Colonel Seckendorf. (Thekla steps to the table, and takes a

ring from a casket.)

Thek. You have beheld me in my agony, And shewn a feeling heart, please you accept

(Giving him the ring.) A small memorial of this hour. Now go! Capt. (Confused.) Princess

(Thekla silently makes signs for him to go, and turns from him. The Captain lingers, and is about to speak. Lady Neubrunn repeats the signal and he retires.) Thek. (Falls on Lady Neubrunn's neck.) Now, gentle Neubrunn, shew me the affection

Which thou hast ever promised; prove thyself

My own true friend, and faithful fellowpilgrim.

This night we must away!

Neub.
Away! and whither?
Thek. Whither! There is but one place
in the world.

Thither where he lies buried! To his

casket;

I throw it from me. O, my only hope, To die beneath the hoofs of trampling steeds

That is the lot of heroes upon earth."

Mr Coleridge in his preface says, that One more extract, and we have done.

the first scene of the fifth act of this

play is the finest thing in all Schiller's tragedies, and we are disposed to agree with him. It represents the last hour of Wallenstein's life. The scene is a saloon, terminated by a gallery which extends far into the background. In the recesses of that gallery the foreign mercenaries, by whose weapons the great General is destined to die, are already concealed, and await but the signal. He, meantime, is altogether

unconscious that treason has woven the web around him. He receives first the Swedish Captain who had brought the news of Max Piccolomini's death, and afterwards his sister Tertsky,— but the scene speaks for itself.

"Wallenstein, (sitting at a table.) The Swedish Captain (standing before him.)

Wal. Commend me to your lord. I sympathize

In his good fortune. And if you have seen

me

Deficient in the expressions of that joy
Which such a victory might well demand,
Attribute it to no lack of good will,
For henceforth are our fortunes one. Fare-
well,

And for your trouble take my thanks. To

morrow

The citadel shall be surrender'd to you
On your arrival.

(The Swedish Captain retires. Wal-
lenstein sits lost in thought, his eyes
fixed vacantly, and his head sus-
tained by his hand. The Countess
Tertsky enters, stands before him
awhile, unobserved by him. At
length he starts, sees her, and recol-
lects himself.)
3 D

With him! but who knows what the coming hour,

Veil'd in thick darkness, brings for us!
Count.
Thou speakest

Of Piccolomini. What was his death?
The courier had just left thee, as I came.
(Wallenstein, by a motion of his
hand, makes signs to her to be
silent.).
Turn not thine eyes upon the backward view,
Let us look forward into sunny days;
Welcome with joyous heart the victory;
Forget what it has cost thee. Not to-day,
For the first time, thy friend was to thee
dead,

To thee he died when first he parted from thee.

Wal. This anguish will be wearied down, I know;

What pang is permanent with man? From the highest,

As from the vilest thing of every day,
He learns to wean himself; for the strong

hours

Thy heart is rich enough to vivify Itself. Thou lov'st and prizest virtues in him,

The which thyself did'st plant, thyself unfold.

Wal. (Stepping to the door:) Who interrupts us now at this late hour? It is the governor. He brings the keys Of the citadel. 'Tis midnight. Leave me, sister.

Count. O, 'tis so hard to me this night
to leave thee,

A boding fear possesses me!
Wal.
Fear? Wherefore?
Count. Should'st thou depart this night,
and we at waking

Never more find thee!

Wal. Fancies-
Count.

O, my soul

Has long been weigh'd down by these dark

forebodings,

And if I combat and repel them waking, They still rush down upon my heart in dreams.

I saw thee, yesternight, with thy first wife, Sit at a banquet gorgeously attir'd.

Wal. This was a dream of favourable

omen,

That marriage being the founder of my for

tunes.

Count. To-day I dreamt that I was seeking thee

Alphabets wound not-and he finds no hands.

Count. If he should find them, my resolve is taken

I bear about me my support and refuge."

The whole of the last act is worthy of this commencement. The deliberate unrobing the conversation with that should not be disturbed"-the Gordon-the sleep, "the holy sleep stamp heard upon the floor behindthe inrushing of the assassins-all is conceived in the noblest style of tragic action. And then the conclusionthe imperial letter put into the childless Count Octavio Piccolomini's hand just as the whole dark scene is closing the mockery of its address "to the PRINCE Piccolomini"- a childless prince! the total misery of the vichas no power to undo the sacrifice tims, and the bitter heart of him that all this, we fear not to say it, is imagined almost as if the spirit of Shakespeare had been near to Schiller in his midnight dreams.-Oh! Si sic omnia.

We said, some pages back, that WALLENSTEIN appeared in England, to be admired by the few, and neglected by the many. Of the former of these propositions we have, without particularly intending to do so, furnished several very striking instances in the course of our present paper. It is impossible that any lover of poetry, acquainted with the works of the Living Poets of England, should have read what we have quoted without perceiving that the poetical genius of the time has been deeply influenced by this sublime victim of popular neglect. We need not multiply illustrations of a thing in itself quite evident, but we may just desire the more hasty of our readers to turn, for example, to Mr Wordsworth's celebrated sonnet,

""Tis not in battles that from youth we train," &c.

and compare it with one remarkable speech, in the first scene, between the two Piccolomini and Questenberg; or take another still more celebrated passage of the same author, the exquisite account of the origin and natural beauty of the Greek mythology, in the Excursion, and compare it with the glorious burst of eloquence in which young Max comments upon the mysterious aspirations of the spirit of his superstitious idol, Wallenstein. both of these instances, and in others

In

which we have not leisure for particularizing, there can be no doubt that Wordsworth is Schiller's debtor. The fine simile about conjuring up a too powerful fiend, has been appropriated by the author of Waverley in one of his Novels-at this moment we forget which-but we believe he acknowledges the obligation on the spot. And, lastly, what can be more manifest now than the source of Mr Campbell's two beautiful lines

"'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,

And coming events cast their shadows before."

This fine image is evidently the progeny of Schiller's genius: whether the offspring, fine as it is, be not a dwindled one, the reader must be contented to judge for himself. For us, we confess that, Mr Campbell's image, beautiful as it always must be allowed

to be, appears rather prosaic by the side of its predecessor and progenitor. We all see the setting sun and its shadows, but it is for WALLENSTEIN to talk of that which is at once a shadow and a splendour-it is for him to contemplate, and for SCHILLER to describe, the awful influences of a sun that is not yet risen—the livid mystery of the pregnant East.

Upon the whole, there can be no doubt that this trilogy forms, in its original tongue, one of the most splendid specimens of tragic art the world has witnessed, and none at all that the execution of the version from which we have quoted so largely places Mr Coleridge in the very first rank of poetical translators. He is, perhaps, the solitary example of a man of very great original genius submitting to all the labours, and reaping all the honours, of this species of literary exertion.

I AM, or, more properly speaking, I have been, a man of pleasure. I am now forty years, less some few months, of age; and I shall depart this life at twelve o'clock to-night. About that hour it is that I propose to shoot myself through the head. Let this letter be evidence that I do the act advisedly. I should be sorry to have that resolution confounded with madness, which is founded upon the coolest and maturest consideration. Men are coxcombs even in death; and I will not affect to disguise my weakness. I would not forfeit the glory of triumphing over broken-spirited drunkards and halfcrazy opium chewers-of being able to die grateful for the joys I have experienced, and of disdaining to calumniate pleasures after they have ceased to be within my reach. I do assure you, Mr ********, that I should wait personally upon you with this epistle; but that I think the mere reasonableness of my suicide must carry conviction with it of my sanity; but that I trust to lay before you such facts, and such arguments, as shall approve me not only justifiable, but most philosophic, in destroying myself. Hear what I have done; weigh what I mean to do; and judge if I deserve the name of madman.

I was born of a family rather ancient than rich; and inherited, with something like the handsome person of my

father, his disposition to expend money rather than to acquire it. To my own recollection, at eighteen, I was of a determined temper, rather than of a violent one; ardent in the prosecution of objects, rather than sudden to undertake them; not very hasty either in love or in quarrel. I had faculty enough to write bad verses,-not industry enough to write anything else; and an aptitude for billiards and horse-riding to a miracle.

Now I desire to have this considered not as a confession, but as a statement. As I plead guilty to no fault, I make a declaration, not an acknowledgment. I am not lamenting anything that is past. If I had to begin again to-morrow, I would begin again in the same way. I should vary my course perhaps something, with the advantage of my present experience; but, take it in the main, and it would be the race that I have run already.

At eighteen, with an education, as Lord Foppington has it, "rather at large;" for (like Swift's captain of horse) my tutors were the last people who expected any good of me,-at eighteen, it became necessary for me to think of a profession. My first attempt in life was in the navy. I was anxious to go, and cared very little whither; and a school-boy midshipman of my acquaintance cajoled me into a Mediterranean voyage, by