amongst the princes, whether their investitures would be valid without the accustomed form of touching that symbol of authority. Rudolph terminated the discussion by taking the crucifix from the altar, and employing that symbol of salvation in its stead. In the first scene, we find the Emperor and Empress alone in their palace; she lamenting their removal from their happy home, and fearing that her husband's new dignity will deprive her more than ever of his society. To this he replies, by dwelling upon the happiness to be derived from the conscientious discharge of the high duties now imposed upon him, and assuring her, that those duties having already overpowered all his youthful love of fighting, he shall henceforward live more with her and his children than formerly. She doubts; and, as if in confirmation of her apprehensions, a private audience is demanded for the Archbishop of Maintz, who, in gratitude for his gratuitous escort, had mainly contributed to Rudolph's election. The prelate, in a very long conversation, urges to the Emperor the necessity of conciliating the Pope, whose sanction is yet wanting to his confirmation, and the dangers that would accrue from his adopting the rival candidate for the Imperial crown, Ottocar, King of Bohemia, who is already supported by all those who have any reason to dread a rigidly just Emperor, with the Duke of Bavaria at their bead. He then states the hard conditions upon which only the Pope will probably agree to crown Rudolph, advising his Imperial Master to consent to every thing, and afterwards to use his own pleasure respecting such of the terms as he might deem unjust. This is done, we imagine, to display Rudolph's invariable adherence to truth and honour; but we must be allowed to wish that Herr Schlenkert could have found some other means of shewing his hero's virtues. It is revolting to see such advice put into the mouth of an ecclesiastic, who had been previously lauded as an exception to the prevailing character of his order. Rudolph of course rejects it, declaring that if he must promise, he will keep his word. He accordingly makes terms with the holy father, and repeatedly summonses the refractory princes and nobles to come and take the oaths; his invitations are either slighted, or answered by insulting embassies. Having given more notice and more time than any one thinks necessary, he first affiances his eldest son to the daughter of his old brother in arms and rival, Meinhard of the Tyrol, and then sets forth to subdue his enemies. He surprises the Swabian league, breaks its power, and constrains its members to follow him with their troops against their confederates. The Duke of Bavaria is frightened, submits, and also joins Rudolph against his chief adversary, Ottocar, King of Bohemia. The ninth period is wholly occupied with the war against Ottocar. He and his queen are loathsome pictures of perfidy, tyranny, and licentiousness, unredeemed by any good quality except courage. Accordingly, his subjugation is effected as much by his own dissatisfied subjects, as by the Emperor's army. Austria is taken from him almost without a blow, and after one partial defeat he submits, does homage, and is confined to his hereditary kingdoms of Bohemia and Moravia. But his submission is forced and deceptious; he employs the leisure afforded him in preparing for revolt, and the third part ends, leaving him ready to fall upon Austria, which Rudolph had reincorporated with the empire, committing its administration to his sons and friends. The opening of the tenth period shews us the Imperial and Bohemian armies opposed to each other, the former not amounting to more than a quarter of the numbers of the latter, owing to the treachery of some of the states of the empire, whom Ottocar had seduced or bribed. And here we find, perhaps, the first idea of exhibiting a battle to the reader, through the medium of deeply interested spectators, of which such happy use has been made by an illustrious writer of our own days. Rudolph, upon being attacked by the Bohemians, sends his Empress and family to a place of security behind his camp. When they have reached it, their conductor, Walter of Klingen, informs her Majesty that they are safe, as in case of the worst, the road to Vienna is open. Empress. Oh! I have no fears for myself, Father Walter. Could I purchase my Rudolph's life with the last drop of my blood! (Shuddering.)— Children, kneel and pray-pray for your father! The battle begins fear fully-fearfully! I will strive to support myself. I will not turn my eye from that bloody, horrid spectacle, till it closes in death. Oh, Rudolph! Rudolph! Lady Gisela, (a friend of the Empress's youth.) Compose yourself, my dearest Anna. Would you had re mained at Vienna! Empress. No, no! There anxiety would have crushed my heart. This day is too dreadful. I must see my Rudolph conquer-or fall! Lady Gisela. God will take him under his almighty protection. (Half aside.) Help, gracious God! they are engaged. Walter of Klingen. The encounter begins furiously. The Bohemian cavalry hack and hew on all sides like wild boars. Empress. The Austrians are hard pressed-they give way-farther-still farther-God! God! Walter of Klingen. There is no danger yet, dread lady. Perhaps that may be design. The flower of our forces are not yet in the field. Lady Gisela. Look up! Look up! Now the Hungarians rush against the Bohemian rampart of carriages-now they break through! Walter of Klingen. Now the engagement becomes general.-The Emperor flies over the plain-Ha! That was a terrible onset! Empress. Almighty God! now comes the decision!-Oh, thanks, glowing, heartfelt thanks for thy mercies, God of armies !-The enemies fly! Walter of Klingen. They rally again -Ottocar collects his cavalry-now he falls upon the centre-the swords and spears rage and massacre more dreadfully, more savagely, than I myself ever saw before. Lady Giselda. Heavens, what a bloody conflict! Walter of Klingen. Frightful!Frightful! Imperial lady, avert your eyes from the horrible sight. Lady Gisela. (Half aside.) Is the Emperor in danger?" Walter of Klingen. (Half aside.) He is. Do you not see that already half his Swiss Empress. Do you see him fall? Do you see him fall? Merciful God! (Sinks upon the ground. Princess Gutha. Oh, mother, mother! He is fallen! (Throws herself upon the Empress. Princess Clementia. I will die with you! Mother, I will die with you! Walter of Klingen. Cruel fate! That I should live to see this! Empress. Rudolph! Rudolph!-That I might die for thee, or with thee! Lady Gisela. God of Heaven! She is already writhing in the agonies of death. Prince Wartman. I will never forgive you, old knight, for having kept me out of the battle.-I would have fought by my father's side, have intercepted the blow. I would have sa ved him. Walter of Klingen. You could as little have saved him as I could, good youth. But why immediately fear the worst? The fallen are not necessarily dead. Empress. (Starting up.) Is he not slain ?-Rudolph not slain ?—Not? Not? Walter of Klingen. I have myself often fallen in battle, my Lady Empress, and am still alive. See where a knight comes from the field. Lady Giselda. See, see! Is not that Rudolph's crest glittering at the head of yon victorious squadron ? Empress. It is he! (Hugh of Wirdenbergh gallops in.) Is he alive?Is Rudolph alive? Sir Hugh answers in the affirmative, adding that he is himself sent by the Emperor to assure her of his safety. He then gives her an account of the state of affairs, and returns to his post. We are now conducted to the field of battle itself,-to the Bohemian right wing. The general commanding here had been deeply offended by Ottacar's putting his brother to death, seducing his niece, and refusing to repair the family honour by a lefthanded marriage. In revenge, he pertinaciously disobeys repeated orders to join the engagements, and thus insures his tyrant's defeat. Ottocar fights in despair, and is killed. In the next scene, we find Rudolph alone in his tent, praying, lamenting over the blood shed in the late conflict, and bitterly condemning himself as the cause of so much slaughter. A good bishop comes to summon him to the solemn thanksgiving for the victory; he forbids the ceremony, and the prelate has infinite difficulty to convince him, that the guilt rests with him who wrongfully attacked, not with him who defended himself and his subjects. We can scarcely recognise our chivalrous friend of the first and second parts, in this quaker-like tenderness of conscience. We may be told that men's characters alter with their years and circumstances, a fact not to be disputed; but we suspect that scruples of this description were very little known to any class of persons, warriors, theologians, or even gentle maidens, in the thirteenth century. We the rather make this remark, because it appears to us to be one of the most ordinary mistakes of the best modern German writers, to attribute the philosophy, the sentiments, and even the sentimentability of their own times, to the rougher knights and dames of the middle ages. Our limits will not allow any detail of the remainder of the work. We must content ourselves with stating shortly, that the Emperor settles the affairs of Bohemia with great liberality, pardons the revolted Duke of Bavaria at the intercession of his own daughter, who was married to the Duke's son,-breaks the Swabian league for the second time, subduing now even the hearts of its members, detects an impostor who was raising a rebellion, by passing himself for the deceased Emperor Frederick the Second, and goes about the empire doing justice, composing disputes between high and low, and destroying noble robbers, together with their strongholds, by fifties and sixties at a time, that the Empress Anna dies, and he marries the young and beautiful Elizabeth of Burgundy. May we pause to observe, en passant, that although we could not desire an author, who professes to be guided by history, to suppress such an act of high treason against the spirit of romance, we wish he had rather attributed it to motives of policy, than have exhibited our hero falling in love at sixty-six ;that he obtains the concurrence of the States of the Empire to the grants of Austria, to his eldest son Albert; of Swabia, to his son Rudolph; and of Carinthia, to his old friend Meinhard of the Tyrol, but fails to obtain the election of Albert as his King of the Romans, breaks out into complaints of human ingratitude, declares he will take no more trouble, but enjoy himself for the rest of his life, and dies soon afterwards. The events which we have succinctly sketched, are evidently pretty destitute of romantic interest, and it is a curious characteristic of this author's style of writing, that when detailed with the utmost minuteness, and, as we have before said, tediousness, they actually do acquire a sort of interest quite sufficient to prevent the book's being thrown aside, though it may at first sight appear wonderful, that any mortal reader can be found endued with patience to persevere through four volumes of elucidation and developement of such facts. We must again refer to Richardson for the explanation of the phenomenon. The characters, as in his novels, are at once pourtrayed with a fulness and distinctness, that gives a vivid impression of their reality; and when they are all thus presented to our acquaintance, and we are thoroughly possessed of all that they did and said, and thought and felt, upon every occasion, we are acted upon much in the same manner that we should be, if, after the fashion of Le Diable Boiteux, we could be present at the cabinent deliberations, the private reflections, and the domestic transactions of any remarkable historical or political personage. If we do not suffer the painful anxiety respecting the solution of difficulties and terminations of dangers, which constitutes the charm of romance, a desire to know what will happen next, and how our friends will feel and act, is excited, quite strong enough to carry us forward. Nay, we will confess that the simple expression of natural emotions by persons with whom we were so intimate, has occasionally drawn tears into our own eyes; and that had the author indulged us with the introduction of more of the pleasing traits recorded of this founder of the House of Austria, we should boldly pronounce this Historical Romantic Picture,' to be calculated to afford very considerable gratification, notwithstanding a certain homeliness in the execution, which constantly reminds us that the high hand of a master is wanting. S. A. THE RING AND THE STREAM. A DRAMA. SCENE, A Valley in the Isle of Paros.- Time-Day. ANDRONICUS and BASIL. Andronicus. What hath inspired this happy change, my thought Hath not divined, yet doth it sooth my soul, And fall as dew upon my aching heart, Soft'ning its rugged sorrows.-Since the hour When the great King of Shadows mark'd the maid His beautiful betroth'd, and, in the pride Of his omnipotent rivalship, he woo'd, He smiled and sang-and so accordant were That smile and song, and both so breath'd of Heaven, That, for a moment, I did think my son Had pass'd away from earth, and that I saw Basil. It is enough that I no more behold The stillness of despair.-Once more, he lives.- Into his bosom's counsels, were to break I cannot, and I will not pain my son By this unhallow'd wondering.-'Tis enough Its wisdom had inflicted.-He doth love, And from his boyhood, was his soul entranced By Nature's majesty; and now he drinks Of love, and is, for his repose, become Dehrious with her beauty.-He doth roam And holds sweet converse with them.-He is now The spirits' golden wings.-Disturb him not- Basil. No friends deserves them not.-Thy son hath thrown Peace, where man should not seek it.-Were his bliss That when some few weeks since he closed his eyes, Leontine. Enter LEONTINE. [Exit. How the day Lingers upon the world !—Methinks it knows My will in silence, and by patience prove VOL. XI. G |