contented, irreclaimable perversity of the
cutthroat Moor, all dwell in our recollections: but what, next to
Fiesco, chiefly attracts us, is the character of Leonora his wife.
Leonora is of kindred to Amelia in the _Robbers_, but involved in more
complicated relations, and brought nearer to the actual condition of
humanity. She is such a heroine as Schiller most delights to draw.
Meek and retiring by the softness of her nature, yet glowing with an
ethereal ardour for all that is illustrious and lovely, she clings
about her husband, as if her being were one with his. She dreams of
remote and peaceful scenes, where Fiesco should be all to her, she all
to Fiesco: her idea of love is, that '_her_ name should lie in secret
behind every one of his thoughts, should speak to him from every
object of Nature; that for him, this bright majestic universe itself
were but as the shining jewel, on which her image, only _hers_, stood
engraved.' Her character seems a reflection of Fiesco's, but refined
from his grosser strength, and transfigured into a celestial form of
purity, and tenderness, and touching grace. Jealousy cannot move her
into anger; she languishes in concealed sorrow, when she thinks
herself forgotten. It is affection alone that can rouse her into
passion; but under the influence of this, she forgets all weakness and
fear. She cannot stay in her palace, on the night when Fiesco's
destiny is deciding; she rushes forth, as if inspired, to share in her
husband's dangers and sublime deeds, and perishes at last in the
tumult.

The death of Leonora, so brought about, and at such a time, is
reckoned among the blemishes of the work: that of Fiesco, in which
Schiller has ventured to depart from history, is to be more favourably
judged of. Fiesco is not here accidentally drowned; but plunged into
the waves by the indignant Verrina, who forgets or stifles the
feelings of friendship, in his rage at political apostasy. 'The nature
of the Drama,' we are justly told, 'will not suffer the operation of
Chance, or of an immediate Providence. Higher spirits can discern the
minute fibres of an event stretching through the whole expanse of the
system of the world, and hanging, it may be, on the remotest limits of
the future and the past, where man discerns nothing save the action
itself, hovering unconnected in space. But the artist has to paint for
the short view of man, whom he wishes to instruct; not for the
piercing eye of superior pow