A queen that brings with her a richer dowry
Than orient kings can give!

Sar.
A banquet waits!-
On this auspicious day, for some few hours
I claim to be your hostess. Scenes so awful
With flashing light, force wisdom on us all!
E'en women at the distaff hence may see,
That bad men may rebel, but ne'er be free;
May whisper, when the waves of faction foam,
None love their country, but who love their home;
Nor freedom can with those alone abide,

Who wear the golden chain, with honest pride,
Of love and duty, at their own fire-side :
While mad ambition ever doth caress
Its own sure fate, in its own restlessness!

MINI,

THE PICCOL
PICCOLOMINI,

OR, THE FIRST PART OF WALLENSTEIN.

A DRAMA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER.

DRAMATIS PERSONE

WALLENSTEIN, Duke of Friedland, Generalissimo of the Imperial Forces un the Thirty Years' War.

OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, Lieutenant-General.

MAX. PICCOLOMINI, his Son, Colonel of a Regiment of Cuirassiers.

COUNT TERTSKY, the Commander of several Regiments, and Brother-in-Law of Wallenstein.

ILLO, Field-Marshal, Wallenstein's Confidant.

ISOLANI, General of the Croats.

BUTLER, an Irishman, Commander of a Regiment of Dragoons.

NEUMANN, Captain of Cavalry, Aid-de-Camp to Tertsky.
The War Commissioner, Vox QUESTENBERG, Imperial Envoy.
GENERAL WRANGEL, Swedish Envoy.

BATTISTER SENI, Astrologer.

DUCHESS OF FRIEDLAND, Wife of Wallenstein.
THEKLA, her Daughter, Princess of Friedland.
THE COUNTESS TERTSKY, Sister of the Duchess.
A CORNET.

Several COLONELS and GENERALS.

PAGES and ATTENDANTS belonging to Wallenstein.
ATTENDANTS and HOвÖISTS belonging to Tertsky.
THE MASTER OF THE CELLAR to Count Tertsky
VALET DE CHAMBRE of Count Piccolomini.

PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR TO THE FIRST EDITION.

THE two Dramas, PICCOLOMINI, or the first part of WALLENSTEIN, an WALLENSTEIN, are introduced in the original manuscript by a prelude in oue Act, entitled WALLENSTEIN'S CAMP. This is written in rhyme, and in nine syllable verse, in the same lilting metre (if that expression may be permitted) with the second Eclogue of Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.

This Prelude possesses a sort of broad humor, and is not deficient in character; but to have translated it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the original, would have given a false notion both of its style and purport; to have translated it into the same metre would have been incompatible with a faithful adherence to the sense of the German, from the comparative poverty of our language in rhymes; and it would have been unadvisable from the incongruity of those lax verses with the present taste of the English Public. Schiller's intention seems to have been merely to have prepared his reader for the Tragedies by a lively picture of the laxity of discipline, and the mutinous dispositions of Wallenstein's soldiery. It is not necessary as a preliminary explanation. For these reasons it has been thought expedient not to translate it.

The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted their conception of that author from the Robbers, and the Cabal and Love, plays in which the main interest is produced by the excitement of curiosity, and in which the curi osity is excited by terrible and extraordinary incident, will not have perused, without some portion of disappointment, the dramas, which it has been my employment to translate. They should, however, reflect that these are historical dramas, taken from a popular German history; that we must therefore judge of them in some measure with the feelings of Germans; or by analogy with the interest excited in us by similar dramas in our own language. Few, I trust, would be rash or ignorant enough to compare Schiller with Shakspeare; yet, merely as illustration, I would say that we should proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear or Othello, but from Richard the Second, or the three parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapidity in an historical drama; and many prolix speeches are pardoned from characters, whose names and actions have formed the most amusing tales of our early life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays more individual beauties, more passages, the excellence of which will Dear reflection, than in the former productions of Schiller. The description f the astrological tower, and the reflections of the young lover, which follow it, form in the original a fine poem; and my translation must have