portance than historical truth in giving us a knowledge of human nature; in the works of the great masters of tragedy we see reflected more clearly than anywhere else the character of man.

Lessing's influence on English literature has not been notable. We did not need him so acutely. It was through the Dramaturgie that he began to impress literary Europe, but he was not well known in England before 1830. His influence on English drama in the nineteenth century might have been great had there been anything to influence. But there was no real dramatic movement in England until the close of the century; and by that time Lessing's ideas had become largely axiomatic. But the English-speaking people ought to feel a special interest in the life and work of Lessing; he was greatly influenced by English models; and his criticisms of Shakespeare are not the least valuable part of his writings.

Lessing's style was like the man: straightforward, virile, combative, sometimes sarcastic, yet always betraying great depths of sympathy. Every line he wrote has the ring of sincerity. In a letter to his father he said, "If I write at all, it is not possible for me to write otherwise than as I think and feel." These heartening words are the echo of his life. To Lessing the pursuit of truth was not a duty; it was a passion. Narrow

ness and intolerance were hateful to him, and insincerity was the unpardonable sin. He loved truth because he could not help loving it, and it made his blood boil to see truth distorted and used to advertise false ideas. He had that freedom from prejudice which characterises every great critic. But he was preeminently a man of strong convictions.

XII

SCHILLER'S PERSONALITY AND

INFLUENCE

SCHILLER was born at Marbach on the tenth of November 1759, the birthday of Martin Luther and the birthyear of Robert Burns. It is one of nature's rare felicities that Burns and Schiller should have entered the world together, since each was destined to enrich lyrical poetry and to stand forever as a fiery advocate of the claims of the heart against the conventions of society. Friedrich was intended by his parents for the ministry, but as he developed he passed through the intellectual struggle eternally symptomatic of youth, which resulted for him in the complete rout of theological dogma and the abandonment of clerical ambition. In January 1773, he was sent to the military school at Castle Solitude, founded and controlled by the capricious Duke of Würtemberg. To boys of independence this institution resembled a jail rather than an academy; the rigour of its discipline seemed galling in its pettiness, and its curriculum dull and harsh. Its unintentional effect on the boy's theories of political and social liberty was profound and permanent.

His personal appearance was as unconventional as his ideas. He was rough, uncouth, unrein, his very hair a flag of revolt, so that many times when he appeared at the breakfast table the boys exclaimed, "Aber, Fritz, wie siehst du wieder aus?"

"Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought," he would often leap up in the middle of the night to read and write. Stumbling clumsily over furniture, he would arouse his sleeping schoolmates and add more to his knowledge than to his popularity. Most of the boys regarded him as a freak, but he naturally had a few dear and intimate friends. He was a sentimental, morbid young German, and he wrote: "I am not yet twenty-one years old, but I can tell you frankly that the world has no further charm for me. . . The nearer I come to the age of maturity, the more I could wish that I had died in childhood." He never had anything of Goethe's repose. One of his schoolmates said, "Sein Geist rastete nie stand nie still sondern suchte immer vorwärts zu schreiten." Thoroughly characteristic even then was his fierce rebellion against the ruling powers. As Professor Chuquet says: "Charles Moor est plus tragique que Goetz: l'un combat les évêques et les princes: l'autre combat l'ordre social tout entier.”

His reading at school and in his early years influenced him deeply, the books that produced the greatest effect being Werther, Götz, Ossian, Klopstock, Plutarch, Shakespeare, and Rousseau. In Schiller's literary activity, as in that of every other influential writer since 1775, we can trace many things back to Jean Jacques, who is perhaps the source of more literary, political, and social movements than any other writer of modern times.

While he was at school he secretly wrote his first play, The Robbers. After leaving the academy he borrowed money and published the work at his own, or rather at his friend's expense, in the spring of 1781. Many things in this play seem absurd to-day, and one must not forget the remark of the German prince to Goethe: "If I had been God and about to create the world, and had I foreseen that Schiller would write The Robbers in it, I would not have created it." Still the appearance of this drama is one of the events in the history of literature. It was a genuine eruption of the Sturm und Drang, and in its wild passion it expressed and relieved the overcharged heart of Germany. Kuno Fischer said, "Sein erstes Selbstbekenntnis sind Die Räuber, sein letztes Die Künstler." The difference between the two is really more a difference of intellectual development than any actual change. The words