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Schiller, especially the invaluable ones addressed to Goethe, were made public; but still his admirers were sensible of considerable voids in their knowledge of his life; and this was the more painful, because it was precisely for that period, during which his great spirit entered upon a noble course of development, and rose to the creation of its higher works, that the smallest number of documents was in existence. We allude to the period in which Schiller quitted Manheim, went to Leipzig and Dresden, and then lived, for a time, in private, at Weimar. If we turn to the works which have just been named, we find ourselves painfully disappointed in the hope of obtaining any information respecting such an important epoch in the life of the poet.

But a pure and abundant source has, now that we had ceased to hope, unexpectedly burst forth; the correspondence, namely, with Körner, who, it was well known, had been the poet's intimate friend, and who by very sparing communications had long ago given some intimation of the treasure which was in his possession. We are not told why it is at so late a period, (more than forty years have elapsed since Schiller's death, and Körner died in 1831,) that we receive this collection; we are not even told who is the editor. The first page of the book leads us immediately into the correspondence, which commences with the year 1784; and this first part, which is to be followed by three others, extends to the year 1788, the very period respecting which we have hitherto known so little.

We were already made aware, by Caroline von Wolzogen, how much the poet was surprised and delighted by a letter sent to him in Manheim by Körner and Huber, together with the affianced bride of the former and her sister, expressing the greatest admiration and enthusiasm, and accompanied by various pleasing little gifts. We knew, likewise, that out of this circumstance arose an intimate friendship between Körner and Schiller, the letter alluded to is the first in the present collection, but the nature of this friendship, and how it served to extricate Schiller from a lamentable and altogether unworthy position,- this is only now made clear to us in the correspondence of which this is the commencement, and which continued uninterrupted during a long series of years. It is this friendship, describing itself, as it were, in the most lively manner, which forms the principal portion of the work before

us.

Love belongs to nature, friendship to liberty. Schiller was made for liberty; the oppression which he felt in his youth did but increase his enthusiasm for it. He longed for

a congenial soul, for a friend, whose sympathy and warmth of feelings might assist to develope his great ideas; with whom he might strive for a common object. Körner presented himself, and immediately he believed that he had found that for which he longed-the ideal which he has described in several of his works with such bright, such glowing colors.

-" one

Before we speak further of this friendship, let us consider the situation in which the letter alluded to found Schiller. It was a very unhappy one. Having by a bold flight escaped from oppression in Stuttgart, he fell at Manheim into a position respecting which we are somewhat enlightened by a letter to Goethe, in which he speaks of "theatrical life and love-affairs in Wilhelm Meister, as something" with which he was better acquainted than he had reason to wish to be." His better nature fell into danger; he experienced how perilous is the leap from oppression into unlimited freedom. "One half of my early life," he writes to Körner, when he wished to show himself to his friend as he really was, half of my early life was destroyed by a foolish education, the other and better half by myself." In another letter, he says: Carl Moor at the Danube speaks for me," where it is evident what he means, and to what scene in the Robbers he is referring. He was filled with shame and remorse; his better nature, encouraged by the words of a noble friend, gained the upper hand; he resolved to extricate himself from his degrading position at Manheim, and from the influence of Dalberg. "In the strong fermentation of my feelings, my head and heart have united in the Herculean resolution to atone for the past, and to begin anew the noble race for the highest of all prizes." And it is friendship which is to give him strength in this contest. "Oh! how beautiful and divine is the union of two souls, which meet on their way to the Godhead." Traces of the formation of this bond of friendship are to be found in the "Philosophical Letters," among which those of Julius belong to Körner, and those of Rafael to Schiller.

We cannot deny that in this friendship there was somewhat of eccentricity and romantic enthusiasm; Schiller himself acknowledges it in a subsequent letter. But who, that reads these letters, does not rejoice to find a confirmation of that which he imagined, when he read first the earlier, and then the later works of the poet? And delightful is the conviction that this enthusiastic friendship became in the course of a few years a genuine one, which exercised its wholesome influence in the noblest, the most beneficent manner. Two years after its commencement Schiller writes: 'The

beginning and the outline of our union was enthusiasm; but enthusiasm would also, believe me, be its grave; sober reflection and slow conviction must now give to it consistency and confidence." And Körner says: "This is the period of the crisis; you must be tossed about in the world somewhat longer, ere you are ripe for the ideal of our friendship; and it is far better to await this period, than to endeavor by means of palliatives, to shorten the crisis."

If Schiller excels his friend in the powers of the mind, and in genius, Körner, on the other hand, has more common sense, a better judgment in the every-day affairs of human life, and even as a critic often points out to his friend the right path. He is also unwearied in encouraging him, when now and then he hesitates, and does this not only by words, but also, when there is occasion, by more active assistance. And such assistance was needed. It is melancholy to see it recorded in these letters, that the man who at so early an age attracted by his works the attention of his whole country, and soon became the favorite of the entire German nation, was harassed during the period in which his powers were developing themselves, by anxieties respecting the means of procuring a livelihood. But then we are also elated by the spectacle of true genius working its way, pursuing its path with zeal and honesty, and finally reaching its goal.

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And as Körner encouraged Schiller, so, at times, did Schiller encourage Körner; as, for example, when he was disappointed in his hope of obtaining a considerable office. Do you think that you are to form an exception to the thousands of human beings, who have to earn their bread by toil? You may still calculate upon an improvement in your circumstances, if you continue to aim at perfecting yourself in your own department. But you will be convinced that hitherto we have done little, and idled a great deal. If the times during which we idled had been our happiest, we might be satisfied; but the happiest have been those in which we have been working."

Thus the two friends aid and support one another; and each, as he seeks to forward his own improvement, his own happiness, labors also to conduct the other to the same end.

In one of Schiller's earliest letters to Körner, we read as follows: "The life of thousands of human beings is nothing but circulation of juices, imbibing through the roots, distilling through the vessels, and exhaling through the leaves. I weep over this organic regularity of the greater part of the thinking creation, and I consider that man happy, to whom it is

granted to direct at pleasure the mechanism of his nature, and to make the clock-work feel that there is a free spirit to impel its wheels." These words invite us to the consideration of a very important point, which is elucidated in this correspondence; namely, the relation of the poet Schiller to nature. We are told by Goethe, that it was principally the low estimate in which nature, with reference to man, was held by Schiller, which at first restrained him from seeking the acquaintance of the latter. Goethe was an ardent admirer of Nature, and, as a poet, was favored by her in a corresponding degree; the creations of his genius are in pure and perfect harmony with the laws which are proclaimed in her works. Schiller, on the other hand, had formed for himself ideals, and provided them with all the qualities which his imagination, devoted to liberty, but alienated from nature, acknowledged to be the best and highest. It is evident how widely different must be the forms created by the two poets; there could not but be an immeasurable distance between a Margaret" and an "Amalia;" but how much safer a guide is nature, than that liberty which Schiller worshipped! So likewise in "Don Carlos," we can see how widely he erred from the truth, refusing to acknowledge the rights of nature, seeing even in the most gifted natures, nothing but mechanism and clock-work; while Goethe discerned a fruitful soil, in which the highest spiritual powers could find room for their development.

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How Schiller, during his intercourse with Goethe, found his way back out of these errors, is shown in his correspondence with that friend of his later years. But in the correspondence now published, we clearly see how great was the original difference between them. In 1787 he writes from Weimar : "The spirit of Goethe has modelled all who belong to his circle. A strict philosophical contempt for all speculation and inquiry, with an attachment to nature and a resignation of himself to his five senses, which are carried even to affectation; in short, a certain childish simplicity, distinguish him and all his followers." To which Körner replies: "To the great mass such a restriction (to nature) cannot but be beneficial, and to make it more universal is a merit. But the great man must exclude himself, and those who are like him, from its operation. So long as there remains for Goethe anything to be accomplished in the political or literary sphere, which is worthy of his genius, so long is it unpardonable that he should be chatting about the enjoyment of nature, and dribbling away his time with herbs and stones."

What a misapprehension of the great poet,

of his manner of treating nature, and of his unwearied activity! And how differently did Schiller think eight years later, when he had himself learned to know nature, and the power which it exercised over the poet. Then, too, he learned that if it was love to which Goethe was in the first place led by nature, its spirit allowed him to do homage likewise to friendship. He could not draw near to Schiller and Körner with that romantic enthusiasm with which they formed their bond of union, but he felt the truth of the words which he spake with reference, doubtless, to his friendship for Schiller: "Friendship can only show itself practically. True, active, useful friendship consists in this: that we advance with equal steps in life, that he approves of my course, and I of his, and that we thus progress steadily together, whatever other differences there may be between our modes of thinking and living.'

From this correspondence we derive also much valuable information respecting the other distinguished literary personages of that period. It is Körner especially, hitherto so little known, for whose character we learn to entertain the highest esteem. Of Charlotte von Kalb we read enough to know that she must have been a superior woman, who exercised a strong influence over Schiller. Goethe had not yet returned from Italy, but all the other members of the Weimar coterie are brought before us in lively colors, especially Wieland, Herder, Einsiedel, Corona Shröter, and Bertuch.

These remarks will suffice to call the attention of our readers to the rich contents of this valuable work. And yet how little have we said, in comparison with what we might have said. We will conclude with an extract from one of the last letters of Schiller, contained in this volume:

"I must marry

that is settled. All

my inducements to life and activity are worn
out; this is the only one which I have not
yet tried. I must have a being near me which
belongs to me, which I can and must make
happy. You know not how desolate is my
spirit, how melancholy my ideas. If I cannot
weave hope into my existence-hope, which
has almost entirely deserted me if I cannot
wind up anew the run-down machinery of my
thoughts and feelings, it will soon be all over
with me." When we compare with these
words what Goethe said of him at a later pe-
riod: "Nothing interferes with him, nothing
stops the flight of his ideas; all the noble sen-
timents which he entertains flow freely forth,
without doubt or calculation; he truly was
what every man ought to be;" when we read
this, we cannot but acknowledge that a great
change had taken place in Schiller.
The me-
thod by which his marriage exercised this
strong and happy influence, will, we hope, be
sufficiently described in the remaining portion
of this very remarkable correspondence.-Blät-
ter für Literarische Unterhaltung.

EASTERN LIFE, PRESENT AND PAST.*

also that the world, ripening into age, and revolving towards great changes and the fulfilment of old predilections, is naturally turning to the birth-place of society in Asia Minor, and yearning towards that home of its youth and of its simplest days? Something more than a love of science, or natural curiosity, causes the demand for Oriental works in this and in other countries, and perpetually enlarges the stream of pilgrims that seek the banks of the Nile, the Jordan, and the Sea of Galilee. They are the scenes of those wondrous stories that first awaken inquiry in the infant mind the centres of thrilling tradi

Recent years have produced many works of | While the wanderer is often led to return great merit on the East; and the Western back to his starting point, and to make his World, ever reverting to the native land of grave beside his cradle, may it not be true man, is insatiable in its demand for information on Oriental customs and Oriental society. If it be true that, in the strength of manhood, the hearts of those who earn their bread afar from boyhood's banks and braes, forget them amid anxieties and struggles, only to remember them more acutely in the mellowed season of a well-spent life, when the matured intellect is still clear, and the purposes of existence, its value, and its character, are most distinctly discerned - may it not be also true that the race of men in this, the most advanced stage of the world's history, remember more fondly than even when Europe's might was cast in martial array on Asia's plains, the homes of those great ancestors, common alike to the democracy and the aristocracy of nations?

By Harriet Martineau. 3 vols. London: Edward Moxon.

sors.

tions that are evermore clinging to our path, and telling on our actions. The lands are round them of patriarchs and prophets, of priest and king, and of the mightiest King of all, his humble apostles, and his first confesThe scholar seeks the East, as the centre of early literature; the man of science pays it his homage, as the nursery of knowledge and the arts; the politician looks amongst its ruins, for the rudiments of government; the political economist regards with sorrow its neglected mines of wealth; the Christian acknowledges it as an earthly home of his heart, because it was his Master's home, and where his Lord was revealed in the lowliest, humility with the mightiest love, for the greatest ends. These are some of the reasons that give Oriental works their large preference over Occidental in the market, and have carried the "Crescent and the Cross" through an edition annually since its publication.

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In the autumn of 1846 Miss Martineau was visiting at Liverpool, when some friends proposed that she should accompany them to Africa and Asia. Within a month their journey was commenced. In a lurid November evening, the travellers saw first the African land, being" part of "the island of Zembra, and the neighboring coast of Tunis." They reached Alexandria on the evening of the 20th of November; but notwithstanding the kindness of the English merchants, and the bustle arising from the arrival and departure of the overland mail, they do not seem to have been greatly pleased with Alexandria, although Miss Martineau gives it a chapter. They left that city on the 25th, and began their ascent of the Nile. Miss Martineau mentions an atmospheric phenomenon on the Nile that is not yet explained :

"I do not remember to have read of one great atmospheric beauty of Egypt-the afterglow, as we used to call it. I watched this nightly, for ten weeks, on the Nile, and often afterwards in the Desert; and was continually more impressed with the peculiarity, as well as the beauty, of this appearance. That the sunset in Egypt is gorgeous, everybody knows; but I, for one, was not aware that there is a renewal of beauty some time after the sun has departed, and left all gray. This discharge of color is here much what it is among the Alps, where the flame-colored peaks become gray and ghastly as the last sunbeam leaves them. But here everything begins to brighten again in twenty minutes-the hills are again purple or golden the sands orange- the palms verdant

The party of tourists, whose journey is recorded by Miss Martineau, met all the annoyances that travellers from the days of Bruce have encountered in Egypt, and visited all the common lions of the Nile.

"We cannot expect much new information on Egyptian antiquities, until," says Miss Martineau, "the sand of the Desert, that covers over the ruins of cities and palaces, be cleared away." That event she considers practicable by posterity, and with some agency that we do not at present employ, or at a cost which we are unwilling to incur. In the meantime, the sand has salted up, and preserves the monuments of the past to teach the future. In the place of new facts, the tourist furnishes us with numerous speculations. Some of them are based on very unsatisfactory evidence. The characteristic of one modern class of philosophers is credulity. Miss Martineau is marvellously credulous on many topics, especially such as seem to average intellects involved in doubt. Still she has produced a good work; and although the Nile will soon become as hacknied as the Rhine, yet her descriptions of contemporaneous existence are fresh and vigorous - better than her romantic ideas regarding the kings and priests of Egypt, that have slept in their graves for twenty thousand years; that is to say, fourteen thousand years prior to the time of Adam and Eve. We certainly prefer her descriptions of a sugar manufactory to her speculations on a pyramid; and, from the following statement (page 47, vol. i.), we are induced to expect imports of low browns, or "very good grays, from Alexandria, in course of a few years. Egypt, in the hands of an European powerthose of Britain, for example would raise its head among the nations; and, though the sand should never be scraped away from old monuments, yet the doom that overhangs the peasantry would be dissipated, and the valley of the Nile assume its old importance in the world's transactions:

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"On our return, we visited the sugar manucondition and prospects of the manufacture. factory at Hou, and learned something of the Pasha, whom we met here at seven in the mornThe Hou establishment belongs to Ibraheem children were employed in the unfinished part, ing. It is quite new; and a crowd of little carrying mortar in earthen bowls, for 1d. per day. The engineers are French; and the engine, one hundred and twenty horse power, was made at Paris. The managers cannot have the moonlight on the water a pale green rip-fying the juice. From the scarcity of wood, here the charcoal they use in France, for clariple, on a lilac surface- and this after-glow continues for ten minutes, when it slowly fades charcoal is too dear; and burnt bones are emaway." ployed instead, answering the purpose very well. We saw the whole process, which seemed clev

erly managed; and the gentlemen pronounced | funeral howl, worthy of Ireland." Miss Marthe quality of the sugar good. An Englishman employed there said, however, that the canes were inferior to those of the West Indies, for want of rain. There were a hundred people at work in this establishment; their wages being, besides food, a piastre and a quarter (nearly 3d.) per day. If, however, the payment of wages is managed here as I shall have to show it is usually done in Egypt, the receipts of the work people must be considered much less than this. We heard so much of the complaints of the people at having to buy, under compulsion,

coarse and dear sugar, that it is clear that much improvement in management must take place, before Egypt can compete with other sugar-producing countries; but still, what we saw of the extensive growth of the cane, and the quality of the produce, under great disadvantages, made us look upon this as one of the great future industrial resources of Egypt."

The boat passed Randa, Melamce, the caves of Bence Hasan, and many other places curious in the eyes of voyagers on the Nile, getting on very well with their native boatmen, by exercising the simple law of kindness, until they reached Asgool, the residence of the governor of Upper Egypt. Selim Pasha, who held this office when they went up the river, met a melancholy adventure in his youth.

"Selim Pasha is he who married his sister, and made the terrible discovery while at supper on his wedding day, in his first interview with his bride. Both were Circassian slaves: and he had been carried away before the birth of his sister. This adventure happened when the now gray-bearded man was young; but it invests him with interest still, in addition to that inspired by his high character. We passed his garden to-day, and thought it looked well-the palace being embosomed among palms, acacias, and the yellow-flowering mimosa; which last, when intermixed with other trees, gives a kind of autumnal tinge to masses of dark foliage. We were much struck by the causeway, which would be considered a vast work in England. It extends from the river bank to the town, and thence on to the Djebel (mountain), with many limbs from this main trunk. In direct extent, I think it can hardly be less than two miles, but of this I am not sure. Its secondary object is to retain the Nile water, after the inundation the water flowing through sluices which can be easily closed. The land is divided by smaller embankments, within this large one, into compartments or basins, where the most vigorous crops of wheat, clover, and millet, were flourishing when we rode by."

On their way to the caves of Djebel, the tourists "met a funeral procession coming from the cemetery that lies between the town and the hills. The women were uttering a

tineau does not seem to remember that the peculiarity has been often noticed. Upon that and some similar evidence, travellers given to speculation have argued that the Irish were descended from the Egyptians. Without reference to this particular point, there is a historical tradition that Ireland was originally peopled by Egyptians, under the rule of a Pharaoh's daughter. With the view of being special and particular, some persons say that this lady was the same princess who, in her young years, wrought a great revolution in the fortunes of Egypt, while, wandering by the sedgy banks of Nile one morning, she found the infant Moses in the ark amongst the bulrushes; and, in direct disobedience to her father's orders, and in treason, of course, to the state and its laws, saved the child alive. Some parties, we think, would even go further still; that is, would be more precise, and assure Miss Martineau that Pharaoh's daughter abandoned all her honors in Egypt out of pure vexation at the conduct of her adopted son, when he abandoned the court of Memphis, or whatever city was then the metropolis of the Nile, and fled into Midian to pursue a shepherd's life. It would be possible to suppose a still more romantic explanation of her voyage. She may have been banished at that time, for her supposed connivance in the deeds of her adopted son; who, it may be remembered, would stand accused of murder when he passed into Midian, and not improbably, also, of high treason. He was, most unquestionably, a fugitive for freedom, and suffered under the suspension of the habeas corpus act. For whatever reason the Egyptian princess filed to Ireland - which, by the by, might have stood very well in place of a Botany Bay to the Egyptians there can be cal with the deliverer of Moses, that she must no doubt, supposing her to have been identihave been a staid and matronly lady when she arrived at Galway or the Cove of Cork. This princess was named Scotia." From her, Ireland was originally called Scotland; a title ultimately transferred to the land that has held it so long and so honorably. Miss Martineau

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tion; but the funeral dirge is circumstantial may either accept or reject this tradievidence in its favor, and it stands upon at least as good authority as the 345 colossal wooden statues of priests, descending in the regular succession of father and son, mentioned by the priests of Amun, to Hecatæus of Miletus, on his visit to Thebes, 500 years before the Christian era, and which Miss Martineau records at pages 150 and 151 of her first volume. The credulity displayed in this

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