of the ancient chronicles, but approach in their ruling spirit of patriotism and glory to the most dignified and effective productions of the epic Muse. In the works of Shakespeare a whole world is unfolded. He who has once comprehended this, and been penetrated with its spirit, will not easily allow the effect to be diminished by the form, or listen to the cavils of those who are incapable of understanding the import of what they would criticise. The form of Shakespeare's writings will rather appear to him good and excellent because in it his spirit is expressed and clothed, as it were, in a convenient garment. The poetry of Shakespeare is near of kin to the spirit of the Germans; and he is more felt and beloved by them than any other foreign-I had almost said than any vernacular-poet. Even in England, the understanding of Shakespeare is rendered considerably more difficult in consequence of the resemblance which many very inferior writers bear to him in those points which come most immediately before the eye. In Germany we admire Shakespeare and are free from this disadvantage; but we should beware of adopting either the form or the sentiment of this great poet's writings as the exclusive model of our own. They are indeed, in themselves, most highly poetical; but they are far from being the only poetical ones, and the dramatic art may attain perfection in many other ways besides the Shakespearean. MAX SCHNECKENBURGER. SCHNECKENBURGER, MAX, a German verse-writer, author of "The Watch on the Rhine;" born at Thalheim, February 17, 1819; died at Burgdorf, near Bern, May 3, 1849. In the Franco-Prussian war "The Watch on the Rhine" attained the rank of a national song and melody; and when the war was over, an annual pension of 3000 marks ($750) was settled on his surviving family, and also on the composer of the melody, Karl Wilhelm. THE WATCH ON THE RHINE. A VOICE resounds like thunder-peal, CHORUS. Dear Fatherland, no danger thine: They stand, a hundred thousand strong, The dead of a heroic race From heaven look down and meet their gaze; While flows one drop of German blood, Our oath resounds, the river flows, Our hearts will guard thy stream divine: The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine! ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR, a celebrated German philosopher; born at Dantzic, February 22, 1788; died at Frankfort, September 21, 1860. While a youth he spent some months at an English school; then studied at Göttingen and Berlin; resided awhile at Weimar. His first work was "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason" (1813). After travelling in Italy he returned to Berlin; then, about 1831, he took up his residence at Frankfort, where for his last thirty years he led the life of a gloomy recluse. His principal work, "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" (The World considered as Will and Idea) (1819), was written before he was thirty. He published nothing more for sixteen years, after which he wrote "The Will in Nature" (1836); "The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics" (1841); "Parerga and Paralipomena " (1851), a collection of his minor writings. His "MS. Remains," and his "Correspondence with Johann August Becker," appeared posthumously in 1883. THE VANITY OF LIFE. (From "The World as Will and Idea.") As far as the life of the individual is concerned, every biography is the history of suffering; for every life is, as a rule, a continual series of great and small misfortunes, which each one conceals as much as possible because he knows that others can seldom feel sympathy or compassion, but almost always satisfaction at the sight of the woes from which they are themselves for the moment exempt. But perhaps at the end of life, if a man is sincere and in full possession of his faculties, he will never wish to have it to live over again; but rather than this, he will much prefer absolute annihilation. The essential content of the famous soliloquy in "Hamlet" is briefly this: Our state is so wretched that absolute annihilation would be decidedly preferable. If suicide really offered us this, so that the alternative" to be or not to be," in the full sense of the word, was placed before us, then it would be unconditionally to be chosen as "a consummation devoutly to be wished." But there ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR, a celebrated German philosopher; born at Dantzic, February 22, 1788; died at Frankfort, September 21, 1860. While a youth he spent some months at an English school; then studied at Göttingen and Berlin; resided awhile at Weimar. His first work was "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason" (1813). After travelling in Italy he returned to Berlin; then, about 1831, he took up his residence at Frankfort, where for his last thirty years he led the life of a gloomy recluse. His principal work, "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" (The World considered as Will and Idea) (1819), was written before he was thirty. He published nothing more for sixteen years, after which he wrote "The Will in Nature" (1836); "The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics" (1841); "Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), a collection of his minor writings. His "MS. Remains," and his "Correspondence with Johann August Becker," appeared posthumously in 1883. THE VANITY OF LIFE. (From "The World as Will and Idea.") " As far as the life of the individual is concerned, every biography is the history of suffering; for every life is, as a rule, a continual series of great and small misfortunes, which each one conceals as much as possible because he knows that others can seldom feel sympathy or compassion, but almost always satisfaction at the sight of the woes from which they are themselves for the moment exempt. But perhaps at the end of life, if a man is sincere and in full possession of his faculties, he will never wish to have it to live over again; but rather than this, he will much prefer absolute annihilation. The essential content of the famous soliloquy in "Hamlet" is briefly this: Our state is so wretched that absolute annihilation would be decidedly preferable. If suicide really offered us this, so that the alternative" to be or not to be," in the full sense of the word, was placed before us, then it would be unconditionally to be chosen as "a consummation devoutly to be wished." But there |