It was continued, with one short interruption, till 1794. The
main purpose of the work being the furtherance of dramatic art, and
the extension and improvement of the public taste for such
entertainments, its chief contents are easy to be guessed at;
theatrical criticisms, essays on the nature of the stage, its history
in various countries, its moral and intellectual effects, and the best
methods of producing them. A part of the publication was open to
poetry and miscellaneous discussion.

Meditating so many subjects so assiduously, Schiller knew not what it
was to be unemployed. Yet the task of composing dramatic varieties, of
training players, and deliberating in the theatrical senate, or even
of expressing philosophically his opinions on these points, could not
wholly occupy such a mind as his. There were times when,
notwithstanding his own prior habits, and all the vaunting of
dramaturgists, he felt that their scenic glories were but an empty
show, a lying refuge, where there was no abiding rest for the soul.
His eager spirit turned away from their paltry world of pasteboard, to
dwell among the deep and serious interests of the living world of men.
The _Thalia_, besides its dramatic speculations and performances,
contains several of his poems, which indicate that his attention,
though officially directed elsewhither, was alive to all the common
concerns of humanity; that he looked on life not more as a writer than
as a man. The _Laura_, whom he celebrates, was not a vision of the
mind; but a living fair one, whom he saw daily, and loved in the
secrecy of his heart. His _Gruppe aus dem Tartarus_ (Group from
Tartarus), his _Kindesmoerderinn_ (Infanticide), are products of a mind
brooding over dark and mysterious things. While improving in the art
of poetry, in the capability of uttering his thoughts in the form best
adapted to express them, he was likewise improving in the more
valuable art of thought itself; and applying it not only to the
business of the imagination, but also to those profound and solemn
inquiries, which every reasonable mortal is called to engage with.

In particular, the _Philosophische Briefe_, written about this period,
exhibits Schiller in a new, and to us more interesting point of view.
Julius and Raphael are the emblems of his own fears and his own hopes;
their _Philosophic Letters_ unfold to us many a gloomy conflict that
had passed in the secret chambers of their author's soul. Sceptical