300 
posed to have traded with the Cornish 
men, and other antient Britons, in ex- 
change for their tin and cepper, and, 
not unlikely, for their more precious 
metals. 
More than fifty years since past I 
was favoured by the then captain with 
a view of a mine in the western extre- 
mity of Cornwall; and, seeing the con- 
struction of the main shaft, connected 
as it was with its correspondent open- 
ings, I should conceive there would 
not be any sort of danger to the work- 
men arising from either of the damps. 
NEHEMIAH BARTLEY. 
Cathay, Bristol ; March 14, 1822. 
P.S.—It seems a lead mine about St. 
Austle, in Cornwall, hath been lately dis- 
covered richly productive im silver, and in 
which I at present incline to subscribe for 
asmall share; not more with a view to 
individual benefit, than to contribute in 
advancing the general good, and other 
object I value not a rush. 
—<=>——— 
THE GERMAN STUDENT. 
No. XXIII. 
SCHILLER continued, 
N 1787 Schiller produced his Don 
Carlos. Otway has written a tra- 
gedy in rhime on the same story. With 
him the love of the prince for his step- 
mother is made the hinge of interest. 
Philip’s jealousy of his son, irritated 
by the Princess Eboli from motives of 
feminine pique, induces him to order 
poison to be administered to the queen, 
and the veins of the prince to be open- 
ed. Their innocence is discovered 
after their doom is become irrevocable. 
The whole piece is in the worst style 
of Spanish tragedy, full of the chival- 
rous and extravagant in sentiment and 
incident, and worthier of Corneille 
than Otway. The soliloquy of the 
king, which opens the fifth act, is per- 
haps the best speech in the play. 
Schiller has chosen. to concentrate 
our attention on interests of a higher 
order. than the fortunes of a senti- 
mental passion, or the celentings of an 
unkind father. By connecting with 
the existenco of Don Carlos the even- 
tual freedom of opinion in a vast 
empire, and the liberties of the Nether- 
lands, he has given an importance to 
the action. of his drama, which had 
hitherto seldom been attained even in 
the epopea. All his characters have a 
colossal dignity, proportioned to the 
grandeur of the interests which they 
involve. It is truly an heroic tragedy, 
an assemblage of no common men. 
Mr. Bartley on Choke-damp and Fire-damp. 
[May 1, 
Other dramatic writers, in treating the 
conspiracy of Venice, or the death of 
Charles I. had been content to seek, in 
family distress and individual suffer- 
ing, for the more prominent touches of 
pathos which were to affect their au- 
ditors: but with Schiller the sacrifice 
of a long-embosomed love, and the 
hazard of an exalted friendship, heart- 
probing as they are, were to form but 
secondary and subordmate sources of 
interest, and to be ornaments only of 
the majestic march of an event, whose 
catastrophe makes every friend to 
mankind shudder. 
Of the characters in this play, the 
newest, the most peculiar, and the 
most heroic, is that of the Marquis 
Posa; the boast, if not the glory, of 
the author. (See his Briefe uber Don 
Carlos.) tis a fine attempt to deli- 
neate the enthusiast of human emanci- 
pation, the disinterested friend of man- 
kind, the patriot of the world. Con- 
scious of the talent and the will to 
bless, this great man is described as 
pursuing, with undeviating resolution, 
the sacred end of ameliorating the con- 
dition of his countrymen, by removing 
every barricr to freedom of sentiment, 
and by favouring every institution be- 
neficial to the people. —In his: very 
boyhood the inherent ascendancy of 
his worth had attracted the friendship 
of Don Carlos; but his philanthropy, 
more powerlul than any individual 
affection, never forgets in his young 
companion the future sovereign, and is 
studious to engrave on the mind of the 
prince his own pure idea of the 
highest practicable happiness of a na- 
tion. Conscious from the outset of his 
natural superiority, Posa is the reluc- 
tant friend; and, when at length won 
to the acknowledgment of esteem by 
the generosity of Carlos, he thinks of 
making a return only in public ser- 
vices: “This debt will I repay when 
thou art king.” Consulted by the 
prince about the interests of his: pas- 
sion, Posa no longer recognizes his 
Carlos, the pupil of his tuition, the 
mirror of his plans, the right hand of 
his intentions ; he is alarmed rather for 
the expected benefactor of his country- 
men than for the suffering friend ; and, 
when he has heard the confession of 
this incestuous love’ for ‘the wife » of 
Philip, he seems rather intent on in- 
creasing by means’ of ‘it his influence 
over the prince, than on’ weaning him 
from so preposterous a pursuit. ‘This 
facility is almost unnatural; particu- 
larly 
