s were yet living to participate
in the splendid fortune of the son whom they had once lamented and
despaired of, but never ceased to love. In 1793 he paid them a visit
in Swabia, and passed nine cheerful months among the scenes dearest to
his recollection: enjoying the kindness of those unalterable friends
whom Nature had given him; and the admiring deference of those by whom
it was most delightful to be honoured,--those who had known him in
adverse and humbler circumstances, whether they might have respected
or contemned him. By the Grand Duke, his ancient censor and patron,
he was not interfered with; that prince, in answer to a previous
application on the subject, having indirectly engaged to take no
notice of this journey. The Grand Duke had already interfered too much
with him, and bitterly repented of his interference. Next year he
died; an event which Schiller, who had long forgotten past
ill-treatment, did not learn without true sorrow, and grateful
recollections of bygone kindness. The new sovereign, anxious to repair
the injustice of his predecessor, almost instantly made offer of a
vacant Tuebingen professorship to Schiller; a proposal flattering to
the latter, but which, by the persuasion of the Duke of Weimar, he
respectfully declined.

Amid labours and amusements so multiplied, amid such variety of
intellectual exertion and of intercourse with men, Schiller, it was
clear, had not suffered the encroachments of bodily disease to
undermine the vigour of his mental or moral powers. No period of his
life displayed in stronger colours the lofty and determined zeal of
his character. He had already written much; his fame stood upon a firm
basis; domestic wants no longer called upon him for incessant effort;
and his frame was pining under the slow canker of an incurable malady.
Yet he never loitered, never rested; his fervid spirit, which had
vanquished opposition and oppression in his youth; which had struggled
against harassing uncertainties, and passed unsullied through many
temptations, in his earlier manhood, did not now yield to this last
and most fatal enemy. The present was the busiest, most productive
season of his literary life; and with all its drawbacks, it was
probably the happiest. Violent attacks from his disorder were of rare
occurrence; and its constant influence, the dark vapours with which it
would have overshadowed the faculties of his head and heart, were
repelled by diligence and a courageou