# The Robbers (Schiller)/Preface

PREFACE.
OF this most extraordinary production, The Tragedy of the Robbers, it is probably that different opinions may be formed by the Critics, according to those various standards by which they are in use to examine and to rate the merit of dramatical compositions. To those who have formed their taste on Aristotelian rules, derived from the meagre drama of the Greeks, or on the equally regular, though more varied, compositions of the French stage, accommodated to the same rules, this Tragedy, as transgressing against the two chief unities of Time and Place, will be judged a very faulty composition. But even to such Critics, if they are endowed ​with any real perception of the sublime and beautiful, this composition will be acknowledged, in spite of its irregularity as a whole, to abound with passages of the most superior excellence, and to exhibit situations the most powerfully interesting that can be figured by the imagination.
On the other hand, to those who are disposed to consider a strict adherence to the unities, as a factitious criterion of dramatic merit, as originating from no basis in nature or in good sense, and as imposing a limitation on the sphere of the drama, by excluding from it the most interesting actions or events, which are incapable of being confined within those rules, this performance will be found to possess a degree of merit that will intitle it to rank in the very first class of dramatical compositions. This Tragedy touches equally those great master-springs of Terror and of Pity. It exhibits a conflict of ​the passions, so strong, so varied, and so affecting, that the mind is never allowed to repose itself, but is hurried on through alternate emotions of compassion and abhorrence, of anxiety and terror, of admiration and regret, to the catastrophe. The language too is bold and energetic, highly impassioned, and perfectly adapted to the expression of that sublimity of sentiment which it is intended to convey.
A distinguishing feature of this piece, is a certain wildness of fancy, which displays itself not only in the delineation of the persons of the drama, but in the painting of those scenes in which the action is laid. This striking circumstance of merit in the Tragedy of the Robbers was observed and felt by a critic of genuine taste, who, in an excellent account of the German Theatre, in which he has particularly analyzed this Tragedy, thus expressed himself: "The intrinsic force of this dramatic character, (the hero ​of the piece) is heightened by the singular circumstance in which it is placed. Captain of a band of inexorable and sanguinary banditti, whose furious valour he wields to the most desperate purposes; living with those associates amidst woods and deserts, terrible and savage as the wolves they have displaced; this presents to the fancy a kind of preternatural personage, wrapped in all the gloomy grandeur of visionary beings."
BUT the circumstance which of all others tends most powerfully to increase the interest of this Tragedy, while it impresses on the delineation of its scenes a strong stamp of originality, is the principle of Fatalism, which pervades the whole piece, and influences the conduct of the chief a​gents in the drama. The sentiment of moral agency is so rooted in the mind of man, that no sceptical sophistry, even of the most acute genius, is capable of eradicating it: And it is a singular phenomenon, that the opposing principle of fatalism, while it urges on to the perpetration of the most flagitious acts, has in reality no effect in weakening the moral feeling, or in diminishing that remorse which is attendant on the commission of crimes. For this reason, the compassionate interest which the mind feels in the emotions or sufferings of the guilty person, is not diminished by the observation, that he acts under an impression of inevitable destiny. On the contrary, there is something in our nature which leads us the more to compassionate the instrument of those crimes, that we see him consider himself as bound to guilt by fetters, which he has the constant wish, but not the strength to break. The hero of this piece, endowed by nature with the most generous feelings, anima​ted by the highest sense of honour, and susceptible of the warmest affections of the heart, is driven by perfidy, and the supposed inhumanity of those most dear to him in life, into a state of confirmed misanthropy and despair. In this situation, he is hurried on to the perpetration of a series of crimes, which find, from their very magnitude and atrocity, a recommendation to his distempered mind. Believing himself an instrument of vengeance in the hand of the Almighty for the punishment of the crimes of others, he feels a species of savage satisfaction in thus accomplishing the dreadful destiny that is prescribed for him. Sensible, at the same time, of his own criminality in his early lapse from the paths of virtue, he considers himself as justly doomed to the performance of that part in life which is to consign his memory to infamy, and his soul to perdition. It will be allowed, that the imagination could not have conceived a spectacle more deeply interesting, more power​fully affecting to the mind of man, than that of a human being thus characterised, and acting under such impressions.
This Tragedy has been performed on several of the theatres of Germany with a success correspondent to its merit.—So powerful, indeed, were its effects, and, as some thought, so dangerous, that in several States its representation was prohibited by the legislature. An anecdote which is current in Germany, if admitted to be a fact, shows that these ideas of a rigour apparently impolitic were not ill founded. "After the representation of this Tragedy at Fribourg, a large party of the youth of the city, among whom were the sons of some of the chief nobility, captivated by the grandeur of the character of its hero, Moor, agreed to form a band like his in the forests of Bohemia, elected a young nobleman for their chief, and had pitched on a beautiful young lady for his Amelia, whom they were ​to carry off from her parents house, to accompany their flight. To the accomplishment of this design, they had bound themselves by the most tremendous oaths; but the conspiracy was discovered by an accident, and its execution prevented."
IF the Translator of The Robbers were not convinced that this anecdote, of which perhaps there has been some slight foundation in truth, has been very greatly exaggerated, and indeed altogether misrepresented, he would acknowledge himself to stand in need of a strong apology for introducing this piece to the knowledge of his countrymen: For who could justify himself to his own mind for disseminating and even recommending that composition, which has shown itself, by its effects, to be of the most dangerous tendency?—But ​the Translator, encouraged by the testimony of his own feelings, makes a bold appeal to the feelings of others, and has no scruple to assert, that this piece, so far from being hostile in its nature to the cause of virtue, is one of the most truly moral compositions that ever flowed from the pen of genius: Nor is there a human being, whose heart is in the slightest degree susceptible to virtuous emotions, that will not feel them roused into a flame, and every latent principle of morality called forth, and strengthened by an exercise of the passions, as salutary as ever was furnished by imaginary scenes. For, what example so moral in its nature, as that of a noble and ingenuous mind yielding at first to the blandishments of pleasure, embarking heedlessly in a course of criminal extravagance, which leagues him with a society of the most worthless and profligate of his species—perpetually at war with his own better feelings, which give him the keenest pangs of remorse—the ​bonds of this association becoming at length indissoluble, till, wading on gradually through scenes of increasing atrocity, he feels, in the shipwreck of all his happiness in this world, a dreadful anticipation of that inevitable doom of misery which he knows is to attend him in the next?—What is there, it must be asked, in an example of this kind, which is unfavourable to the cause of morality? Is it the grandeur of the character of Moor? But this very grandeur is the circumstance which makes the example more forcibly persuasive to virtue. The grandeur of his character consists in those excellent endowments of nature which guilt has poisoned and perverted to the bane of society, to a determined hostility against his own species, and to the most poignant misery of their once amiable possessor.—Is this a grandeur of character which incites to imitation, or which can corrupt by its example? Far otherwise. With equal justice might we arraign the poem of Milton ​of immoral tendency, for having represented the arch-fiend with the characters of a fallen angel.—We admire, but it is with awe and horror.—We gaze on the precipice with an astonishment mixed with delight, but we draw back while we gaze on it.——The other principal characters in this Play have the most direct tendency to produce moral instruction. The weakness of an indulgent parent, whose over-weaning affection for one of his sons excites the fraternal hatred of the other, is productive of the most miserable consequences. The unqualified depravity of the younger son, his fiend-like malevolence, and atrocious guilt, are attended with a punishment as horrible as it is merited.
The exhibition of the Tragedy of the Robbers at Fribourg had in all probability produced among the youth of the public school some holiday-frolic, which in its consequences was serious enough to at​tract the attention of the police of the city. Some boyish depredations might have been committed, and perhaps a youthful intrigue have been discovered, in which the principal party had availed himself of the aid of his companions.—These circumstances, magnified by report, will sufficiently account for the anecdote above mentioned.
A French translation of this Tragedy appears in the Theatre Allemand, published in twelve volumes 8vo, by Mess. Friedel and De Bonneville. The English Translator's opinion of that version is, that it is perhaps as good as the language of the translation will admit of: But as the French language in point of energy is far inferior to our own tongue, and very far beneath the force of the German, he owns he not without hopes that his translation may be found to convey a more just idea of the striking merits of the original.
* ↑ Account of the German Theatre, by Henry Mackenzie, Esq; Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 2.
* ↑ Account of the German Theatre. Transactions of Royal Society of Edinburgh.