1821.] Life and Writings of Schiller. 223 
true Englishman common to him with 
the ignorant populace,) against his 
fellow subjects of Scotland ; a hatred 
which breaks out in a thousand ridicu¬ 
lous ways among the English, and is 
equally absurd and unjust towards a 
nation that so far excels themselves 
not only in every good quality, 
corporeal and mental, but also in in¬ 
tegrity of soul! Johnson was grossly 
ignorant of Scottish antiquities and 
literature, but the multitude thought 
he knew every thing!” This Dutch 
critic is also very severe upon the Eng¬ 
lish for ascribing Rowley’s poems to 
Chatterton; he says, 44 the poor boy, 
notwithstanding, was the most wretch¬ 
ed poet in the world, and quite inca¬ 
pable of feeling the beauties of the 
poems he published, or explaining the 
language in which they were written.” 
The English spoken in Holland is 
not of the purest kind, as most of those 
who profess to teach it are people who 
having failed in their commercial spe¬ 
culations, or other views, on coming to 
Holland, have had recourse to this for 
subsistence ; and the greater part being 
from London, the Dutch are carefully 
instructed in the city dialect, and they 
do not seem to be aware of the differ¬ 
ence in point of language between the 
city and court end of London, and one 
class of people and another of both 
ends. 
The different classes of society are 
much more distinctly marked by their 
dress in Holland than in this country; 
this is particularly the case with re¬ 
gard to females. In cities and large 
towns, the female servants never wear 
gowns nor straw hats ; their dress ge¬ 
nerally consists of a short jacket or 
bed-gown, and petticoat either of white 
dimity or some very sheivy colour, with 
a cap very high and much ornamented. 
They usually wear a black silk apron, 
which contrasts w r ell with the white 
dimity. If a servant girl were to be 
seen with a straw hat or a gown, her 
character -would be lost for ever; but 
their appearance is much more interest¬ 
ing without them, and the extreme 
neatness of their dress is beyond de¬ 
scription. This distinction of classes 
extends to different employments and 
professions ; in England bankers and 
merchants often associate with shop¬ 
keepers, shoe-makers and butchers, and 
sometimes even taylors, when wealthy, 
arc admitted into the company of their 
betters ; this is seldom the case in Hol¬ 
land, as all winkeliers , (shopkeepers) 
ldeermakers , (taylors,) he. are care¬ 
fully excluded from the society of real 
gentlemen, such as banhiers , (bankers) 
koopliedew (merchants) and degeleerde , 
(the learned or professional gentlemen.) 
The Dutch have an idea that it is a 
common practice in England for people 
to sell their w ives, and we have often 
heard ladies express their firm belief 
that if they were to marry Englishmen 
they would have a right to sell them 
whenever they pleased. They also 
believe that all Englishmen are boxers, 
appearing to be quite ignorant that the 
battles, of which they find accounts in 
the newspapers, are fought by prize¬ 
fighters, but are quite persuaded that 
any respectable person challenges ano¬ 
ther to fight for money. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
THE GERMAN STUDENT. 
No. XX. 
SCHILLER. 
[In the last number of the German Stu¬ 
dent, which related to Herder, your rea¬ 
ders ought to have been referred to the 
biographical account already inserted in 
your 18th volume, p. 109, because the un¬ 
willingness to repeat particulars there 
stated occasioned a somewhat more meagre 
detail ot his history, than the influence of 
his writings deserved. And now again 
that chronologic order invites to the men¬ 
tion ot Schiller, it seems proper to remiud 
the reader that in your 21st volume, p. 42, 
an extensive biographic article has already 
been given, so that only so much of his 
personal fortunes can anew with propriety 
be noticed, as influenced the character, 
and facilitated the criticism of his produc¬ 
tions.] 
T Marbach, a town of Wur- 
temberg, situate on the river 
Nekar, John Frederic Christopher 
Schiller was born, on tlie 10th of Nov. 
1759, of a mother remarkable for mild¬ 
ness and sensibility. His lather, a 
stern man, was educated for a surgeon, 
and had accepted a commission in the 
army, a wise union of employments, 
which is daily becoming more common 
in the military establishments of Eu¬ 
rope. He intended his son for a simi¬ 
lar situation, sent him first to a Latin 
school at Ludwigsburg, and in 1773, 
obtained for him a station in the mili¬ 
tary academy of Stutgard, where nearly 
four hundred pupils were educated 
under one roof at the public expense. 
Schiller is described at this time as a 
boy of tall growth, long neck, red hair, 
and remarkably freckled. Medical 
studies 
