The Life of Friedrich Schiller

The excuse for reprinting this somewhat insignificant Book is, that certain parties, of the pirate species, were preparing to reprint it for me. There are books, as there are horses, which a judicious owner, on fair survey of them, might prefer to adjust by at once shooting through the head: but in the case of books, owing to the pirate species, that is not possible. Remains therefore that at least dirty paper and errors of the press be guarded against; that a poor Book, which has still to walk this world, do walk in clean linen, so to speak, and pass its few and evil days with no blotches but its own adhering to it.

There have been various new Lives of Schiller since this one first saw the light;--great changes in our notions, informations, in our relations to the Life of Schiller, and to other things connected therewith, during that long time! Into which I could not in the least enter on the present occasion. Such errors, one or two, as lay corrigible on the surface, I have pointed out by here and there a Note as I read; but of errors that lay deeper there could no charge be taken: to break the surface, to tear-up the old substance, and model it anew, was a task that lay far from me,--that would have been frightful to me. What was written remains written; and the Reader, by way of constant commentary, when needed, has to say to himself, "It was written Twenty years ago." For newer instruction on Schiller's Biography he can consult the Schillers Leben of Madame von Wolzogen, which Goethe once called a Schiller Redivivus; the Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe;--or, as a summary of the whole, and the readiest inlet to the general subject for an English reader, Sir Edward Bulwer's Sketch of Schiller's Life, a vigorous and lively piece of writing, prefixed to his Translations from Schiller.

The present little Book is very imperfect:--but it pretends also to be very harmless; it can innocently instruct those who are more ignorant than itself! To which ingenuous class, according to their wants and tastes, let it, with all good wishes, and hopes to meet afterwards in fruitfuler provinces, be heartily commended.

T. CARLYLE.

London, 7th May 1845.

PART I.

SCHILLER'S YOUTH (1759-1784).

PART FIRST.

[1759-1784.]