ce; and the feelings
evoked are such as warm and keep warm the cockles of the heart. When
the famous actor Iffland received the manuscript of the first act, in
February, 1804, he wrote:

"I have read, devoured, bent my knee; and my heart, my tears, my
rushing blood, have paid ecstatic homage to your spirit, to your
heart. Oh, more! Soon, soon more! Pages, scraps--whatever you can
send. I tender heart and hand to your genius. What a work! What
wealth, power, poetic beauty, and irresistible force! God keep you!
Amen."

With _Tell_ off his hands Schiller next threw his tireless energy on a
Russian subject--the story of Dmitri, reputed son of Ivan the
Terrible. The reading, note-taking and planning proved a long
laborious task, and there were many interruptions. In November, 1804,
the hereditary Prince of Weimar brought home a Russian bride, Maria
Paulovna, and for her reception he wrote _The Homage of the Arts_--a
slight affair which served its purpose well. The reaction from these
Russophil festivities left him in a weakened condition, and, feeling
unequal to creative effort, he translated Racine's _Phedre_ into
German verse, finishing it in February, 1805. Then he returned with
great zest to his Russian play _Demetrius_, of which enough was
written to indicate that it might have become his masterpiece. But the
flame had burnt itself out. Toward the end of April he took a cold
which led to a violent fever with delirium. The end came on May 9,
1805.

[Illustration: SCHILLER AT THE COURT OF WEIMAR]

No attempt can here be made at a general estimate of Schiller's
dramatic genius. The serious poetic drama, such as he wrote in his
later years, is no longer in favor anywhere. In Germany, as in our own
land, the temper of the time is on the whole hostile to that form of
art. We demand, very properly, a drama attuned to the life of the
present; one occupied, as we say, with living issues. Yet Schiller is
very popular on the German stage. After the lapse of a century, and
notwithstanding the fact that he _seems_ to speak to us from the
clouds, he holds his own. Why is this? It is partly because of a
quality of his art that has been called his "monumental
fresco-painting"; that is, his strong and luminous portraiture of the
great historic forces that have shaped the destiny of nations. These
forces are matters of the spirit, of the inner life; and they persist
from age to age, but little affected by the changing fashion of th