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begged, even with tears, for a reconciliation, and afterwards eagerly seized a fancied opportunity for regaining a footing in his old colleague's esteem, from that time Burke sternly separated himself from the party with whom he had acted during his whole parliamentary career. went over to the side of Pitt and Dundas. Dr. Parr, his fervent admirer, writes of the events of that memorable evening: "All the papers are with Burke, even the Foxite papers, which I have seen. I know his violence, and temper, and obstinacy of opinion, and-but I will not speak out, for I think him the greatest man upon the earth. . . . He is uncorrupt, I know, but his passions are quite headstrong."

...

SORROWS OF HIS CLOSING YEARS; THE END.

In 1792 he lost his dear and constant friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who left him a legacy of £2,000. Though his embarrassments rendered this sum a very welcome windfall, Burke devoted part of it to relieving the necessities of two reduced old ladies, distant connections, in Ireland. In this year also occurred the famous dagger scene, a piece of indiscretion on which the caricaturists fastened like flies on a cask of sugar. It appears that Burke saw, at the Secre tary of State's office, a dagger which had been forwarded there by a manufacturer at Birming. ham, who had received it as a pattern, with an order for a large number, and had considered it prudent to send the sample to the Government for inspection. Burke had borrowed the weapon, intending to show it to the House; and, carried away by the ardour of his address, had given way to the somewhat theatrical action of throwing it on the floor.

Heavy sorrows darkened the close of the veteran statesman's life. In 1794, the year in which he retired from Parliament, he lost his brother Richard, with whom he had always lived on terms of the greatest confidence and affection; and whose "mirth and agreeable vein," so charmingly recorded by Goldsmith in his "Retaliation," had lightened many a weary hour in the stormy career of the elder brother. A far heavier calamity befell him a few months later, in the death of his only son Richard, who died of consumption, at the age of thirty-six, shortly after he had been returned in his father's place for the borough of Malton, so long and nobly represented by Edmund Burke. The younger Burke appears to have been in all respects admirable, and the fondest hopes of the affectionate hearts of his parents were concentrated on Richard, who was to carry down the name

of Burke to new honour and fame. But the hopes were shattered by the untimely death of him whom the bereaved father pathetically bewails as the lost hope of his house, "the prop of his age," "his better self." When a relation had a son born to him soon after, he writes: May he live to be the staff of your age, and close your eyes in peace, instead of your being, like me, reversing the order of nature, and having the melancholy office to close his."

66

In October, 1795, two pensions were at length awarded to him, at the express wish, it is said, of the king, who, especially since the appearance of his works on the French Revolution and "A Regicide Peace," had got to look upon him very favourably. The fact that the pension, the natural and honourable reward of thirty years of service, was accepted by the broken-down old man, who wished to die free from the burden of undeserved debt, was sufficient to cause a clamorous outcry among his political opponents in both Houses. The Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, in the House of Peers, especially distinguished themselves by cheap outbursts of patriotism at Burke's expense. The former, at least, had reason to rue his rashness; for indignation once more kindled the fire of old days in the breast of the veteran. The great powers that had produced the "Thoughts on the Discontents," and the "Letters to the Merchants of Bristol," were torpid, but not dead; and in his "Letter to a Noble Lord" he drew such a contrast between the pension awarded to himself in return for long years of labour, and the enormous grants of land made to the Duke's ancestors, out of the plunder of monastic foundations, that the Duke was for a time exposed to the scorn of the whole nation, who wondered how a man in his position could have had the fatuity to lay himself open to such an attack.

Within two years afterwards, Edmund Burke, the upright statesman, the persistent and eloquent denouncer of oppression and wrong, died quietly in his house at Beaconsfield, his last hours soothed by the cares of his affectionate wife. He required that his name and age alone should be inscribed on the tablet that would mark his resting-place in the quiet country church. With humble piety, he in his last will bequeathed his soul to God, "hoping for His mercy only through the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." He desired to be buried near the remains of his brother and his son, "in all humility hoping that as we have lived in perfect unity together, we may together have a part in the resurrection of the just." H. W. D.

compelled to furnish their contingents to the fray, had cause to lament, in wasted treasure and slaughtered men, the Juno-like vengeance of the Empress-queen who had stirred up this mortal strife, and the invincible pertinacity of the great Frederick, who was evidently determined to fight it out to the bitter end.

Among the armies sent forth by Maria Theresa against the Prussian king, from whom she was determined to win back her forfeited province of Silesia at any cost, was an auxiliary force of Würtembergers; and in this corps, in the regiment "Prince Louis," was to be found a certain Captain Johann Caspar Schiller. A sturdy, honest officer was the captain, and helpful in many ways; for he had been a surgeon; and when an epidemic disorder decimated his corps, he undertook, at a pinch, the multifarious duties of army doctor, in addition to his own regimental work; tending the sick, and watching by them, like the good Samaritan he was, and even officiating as regimental chaplain; reading prayers to the men, like the good Baron of Bradwardine, and even leading the psalms at the Sunday parades. A very pleasant picture to contemplate, in looking back at those troublous times, is that of the little captain, in his big three-cornered hat and trim tight-fitting uniform -ever ready for duty in whatever shape it might come: a man, moreover, eager to acquire knowledge, and possessed, as we find by his journals, of a regretful remembrance of the impediments that had prevented him, in early life, from improving his mind by study; and yet amassing a very respectable stock of learning, especially in scientific agriculture; and at last attracting the attention of the Grand Duke, and promoted to be superior intendant or overseer of the Forest operations in the domain around the beautiful castle of "Solitude," near Stuttgart. He wrote a book on his favourite subject, Die Baumzucht im Grossen, tree cultivation on a large scale, and lived and died honoured and respected, as he deserved to be.

SCHILLER'S BIRTH AND EARLIEST YEARS.

While Captain Schiller was doing his duty in camp, moving with his corps from place to place, and seeing the "seamy side" as well as the showier aspect of glorious war, there was a wife, a good gentle-hearted woman, in the little town of Marbach, waiting tearfully and hopefully the day when the cruel war should cease. There was about her, as about her husband, a simple trustful piety that reminds us of the best aspect of the old Puritans; and though of limited edu

cation, and aspiring to be nothing beyond a good German Hausfrau, her refinement of feeling and poetic elevation of mind had the best effect on the little household she ruled wisely and well, and on the rougher but honest-hearted captain. over whom her influence was unbounded. In 1757, this worthy wife became the mother of a daughter, Christophine; and two years afterwards, at the quaint little peaceful Marbach, on the bright Neckar, there was born to her a son, Johann Christoph Friedrich, destined to reflect lustre on his country, and to give the quiet country town an interest similar to that with which Englishmen regard Stratfordon-Avon.

Captain Schiller managed to hasten from the camp, to gaze on his new son and heir; and that in his natural exultation there mingled a sense of his own deficient education, is shown in an allusion in a manuscript volume of reflections written by him when that son had become great and famous: "And Thou, Being of all beings, I prayed to Thee after the birth of my only son, that Thou wouldst add to his portion, in vigour of mind, what I could not attain for want of instruction, and Thou hast heard me. I thank Thee, most beneficent Being, that Thou hearest the prayer of mortals."

Four years later the war was over, and the captain was restored to his family circle. Soon after, he was sent by the Duke Carl of Würtemberg, as recruiting officer, to Schwäbisch Gmund, an old imperial city; but his place of residence with his family was at Lorch, a beautiful rural spot, with an old cloister, where are the graves of the mighty Hohenstauffen, and the ruins of the old castle, from which the race took its name. Here the Schiller family dwelt very happily for some years, though in narrow cir. cumstances; for Captain Schiller found it a hard matter to get his arrears of pay. The good father was painfully anxious to give his son the education he himself lacked. At six years of age little Fritz found in the kindly clergyman of Lorch, Pastor Moser, a judicious tutor, and began to learn the elements of Latin and Greek, in addition to lessons in reading and writing; while Captain Schiller himself took all possible pains in bringing out the minds of his children, telling them anecdotes of his own career in the wars, or stirring histories connected with the old Hohenstauffen Castle, and its former inhabitants; for there was a certain store of romance hidden away under the stiff military bearing and abrupt soldierly curtness of Captain Schiller.

CHARACTER OF THE CHILD; POETIC

INFLUENCES.

The childhood of little Fritz was a happy one. The kind-hearted though stern-mannered father was a ways to be propitiated by an appeal from La gentle wife; and the children used cunningly touchess their small misdeeds to her, and rect to receive the punishment at her hand, de a report was made to the paternal authony. Christophine, who resembled her father in Encores, worshipped Fritz, who, with his blue

and open forehead, was the image of his ether. For this good sister, who lived to be zety years old, Schiller always cherished a far warmer feeling of love and respect than for the others who in course of time increased the y circle. Affectionate and grateful by , he never forgot that Christophine had been his earliest and most devoted friend.

Paa and economical as was their way of vrz, the Schiller family were emphatically

folks. Among the honest Captain's best

was a chivalrous respect and courtesy in behaviour to his wife and daughters, and a Pacy deference to the wishes and suggestions of the former. The boy grew up in an atmosphere of onour, simplicity, and courtesy to women. That his mind was unusually impressionable and active, no one could doubt, who listened

eager questioning, or noted his constant for information; but there was nothing of rid precocity about him. Full of fun and

, be was always getting into scrapes, reang the intervention of his mother to save from paternal chastisement. But there was sting of meanness or deception about his

des, which exhibited a singularly fearless ample-minded nature. Once at supperme he was missing, and his absence alarmed is parents; for a violent thunderstorm, with vd fashes of forked lightning, was raging and Lorch. At last little Fritz was seen perched on the highest bough of a linden tree, endently enjoying the sight, and very thoroughly vezed by the rain, now pouring down in torTo the half-angry, half-terrified questioning to what he was doing there, he replied that ated to see where all that fire in the sky ane frem." Another time his father noticed that has shoes were fastened with strings, instead of the backles that should have adorned them. The child replied that he had given his buckles to a poor boy who had none to wear on Sundays, where he himself had a second pair for those scans. Of proprietorship, in the ordinary

be seemed to have no idea. He would

give away anything, and had to be seriously warned not to include his schoolbooks among his bounties.

EDUCATION; THE LATIN SCHOOL; THE
PRINCELY PATRON AND HIS SCHEME.

In 1768, the Schiller family removed to Ludwigsburg, and the boy was sent to the Latin school, where he made good progress. His great wish, much encouraged by his pious mother, and complacently regarded by the Captain, was to become a clergyman. The preliminary steps for the long course of study considered necessary in Germany for the clerical calling had already been taken, when the boy's career was suddenly and unexpectedly altered.

Duke Carl of Würtemberg, after a wild and misspent youth, was devoting the latter years of his life to useful works. Among other schemes, he had a project for establishing an educational institute, the "Military Plant School" (Militärische Pflanzschule), at the palace of Solitude. This establishment, afterwards removed to Stuttgart, and enlarged under the name of the "Carlschule," was especially intended for the sons of officers. Duke Carl had heard good reports of little Schiller, and accordingly signified to the captain his gracious intention to receive the boy among the pupils. This was equivalent to a command, for the captain was quite dependent on the sovereign's good-will. So after a faint endeavour to decline the honour, which the Duke met by a quiet reiteration of his orders, the parents were compelled, with rueful expressions of thanks, to give up all hope of clerical honours for their son; and young Schiller entered the school, his father signing a bond on his behalf, setting forth that in consideration of a free education he was to be considered as attached to the service and remaining at the disposal of the Duke. The study to which he was to devote himself was the law. A drearier occupation than that of delving among the dusty preserves of the German Blackstones was surely never imposed upon a quick-witted, ardent youth of highly poetic temperament. No wonder, therefore, that Schiller eagerly seized an opportunity of changing the distasteful pursuit of the law for the more congenial study of medicine.

Even after this change, his position at the Carlschule was very dreary. There was а strong flavour of mingled convent and prison about the whole place. The youths were separated from friends and relatives, only mothers and sisters being allowed to visit sons and

brothers on Sundays. The general supervision was entrusted to a number of drill-sergeants, whose irksome military pedantry fretted the lads to the verge of rebellion. No allowance was made for individuality of character or capacity. What was down in the order-book was to be learnt by all alike. It was education by tap of drum. Still, it must be conceded that the Duke recognized something unusual in the listless young student, the thin, tall, melancholy youth, for whom even Roman law seemed to have so few charms. "Let that one have his way; he will turn out something good," was his sagacious remark to an examiner, who wondered whether Schiller's incorrect answers arose from idleness or stupidity.

GERMAN LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD; NEW LIGHTS.

At that time a revolution was being quietly effected in German literature. The French pseudo-classic school that had been set up for imitation, full of sham shepherds and shepherdesses, and of old-world gods and goddesses, whom nobody cared for, had at length had its day; and works like Klopstock's Messiah, Lessing's Nathan the Wise, were teaching the German people something better and more life. like than could be learnt from stiff and shallow adaptations of the ancients. A very national book indeed made its way, most probably surreptitiously, into the prosaic and military precincts of the Carlschule. It was by the young poet Goethe, and was entitled Goetz von Berlichingen, a drama, setting forth the adventures of a German free knight of the beginning of the sixteenth century, with plenty of incident, combats, and love-scenes, and told throughout with an undoubted air of reality. This work falling into Schiller's hands, impressed him greatly; but he was still more struck with a German translation of Shakespeare, which was lent to him at this period. A book so different from anything he had ever yet seen excited at once his wonder and admiration. For a long time he could not comprehend the daring which united in the same scene the sublime and the grotesque, laughter and tears. Speaking of Shakespeare, he says: "He was the object of my reverence and zealous study for years before I could love himself. I was not yet capable of comprehending nature at first hand; I had learned to admire her image reflected in the understanding, and put in order by rules."

Schiller's debt to Shakespeare was immense. In the arrangement of those historical dramas

on which his fame chiefly rests, in Wallenstein, William Tell, the Maid of Orleans, we are con tinually reminded of passages from the prince of English poets. Schiller even undertook to translate Macbeth, a task which he accomplished with singular success, except in one notable instance, in describing that witch to whom the sailor's wife refused the chestnuts, and who threatened such dire vengeance upon the hus band who was "to Aleppo gone, Master o' the Tiger." Schiller strangely enough transforms the hag into a "Nixe," or water-spirit, who lures a fisherman to destruction by the gift of magic gold.

SCHILLER'S FIRST WORK, "THE ROBBERS."

The perusal of these works roused the poetic spirit within him, and awoke his ambition to produce a work of his own. His whole soul was in secret revolt against the hard pedantic military discipline of the place, where entire renuncia. tion of individual action and even opinion was demanded as the price of education at the cost of the state. In secret, amid numberless difficulties and hindrances, he wrote his first tragedy, The Robbers. It was in many respects an outpouring of his own pent-up enthusiasm and love of liberty. Carl Moor, the hero, disgusted at the duplicity and treachery he meets with in the world, throws all the restraints of society and law to the winds, and becomes the captain of a band of outlaws, proposing to seize from the rich that he may give to the poor, and to right wrong by violence and crime. He fails, of course; and satisfies poetical justice by surrendering to the authorities. The villain of the piece, the treacherous son and brother, Franz Moor, driven mad by the horrors of a guilty conscience, commits suicide. The work, the production of an inspired schoolboy, was naturally full of defects-of unconscious plagiarisms, as shown in the Iago-like soliloquies of the villain Franz-bristling with incongruities and absurdities even; but showing strength, originality, and promise of future excellence in every page. "His sentences, in their rude emphasis," says Carlyle, "come down like the club of Hercules; the stroke is often of a crushing force, but its sweep is irregular and awkward." That the work should have been written at all. is a marvellous triumph of persistency over difficulties; and those who complain of the want of truth to nature, in this the earliest production of Schiller's genius, should bear in mind his own temperate and sensible explanation, written at a later date. "Any disposition to poetry," he says, "did violence to the laws of the institution