ects, had cast away all these advantages; betaken himself to the
forests, and, copying Moor, had begun a course of active
operations,--which, also copying Moor, but less willingly, he had
ended by a shameful death.

It can now be hardly necessary to contradict these theories; or to
show that none but a candidate for Bedlam as well as Tyburn could be
seduced from the substantial comforts of existence, to seek
destruction and disgrace, for the sake of such imaginary grandeur. The
German nobleman of the fairest gifts and prospects turns out, on
investigation, to have been a German blackguard, whom debauchery and
riotous extravagance had reduced to want; who took to the highway,
when he could take to nothing else,--not allured by an ebullient
enthusiasm, or any heroical and misdirected appetite for sublime
actions, but driven by the more palpable stimulus of importunate duns,
an empty purse, and five craving senses. Perhaps in his later days,
this philosopher _may_ have referred to Schiller's tragedy, as the
source from which he drew his theory of life: but if so, we believe he
was mistaken. For characters like him, the great attraction was the
charms of revelry, and the great restraint, the gallows,--before the
period of Karl von Moor, just as they have been since, and will be to
the end of time. Among motives like these, the influence of even the
most malignant book could scarcely be discernible, and would be little
detrimental, if it were.

Nothing, at any rate, could be farther from Schiller's intention than
such a consummation. In his preface, he speaks of the moral effects of
the _Robbers_ in terms which do honour to his heart, while they show
the inexperience of his head. Ridicule, he signifies, has long been
tried against the wickedness of the times, whole cargoes of hellebore
have been expended,--in vain; and now, he thinks, recourse must be
had to more pungent medicines. We may smile at the simplicity of this
idea; and safely conclude that, like other specifics, the present one
would fail to produce a perceptible effect: but Schiller's vindication
rests on higher grounds than these. His work has on the whole
furnished nourishment to the more exalted powers of our nature; the
sentiments and images which he has shaped and uttered, tend, in spite
of their alloy, to elevate the soul to a nobler pitch: and this is a
sufficient defence. As to the danger of misapplying the inspiration he
communicates, of forgetting the