lenstein; even in ruin he seems
too great for pity. His daughter having vanished like a fair vision
from the scene, we look forward to Wallenstein's inevitable fate with
little feeling save expectant awe:

This kingly Wallenstein, whene'er he falls,
Will drag a world to ruin down with him;
And as a ship that in the midst of ocean
Catches fire, and shiv'ring springs into the air,
And in a moment scatters between sea and sky
The crew it bore, so will he hurry to destruction
Ev'ry one whose fate was join'd with his.

Yet still there is some touch of pathos in his gloomy fall; some
visitings of nature in the austere grandeur of his slowly-coming, but
inevitable and annihilating doom. The last scene of his life is among
the finest which poetry can boast of. Thekla's death is still unknown
to him; but he thinks of Max, and almost weeps. He looks at the stars:
dim shadows of superstitious dread pass fitfully across his spirit, as
he views these fountains of light, and compares their glorious and
enduring existence with the fleeting troubled life of man. The strong
spirit of his sister is subdued by dark forebodings; omens are against
him; his astrologer entreats, one of the relenting conspirators
entreats, his own feelings call upon him, to watch and beware. But he
refuses to let the resolution of his mind be overmastered; he casts
away these warnings, and goes cheerfully to sleep, with dreams of hope
about his pillow, unconscious that the javelins are already grasped
which will send him to his long and dreamless sleep. The death of
Wallenstein does not cause tears; but it is perhaps the most
high-wrought scene of the play. A shade of horror, of fateful
dreariness, hangs over it, and gives additional effect to the fire of
that brilliant poetry, which glows in every line of it. Except in
_Macbeth_ or the conclusion of _Othello_, we know not where to match
it. Schiller's genius is of a kind much narrower than Shakspeare's;
but in his own peculiar province, the exciting of lofty, earnest,
strong emotion, he admits of no superior. Others are finer, more
piercing, varied, thrilling, in their influence: Schiller, in his
finest mood, is overwhelming.

This tragedy of _Wallenstein_, published at the close of the
eighteenth century, may safely be rated as the greatest dramatic work
of which that century can boast. France never rose into the sphere of
Schiller, even in the days of her Corneille: nor ca