inhold, one of Kant's ablest followers, was at
this time Schiller's fellow-teacher and daily companion: he did not
fail to encourage and assist his friend in a path of study, which, as
he believed, conducted to such glorious results. Under this tuition,
Schiller was not long in discovering, that at least the 'new
philosophy was more poetical than that of Leibnitz, and had a grander
character;' persuasions which of course confirmed him in his
resolution to examine it.

How far Schiller penetrated into the arcana of transcendentalism it is
impossible for us to say. The metaphysical and logical branches of it
seem to have afforded him no solid satisfaction, or taken no firm hold
of his thoughts; their influence is scarcely to be traced in any of
his subsequent writings. The only department to which he attached
himself with his ordinary zeal was that which relates to the
principles of the imitative arts, with their moral influences, and
which in the Kantean nomenclature has been designated by the term
_AEsthetics_,[27] or the doctrine of sentiments and emotions. On these
subjects he had already amassed a multitude of thoughts; to see which
expressed by new symbols, and arranged in systematic form, and held
together by some common theory, would necessarily yield enjoyment to
his intellect, and inspire him with fresh alacrity in prosecuting
such researches. The new light which dawned, or seemed to dawn, upon
him, in the course of these investigations, is reflected, in various
treatises, evincing, at least, the honest diligence with which he
studied, and the fertility with which he could produce. Of these the
largest and most elaborate are the essays on _Grace and Dignity_; on
_Naive and Sentimental Poetry_; and the _Letters on the AEsthetic
Culture of Man_: the other pieces are on _Tragic Art_; on the
_Pathetic_; on the _Cause of our Delight in Tragic Objects_; on
_Employing the Low and Common in Art_.

[Footnote 27: From the verb [Greek: aisthanomai], _to
feel_.--The term is Baumgarten's; prior to Kant (1845).]

Being cast in the mould of Kantism, or at least clothed in its
garments, these productions, to readers unacquainted with that system,
are encumbered here and there with difficulties greater than belong
intrinsically to the subject. In perusing them, the uninitiated
student is mortified at seeing so much powerful thought distorted, as
he thinks, into such fantastic forms: the principles of reasoning, on
wh