XIV.
SCHILLER. 1759–1805.
AFTER Goethe the greatest of German Poets, began life as a surgeon in the army. In his twenty-second year he produced his first drama, Die Räuber (“The Robbers”). Some passages in it betrayed the “cloven hoof” of revolutionary, or at least democratic, bias, and he brought upon himself the displeasure of the sovereign Duke of Würtemberg, in consequence of which he was forced to leave Stuttgart. His principal dramas are Wallenstein, Wilhelm Tell, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, Maria Stuart, and Don Carlos, of which Wallenstein is, usually, placed first in merit. Even greater than the dramatic power of Schiller is the genius of his ballad poetry, and in lyrical inspiration he is the equal of Goethe. Das Lied von der Glocke (“The Lay of the Bell”), one of his most widely-known ballads, is also one of the most beautiful in its kind.
In prose literature, his Briefe Philosophische (“Philosophical Letters”), and his correspondence with his great poetical rival, are the most interesting of his writings.
In Das Eleusische Fest (“The Eleusinian Feast”) and Der Alpenjäger (“The Hunter of the Alps”) are to be found the humanitarian sentiments as follow:—