an gondoliers.

'The epoch of Frederick's life that would fit me best, I have
considered also. I should wish to select some unhappy situation; it
would allow me to unfold his mind far more poetically. The chief
action should, if possible, be very simple, perplexed with no
complicated circumstances, that the whole might easily be comprehended
at a glance, though the episodes were never so numerous. In this
respect there is no better model than the _Iliad_.'

Schiller did not execute, or even commence, the project he has here so
philosophically sketched: the constraints of his present situation,
the greatness of the enterprise compared with the uncertainty of its
success, were sufficient to deter him. Besides, he felt that after all
his wide excursions, the true home of his genius was the Drama, the
department where its powers had first been tried, and were now by
habit or nature best qualified to act. To the Drama he accordingly
returned. The _History of the Thirty-Years War_ had once suggested the
idea of Gustavus Adolphus as the hero of an epic poem; the same work
afforded him a subject for a tragedy: he now decided on beginning
_Wallenstein_. In this undertaking it was no easy task that he
contemplated; a common play did not now comprise his aim; he required
some magnificent and comprehensive object, in which he could expend
to advantage the new poetical and intellectual treasures which he had
for years been amassing; something that should at once exemplify his
enlarged ideas of art, and give room and shape to his fresh stores of
knowledge and sentiment. As he studied the history of Wallenstein, and
viewed its capabilities on every side, new ideas gathered round it:
the subject grew in magnitude, and often changed in form. His progress
in actual composition was, of course, irregular and small. Yet the
difficulties of the subject, increasing with his own wider, more
ambitious conceptions, did not abate his diligence: _Wallenstein_,
with many interruptions and many alterations, sometimes stationary,
sometimes retrograde, continued on the whole, though slowly, to
advance.

This was for several years his chosen occupation, the task to which he
consecrated his brightest hours, and the finest part of his faculties.
For humbler employments, demanding rather industry than inspiration,
there still remained abundant leisure, of which it was inconsistent
with his habits to waste a single hour. His occasional labours,
accordi