66 Herder, undertook the management of a periodical an inundation of imitations, in which, according to IFFLAND. A. W. IFFLAND. AUGUST IFFLAND, born at Hanover, in 1759, was one of the best dramatic writers of Germany. In 1796 he was invited to Berlin, to take the direction of the theater there, and, in 1811, was appointed general director of all the royal plays. He died in 1814. His works comprise 47 plays, memoirs, and reflections upon the theory of his art. So greatly was he admired by many, that he was termed the Molière of Germany; and Madame de Staël said of him, that there was not an accent or a gesture for which Iffland could not account as a philosopher and an artist. talized his name. Among these are Wallenstein, KOTZEBUE. AUGUST FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON KOTZEBUE, the famous dramatic writer, was born in 1761, at Weimar. At the age of sixteen years he entered the university of Jena, where his inclination for the Drama was confirmed by his connection with a private theater. In 1781 he went to St. Petersburg, at the suggestion of the Prussian minister at that court, and became secretary to the governor-general, Von Bawr. He was recommended to the empress, who became his patroness, and he was finally appointed president of the government of Esthonia. In 1795 he retired to a country place about 35 miles from Narva; but soon after went to Weimar, and from thence again to St. Petersburg. He had, A. VON KOTZEBUE. however, scarcely arrived on the frontiers, before he was arrested and sent to Siberia, without any reason being assigned. A short drama of his, an indirect eulogy of Paul I., was translated into Russian, and laid, in manuscript, before the emperor, who was so delighted with it, that he recalled Kotzebue, and took him into favor. After the death of Paul, he again went to Germany, but in 1806 revisited Russia, in order to avoid the French, and never ceased to write against Napoleon. Some subsequent years were spent in trayeling, and the remainder of his life in pouring forth his innumerable literary productions. He is said to have written many of the Russian state papers and proclamations. In 1817 he received a salary of 15,roubles, with direc Kotzebue was author of 98 dramas, and his name appears to about 200 more, which are either translations, or were written by other persons and retouched by him. It is not the extravagance of the apparatus alone, but exaggeration of character and sentiment, which have been justly ascribed as faults to the German school. The authors appear to have introduced too harshly brilliant lights and deep shadows; the tumid is too often substituted for the sublime; and faculties and dispositions the most opposed to each other, are sometimes de tions to re side in Ger many, and to EMIL DEVRIENT. report upon literature and public opinion. This invidious office Kotzebue is said to have filled in a manner hostile to the freedom of his native land, and he was regarded with aversion by the liberals of Germany. His strictures on the conduct of the students of the German universities highly exasperated them; and the feeling was so strong in the case of a young enthusiast named Sand, that he went to Kotzebue's house at Mannheim, and there deliberately murdered him, March 23, 1819, and then immediately gave himself up to justice. scribed as ex- same person. to a greater pathetic com- un fortunately in Germany; a champion in Kotzebue, who carried his conquests over all the continent. The most obvious fault of this species of composition is, the demoralizing falsehood of the pictures which it offers to us. The vicious are frequently presented as objects less of censure than of sympathy; sometimes they are selected as objects of imitation and praise. There is an affectation of attributing noble and virtuous sentiments to the persons least qualified by habit or education to entertain them; and of describing the higher and better educated classes as uniformly de ficient in those feelings of liberality, generosity, and honor, which may be considered as proper to their situation in life. This contrast may be true in particular instances, and, being used sparingly, might afford a good moral lesson; but, in spite of truth and probability, it has been assumed, upon all occasions, by these authors, as the ground-work of a sort of intellectual jacobinism; consisting, as Mr. Coleridge has well expressed it, "in the confusion and subversion of the natural order of things, their causes, and their effects; in the excitement of surprise, by representing the qualities of liberality, refined feeling, and a nice sense of honor in persons and in classes of life where experience teaches us least to expect them; and in rewarding with all the sympathies that are the dues of virtue, those criminals, whom law, reason, and religion, have excommunicated from our esteem." The German taste was introduced upon the English theater, but the better productions of her stage have never been make known; for, by some unfortunate chance, the wretched pieces of Kotzebue found a readier acceptance, or more willing translators, than the sublimity of Goethe, the romantic strength of Schiller, or the deep tragic pathos of Lessing. Austrian dramatist, F. Grillparzer (1791-1871), began Meanwhile the so-called Romantic school of German literature was likewise beginning to extend its labors to original dramatic composition. Outside this school the youthful talent of Theodore Koerner (1791-1813), who gave considerable promise as a dramatist, was extinguished by a patriotic death. The efforts of M. von Collin (1776-1823), in the direction of the Historical Drama, remained isolated attempts. But of the leaders of the Romantic school, A. W. (1767-1845), and F. von Schlegel (17721829) contented themselves with frigid classicalities, and L. Tieck (1772-1855) melted legend and fairy tale, novel and drama, poetry and satire, into a compound, enjoyable indeed, but hardly so in its entirety, or in many of its parts, to any but the literary mind. F.de la Motte-Fouqué (1777-1843) infused a spirit of poetry into the Chivalry Drama. Clemens Brentano (1777-1842) was a fantastic dramatist, unsuited to the stage. The "destiny dramatists"-a feeble outgrowth of the romanticists-Z. Werner, A. Müllner, and C. E. V. Houwald, achieved a temporary success, and it was with an attempt in the same direction, that the TAGE MATTERS in Germany made little progress until what is called "the Hamburg Period" when the Ackermans (father, wife, and daughters), Eckhof, Brackmann, and Schroeder, combined with the assistance of Lessing, the father of German literature (who not only shone as a great dramatist, but also as a critic), banished the loose, sensuous French productions from German soil, and planted wholesome, moral, deep thought and language on the German boards. That was a great time for Germany, for it now began to have its own dramatic literature, and paved the way for such illustrious names as Wieland, Goethe, Schiller, Bürger, Kotzebue, Iffland, Schlegel and Tieck. But it had a still greater significance, for it was at that period that Shakspeare was introduced into Germany and achieved an overwhelming success. On the 20th September, 1777, Schroeder's version of Hamlet, based on Wieland's translation, was produced for the first time in Germany. Brackmann played Hamlet; Eckhof, the Ghost; Schroeder, the Grave-digger. The sensation was so great that for a time nothing was talked of in Hamburg but Brackmann's Hamlet. Busts, engravings and medals were made of him, whose conception of the part was principally bitterly ironical and humorous. Schroeder went before the curtain and announced that this most extraordinary character would be played by several of the company, and four different actors alternated in the part. Schroeder himself (whose Hamlet was most liked) played Laertes and the Gravedigger on different occasions. Hamlet was followed by Richard III., Henry IV., King Lear, and Othelloall Schroeder's versions. Schroeder played Iago, and it is remarkable that the actors as a rule cared little for Othello. The blacking of the face was a drawback to the facial expression, and Garrick's shrewd refusal of the part, on the ground that he was too little, and that he would remind the audience of the Moorish boy in one of Hogarth's prints, must to some extent have spread the prejudice. F. L. SCHROEDER. Schroeder-whom, throughout his life, Macready took as his example-was the father of the German stage. As a child of three years old, when playing the part of Innocence in Petersburg, before Empress Elizabeth (1744), he had to say, "O no; I liberate you!" He spoke the words so sweetly that the Empress kissed and hugged him, and gave a beautiful present to his mother. But he was very nearly lost to art. At Warsaw, in his thirteenth year, his step-father, Ackerman, placed him in the School of the Jesuits, who produced so great an impression upon him through their kind treatment-so contrary to that he experienced at home-that he yielded to their wish to stay with them. The troupe was to leave. The boy had escaped from home and no one knew where he had gone. The police were called into requisition, but in vain; and nothing but the determination and daring of Krohn, the actor, who had on several occasions accompanied Schroeder to the Jesuit cloister, and insisted that he must be concealed there-saved him from his fate. Krohn |