The Life of Friedrich Schiller

Schiller's Carlos is the first of his plays that bears the stamp of anything like full maturity. The opportunities he had enjoyed for extending his knowledge of men and things, the sedulous practice of the art of composition, the study of purer models, had not been without their full effect. Increase of years had done something for him; diligence had done much more. The ebullience of youth is now chastened into the steadfast energy of manhood; the wild enthusiast, that spurned at the errors of the world, has now become the enlightened moralist, that laments their necessity, or endeavours to find out their remedy. A corresponding alteration is visible in the external form of the work, in its plot and diction. The plot is contrived with great ingenuity, embodying the result of much study, both dramatic and historical. The language is blank verse, not prose, as in the former works; it is more careful and regular, less ambitious in its object, but more certain of attaining it. Schiller's mind had now reached its full stature: he felt and thought more justly; he could better express what he felt and thought.

The merit we noticed in Fiesco, the fidelity with which the scene of action is brought before us, is observable to a still greater degree in Don Carlos. The Spanish court in the end of the sixteenth century; its rigid, cold formalities; its cruel, bigoted, but proud-spirited grandees; its inquisitors and priests; and Philip, its head, the epitome at once of its good and its bad qualities, in all his complex interests, are exhibited with wonderful distinctness and address. Nor is it at the surface or the outward movements alone that we look; we are taught the mechanism of their characters, as well as shown it in action. The stony-hearted Despot himself must have been an object of peculiar study to the author. Narrow in his understanding, dead in his affections, from his birth the lord of Europe, Philip has existed all his days above men, not among them. Locked up within himself, a stranger to every generous and kindly emotion, his gloomy spirit has had no employment but to strengthen or increase its own elevation, no pleasure but to gratify its own self-will. Superstition, harmonising with these native tendencies, has added to their force, but scarcely to their hatefulness: it lends them a sort of sacredness in his own eyes, and even a sort of horrid dignity in ours. Philip is not without a certain greatness, the greatness of unlimited external power, and of a will relentless in its dictates, guided by principles, false, but consistent and unalterable. The scene of his existence is haggard, stern and desolate; but it is all his own, and he seems fitted for it. We hate him and fear him; but the poet has taken care to secure him from contempt.

The contrast both of his father's fortune and character are those of Carlos. Few situations of a more affecting kind can be imagined, than the situation of this young, generous and ill-fated prince. From boyhood his heart had been bent on mighty things; he had looked upon the royal grandeur that awaited his maturer years, only as the means of realising those projects for the good of men, which his beneficent soul was ever busied with. His father's dispositions, and the temper of the court, which admitted no development of such ideas, had given the charm of concealment to his feelings; his life had been in prospect; and we are the more attached to him, that deserving to be glorious and happy, he had but expected to be either. Bright days, however, seemed approaching; shut out from the communion of the Albas and Domingos, among whom he lived a stranger, the communion of another and far dearer object was to be granted him; Elizabeth's love seemed to make him independent even of the future, which it painted with still richer hues. But in a moment she is taken from him by the most terrible of all visitations; his bride becomes his mother; and the stroke that deprives him of her, while it ruins him forever, is more deadly, because it cannot be complained of without sacrilege, and cannot be altered by the power of Fate itself. Carlos, as the poet represents him, calls forth our tenderest sympathies. His soul seems once to have been rich and glorious, like the garden of Eden; but the desert-wind has passed over it, and smitten it with perpetual blight. Despair has overshadowed all the fair visions of his youth; or if he hopes, it is but the gleam of delirium, which something sterner than even duty extinguishes in the cold darkness of death. His energy survives but to vent itself in wild gusts of reckless passion, or aimless indignation. There is a touching poignancy in his expression of the bitter melancholy that oppresses him, in the fixedness of misery with which he looks upon the faded dreams of former years, or the fierce ebullitions and dreary pauses of resolution, which now prompts him to retrieve what he has lost, now withers into powerlessness, as nature and reason tell him that it cannot, must not be retrieved.

Elizabeth, no less moving and attractive, is also depicted with masterly skill. If she returns the passion of her amiable and once betrothed lover, we but guess at the fact; for so horrible a thought has never once been whispered to her own gentle and spotless mind. Yet her heart bleeds for Carlos; and we see that did not the most sacred feelings of humanity forbid her, there is no sacrifice she would not make to restore his peace of mind. By her soothing influence she strives to calm the agony of his spirit; by her mild winning eloquence she would persuade him that for Don Carlos other objects must remain, when his hopes of personal felicity have been cut off; she would change his love for her into love for the millions of human beings whose destiny depends on his. A meek vestal, yet with the prudence of a queen, and the courage of a matron, with every graceful and generous quality of womanhood harmoniously blended in her nature, she lives in a scene that is foreign to her; the happiness she should have had is beside her, the misery she must endure is around her; yet she utters no regret, gives way to no complaint, but seeks to draw from duty itself a compensation for the cureless evil which duty has inflicted. Many tragic queens are more imposing and majestic than this Elizabeth of Schiller; but there is none who rules over us with a sway so soft and feminine, none whom we feel so much disposed to love as well as reverence.

The virtues of Elizabeth are heightened by comparison with the principles and actions of her attendant, the Princess Eboli. The character of Eboli is full of pomp and profession; magnanimity and devotedness are on her tongue, some shadow of them even floats in her imagination; but they are not rooted in her heart; pride, selfishness, unlawful passion are the only inmates there. Her lofty boastings of generosity are soon forgotten when the success of her attachment to Carlos becomes hopeless; the fervour of a selfish love once extinguished in her bosom, she regards the object of it with none but vulgar feelings. Virtue no longer according with interest, she ceases to be virtuous; from a rejected mistress the transition to a jealous spy is with her natural and easy. Yet we do not hate the Princess: there is a seductive warmth and grace about her character, which makes us lament her vices rather than condemn them. The poet has drawn her at once false and fair.

In delineating Eboli and Philip, Schiller seems as if struggling against the current of his nature; our feelings towards them are hardly so severe as he intended; their words and deeds, at least those of the latter, are wicked and repulsive enough; but we still have a kind of latent persuasion that they meant better than they spoke or acted. With the Marquis of Posa, he had a more genial task. This Posa, we can easily perceive, is the representative of Schiller himself. The ardent love of men, which forms his ruling passion, was likewise the constant feeling of his author; the glowing eloquence with which he advocates the cause of truth, and justice, and humanity, was such as Schiller too would have employed in similar circumstances. In some respects, Posa is the chief character of the piece; there is a preëminent magnificence in his object, and in the faculties and feelings with which he follows it. Of a splendid intellect, and a daring devoted heart, his powers are all combined upon a single purpose. Even his friendship for Carlos, grounded on the likeness of their minds, and faithful as it is, yet seems to merge in this paramount emotion, zeal for the universal interests of man. Aiming, with all his force of thought and action, to advance the happiness and best rights of his fellow-creatures; pursuing this noble aim with the skill and dignity which it deserves, his mind is at once unwearied, earnest and serene. He is another Carlos, but somewhat older, more experienced, and never crossed in hopeless love. There is a calm strength in Posa, which no accident of fortune can shake. Whether cheering the forlorn Carlos into new activity; whether lifting up his voice in the ear of tyrants and inquisitors, or taking leave of life amid his vast unexecuted schemes, there is the same sedate magnanimity, the same fearless composure: when the fatal bullet strikes him, he dies with the concerns of others, not his own, upon his lips. He is a reformer, the perfection of reformers; not a revolutionist, but a prudent though determined improver. His enthusiasm does not burst forth in violence, but in manly and enlightened energy; his eloquence is not more moving to the heart than his lofty philosophy is convincing to the head. There is a majestic vastness of thought in his precepts, which recommends them to the mind independently of the beauty of their dress. Few passages of poetry are more spirit-stirring than his last message to Carlos, through the Queen. The certainty of death seems to surround his spirit with a kind of martyr glory; he is kindled into transport, and speaks with a commanding power. The pathetic wisdom of the line, 'Tell him, that when he is a man, he must reverence the dreams of his youth,' has often been admired: that scene has many such.

The interview with Philip is not less excellent. There is something so striking in the idea of confronting the cold solitary tyrant with 'the only man in all his states that does not need him;' of raising the voice of true manhood for once within the gloomy chambers of thraldom and priestcraft, that we can forgive the stretch of poetic license by which it is effected. Philip and Posa are antipodes in all respects. Philip thinks his new instructor is 'a Protestant;' a charge which Posa rebuts with calm dignity, his object not being separation and contention, but union and peaceful gradual improvement. Posa seems to understand the character of Philip better; not attempting to awaken in his sterile heart any feeling for real glory, or the interests of his fellow-men, he attacks his selfishness and pride, represents to him the intrinsic meanness and misery of a throne, however decked with adventitious pomp, if built on servitude, and isolated from the sympathies and interests of others.

We translate the entire scene; though not by any means the best, it is among the fittest for extraction of any in the piece. Posa has been sent for by the King, and is waiting in a chamber of the palace to know what is required of him; the King enters, unperceived by Posa, whose attention is directed to a picture on the wall:

Act III. Scene XThe King and Marquis de Posa

[The latter, on noticing the King, advances towards him, and kneels, then rises, and waits without any symptom of embarrassment.]

King. [looks at him with surprise].We have met before, then?Mar.No.King.You did my crownSome service: wherefore have you shunn'd my thanks?Our memory is besieged by crowds of suitors;Omniscient is none but He in Heaven.You should have sought my looks: why did you not?Mar. 'Tis scarcely yet two days, your Majesty,Since I returned to Spain.King.I am not usedTo be my servants' debtor; ask of meSome favour.Mar.I enjoy the laws.King.That rightThe very murd'rer has.Mar.And how much moreThe honest citizen!—Sire, I'm content.King [aside]. Much self-respect indeed, and lofty daring!But this was to be looked for: I would haveMy Spaniards haughty; better that the cupShould overflow than not be full.—I hearYou left my service, Marquis.Mar.Making wayFor men more worthy, I withdrew.King.'Tis wrong:When spirits such as yours play truant,My state must suffer. You conceive, perhaps,Some post unworthy of your meritsMight be offer'd you?Mar.No, Sire, I cannot doubtBut that a judge so skilful, and experiencedIn the gifts of men, has at a glance discover'dWherein I might do him service, wherein not.I feel with humble gratitude the favour,With which your Majesty is loading meBy thoughts so lofty: yet I can—[He stops.King.You pause?Mar. Sire, at the moment I am scarce prepar'dTo speak, in phrases of a Spanish subject,What as a citizen o' th' world I've thought.Truth is, in parting from the Court forever,I held myself discharged from all necessityOf troubling it with reasons for my absence.King. Are your reasons bad, then? Dare you not riskDisclosing them?Mar.My life, and joyfully,Were scope allow'd me to disclose them all.'Tis not myself but Truth that I endanger,Should the King refuse me a full hearing.Your anger or contempt I fain would shun;But forced to choose between them, I had ratherSeem to you a man deserving punishmentThan pity.King [with a look of expectation]. Well?Mar.The servant of a princeI cannot be.[The King looks at him with astonishment.I will not cheat my merchant:If you deign to take me as your servant,You expect, you wish, my actions only;You wish my arm in fight, my thought in counsel;Nothing more you will accept of: not my actions,Th' approval they might find at Court becomesThe object of my acting. Now for meRight conduct has a value of its own:The happiness my king might cause me plantI would myself produce; and conscious joy,And free selection, not the force of duty,Should impel me. Is it thus your MajestyRequires it? Could you suffer new creatorsIn your own creation? Or could IConsent with patience to become the chisel,When I hoped to be the statuary?I love mankind; and in a monarchy,Myself is all that I can love.King.This fireIs laudable. You would do good to others;How you do it, patriots, wise men thinkOf little moment, so it be but done.Seek for yourself the office in my kingdomsThat will give you scope to gratifyThis noble zeal.Mar.There is not such an office.King. How?Mar.What the king desires to spread abroadThrough these weak hands, is it the good of men?That good which my unfetter'd love would wish them?Pale majesty would tremble to behold it!No! Policy has fashioned in her courtsAnother sort of human good; a sortWhich she is rich enough to give away,Awakening with it in the hearts of menNew cravings, such as it can satisfy.Truth she keeps coining in her mints, such truthAs she can tolerate; and every dieExcept her own she breaks and casts away.But is the royal bounty wide enoughFor me to wish and work in? Must the loveI hear my brother pledge itself to beMy brother's jailor? Can I call him happyWhen he dare not think? Sire, choose some otherTo dispense the good which you have stamped for us.With me it tallies not; a prince's servantI cannot be.King [rather quickly].You are a Protestant.Mar. [after some reflection]Sire, your creed is also mine.[After a pause.I findI am misunderstood: 'tis as I feared.You see me draw the veil from majesty,And view its mysteries with steadfast eye:How should you know if I regard as holyWhat I no more regard as terrible?Dangerous I seem, for bearing thoughts too high:My King, I am not dangerous: my wishesLie buried here.[Laying his hand on his breast.The poor and purblind rageOf innovation, that but aggravatesThe weight o' th' fetters which it cannot break,Will never heat my blood. The centuryAdmits not my ideas: I live a citizenOf those that are to come. Sire, can a pictureBreak your rest? Your breath obliterates it.King. No other knows you harbour such ideas?Mar. Such, no one.King [rises, walks a few steps, then stops opposite the Marquis.—Aside]. New at least, this dialect!Flattery exhausts itself: a man of partsDisdains to imitate. For once let's haveA trial of the opposite! Why not?The strange is oft the lucky.—If so beThis is your principle, why let it pass!I will conform; the crown shall have a servantNew in Spain,—a liberal!Mar.Sire, I seeHow very meanly you conceive of men;How, in the language of the frank true spiritYou find but another deeper artificeOf a more practis'd coz'ner: I can alsoPartly see what causes this. 'Tis men;'Tis men that force you to it: they themselvesHave cast away their own nobility,Themselves have crouch'd to this degraded posture.Man's innate greatness, like a spectre, frights them;Their poverty seems safety; with base skillThey ornament their chains, and call it virtueTo wear them with an air of grace. Twas thusYou found the world; thus from your royal fatherCame it to you: how in this distorted,Mutilated image could you honour man?King. Some truth there is in this.Mar.Pity, however,That in taking man from the Creator,And changing him into your handiwork,And setting up yourself to be the godOf this new-moulded creature, you should haveForgotten one essential; you yourselfRemained a man, a very child of Adam!You are still a suffering, longing mortal,You call for sympathy, and to a godWe can but sacrifice, and pray, and tremble!O unwise exchange! unbless'd perversion!When you have sunk your brothers to be play'dAs harp-strings, who will join in harmonyWith you the player?King [aside].By Heaven, he touches me!Mar. For you, however, this is unimportant;It but makes you separate, peculiar;'Tis the price you pay for being a god.And frightful were it if you failed in this!If for the desolated good of millions,You the Desolator should gain—nothing!If the very freedom you have blightedAnd kill'd were that alone which could exaltYourself!—Sire, pardon me, I must not stay:The matter makes me rash: my heart is full,Too strong the charm of looking on the oneOf living men to whom I might unfold it.

[The Count de Lerma enters, and whispers a few words to the King. The latter beckons to him to withdraw, and continues sitting in his former posture.

King [to the Marquis, after Lerma is gone].Speak on!Mar. [after a pause] I feel, Sire, all the worth—King.Speak on!Y' had something more to say.Mar.Not long since, Sire,I chanced to pass through Flanders and Brabant.So many rich and flourishing provinces;A great, a mighty people, and still more,An honest people!—And this people's Father!That, thought I, must be divine: so thinking,I stumbled on a heap of human bones.

[He pauses; his eyes rest on the King, who endeavours to return his glance, but with an air of embarrassment is forced to look upon the ground.

You are in the right, you must proceed so.That you could do, what you saw you must do,Fills me with a shuddering admiration.Pity that the victim welt'ring in its bloodShould speak so feeble an eulogiumOn the spirit of the priest! That mere men,Not beings of a calmer essence, writeThe annals of the world! Serener agesWill displace the age of Philip; these will bringA milder wisdom; the subject's good will thenBe reconcil'd to th' prince's greatness;The thrifty State will learn to prize its children,And necessity no more will be inhuman.King. And when, think you, would those blessed agesHave come round, had I recoil'd beforeThe curse of this? Behold my Spain! Here bloomsThe subject's good, in never-clouded peace:Such peace will I bestow on Flanders.Mar. Peace of a churchyard! And you hope to endWhat you have entered on? Hope to withstandThe timeful change of Christendom; to stopThe universal Spring that shall make youngThe countenance o' th' Earth? You purpose, singleIn all Europe, alone, to fling yourselfAgainst the wheel of Destiny that rollsFor ever its appointed course; to clutchIts spokes with mortal arm? You may not, Sire!Already thousands have forsook your kingdoms,Escaping glad though poor: the citizenYou lost for conscience' sake, he was your noblest.With mother's arms Elizabeth receivesThe fugitives, and rich by foreign skill,In fertile strength her England blooms. ForsakenOf its toilsome people, lies GrenadaDesolate; and Europe sees with glad surpriseIts enemy faint with self-inflicted wounds.

[The King seems moved: the Marquis observes it, and advances some steps nearer.

Plant for Eternity and death the seed?Your harvest will be nothingness. The workWill not survive the spirit of its former;It will be in vain that you have labour'd;That you have fought the fight with Nature;And to plans of Ruin consecratedA high and royal lifetime. Man is greaterThan you thought. The bondage of long slumberHe will break; his sacred rights he will reclaim.With Nero and Busiris will he rankThe name of Philip, and—that grieves me, forYou once were good.King.How know you that?Mar. [with warm energy]You were;Yes, by th' All-Merciful! Yes, I repeat it.Restore to us what you have taken from us.Generous as strong, let human happinessStream from your horn of plenty, let souls ripenRound you. Restore us what you took from us.Amid a thousand kings become a king.

[He approaches him boldly, fixing on him firm and glowing looks.

Oh, could the eloquence of all the millions,Who participate in this great moment,Hover on my lips, and raise into a flameThat gleam that kindles in your eyes!Give up this false idolatry of self,Which makes your brothers nothing! Be to usA pattern of the Everlasting and the True!Never, never, did a mortal hold so much,To use it so divinely. All the kingsOf Europe reverence the name of Spain:Go on in front of all the kings of Europe!One movement of your pen, and new-createdIs the Earth. Say but, Let there be freedom![Throwing himself at his feet.King [surprised, turning his face away, then again towards Posa].Singular enthusiast! Yet—rise—I—Mar. Look round and view God's lordly universe:On Freedom it is founded, and how richIs it with Freedom! He, the great Creator,Has giv'n the very worm its sev'ral dewdrop;Ev'n in the mouldering spaces of Decay,He leaves Free-will the pleasures of a choice.This world of yours! how narrow and how poor!The rustling of a leaf alarms the lordOf Christendom. You quake at every virtue;He, not to mar the glorious form of Freedom,Suffers that the hideous hosts of EvilShould run riot in his fair Creation.Him the maker we behold not; calmHe veils himself in everlasting laws,Which and not Him the sceptic seeing exclaims,'Wherefore a God? The World itself is God.'And never did a Christian's adorationSo praise him as this sceptic's blasphemy.King. And such a model you would undertake,On Earth, in my domains to imitate?Mar. You, you can: who else? To th' people's goodDevote the kingly power, which far too longHas struggled for the greatness of the throne.Restore the lost nobility of man.Once more make of the subject what he was,The purpose of the Crown; let no tie bind him,Except his brethren's right, as sacred asHis own. And when, given back to self-dependence,Man awakens to the feeling of his worth,And freedom's proud and lofty virtues blossom,Then, Sire, having made your realms the happiestIn the Earth, it may become your dutyTo subdue the realms of others.King [after a long pause].I have heard you to an end.Not as in common heads, the world is paintedIn that head of yours: nor will I mete youBy the common standard. I am the firstTo whom your heart has been disclosed:I know this, so believe it. For the sakeOf such forbearance; for your having keptIdeas, embraced with such devotion, secretUp to this present moment, for the sakeOf that reserve, young man, I will forgetThat I have learned them, and how I learned them.Arise. The headlong youth I will set right,Not as his sovereign, but as his senior.I will, because I will. So! bane itself,I find, in generous natures may becomeEnnobled into something better. ButBeware my Inquisition! It would grieve meIf you—Mar. Would it? would it?King [gazing at him, and lost in surprise].Such a mortalTill this hour I never saw. No, Marquis!No! You do me wrong. To you I will notBe a Nero, not to you. All happinessShall not be blighted by me: you yourselfShall be permitted to remain a manBeside me.Mar. [quickly] And my fellow-subjects, Sire?Oh, not for me, not my cause was I pleading.And your subjects, Sire?King.You see so clearlyHow posterity will judge of me; yourselfShall teach it how I treated men so soonAs I had found one.Mar.O Sire! in beingThe most just of kings, at the same instantBe not the most unjust! In your FlandersAre many thousands worthier than I.'Tis but yourself,—shall I confess it, Sire?—That under this mild form first truly seeWhat freedom is.King [with softened earnestness].Young man, no more of this.Far differently will you think of men,When you have seen and studied them as I have.Yet our first meeting must not be our last;How shall I try to make you mine?Mar. Sire, let meContinue as I am. What good were itTo you, if I like others were corrupted?King. This pride I will not suffer. From this momentYou are in my service. No remonstrance!I will have it so. *  *  *  *  *

Had the character of Posa been drawn ten years later, it would have been imputed, as all things are, to the 'French Revolution;' and Schiller himself perhaps might have been called a Jacobin. Happily, as matters stand, there is room for no such imputation. It is pleasing to behold in Posa the deliberate expression of a great and good man's sentiments on these ever-agitated subjects: a noble monument, embodying the liberal ideas of his age, in a form beautified by his own genius, and lasting as its other products.16