ightly interpreted when they were
called to mind long afterwards. His schoolfellows can _now_ recollect
that even his freaks had sometimes a poetic character; that a certain
earnestness of temper, a frank integrity, an appetite for things grand
or moving, was discernible across all the caprices of his boyhood.
Once, it is said, during a tremendous thunderstorm, his father missed
him in the young group within doors; none of the sisters could tell
what was become of Fritz, and the old man grew at length so anxious
that he was forced to go out in quest of him. Fritz was scarcely past
the age of infancy, and knew not the dangers of a scene so awful. His
father found him at last, in a solitary place of the neighbourhood,
perched on the branch of a tree, gazing at the tempestuous face of the
sky, and watching the flashes as in succession they spread their lurid
gleam over it. To the reprimands of his parent, the whimpering truant
pleaded in extenuation, "that the lightning was very beautiful, and
that he wished to see where it was coming from!"--Such anecdotes, we
have long known, are in themselves of small value: the present one has
the additional defect of being somewhat dubious in respect of
authenticity. We have ventured to give it, as it came to us,
notwithstanding. The picture of the boy Schiller, contemplating the
thunder, is not without a certain interest, for such as know the man.

Schiller's first teacher was Moser, pastor and schoolmaster in the
village of Lorch, where the parents resided from the sixth to the
ninth year of their son. This person deserves mention for the
influence he exerted on the early history of his pupil: he seems to
have given his name to the Priest 'Moser' in the _Robbers_; his
spiritual calling, and the conversation of his son, himself afterwards
a preacher, are supposed to have suggested to Schiller the idea of
consecrating himself to the clerical profession. This idea, which laid
hold of and cherished some predominant though vague propensities of
the boy's disposition, suited well with the religious sentiments of
his parents, and was soon formed into a settled purpose. In the public
school at Ludwigsburg, whither the family had now removed, his studies
were regulated with this view; and he underwent, in four successive
years, the annual examination before the Stuttgard Commission, to
which young men destined for the Church are subjected in that country.
Schiller's temper was naturally devo