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THE ROBBERS.

rule, and men throw by their arms.—Peace in Germany! Germany, this news has blasted thee for ever! Goose-quills for swords:—No, I won't think of it! Shall I tie down my tongue;—chain my will to their curst laws?—Peace in Germany! Curse on that peace, that would confine to earth the flight of an eagle.—Did peace ever make a great man?—'Tis war that makes the hero!—O, if the spirit of Herman were yet alive in his ashes!—Place me but at the head of a troop of men like myself, and out of Germany, beyond her limits.—No, no, no! It will not do.—'Tis all over with her,—her hour is come! Not an atom of spirit, not a free pulse in the posterity of Barbarossa!—Here, I bid adieu to all noble enterprise,—and seek once more my native peaceful fields!

Spiegelberg.

What the devil! you'll play the prodigal son upon us?—A fellow like you, who has made more gashes with his sword than an attorney's clerk has written lines in a leap year! Fie, fie! shame upon it! Misfortune shall never make a coward of a man!

Moor.

Maurice!—I will ask pardon of my father, and think it no shame! Call it weakness, if you please

—it

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