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place, pretend to attempt it: we have no finished portrait of his character to offer, no formal estimate of his works. It will be enough for us if, in glancing over his life, we can satisfy a simple curiosity, about the fortunes and chief peculiarities of a man connected with us by a bond so kindly as that of the teacher to the taught, the giver to the receiver of mental delight; if, in wandering through his intellectual creation, we can enjoy once more the magnificence and fragrant beauty of that fairy land, and express our feelings, where we do not aim at judging and deciding.
Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller was a native of Marbach, a small town of Würtemberg, situated on the banks of the Neckar. He was born on the 10th of November, 1759, a few months later than our own Robert Burns. Schiller’s early culture was favoured by the dispositions, but obstructed by the outward circumstances of his parents. Though removed above the pressure of poverty, their station was dependent and fluctuating; it involved a frequent change of place and plan. Johann Caspar Schiller, the father, had been a surgeon in the Bavarian army; he served in the Netherlands during the Succession War. After his return home to Würtemberg, he laid aside the medical profession, having obtained a commission of ensign and adjutant under his native Prince. This post he held successively in two regiments; he had changed into the second, and was absent on active duty when Friedrich was born. The peace of Paris put an end to his military employment; but Caspar had shown himself an intelligent, unassuming, and useful man, and the Duke of Würtemberg was willing to retain him in his service. The laying out of various nurseries and plantations in the pleasure-grounds of Ludwigsburg and Solitude was entrusted to the retired soldier, now advanced to the rank of Captain: he removed from one establishment to another, from time to time; and continued in the Duke’s pay till death. In his latter years he resided chiefly at Ludwigsburg.
This mode of life was not the most propitious for educating such a boy as Friedrich; but the native worth of his parents did more than compensate for the disadvantages of their worldly condition and their limited acquirements in knowledge. The benevolence, the modest and prudent integrity, the true devoutness of these good people shone forth at an after period, expanded and beautified in the character of their son: his heart was nourished by a constant exposure to such imfluences, and thus the better part of his education prospered well. The mother was a woman of many household virtues; to a warm affection for her children and husband she joined a degree of taste and intelligence which seldom goes along with it. She is said to have been a lover of poetry; in particular an admiring reader of Utz and Gellert, writers whom it is creditable for one in her situation to have relished.[1] Her kindness and tenderness of heart peculiarly endeared her to Friedrich. Her husband appears to have been a person of great probity and meekness of temper, sincerely desirous to approve himself a useful member of society, and to do his duty conscientiously to all men. The seeds of many valuable qualities had been sown in him by nature; and though his early life had been unfavourable for their cultivation, he laboured not without success to remedy this disadvantage, in subsequent times. Such branches of science and philosophy as lay within his reach he studied with diligence, whenever his professional employments left him leisure: on a subject connected with the latter he became an author.[2] But what chiefly distinguished him was the practice of a sincere piety, which seems to have diffused itself over all his feelings, and given to his clear and honest character that calm elevation which, in such a case, is its natural result. As his religion mingled itself with every motive and action of life, the wish which in all his wan-