HISTORY OF THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS, CONTINUED HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1847. PREFACE. ON presenting this second Volume of his edition of Schiller's Works, the Publisher thinks it necessary to say a few words respecting the various translations comprised in it. The HISTORY OF THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS, the first portion of which appeared in the former volume, was translated by Lieut. E. B. Eastwick, and originally published abroad for the use of students. But this translation, though excellent, was too strictly literal for general reading, and has, therefore, been carefully revised, and some portions entirely re-written, by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison. The CAMP OF WALLENSTEIN is translated by the late Mr. James Churchill, and first appeared in that able miscellany, Fraser's Magazine;" the proprietor of which, Mr. G. W. Nickisson, has kindly permitted its republication here. It is an exceedingly happy transfusion of what has always been deemed the most untranslatable of Schiller's Works. The PICCOLOMINI and DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN, which form the second and third parts of this great Dramatic trilogy, are the admirable version of Mr. Coleridge, com pleted by the addition of all those passages which he had omitted, and by a restoration of Schiller's own arrangement of the Acts and Scenes. It is said, in defence of the variations which exist between the German original and the version given by Mr. Coleridge, that he translated from a prompter's copy in manuscript, before the Drama had been printed, and that Schiller himself subsequently altered it, omitting some passages, adding others, and even engrafting several of Mr. Coleridge's adaptations. However this may be, the Publisher considers it advisable to give every line of Coleridge's version, without the least alteration, (especially as it contains more than one fine passage not to be found in the printed editions of Schiller,) and to add, in brackets, all those portions (upwards of 250 lines) which have heretofore been omitted. These are chiefly translated by G. F. Richardson, Esq., the translator of the poems of Körner. They will be found at pages 188, 189, 195, 215, 216, 219, 221, 231, 236, 245, 297, 300, 305, 323, 324, 325, 387, 389, and 416. 5437 3385 WILHELM TELL is translated by Theodore Martin, Esq., It was intended to include DON CARLOS in the present The Publisher, somewhat in the position of an Editor, THE ICONOCLASTS.-Civil War.-Resignation of William of Orange.-Decay. and Dispersion of the Gueusen League.-Alva's Armament and Expedition to the Netherlands.-Alva's First Measures, and Departure of the Duchess of THE springs of this extraordinary occurrence are plainly not to be sought for so far back as many historians affect to trace them. It is certainly possible, and very probable that the French Protestants did industriously exert themselves to ruise in the Netherlands a nursery for their religion, and to prevent, by all means in their power, an amicable adjustment of differences between their brethren in the faith in that quarter and the King of Spain, in order to give that implacable foe of their party enough to do in his own country. It is natural, therefore, to suppose that their agents in the pro vinces left nothing undone to encourage their oppressed brethren with daring hopes, to nourish their animosity against the ruling church, and by exaggerating the oppression under which they sighed, to hurry them imperceptibly into illegal courses. It is possible, too, that there were many among the confederates who thought to help out their own lost cause by increasing the number of their partners in guilt; who thought they could not otherwise maintain the legal character of their league, unless the unfortunate results, against which they had arned the king, really came to pass; and who hoped in the neral guilt of all to conceal their own individual criminality B |