317 



SCHIDONI, BARTOLOMEO. 



SCHILLER, FRIEDRICH. 



318 



with increasing reputation until hia death, on the 7th of Juno 1810. 

 Most of the works of Sohiavonefcti were small, though he executed 

 gome important plates, and was engaged, at the time of his death, on 

 the large engraving of Stothard's ' Canterbury Pilgrimage,' which was 

 finished by James Heath. Besides his more elaborate works, the free 

 etchings of Blake's illustrations to Blair's ' Grave,' and the beautiful 

 head of Blake prefixed to that work, are deservedly admired. Like 

 the eminent man whose manner he adopted, he was distinguished for 

 the freedom and accuracy of his drawing. The private character of 

 Schiavonetti was such as to ensure general respect, and his funeral was 

 attended by the president and several members of the Royal Academy. 

 His brother Niccolo engraved in conjunction with him, and did not 

 long survive him. (Life by Cromek, in 'Gent. Mag.,' vol. Ixxx. 

 part 1, &c.) 



SCHIDO'NI, or SCHEDONE, BARTOLOMEO, was born at 

 Modena, in 1560. Malvasia reckons him among the disciples of the 

 Caracci, but Fuseli seems to doubt the correctness of this assertion, 

 observing that either his earliest performances must be unknown, or 

 that he must have been a very short time with the Caracci, since it is 

 difficult to find any trace of their style even in his largest works. 

 However this may be, it is evident that he formed his style by an 

 attentive study of the works of Correggio, whose grace and delicacy 

 he more nearly approached than any other of the numerous imitators 

 of that great artist; and in the cathedral of Modena there is a picture 

 of S. Geminiano resuscitating a dead child, which has often being mis- 

 taken for a work of Correggio. Schidoni's juvenile performances in 

 the public edifices of Modena had gained him considerable reputation, 

 when Runuccio, duke of Parma, appointed him his principal painter. 

 He executed for the duke several historical subjects, much in the 

 manner of Correggio, but was chiefly employed in painting the 

 portraits of his patron and his family ; he painted also the portraits of 

 all the princes of the house of Modena, which were distinguished by 

 BO much taste and variety of attitude, and delicacy of colouring, as 

 caused him to be reckoned among the best masters in Italy. Schi- 

 doni's style is extremely elegant; his touch light and delicate; the 

 airs of his heads graceful ; his skill in the treatment of the chiaroscuro 

 and his colouriug are admirable, and all his works are exquisitely 

 finished, but he is often incorrect in his drawing. His works are 

 always eagerlv sought after, and their value is accordingly greatly 

 enhanced by their extreme rarity. He died in 1615. 



SCHILLER, FRIEDRICH, the greatest dramatist and one of the 

 most popular poets of Germany, was born on the 10th of November 

 1759, in the town of Marbach, on the banks of the Neckar. He was 

 fii>t sent to school at Ludwigsburg, where, under the celebrated Jahn, 

 he read Ovid, Virgil, and Horace, and also commenced Greek. But he 

 had to follow the changes of residence and life of his parents, which 

 interrupted his studies. This irregularity Carlyle thinks not the most 

 propitious for educating such a boy, but we conceive that its variety 

 was most propitious to the poet, who requires more knowledge of life 

 under its manifold phases, than of books. Schiller had to gather the 

 elements of learning from various masters. " Perhaps," says Carlyle, 

 " it was owing in part to this circumstance that his progress, though 

 respectable, or more, was so little commensurate with what he after- 

 wards became." But, like most men of genius, we suspect he found 

 the current of life too strong within him, his heart throbbing with 

 too many active impulses, to attend much to his drier studies, and 

 that " the stolen charms of ball and leap-frog were frequently bought 

 by reproaches." There is a poetic anecdote of his being found, while 

 quite a child, during a thunder-storm, "perched on the branch of a 

 tree, gazing at the tempestuous face of the sky and watching the 

 flashes as in succession they spread their lurid gleam over it ; and 

 when reprimanded by his parent, he replied, that the lightning was 

 BO very beautiful, he wished to see where it was coming from." This 

 doea not seem like one whose organisation fitted him to become the 

 Brodgelehrte (mere scholar) whom he afterwards so humorously 

 described. (See his ' Essay on Universal History.') 



In 1772 he had to prepare for confirmation, and his mother "having 

 called him out of the street " (where he was playing), to seriously 

 collect his thoughts, he wrote a hymn, which was his first composi- 

 tion, and which led to the opinion of his being adapted for the 

 ecclesiastical order. He welcomed the prospect, and underwent the 

 four annual examinations before the Stuttgardt Commission, to which 

 young men designed for the church are subject. But fate decided 

 otherwise. The Duke of Wiirtemburg, having founded a college, gave 

 the sons of his officers a preferable claim to its benefits ; he offered 

 them to Schiller's father, who was an army surgeon, and, afraid to 

 refuse the offer, young Schiller accepted it, but with great reluctance, 

 and was, in 1773, enrolled as a student of law. Schiller, unable to 

 endure the thraldom, exchanged it, in 1775, for the study of medicine, 

 which however he only accepted as less tedious. Apart from his 

 profession he stole cherished hours, which were devoted to Plutarch, 

 Shakspere, Klopstock, Lessing, Gb'the, Garve, Herder, Gerstenberg, 

 and others. The ' Messias ' of Klopstock and the ' Ugolino ' of Gersten- 

 berg were among his earliest and deepest studies, and, combined with 

 his own religious tendencies, had early turned him to sacred poetry. 

 At the age of fourteen he had finished the plan of an epic on Moses, 

 which he subsequently worked up into a dissertation on the ' Legation 

 of Moses.' (See his ' Sendung Moses.') But the popularity of ' Ugo- 



lino ' and Gothe's ' Gotz von Berlichingen,' and tho impression which 

 they made on him, inspired him with a dramatic impulse, and he wrote 

 the 'Student of Nassau* and 'Cosmo dei Medici;' some fragments of 

 the latter he preserved and incorporated with the ' Robbers.' 



Schiller brooded gloomily over hia situation. He would often escape 

 in secret to catch a glimpse of the busy world which to him was for- 

 bidden ; but this only rendered him more averse to school-formalities 

 and class-books, BO that he would frequently feign sickness, that he 

 might be left in his own chamber to write poetry. In addition to 

 magazine contributions of little value, Schiller worked at his ' Robbers,' 

 and when, in 1780, he graduated, he quoted from it in his thesis 

 (' Ueber den, Zuzammenhang der Tbierischen Natur des Menschen mit 

 seiner Geistigen') as from an English work, 'The Life of Moor, 

 Tragedy by Krake, act v., s. I.' After taking his degree, he was 

 attached as physician to the grenadier battalion, with a small salary. 

 In 1781 he published the 'Robbers,' and in 1782 it was produced, 

 with several entertainments, at Mannheim. The tensation which it 

 excited all over Germany, more than its peculiar merits, calls for a 

 slight notice of it. The outline of the plot is this : The Count von 

 Moor has two sons, Karl and Franz. The younger, jealous of the love 

 which Amalia and the Count bear to Karl, prejudices his father against 

 him by false insinuations, and causes a letter of disinheritance to be 

 written to Karl, who is at Leipzig. Driven to desperation, this younj? 

 man flies into the forest of Bohemia, and becomes captain of a band of 

 robbers. He afterwards returns in disguise to his father's hoxise, 

 hears that his betrothed Amalia has become inconstant, and that 

 Franz has not only intercepted all letters of contrition, but has im- 

 prisoned their ageu father in a tower, with a view of starving him to 

 death. Karl releases the old man, stabs Amalia, and delivers himself 

 up to a poor man with eleven children, that the reward for his appre- 

 hension may do good. Franz strangles himself. 



The situations, the language, the characters, all partake of bom- 

 bast, occasionally rising to the grand, but seldom escaping from 

 melodrame. A comparison of the first scene with that in ' Lear,' of 

 which it is a direct imitation, will illustrate the crudeness of the 

 whole piece. Whirlwinds, hell, death, and despair are scattered 

 about with exuberant hand. The pistol is to send him, " alone and 

 companionless, to some burnt and blasted circle of the universe," 

 where he would have "eternity for leisure to examine the perplexed 

 image of universal woe." These two passages from the same soliloquy, 

 illustrate the work, which is a mixture of vehement swagger and 

 real grandeur. As acted, it is a ranting, firing melodrame, which 

 could only have had its effect from its vehement contradiction to the 

 cold proprieties of the German-French school, or the more humble 

 melodrame of Lessing. It is said to be " the most stimulant tragedy 

 extant in German literature." Indeed it pours forth a thunder of 

 rant ; it brings impossible characters into violent situations ; it is full 

 of exaggerated gigantic metaphors. It has only the excuse of boyhood 

 and boyish enthusiasm unconnected by experience or knowledge. 

 Schiller himself felt all this in his after life, and in one of his letters 

 he says, " To escape from trammels which were a torment to me, my 

 heart fled to an ideal world ; but, unacquainted with the real one, 

 from which I was separated by iron bars, ignorant of mankind, and 

 unintroduced to the softer sex, my pencil necessarily missed the 

 middle line between angel and devil, and could produce but moral 

 monsters. ... Its fault is in presuming to delineate men before 

 I had met one." The ' Robbers' is only interesting in connection with 

 Schiller and with the history of German literature. The causes of 

 its immense success were various. Respecting the revolution which it 

 created in Germany, and (according to public report in France and 

 England) the number of "young noblemen" which it seduced to 

 brigandage, we may remark that the whole is an exaggeration worthy 

 of the play itself. The intense purpose and passion of the piece pro- 

 duced a wide-spread sensation and many paltry imitations, but no last- 

 ing work, no lasting effect. With the natural feeling of an author, 

 Schiller had ventured " to go in secret and witness the first represen- 

 tation of the ' Robbers' at Mannheim. His incognito did not conceal 

 him, and he was put under arrest during a week for this offeuce." 

 Enraged at this and other offences to his dignity as a man, worn out 

 with the prospect of frittering away his energies in bis present con- 

 fined sphere, he resolved to escape, and, taking advantage of the 

 arrival of some foreign duke at Stuttgardt, fled from the city, in the 

 month of October 1782. Dalberg, the director of the Mannheim 

 theatre, received him with open arms, and supplied him with money 

 for his immediate wants. Here he began to look more calmly at his 

 prospects, and, applying himself zealously to work, in the course of 

 a twelvemonth produced his two tragedies 'Fiesco' and 'Kabale 

 und Liebe.' 



' Fiesco ' still has many admirers. It is melodrame, not tragedy. 

 Yet there is fine dramatic power visible in it. The fierceness and 

 bombast of the 'Robbers' are subdued, though still apparent, and 

 the delineation of characters, though faulty, yet much clearer and 

 truer than in the latter piece. Hassan the Moor is a mere exaggera- 

 tion, and Fiesco's conduct and language to him equally offensive. 

 But there are other and heavier faults, which, however, it is ui neces- 

 sary to particularise. It is worthy of note that Schiller alters the 

 historical catastrophe, and makes Fiesco fall by the hand of Varrina, 

 the republican, because, as he very truly but rather pompously ob- 



