TO THE READER.

THERE are a thousand faults in this play, but they are redeemed by a thousand beauties, if these last indeed have been permitted to survive in any degree in the present translation. The quick succession of incident, the force and variety of the characters, and the depth and richness of the dramatic colouring, are among the most splendid specimens of Schiller's power. But in opposition to this, it is but fair to place, the redundancy and vehemence of the sentiments, (carried often to exaggeration,) and above all, the violence done to a refined taste by many of the situations, and which even the strictness of their

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moral tendency is not always sufficient to excuse. These, however, are the peculiarities of the German language, and also of the German school, for which the English reader must be prepared to make allowance. Perhaps in no play of Schiller's, has he more fully exhibited the faults as well as the beauties of his style, and it is no small motive with the translator in offering the present version to the public, to place Both in juxta-position, for the benefit of those, who may desire to imitate the one, and to avoid the other.

There is a feeling and imagination about Schiller, that give, even to his prose, all the glow and character of poetry. The Translator has sought to meet this, by rendering the more elevated and less conversational scenes in blank verse, a liberty for which he might plead the highest authority, were he not afraid that this would only expose his temerity to increased condemnation. It is now too late to remember that the Enchanter's wand replies only to the touch of the Enchanter, and loses its mystic virtue in unhallowed hands!

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For the rest, the Translator is too painfully alive to his own deficiencies, to seek to disarm criticism by an affected modesty, or to invite it by unbecoming presumption. None can understand the difficulties he has had to contend with, but They who are acquainted with the German language; who are conversant with the boldness of its imagery, the energy of its declamation, the concentrated force of its compound words, and the winged beauty of its many coloured and ever varying epithets.

To the considerate indulgence of Those, he fearlessly commits himself, while he ventures to remind his severer Judges, that the office of a Translator although humble, is not mean, if, like an inferior Artist who copies from a Master, he shall succeed in giving only an accurate outline of his original, while he leaves it to the taste and imagination of the Reader, to finish and fill up the glowing Picture.