182?.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



643 



lowed ai order of council to remove 

 images from the churches the publica- 

 tion of a common prayc-r in the English 

 language homilies articles canons. 

 But amidst all the-e advances appeared a 

 proclamation for the rigid observance of 

 Lent the main motives for which appear 

 to have been, not of a spiritual, but a po- 

 litical nature Craomer, \ve may suppose, 

 must have been overruled an apprehen- 

 sion of diminishing the stock of cattle, 

 and of ruining the fisheries. Meat was 

 strictly forbidden the profane multitude 

 it was not then so superfluous as such a 

 prohibition would be now ; little difficulty 

 was however made in granting licences, 

 to be paid for of course, by which indi- 

 viduals might choose their own diet at all 

 seasons ; and in some cases, says Mr. 

 Soames, these grantees were even allowed 

 to entertain guests in their own way on 

 days when their less favoured neighbours 

 were interdicted from dealings with the 

 butchers. Among the applicants was 

 Roger Ascham whose letter on the occa- 

 sion is given in the text, but for which, 

 though curious and characteristic, we have 

 no space. In the following year these in- 

 junctions were enforced by an Act of Par- 

 liament, in the preamble of which it is 

 alleged, that divers of the king's subjects 

 have abused their improvement in know- 

 ledge, turned epicures under better in- 

 struction, and broken the fasting days of 

 the church. The penalties were, for the 

 first offence, a fine of ten shillings, and 

 an imprisonment of ten days, without a 

 mouthful of butcher's meat : for the second 

 offence, the penalties were to be doubled, 

 and so on in geometrical progression, we 

 believe. 



In all that was really good, in all that 

 forwarded the reformation, Cranincr was 

 the great agent; and in all that was bad 

 he either took an active part, or must be 

 allowed to have yielded with a cowardly 

 and compromising spirit. Seymour's 

 death, and Jane Boacher's and Van Parr's 

 burnings can never be forgotten. Mr. 

 Soames has an excuse for every thing, 

 while professing not to excuse. 



Wallenstein, a Dramatic Poem, from 

 the German of Schiller. 2 toJ.v. j 1827. 

 This splendid tragedy of Schiller's is not 

 new to the English reader. Coleridge, 

 some years ago, published a translation of 

 it, and one of so much general excellence 

 so vivid in the version, and free and 

 English in the language, that any second 

 attempt seemed perfectly superfluous. The 

 author of the translation before us never, 

 it seems, saw Mr. Coleridge's version, but 

 adventurously undertook a task of surely 

 no common difficulty without troubling 

 himself not unwisely perhaps to ascer- 

 tain how far there was any real occasion 

 for the wdprtakjreg itsejf spring he wa*, 



for some reason or other, thus blindly re- 

 solved to execute it contenting himself 

 with the report that Coleridge's transla- 

 tion was made from a manuscript copy, in 

 which S-hiller was known or believed to 

 have made material alterations. And al- 

 terations it appears the author really did 

 make; but the account itself of the tran- 

 slator is. not worth calling suspicious per- 

 haps, but surely childish : if the story be in- 

 deed true, it would have been quite as dis- 

 creet to say nothing about the matter. We 

 prefer the reason that will satisfy erery 

 body the translator's belief he could do 

 better. 



In some respects the translator has done 

 better. His work is more equable, nearer 

 to the sense, though farther from the spi- 

 rit; he has spent the same degree of care 

 upon the whole, the good arid the bad ; 

 while Mr. Coleridge only worked up the 

 passages that found an echo in his own 

 sou 1 care less often whether he was ex- 

 pressing Schiller's or his own sensations, 

 and leaving, apparently, the connecting 

 parts the mere prose to take its own 

 chance, and stand in a naked rendering. 



Schiller's object was it seems to drama- 

 tize some grand national event. That of 

 the thirty years war the decisive strug- 

 gle between the Catholic and Protestant 

 powers of Europe naturally presented 

 itself. He had already surveyed its his 

 tory, with the elegance of a poet, and the 

 research, and perhaps the philosophy, of 

 an historian. The character of Wallen- 

 stein the leader of the imperial forces 

 had enough in it of the heroic and com- 

 manding there was besides something of 

 mystery about him a general unacquaiut- 

 ance with the details of his character to 

 be readily fitted to his purpose. The cen- 

 tral point, as Wallenstein was, around 

 which the whole events of that memorable 

 war seemed to revolve it presented the 

 author with abundant opportunities for 

 exhibiting the effects upon society of war, 

 religious controversy, and ambition. The 

 subject however proved too mighty for 

 the grasp of one drama. Three were de- 

 manded to give full expansion to his swell- 

 ing conceptions and these he entitled the 

 Camp of Wallenstein, the Piccolomini, and 

 the Death of Wallenstein. 



The CAMP, neither Mr. Coleridge nor 

 his rival has ventured to translate. It is 

 merely introductory written iu a coarse 

 kind of provincial dialect, with fantastic 

 rhymes and double endings, and exhibits 

 a picture, says the new translator of Wal- 

 lenstein, of the military life of that dis- 

 cordant horde, which, after fifteen years 

 of warfare, had sat down like locusts upon 

 the plains of Pilsen ; men of all religions, 

 or of none : wanderers on the earth, with 

 wo home but the garrison and the camp- 

 no relationship but the brotherhood of 



4 N 2 



