NOTES. Resignation, p. 13. "The silent God-twin Deity with Sleep Hath dipp'd his torch," &c. IN presenting this image Schiller had probably in view the illustrations of ancient Poetry and Sculpture in Winkelmann's Kunst und Alterthum, or in Lessing's Poesie und Kunst, under the head, Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet. We have the same picture repeated in the Götter Griechenlands, with the additional circumstance-noticed also by Spence in his Polymetis-that the representation of Death in the repulsive form of a Skeleton was unknown to classical antiquity. Ibid. p. 13. "O take my writ of right to Joy's domain." In the original, Meinen Vollmachtbrief zum Glücke-on which Dr. Anster remarks, "I am amused at your Writ of Right. It is very lucky, however; and, now that it has ceased for any other purpose, it is well that we Poets can make any use of it." Ibid. p. 16. "The world's record is the world's final doom." Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht-very well rendered by M. de Barante, in his Notice sur la Vie de Schillerwhere he has given an admirable prose version of this poem"L'histoire du monde, voilà le jugement du monde”—in other words, pursues the same critic—“ Ce qui a été a été, et tout est fini par là." This, says he, with equal truth and justice, "est assurément nier la Providence et la morale. Mais professer en même temps le culte desinteressé de la vertu, c'est rapprocher, s'il est possible, le scepticisme de la foi; c'est la revolte d'un cœur religieux contre une funeste erreur de l'esprit." Whoever wishes more fully to comprehend the state of mind in which Schiller gave vent to the feelings evinced by this and the last preceding poem, would do well to read his Philosophische Briefe, and his Geisterseher, in both which there is no doubt that he meant to pourtray his own mental character in the principal personages of each. "A cold submission," observes Neander, "which overwhelms all our natural feelings, how different is it from the child-like resignation of the Christian, which leaves all the pure feelings of Human Nature uninjured; a resignation not to the iron decrees of a necessity which commands annihilation, but a resignation founded on confidence in that Eternal Love which restores all that is sacrificed to it, in greater splendour and beauty." Die Götter Griechenlands, p. 16. Wordsworth, at the close of one of his sonnets, exclaims, in a burst of honest indignation— "Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed unknown, So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn." On which his reviewer observes, "The latter part of this sonnet has been misapprehended by some who have supposed that Pagan superstitions were commended, abstractedly, and not as being better than a total absence of devotional and natural sentiment." At the same time, it is difficult to forbear from meeting Schiller's regrets for the departure of the Gods of the Grecian Mythology in the sublime strain of Milton's Hymn to the Nativity, or with the taunting apostrophe which I may be pardoned for borrowing from an unpublished poem "Gods of Hellas! Gods of Hellas! Can ye listen in your silence? Keeps you out of sight of shore? In treating, however, of the legitimate use which may be made, even by a religious Poet, of the Heathen Mythology, we should not forget Bacon's treatise "On the Wisdom of the Ancients," nor what has been said by Heathen Philosophers, as by Plutarch and others, on the Allegorical sense which pervades it. Ibid. p. 17. "Then to nobler heights was Nature lifted," &c. This image is repeated by Schiller in his Ideale. "So schlang ich mich mit Liebesarmen Bis sie zu athmen, zu erwarmen, Begann an meiner Dichterbrust." Ibid. There, where now-so sages have decided But a soul-less globe of fire we see,' &c. Compare with this and the following stanza the whole of that fine passage in Wordsworth's "Despondency Corrected," beginning "The lively Grecian, in a land of hills," &c. "In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretch'd A distant strain, . . . his fancy fetch'd Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slak'd Sunbeams upon distant hills Gliding apace, with shadows in their train, he transform'd Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly," &c. &c. Ibid p. 19. "Love's warm kiss receiv'd the latest breath, See the preceding note on a parallel passage in the poem of Resignation. Ibid. p. 20. "And to those who over Ocean wander Jove's twin-star its radiance lent." So in the "Bride of Messina " "Und wie des Himmels Zwillinge dem Schiffer |