s.

Indeed the whole speech is in the best style of Massinger. _O si sic
omnia!_]

[Footnote 30: It appears that the account of his conversion being
caused by such a fall, and other stories of his juvenile character,
are not well authenticated.]

[Footnote 31: We doubt the propriety of putting so blasphemous a
statement in the mouth of any character.--T.]

[Footnote 32: This soliloquy, which, according to the former
arrangement; constituted the whole of Scene IX., and concluded the
Fourth Act, is omitted in all the printed German editions. It seems
probable that it existed in the original manuscript from which Mr.
Coleridge translated.--Ed.]

[Footnote 33: The soliloquy of Thekla consists in the original of
six-and-twenty lines, twenty of which are in rhymes of irregular
recurrence. I thought it prudent to abridge it. Indeed the whole scene
between Thekla and Lady Neubrunn might, perhaps have been omitted
without injury to the play.--C.]

[Footnote 34: These four lines are expressed in the original with
exquisite felicity--

Am Himmel ist geschaeftige Bewegung.
Des Thurmes Fahne jagt der Wind, schnell geht
Der Wolken Zug, die _Mondessichel wankt_,
Und durch die Nacht zuckt ungewisse Helle.

The word "moon-sickle," reminds me of a passage in Harris, as quoted
by Johnson, under the word "falcated." "The enlightened part of the
moon appears in the form of a sickle or reaping-hook, which is while
she is moving from the conjunction to the opposition, or from the new
moon to the full: but from full to a new again, the enlightened part
appears gibbous, and the dark _falcated_."

The words "wanken" and "schweben" are not easily translated. The
English words, by which we attempt to render them, are either vulgar
or pedantic, or not of sufficiently general application. So "der
Wolken Zug"--literally, The Draft, the Procession of clouds;
freely--The Masses of the Clouds sweep onward in swift _stream_.]

[Footnote 35: A very inadequate translation of the original--

Verschmerzen werd' ich diesen Schlag, das weiss ich,
Denn was verschmerzte nicht der Mensch!

LITERALLY.

I shall _grieve down_ this blow, of that I'm conscious:
What does not man grieve down?]

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION TO WILLIAM TELL

BY WILLIAM H. CARRUTH, PH.D.

Professor of Comparative Literature, Leland Stanford University

William Tell is the last complete drama written by Schiller,