concerning the daughter, signifying "that the brothers

The father orders the

The queen, however,

shall be united in love of her."
girl-child to be thrown into the sea.
contrives to save her, and has her brought up secretly in a
secluded convent. But it happens that both brothers see
her, and not knowing who she is, each seeks her for his
bride. After the death of the father the princess succeeds
in reconciling her sons, and tells them that their sister lives.
Beatrice is to be brought home by an old and faithful
servant-but she has disappeared from the convent. The
brothers severally seek her. Don Cesar finds her in Don
Manuel's arms, and not realizing that she is their sister, not
the bride he hoped for, Don Cesar stabs his brother to the
heart. When he hears the truth from his mother's lips,
Don Cesar avenges on himself his brother's death, and
stabs himself to expiate his crime.

"Das Leben ist der Güter höchstes nicht,
Der Übel gröfstes aber is die Schuld.”

The poet's brilliant dramatic work was drawing to an end. Not inspiration, or poetic power, was to fail him, but life itself. Struggling against disease with that pure philosophy which rises superior to physical ease and mere earthly happiness, Schiller had fought the good fight, but his remaining strength was all too soon to leave him. His "Demetrius," a tragedy of highest promise, remained a fragment. But before the brilliant roll was ended, he won his highest title to the lasting love and honour of his countrymen by his

Wilhelm Tell.-This, the greatest work of this great dramatist, appeared in 1804.

From the early days of his Würtemberg experiences till his quiet years in Weimar, from the extravagances of his early plays to the ripe taste and chastened beauty of his last great drama, the same idea had actuated him—the cult of an ideal and glorified liberty.

The subject of the Swiss struggle was necessarily attractive to him, and furnished matter worthy of his masterpiece. In the "Braut von Messina," Schiller had departed from the invariable rule in all his plays since its introduction in "Don Carlos,"- a certain historical foundation. In "Wilhelm Tell" he returned to history, authentic or legendary, as we may choose to regard it. His conception of the Swiss hero is high. He entirely justifies the murder of Gessler, the tyrant whose life brought daily ruin to thousands, and contrasts Tell's deed of righteous vengeance in the sacred cause of liberty with Johannes Parricida's murder of his uncle

"Zum Himmel heb' ich meine reinen Hände,
Verfluche dich und deine That!"

Stauffacher and his wife are two of the most grandly drawn characters. The heroic Gertrud, who would dare all for her Fatherland, and in the last extremity put an end to her own life

-"Ein Sprung von dieser Brücke macht mich frei!"

is contrasted with Tell's own wife, Hedwig, a far less courageous woman, fearing for her husband, accusing him of hard-heartedness and cruelty, fearing for her children, but a faithful wife at heart. Through all the telling of the well-known story, Schiller's splendid flow of language equals his splendid flow of iambic verse. "Wilhelm Tell" is one of the great masterpieces of European literature.

We have still to consider Schiller's ballads and lyrics, as well as his fine achievements in prose. The two best known of the latter are

Abfall der Niederlande, a subject to which the author had been led by his play of "Don Carlos," and

Der dreissigjährige Krieg, which led to the tragedy of "Wallenstein." Both show Schiller to have been not a

poet alone, but a brilliant historian, not always reliable in his facts as he himself admits, but admirable in his style. His "Essays" on various literary and artistic subjects are in every way excellent, and his

Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen contains valuable ideas for a philosophy of the Beautiful.

Schiller's earlier lyrical poems have that tendency to gorgeous word-painting and high-sounding language which characterized his youth;

Hektors Abschied is an example. "Die Götter Griechenlands" shows development both in form and language. In later ballads, such as "Der Taucher,' ," "Der Ring des Polykrates," "Die Kraniche des Ibykus," "Der Kampf mit dem Drachen," Schiller earned well his unexampled popularity. He is equal to all the varying subjects, his epical power of description, his dramatic handling of the action, enchain the imagination without flagging. Nor is the sentimental poem, such as "Der Ritter Toggenburg," foreign to his genius; and the charming little lyric, "Das Mädchen aus der Fremde," is known to every reader of German. It is impossible to enumerate many here, but one of Schiller's best known poems,

Das Lied von der Glocke is a masterpiece in its style-of which Longfellow's "Building of the Ship" is the best of many weak reproductions-an unstrained and perfectly harmonious blending of the poetry and pathos of human life, with the materialistic description of the "Casting of the Bell."

It was in 1805 that Schiller's song sank into silence. The beginning of our century saw the disappearance of many great names in German literature; but the men who died then, such as Kant and Klopstock, might consider their work ended. They died full of years and honours, but Schiller was cut off in his prime. The death of the friend whose loyalty had never wavered, was a hard blow

to Goethe. The elder man had still years of life before him, but the younger, who had borne year-long suffering with the heroism of a Spartan and the resignation of a martyr, who had allowed no bodily suffering to dim the serene light of his genius, was taken away from his long struggle when only forty-six, and his loss awakened infinite regret.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. AUGUST VON PLATEN. THE AUSTRIAN POETS.

WHILE Goethe, abandoning the greater licence of his early days, was returning more closely to classical models and inculcating such a return by all the weight of his great name and example, the so-called "Romantiker" had formed a new school, of which the University of Jena was the starting-point, and the philosophy of Fichte, in opposition to that of Kant, the groundwork. Old Germanic poetry, Folk-songs, and Folk-lore, inspired the romantic poets; they were thoroughly subjective, and held themselves bound by no rules; for the imagination, as sovereign over reason, was allowed full sway.

The Romantic School showed its influence in all departments of literature and science, but some writers only can be considered here.

The group of men called "ältere Romantiker was composed of Friedrich von Hardenberg, the brothers Schlegel, and Ludwig Tieck.

Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772-1801), better known by his pseudonym

Novalis, possessed many of the characteristics of the old Mystics. He is marked by purity of thought, mystical piety, and unbounded imaginative faculty. He wrote Gedichte," "Geistliche Lieder" and "Hymnen an die Nacht." His prose work is the fragment of a novel,