ligent selection from our fugitive poetry, might perhaps present us with many of these minor poems; but the Vers de Societé form a species of poetical composition which may still be employed with great

success.

For the Literary Magazine.

MANILLA LITERATURE.

DR. ANDERSON, of Madras, has published in the Madras Gazette the following letter, which he had lately received from Manilla, announcing the formation of a literary society in that city:

"There is lately instituted here, under the immediate protection of government, a literary society, to which they have done me the honour to appoint me secretary. The intention of this society is to produce a journal every month, treating of the different branches of useful sciences of the Phillipine Islands, in order to encourage industry. Each will begin with a historical extract of these islands since the commence. ment of their establishment by the Spaniards, drawn from the most approved authors on this subject, deprived of all superstition in the ancient relations. After that they will speak of the three kingdoms, the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral. Agriculture will occupy a great space; and commerce and industry will furnish the journal with something upon navigation. A few sheets will be reserved for the remarkable events of every description which may have occurred, with observations on their different accidents. This is nearly the plan, which you will be able to judge more of by the prospectus, which I shall have the honour of sending to you by the first opportunity, but it is at present in the press, and will not appear before the end of the month. The society, wishing to acquire all the information and light which can tend to render their work

more useful, and at the same time enter into a correspondence with the other different societies who are occupied by the same views, have requested me, and in particular the president, Don Domingo Goyeno, to inform the society at Madras of their intentions by this opportunity, until they can do it more formally by sending the prospectus of their journal. Not knowing any of the other members of this society excepting you, sir, I take the liberty to request you will engage the learned members of your assembly in favour of this infant society,-Friends of Luconia, and engage them to admit with benevolence the request to enter into correspondence, and make known to this infant in the cradle their lights, their works, and, in fine, to assist it with their succour, that it may one day be enabled to tread in the steps of its masters. I cannot help being extremely flattered, sir, by a commission which brings to my recollection a person of your merit, and which will often give me the opportunity to assure you of the sentiments of respect and high consideration with which

I have the honour to be, &c. Manilla, J. M. DAYOT." 10th Feb. 1804.

For the Literary Magazine.

REPRODUCTION OF BUDS. EVERY tree, in the ordinary course of its growth, generates each season those buds which expand in the succeeding spring, and the buds thus generated contain, in many instances, the whole leaves which appear in the following summer. But if these buds be destroyed in the winter, or early part of the spring, other buds, in many kinds of trees, are generated, which in every respect perform the office of those which previously existed, except that they never afford fruit or blossoms. Buds spring neither from the medulla nor the bark, but are gene

rated by central vessels, which spring from the lateral orifices of the albumous tubes. The practicability of propagating some plants from their leaves may seem to stand in opposition to this; but the central vessel is always a component part of the leaf, and from it the bud and young plant probably originate. Few seeds contain less than three buds, one of which only, unless prevented by accident, germinates. Some seeds contain a much greater number. The seed of the peach appears to be provided with ten or twelve leaves, each of which probably covers the rudiment of a bud, and the seeds, like the buds of the horse-chesnut, contain all the leaves, and apparently all the buds, of the succeeding year.

Annual and biennial plants do not appear to possess the power given to perennial plants of reproducing their buds. Some biennials possess a singular resource when all their buds have been destroyed. A turnip, says an accurate observer, from which I had cut off the greater part of the fruit-stalks, and of which all the buds had been destroyed, remained some weeks in an apparently dormant state; after which the first seed in each pod germinated, and, bursting the seed-vessel, seemed to execute the office of a bud and leaves to the parent plant, during the short remaining term of its existence, when its preternatural foliage perished with it.

For the Literary Magazine. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF FREDERICK SCHILLER, THE GER

MAN DRAMATIST.

SCHILLER was born on the 10th November, 1759, at Marbach, in Wirtemburg, where his father was a lieutenant in the service of the duke. He was afterwards a major, and was appointed commandant at The Solitude, and inspector of the schools of agriculture, which was

VOL. V. NO. ZZZI.

his favourite science, and his uncommon knowledge of which he has proved by several works. He was a man of an enlightened understanding. The poet's mother was equally distinguished for the qualities of the heart and mind. Schiller had a brother well known for several excellent translations from the English, particularly Robertson's of Charles V, and the History of America. He is now a partner of Schwan and Gotz, booksellers in Mannheim. A sister of Schiller is married to counsellor Reinwald, of Meiningen, an illustrious member of the republic of letters.

While a boy, Schiller was distinguished by uncommon ardour of imagination; and nothing afforded him such delight as the prophecies of Ezekiel. The fancy of this poet is inexhaustible; and he lays open new worlds to our view. The reader will undoubtedly recollect that passage in which he represents himself standing among the tombs on the mouldering bones of the dead; the tombs open; the mouldering bones issue forth; a new creation appears. Between this passage and Moor's Dream there are striking resemblances.

His parents conceived that they could not provide better for his temporal welfare, than by confiding the formation of his mind to an institution, whose regulations have often been applauded. This was the school at Stutgard, called Charles's Academy, where the whole plan of instruction was formed on the principles of military tactics. The reveille wakened the pupils, who then proceeded en parade to worship God; en parade they marched to and from their places of instruction, to dinner, to play, and, it is even asserted, to bed. Here existed only one virtue: subordination; but one crime: free-will, independence. It is easy to conceive the irksomeness of such trammels to an ardent mind.

Schiller was originally destined for a surgeon, and prosecuted that study with great zeal. He was par ticularly attached to anatomy and

3

physiology. Had he been able to indulge his inclination, Germany would perhaps have had to boast a second Haller; but fate destined him for a poet.

Schiller could not so patiently submit to rule as to become a favourite with the inspectors of the college; they and the whole system soon became objects of his sincere aversion, which was greatly encreased when history opened to his view a world very different from that which he beheld around him. With what delight did he live among the heroes whom Greece and Rome produced! These were the characters he emulated, and to such men he fancied himself allied. Brutus, in particular, was his hero; and nothing, in his opinion, surpassed the greatness of that Roman. But his Brutus in Elysium," a piece which he composed at that period, conveys the best idea of the sentiments he then cherished.

With these ideas he could not but feel that the institution in which he was placed was a scene to which he was not adapted, and accordingly he ardently sought another that was more congenial. In the course of his reading he chanced to light upon Shakespeare. He now, for the first time, tasted pleasure, and clearly perceived his future destiny, which, with transport, he communicated to his most intimate friend. Zumsteeg, the celebrated musician, whose last composition was "Joanna's Farewel," was his intimate and confidant. With him Schiller had concluded a friendship in life and death, ardent and glowing as that which the Letters from Julius to Raphael display, bold as that which Carlos desires.

His situation now became insupportable. He never tasted happiness when absent from his friend, except the few moments of his solitude, which always flew too swiftly away; for images and ideas crowded like a rising world upon his soul, and he was at length unable to resist the mighty impulse to delineate what lived, what glowed with such ardour within his bosom. He pro

duced his "Robbers," in which his soul, panting for liberty, gives full scope to the sentiments with which it was impressed.

What delight would not an enlightened teacher have experienced to see such a production from a pupil who had not yet completed his twentieth year! What hopes would he not have formed! What exertions would he not have made to render him an ornament to his country!

Very different were the sentiments of the inspectors of the academy. Would they have it said that a youth had left their institution tainted with the most dangerous of all vices, a proud, independent, and ambitious mind? who was the author of a performance by which all kind of subordination was trampled under foot? a youth who, dissatisfied with lawful government, might, for what they knew, be hatching the most terrible plots? It was resolved no longer to nourish the serpent in their bosom; for who could know whether the ardent mind that glowed within the boy might not some time be unfolded into another Charles Moor; and, if the flame were communicated to others, who could foresee what consequences might result?

Persons in high stations are said to have taken considerable interest in this business, for there was a passage in the Robbers but too suspi cious. "This ruby I drew from the finger of a minister, whom I threw down at the feet of his sovereign in the chace. By adulation he had raised himself from the lowest rank to be the favourite of the prince: the fall of his neighbour was the means of his greatness, and the tears of orphans assisted his elevation. This diamond I took from another of the crew, who sold honours and offices to the highest bidder, and pushed from his door the dejected patriot."

Schiller lived in the same country where Schubart languished for eight years of horror in the fortress of Hohenasperg. Schiller, therefore, did not think it safe to wait the de

cision of his fate, especially as he had inserted an obnoxious poem on tyranny in Schubart's Chronicle: he fled.

The wanderer found, at Mannheim, patrons and friends. He at first had recourse for subsistence to his surgical skill. He was appointed surgeon to a regiment, where he remained till his friends Dalberg and Klein opened for him a more suitable career. They procured him the post of dramatist to the theatre of Mannheim; a theatre at that time one of the most brilliant, and had in its service an Iffland, a Bock, a Beil, and a Caroline Beck. The fruits of this appointment are "The Conspiracy of Fiesko," and "Intrigue and Love." The "Rhenish Thalia" likewise deserves to be mentioned.

In advertising the last piece in the German Museum of 1784, the author says, "At an early period I lost my country, and exchanged it for the wide world, with which I was acquainted only from distant observation. A singular caprice of nature had, in my native place, destined me for a poet. A love of poetry was a violation of the laws of the institution in which I was educated, and in direct opposition to the plan of its founder. Eight years my enthusiasm struggled with military discipline; but a passion for poetry is ardent and powerful as the first love. The means employed to stifle it only encreased the flame. To escape from objects which filled me with torment, my heart indulged in the contemplation of an ideal world, but, unacquainted with that which actually exists, from which I was separated by bars of iron; unacquainted with mankind, for the four hundred who surrounded me were but a single being, true casts from one and the same model, which plastic Nature had solemnly renounced; unacquainted with the passions of independent beings, at liberty to follow their own inclinations; for there only one arrived at maturity, one, which I will not name

here; all the other energies of the will were paralysed, while one of them was strained to the utmost; every peculiarity, every extravagance of playful nature was drowned in the muddy pool of rigid order. A stranger to the fair sex, for the doors of this institution are opened only to females before they begin to be interesting, or when they have ceased to be so; a stranger to man and to human life, my pencil could not fail to miss the intermediate line between angels and devils, and to produce a monster, which fortunately did not exist in the world, and to which I wish immortality for no other reason than to perpetuate the memory of a birth proceeding from the unnatural commerce of Genius and Subordination: I allude to "The Robbers." This piece has appeared. The whole moral world has charged the author with treason. His only defence is the climate under which it was born. Among the censures of the Robbers, one at least is just, that I have presumed to delineate mankind two years before I had any intercourse with them."

The Robbers produced either enthusiasm or horror. Those whose discernment led them to take a middle course were but few. Powerful exertions were made to suppress this play, when a number of lads at Leipzig were induced by it to run away, as they thought, from the rod, instead of which they only hastened to meet it. Their plan was, to collect a band of robbers in the forests of Bohemia; but they did not proceed far, for they had scarcely stolen a prayer-book and a pistol, when they fell into the hands of justice, which flogged out of them this violent inclination to lie in ambush for poor travellers, and to lighten them of their purses. Circumstances of this nature contributed not a little to Schiller's early reputation. His later productions more and more displayed his talents; and even his smaller poems in the Anthology, which he published jointly with Staudlin, evinced a poet such as

Germany scarcely rivalled, so that his reputation was very soon established.

Schiller now wished to see something more of the world. His genius inspired him with confidence in himself, and his fame gave him reason to hope that he should every where meet with friends. He left Mannheim. At Mentz he had the good fortune to become acquainted with that illustrious patron of science, the duke of Weimer, to whom he read the first act of his Don Carlos. Soon after this interview he visited Saxony, where Dresden captivated him by its charming situa tion, its treasures of art, its rich library, and the many men of genius whom he found there. Schiller now plunged into life; but it must not be imagined that he resigned himself wholly to society. For weeks and months he was buried among his books, which he scarcely quitted for a moment; he then rested for a time, but appeared only to have desisted from his labours. With great geniuses it is well known that these pauses are only moments in which they collect their energies, in order to apply themselves with increased ardour to their darling pursuits. Such was the case with Schiller. At such times he wandered through the country, where the grandeur of nature re-animated his genius, and his heart throbbed with new force and life in solitude. One of his favourite amusements was to make excursions in a boat on the beautiful river, especially during storms, when the stream rose in foaming billows, and all the elements appeared in conflict. The harsher the thunder, the greater was his delight.

Winter deprived him of these pleasures, and restored him to social life. His heart was formed for friendship; he was communicative, and was one of the few who, without fear of lowering himself in the estimation of his friends, durst open to them his whole heart. Let him, then, loudly rejoice over the flowing bowl, in the circle of friendship! how easy is it for such a man, at

such a time, to transgress the bounds of discretion! Let him indulge in the intoxication of pleasure, while midnight passes unnoticed away: can he for this reason be considered as a common debauchee ? Or is pleasure likely to debase him?

His Don Carlos, which he continued during his residence at Dresden, was soon neglected. He began to read every thing that related to Philip the Second of Spain; the library of Dresden afforded him abundant materials; and he became imperceptibly so deeply interested, that he neglected poetry for a time, and devoted his whole thoughts to history. To this change we are indebted for his "Revolt of the Netherlands from the Spanish Government*." The preceding historians of Germany had been less attentive to the true spirit of history than to the dull letter of chronicles: he united German industry with the elegance of the ancients.

At Gohlis, near Leipzig, a charming village, where he passed a summer with Mr. Goschen, he com. pleted his Don Carlos. Jinger, a writer whose premature decease comedy still deplores, resided during the same summer at Gohlis, and they contracted a mutual friendship for each other; and probably the lively company of the comic, had no small influence over our tragic poet, whose character was at that time distinguished by uncommon vi. vacity.

His delays in writing Don Carlos had a peculiar effect on that performance. Neither Carlos nor Posa were exactly what the author at first intended they should be. Don Carlos was lowered in the estimation of the poet, and the marquis, who was to have been a model of friendship, became a character perfectly ideal. On this subject, he himself tells us, "It is possible that in the first acts I may have excited expectations not fulfilled in the last. St.

*Has this work ever been made English-EDITOR.