341
2. LETTERS OF SCHILLER 354
3. FRIENDSHIP WITH GOETHE 371
4. DEATH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS 375

APPENDIX II.
GOETHE'S INTRODUCTION TO GERMAN TRANSLATION OF THIS LIFE
OF SCHILLER 379

SUMMARY AND INDEX 417

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

[1845.]

The excuse for reprinting this somewhat insignificant Book is, that
certain parties, of the pirate species, were preparing to reprint it
for me. There are books, as there are horses, which a judicious owner,
on fair survey of them, might prefer to adjust by at once shooting
through the head: but in the case of books, owing to the pirate
species, that is not possible. Remains therefore that at least dirty
paper and errors of the press be guarded against; that a poor Book,
which has still to walk this world, do walk in clean linen, so to
speak, and pass its few and evil days with no blotches but its own
adhering to it.

There have been various new _Lives_ of Schiller since this one first
saw the light;--great changes in our notions, informations, in our
relations to the Life of Schiller, and to other things connected
therewith, during that long time! Into which I could not in the least
enter on the present occasion. Such errors, one or two, as lay
corrigible on the surface, I have pointed out by here and there a Note
as I read; but of errors that lay deeper there could no charge be
taken: to break the surface, to tear-up the old substance, and model
_it_ anew, was a task that lay far from me,--that would have been
frightful to me. What was written remains written; and the Reader, by
way of constant commentary, when needed, has to say to himself, "It
was written Twenty years ago." For newer instruction on Schiller's
Biography he can consult the _Schillers Leben_ of Madame von Wolzogen,
which Goethe once called a _Schiller Redivivus_; the _Briefwechsel
zwischen Schiller und Goethe_;--or, as a summary of the whole, and the
readiest inlet to the general subject for an English reader, Sir
Edward Bulwer's _Sketch of Schiller's Life_, a vigorous and lively
piece of writing, prefixed to his _Translations from Schiller_.

The present little Book is very imperfect:--but it pretends also to be
very h