nd innocent amusement. He still loved solitary
walks: in the Park at Weimar he might frequently be seen wandering
among the groves and remote avenues, with a note-book in his hand; now
loitering slowly along, now standing still, now moving rapidly on; if
any one appeared in sight, he would dart into another alley, that his
dream might not be broken.[37] 'One of his favourite resorts,' we are
told, 'was the thickly-overshadowed rocky path which leads to the
_Roemische Haus_, a pleasure-house of the Duke's, built under the
direction of Goethe. There he would often sit in the gloom of the
crags, overgrown with cypresses and boxwood; shady hedges before him;
not far from the murmur of a little brook, which there gushes in a
smooth slaty channel, and where some verses of Goethe are cut upon a
brown plate of stone, and fixed in the rock.' He still continued to
study in the night: the morning was spent with his children and his
wife, or in pastimes such as we have noticed; in the afternoon he
revised what had been last composed, wrote letters, or visited his
friends. His evenings were often passed in the theatre; it was the
only public place of amusement which he ever visited; nor was it for
the purpose of amusement that he visited this: it was his observatory,
where he watched the effect of scenes and situations; devised new
schemes of art, or corrected old ones. To the players he was kind,
friendly: on nights when any of his pieces had been acted successfully
or for the first time, he used to invite the leaders of the company to
a supper in the Stadthaus, where the time was spent in mirthful
diversions, one of which was frequently a recitation, by Genast, of
the Capuchin's sermon in _Wallenstein's Camp_. Except on such rare
occasions, he returned home directly from the theatre, to light his
midnight lamp, and commence the most earnest of his labours.

[Footnote 37: 'Whatever he intended to write, he first
composed in his head, before putting down a line of it on
paper. He used to call a work _ready_ so soon as its
existence in his spirit was complete: hence in the public
there often were reports that such and such a piece of his
was finished, when, in the common sense, it was not even
begun.'--_Joerdens Lexicon_, Sec. SCHILLER.]

The assiduity, with which he struggled for improvement in dramatic
composition, had now produced its natural result: the requisitions of
his taste no longer hindered th