S C H 



554 



S C H 



Scheldt presented in PLATES LXXXIX and XC. It has been 



8 replaced by a plain uncovered wooden bridge 345 feet 



long and 21 wide, with two stone piers in the middle. 



The falls of the Rhine, about three miles below 

 Schaffhausen, called the cataract of Lauffen, from an 

 old chateau situated beside the cataract, form one of 

 the most magnificent sights to be seen in Switzerland. 

 The whole body of the Rhine discharges itself over a 

 rock about GO feet high, being divided into three falls 

 by large masses of rock rising in the middle. The noise 

 of the falling waters is tremendous, and the quantity of 

 spray is very great, rising into the air like smoke. In 

 some parts of the fall the green colour of the water has 

 a fine effect; and, when we saw it in 1814, the purple 

 tints of the western sky were finely reflected from the 

 rising spray, while the fall itself was perfectly white. 

 In an island immediately below the fall, there is a large 

 dwelling-house, where an ingenious artist resides, who 

 has a camera obscura for showing the falls. Close to 

 the fall on the side opposite to Lauffen there is a snuff' 

 mill. The population of the town is about O'OOO. The 

 canton extends over 170 square miles, and has a po- 

 pulation of 32,000, the inhabitants being principally 

 Calvinists. 



SCHELDT, or ESCAUT. See NAVIGATION, Inland, 

 Vol. XV. p. 222, col. 2. and NETHERLANDS, Vol. XV. 

 p. 330. 



SC HAM AC HI. See SCHIRVAN. 



SCHEMNITZ, a large and populous town of Hun- 

 gary. It is beautifully situated in a long valley, a few 

 miles from the Raab. It contains several streets, with a 

 number of good houses, but a great many of the build- 

 ings are irregularly distributed on both sides of the 

 acclivity. It has two churches, two castles, two cha- 

 pels, a royal mine office, where from 200 to 300 stu- 

 dents, chiefly foreigners, are instructed in the principles 

 and art of mining. The mines run below the town, 

 which is nearly all undermined, and the extent of the 

 mines is said to be about five or six miles square. 

 The old water tunnel is 1100 feet below the surface, 

 and the new ones much lower. 



In our article HUNGARY, Vol. XI. p. 855, 856, we 

 have already given a full and particular account of the 

 mines of Schemnitz. 



Including the suburb of Bela-banja, the popula- 

 tion is about 23,000, of whom about 12,000 are en- 

 gaged in the mines. East long. 18 54' 5", North lat. 

 48 47' 45". 



SCHEUCHZER, JOHN JAMES, and JOHN. See 

 BOTANY, Vol. IV. p. 17, col. 2d. 



SCHILLER, FRIEDRICH JOHANN CHRISTOPH, 

 was born at Marbach, a small town of Wurtemberg, 

 on the banks of the Neckar, on the 18th Nov. 1759. 

 His father, who had been a surgeon in the Bavarian 

 army, and had served in the Netherlands during the 

 succession war, obtained a captain's commission from 

 the Duke of Wurtemberg, and he was principally 

 employed in laying out the pleasure grounds at Lud- 

 wigsburg and Solitude. 



Young Schiller received his earliest instructions from 

 one Moser, pastor and schoolmaster in the village of 

 Lorch, and he seems to have at this time taken up the 

 idea of devoting himself to the clerical profession. He 

 accordingly studied at Ludwigsburg in reference to this 

 profession ; and he underwent in (our successive years 

 the annual examination before the Stutgard commis- 

 sion, to which young aspirants to the church are sub- 

 jected. 



The Duke of Wurtemberg having provided a free 

 seminary at Stutgard, pressed Schiller's father to avail 



himself of its advantages for his son. This offer em- Schiller. 

 barrassed them exceedingly ; but notwithstanding their 

 previous determination, that young Schiller should be 

 educated for the church, he was enrolled in the Stut- 

 gard school in 1773, for the purpose of following the 

 profession of the law. The system of military drilling 

 which prevailed in this school, and which gave for- 

 mality to the amusements as well as to the studies of 

 the pupils, accorded ill with the unconstrained freedom 

 which Schiller had formerly enjoyed. Hence he was 

 soon disgusted with his situation, and in 1775 he re- 

 nounced for ever all views towards the profession of 

 the law ; but he passed only from the stutiy of law 

 to that of medicine, not as a more congenial pursuit, 

 but as the means of detaching himself from one less at- 

 tractive. He had begun to study in secret Plutarch, 

 and Shakespeare, and Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, and 

 Goethe. His admiration of the Messiah of Klopatock 

 led him to compose, when he was only fourteen years 

 old, an epic poem called " Moses." His attention was 

 next directed to the drama, by thegreat popularity of the 

 Ugolino of Gerstenberg, and the Golz yon Berlicliin<ren 

 of Goethe ; and he composed a tragedy called Cosmo 

 Von Medicis, some fragments of which he inserted in 

 his Robbers. 



When Schiller was in his 19th year he began his 

 tragedy of the Rubbers, the publication of which excit- 

 ed the greatest interest. Translations of it immediately 

 appeared in almost all the languages of Europe, and 

 were everywhere read with the mingled feelings of 

 admiration and aversion. In Germany it was received 

 with the most extraordinary enthusiasm ; and though 

 the general opinion was in its favour, yet the severest 

 censures were passed on its moral tendency. He was 

 accused of having injured the cause of morality, and 

 of having excited the fiery temperaments of youth to 

 pursue the fortunes of his abandoned hero. It has 

 even been stated, that, under its pernicious influence, 

 several students at Leipsig deserted their college, and 

 resolved to form a troop of banditti in the Bohemian 

 forest; but this and similar stories were entirely false, 

 and had their origin in the circumstance of a German 

 nobleman having been driven to the highway by a long 

 course of debauchery and extravagance. 



Nothing seems to have been more remote from Schil- 

 ler's intention than to produce any such effects ; and 

 he even speaks in his preface of the moral influence 

 of his piece in terms which, while they do honour to 

 his heait, evince at the same time his inexperience and 

 ignorance of the world. Schiller had finished the ori- 

 ginal sketch of the Robbers in 1778, but he had kept 

 it secret till he had completed his medical studies. In 

 1778. he wrote a Latin essay on the Philosophy of Phy- 

 siology, which was never printed ; and after pursuing 

 his studies with assiduity, he was, in 1780, appointed 

 surgeon to the regiment Auge in the Wurtemberg ar- 

 my. This promotion enabled him to print the Rob- 

 bers at his own expence, as no bookseller could be found 

 to undertake it. 



Although Schiller had, by the publication of this 

 tragedy, forfeited the good opinion of the Grand Duke 

 of Wurtemberg, yet its great popularity gained him 

 many new friends and correspondents. Among these 

 was Freiherr Von Dalberg, superintendant of the the- 

 atre of Manheim, under whose patronage Schiller re- 

 modelled the Robbers, and had it brought on the stage 

 in 1781. Schiller went to Manheim in disguise, to see 

 the first representation of his tragedy ; but he was dis- 

 covered, and put under arrest during a week for the 

 offence. Having committed the same act a second 



6 



