Alh. Seize first that man:

[ALVAR presses onward to defend ORDONIO. Ord. Off, ruffians! I have flung away my sword. Woman, my life is thine! to thee I give it! Off! he that touches me with his hand of flesh, I'll rend his limbs asunder! I have strength With this bare arm to scatter you like ashes. Alh. My husband

Ord.

Yes, I murdered him most foully.

Alv, and Ter. O horrible!
Alh.

Why didst thou leave his children?

Demon, thou shouldst have sent thy dogs of hell

To lap their blood. Then, then I might have hardened
My soul in misery, and have had comfort.

I would have stood far off, quiet though dark,
And bade the race of men raise up a mourning
For a deep horror of desolation,

Too great to be one soul's particular lot!
Brother of Zagri! let me lean upon thee.

[Struggling to suppress her feelings.

The time is not yet come for woman's anguish,

I have not seen his blood-Within an hour

Those little ones will crowd around and ask me,
Where is our father? I shall curse thee then!

Wert thou in heaven, my curse would pluck thee thence !
Ter. He doth repent! See, see, I kneel to thee!

O let him live! That aged man, his father

Alh. [sternly.] Why had he such a son?

[Shouts from the distance of" Rescue! Rescue! ALVAR! ALVAR!"and the voice of VALDEZ heard.

Rescue?—and Isidore's spirit unavenged?—

The deed be mine!

Now take my life!

[Suddenly stabs ORDONIO.

Arm of avenging Heaven,

Ord. [staggering from the wound.] Atonement!

Alv. [while with TERESA supporting ORDONIO.]

Thou hast snatched from me my most cherished hope-
But go! my word was pledged to thee.

A way!

Brave not my father's rage! I thank thee! Thou

[Then turning his eyes languidly to ALVAR.

She hath avenged the blood of Isidore !

I stood in silence like a slave before her

That I might taste the wormwood and the gall,
And satiate this self-accusing heart

With bitterer agonies than death can give.

Forgive me, Alvar!

Oh!-couldst thou forget me!

[Dies.

[ALVAR and TERESA bend over the body of ORDONIO. Alh. [to the Moors.] I thank thee, Heaven! thou hast ordained it wisely,

That still extremes bring their own cure.

That point

In misery, which makes the oppressed man
Regardless of his own life, makes him too
Lord of the oppressor's Knew I a hundred men
Despairing, but not palsied by despair,

This arm should shake the kingdoms of the world;
The deep foundations of iniquity

Should sink away, earth groaning from beneath them;
The strongholds of the cruel men should fall,

Their temples and their mountainous towers should fall;
Till desolation seemed a beautiful thing,

And all that were and had the spirit of life,
Sang a new song to her who had gone forth,
Conquering and still to conquer !

[ALHADRA hurries off with the Moors; the stage
fills with armed Peasants and Servants, ZULI-
MEZ and VALDEZ at their head.
rushes into ALVAR'S arms.

VALDEZ

Alv. Turn not thy face that way, my father! hide, Oh hide it from his eye! Oh let thy joy

Flow in unmingled stream through thy first blessing.

[Both kneel to VALDEZ.

Val. My son! My Alvar! bless, oh bless him, Heaven!
Ter. Me too, my Father?
Val.

Bless, oh, bless my children!

Alv. Delights so full, if unalloyed with grief,
Were ominous. In these strange dread events
Just heaven instructs us with an awful voice,
That Conscience rules us e'en against our choice.
Our inward monitress to guide or warn,
If listened to; but if repelled with scorn,
At length as dire Remorse, she reappears,
Works in our guilty hopes, and selfish fears!
Still bids Remember! and still cries, Too late!
And while she scares us, goads us to our fate.

[Both rise.

A DRAMA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER.

PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE two Dramas, PICCOLOMINI, or the first part of WALLENSTEIN, and WALLENSTEIN, are introduced in the original manuscript by a Prelude in one Act, entitled WALI ENSTEIN'S CAMP. This is written in rhyme, and in nine syllable verse, in the same lilting metre (if that expression may be permitted) with the second Eclogue of Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.

This Prelude possesses a sort of broad humour, and is not deficient in character; but to have translated it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the original, would have given a false notion both of its style and purport; to have translated it into the same metre would have been incompatible with a faithful adherence to the sense of the German, from the comparative poverty of our language in rhymes: and it would have been unadvisable from the incongruity of those lax verses with the present taste of the English Public. Schiller's intention seems to have been merely to have prepared his reader for the Tragedies by a lively picture of the laxity of discipline, and the mutinous dispositions of Wallenstein's soldiery. It is not necessary as a preliminary explanation. For these reasons it has been thought expedient not to translate it.

The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted their conception of that author from the Robbers, and the Cabal and Love, plays in which the main interest is produced by the excitement of curiosity, and in which the curiosity is excited by terrible and extraordinary incident, will not have perused, without some portion of disappointment, the dramas, which it has been my employment to translate. They should, however, reflect that these are historical dramas, taken from a popular German history; that we must therefore judge of them in some measure with the feelings of Germans; or by analogy with the interest excited in us by similar dramas in our own language. Few, I trust, would be rash or ignorant enough to compare Schiller with Shakspeare; yet, merely as illustration, I would say that we should proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear or Othello, but from Richard the Second, or the three parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapidity in an historical drama; and many prolix speeches are pardoned from characters, whose names and actions have formed the most amusing tales of our early life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays more individual beauties, more passages, the excellence of which will bear reflection, than in the former productions of Schiller. The description of the astrological tower, and the reflections of the young lover, which follow it, form in the original a fine poem; and my translation must have been wretched indeed, if it can have wholly overclouded the beauties of the scene in the first act of the first play between Questenberg, Max, and Octavio Piccolomini. If we except the scene of the setting sun in the Robbers, I know of no part in Schiller's Plays which equals the whole of the first scene of the fifth act of the concluding play. It would be unbecoming in me to be more diffuse on this subject. A translator stands connected with

the original author by a certain law of subordination, which makes it more decorous to point out excellences than defects: indeed he is not likely to be a fair judge of either. The pleasure or disgust from his own labour will mingle with the feelings that arise from an afterview of the original. Even in the first perusal of a work in any foreign language which we understand, we are apt to attribute to it more excellence than it really possesses from our own pleasureable sense of difficulty overcome without effort. Translation of poetry into poetry is difficult, because the translator must give a brilliancy to his language without that warmth of original conception, from which such brillian.cy would follow of its own accord. But the translator of a living author is incumbered with additional inconveniences. If he render his original faithfully, as to the sense of each passage, he must necessarily destroy a considerable portion of the spirit; if he endeavour to give a work executed according to laws of compensation, he subjects himself to imputations of vanity, or misrepresentation. I have thought it my duty to remain bound by the sense of my original, with as few exceptions as the nature of the languages rendered possible.*.

It was my intention to have prefixed a Life of Wallenstein to this translation; but I found that it must either have occupied a space wholly disproportionate to the nature of the publication, or have been merely a meagre catalogue of events narrated not more fully than they already are in the Play itself. The recent translation, likewise, of Schiller's HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR diminished the motives thereto. In the translation I endeavoured to render my Author literally wherever I was not prevented by absolute differences of idiom; but I am conscious, that in two or three short passages I have been guilty of dilating the original; and from anxiety to give the full meaning, have weakened the force. In the metre I have availed myself of no other liberties than those which Schiller had permitted to himself, except the occasional breaking-up of the line by the substitution of a trochee for an iambus; of which liberty, so frequent in our tragedies, I find no instance in these dramas.t

DRAMATIS PERSONEÆ.

WALLENSTEIN, Duke of Friedland, Generalissimo of the Imperial
Forces in the Thirty Years' War.

OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, Lieutenant-General.

MAX. PICCOLOMINI, his Son, Colonel of a Regiment of Cuirassiers.
COUNT TERTSKY, the Commander of several Regiments, and
Brother-in-Law of Wallenstein.

ILLO, Field-Marshal, Wallenstein's Confidant.

ISOLANI, General of the Croats.

BUTLER, an Irishman, Commander of a Regiment of Dragoons.
TIEFENBACH,

DON MARADAS,

GOETZ,

KOLATTO,

Generals under Wallenstein.

NEUMANN, Captain of Cavalry, Aide-de-Camp to Tertsky.
The War Commissioner, VON QUESTENBERG, Imperial Envoy.
GENERAL WRANGEL, Swedish Envoy.

BATTISTER SENI, Astrologer.

DUCHESS OF FRIEDLAND, Wife of Wallenstein.

THEKLA, her Daughter, Princess of Friedland.
THE COUNTESS TERTSKY, Sister of the Duchess.
A CORNET.

Several COLONELS and GENERALS.

PAGES and ATTENDANTS belonging to Wallenstein.
ATTENDANTS and HOBOISTS belonging to Tertsky.
THE MASTER OF THE CELLAR to Count Tertsky.
VALET DE CHAMBRE of Count Piccolomini.

Originally prefixed to the translation of the second part, but apparently as a "eneral introduction.

Originally prefixed to the translation of the first part.

N

Inzo tai ETTLER and ISOLANT

* Yr hire s.me late-but ye are come! The distance, Count Isclat, excuses your delay.

I'm. And this too, that we come not empty handed. A: Zona: vert it was reported to 15,

A Sveth caravan was CE IS VIT

Transporting a rich cargo of provison.
Almost six hired waggons.

This my Croats

Flanged down men and seized, this weighty prize!-
We bring in Leber

Just in time to banquet
assembled here.
ring scene here!

The very churches are all fill of schllers.
And in the Commal-bouse, too, I observe,

Ay!

[Casts his eye round.

You're sealed, quite at bome! Well, well! we soldiers
Must shift and suit us in what way we can.

A We have the Colonels here of thirty regiments.
You'll find Count Tertsky here, and Tiefenbach,
Kolatto, Goetz, Maradas, Hinnersam,

The Ficcolomini, beth son and father

You'll meet with many an unexpected greeting
From many an old friend and acquaintance. Only
Galas is wanting still, and Altringer.

But. Expect not Galas.

[117. [karitating-]

How so? Do you know

Iso. [interrupting him. Max. Piccolomini here?-O bring me to him.

I see him yet, (tis now ten years ago,

We were engaged with Mansfeld hard by Dessau)

I see the youth, in my mind's eye I see him,

Leap his black war-horse from the bridge adown,
And toward his father, then in extreme peril,
Beat up against the strong tide of the Eibe.
The down was scarce upon his chin! I hear
He has made good the promise of his youth,
And the full hero now is finished in him.

Illo. You'll see him yet ere evening. He conducts
The Duchess Friedland hither, and the Princess

From Karnthen. We expect them here at noon.

But. Both wife and daughter does the Duke call hither? He crowds in visitants from all sides.

* A town about twel German miles N. E. of Ulm.