vince of art in which Schiller himself felt
that his strength lay, and to which he devoted nearly all his strength
during his remaining years. The very successful performance of the
complete _Wallenstein_ in the spring of 1799 added greatly to his
prestige, for discerning judges could see that something extraordinary
had been achieved. Weimar had by this time become the acknowledged
centre of German letters, and its modest little theatre now took on
fresh glory. Schiller had made himself very useful as a translator and
adapter, and Goethe was disposed to lean heavily on his friend's
superior knowledge of stage-craft. In order to be nearer to the
theatre and its director, Schiller moved over to Weimar in December,
1799, and took up his abode in what is now called the Schillerstrasse.
He was already working at _Mary Stuart_, which was finished the
following spring and first played on June 14, 1800.

In _Mary Stuart_, as in _Wallenstein_, Schiller focused his light on a
famous personage who was the subject of passionate controversy. But of
course he did not wish to make a Catholic play, or a Protestant play,
or to have its effect dependent in any way on the spectator's
pre-assumed attitude toward the purely political questions involved.
So he decided to omit Mary's trial and to let the curtain rise on her
as a prisoner waiting for the verdict of her judges. This meant,
however, according to his conception of the tragic art, a pathetic
rather than a tragic situation; for the queen's fate would be a
foregone conclusion, and she could do nothing to avert it. To give her
the semblance of a tragic guilt he resorted to three unhistorical
inventions: First, an attempt to escape, with resulting complicity in
the act of the murderous Catholic fanatic Mortimer; second, a putative
love on the part of Mary for Leicester, who would use his great
influence to bring about a personal interview between her and
Elizabeth; and, finally, the meeting of the two queens, in which
Mary's long pent-up passion would get the better of her discretion and
betray her into a mortal insult of her rival. In reality, however, the
meeting of the two queens, while theatrically very effective, is not
the true climax of the play. That comes when Mary conquers her
rebellious spirit and accepts her ignominious fate as a divinely
appointed expiation for long-past sins. The play thus becomes a
tragedy of moral self-conquest in the presence of an undeserved death.