Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell

Thomas Carlyle, the celebrated literary moralist, was born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, De, 1795. He was educated at the village school and at the Annan Grammar School, proceeding to Edinburgh University in 1809. The breakdown of his dogmatic beliefs made it impossible for him to enter the clerical profession, and neither school-teaching nor the study of law attracted him. Supporting himself by private teaching, Carlyle made the beginnings of a literary connection. He fought his way under great difficulties; he was hard to govern; he was a painfully slow writer; and ignorance and rusticity mar his work to the very end. Yet a fiery revolt against impostures, an ardent sympathy for humanity, a worship of the heroic, an immutable confidence in the eternal verities, and occasionally a wonderful perception of beauty, made Carlyle one of the most influential English writers of the nineteenth century. His marriage in 1826 with Jane Baillie Welsh was an unhappy one. Carlyle died on February 4, 1881, having survived his wife fifteen years. The three volumes of “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” with élucidations by Carlyle, were published in 1845; the first work, one might say, conveying a sympathetic appreciation of the great Protector, all histories of the man and his times having been hitherto written from the point of view either of the Royalists or of the revolutionary Whigs. To neither of these was an understanding of Puritanism at all possible. Moreover, to the Cavaliers, Cromwell was a regicide; to the Whigs he was a military usurper who dissolved parliaments. To both he was a Puritan who applied Biblical phraseology to practical affairs-therefore, a canting hypocrite, though undoubtedly a man of great capacity and rugged force.

I.-Puritan Oliver

One wishes there were a history of English Puritanism, the last of all our heroisms. At bottom, perhaps, no nobler heroism ever transacted itself upon this earth; and it lies as good as lost to us in the elysium we English have provided for our heroes! The Rushworthian elysium. Dreariest continent of shot-rubbish the eye ever saw. Puritanism is not of the nineteenth century, but of the seventeenth; it is grown unintelligible, what we may call incredible. Heroes who knew in every fibre, and with heroic daring laid to heart, that an Almighty justice does verily rule this world; that it is good to fight on God’s side, and bad to fight on the devil’s side. Well, it would seem the resuscitation of a heroism from the past is no easy enterprise.

Of Biographies of Cromwell, there are none tolerable. Oliver’s father was a country gentleman of good estate, not a brewer; grandson of Sir Richard Cromwell, or Williams, nephew of Thomas Cromwell “mauler of monasteries”; his mother a Stuart (Steward), twelfth cousin or so of King Charles. He was born in 1599, went to Cambridge in the month that Shakespeare died. Next year his father died, and Oliver went no more to Cambridge. He was the only son. In 1620 he married.

He sat in the Parliament of 1628-29; the Petition of Right Parliament; a most brave and noble Parliament, ending with that scene when Holles held the Speaker down in his chair. The last Parliament in England for above eleven years. Notable years, what with soap-monopoly, ship-money, death of the great Gustavus at Lutzen, pillorying of William Prynne, Jenny Geddes, and National Covenant, old Field-Marshal Lesley at Dunse Law and pacification thereafter nowise lasting.

To chastise the Scots, money is not attainable save by a Parliament, which at last the king summons. This “Short Parliament,” wherein Oliver sits for Cambridge, is dismissed, being not prompt with supplies, which the king seeks by other methods. But the army so raised will not fight the Scots, who march into Northumberland and Durham. Money not to be had otherwise than by a Parliament, which is again summoned; the Long Parliament, which did not finally vanish till 1660. In which is Oliver again, “very much hearkened unto,” despite “linen plain and not very clean, and voice sharp and untuneable.”

Protestations; execution of Strafford, “the one supremely able man the king had”; a hope of compromise being for a time introduced by “royal varnish.” Then, in November, 1641, an Irish rebellion blazing into Irish massacre; and in Parliament, the Grand Remonstrance carried by a small majority. In January, the king rides over to St. Stephen’s to arrest the “five members.” Then on one side Commissions of Array, on the other Ordinance for the Militia. In July and August, Mr. Cromwell is active in Cambridgeshire for the defence of that county, as others are elsewhere. Then Captain Cromwell, with his troop of horse, is with Essex at Edgehill, where he does his duty; and then back in Cambridgeshire, organising the Eastern Association. So we are at 1643 with the war in full swing.

Letters have been few enough so far; vestiges, traces of Cromwell’s doings in the eastern counties; a successful skirmish at Grantham, a “notable victory” at Gainsborough. In August, Manchester takes command of the Association, with Cromwell for one of his colonels; in September, first battle of Newbury, and signing of the Solemn League and Covenant at Westminster. Cromwell has written “I have a lovely company; you would respect them did you know them”-his “Ironsides.” In October, Colonel Cromwell does stoutly at Winceby fight; has his horse shot under him. Lincolnshire is nearly cleared.

On March 20, 1643, there is a characteristic letter to General Crawford, concerning the dismissal of an officer, whom Cromwell would have restored. “Ay, but the man is an Anabaptist. Are you sure of that? Admit he be, shall that render him incapable to serve the public? Sir, the state, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions. Take heed of being too sharp against those to whom you can object little but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of religion.”

In July was fought, in Yorkshire, the battle of Marston Moor, the bloodiest of the whole war, which gave the whole north to the Parliamentary party. Cromwell Writes to his brother-in-law, to tell him of his son’s death. Of the battle, he says, “It had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord’s blessing upon the godly party. We never charged but we routed the enemy. God made them as stubble to our swords.” Soon after he is indignant with Manchester for being “much slow in action,” especially after the second battle of Newbury. Hence comes the self-denying ordinance, in December, and construction of New Model Army.

From which ordinance Cromwell is virtually dispensed, being appointed for repeated periods of forty days, and doing good work in Oxfordshire and elsewhere; clearly indispensable, till the Lord General Fairfax gets him appointed Lieutenant-general; and on his joining Fairfax, and commanding the cavalry, the king’s army is shattered at Naseby. “We killed and took about 5,000,” writes Cromwell to Lenthall. “Sir, this is none other but the hand of God.”

Thenceforward, this war is only completing of the victory. After the storming of Bristol, Cromwell writes, “Presbyterians, Independents, all have here the same spirit of faith and prayer; they agree here, have no names of difference; pity it is it should be otherwise anywhere.” No canting here!

Cromwell captures Winchester, and Baring House, and sundry other strongholds. Finally, this first civil war is ended with the king’s surrender of himself to the Scots.

II.-Regicide

Thereafter, infinite negotiations, public and private; the king hoping “so to draw, either the Presbyterians or the Independents, to side with me for extirpating one another that I shall be really king again.” Ending with the Scots marching home, and the king being secluded in Holmby House. We note during this time a letter to Bridget Cromwell, now the wife of General Ireton.

But now Parliament is busy carrying its Presbyterian uniformity platform. London city and the Parliament are crying out to apply the shears against sectaries and schismatics; the army is less drastic; shows, indeed, an undue tolerance to Presbyterian alarm. With Cromwell’s approval the army is to be quartered not less than twenty-five miles from London. This quarrel between army and Parliament waxes; the army gains strength by securing the person of the king, finally marches onto London, and gets its way. All is turmoil again, however, when Charles escapes from Hampton Court, where they have lodged him, but is detained at Carisbrooke. When 40,000 Scots are coming to liberate the king, the army’s patience breaks down. Hitherto, Cromwell has striven for an honest settlement. Now we of the army conclude, with prayer and tears, that these troubles are a penalty for our backslidings, conferences, compromises, and the like; that “if the Lord bring us back in peace,” Charles Stuart, the Man of Blood, must be called to account.

The eastern counties and Wales are up; the Scots are coming. Fairfax goes to Colchester, Cromwell to Wales, where Pembroke keeps him a month; thence, to cut up the Scots army in detail in the straggling battle called Preston, of which he gives account, as also does “Dugald Dalgetty” Turner. The clearance of the north detains him for some time, during which he deals sternly with soldiers who plunder. In November he is returning from Scotland, writing, too, a suitable letter to Colonel Hammond, the king’s custodian at Carisbrooke. Matters also are coming to a head between army and the Parliament, which means to make concessions-fatal in the judgement of the army-and to ignore the said army; which, on the other hand, regards itself as an authority called into being by God and having responsibilities, and purges the Parliament, Cromwell arriving in town on the evening of the first day of purging. Whereby the minority of the members is become majority. And this chapter of history is grimly closed eight weeks later with a certain death warrant.

The Rump Parliament becomes concerned with establishment of the Commonwealth Council of State; appoints Mr. Milton Secretary for Foreign Languages, and nominates Lieutenant-general Cromwell to quell rebellion in Ireland. Oliver’s extant letters are concerned with domestic matters-marriage of Richard. While the army for Ireland is getting prepared, there is trouble with the Levellers, sansculottism of a sort; shooting of valiant but misguided mutineers having notions as to Millennium.

On August 15, Cromwell is in Ireland. His later letters have been full of gentle domesticities and pieties, strangely contrasted with the fiery savagery and iron grimness of the next batch. Derry and Dublin are the only two cities held for the Commonwealth. The Lord-lieutenant comes offering submission with law and order, or death. The Irish have no faith in promises; will not submit. Therefore, in the dispatches which tell the story, we find a noteworthy phenomenon-an armed soldier, solemnly conscious to himself that he is the soldier of God the Just, terrible as death, relentless as doom, doing God’s judgements on the enemies of God.

Tredah, that is Drogheda, is his first objective, with its garrison of 3,000 soldiers. Drogheda is summoned to surrender on pain of storm; refuses, is stormed, no quarter being given to the armed garrison, mostly English. “I believe this bitterness will save much effusion of blood through the goodness of God.” The garrison of Dundalk, not liking the precedent, evacuated it; that of Trim likewise. No resistance, in fact, was offered till Cromwell came before Wexford. After suffering a cannonade, the commandant proposed to evacuate Wexford on terms which “manifested the impudency of the men.” Oliver would only promise quarter to rank and file. Before any answer came, the soldiery stormed the town, which Cromwell had not intended; but he looked upon the outcome as “an unexpected providence.”

The rule of sending a summons to surrender before attacking was always observed, and rarely disregarded. “I meddle not with any man’s conscience; but if liberty of conscience means liberty to exercise the mass, that will not be allowed of.” The Clonmacnoise Manifesto, inviting the Irish “not to be deceived with any show of clemency exercised upon them hitherto,” hardly supports the diatribes against Cromwell’s “massacring” propensities. Also in Cromwell’s counter-declaration is a pregnant challenge. “Give us an instance of one man since my coming to Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished, concerning the massacre or destruction of whom justice hath not been done or endeavoured to be done.”

That the business at Drogheda and Wexford did prevent much effusion of blood is manifest from the surrenders which invariably followed almost immediately upon summons. The last he reports is Kilkenny (March, 1650); his actual last fight is the storm of Clonmel; for, at the request of Parliament, he returns to England to attend to other matters of gravity, Munster and Leinster being now practically under control.

III.-Crowning Mercies

Matters of gravity indeed; for Scotland, the prime mover in this business of Puritanism, has for leaders Argyles, Loudons, and others of the pedant species; no inspired Oliver. So these poor Scotch governors have tried getting Charles II. to adopt the Covenant as best he can-have “compelled him to sign it voluntarily.” Scotland will either invade us or be invaded by us-which we decide to be preferable. Cromwell must go, since Fairfax will not resign his command in favour of Cromwell; who does go, with the hundred-and-tenth psalm in the head and heart of him.

So he marches by way of Berwick to Musselburgh, where he finds David Lesley entrenched in impregnable lines between him and Edinburgh. He writes to the General Assembly of the Kirk in protest against a declaration of theirs. “Is it, therefore, infallibly agreeable to the Word of God, all that you say? I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.” But shrewd Lesley lies within his lines, will not be tempted out; provisions are failing, and the weather breaking. We must fall back on Dunbar-where Lesley promptly hems us in, occupying the high ground.

But presently Lesley, at whatsoever urging, moves to change ground, which movement gives Oliver his chance. He attacks instead of awaiting attack; the Scots army is scattered, 3,000 killed and 10,000 prisoners taken. Such is Dunbar Battle, or Dunbar Drove. Edinburgh is ours, though the Castle holds out; surrenders only on December 19, on most honourable terms. But what to do with Scotland, with its covenanted king, a solecism incarnate?

We have a most wifely letter to Cromwell from his wife, urging him to write oftener to herself and to important persons: correspondence concerning Dunbar medal, and Chancellorship of Oxford University; and the lord general falls ill, with recoveries and relapses.

Active military movements, however, become imperative, so far as the general’s health permits. In spring and early summer is some successful skirmishing; in July Cromwell’s army has, for the most part, got into Fife, thereby cutting off the supplies of the king’s army at Stirling, which suddenly marches straight for the heart of England, the way being open. Cromwell, having just captured Perth, starts in pursuit, leaving George Monk to look after Scotland.

The Scots march by the Lancashire route, keeping good discipline, but failing to gather the Presbyterian allies or Royalist allies they had looked for. On August 22, Charles erects his standard at Worcester-ninth anniversary of the day Charles I. erected his at Nottingham. On the anniversary of Dunbar fight his Scotch army is crushed, battling desperately at Worcester; cut to pieces, with six or seven thousand prisoners taken. Cromwell calls it “for aught I know, a crowning mercy,” and fears lest “the fullness of these continued mercies may occasion pride and wantonness.” Charles, however, escapes. The general here sheaths his war-sword for good, and comes to town, to be greeted with acclamations.

Of the next nineteen months the history becomes very dim. There are but five letters, none notable. The Rump sits, conspicuous with red-tapery; does not get itself dissolved nor anything else done of consequence; leaves much that is of consequence not done. Before twelve months the officers are petitioning the lord general that something be done for a new Representative House; to be, let us say, a sort of Convention of Notables. At any rate, in April, 1653, the Rump propose to solve the problem by continuing themselves; till the lord general ejects them summarily in a manner that need not here be retold. With this for consequence, that Cromwell himself, “with the advice of my Council of Officers,” nominates divers persons to form the new Parliament, which shall be hereafter known as “Bare-bones.”

In this Parliament, which included not a few notable men, Cromwell made the first speech extant, justifying his dismissal of the Rump, and the summoning of this assembly, chosen as being godly men that have principles. A speech intelligible to the intelligent. But this Parliament failed of its business, which is no less than introducing the Christian religion into real practice in the social affairs of this nation; and dissolved itself after five months. Four days later the Instrument of Government is issued, naming Oliver Protector of the Commonwealth, Council of Fifteen, and other needful matters.

IV.-Protector Oliver

A new Reformed Parliament, elected, with Scotch and Irish representatives, is to meet on September 3. Parliament meets. Oliver’s speech on September 3 is unreported, but we have that on September 4, and another eight days later. “You are met for healing and settling. We are troubled with those who would destroy liberty, and with those who would overturn all control. This government which has called you, a Free Parliament, together, has given you peace instead of the foreign wars that were going on; there remains plenty for you to do.” But the Parliament, instead of doing it, sets to debating the “Form of Government” and its sanctioning.

Hence our second speech. “I called not myself to this place. God be judge between me and all men! I desired to be dismissed of my charge. That was refused me. Being entreated, I did accept the place and title of Protector. I do not bear witness to myself. My witnesses are the officers, the soldiery, the City of London, the counties, the judges; yea, you yourselves, who have come hither upon my writ. I was the authority that called you, which you have recognised. I will not have the authority questioned, nor its fundamental powers. You must sign a declaration of fidelity to the constitution, or you shall not enter the Parliament House.”

The Parliament, however, will not devote itself to business; will turn off on side issues, and continue constitution debating. Therefore, at the end of five months lunar, not calendar, the Protector makes another speech. “You have healed nothing, settled nothing; dissettlement and division, discontent and dissatisfaction are multiplied; real dangers, too, from Cavalier party, and Anabaptist Levellers. Go!”

First Protectorate Parliament being ended, the next is not due yet awhile. The Lord Protector must look to matters which are threatening; plots on all hands, issuing in Penruddock’s insurrection, which is vigorously dealt with. No easy matter to upset this Protector. He, with his Council of State, establishes military administration under ten major-generals; arbitrary enough, but beneficial.

For war, money is needed, and the second Protectorate Parliament is summoned-mostly favourable to Cromwell. The Protector addresses it. “We have enemies about us; the greatest is the Spaniard, because he is the enemy of God, and has been ours from the time of Queen Elizabeth. Therefore, we are at war with Spain, all Protestant interests being therein at one with ours. Danger also there is at home, both from Cavaliers and Levellers, which necessitates us to erect the major-generals. For these troubles, the remedies are in the first place to prosecute the war with Spain vigorously; and in the second, not to make religion a pretension for arms and blood. All men who believe in Jesus Christ are members of Jesus Christ; whoever hath this faith, let his form be what it will, whether he be under Baptism, or of the Independent judgement, or of the Presbyterian.” With much more. A speech rude, massive, genuine, like a block of unbeaten gold. But the speech being spoken, members find that, after all, near a hundred of them shall have no admittance to this Parliament, seeing that this time the nation shall and must be settled.

For its wise temper and good practical tendency let us praise this second Parliament; admit, nevertheless, that its history amounts to little-that it handsomely did nothing, and left Oliver to do. But it does propose to modify our constitution, increase the Protector’s powers-make him, in fact, a king-make also a second chamber. To the perturbation of sundry officers. Out of confusion of documents and speeches and conferences we extract this-that his highness is not, on the whole, willing to be called king, because this will give offence to many godly persons, and be a cause of stumbling.

The petition being settled, Parliament is prorogued till January, 1658; when there will be a House of Lords (not the old Peers!), and the excluded members will be admitted. May there not then be new troubles? The Spanish Charles Stuart invasion plot is indeed afoot, and that union abroad of the Protestant powers for which we crave is by no means accomplished. Therefore, says the Protector, you must be ready to fight on land as well as by sea. No time this for disunion, trumpery quarrels over points of form. Yet such debate has begun and continues.

After this dissolution speech, and a letter as to Vaudois persecution, there are no more letters or speeches. On September 3, 1658, for him “the ugly evil is all over, and thy part in it manfully done-manfully and fruitfully, to all eternity.” Oliver is gone, and with him England’s Puritanism.

The Life of Friedrich Schiller

Carlyle was under thirty years of age, and was occupied as a private tutor, when he wrote the “Life of Friedrich Schiller; comprehending an examination of his works,” which had been commissioned by the “London Magazine.” It was his first essay in the study of German literature, which he did so much to popularise in Britain. It appeared in book form in 1825, and a second edition was published in 1845 in order to prevent piratical reprints. In his introduction to the second edition, Carlyle pleads for the indulgence of the reader, asking him to remember constantly that “it was written twenty years ago.” It has indeed been superseded by more temperate studies of Schiller, but its tone of enthusiasm gives it a great value of its own.

Schiller’s Youth (1759-1784)

Distinguished alike for the splendour of his intellectual faculties, and the elevation of his tastes and feelings, Friedrich Schiller has left behind him in his works a noble emblem of these great qualities. Much of his life was deformed by inquietude and disease, and it terminated at middle age; he composed in a language then scarcely settled into form; yet his writings are remarkable for their extent, their variety, and their intrinsic excellence, and his own countrymen are not his only, or, perhaps, his principal admirers.

Born on November 10, 1759, a few months later than Robert Burns, he was a native of Marbach in Wuertemberg. His father had been a surgeon in the army, and was now in the pay of the Duke of Wuertemberg; and the benevolence, integrity and devoutness of his parents were expanded and beautified in the character of their son. His education was irregular; desiring at first to enter the clerical profession, he was put to the study of law and then of medicine; but he wrenched asunder his fetters with a force that was felt at the extremities of Europe. In his nineteenth year he began the tragedy of the “Robbers,” and its publication forms an era in the literature of the world.

It is a work of tragic interest, bordering upon horror. A grim, inexpiable Fate is made the ruling principle; it envelops and overshadows the whole; and under its souring influence, the fiercest efforts of human will appear but like flashes that illuminate the wild scene with a brief and terrible splendour, and are lost forever in the darkness. The unsearchable abysses of man’s destiny are laid open before us, black and profound, and appalling, as they seem to the young mind when it first attempts to explore them.

Schiller had meanwhile become a surgeon in the Wuertemberg army; and the Duke, scandalised at the moral errors of the “Robbers,” and not less at its want of literary merit, forbade him to write more poetry. Dalberg, superintendent of the Manheim theatre, put the play on the stage in 1781, and in October, 1782, Schiller decided his destiny by escaping secretly from Stuttgart beyond the frontier. A generous lady, Madam von Wollzogen, invited him to her estate of Bauerbach, near Meiningen.

Here he resumed his poetical employments, and published, within a year, the tragedies “Verschwoerung des Fiesco” and “Kabale und Liebe.” This “Conspiracy of Fiesco,” the story of the political and personal relations of the Genoese nobility, has the charm of a kind of colossal magnitude. The chief incidents have a dazzling magnificence; the chief characters, an aspect of majesty and force. The other play, “Court-intriguing and Love,” is a tragedy of domestic life; it shows the conflict of cold worldly wisdom with the pure impassioned movements of the young heart. Now, in September, 1783, Schiller went to Manheim as poet to the theatre, a post of respectability and reasonable profit. Here he undertook his “Thalia,” a periodical work devoted to poetry and the drama, in 1784. Naturalised by law in his new country, surrounded by friends that honoured him, he was now exclusively a man of letters for the rest of his days.

From His Settlement at Manheim to His Settlement at Jena (1783-1790)

Schiller had his share of trials to encounter, but he was devoted with unchanging ardour to the cause he had embarked in. Few men have been more resolutely diligent than he, and he was warmly seconded by the taste of the public. For the Germans consider the stage as an organ for refining the hearts and minds of men, and the theatre of Manheim was one of the best in Germany.

Besides composing dramatic pieces and training players, Schiller wrote poems, the products of a mind brooding over dark and mysterious things, and his “Philosophic Letters” unfold to us many a gloomy conflict of the soul, surveying the dark morass of infidelity yet showing no causeway through it. The first acts of “Don Carlos,” printed in “Thalia,” had attracted the attention of the Duke of Sachsen-Weimar, who conferred on their author the title of Counsellor. Schiller was loved and admired in Manheim, yet he longed for a wider sphere of action, and he determined to take up his residence at Leipzig.

Here he arrived in March, 1785, and at once made innumerable acquaintances, but went to Dresden in the end of the summer, and here “Don Carlos” was completed. This, the story of a royal youth condemned to death by his father, is the first of Schiller’s plays to bear the stamp of maturity. The Spanish court in the sixteenth century; its rigid, cold formalities; its cruel, bigoted, but proud-spirited grandees; its inquisitors and priests; and Philip, its head, the epitome at once of its good and bad qualities, are exhibited with wonderful distinctness and address. Herr Schiller’s genius does not thrill, but exalts us; it is impetuous, exuberant, majestic. The tragedy was, received with immediate and universal approbation.

He now contemplated no further undertaking connected with the stage, but his mind was overflowing with the elements of poetry, and with these smaller pieces he occupied himself at intervals through the remainder of his life. “The Walk,” the “Song of the Bell,” contain exquisite delineations of the fortunes of man; the “Cranes of Ibycus,” and “Hero and Leander,” are among the most moving ballads in any language. Schiller never wrote or thought with greater diligence than while at Dresden. A novel, “The Ghostseer,” was a great popular success, but Schiller had begun to think of history. Very few of his projects in this direction reached even partial execution; portions of a “History of the Most Remarkable Conspiracies and Revolutions in the Middle and Later Ages,” and of a “History of the Revolt of the Netherlands,” were published.

A visit to Weimar, the Athens of Germany, was accomplished in 1787; to Goethe he was not introduced, but was welcomed by Wieland and Herder. Thence he went to see his early patroness at Bauerbach, and on this journey, at Rudolstadt, he met the Fraeulein Lengefeld, whose attractions made him loath to leave and eager to return. The visit was repeated next year, and this lady honoured him with a return of love. At this time, too, he first met the illustrious Goethe, whom we may contrast with Schiller as we should contrast Shakespeare with Milton. Goethe was now in his thirty-ninth year, Schiller ten years younger, and each affected the other with feelings of estrangement, almost of repugnance. Ultimately they liked each other better, and became friends; there are few things on which Goethe should look back with greater pleasure than on his treatment of Schiller.

The “Revolt of the Netherlands,” of which the first volume appeared in 1788, is accurate, vivid and coherent, and unites beauty to a calm force. It happened that the professorship at the University of Jena was about to be vacant, and through Goethe’s solicitations Schiller was appointed to it in 1789. In the February following he obtained the hand of Fraeulein Lengefeld. “Life is quite a different thing by the side of a beloved wife,” he wrote a few months later; “the world again clothes itself around me in poetic forms.”

From His Settlement at Jena to His Death (1790-1805)

The duties of his new office called upon Schiller to devote himself with double zeal to history. We have scarcely any notice of the plan or success of his academical prelections; his delivery was not distinguished by fluency or grace, but his matter, we suppose, would make amends for these deficiencies of manner. His letters breathe a spirit not only of diligence but of ardour, and he was now busied with his “History of the Thirty-Years War.” This work, published in 1791, is considered his chief historical treatise, for the “Revolt of the Netherlands” was never completed. In Schiller’s view, the business of the historian is not merely to record, but also to interpret; his narrative should be moulded according to the science, and impregnated with the liberal spirit of his time.

In one of his letters he says-“The problem is, to choose and arrange your materials so that, to interest, they shall not need the aid of decoration. We moderns have a source of interest at our disposal, which no Greek or Roman was acquainted with, and which the patriotic interest does not nearly equal. This last, in general, is chiefly of importance to unripe nations, for the youth of the world. But we may excite a very different sort of interest if we represent each remarkable occurrence that happened to men as of importance to man. It is a poor and little aim to write for one nation; the most powerful nation is but a fragment.”

In 1791, Schiller was overtaken by a violent and threatening disorder in the chest, and though nature overcame it in the present instance, the blessing of entire health never returned to him. Total cessation from intellectual effort was prescribed to him, and his prospect was a hard one; but the hereditary Prince of Holstein-Augustenberg came to his assistance with a pension of a thousand crowns for three years, presented with a delicate politeness which touched Schiller even more than the gift itself. He bore bodily pain with a strenuous determination and with an unabated zeal in the great business of his life. No period of his life displayed more heroism than the present one.

He now released his connection with the University; his weightiest duties were discharged by proxy; and his historical studies were forsaken. His mind was being attracted by the philosophy of Kant. This transcendental system had filled Germany with violent contentions; Herder and Wieland were opposing it vehemently; Goethe alone retained his wonted composure, willing to allow this theory to “have its day, as all things have.” How far Schiller penetrated its arena we cannot say, but he wrote several essays, imbued in its spirit, upon aesthetic subjects; notably, “Grace and Dignity,” “Naïve and Sentimental Poetry,” and “Letters on the Aesthetic Culture of Man.”

The project of an epic poem brought Schiller back to his art; he first thought of Gustavus Adolphus, then of Frederick the Great of Prussia, for his hero, and intended to adopt the ottave rime, and in general construction to follow the model of the “Iliad.” He did not even begin to execute this work, but devoted himself instead to the tragedy of “Wallenstein,” which occupied him for several years. Among other engagements were, the editing of the “Thalia,” which was relinquished at the end of 1793; a new periodical, the “Horen,” which began early in 1794; and another, the “Musen-Almanach,” in which the collection of epigrams known as the “Xenien” appeared. In these new publications Schiller was supported by the co-operation of Goethe.

“Wallenstein.” by far the best work he had yet produced, was given to the world in 1799. Wallenstein is the model of a high-souled, great, accomplished man, whose ruling passion is ambition. A shade of horror, of fateful dreariness, hangs over the hero’s death, and except in Macbeth or Othello we know not where to match it. This tragedy is the greatest work of its century.

Schiller now spent his winters in Weimar, and at last lived there constantly, often staying for months with Goethe. The tragedy of “Maria Stuart,” which appeared in 1800, is a beautiful work, but compared with “Wallenstein” its purpose is narrow and its result common. It has no true historical delineation. The “Maid of Orleans,” 1801, a tragedy on the subject of Jeanne d’Arc, will remain one of the very finest of modern dramas, and its reception was beyond example flattering. It was followed, in 1803, by the “Bride of Messina,” a tragedy which fails to attain its object; there is too little action in the play and the interest flags. But “Wilhelm Tell,” 1804, exhibits some of the highest triumphs which Schiller’s genius, combined with his art, ever realised. In Tell are combined all the attributes of a great man, without the help of education or of great occasions to develop them. The play has a look of nature and substantial truth, which neither of its rivals can boast of. Its characters are a race of manly husbandmen, heroic without ceasing to be homely, poetical without ceasing to be genuine.

This was Schiller’s last work. The spring of 1805 came in cold, bleak and stormy, and along with it the malady returned. On May 9 the end came. Schiller died at the age of forty-five years and a few months, leaving a widow, two sons and two daughters. The news of his death fell cold on many a heart throughout Europe.

Schiller’s Character

Physically, Schiller was tall and strongly boned, but unmuscular and lean; his body wasted under the energy of a spirit too keen for it. His face was pale, the cheeks and temples hollow, the chin projecting, the nose aquiline, his hair inclined to auburn. Withal his countenance was attractive, and had a certain manly beauty. To judge from his portraits, his face expressed the features of his mind: it is mildness tempering strength; fiery ardour shining through clouds of suffering and disappointment; it is at once meek, tender, unpretending and heroic.

In his dress and manner, as in all things, he was plain and unaffected. Among strangers, shy and retiring; in his own family, or among his friends, he was kind-hearted, free and gay as a little child. His looks as he walked were constantly bent on the ground, so that he often failed to notice a passing acquaintance.

Schiller’s mind was grand by nature, and cultivated by the assiduous study of a life-time. It is not the predominating force of any one faculty that impresses us, but the general force of all. His intellect seems powerful and vast, rather than quick or keen; for he is not notable for wit, though his fancy is ever prompt with his metaphors, illustrations and comparisons. Perhaps his greatest faculty was a half poetical, half philosophical imagination, a faculty teeming with magnificence and brilliancy; now adorning a stately pyramid of scientific speculation; now brooding over the abysses of thought and feeling, till thoughts and feelings, else unutterable, were embodied in expressive forms.

Combined with these intellectual faculties was that vehemence of temperament which is necessary for their full development. Schiller’s heart was at once fiery and tender; impetuous, soft, affectionate, his enthusiasm clothed the universe with grandeur, and sent his spirit forth to explore its secrets and mingle warmly in its interests. Thus poetry in Schiller was not one but many gifts. It was, what true poetry is always, the quintessence of general mental riches, the purified result of strong thought and conception, and of refined as well as powerful emotion.

His works exhibit rather extraordinary strength than extraordinary fineness or versatility. His power of dramatic imitation is perhaps never of the highest; and in its best state, it is further limited to a certain range of characters. It is with the grave, the earnest, the exalted, the affectionate, the mournful that he succeeds; he is not destitute of humour, but neither is he rich in it.

The sentiments which animated Schiller’s poetry were converted into principles of conduct; his actions were as blameless as his writings were pure. He was unsullied by meanness, unsubdued by the difficulties or allurements of life. With the world, in fact, he had not much to do; without effort, he dwelt apart from it; its prizes were not the wealth which could enrich him. Wishing not to seem, but to be, envy was a feeling of which he knew little, even before he rose above its level. To all men he was humane and sympathising; among his friends, open-hearted, generous, helpful; in his family tender, kind, sportive. Schiller gives a fine example of the German character; he has all its good qualities.

The kingdoms which Schiller conquered were not for one nation at the expense of suffering to another; they are kingdoms conquered from the barren realms of Darkness, to increase the happiness, and dignity, and power, of all men; new forms of Truth, new maxims of Wisdom, new images and scenes of Beauty, won from the “void and formless Infinite”; a “possession for ever,” to all the generations of the earth.