evidently are. And here lies the reason, we apprehend, why dramatic
representations of insanity are so generally unsuccessful. We cannot
participate in the capricious delusions of the maniac, who becomes,
therefore, a mere object of wonder or curiosity. The moment when the
lunatic affects us most deeply is, when he approaches nearest to the
ordinary current of human thought--it is the moment when he comes _back_
to reason, and its too frequent companion, the sense of pain.

We make this observation, because it probably had its weight in
determining the poet in the course he pursued. Schiller probably
reflected that, whether he _related_ his marvels in the dialogue of his
personages, or represented them as _facts_ in his drama, he must in both
cases depend, for the impression he should produce, on a successful
appeal to the superstitious feelings of his contemporaries. In whatever
era a poet may find his materials, his authority for using them must lie
in the age he writes for--in the interest they are capable of exciting
in that age. His success as a dramatic poet required that he should
kindle the love of the marvellous; and he may have thought that, in an
artistical point of view, the question resolved itself into one of
policy, of means to an end--whether it were better to assail our
credulity by open force, and so take it by storm, or to content himself
with a less advantage, gained by more insidious but surer approaches.

With all his boldness, and all his genius, has Schiller succeeded in his
treatment of the miraculous? We hesitate to reply. There is a peculiar
difficulty in deciding how far a poet has been successful in an appeal
to superstitious feelings; it is this, that in such cases every
intelligent reader feels that he must be aidant and assistant in the
subjection of his own rebellious reason, prompt at every moment to turn
with impatience and derision from the utterly incredible. This necessity
to be a party concerned in the business, leaves him in doubt how far he
has been compelled by the poet, and how far he has, or _ought to have_,
voluntarily surrendered. After all, the use of the marvellous in poetry
is not so much itself to impress us with awe and astonishment, as to
supply novel and striking situations for the display of human feelings.
When Johanna, for instance, describes the visitation by the Virgin, and
declares her sacred mission, we listen unmoved. Not so, when, having
felt the touch of h