bargo upon the supply of convicts-whether as bond-assignees, probationers, ticket-of-leave men, emancipists, or by whatever name we may elect to call them-but that we may make amends also to the colonists, even at this late hour, for the corruption and demoralisation which, ever since the first free emigrants touched their shores, we have never ceased to bring upon them, let us infuse the healthy blood of our own free, bold peasantry into the sickly blood of Tasmania. Let our right hand tear away the felon bondsman, while our left hand plants the free cottager in his stead. Thus shall we obtain from the grateful island, in after years, not only its forgiveness for ancient tardiness, but, much more, blessings for the still timely succour. While we write, more than a thousand applications for free passage to Van Diemen's Land, for emigrant labourers, have been dispatched to Downing Street, through the colonial secretary's office: many more such applications would follow, doubtless, but for the exhaustion of their land fund, through our own criminal neglect. If it be so, let that parliament which freely gave 20,000,000%. to redeem the negro, remember that our country owes a debt to its southernmost child, the discharge whereof will be more than generosity, it will be justice. In one word, whether out of colonial funds alone, or British funds also, the money be provided, let it be provided; so amply, too, that the humiliating prayer for bondsmen may be no longer heard; and that those who have raised it may be put to silence, at least, if not to shame, when, by our exertions, they see their labourmarket stocked with free men, wages lowered, and the demand for labourers no longer greater than the supply. And on their side, too, our lowly, honest countrymen may assure themselves that, when transportation is ended, there is no place in any quarter of the globe where the industrious and sober labourer, or artisan, will find a more cheering welcome, and a more ready appreciation of his worthiness of his hire, than in Van Diemen's Land.*

*In 1838, owing to a temporary depression, the wages of mechanics had fallen to a rate lower than they have ever since been known; yet the following are some of these low rates: bricklayers, 68. and 68. 6d. a day, masons, ditto carpenters, ditto; plumbers, 5s. 6d. and 68. a day; &c. &c. (Statistical Returns, &c., Table 19.) In the year 1840, we observed an advertisement offering 10s. per day to a good blacksmith. Agricultural labourers also realise very high wages. A gentleman of large property, near Oatlands, told us, that of his farming men none received lower wages than 207. a year, and one man as much as 304. a year. This was over and above their rations and house-room. As to domestic servants, their wages are far higher still, and indeed quite extravagant.

The time has long since come, and, happily, has not gone by as yet, when free institutions should have been granted to the colonists. Let them be granted now. And let us be mindful, that as one free institution supports another, so the denial of every necessary one impairs the rest, and may even, in some cases, as already noticed of trials by jury, rather dispose those which remain to become the tools of corrupt tyranny. Let us, then, not be niggardly in well doing, but rather let us esteem it our pride to elevate Van Diemen's Land, at this crisis of her destiny, for good or ill, to a level with all our other colonial possessions of the same magnitude with herself. Where we have deemed it wise to limit and confine their local franchises, let us, if necessary, curb and restrain her's also. Where we have agreed that these may, without challenge or jealousy on our part, enjoy the full measure of their birthright, let us impart to her also the rich inheritance without stint. And when to all these wholly temporal and secondary implements of greatness, we superadd the endeavour to instil into her children, and foster and keep alive the blessed light wherein their and our common forefathers first fashioned forth, and secured unto their country, not only these good things, but all other earthly adjuncts and appendages vouchsafed to those who "seek first the kingdom of heaven and its justice," we shall not doubt of a speedy and a brilliant triumph for Tasmania. Her vices and weaknesses are of forty years; but what are forty years to all the course of time? what to eternity?

ART. VII.-I. Schiller's Leben Geistesentwicklung und Werke in Zusammenhang. Von Dr. Karl Hoffmeister (The Life and Works of Schiller in connexion with his Spiritual Development). Stuttgart: 1839.

2. Schiller's Leben, von Gustav Schwab. Stuttgart: 1840. 3. Schiller's Bride of Messina. Translated by A. Lodge, Esq.

London: 1841.

HE principal literary names of Germany have, for some years past, been nearly as familiar to the educated classes in England, as those of native writers, and her language and literature have been made the objects, if not always of very assiduous study, at all events of zealous eulogy. If this zeal has not been in all instances "according to knowledge," nearer approaches have certainly been made to it than in those disparaging estimates, proving nothing but the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of the writers, which could formerly find

their way into many of our leading periodicals. Great progress has been made since the days when Schiller and Goethewere no further known, to the generality of English readers, than as the authors of The Robbers and the Sorrows of Werther. Translations of most of the principal productions of these, and other distinguished writers, have been current among us, and some of them indeed,-of Faust for instance, have been "as plenty as blackberries," the regular pièces de résistance for every tyro to try his "'prentice hand" upon.

*

Generally speaking, however, translations afford but imperfect means of acquaintance with writers of much depth and originality. Mere matter-of-fact books lose, perhaps, little or nothing by translation. But the more original a book is, the more it differs from the mere mercantile article that sometimes passes by that name, the more does it usually reflect the age, the country, the social circumstances of the writer. Some few books indeed may be said to bring with them their own atmosphere of light; but these are most rare exceptions, and prove nothing in favour of translations in general, which are not only seldom free from the strangeness and awkwardness belonging to unaccustomed attire, but take the reader by surprise, throwing suddenly before him new. and unexpected forms of life, perplexing him with symbols with whose hidden meaning he is unacquainted, and producing as disagreeable a sensation as that of entering a foreign circle whilst ignorant of its language, The time and labour requisite for the acquisition of a foreign language, afford us the opportunity of becoming gradually familiarized with the modes of thought, and the manner of life of those who speak it, as in the gradual approach to a distant country, almost every object we meet with on the road informs us of some new particular concerning it, and serves to explain something which is to follow But in forming an acquaintance with a foreign author by means of a translation, we are, as it were, dropped by a balloon into the strange city, and walk about puzzled and bewildered as in a dream.

These remarks appear to apply particularly to writers of the subjective class to which Schiller unquestionably belongs. His works can only be judged accurately when taken in connexion, with his life, of which indeed they may be considered,

Mr. Lodge's Translation of the "Bride of Messina," which is mentioned at the head of this article, is deserving of high commendation for elegance and accuracy. We regret that it has reached us too late for a lengthened notice in this article.

as essential parts. They present in a regular series, expositions of successive stages of mental development, and can scarcely be judged of at all in a fragmentary manner. Many obscure passages of his philosophical writings may be suddenly illuminated by reference to poems, in which the most abstract ideas are clothed with living imagery that renders them "palpable to vision," whilst on the other hand, his lyrical productions contain in microcosmic diminution his whole system of philosophy.

He could not, like his great friend and countryman, Goethe, take up a subject and toy with it, dilettante fashion, and try what could be made out of the mere representation of it, without caring more about it. To Goethe, as lord of the world of art, it seems equal whether

"A hero perish, or a sparrow fall.”

He can find as much to interest him in the laying out of a garden-in the fitting up of a house-in the most trivial details of domestic economy-as in the most passionate workings of the human soul! But Schiller must put his heart into the business, When burning with youthful indignation against the conventionalism and tyranny of the narrow sphere that was then representative of the world to him, when pouring into fervent poetry the torrent of impetuous passion, when struggling in the cold grasp of doubt and despair, revelling in the pleasures of social life, or tasting the higher, purer joys of divine philosophy-he is equally in earnest equally writing from the bottom of his heart. The progress of the author is inseparably connected with the life

of the man.

In choosing so often to clothe his conceptions in a dramatic form, certainly one ill-adapted to the character of his genius, we cannot help thinking that Schiller yielded to the influence of circumstances, rather than followed his own unbiassed tendencies. Indeed, some misgivings of this kind seem to have haunted his own mind to the last. But in the hard, dry routine of the military school, where his early life was spent, the occasional performance of plays afforded the only glimpses into that ideal world of splendour and beauty, that lay afar off and dimly visible to his young imagination. He had been early familiarized by his mother with the writings of Uz and Gellert, and such poetry as came within her reach: the study of these writers and of the Bible gave a devotional turn to his earliest aspirations, and he was destined to have entered one of the conventual schools of Wurtemberg, with

a view to theology as his future vocation, when an offer was made to his parents to receive him into the Karl's Academy, recently established by Duke Charles.

The proposal does not appear to have been particularly relished by his parents; but his father being an officer in the duke's service, could not well decline the honour. The seminary was a kind of hobby of the duke, who amused himself with it by way of variety, after a life spent in ostentation and sensual excess. Military subordination was the leading principle of the institution. The pupils marched to their lessons, marched to dinner, marched to bed, and held up their hands to pray at the roll of the drum. All tendency to originality of character was to be severely checked, and every talent repressed that did not shoot forth in the prescribed direction. Even letter-writing was prohibited, and the utmost vigilance was employed by the authorities to prevent excursions on the forbidden ground of Parnassus. So closely were the pupils watched, that they were never allowed to assemble in groups, and Schiller could only "snatch a fearful joy" in communicating his poems to his friends in a lonely passage, a retired walk in the garden, or even a corner in the washing-room, whilst a friendly sentinel kept watch without. In strange contrast with all this rigid discipline, however, the pupils were permitted, not only to perform plays, but to mingle in the masquerades, and other not very decorous festivities of the ducal palace.

In order to obtain leisure for composition, Schiller was sometimes tempted to feign illness, that he might he allowed to pass the night in the apartment of the sick, where a light was burned; and these stolen intervals produced The Robbers. On one occasion the nature of his indisposition being discovered, a powerful dose of study, in the line of his then appointed profession of medicine, was prescribed as a cure. Though usually modest and submissive in his demeanour, the hidden volcanic fire of his temperament broke forth; he tore the paper presented to him, and throwing it on the ground, declared he would choose his own tasks. This outbreak was punished by degradation; and Schiller formed a project, with some companions, to escape from so galling a yoke by flight. The project, however, was not put into execution, and the young poet was driven back into that ideal world, whose boundless freedom made amends for the irksome restraints of the institution. It would be curious to contrast these early years of Schiller, in the barrack-like formality and monotonous seclusion of the Karl's Academy, with the liberty, the variety,