f his choosing, had raised his own mind into something
like a Pythian frenzy; and his genius, untrained as it was, sufficed
to communicate abundance of the feeling to others. Perhaps more than
abundance: to judge from our individual impression, the perusal of the
_Robbers_ produces an effect powerful even to pain; we are absolutely
wounded by the catastrophe; our minds are darkened and distressed, as
if we had witnessed the execution of a criminal. It is in vain that we
rebel against the inconsistencies and crudities of the work: its
faults are redeemed by the living energy that pervades it. We may
exclaim against the blind madness of the hero; but there is a towering
grandeur about him, a whirlwind force of passion and of will, which
catches our hearts, and puts the scruples of criticism to silence. The
most delirious of enterprises is that of Moor, but the vastness of his
mind renders even that interesting. We see him leagued with
desperadoes directing their savage strength to actions more and more
audacious; he is in arms against the conventions of men and the
everlasting laws of Fate: yet we follow him with anxiety through the
forests and desert places, where he wanders, encompassed with peril,
inspired with lofty daring, and torn by unceasing remorse; and we wait
with awe for the doom which he has merited and cannot avoid. Nor amid
all his frightful aberrations do we ever cease to love him: he is an
'archangel though in ruins;' and the strong agony with which he feels
the present, the certainty of that stern future which awaits him,
which his own eye never loses sight of, makes us lenient to his
crimes. When he pours forth his wild recollections, or still wilder
forebodings, there is a terrible vehemence in his expressions, which
overpowers us, in spite both of his and their extravagance. The scene
on the hills beside the Danube, where he looks at the setting sun,
and thinks of old hopes, and times 'when he could not sleep if his
evening prayer had been forgotten,' is one, with all its
improprieties, that ever clings to the memory. "See," he passionately
continues, "all things are gone forth to bask in the peaceful beam of
the spring: why must I alone inhale the torments of hell out of the
joys of heaven? That all should be so happy, all so married together
by the spirit of peace! The whole world one family, its Father above;
that Father not _mine_! I alone the castaway, I alone struck out from
the company of the ju