Life of Friedrich Schiller - 1825 - 1857 Author:Thomas Carlyle Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART III. FKOM HIS SETTLEMENT AT JENA TO HIS DEATH. (1790-1805.) The duties of his new office naturally called upon Schiller to devote himself with double... more » zeal to History: a subject, which from choice he had already entered on with so much eagerness. In the study of it, we have seen above how his strongest faculties and tastes were exercised and gratified: and new opportunities were now combined with new motives for persisting in his efforts. Concerning the plan or the success of his academical prelections, we have scarcely any notice: in his class, it is said, he used most frequently to speak extempore; and his delivery was not distinguished by fluency or grace, a circumstance to be imputed to the agitation of a public appearance; for, as Woltmann assures us, ' the beauty, the elegance, ease, and true instructiveness with ' which he could continuously express himself in private, were ' acknowledged and admired by all his friends.' His matter, we suppose, would make amends for these deficiencies of manner: to judge from his introductory lecture, preserved in his works, with the title, Wltat is Universal History, and uith what views should it be ttvdied, there perhaps has never been in Europe another course of history sketched out on principles so magnificent and philosophical.1 But college exercises were far from being his ultimate object, nor did he rest satisfied with mere visions of perfection: the compass of the outline he had traced, for a proper Historian, was scarcely greater than the assiduity with which he strove to fill it up. His letters breathe a spirit not only of diligence but of ardour; 1 The paper entitled Hints on the Origin of Human Society, as indicated in the Mosaic Records, the Mission of Moses, the Laws of Solon and Lycurgus, are pieces of the very ...« less