rder for the retreat;
Mehmed answers that he did; the Janizaries had been slaughtered by the
thousands, but in vain, the army was exhausted, and it had been
impossible to wrest the victory from the enemy; he intended, however, to
bombard the castle the next night and was persuaded that the walls must
give way. Soliman flies into a passion:

"But I from them will wrest it (the victory namely), must
wrest it!"

In very truth an excellent commander-in-chief, who is not to be
persuaded by reasons such as Mehmed advanced, and who differs from a
child who is denied his will only in that he bellows where the child
screams. But--perhaps we have the tyrant before us where I thought I
perceived the nullity of the commander-in-chief. Let us read on:

ALI.

"Remember Malta!

SOLIMAN.

Death and Hell! Ali!
Remind me not of Malta, if thy head
Is dear to thee. More I endure from thee
Than does befit the great lord Soliman!"

Really the beginning promises well.

ALI.

"My life is in thy hands, my Emperor!

SOLIMAN.

Since thou dost know that, yet didst freely speak
Thy heart's thought to me, I'll forgive thee.
For I love truth which knows no fear of death.
In token then of my imperial grace,
Thy council shall prevail; I'll not attack!"

I think we do not need to tremble before a tyrant whose fury could be
appeased by Ali's paltry words. "My life is in thy hands, my Emperor!"
which must have been said to him often enough before. Let no one
reproach me if, henceforth, I keep silence on the subject of Soliman.
Offenses of this kind are not mere blunders, they are the sign of
complete incompetency on the part of the poet, and solely out of
curiosity, not because it is necessary to demonstrate my argument, I
shall continue to analyze Zriny, Helena, and the other marionettes.

Zriny is an abortive copy of Wallenstein; his originality consists in
doing _for_ the Emperor, what the latter does _against_ him. Juranitsch
is Max Piccolomini the second, but has the misfortune to stand as far
_below_ the first as other people who also happened to be seconds, as
for example, Frederick the Second, Joseph the Second, etc., stood
_above_ their namesakes. In general, _Zriny_ has made it clear to me
that Koerner, had he lived, would, without any doubt, have become a
second Schiller, namely, by completely absorbing the first. The
plagiarisms which the noble young man has indulged in, in this tragedy,