to those who witnessed them must have appeared isolated and capricious,
tending to one great end, and accomplishing one specific purpose, we may
learn to infer that those which appear to us most extraordinary, are
alike subservient to a wise and benevolent dispensation. Poetry, the
greatest of all critics has told us, has this advantage over history,
that the lessons which it furnishes are not mixed and confined to
particular cases, but pure and universal. Studied, however, in this
spirit, history, while it improves the reason, may satisfy the heart,
enabling us to await with patience the lesson of the great instructor,
Time, and to employ the mighty elements it places within our reach, to
the only legitimate purpose of all knowledge--"The advancement of God's
glory, and the relief of man's estate."

* * * * *




POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.

No. V.

THE VICTORY FEAST.


[This noble lyric is perhaps the happiest of all those poems in which
Schiller has blended the classical spirit with the more deep and tender
philosophy which belongs to modern romance. The individuality of the
heroes introduced is carefully preserved. The reader is every where
reminded of Homer; and yet, as a German critic has observed, _there is