and may serve to justify the
violence of his alarms, which to the happy natives of our Island might
otherwise appear pusillanimous and excessive. For these reasons we
subjoin a sketch of it.

Schubart's character is not a new one in literature; nor is it strange
that his life should have been unfortunate. A warm genial spirit; a
glowing fancy, and a friendly heart; every faculty but diligence, and
every virtue but 'the understrapping virtue of discretion:' such is
frequently the constitution of the poet; the natural result of it also
has frequently been pointed out, and sufficiently bewailed. This man
was one of the many who navigate the ocean of life with 'more sail
than ballast;' his voyage contradicted every rule of seamanship, and
necessarily ended in a wreck.

Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart was born at Obersontheim in
Swabia, on the 26th of April 1739. His father, a well-meaning soul,
officiated there in the multiple capacity of schoolmaster, precentor,
and curate; dignities which, with various mutations and improvements,
he subsequently held in several successive villages of the same
district. Daniel, from the first, was a thing of inconsistencies; his
life proceeded as if by fits and starts. At school, for a while, he
lay dormant: at the age of seven he could not read, and had acquired
the reputation of a perfect dunce. But 'all at once,' says his
biographer, 'the rind which enclosed his spirit started asunder;' and
Daniel became the prodigy of the school! His good father determined to
make a learned man of him: he sent him at the age of fourteen to the
Nordlingen Lyceum, and two years afterwards to a similar establishment
at Nuernberg. Here Schubart began to flourish with all his natural
luxuriance; read classical and domestic poets; spouted, speculated;
wrote flowing songs; discovered 'a decided turn for music,' and even
composed tunes for the harpsichord! In short, he became an
acknowledged _genius_: and his parents consented that he should go to
Jena, and perform his _cursus_ of Theology.

Schubart's purposes were not at all like the decrees of Fate: he set
out towards Jena; and on arriving at Erlangen, resolved to proceed no
farther, but perform his _cursus_ where he was. For a time he studied
well; but afterwards 'tumultuously,' that is, in violent fits,
alternating with fits as violent of idleness and debauchery. He became
a _Bursche_ of the first water; drank and declaimed, rioted and ran in
d