varieties of the military character and of military cabal are unfolded. Besides the hero himself, the subtle intriguer the elder Piccolomini, is finely contrasted with his high-minded, enthusiastic son, the lover of Thekla, the exquisite daughter of the heroic victim. Besides the four volumes of these histories, there are two others of minor historical treatises. And it may be noticed here, in connexion with this class of his writings, that he began a romance called the Ghost-Seer, the historical foundation of which lay in the tragi-comic absurdities, and mischievous vagaries of the German illuminati and freemasons, a strange compound of superstition and infidelity, with which were blended political fanaticism, fraud, and sentimental philanthropy. This disease was partly cured by, and partly absorbed in the events of the French Revolution. But it was as a philosophic and lyric poet that Schiller’s peculiar genius developed itself, and in this class of his works chiefly do we find those qualities which characterise him morally and intellectually, and exhibit him in striking contrast to his friend Goethe. As in his philosophical and historical writings, Schiller never wrote under the influence of the mere love of truth, but was impelled by moral feelings, always generous and noble; so it was in his poems. They neither mainly originated in, nor were addressed especially to the imagination. A large portion of them were metaphysical exercises in verse. There were scattered, even among these, the “thoughts that breathe and words that burn,” but they were not poetical, because they were addressed either to the mere intellect, the faculty of solving philosophical problems, or to the will, under the excitement of passions, which, however exalted in their character, are far remote from the exercise of imagination, and do not originate in the sense of beauty. Even the ballads of Schiller are didactic and moral, and therein strikingly contrasted with those of Goethe. Each poet idealised in his own way; but the ideal of the one was framed according to a law of natural, that of the other, according to a law of moral beauty. Goethe avowed his creed, “faults as well as virtue look well in song.” He therefore, availing himself of a style incomparably graceful, exhibits the passions of humanity in all their natural charm, and so fascinates the sense of natural beauty in the reader, that he is content to disregard what a severe moral sense might require. Schiller’s ballads, on the contrary, originate in, and have no other object than to excite, a passionate sympathy with virtuous and heroic affections and actions. But though there is “a pomp and prodigality of phrase,” there is seldom that magic of style that leaves the most fastidious taste gratified. Among these lyric poems, a considerable portion originated in his political and patriotic, or rather philanthropic feelings. To appreciate these, we must bear in mind