is search
for truth. That _humanity_ which the French writers of the last century
sought to preach, Schiller took from the scoffing wit of Voltaire, and
the unhealthy enthusiasm of Rousseau, to invest it with the thoughtful
sweetness and the robust vigour of his own great soul. And we believe
that no one can depart from the attentive study of that divine bequest
he has left the world, without a more serious respect for virtue, and a
more genial affection for mankind.

E. LYTTON BULWER.

SECOND PERIOD.

The Poems included in the Second Period of Schiller's literary career
are few, but remarkable for their beauty, and deeply interesting from
the struggling and anxious state of mind which some of them depict. It
was, both to his taste and to his thought, a period of visible
transition. He had survived the wild and irregular power which stamps,
with fierce and somewhat sensual characters, the productions of his
youth; but he had not attained that serene repose of strength--that
calm, bespeaking depth and fulness, which is found in the best writings
of his maturer years. In point of style, the Poems in this division have
more facility and sweetness than those that precede them, and perhaps
more evident vigour, more popular _verve_ and _gusto_, than some that
follow: in point of thought, they mark that era through which few men of
inquisitive and adventurous genius--of sanguine and impassioned
temperament--and of education chiefly self-formed, undisciplined, and
imperfect, have failed to pass--the era of doubt and gloom, of
self-conflict, and of self-torture.--In the "_Robbers_," and much of the
poetry written in the same period of Schiller's life, there is a bold
and wild imagination, which attacks rather than questions--innovates
rather than examines--seizes upon subjects of vast social import, that
float on the surface of opinion, and assails them with a blind and
half-savage rudeness, according as they offend the enthusiasm of
unreasoning youth. But now this eager and ardent mind had paused to
contemplate; its studies were turned to philosophy and history--a more
practical knowledge of life (though in this last, Schiller, like most
German authors, was ever more or less deficient in variety and range)
had begun to soften the stern and fiery spirit which had hitherto
sported with the dangerous elements of social revolution. And while this
change was working, before its feverish agitation subsided into that
Kantism