s_ and his
friend's _Count Egmont_, altering both according to his latest views
of scenic propriety. It was farther intended to treat, in the same
manner, the whole series of leading German plays, and thus to produce
a national stock of dramatic pieces, formed according to the best
rules; a vast project, in which some progress continued to be made,
though other labours often interrupted it. For the present, Schiller
was engaged with his _Maria Stuart_: it appeared in 1800.

This tragedy will not detain us long. It is upon a subject, the
incidents of which are now getting trite, and the moral of which has
little that can peculiarly recommend it. To exhibit the repentance of
a lovely but erring woman, to show us how her soul may be restored to
its primitive nobleness, by sufferings, devotion and death, is the
object of _Maria Stuart_. It is a tragedy of sombre and mournful
feelings; with an air of melancholy and obstruction pervading it; a
looking backward on objects of remorse, around on imprisonment, and
forward on the grave. Its object is undoubtedly attained. We are
forced to pardon and to love the heroine; she is beautiful, and
miserable, and lofty-minded; and her crimes, however dark, have been
expiated by long years of weeping and woe. Considering also that they
were the fruit not of calculation, but of passion acting on a heart
not dead, though blinded for a time, to their enormity, they seem less
hateful than the cold premeditated villany of which she is the victim.
Elizabeth is selfish, heartless, envious; she violates no law, but she
has no virtue, and she lives triumphant: her arid, artificial
character serves by contrast to heighten our sympathy with her
warm-hearted, forlorn, ill-fated rival. These two Queens, particularly
Mary, are well delineated: their respective qualities are vividly
brought out, and the feelings they were meant to excite arise within
us. There is also Mortimer, a fierce, impetuous, impassioned lover;
driven onward chiefly by the heat of his blood, but still interesting
by his vehemence and unbounded daring. The dialogue, moreover, has
many beauties; there are scenes which have merited peculiar
commendation. Of this kind is the interview between the Queens; and
more especially the first entrance of Mary, when, after long
seclusion, she is once more permitted to behold the cheerful sky. In
the joy of a momentary freedom, she forgets that she is still a
captive; she addresses the clouds,