Shall I perform ignobly-steal away,
With stealthy coward flight forsake her? No!
She shall behold my suffering, my sore anguish,
Hear the complaints of the disparted soul,
And weep tears o'er me. Oh! the human race
Have steely souls-but she is as an angel.
From the black deadly madness of despair
Will she redeem my soul, and in soft words
Of comfort, plaining, loose this pang of death!

OCTAVIO.

Thou wilt not tear thyself away; thou canst not. O, come, my son! 1 bid thee save thy virtue.

MAX.

Squander not thou thy words in vain.
The heart I follow, for I dare trust to it.

OCTAVIO (trembling, and losing all self-command).
Max.! Max.! if that most damned thing could be,
If thou-my son-my own blood-(dare I think it?)
Do sell thyself to him, the infamous,
Do stamp this brand upon our noble house,
Then shall the world behold the horrible deed
And in unnatural combat shall the steel
Of the son trickle with the father's blood.

MAX.

O hadst thou always better thought of men,
Thou hadst then acted better. Curst suspicion!
Unholy miserable doubt! To him
Nothing on earth remains unwrench'd and firm,
Who has no faith.

OCTAVIO.

And if I trust thy heart, Will it be always in thy power to follow it?

The Death of

PREFACE.

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 WALLENSTEIN'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 Spencer'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 idea 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 prelimi

nary explanation. For these reasons it has been thought expedient not to translate it.

The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted their idea 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,

The accursed business of the Regensburg diet

Will all be acted o'er again!

COUNTESS.

No! never!

Make your heart easy, sister, as to that.

[THEKLA, in extreme agitation, throws herself upon her mother, and enfolds her in her arms, weeping.

Yes my poor child!

DUCHESS.

Thou too hast lost a most affectionate godmother
In the Empress. O that stern unbending man!
In this unhappy marriage what have I
Not suffer'd, not endured? For even as if

I had been link'd on to some wheel of fire

That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward,

I have pass'd a life of frights and horrors with him, And ever to the brink of some abyss

With dizzy headlong violence he whirls me.

Nay, do not weep, my child! Let not my sufferings Presignify unhappiness to thee,

Nor blacken with their shade the fate that waits thee. There lives no second Friedland: thou, my child,

Hast not to fear thy mother's destiny.

THEKLA.

O let us supplicate him, dearest mother!
Quick! quick! here's no abiding-place for us.

Here every coming hour broods into life!

Some new affrightful monster.

An easier, calmer lot, my child! We too,
I and thy father, witness'd happy days.
Still think I with delight of those first years,
When he was making progress with glad effort,
When his ambition was a genial fire,
Not that consuming flame which now it is.
The Emperor loved him, trusted him: and all
He undertook could not but be successful.
But since that ill-starr'd day at Regensburg,
Which plunged him headlong from his dignity,
A gloomy uncompanionable spirit,
Unsteady and suspicious, has possess'd him.
Bis quiet mind forsook him, and no longer
Did he yield up himself in joy and faith
To his old luck, and individual power;

But thenceforth turn'd his heart and best affections

All to those cloudy sciences, which never

Have yet made happy him who follow'd them.

COUNTESS.

You see it, sister! as your eyes permit you.
But surely this is not the conversation

To pass the time in which we are waiting for him.

It is all quiet.

WALLENSTEIN.

In a few hours may couriers come from Prague
With tidings, that this capital is ours.
Then we may drop the mask, and to the troops
Assembled in this town make known the measure
And its result together. In such cases
Example does the whole. Whoever is foremost
Still leads the herd. An imitative creature
Is man. The troops at Prague conceive no other,
Than that the Pilsen army has gone through
The forms of homage to us; and in Pilsen
They shall swear fealty to us, because
The example has been given them by Prague.
Butler, you tell me, has declared himself?

ILLO.

At his own bidding, unsolicited,
He came to offer you himself and regiment.

WALLENSTEIN.

I find we must not give implicit credence
To every warning voice that makes itself
Be listen'd to in the heart. To hold us back,
Oft does the lying Spirit counterfeit

DUCHESS.

Come, my child! Come wipe away thy tears, and show thy father A cheerful countenance, See, the tie-knot here Is off-this hair must not hang so dishevell'd. Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform Thy gentle eye.-Well now what was I saying? Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini Is a most noble and deserving gentleman.

Scattering false oracles. And thus have I
To intreat forgiveness, for that secretly
I've wrong'd this honourable gallant man,
This Butler: for a feeling, of the which
I am not master (fear I would not call it),
Creeps o'er me instantly, with sense of shuddering,
At his approach, and stops love's joyous motion.
And this same man, against whom I am warn'd,
This honest man is he, who reaches to me
The first pledge of my fortune.

That is he, sister!

COUNTESS.

ILLO.

And doubt not