had, that common human feeling-not too high, nor too low— that common tone of the race to which he belonged, which led and enabled him in the maturity of his abilities to give to his countrymen of every circle an historic drama of highest excellence and enduring national interest. This grand work-Wallenstein' --which, although not similar, is analogous to the historic plays of Shakspeare, will, as we believe, ultimately constitute the permanent claim of Schiller to fame amongst his own fellow-countrymen; and the extraordinary fortune of an English translation which may be read, if we please, without once suggesting the fact of its not being original poetry, will go a great way in extending his fame amongst a people who, by kindred and by moral sympathy, can best appreciate it as it deserves. We have no room for any extracts from this translation; but we particularly refer our readers to act i. scene 4, act iv. scene 7, of the Piccolomini,' and act v. scene 1 of the Death of Wallenstein.' " These are not amongst the parts commonly quoted; but they are the most powerful and characteristic; and in the intermediate one of the three there is an interesting, but perhaps unintended, parallel with the scene of Macbeth's conference with his wife previously to the murder of Duncan. It is pretty generally known that Mr. Coleridge was solicited to undertake a translation of Faust before Mr. Shelley, Lord Francis Egerton, or Mr. Hayward, had, in their different manners, made that remarkable poem as familiar as it can possibly be made to the mere English reader: for Goethe being, like Coleridge, a great master of verbal harmony, must of necessity lose very considerably in a trauslation of any kind.* His dress sticks to his body; it is inseparable without laceration of the skin. This, amongst some other considerations of graver moment, induced Mr. Coleridge, after a careful perusal of the work, to decline the proposition. We are not very sure that he would have succeeded in it; at least it would probably have been something very unlike Goethe's 'Faust.' Mr. Coleridge thinks--perhaps he is the only man who may without presumption think-that Goethe's Faust' is a *Mr. Hayward's prose version is an elaborate, and, with few exceptions, an accurate one-and he is much to be praised for having enabled persons not thoroughly skilled in German, to read the original with hitherto unattainable facility and effect. It is needless to say that the mere English reader can form not the most distant conception of the charm of Goethe, in his finer and more aërial parts, from any literal version. Two translations in verse lately published, by Mr. Blackie and Mr. Syme, are creditable in some respects to these enthusiastic, and, we presume, very young admirers of Goethe; but their versification, especially Mr. Blackie's, is deformed throughout by provincial licenses; and neither of them has caught the spirit of the poet in his lyrical snatches. We are much disposed to think, that if Lord Francis Egerton were now to extend and remodel his early version, he would leave little to be desired. failure; failure; that is to say, that the idea, or what ought to have been the idea, of the work is very insufficiently and inartificially executed. He considers the intended theme to be-the consequences of a misology, or hatred and depreciation of knowledge caused by an originally intense thirst for knowledge baffled. But a love of knowledge for itself, and for pure ends, would never produce such a misology, but only a love of it for base and unworthy purposes. There is neither causation nor progression in Faust: he is a ready-made conjurer from the very beginning;-the incredulus odi is felt from the first line. The sensuality, and the thirst after knowledge, are unconnected with each other. Mephistopheles and Margaret are excellent, but Faust himself is dull and meaningless. The scene in Auerbach's cellars is one of the bestperhaps the very best; that on the Brocken is also fine, and all the songs are beautiful. But there is no whole in the poem; the scenes are mere magic-lantern pictures, and a large part of the work very flat. Such, in substance, is the opinion which we have heard Mr. Coleridge express of this famous piece: upon the justice of the criticism, we have neither time nor inclination to say a word upon the present occasion; but we cannot miss this opportunity of mentioning the curious fact that long before Goethe's Faust had appeared in a complete state, which we think was in 1807*—indeed before Mr. Coleridge had ever seen any part of it —he had planned a work upon the same, or what he takes to be the same idea. This plan, like many of its fellows, is now in Ariosto's moon; yet its general shape deserves to be recorded, as a remarkable instance of unconscious coincidence between two great individual minds, having many properties in common. Coleridge's misologist-Faust-was to be Michael Scott. He appeared in the midst of his college of devoted disciples, enthusiastic, ebullient, shedding around him bright surmises of discoveries fully perfected in after times, and inculcating the study of nature and its secrets as the pathway to the acquisition of power. He did not love knowledge for itself-for its own exceeding great reward, -but in order to be powerful. This poison-speck infected his mind from the beginning. The priests suspect him, circumvent him, accuse him; he is condemned and thrown into solitary confinement. This constituted the prologus of the drama. A pause of four or five years takes place, at the end of which Michael escapes from prison, a soured, gloomy, miserable man. He will * The first edition of Faust, in an imperfect state, was in 1790; the next edition was in 1807 or 1808, when the poem first appeared in the form to which we have been accustomed. See Hayward's Faust, 2nd edition, p. 215. We make no allusion to the wretched second part of Faust, which has recently appeared among Goethe's posthumous pieces. The editor who sanctioned its publication has done his utmost to degrade his author's reputation. not, not, cannot study; of what avail had all his study been to him? His knowledge, great as it was, had failed to preserve him from the cruel fangs of the persecutors; he could not command the lightning or the storm to wreak their furies upon the heads of those whom he hated and contemned, and yet feared. Away with learning!-away with study!-to the winds with all pretences to knowledge. We know nothing; we are fools, wretches, mere beasts. Anon the poet began to tempt him. He made him dream, gave him wine, and passed the most exquisite of women before him, but out of his reach. Is there, then, no knowledge by which these pleasures can be commanded? That way lay witchcraft-and accordingly to witchcraft Michael turns with all his soul. He has many failures and some successes; he learns the chemistry of exciting drugs and exploding powders, and some of the properties of transmitted and reflected light; his appetites and curiosity are both stimulated, and his old craving for power and mental domination over others revives. At last Michael tries to raise the devil, and the devil comes at his call. This devil was to be the universal humorist, who should make all things vain and nothing worth by a perpetual collation of the great with the little in the presence of the infinite. He plays an infinite number of tricks for Michael's gratification. In the meantime, Michael is miserable; he has power, but no peace, and he every day feels the tyranny of hell surrounding him. In vain he seems to himself to assert the most absolute empire over the devil, by imposing the most extravagant tasks;-one thing is as easy as another to the devil. What next, Michael?' is repeated every day with more imperious servility. Michael groans in spirit; his power is a curse; he commands women and wine, but the women seem fictitious and devilish, and the wine does not make him drunk. He now begins to hate the devil, and tries to cheat him. He studies again, and explores the darkest depths of sorcery for a recipe to cozen hell; but all in vain. Sometimes the devil's finger turns over the page for him, and points out an experiment, and Michael hears a whisperTry that, Michael!' The horror increases, and Michael feels that he is a slave and a condemned criminal. Lost to hope, he throws himself into every sensual excess,—in the mid career of which he sees Agatha, and immediately endeavours to seduce her. Agatha loves him, and the devil facilitates their meetings; but she resists Michael's attempts to ruin her, and implores him not to act so as to forfeit her esteem. Long struggles of passion ensue, in the result of which Michael's affections are called forth against his appetites, and the idea of redemption of the lost will dawns upon his mind. This is instantaneously perceived by the devil; and for the first time the humorist becomes severe and menacing. A fearful A fearful succession of conflicts between Michael and the devil takes place, in which Agatha helps and suffers. In the end, after subjecting his hero to every imaginable or unimaginable horror, the poet in nubibus made him triumphant, and poured peace into his soul in the conviction of a salvation for sinners through God's grace. Of this sketch we will only say, what probably the warmest admirers of Faust' will admit, that Goethe might have taken some valuable hints from it. It is a literary curiosity at least, and so we leave it. The 'Remorse' and ' Zapolya' strikingly illustrate the predominance of the meditative, pausing habit of Mr. Coleridge's mind. The first of these beautiful dramas was acted with success, although worse acting was never seen, Indeed, Kelly's sweet music was the only part of the theatrical apparatus in any respect worthy of the play. The late Mr. Kean made some progress in the study of Ordonio, with a view of reproducing the piece; and we think that Mr. Macready, either as Ordonio or Alvar, might, with some attention to music, costume, and scenery, make the representation attractive even in the present day. But in truth, taken absolutely and in itself, the Remorse' is more fitted for the study than the stage; its character is romantic and pastoral in a high degree, and there is a profusion of poetry in the minor parts, the effect of which could never be preserved in the common routine of representation. What this play wants is dramatic movement; there is energetic dialogue and a crisis of great interest, but the action does not sufficiently grow on the stage itself. Perhaps, also, the purpose of Alvar to waken remorse in Ordonio's mind is put forward too prominently, and has too much the look of a mere moral experiment to be probable under the circumstances in which the brothers stand to each other. Nevertheless, there is a calmness as well as superiority of intellect in Alvar which seem to justify, in some measure, the sort of attempt on his part, which, in fact, constitutes the theme of the play; and it must be admitted that the whole underplot of Isidore and Alhadra is lively and affecting in the highest degree. We particularly refer to the last scene between Ordonio and Isidore in the cavern, which we think genuine Shakspeare; and Alhadra's narrative of her discovery of her husband's murder is not surpassed in truth and force by anything of the kind that we know. The passage in the dungeon scene, in which Alvar rejects the poisoned cup, always struck us as uncommonly fine, although we think the conclusion weak. The incantation scene is a beautiful piece of imagination, and we are inclined to think a quotation of a part of it will put Mr. Coleridge's poetical power before many of our readers in a new light: • REMORSE REMORSE-Act III. sc. 1. [A Hall of Armory, with an altar at the back of the stage. Soft music from an instrument of glass or steel.] VALDEZ, ORDONIO, and ALVAR in a Sorcerer's robe. ORD. This was too melancholy, father. Nay, My Alvar loved sad music from a child. His head upon the blind boy's dog. It pleased me ALV. (aside.) My tears must not flow! I must not clasp his knees, and cry, My Father! TER. Lord Valdez, you have ask'd my presence here, ORD. Believe you, then, no preternatural influence? (To Alvar.) Stranger, I mourn and blush to see you here I left you. ORD. (aside.) Ha! he has been tampering with her!— Than suits the stranger's name !-I swear to thee I will uncover all concealed guilt. Doubt, but decide not! Stand ye from the altar. [Strain of music. I call up the departed. Soul of Alvar! Hear our soft suit, and heed my milder spell; So may the gates of Paradise, unbarr'd, Cease thy swift toils! Since haply thou art one Of |