182 ACCOUNT of the GERMAN THEATRE. 



are accompanied, his heart is preffed down by remorfe, and 

 melted by the tender recollection of that virtuous happinefs 

 which, in the days of youth and innocence, he had once en- 

 joyed. The curfe of a father whom he had revered and loved, 

 the defertion of a miftrefs, a coufin of his own, of whom he 

 was defperately enamoured, the fenfe of his outcaft and aban- 

 doned fituation, and of thofe violations of virtue and morality 

 to which it necefTarily leads J thofe rending feelings, thofe 

 melting remembrances, joined to that high fenfe of perverted 

 honour which links him to his band, and that ardent valour 

 which makes their enterprifes of glory ', thefe form a character of 

 the moft energetic and interefting kind, and the author has 

 given to his hero a loftinefs and power of expreflion fully ade- 

 quate to the terrors and the paflions which his fituation and his 

 feelings produce. The intrinfic force of this dramatic charac- 

 ter is heightened by the fingular circumftances in which it is 

 placed. Captain of a band of inexorable and fanguinary ban- 

 ditti, whofe furious valour he wields to the moft defperate pur- 

 pofes ; living with thofe aflbciates, amidft woods and defarts, 

 terrible and favage as the wolves they have difplaced ; this pre- 

 fents to the fancy a kind of preternatural perfonage, wrapped 

 in all the gloomy grandeur of vifionary beings. 



But to return to the narrative of the tragedy. 



His younger brother Francis having fucceeded in removing 

 this favourite of his father, now looks to the death of the old 

 man as the complete accomplifhment of his wimes to attain the 

 fortune and honours of his family. To effect this hellifh pur- 

 pofe, he makes ufe of his father's ftill remaining tendernefs for 

 that verv fon whom the traitor's arts had driven from his love. 

 He employs one Herman, a tool of his villany, to perfonate a 

 foldier, who had been the companion of Charles, and to relate a 

 fabricated flory of the fuflferings and death of that unfortunate 

 young man, who, according to him, had been reduced, by the 

 feverity of his father, to the moft extreme and pitiable indi- 

 gence, 



