best schools in the United States. For perhaps fifty cents' annual addition to his tax-bill, he procures his child those means of education, which could not be had at a private academy under two or three hundred dollars. In this way every small trader and mechanic in Boston, at an expense wholly nominal, is enabled to give his children that education, which before was within the reach of independent fortunes alone. The case is precisely the same with the patronage of colleges.

Finally, we cannot but express our surprize, that the intelligent citizens of Connecticut should have given such just ground to the reproach of neglecting the interests of the College at New Haven. One would have thought that, with such ample means in their hands, the patronage of Yale College would have been the favorite policy of the state. Nothing in Connecticut can, of course, be so honorable to it as this institution. In no way can the citizens of Connecticut expect to exercise so considerable an influence on our common country, as through the medium of a literary establishment of commanding respectability, which gathers some of the most promising of the American youth into her chief city, to receive the most important part of their education, under the influence of her laws, manners, and character. To appeal, moreover, to a feeling which has perhaps had too great influence over the legislatures who have successively withheld the public patronage from Yale, we would add, that on the simple footing of pecuniary account, the state is much indebted to the college. The latter brings annually into circulation in Connecticut many thousands of dollars, and has done so for a long course of years. It lays no small part of the country under contribution, to increase the wealth of Connecticut; and it were but common justice in the state, to return into the funds of the college a small portion of the means, which the college gathers for the state. One can scarcely look on with patience and behold a fund of $1,700,000 exhausted in bounties to encourage the people to have bad schools, while one of the most respectable and useful colleges in the country is allowed to go a begging.

ART. XXV.-Friedrich von Schiller's Leben, aus theils gedruckten, theils ungedruckten Nachrichten, nebst gedrängter Uebersicht seiner poetischen Werke. Herausgegeben von Heinrich Doering.-The Life of Frederic von Schiller; compiled in part from materials before unpublished; with a concise review of his poems. By Henry Doering. Weimar,

1822.

THERE are few works in the English language more interesting than Johnson's Lives of the Poets; and in general a well written account of a great poet is nearly as delightful to read as his works. Good poetry is so rare and exquisite a product of the mind, that the few favored mortals, who are capable of affording it, have been in all ages and nations (as is well observed by the celebrated writer just mentioned) invested by public opinion with some of the attributes we commorly connect with the notion of divinity; and the accounts of their lives and writings have been always studied with an interest resembling that, with which we read the history of the incarnation and miracles of superior beings. Cood biography, as it is nearly as agreeable, is also perhaps quite as rare, as good poetry; and many a bard, after bestowing immortality upon crowds of patriots and heroes, has fallen short of his own fame with after

ages, for want of a life. As the glory of the brave perishes,

unless embalmed with the tears immortal' of some divine poet; so the memory of the poet himself, who saved others' names, but left his own unsung,' if it is not seasonably bottled up in spirit by some careful biographer, fades and dies away; and finally two or three thousand years after, there comes along a great German critic, and flatly denies in the face of his works, that any such person ever existed. Hence we have always looked upon it as a singular dispensation of Providence in favor of the fraternity of the British poets, that a writer, so well qualified in almost every respect as Dr Johnson, should have been raised up and strengthened to undertake the task of doing them justice en masse; securing them all from forgetfulness, and displaying them together, like a fine collection of pictures adorned with the golden framing of his own rich and sonorous prose, for the lasting admiration and delight of posterity. If bards and biographers, as may well be presumed, associate together in the flowery fields of Elysium, where we are told all good writers are admitted, it is easy to conceive New Series, No. 14.

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that the shade of the learned Doctor must enjoy—to use a diplomatic phrase-the most distinguished consideration with the whole company of British poets, whose lives he has recorded. Unfortunately few biographers can be advantageously compared with this great writer; and we regret to say, that the author now under review is far from forming an exception to this remark. It must be allowed, however, that his work, if it has no great merit, is nevertheless respectable in its way, makes but slight pretensions, has few glaring faults, and especially is brief, the best possible quality in an indifferent book. It consists of a plain recital of the principal facts in the life of Schiller, accompanied with critical remarks on his poems; the latter division of the work being rather inferior in value to the former. As the facts mentioned in the narrative are not perhaps very generally known to the public, we shall offer, in the present article, a summary of the most important, interspersed with such observations as may be supplied by Mr Doering, or naturally suggested by the subject.

Frederic Schiller was born at Marbach, a little town in Würtemberg, on the tenth of November 1759. His father, John Caspar, was bred a surgeon, and served in that capacity with a regiment of Bavarian hussars in the war of the Austrian succession. At the close of this war he returned to Würtemberg, and was there placed as adjutant and ensign in the Prince Louis regiment. With these characters he made the campaigns of the seven years' war, relieving at times the sufferings of his comrades by surgical aid, and occasionally supplying their spiritual wants by a sermon or a psalm. He seems indeed to have been a person of versatile, if not preeminent genius. After the peace of 1763, he retired from the army with the rank of captain, and was employed by the duke of Würtemberg to superintend one of his estates. In this charge he acquitted himself with great success; and he even acquired such skill in agriculture, that he afterwards published a book upon the subject, which obtained the honors of a second edition The mother of Schiller was the daughter of a baker of Rodweis, and is represented as a person of a kind and affectionate character, and of some poetical taste.

Schiller was not remarked at school as a promising boy. His genius seems to have been first excited by the opportunity of frequenting the theatre, which presented itself to him when

he was about eight years old, and he then made some attempts at poetry, and began already to plan tragedies. He continued, however, several years longer at the public school of Ludwigsburg, employed in classical and scientific studies, but without obtaining much distinction in either. His inclination at this period of life was for the profession of divinity, and the wishes of his parents coincided in this respect with his own. It happened, however, that the duke of Würtemberg was instituting at this time a military school at Stuttgard; and having heard a good account of young Schiller, had made up his mind to place him there as a student. His parents objected, that it was not a suitable school for theological studies; but the duke replied, that he could easily adopt a different profession, and the parents thought it prudent to conform to his wishes. cordingly, the future poet was admitted at the age of fourteen into this institution, where probably every thing was taught except theology, as Schiller had decided for the profession of law.

The studies connected with this profession soon became odious to him, and he determined to abandon it and apply to medicine. In reality, the passion for poetry had already taken complete possession of his mind, and any employment that did not tend to gratify it appeared tasteless and irksome. About the time that he entered the school, he wrote an epic poem, entitled Moses, and a tragedy upon the history of Cosmo de' Medici. These immature productions were inspired by the popularity of Klopstock and Lessing. The smaller pieces that he wrote at this period gave, we are told, but slight indications of his future merit. Meantime, he employed his leisure in literary studies. He was induced, by hearing a passage quoted from Shakspeare in a public lecture, to attempt the reading of him; but he took very little pleasure in it, his taste not being sufficiently mature to enjoy the sublime and beautiful display of true nature exhibited in the works of our great dramatist. At a riper age he had learned to read him with different feelings, and his remarks upon the subject, in a letter written at that time, are somewhat curious:

When early in life I first became acquainted with Shakspeare,' he observes, I was repelled by the want of sentiment, which permitted him to introduce passages of low mirth in scenes of the deepest tenderness; to degrade the most pathetic parts of Ham

let, King Lear, and Macbeth, by bringing in clowns and gravediggers; to dilate with apparent pleasure on offensive subjects, and then to hurry on relentlessly where the heart would delight to have had him dwell. I had studied and respected him in short for many years, before I began to read him with a true relish. I was not capable at that time of enjoying nature at the first hand.'

In these remarks Schiller has certainly pointed out a real defect in the manner of Shakspeare; but it is doubtful whether he has given the true reason, why he did not at first take pleasure in reading him. We apprehend in fact, that it is the merit, and not the faults, whatever they may be, of Shakspeare, which makes his writings less agreeable to an immature taste, than many others of far inferior value. The taste of childhood is indifferent to real beauty; and when a sensible mind first catches a glimpse of the action of life, it is dazzled and bewildered with a thousand illusions, and wholly unable to estimate with certainty the value of appearances in art or nature. To a lad of fifteen a stage-player is a greater hero than Washington, or even Bonaparte; Amadis de Gaul a much more interesting work than Don Quixote; and the Arabian, Tales the highest effort of the human understanding. The mass of mankind, whose real life lies without the sphere of elevated thoughts and actions, and who have no time to study, never correct their false notions, nor acquire just ones. If they assemble in crowds to see a representation of Cato, it is not from a love of noble sentiment, expressed in lofty language; but they go, as Pope says, to see the 'bag-wig, flowered gown, and elbow-chair.' As the influence of the world has unfortunately a natural tendency to chill the heart, as well as to inform the mind, a great proportion of the smaller number of persons, whose habits and studies are of a higher description, lose in feeling what they gain in judgment. Hence arises the rarity of the power of producing fine imitations of nature, and of valuing them when produced by others, or, in other words, of genius and taste, which are only different operations of the same agents, and which demand the union of experience and sensibility.

The genius of Schiller soon reached the highest point of vigor, if not of maturity, that it ever attained. The Robbers, the most powerful, if not the best of his productions, was written at about the age of eighteen, while he was still at the