translation were to appear, under the inclusive title of Anthologia Germanica. Though he knew some of Goethe's work and had Englished a few of his poems, he was never converted to a whole-hearted appreciation of this poet. Indeed he set Byron's Manfred above Faust.123 By Schiller Mangan was drawn as by no other German poet ; especially by the German's Gedankenlyrik—his philosophical and meditative poems, in which he saw embodied the finest '"Memoirs and Letters of Sara Coleridge, I, 396. Epilog zu Schillers "Glocke." For M a n g a n , I have consulted D. J . O'Donoghue, Life and Writings of James Clarence Mangan, Edinburgh, 1897 ; Henry E d w a r d Cain, James Clarence Mangan, and the Poe-Mangan Question, Washington, D.C., 1929; a n d James Clarence Mangan; His Selected Poems, New York, 1897. œ O'Donoghue, loc. cit., pp. 28, 36, 71. '•'Ibid., p. 73.

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quality of Schiller's nobility and idealism." 4 Being Mangan's own favorite, Schiller appeared to him also "Germany's greatest." 125 The "uniformly lofty path" which Schiller pursued, the classic severity of his work, struck the Irishman with pentrating force.126 It was therefore perfectly natural that the first installment of the Anthology, which appeared in the Dublin University Magazine in 183S, should open with a version of Schiller's "lyrical and smaller poems." 127 Mangan celebrated the birth of the new German literature. "In a fortunate hour, as the orientals phrase it, Goethe commenced his career of triumph. Him followed Schiller. Both names are hackneyed, but one cannot help that. The land of the Teuton has cradled no other two greater than those two." 128 He remarked on the happy lot which had fallen to Schiller, wholly to escape censure, and to compel the unqualified and universal admiration of posterity. "Schiller unquestionably embodied in himself all the elements of a mighty nature, qualified to stand alone, and assume an independent bearing among myriads. . . " 1 2 e Schiller accomplished for the drama what not even Goethe could do: he gave it "stability, definiteness, consistency, everything. . . " 1 3 ° True, beside Goethe, Schiller appears the less versatile; but "viewed with reference to his positive merits only, Schiller is confessedly a poet of transcendent power." 131 His poetry is majestic and mild, philosophical and frequently "pathetic," but at all times "attempering ardor with meekness." His mind was never poisoned by "sympathy with the ludicrous." For Schiller's ballad poetry Mangan had not the same regard as for his more lyrical pieces. But he never lost sight of nor '"¡bid., p. 71. "'Ibid., p. 76. '"Dublin University Magazine, VIII (1836), 722. 117 Ibid., V (1835), 39 ff. '"Ibid., p. 41. 130 Ibid., pp. 41-42. '""Ibid., p. 41. Ibid., p. 42.

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23I

ceased to revere the ideal aspects of Schiller's character and the noble elements of his writings. A year before his death, Mangan reëmphasized this high regard for the great German. "It is pleasant for us to look forward through the mists of the future, and imagine a period when the name of Schiller alone shall be sufficient to awaken in the bosom of him who hears it pronounced an unquenchable enthusiasm in behalf of all that is pure in principle and praiseworthy in action." 132 b) Kingsley and Ruskin.—The Christian socialist Charles Kingsley loved Germany and the Germans, and these occupy no inconsiderable place in his literary work. 133 For Schiller he entertained a high regard, never impressive enough to dominate his thought. He admired Schiller's last words and Thekla's lament; and desired, so he wrote to his wife, no better epitaph on their tomb than the words, "We have lived and loved. We live and love."134 Of Kingsley's novels, the only one which is touched by the influence of Schiller—more correctly, by reminiscences of Schiller—is Yeast (1850). The hero of this Erziehungsroman, Lancelot Smith, seeking both experience and an answer to life's riddles (without in the end quite finding the latter), is an admirer of Schiller's poetry, despite the circumspect warnings of the vicar in whose eyes all Germans are "Pantheists at heart." 135 Lancelot is "Germany mad"—a necessary state in the careers of intellectual heroes—and is not to be wheedled out of his mental preferences. His favorite among Schiller's poems is The Gods oj Greece (how the vicar would have frothed!); and it is with this pagan poem that he converts the beautiful Argemone to an understanding of the real Homer. 135

Ibid., X I I (1838), 46, 64. ' " A n n a Jacobson, Charles Kingsleys Beziehungen zu Deutschland, Heidelberg, 1917; Susanne Howe, Wilhelm Meister and his English Kinsmen, chap. viii. m ' " J a c o b s o n , op. cit., p. 47. Y east, 4th ed., 1859, p. 63.

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She could not but listen and admire, when he introduced her to the sheer paganism of Schiller's Gods of Greece ; for on this subject he was more eloquent than on any. He had gradually, in fact, as we have seen, dropped all faith in anything but Nature; the slightest fact about a bone or a weed was more important to him than all the books of divinity which Argemone lent him—to be laid by unread.13" That Kingsley himself had a weakness for the poem becomes evident from other references to it in his works. Thus in a letter, he mentioned it again as an expression of a "tone of feeling very common . . . which finds its vent in modern NeoPlatonism." 1 3 7 In another passage he praised it as the purest utterance of this neo-paganism, "where the loss of the Olympians is distinctly deplored, because it has unpeopled, not heaven, but earth." 1 3 8 John Ruskin owed much more to Germany and her ideas of art than he himself ever suspected. 139 But he failed, by a far stretch, to gauge the true meaning or importance of Schiller's contributions to aesthetic thought, for reasons which are not far to seek. His distance from Schiller is well nigh immeasurable: he dwelt intellectually, artistically, and especially morally at the other pole. He was outraged by an affirmation of Schiller's that the "sense of beauty never farthered the performance of a single duty." " T h i s coarse and inconceivable falsity," Ruskin said, "will hardly be accepted by anyone in so many words. . . Y e t it seems," he admitted, " t o be partly and practically so in much of the doing and teaching even of holy men, who in the recommending of the love of God to us, refer too seldom 1,1 Letters, ¡bid., pp. 172-73. I, 264. ""'Alexander Smith and Alexander Pope," in Literary and General Essays, "Works," X X , 84-85. See the brilliant essay on the German Predecessors of Ruskin in Camillo von Klenze's From Goethe to Hauptmann, New York, 1926. ,M

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to those things in which it is most abundantly and immediately shown."140 He was likewise opposed to Lessing's and Schiller's valuation of the Laocoön, deeming that statue a "most pernicious influence . . . meanly conceived, unnaturally treated.'" 41 Ruskin disliked Schiller exceedingly. He thought him possessed of but "the feeblest hold of facts, and the dullest imagination." 142 He found it difficult to suppress his delight on learning that Schiller's character was not impeccable. "I am greatly delighted," he wrote to H. Schütz Wilson in 1879, "with that review of Goethe—you always say just what I most want to have said. I didn't know Schiller was such a mean wretch, but always heartily disliked his writings." 143 Strangely enough, he liked the second part of Goethe's Faust: but he balanced that predilection by finding Wilhelm Meister the "intolerablest" story. c)A Miscellany of Men.—A multitude of other Victorians came to know Schiller and his work ; some of these to fall under the spell of his personality and the loftiness of his ideas; others to reject him, or to subordinate him to the more universal and earthly genius of Goethe. Their preoccupation with Schiller was in most cases something secondary and adventitious; to very few of those now to be discussed did he come in the nature of an essential experience or in the character of a life-guide. Henry Morley, the distinguished professor of English literature, witnessed in 1852 some of those performances of Schiller by the German troupe to which we have already made reference. Unfortunately he made no mention in his Journal of the greater Modern Painters, 1846, pt. 3, sec. 1, chap, x v ; "Works," ed. by E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, IV, 215-16. "'"Works," IV, 121 n. Academy Notes, "Works," X I V (1875), 274. ,u "Works," X X X V I I ( 1 8 7 9 ) , 277.

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of Schiller's dramas (if, indeed, he ever saw them performed), and was content merely to leave us his impression of two of the lesser tragedies, Cabal and Love and The Robbers. His judgment of these is marked neither by extreme novelty nor critical freshness. Cabal and Love struck him as "very German, in the worst as well as in the best sense of the word"; exhibiting, in its worst moments, the customary violation of good taste and sanity. In spite of this, it was a play "to go and see."144 The performance of The Robbers jarred on his aesthetic ear; the acting seemed to him marred by an exaggeration of the repulsive features of the text: Karl Moor was but a "mere daub of pitch." 145 Walter Bagehot, a name still memorable in criticism and political thought, made the usual Continental Tour in 1844, visiting the Rhine, where he was aroused to a pleasant reminiscence of one of Schiller's poems by the sight of Rolandseck. 149 Though Germany was never to assume an important rôle in his life, he made evident his intellectual choice between Goethe and Schiller in no undecided tone. He came to reject Schiller as among the elect artists of the world chiefly on account of an "unreality" which he discovered in his work and in his outlook. It is noteworthy that this "unreality" was the very element in Schiller's attitude and in his character which had made of so many Englishmen and Englishwomen more than his disciples. Bagehot's adherence to Goethe and his reaction from Schiller were voiced in 1864 in an essay on "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning." "The greatest artists of the world," he wrote, "have ever shown an enthusiasm for reality. To care for notions of abstractions; to philosophise, to reason out conclusions; to care for schemes of thought, are signs in the artistic mind of secondary excellence. A Schiller, a Euripides, a Ben Jonson cares for ideas—for parings of the intellect, and the distillation of The Journal of a London Playgoer, p. 35. '"Ibid., pp. 44, 45. Mrs. Russell Barrington, Life of Walter Bagehot, p. 136.

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the mind; a Shakespeare, a Homer, a Goethe finds his mental occupation, the true home of his natural thoughts, in the real world—'which is the world of all of us*—where the face of nature, the moving masses of men and women are ever changing, ever multiplying, ever mixing one with the other." 147 That this reaction against Schiller's "unreality" was not a lone occurrence is proved by the attitude of the great historian, Henry Thomas Buckle. Once, in 1861, Miss Thackeray prodded him with questions concerning his literary preferences. Buckle affirmed his devotion to Goethe's Faust with decision. He believed that it would live as long as the German language was understood. "Indeed," his biographer added, "he afterward, while traveling in the East, remarked that, next to 'Hamlet,' 'Faust' was the greatest composition that had ever been written. And what do you think of Schiller's genius? All his reply was, 'Schiller did not gird his loins.' " 148 But the positiviste, realists, and unitarians were not all on the side of Goethe. James Martineau, brother of Harriet, insisted on the superiority of Schiller over Goethe,140 though he was well pleased that the literary scepter of Germany had passed from Nicolai into "Goethe's royal hands." Men far from the intellectual and theological persuasions of Martineau were at once with him in his loyalties. William Whewell and Sir John Herschel were devoted to Schiller in a way which left no doubt as to their enthusiasm. They translated many of his poems. In a busy life, which included an epochmaking History of the Inductive Sciences, Whewell found time to make some versions of Schiller's poems, many of these of considerable merit, and one of Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea. In company with other German enthusiasts, among whom was 141

"Works," IV, 273. Alfred Henry Huth, Lije p. 316. ,4 " J. Estlin Carpenter, James 148

and

Writings

Martineau,

of Henry p. 160 n.

Thomas

Buckle,

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Herschel, he published in 1847 a volume of English Hexameter Translations from Schiller, Goethe . . ." 1 5 0 Whewell regarded Hermann and Dorothea as the "finest narrative poem of modem times," The Walk of Schiller as the "finest philosophical poem," and The Diver as remarkable for the artistry of its verse.151 To some others an acquaintance with Schiller's works came by way of the operatic stage. Thus Sir Frederick Pollock witnessed in 1847 a performance of Verdi's Mesnaditri, founded on The Robbers (probably the worst of Verdi's many works) ; and the musical critic and biographer of famous women, Henry Fothergill Chorley, recorded his reactions to Verdi's Luisa Miller (Cabal and Love), which he found a "tortured" thing. Don Carlos, also set to music by the great Italian, he thought "singularly gloomy and painful for an opera book," though he has words of praise and admiration for the "elevated nobility of de Posa." 1 * 2 All these names are still among the remembered. The two pretentious books on German literature by Joseph Gostick have been forgotten together with their author. In the first of these volumes, The Spirit oj German Poetry, his attitude toward Schiller is both a little supercilious and somewhat non-committal. He regarded much of Schiller's work as labored, devoid of spontaneity, and incomparably below that of Shakespeare in freshness.153 For the poet's tribulations and hardships he had a few condescending words of comfort and praise, for his devotion to the cause and idea of liberty some words of approbation. But he avoided the actual question of Schiller's greatness, deferring the answer "until we have some clear definition of ' " I . Todhunter, William Whewell, I, 166, 171, 286. 151 Mrs. Stair Douglas, Lije oj William Whewell, p. 429. IS> Henry Fothergill Chorley, Thirty Years' Musical Recollection, 149, 303, 383. '"''The Spirit oj German Poetry, London, 1845, p. IS.

pp.

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the word great."1** With an attitude as foolish as this it would be fatuous to quarrel. Nor is it important that Joseph Gostick reserved decision. Five years later he issued his German Literature; but the intervening years had brought him closer neither to Schiller nor to critical maturity. For Schiller's character he had renewed praise, deeming that superior to his poetic achievement, the quality of the latter seeming to "fade" as "we" review it critically. The "review" yields the conclusions that Don Carlos is "defective"; Wallenstein is great, but unfortunately "disfigured by long digressions and other defects"; William Tell is full of "strained sentiment and endeavours to produce merely theatrical effects"; but The Bride oj Messina is "perhaps the highest specimen of the author's poetic diction."105 154

Ibid., pp. 59, 65, 81. German Literature, London, 1849. I has'e used the Philadelphia reprint of 1854; p. 190.

PART FOUR T H E FIRST

CENTENARY

1859

CHAPTER

Χ

G. H. LEWES AND T H E COMPROMISE "I am neither a dramatist nor a poet," said the wise and honest Lessing. . . I think Schiller might have said the same.—G. H. LEWES'

George Henry Lewes was in his day admired for a mental versatility not a little astonishing. It found expression in criticism, philosophy, and fiction. But his claim on our gratitude and on posterity's memory is not, it is apparent, founded on his superficial Biographical Dictionary of Philosophy, nor on his novels of life-apprenticeship, nor on his multiple journalistic criticism. It rests almost exclusively on the Life and Works of Goethe which he published in 1855. G. H. Lewes came to Germany in his early twenties, in 1838, and followed his pilgrimage with a devotion to the thought and work of Goethe which was to bear rich vintage. Goethe was to form for him thereafter the focal point of an intellectual outlook, which was later to be reënforced by the positive philosophy of August Comte.2 As he grew older, his conception of Schiller shifted considerably, and his image of Goethe became more and more clearly limned. In 1843 he published in the British and Foreign Review an essay on Goethe, which, though it does not completely define, clearly anticipates his later outlook. This was a noteworthy paper; it attracted considerable attention on the Continent, and was translated into French and German, but it failed, so Lewes believed, to reach many of his countrymen who 1

Dramatic

Essays,

p. 212.

1

Howe, op. cit., chap. viii.

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might have profited greatly from its ideas and for whom it was primarily intended. 3 The essay on Goethe seems even today a striking piece of work. It seizes keenly on Goethe's central contributions and assays him primarily as the artist—the artist of "objective realism," to use a philosophic term loosely. Lewes was compelled to draw a contrast between Goethe and Schiller, and great as was his zeal in the cause of the former, it did not predispose him to slight or to minimize the force of the latter. Lewes' attitude toward Schiller is still characterized by a reverence which he was to shed very soon; and his recognition of Schiller's "idealism" is touched by sympathy and understanding. He thought that to Goethe's "objectivity" was to be attributed his failure to create great figures. "Schiller and he are contrasted in this light—unfavourably for Goethe. One was always animated by the ideal; the other always restrained by the real." He observed Schiller's propensity to draw "divine symbols" of humanity in the persons of Posa, Tell, Thekla, Joanna. While Goethe took humanity with its weaknesses and its shortcomings and its sufferings, he formed out of it the figures of Wilhelm Meister, Faust, and Egmont. " T h e one struck the common chord of aspiration which vibrates in exalted hearts ; the other brought the reality before the eyes of common experience. Goethe in his wisdom knew what men were, the best of them, and he has no exalted idea of them; Schiller in his poetic instinct (wiser than knowledge) saw that man was greater than he showed himself, and that an indefinite perfection awaits him—splendide mendax!" Most of Goethe's characters are marked by an outstanding weakness; but Schiller "loved to grapple with greatness, it warmed—it exalted him; it was the fountain of his inspiration; it was the region where all his " Letter to Macvey Napier, in the latter's Correspondence, (1844).

p. 463

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youthful dreams took shape; hence half the secret of his popularity." 4 This is clear, just, and critical. But between 1844 and 1850 Lewes appears to have undergone a revulsion from Schiller, especially astonishing after the candid valuation expressed in this early essay. In 1851 he witnessed a performance of The Robbers, produced at Drury Lane by John Anderson. He recoiled from its extravagances unequivocally. "This daring play," he said, "could only have been written by a boy of genius; a man of genius would have pruned the extravagances, and thereby destroyed its effect." Viewed as a work of art, The Robbers was guilty of vagueness, flatness, falsity of tone, and too much rhetoric. It was, in short, an "intolerable absurdity."5 Don Carlos filled him with terror. Not even the claims of professional duty could tempt him to review a performance of this play in London. " I did not go," he confessed. He had seen it, he adds, or better, he had "sat out" the play in Germany, and he now pledged his word that "all the king's horses and all the king's men" could not drag him to it again. " I t is not much of a favourite with me as a poem to be read, but as a piece to be acted . . ! Alfieri, in Filippo, has treated the story with intense dramatic power; Schiller has made it the utterance of some impassioned eloquence in favour of liberty, but has missed the tragic and dramatic style."® It is easy enough to predict Lewes' verdict on Cabal and Love. He laughed at a public that weis ready to believe that Schiller's name must necessarily cover all his works with a plenary glory and genius. " I hope the public was sufficiently bored on Tuesday to have distinctly made up its mind about this piece, one of the worst, and the worst acted, I have endured 'British and Foreign Review, 'Dramatic Essays, p. 137.

XIV (1843), 127-28. 'Ibid., pp. 204-5 (1852).

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for some time. For crudity of expression, and absurdity of dramatic conception—for outrages against taste, truth, interest, Kabale und Liebe is more than enough to justify Goethe's profound repugnance to the 'Sturm und Drang' period of Schiller's career." 7 Fiesco, too, came in for its share of abuse, as did The Bride oj Messina, both of which he again refused to "sit out." The only work of Schiller's which elicited words of praise was William, Tell, "his finest, because his last," and also, probably, because Lewes detected Goethe's restraining hand in the composition of the play. 8 Indeed, Lewes' distance from Schiller was so great at this moment that he was ready to deny him the qualities of both dramatist and poet, and would hardly have placed him above Lessing. Of course, Schiller possessed "more poetic enthusiasm and sensitiveness, perhaps a more delicate delight in beauty"; but he was as little a "born singer" as was Lessing.® So complete a rejection, so rigid and extreme, might well fill one with diffidence, especially when one approaches Lewes' magnum optts, The Life and Works oj Goethe. What measure of justice, we ask, can Schiller expect, now that Lewes has come to pay his final and inclusive tribute to the greater man? But our most fearful anticipations are disappointed. For in his book on Goethe, Lewes has succeeded in preserving an admirable equipoise. That this work does justice to Goethe— such justice as, perhaps, had not been done him even in the pages of Carlyle—is at once evident. But that its author should have been able to strike so admirable a balance between Goethe and Schiller was, after what we have already heard, almost inconceivable. To look at the pair, Lewes thought, is to see the profound ' Ibid., p. 205. 'Ibid., pp. 212-13.

'Ibid., pp. 256-57 ( 1 8 5 3 ) .

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dissimilarities which characterized them throughout. "Goethe's beautiful head had the calm victorious grandeur of the Greek ideal; Schiller's the earnest beauty of a Christian looking towards the Future." 10 Goethe had himself clearly indicated the distinction between Schiller's work and his own. Schiller was striving toward freedom; Goethe centered on nature. This distinction runs through all their work. Schiller was always pointing to something greater than Nature; he desired to make Demigods of men. Goethe, on the other hand, wished "to let Nature have free development, and produce the highest form of Humanity." 11 Lewes justly rebelled against the customary and stale description of Goethe as the "realist," and of Schiller as the "idealist." He observed that in comparison with some of his predecessors, Goethe might, with equal justice, be dubbed an "idealist," while Schiller, set beside Kant and some of his followers, could easily be called a "realist." 12 With fervor Lewes acclaimed the ministry of both men in behalf of Art and Culture, which they regarded with mighty reverence, and not merely as the play of idle moments. Art and Culture were for them deities exercising a potent and fruitful influence on the best portions of a man's life—ministrante of Religion herself. 13 This is a far cry from Carlyle's refusal to accept an aesthetic philosophy of life; a far cry, too, from Bulwer's conversion of Schiller to Christianity. Lewes recognized that Schiller had like Goethe separated himself from orthodoxy, and had woven for himself a system "out of Spinoza, Kant, and the Grecian sages."14 Of the fruitfulness of Schiller's influence on Goethe he is 10

The Lije and Works "Ibid., p. 187. "Ibid., p. 190.

oj Goethe, London, 18SS, II, 185. "Ibid., pp. 187-88. "Ibid., pp. 188-89.

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COMPROMISE

not completely convinced. Schiller unquestionably brought into Goethe's life a greater interest in metaphysics and the purely theoretical aspects of thought, and spurred him to a readier productivity. Had Schiller's example not "urged Goethe to rapid production," he would have called the influence "wholly noxious"; "but seeing what was produced, makes us pause ere we condemn." 15 What the ultimate influences were that wrought for Lewes' final acceptance of Goethe and his subordination of Schiller cannot, of course, be made wholly clear. Human life and thought are too complex always to lend themselves to facile explication —except to the doctrinaire. But one may venture this speculation: The positivist tendency of Lewes' thought could not have failed to contribute to a ready assimilation of Goethe's "realistic" point of view. For if there was any one element in which positiviste were notoriously united, it was in their distrust of metaphysics. This was the ground, we have already seen, of Comte's dismissal of Schiller. Lewes, even if unaware of Comte's specific rejection of Schiller, was not ignorant of the positivist attitude toward metaphysics, in which department Schiller had made notable contributions. T h e distinction which Lewes drew between Goethe and Schiller in 1843 is the very element which plays a part in the positivist outlook. His choice here was obvious and inescapable.

"¡bid.,

p. 215.

CHAPTER

X I

T H E F I R S T CENTENARY 1. GOETHE AND SCHILLER:

1855-1859

Preeminently were Schiller and Goethe their own poems.—New Quarterly Review1

Gradually yet indubitably the scepter of kingship passed from the hands of Schiller into those of Goethe. There had been, of course, voices which had for some time been acclaiming Goethe as the supreme potentate of German letters. But the general and more powerful voice of the times—reëchoed in the periodical press—had remained unswervingly loyal to Schiller. Nor was Lewes' book the lone impulse from which flowed the powerful tide of reaction. The "mental climate" of the age had undergone a startling change, and had in its general trends grown unfavorable to much of Schiller's thought. On the side of the idealists, Carlyle had long been proclaiming the greater and nobler Goethe, the Goethe of the renunciation, der Entsagende. On the side of the realists and the positivists, Lewes was preaching Goethe, the Artist. The stream of thought in the late forties and in the fifties had become emphatically charged with positivistic, scientific, and even materialistic deposit. The names on the lips of that generation were those of Marx, Büchner, Moleschott, Lyell, Feuerbach, Strauss, Darwin, Comte, and Spencer. Transcendental idealism was, for the moment at least, discredited. It was felt that a time of actualities had arrived. The real was to be studied. The period may be said to have ' I V (1835), 511.

248

THF.

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CENTENARY

adopted Pope's famous sentence, "The proper study of mankind is man," as its central gospel, in a sense which Pope could never have anticipated. What room was there for Schiller? Where and on what terms could he now contend with the "reality" as it was manifested in the demand of the times and in Goethe? The first reactions to Lewes' important book indicate the temper of the period. What only two decades before had been accepted as an indefeasible right of Schiller to a first place in a hierarchy of letters had now to be fought for on the field of controversy. The desire was still strong to hold by the old image of Schiller. But the knowledge was present that a revision of perceptions was necessary—that the best that could be granted Schiller without reserve was second place. Thus the National Review spent no less than sixty pages in discussing the merits of Lewes' Lije 0} Goethe—most of them in a reaffirmation of his central position. But the admission had to be made. If Schiller was perhaps a "keener and intenser nature," he was much narrower than Goethe, and could not but bow before the greater calm and universality of the older poet.2 "Before the eloquence of Mr. Lewes' first volume," Tait's Edinburgh Magazine confessed, "calm as it apparently is, the popular idea of the great poet [i.e., Goethe] melts away." 3 The grounds of the difference between Goethe and Schiller were reëmphasized, some of the more controversial questions of a decade before having been graciously taken for granted. "Few would contend that [Schiller's] genius was greater than Goethe's, or his powers as complete in breadth and diversity." Yet few would deny that Schiller's heart was larger; he possessed a warmth the other lacked; his appeal was universal; he drew the "loving, the weeping, the erring"—Goethe attracted only 3

National Review, II (185S-56), 242. 'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, XXIII (1856),

136.

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249

the strong souls, those who can "bear the excess of the intellectual and imaginative faculties over the heart and its affections." 4 Schiller's generous enthusiasms and high idealism could not be readily forgotten; nor the "lofty utterances, the inexpressible modulations and sweetness" of his poetry. "But our soul," added one writer, "was tuned to the lyre of Goethe." What attracts us to Schiller is the communication of impulse, stirring the heart to its inmost depths. What draws us to Goethe is the truth and the reality of his utterances.® Lewes' book will remain the "standard book on the subject"—a statement which can, with certain reservations, stand even today. Other signs pointed to a compromise and a revulsion from too fulsome an adulation of Schiller. Palleske's book on Schiller was censured by the British Quarterly Review for its narrow exclusiveness and its intolerance to genius which was not Schiller. Schiller himself, the review added, would have been the first to react against bigotry of this nature.® In some quarters Goethe was hailed as the "greatest poet of this age—the greatest German poet of any age.'" The ancient legend which would make him out as both vicious and immoral Weis derided. Far from being a subverting influence, Goethe's efforts were always enlisted in the good cause of morality. "Goethe's history shows that the object uniformly proposed in his writings was Truth, whether moral or scientific."8 Nor is it necessary to laud Goethe at the expense of Schiller. The latter has his own magnificent place. "From such an elevation he may indeed look down on the proudest examples of that 'developed mediocrity,' which is usually found on modern thrones." 9 'Ibid., p. 143. ·Eclectic Revieiv, CIV (1856), 447-48. 'British Quarterly Review, X X X I (1860), 264. ' Bentley's Miscellany, XLV (1859), 401. 'Westminster Review, L X X (1858), 296. 'Ibid., p. 615.

250

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F I R S T

C E N T E N A R Y

Another writer in the same review was touched by a visit to Weimar and the sight of Schiller's house, "where one of the purest and noblest spirits that ever breathed on earth passed away." 10 Schiller has "so invested his inheritance of time as to have earned at his death, a 'place among the chosen of all centuries.' " " A few were annoyed at this constant opposition of Goethe to Schiller, and urged an acceptance of both on terms of equality.12 One or two defended their idol Schiller with startling pertinacity. Thus, Hogg's Weekly Instructor went into an all-inclusive ecstasy over Schiller's plays. Even The Robbers did not escape the heat of its praise. "It may be questioned whether any of Schiller's other plays are superior to it in overwhelming interest and passion. . . It is irresistible." 13 Wallenstein is, in its opinion, worthy of Shakespeare; The Maid of Orleans is rendered by Schiller "more beautiful and immortal than ever." William Tell, however, outsoars them all. In it Schiller has "risen into the purest region of poetry." The Bride of Messina is superior to the rest in "artistic finish." What more expressive praise could Schiller have received in his own day? But this was not all. "Although we hold that the dramas are greater than the ballads, we do not hesitate to say, that his ballads are greater than those of any other poet." In reading Schiller, "we are holding communion with a noble-minded man, from whose lips flow perennial streams of wisdom and of truth; whose constant aim is to enkindle in our souls aspirations after the Beautiful; and whose heart beats with the warmest emotion for the highest and holiest interests of his fellow-men."14 Another review (we suspect it is from the same pen!) turned its attention to Goethe. "Goethe as a man, we not only dislike, "Ibid., L X X I (1859), 404. "Ibid., L X X I I I (1860), 319. "New Monthly Magazine, CXVII (1859), 446. 13 Hogg's Weekly Instructor, 3d ser., VI (1856), 37. "Ibid., pp. 38-40.

T H E

F I R S T

C E N T E N A R Y

251

but loathe." Amazing courage! Of course, his literary works arouse in us a great measure of admiration. But Schiller was "a man of a different order. Perfected through suffering, hardened by endurance . . . a man . . . with a warm heart, but a Pagan creed—Schiller might seem at sight still more remote from men, and disconnected from general sympathy, than Goethe." But, the review continued, such is not the case. Though he aspired like Goethe to be the artist, he did not cease, like him, to be a man. "He was," the paper concluded, "his own 'Diver,' 'lean and strong'—fearing no danger and no toil in his search after the Beautiful and the True; nay, loving to seek them in the very depths of the Maëlstrom."1® A violent attitude like this toward Goethe was by this time pleasingly rare; 10 though the warm praise of Schiller was emulated elsewhere. The London Quarterly Review, for instance, was second to none in its admiration of Schiller. In the whole range of German literature, it claimed, there is but one name that will "even bear comparison with that of Schiller." Yet Goethe was admitted his superior in many respects. In his love for humanity, in his profound sympathy with its sorrows and its failings, in his exultant hopes for its amelioration Schiller was said to have no equal. Of his works, The Maid oj Orleans and William Tell in this critic's opinion bear off the palm. Only the latter, however, can stand comparison with Shakespeare's plays. "Only in William Tell can you pass from the study of any of Shakespeare's dramas, and not feel that you have lost somewhat of your hold upon the firm earth of human existence."17 We observe this note of adulation of Schiller; but we feel it tempered by the feeling of diffidence in the presence of Goethe. If we are frequently reminded of the nobility of the former, of " The Titan, X X I V (1857), 98-100. It is found, however, in the pages of the New Quarterly V (1856), 11-16. "London Quarterly Review, XIV (1860), 109, 111, 142.

Review,

252

T H E

F I R S T

C E N T E N A R Y

his culture, his enthusiasms, his aspirations after "highest excellences," and his consecration to literature, we are also made aware of certain limitations. Schiller could not lay claim to Shakespeare's wondrous powers of portraying nature; nor to Goethe's many-sided genius and universality. "His, however, were the rare merits of another kind. . . Of these it is not the least, that he has bequeathed to mankind both the example of his life, and in the productions of his mind, the incentive to all that is noble, generous, and heroic, and an influence for all time on the side of virtue." 18 2. T H E SCHILLER FESTIVAL:

1859

Soll das Werk den Meister loben.—Das Lied der Glocke

von

" 'Who is Schiller?' was the question heard in the Crystal Palace."1® The question must have been on the lips of many who had strayed into that vast and ugly monument to British Imperial glory, on November 10, 1859, to celebrate the first centenary of Schiller's birth. For Schiller had been much in the news of the day; preparations for festivals had been bruited abroad, festivals in London, Liverpool, in Manchester, and in other large towns.20 Instigated by warm-hearted Germans, these had the qualities of charm and futility of all such celebrations; offering their usual measure of gratulation to the Germans in England and abroad, and justifying them in their pride in the land of their origin; offering, too, a measure of public notice among those who were not Germans, but loved Schiller none the less. "Tail's Edinburgh Magazine, XXIV (1857), 168, 172-73. " Athenaeum, 1850, no. 2, p. 671. See also Hermann: Deutsches blatt aus London, 1859, pp. 353-54, 372. 20 Ibid., p. 569.

Wochen-

THE

FIRST

C E N T E N A R Y

253

"When all is said—and when all was done—the day will live as a remarkable day in the annals of the Crystal Palace and among the records of the Germans in England." 21 Dr. Johann Gottfried Kinkel, then in professorial exile in England, delivered the memorial address, not without marring it by slighting references to Schiller's great friend—a depreciation of Goethe which was resented by at least one London journal. Kinkel's address is well-nigh forgotten, as are some of the other wellmeant and imposing portions of the festivities, to wit, a Schiller March by Carl William Gross, especially composed for the occasion ; a Festival Cantata, the words by Freiligrath and the music by E. Pauer. "During the performance of this cantata a colossal bust of Schiller (modelled for the occasion by Herr André Gross) will be unveiled." And finally, Schiller's Song of the Bell, set to music by Romberg, conducted by Herr Benedict, and sung by one thousand voices! All these one could easily forego now ; all save perhaps the playing of Henri Wieniawski, the great Polish violinist, and Rossini's overture to William

Tell.

It must have been pleasant on that day of the Schiller Feier to be able to say, with Goethe, "Er war unser!" Pleasant to go home with the feeling that at least one German poet had had unqualified triumph in England. Perhaps even to feel, with the Athenaeum, that whatever others might say, Schiller belonged to England and to Englishmen. "If a choice must be made between two great men, England's sympathies would possibly, as regards the majority, be for Schiller, preferably to Goethe;— because of his fire, his wondrously picturesque imagination, his direct and intelligible style." 22 Or, perhaps to agree at last that "English taste will long . . . be revolted at the fancy of extolling one hero by decrying another." " Ibid., p. 639.

"Ibid.,

p. 660.

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INDEX Abfall der Niederlande (Schiller) : see The Revolt of the Netherlands Account of the English Stage (Genest), 187 Account of the German Theatre (Mackenzie), xii, 10-11, 50 Adelmorn, the Outlaw (Lewis), 44 Adonais (Shelley), 124 Aeschylus, 13, 30, 111 Aesthetic Letters (Schiller), 145 Ahasvérus (Schubart), 122 Albert, in Osorio, 61 Alfieri, Vittorio, 243 Alfieri, Vittorio, and Schiller, 120 Alfonso, King of Castile (Lewis), 44 Alonzo, in The Monk, 42 American Revolution, 7 Ancient Mariner, The (Coleridge), 85 Anderson, John, 215, 243 An die Freude (Schiller) : see The Ode to Joy Anne of Geierstein (Scott), 53, 56 Anmut und Würde (Schiller), 79 Annual Review, 28 Anthologia Germanica (Mangan), 165, 229, 230 Anti-Jacobin; or, The Weekly Examiner, 16, 17, 18, 24, 26 Anti-Jacobin Review, 18, 19, 20, 21 Apocalypse, The, 29, 30 Ariosto, Lodovico, 70 Aristodemo (Monti), 120 "Aristomenes" (Byron), 122 η.

Armenian, The, in The Ghost-Seer, 48, 119 Arnold, Matthew, xiii, 57,197 Ash, Edward, 12 Athenaeum, 134, 154, 155, 158-59, 253 Austin, John, 177 Austin, Sarah, 177-79, 217; and Goethe, 177-78; and Schiller, 17879 Autumn near the Rhine, An (Dodd), 129-30 Bagehot, Walter, 234-35 Baillie, Joanna, 48, 111 Ballads of Schüler, 192, 193, 227, 230, 250 Barclay, John, 3 Baudelaire, Charles, 171 Beattie, William, 132 Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, 14, 170-74 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 147, 218 "Benevolent Cutthroats, The," 18 Bertha von Bruneck, 53 Bertram (Maturin), 125-26 Biographical Dictionary of Philosophy (Lewes), 241 Blackie, John Stuart, 179-82; and Goethe, 159, 180-82; and Schiller, 159, 180-81 ; opinion of Germany, 108 ; review of Menzel's Deutsche Literatur, 159 Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 115, 199

276

I N D E X

Bodmer, J . J., 5, 6 Boehme, Jacob, 4 Boileau, D., 13, 14 Borderers, The (Wordsworth), and The Robbers, 77-79 Börne, Ludwig, 157, 191 Bouhours, Abbé, 4 Bowles, Caroline, 84-85 Brandt, Sebastian, 3 Braut von Messina, Die: see The Bride o) Messina Bride of Abydos, The (Byron), 120 and n. Bride of Messina, The (Schiller), 32, 68, 74 n., 107, 110, 116, 117, 120, 131, 154, 164, 169, 178-79, 183, 201, 237, 250 British Critic, 14, 15, 22 British and Foreign Review, 241 British Quarterly Review, 249 British Review, 109 Brockes, Barthold Heinrich, 5 Brown, Charles Brockden, 123 Brun, Friederike, 77 Büchner, Fr. Κ. Chr. L., 247 Buckle, Henry Thomas, 235 Bulwer Lytton, Edward, xiii, 197206, 207, 214, 229, 245; and Goethe, 197-98, 199, 203-4, 205; The Poems and Ballads of Schiller, 199-206 ; use of The Robbers, 199 Bunyan, John, 136 Bürger, Gottfried August, 50, 56, 60, 77, 86 Bürgschaft, Die (Schiller), 56 Burns, Robert, 154 Byron, Lord, 68, 118, 171, 172; and German literature, 118-19; and Schiller, 119-22

Cabal and Love (Schiller), xii, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 31, 39, 40, 44, 47, 56, 60, 82, 83, 95, 101, 131, 183, 188, 193, 215, 234, 243 Calderón de la Barca, 117, 191 Campbell, Thomas, 8, 85-87,100; in Germany, 85, 86, 87; and The Robbers, 86-87; and German literature, 85, 86 Canning, George, 17 Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 136, 137 ; admiration for Schiller, 136 Carlyle, Thomas, xii, xiii, 27, 29, 30, 33, 89, 92-93, 94-95, 96, 134-47, 153, 156, 157, 159, 170, 171, 179, 200, 206, 229, 244, 245, 247; and de Staël, 102, 135, 137-38; and Goethe, 134, 136, 140, 145, 157; and Kant, 1 3 4 , 1 4 0 ^ 1 ; and Schiller, 135, 138-47; and Schiller's aestheticism, 140-41; and Schiller's view of poetry, 146; and Sterling, 166-67 ; background, 13435; conception of genius, 146-47; essay on Schiller, 142-45, 155; German studies, 135; insensitiveness to art, 147 ; Life of Schiller, 134, 136-37, 138-42; spiritual crisis, 136 Carré, Jean-Marie, 8, 39 n. Carson, Mr., in Nubilia, 47 "Cassandra" (Schiller), 80, 130 Castle of Montval, The (Whalley), 49 Castle Spectre, The (Lewis), 40, 42 ; and The Robbers, 42-43 categorical imperative, Kant's, 74, 79, 147 Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, 164 Channing, William Ellery, 167

I N D E X Characteristics oj Goethe (Austin), 177 Charles M o o r : see Karl M o o r Charlotte of Mecklenburg, 7 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Byr o n ) , 119 Chorley, H e n r y Fothergill, 236 Christian Temple, The ( H e m a n s ) , and The Gods oj Greece, 220 Christopher N o r t h : see Wilson, John Clough, A r t h u r Hugh, 176 Coelebs in Search of a Wife ( M o r e ) , 46 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, xii, 22, 30, 33, SI, 57-75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 85, 88, 122, 125, 132, 136 ; a n d German thought, 58, 60; and Goethe, 66, 67, 68, 89, 100; and The Robbers, 57, 58-60, 67; a n d Schiller, 58-75; conception of genius, 72-73 ; resemblance to Schiller, 6 9 ; "schöne Seele," 73; translation of Wallenstein, 16, 6465, 84, 91, 100, 132, 151, 163, 188, 219; view of ancient and modern art, 70-71 Coleridge, Sara, 229 Comte, Auguste, 170, 227, 246, 247 Constant, Benjamin, 153 Correspondence of Goethe and Schiller, 155, 167-68 Coverdale, Miles, 3 Criminal, The (Schiller), 187 Critical Review,

11, 13, 15, 21, 28,

40-41, 83-84, 110 Critique oj Pure Reason,

The

( K a n t ) , 5, 16 Cumberland, Richard, 44-45

2 77

Daniel Deronda (George Eliot), 228 Dannecker, H., 193, 223 Darley, George, 174 Darwin, Charles, 247 Death's Jestbook (Beddoes), 17374 De ChatiUon ( H e m a n s ) , 218-19 Dedekind's Grobianus, 4 "Dejection; an Ode" (Coleridge), 74 Dekker's The Gull's Hom-Book, 4 De l'Allemagne : see Germany Democratic Rage (William Prest o n ) , 20 De Montjort (Baillie), 48 De Quincey, Thomas, xii, 88; and Carlyle, 92-93; and German literature, 93-96; and Schiller, 9496, 100 ; attack on Goethe, 92-93 Descartes, René, 57 η. Devrient, Gustav Emil, 215 Devrient, Ludwig, 184 Diary (De Quincey), 93-94 Dibdin's Director, 23 Dichtung und Wahrheit (Goethe), 112,221 Diver, The (Schiller), 201, 236 "Division of the Earth, T h e " (Schiller), 223 Dodd, Charles Edward, 129-30 Don Carlos (Schüler), 21, 22, 28, 29, 34, 44, 47, 82, 83, 91, 95, 101, 107, 110, 111, 115, 117, 120, 131, 136, 142, 151, 174, 176, 183, 189, 190, 191, 193, 198, 201, 215, 217, 219, 222, 227, 236, 237, 243 Don Carlos (Verdi), 236 Don Pedro (Cumberland), 44-45 Downes, George, 129 Drake, N a t h a n , 23

278

I N D E X

Dretssigjährige Krieg, Der (Schüler) : see The Thirty Years' War Dublin Literary Gazette, 229 Dublin Penny Journal, 229 Dublin Satirist, 229 Dublin University Magazine, 16061, 229, 230 Dunstan, A. C., 70 Dyer's Poetic Sympathies, 25 Eclectic Review, 149, 209, 216 Edgeworth, Maria and R. L., Practical Education, 24 Edinburgh Review, 7, 116, 151, 156, 159 Egmont (Goethe), 242; Hazlitt's opinion of, 89; Lockhart and, 116 Eliot, George, 225, 227-28 Eilet, Mrs. Elizabeth, 54 Elliott, Ebenezer, 45 Elton, Oliver, 58, 171 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 167 Emilia of Lindmau (Houghton), 127-28 Empson, William, 156-57 Encyclopedia Britannica, 94, 96 English Hexameter Translations (Whewell and Herschel), 236 Ense, Rahel von, 180 Ense, Vamhagen von, 175, 180, 225 Entail, The (Gait), 45 Erlkönig, Der (Goethe), 51 "Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballads" (Scott), 50 Eulenspiegel, 3 Euripides, 28, 234 ; and Schiller, 110, 162

European Magazine, 19, 113 Examiner, 114

Excursion, The (Wordsworth), 80 n. "Expectation" (Schüler), 130 Falkland (Bulwer Lytton), 198 Fatal Revenge; or, The Family of Montorio (Maturin), 117, 126-27 Faust (Goethe), 51, 60, 77, 89, 100, 110, 116, 119, 123, 131, 142, 158, 160, 176, 180, 185, 189, 191, 217, 218, 221, 229, 233, 23S, 242 Faustus, Doctor, 3, 109 Ferner, James Frederick, 182 n. Feuerbach, Ludwig, 227, 247 Fichte, J. G., 58, 76, 106, 134, 147, 158, 226 Fiesco (Schiller), 13, 15, 21, 28, 51, 56, 82, 95, 101, 120, 142, 164, 188, 189, 198, 215, 220, 221-22, 244 Fiesko : see Fiesco Fmgal (Macpherson), 7 Foreign and Colonial Review, 216 Foreign Quarterly Review, 115, 153, 155, 209 Fortunata, 3. Fox, Charles James, 19 n. Fouqué, La Motte, 218, 221 Franz Moor, in The Robbers, 36, 47, 63, 79 Fräset's Magazine, Carlyle's Essay on Schiller, 142 Freiligrath, Ferdinand, 253 French drama, and the German compared, 12, 112 French language, and German compared, 8; Shelley's opinion of, 123 French literature, and England, 8, 215-16 French Revolution, The, 91 Fridolin (Schiller), 165, 176

I N D E X Friedrich Schülers Leben (Döring), 137 Galt, John, 45 Gandy, Edward, 176-77 Gang nach dem Eisenhammer, Der (Schiller), S6-S7, 165, 176 Geisterseher, Der: see The GhostSeer Geliert, Chr. F., 5 Genius, Conception of, in Coleridge, 72, 73; in Carlyle, 146-47; in Schiller, 72, 73 Genest, John, 187-88 Gentleman's Magazine, 11, 22, 149, 152, 213 George III, 7 German drama, 7, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 45, 49, 86, 102,112,114, 181 German Experiences (Howitt), 193, 194 German language, vogue in England, 7-8, 208; de Staël's opinion of, 105 ; George Eliot's opinion of, 227 German literature, and England, 37; de Staël and, 108-9; reaction against, 9, 16-23, 86-87, 100, 213; vogue of, 7, 15, 93, 105 ff., 14950; 216 German Literature (Gostick), 237 German morality, compared with French, 110 German Museum, 26 Germans, 4-5, 111 Germany (Madame de Staël), xii, 100, 103, 104-8; 109, 128, 224; importance of, 104, 105, 106, 148; reception of, 108-11 German Novelists (Roscoe), 186-87

279

Germany in 1831 (Strang), 191 Gerstenberg, H. W. von, 115 Gessner, Salomon, 6, 60 Ghost-Seer, The (Schiller), xii, 14, 35,36, 37,38,41, 42, 44,48, 52, 55, 56, 60, 61-63, 94, 99, 117, 119-20, 121, 123, 126-27, 173-74, 187, 198 Giaour, The (Byron), 119 Gillies, R. P., and Germany, 11416; and Schiller, 115-16 Glapthorne, Thomas, 4 Gleig, G. R., 192 "Glove, The" (Schüler), 130 Godwin, William, 78, 117 Goetz von Berlichingen (Goethe), 16, 40, 51, 121, 131 Gods of Greece, The (Schiller), 169, 204-5, 220, 231-32 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, xii, xiii, 6, 7, 8, 9, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 39, 41, 50, 51, 52, 66, 67, 68, 69, 77, 82, 84-85, 88-89, 92-93 , 94, 99, 100, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 116, 120, 129-30, 131, 133 n., 140, 142, 144, 147, 150, 168, 172, 175, 176 n., 179, 182-83, 189, 190, 191, 192, 207, 210, 213, 216, 217, 218, 220, 223, 225, 226, 227, 229, 230, 233, 249; and Beddoes, 173; and Bulwer Lytton, 197-99, 203-5; and Carlyle, 134, 136, 140, 145, 157; and Coleridge, 66-69, 100; and De Quincey, 9293, 95; and de Staël, 103, 106, 108; and Hazlitt, 88-89; and G. H. Lewes, 241-43, 244-46; and M. G. Lewis, 39; and Lockhart, 116-18; and H. C. Robinson, 25, 31, 32, 33-34; and Scott, 51; and

28ο

I N D E X

Schiller compared, see Schiller and Goethe compared; and Southey, 84-85; and Sterling, 167; and Thackeray, 184, 186; and Wordsworth, 76, 77, 81; first reception, 6, 7, 99; immorality, 192, 193, 210-11, 249, 251; ranked with Homer and Dante, 88; reaction against, 16-17, 157, 160, 194 Goethe, Ottilie von, 184, 223 Gosse, Edmund, 65, 170 Gostick, Joseph, 236-37 Götter Griechenlands, Die (Schiller) : see The Gods of Greece Gottsched, J. Chr., 5 Grabbe, Christian, 115 Graham, James, 94 Granville, A. B., 132-33 Granville, Harriet Countess, 228-29 Greeks, 70 Gross, André, 253 Gross, Carl William, 253 Guilt and Sorrow (Wordsworth), 80 n. Haller, Albrecht von, 6 Haller, William, 83 and n. Hamlet (Shakespeare), 235 Hare, Francis, 167 Hare, Julius Charles, 166, 168-69 Hare-Naylor, Francis, 129, 168 Harley, in The Man of Feeling, 10 Harper, George McLean, 79 Harper's Daughter, The (M. G. Lewis), 101, 188 Hawker, Robert Stephen, 174-75 Hawkins, Bisset, 192-93 Hayward, Abraham, 189 HazKtt, William, xii, 30, 87-92;

character and criticism, 87-88; and German literature, 88; and Goethe, 88-89, 90; and Schiller, 89-92, 100 Hegel, G. W. F., 225 Heine, Heinrich, 115, 157, 159, 175, 191 Hemans, Felicia, 75, 80-81, 164 n., 217-20; admiration for German, 218, 220; knowledge of German literature, 218; regard for Schiller, 218-20 Herbert, William, 101 and n. Herder, Johann Gottfried, 30, 67, 106, 158, 179, 180 Herford, C. H., 3, 40, 125-26 Hermann und Dorothea (Goethe), 235, 236 Herschel, John, 235-36 Historic Survey of German Poetry (William Taylor), 27, 29 Hodgskin, Thomas, 131-32 Hogg's Weekly Instructor, 250-51 Holman, J. G., 18, 22, 101 Homer, 230, 235 "Homeric Hexameter, The" (Schiller), 66 "Horae Germanicae," 115, 116 Houghton, Mary Arnald, 127-28 Houghton, Lord, Richard Monckton Milnes, 175 Hours of Idleness (Byron), 119 House of Aspen (Scott), 40 Howitt, Mary, 193 Howitt, William, 193-94 Hugo, Victor, 198-99 Hunt, Leigh, 125 and n. Ideale, Die (Schiller), 228-29 Iffland, A. W., 51, 102

I N D E X " I Grieved for Buonaparté" (Wordsworth), 79 Iliad, The, 70 Iphigenie, in Tauris (Goethe), 16, 28, 116 Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott (Brockes), 5 Irving, Edward, 137 Italian, The (Radcliffe), 36-38, 41, 127 Ivanhoe (Scott), S3, 54

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 6, 9, 77, 106, 110, 111, 129, 190, 191 Körner, Christian Gottfried, Correspondence with Schiller, 212-13,

Jameson, Anna, 220, 222, 223-24 Jeffrey, Francis, 116 Jonson, Ben, 25, 234 Joy, in Coleridge and Schiller, 7374 Jungfrau von Orleans, Die: see The Maid of Orleans

Lamb, Charles, 30, 66; and Faust, 88, 89 Lancelot Smith, in Y east, 231 Landon, Laetitia E., 162 Laocoön (Lessing), 5, 183 Lee, Sophia, 122 Legend of Montrose (Scott), 52 Leibniz, G. W., 4 Lenore (Bürger), 28, 50, 56, 81 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 6, 28, 29, 52, 60, 64, 69, 95, 105, 111, 180, 191, 233, 241, 244 Lewes, George Henry, xiii, 227, 24146, 247; and Germay, 241 ; opinion of Schiller, 241, 242-46; reverence for Goethe, 242-43, 244-46 Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 22,34,3944, 122; and Germany, 39; and Goethe, 39; and Schiller, 39-44; translator of Cabal and Love, 3940, 101 Liadières, P. Ch., 153 Lied von der Glocke, Das: see The

Kabale und Liebe: see Cabal and Love Kant, Immanuel, 58, 69, 74, 76, 79, 86, 106, 112, 134, 140, 141, 147, 202, 213, 225, 245 Karl Moor, in The Robbers, 7, 20, 24, 36, 40, 43, 44, 45, 53, 59, 80 n., 86, 87, 90, 116, 121, 126, 131, 152, 174, 193, 199, 234 Kelsall, T. F., 171, 172 η., 173 η. Kemble, Frances Ann (Fanny Kemble), 220-23, 224 Kemble, John Philip, 221 Kenilworth (Scott), 52, 54 Ker, Bellender, 33 Kingsley, Charles, 231-32 Kinkel, Johann Gottfried, and the Schiller Centenary, 253 Kleist, Heinrich von, 115 Klingemann, August, 115

226

Körner, Theodor, 85, 191 Kotzebue, August von, 6, 16, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 44, 82, 88, 102, 150; vogue in England, 9 Kraniche des Ibykus, Die (Schiller), 56

Song of the Bell Life and Works of Goethe (Lewes), xiii, 210, 241, 244-46, 247, 248 Life of Schiller (Carlyle), xii, 92,

282

I N D E X

94, 100, 108, 111, 134, 136-42, 148-49, 151, 153, 188, 197, 200 Literary Gazette, 111, 151 Literature of Germany (Thimm), 190 Lockhart, J o h n Gibson, 51, 80 n., 114; admiration (or Goethe, 11617; attitude toward Schiller, 11617 London Magazine, 92, 137 London Quarterly Review, 251 Lorenzo, the Outcast Son (Gandy), 177 Luisa MUler (Verdi), 236 Luther, Martin, 3, 4 Lyell, Charles, 247 Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge), 7, 63 Lytton, Robert, First Earl of, 206 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 176, 177, 197; and Schiller, 182-84 Macbeth, 227; Schiller's translation of, 192 Mackintosh, James, 104, 109 Mackenzie, Henry, xii, 50, 134, 172; "Account of the German Theatre," 10-11; and The Robbers, 10-11 Macready, William Charles, 188-89 Maid of Orleans, The (Schiller), 21, 29, 31, 32, 53, 56, 107, 123, 154, 164, 170, 183, 201, 214, 222, 224, 228, 242, 250, 251 Manfred (Byron), 229 Manfred, in Urania, 48 Mangan, James Clarence, 163, 165, 229-31 Man of Feeling, The (Mackenzie), 10, 50 Manuel (Maturin), 126

Manzoni, Alessandro, 189 Margraf, Ernst, 79, 80 η. Maria, in Osorio, 61 Maria Stuart: see Mary Stuart Marlowe, Christopher, Dr. Faustus, 89 Martineau, James, 235 Mary Stuart (Schiller), 19, 22, 52, 56, 87, 94, 95, 107, 113, 116, 131, 183-84, 189, 190, 191, 201, 215, 222, 223, 228 Massinger, Philip, 4 Maturin, Charles Robert, 117, 12527 ; and Coleridge, 126 ; and Schiller, 126-27 Mclotyre, Clara F., 35 Medea (Euripides), 102 Marx, Karl, 247 Max Piccolomini, 53 Mellish, J . C , 13 n. Menzel, Wolfgang, 157, 159, 180 Meredith, George, xiii. Merivale, Herman, 185-86 n., 214 Mesnadieri, I (Verdi), 236 Messias, Der, Klopstock, 77 Meteors, The, 18 Middleton, Thomas, 4 Mill, John Stuart, 170 Milton, John, 6, 59, 138, 153 Miniature, The, 3 Minister, The (Lewis), 40, 101 Mirandola (Procter), 174 Modem Dunciad, The (Daniel), 114 Moleschott, Κ., 247 Mitford, M a r y Russell, 226-27 Moir, George, 153-54 Monk, The (Lewis), 39, 40, 41, 44, 123 Monthly Magazine, 24, 26, 28, 84, 149

I N D E X Monthly Mirror, 9 Monthly Register, 22, 25, 26, 30 Monthly Review, 14, 26, 28, 65, 155 More, Hannah, 23, 46 Morley, John, xiii, 186 Morley, Henry, 233-34 Mudford, William, 44, 46-47 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 218 Müllner, Adolf, 115, 120 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror (Scott), 55-56 Mysteries of Udolpho (Radcliffe), 35, 36, 40 Nachrichten von Schillers Leben (Körner), 137 Napier, Macvey, 182 Napoleon, 104 Natural Son, The (Kotzebue), 9 Νeg e als Onkel, Der (Schüler), 228 New Helotse, The (Rousseau), 7 New London Review, 24 New Monthly Magazine, 113, 160, 212, 213 New Quarterly Review, 247 Nibelungenlied, Das, 171 Niebuhr, B. G., 182 Noctes Ambrosianae (Wilson), 117 Noehden, G. H., 13 n. Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare (Coleridge), 70, 74 η. Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), 171, 218, 225 Nubilia in Search of a Husband (Mudford), 46-47, 101 "Ode to Duty" (Wordsworth), 79 'Ode to J o y " (Schiller), 74, 207, 228

283

Ohlenschläger, Max Gottlob, 220 "On Reading Old Books" (Hazlitt), 89 "On the Fear of Death" (Hazlitt), 91 Oscar of Alva (Byron), 119-20 Osorio, Coleridge, 60-63 Ossian (Macpherson), 8 Oswald, in The Borderers, 78-80 "Ovidian Hexameter, The" (Schiller), 66 Oxford Quarterly Magazine, 172 Palgrave, Francis Cohen, 112 Palleske, Emile, Schillers Leben und Werke, 226, 249 Parisina (Byron), 120-21 Pauer, E., 253 Paul Clifford (Bulwer Lytton), and The Robbers, 199 Peacock, Thomas Love, 123 Piccolomini, The (Schiller), 22, 64, 80 n., 122, 185 Philosophical Letters (Schiller), 44, 124, 172, 174, 201, 215 Pitt, William, 19 n. Pizarro (Kotzebue and Sheridan), 9 Pleasures of Hope, The (Campbell), 86, 87 Plumptre, Anne, 9 Poems and Ballads of Schiller, The (Bulwer Lytton, tr.), xiii, 165, 199-206, 207, 208, 209, 215 Polidori, J . W., 118 Pollock, Frederick, 236 Pompeii, Hawker, 174-75 Pompeji und Herculaneum (Schiller), 174-75 Pope, Alexander, 248

284

I N D E X

Porter, Stephen, 24 Posa, in Don Carlos, 131, 158, 189, 219, 242 ; Carlyle's opinion of, 142, 144 ; de Staël's view of, 107 ; William Taylor's opinion of, 28, 29 Power and Principle (Morris Barnett), 215 Preston, William, 20 Procter, Bryan Waller, 174 Quarterly Review, 110, 111, 215-16 Quentin Durward (Scott), 53, 54 Rabener, G. W., 5 Radcliffe, Ann, 34-38, 41, 119, 122, 127; and Schiller, 35-38; and The Robbers, 36 ; and The Ghost-Seer, 35-36, 37-38 Ranke, Leopold von, 177 Räuber, Die: see The Robbers Rayner (Baillie), 48 Red Cross Knights, The (Holman), 18-19, 188 Redding, Cyrus, 87 Remorse (Coleridge), 61 Render, Wilhelm, 13 η. Repository of Modern Literature, 150 Revolt of the Netherlands, The (Schiller), 11, 26 Reynaud, Louis, 52-53, 121 Reynolds, Frederick, 8, 99, 113 Richardson, G. F., 189-90 Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich, 112, 157, 167, 218, 221 Robbers, The (Schiller), xii, 10-11, 13-14, 16, 17, 18, 19, and n., 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 36, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 55, 56, 58-60, 67, 68, 75, 77-79, 80 n., 82, 83-84,

86, 89-91, 95, 99, 101, 102, 110, 111, 113, 115, 119, 120, 122, 127-28, 131, 133 n., 141, 152, 154, 164, 169, 176-77, 184, 187, 188, 190, 192, 193, 201, 210, 215, 228, 234, 236, 250

107, 121, 151, 183, 199, 243,

Robinson, Henry Crabb, 16, 25, 27, 30-34, 39, 66, 94; and de Staël, 103, 104; and Goethe, 30, 32, 33, 34, 100; and Schiller, 31-34 Rogers, Samuel, 127 "Roland of Hildegonde" (Schiller), 130 Romantic literature, defined by Mme. de Staci, 106 Roscoe, Thomas, 186-87 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 176 Rossini, Gioachino, 253 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 8, 76, 170 Rovers, The (Canning, Frere, and Ellis), 17-18 Rural and Domestic Life of many, The (Howitt), 193 Ruskin, John, 232-33 Russell, John, 130-31

Ger-

Sachs, Hans, 3 St. Irvyne (Shelley), 119, 122 St. Leon (Godwin), 117 St. Petersburgh, a Journal . . . (Granville), 133 Saintsbury, George, 65 Sartor Resartus (Carlyle), 27, 221 Scarborough, Dorothy, 42 Schelling, Friedrich W. J., 30, 58, 76, 106, 147 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von, and Aeschylus, 13, 30, 111; and Goethe compared, 33,

I N D E X 109, 111, 112, 117, 129-30, 131, 143-44, 14S, 148-49, 155-63, 169, 191, 192, 194, 197, 208, 210-11, 214, 216, 217, 230, 234-35, 24445, 248-49, 251, 253; and Shakespeare, 12, 78, 110, 111, 117, 118, 133, 150, 151, 152, 163, 170, 186, 191, 192, 207, 210; centenary, xiii, 252-53 ; character, 24, 96, 109, 130-31, 159, 210; conception of "genius," 146-47, 169; first reception, 7, 100; idealism, 139, 157, 190, 207-8; "legend" in England, xi-xiv; morality, 22-23, 96, 110, 154, 212, 213; the "nobleman," xii-xiii, 106-8, 113, 130, 137-38, 143-44, 155, 160,193-94, 200, 22324, 230; paganism, 169, 178, 193, 203, 204-5, 231, 232; philosophy, 140, 141, 147, 156, 162-63, 202, 205; the rebel, xii; a religious man, 212, 245; the "saint," xiii, 161, 202-6; "untutored" genius, I I , 1 6 ; violence, 12-13,83,99, 111, 115 Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 58, 85-86, 87, 103, 175, 191, 218 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 225 Schönaich, Freiherr von, 6 "schöne Seele, die," 73 ; and Wordsworth, 79 Schröder, Fr. L., 9 Schubart, Chr. F. D., 41, 51 Scoloker, Anthony, 3 Sewell, Mrs. G., 39 Shakespeare, William, 9, 12, 20, 24, 25, 28, 30, 47, 53, 68, 78, 88, 110, I I I , 117, 119, 133, 168, 183, 191, 207, 235 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, xii, 57, 118,

285

120, 171, 172, 201 ; admiration for German, 123; and Schiller, 12324; compared to Schiller, 125; Faust translation, 119, 123 Shelley, Mary, 217 Sherer, Moyle, 132 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 61 Scott, Sir Walter, 50-57,65,117,121, 192; and Goethe, 51-52; and Schiller, 51-57, 100; interest in German letters, 50; translations by, 51-52 Seasons, The (Thomson), 5 Sendung Moses, Die (Schiller), 67 Ship of Fools, The ( B r a n d t ) , 61 Shirley, James, 4 Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 9, 31, 219 Sketches in Prose and Verse (Richardson), 189 Sketches of Germany and the Germans (Spencer), 191 Smith, Sydney, and de Staël, 103 Song of the Bell, The (Schiller), 21, 52, 80, 115, 130, 144, 164, 185, 202, 215, 219, 252, 253 Southey, Robert, xii, 27, 58, 59; and German literature, 81-85; and Goethe, 84-85; and Schiller, 82-85, 100; reviews of Schiller, 83-84 Speculator, The (Edward Ash), 12 Spencer, Edmund, 191-92 Spencer, Herbert, 247 Spencer, William Robert, 10, 16 n., 47-48 Spinoza, Baruch, 57, 245 Spirit of German Poetry, The (Gostick), 236-37 Staël, Madame de, xii, 30, 87, 100, 102-8, 109, 110, 121, 135, 142,

286

I N D E X

178, 188, 190, 206, 216, 217, 224; achievement, 105, 106, 108, 109; and Goethe, 103, 106; and Schiller, 106-8; Germany, 104-8; influence on Carlyle, 135, 137-38; in Germany, 103 ; in London, 1023; reputation, 102-4 Stella (Goethe), 17 Sterling, John, 166-68, 170 Stodart, J., 13 n. Strachcy, Lytton, 171 Strang, John, 190-91 Strauss, David Friedrich, 227, 247 Strich, Fritz, 205 Strictures on Female Education (More), 23 Student Life of Germany, The (Howitt), 193 Sturm und Drang, xii, 7, 16 Surgeon's Daughter, The (Scott), 55

"Thekla, a Spirit Voice" (Schiller), 80, 219 Thimm, Franz J. L., 190 Thirty Year's War, The, 4 Thirty Years' War, The (Schiller), 25, 132, 136, 154, 189 Thompson, Benjamin, 13 n. Thompson, L. F., 9, 35 Thomson, James, S, 6 Tieck, Ludwig, 115, 167, 175, 218, 221

Tolstoy, Count, 136 Torquato Tasso (Goethe), 221 "To the Author of The Robbers" (Coleridge), 57, 60 Tour in Germany, A (Russell), 13031 Travels in the North of Germany (Hodgskin), 131-32 Trench, Mrs. Richard, 23, 102, 129 Tytler, A. F., 13 η.

Symons, Arthur, 171 Tail's Edinburgh Magazine, 248-49 Taylor, Henry, 175-76 Taylor, William, 16, 27-30, 39, 50, 81, 82, 104, 150, 177; and Germany, 28-30; and Schiller, 14, 28-29; journalism, 28; translations by, 28 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 171 Texte, Joseph, 6 n. Thackeray, William Makepeace, 182, 184-86; and Goethe, 184-86; and Schiller, 184, 185-86 Theatrical Inquisitor, 102, 113 Thekla, in Wallenstein, 47, 136, 137, 163, 185, 193, 218-19, 222, 231, 242

Über die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen (Schiller), 71 Über naive und sentimentaiische Dichtung (Schiller), 70, 71 n., 72 n. Uhland, Ludwig, 180, 227 Urania (William Robert Spencer), 47-48 Vaughan, Mr., in Nubilia, 46, 47 Verdi, Giuseppe, 236 Verschleierte Bild zu Sais, Das (Schüler), 175 "Visit of the Gods, The" (Schiller), 66 Voltaire, François Marie Arouet, 5, 8

I N D E X Voss, Heinrich, 191 Votivtafeln (Schiller), 176 Wahlverwandschaften, Die (Goethe), 18S Walk, The (Schiller), 236 Wallenstein (Schiller), xii, 16, 21, 22, 29, 32, 34, 44, 47, 51, 52, 54, 56, 64-65, 67, 68, 75, 82, 84, 91, 95, 100, 107, 110, 111, 116, 117, 123, 131, 132, 136, 137, 139, 142, 151-52, 153, 154, 163-64, 170, 181, 183, 187, 188, 191, 193, 198, 201, 202, 214, 219, 222, 237, 250 Wallenstein, Albrecht W. E. von, 4, 189 Walpole, Horace, 7 Wandering Jew, The, in The Monk, 41 Wandering Jew, The (Shelley), 122 Waverley (Scott), 53 Weber, Karl Maria von, 218 Weber, Veit, 51 Webster, John, 173 Weddigen, Otto, 80 n. Werner (Byron), 119, 121-22 Werther (Goethe), 6, 7, 8, 16, 39, 46, 81, 85, 89, 90, 109, 110, 129, 185, 198, 226 Whalley, T. S., 49 Whewell, William, 235-36 Wieland, Christoph Martin, 6, 9, 30, 60, 86, 105, 120, 179, 185, 191, 221

Wieoiawski, Henri, 253

287

Wilde Jäger, Der (Bürger), 51 Wilhelm Meister (Goethe), 5, 100, 158, 160, 185, 197-98, 221, 226, 233, 242; Coleridge's opinion of, 69 ; De Quincey's criticism of, 9293; Wordsworth's censure of, 77 Wilhelm Tell: see WiUiam Tell William Tell (Schiller), 21, 29, 53, 56, 107, 116, 117, 129, J39, 141, 144, 151, 154, 170, 183, 185, 193, 201, 208, 215, 222, 242, 244, 250, 251 Williams-Wynn, Charlotte, 225-27 Wilson, John (Christopher North), 117-18 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 106, 218

Woodstock (Scott), 53 Wordsworth, William, 30, 63, 81, 82, 88,150,181, 220; and German thought, 76-77; and Goethe, 77, 81 ; and The Robbers, 77-79; and Schiller, 77-81, 100; compared with Coleridge, 75 ; visit to Germany, 76 "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning" (Bagehot), 234 Würde der Frauen (Schiller), 216 Yeast (Kingsley), 231-32 Young, Edward, 8 Young Germany, 157, 158 Zastrozzi (Shelley), 119, 122 Zeiger, Theodor, 80 η.

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