The Life of Friedrich Schiller. Томас Карлейль

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СКАЧАТЬ in his estimation: the difficulties of the art, as he viewed it at present, had been overcome, and new conquests invited him in other quarters. The latter part of Carlos he had written as a task rather than a pleasure; he contemplated no farther undertaking connected with the Stage. For a time, indeed, he seems to have wavered among a multiplicity of enterprises; now solicited to this, and now to that, without being able to fix decidedly on any. The restless ardour of his mind is evinced by the number and variety of his attempts; its fluctuation by the circumstance that all of them are either short in extent, or left in the state of fragments. Of the former kind are his lyrical productions, many of which were composed about this period, during intervals from more serious labours. The character of these performances is such as his former writings gave us reason to expect. With a deep insight into life, and a keen and comprehensive sympathy with its sorrows and enjoyments, there is combined that impetuosity of feeling, that pomp of thought and imagery which belong peculiarly to Schiller. If he had now left the Drama, it was clear that his mind was still overflowing with the elements of poetry; dwelling among the grandest conceptions, and the boldest or finest emotions; thinking intensely and profoundly, but decorating its thoughts with those graces, which other faculties than the understanding are required to afford them. With these smaller pieces, Schiller occupied himself at intervals of leisure throughout the remainder of his life. Some of them are to be classed among the most finished efforts of his genius. The Walk, the Song of the Bell, contain exquisite delineations of the fortunes and history of man; his Ritter Toggenburg, his Cranes of Ibycus, his Hero and Leander, are among the most poetical and moving ballads to be found in any language.

      Of these poems, the most noted written about this time, the Freethinking of Passion (Freigeisterei der Leidenschaft), is said to have originated in a real attachment. The lady, whom some biographers of Schiller introduce to us by the mysterious designation of the 'Fräulein A *  *  *, one of the first beauties in Dresden,' seems to have made a deep impression on the heart of the poet. They tell us that she sat for the picture of the princess Eboli, in his Don Carlos; that he paid his court to her with the most impassioned fervour, and the extreme of generosity. They add one or two anecdotes of dubious authenticity; which, as they illustrate nothing, but show us only that love could make Schiller crazy, as it is said to make all gods and men, we shall use the freedom to omit.

      This enchanting and not inexorable spinster perhaps displaced the Mannheim Laura from her throne; but the gallant assiduities, which she required or allowed, seem not to have abated the zeal of her admirer in his more profitable undertakings. Her reign, we suppose, was brief and without abiding influence. Schiller never wrote or thought with greater diligence than while at Dresden. Partially occupied with conducting his Thalia, or with those more slight poetical performances, his mind was hovering among a multitude of weightier plans, and seizing with avidity any hint that might assist in directing its attempts. To this state of feeling we are probably indebted for the Geisterseher, a novel, naturalised in our circulating libraries by the title of the Ghostseer, two volumes of which were published about this time. The king of quacks, the renowned Cagliostro, was now playing his dextrous game at Paris; harrowing-up the souls of the curious and gullible of all ranks in that capital, by various thaumaturgic feats; raising the dead from their graves; and, what was more to the purpose, raising himself from the station of a poor Sicilian lacquey to that of a sumptuous and extravagant count. The noise of his exploits appears to have given rise to this work of Schiller's. It is an attempt to exemplify the process of hoodwinking an acute but too sensitive man; of working on the latent germ of superstition, which exists beneath his outward scepticism; harassing his mind by the terrors of magic,—the magic of chemistry and natural philosophy and natural cunning; till, racked by doubts and agonising fears, and plunging from one depth of dark uncertainty into another, he is driven at length to still his scruples in the bosom of the Infallible Church. The incidents are contrived with considerable address, displaying a familiar acquaintance, not only with several branches of science, but also with some curious forms of life and human nature. One or two characters are forcibly drawn; particularly that of the amiable but feeble Count, the victim of the operation. The strange Foreigner, with the visage of stone, who conducts the business of mystification, strikes us also, though we see but little of him. The work contains some vivid description, some passages of deep tragical effect: it has a vein of keen observation; in general, a certain rugged power, which might excite regret that it was never finished. But Schiller found that his views had been mistaken: it was thought that he meant only to electrify his readers, by an accumulation of surprising horrors, in a novel of the Mrs. Radcliffe fashion. He felt, in consequence, discouraged to proceed; and finally abandoned it.

      Schiller was, in fact, growing tired of fictitious writing. Imagination was with him a strong, not an exclusive, perhaps not even a predominating faculty: in the sublimest flights of his genius, intellect is a quality as conspicuous as any other; we are frequently not more delighted with the grandeur of the drapery in which he clothes his thoughts, than with the grandeur of the thoughts themselves. To a mind so restless, the cultivation of all its powers was a peremptory want; in one so earnest, the love of truth was sure to be among its strongest passions. Even while revelling, with unworn ardour, in the dreamy scenes of the Imagination, he had often cast a longing look, and sometimes made a hurried inroad, into the calmer provinces of reason: but the first effervescence of youth was past, and now more than ever, the love of contemplating or painting things as they should be, began to yield to the love of knowing things as they are. The tendency of his mind was gradually changing; he was about to enter on a new field of enterprise, where new triumphs awaited him.

      For a time he had hesitated what to choose; at length he began to think of History. As a leading object of pursuit, this promised him peculiar advantages. It was new to him; and fitted to employ some of his most valuable gifts. It was grounded on reality, for which, as we have said, his taste was now becoming stronger; its mighty revolutions and events, and the commanding characters that figure in it, would likewise present him with things great and moving, for which his taste had always been strong. As recording the past transactions, and indicating the prospects of nations, it could not fail to be delightful to one, for whom not only human nature was a matter of most fascinating speculation, but who looked on all mankind with the sentiments of a brother, feeling truly what he often said, that 'he had no dearer wish than to see every living mortal happy and contented with his lot.' To all these advantages another of a humbler sort was added, but which the nature of his situation forbade him to lose sight of. The study of History, while it afforded him a subject of continuous and regular exertion, would also afford him, what was even more essential, the necessary competence of income for which he felt reluctant any longer to depend on the resources of poetry, but which the produce of his pen was now the only means he had of realising.

      For these reasons, he decided on commencing the business of historian. The composition of Don Carlos had already led him to investigate the state of Spain under Philip II.; and, being little satisfied with Watson's clear but shallow Work on that reign, he had turned to the original sources of information, the writings of Grotius, Strada, De Thou, and many others. Investigating these with his usual fidelity and eagerness, the Revolt of the Netherlands had, by degrees, become familiar to his thoughts; distinct in many parts where it was previously obscure; and attractive, as it naturally must be to a temper such as his. He now determined that his first historical performance should be a narrative of that event. He resolved to explore the minutest circumstance of its rise and progress; to arrange the materials he might collect, in a more philosophical order; to interweave with them the general opinions he had formed, or was forming, on many points of polity, and national or individual character; and, if possible, to animate the whole with that warm sympathy, which, in a lover of Freedom, this most glorious of her triumphs naturally called forth.

      In the filling-up of such an outline, there was scope enough for diligence. But it was not in Schiller's nature to content himself with ordinary efforts; no sooner did a project take hold of his mind, than, rallying round it all his accomplishments and capabilities, he stretched it out into something so magnificent and comprehensive, that little less than a lifetime would have been sufficient to effect it. This History of the Revolt of the Netherlands, which formed his chief study, he looked upon but as one СКАЧАТЬ