Wagram; was afterwards appointed Imperial chamberlain, and, marrying in 1810, withdrew from the army, and devoted himself to literature. His lyrical poems soon attracted attention, although the best of these, entitled Todten Kränze, (Garlands for the Dead,) did not appear till 1831, and after his reputation as a dramatist had been established. One little ballad of his, written with much force and originality, entitled Napoleon's Midnight Review, has been translated into several languages, and has appeared, we believe, more than once in English.
The first of his plays, Turturell, appeared in 1825. It was followed by Two Nights in Valladolid, (1825;) Master and Slave, a tragedy; and Love will find a Way, a comedy, (1827;) The Star of Seville, (1830;) The Prison and the Crown, and The Queen's Honour, (1834.) Of these, we should say, The Star of Seville, the Two Nights in Valladolid, and the Prison and the Crown, are the best. In the first of these, which is an adaptation from a play of Lope de Vega, he has caught with much success the spirit of the Spanish romantic theatre, as in his comedy of Love will find a Way, he has very gracefully imitated the manner of Calderon's pieces of intrigue. The Star of Seville had the strange fortune to be attacked equally by Liberals and Absolutists. While the maxims of devoted loyalty which the dramatist had put into the mouth of Don Sancho Ortis, drew down on the head of the Baron the charge of advocating a servile submission to authority, the tone of the play, in other respects, appeared to some of the critical authorities of Vienna far too liberal to be safe; and it is even said that its representation was prohibited.
While it may be said of all the plays of Zedlitz, that in knowledge of dramatic effect, and probably also in the delineation of character, he is inferior to Raupach; yet in fertility of imagery, beauty of reflection, and harmony of versification, he is fully his equal. His diction has indeed been generally and justly admired throughout Germany. How far we may succeed in conveying any idea of these merits by our translation, we know not. But, at least, the translation is executed line for line, and as nearly as possible word for word—even the disposition of the pauses in the original being generally copied.
The subject of Tasso has been rendered popular in Germany, by the play of Goëthe on the subject. Raupach, in The Death of Tasso, has furnished as it were a second part to Goëthe's, to which he has endeavoured, in all respects, to conform the tone of his own play. That of the Baron Von Zedlitz is a more independent creation, though, as usual, Raupach's knowledge of stage effect renders his play more effective in representation. It must be admitted, however, that all these plays labour under one defect—that the subject is not dramatic. Deeply interesting as is the character of Tasso, that interest is not of a tragic nature. The picture of a poetical temperament at war with the conventional restraints of its position, at first indulging in the dream that the nobility of genius must counterbalance rank, and then taught by a cruel and unexpected reverse the folly of such expectations, though an affecting picture in itself, affords but little room for development either in sentiment or action. Still less does the closing portion of Tasso's career—his imprisonment in St Anne's, or his restless wanderings from one Italian court to another, after his liberation—afford the materials of strong dramatic interest. The uniformity of melancholy becomes monotonous. Any play which deals with this period of fretfulness, and complaint, and despondency, assumes almost unavoidably a lyrical rather than a tragic tone. Tasso himself, in a beautiful chorus in his (almost unknown) tragedy of Torrismond, has concentrated the whole spirit of his own feelings and situation as he approached the close of his course, more effectually than could be done by any attempt to develop them in dramatic action.
Come alpestre rapido torrente,
Come acceso baleco,
In notturno sereno,
Come aura o fumo, o come stral repente,
Volan e nostre fame, ed ogni onore
Sembra languido fiore.
Che piu si spera, ò clie s'attende omai?
Dopo trionfo e palma,
Sol qui restano all' alma,
Lutte e lamenti e lagtimosi lai;
Che piu giova amicizia o giova amore?
Ahi lagrime! ahi dolore!
Zedlitz has done as much, we think, impart interest and variety to the
