ial man; feared him, too, however, in his stringent love of
order. Wife and children showed him the most reverent regard and
tender love; but the Son was the ornament of his old age. He lived to
see the full renown of the Poet, and his close connection with Goethe,
through which he was to attain complete mastership and lasting
composure. With hands quivering for joy the old man grasped the MSS.
of his dear Son; which from Jena, _via_ Cotta's Stuttgart Warehouses,
were before all things transmitted to him. In a paper from his hand,
which is still in existence, there is found a touching expression of
thanks, That God had given him such a joy in his Son. "And Thou Being
of all beings," says he in the same, "to Thee did I pray, at the birth
of my one Son, that Thou wouldst supply to him in strength of
intellect and faculty what I, from want of learning, could not
furnish; and Thou hast heard me. Thanks to Thee, most merciful Being,
that Thou hast heard the prayer of a mortal!"

'Schiller had left his loved ones at Solituede whole and well; and with
the firm hope that he would see them all again. And the next-following
years did pass untroubled over the prosperous Family. But "ill-luck,"
as the proverb says, "comes with a long stride." In the Spring of
1796, when the French, under Jourdan and Moreau, had overrun South
Germany, there reached Schiller, on a sudden, alarming tidings from
Solituede. In the Austrian chief Hospital, which had been established
in the Castle there, an epidemic fever had broken out; and had visited
the Schiller Family among others. The youngest Daughter Nanette had
sunk under this pestilence, in the flower of her years; and whilst the
second Daughter Luise lay like to die of the same, the Father also was
laid bedrid with gout. For fear of infection, nobody except the
Doctors would risk himself at Solituede; and so the poor weakly Mother
stood forsaken there, and had, for months long, to bear alone the
whole burden of the household distress. Schiller felt it painfully
that he was unable to help his loved ones, in so terrible a posture of
affairs; and it cost him great effort to hide these feelings from his
friends. In his pain and anxiety, he turned himself at last to his
eldest Sister Christophine, Wife of Hofrath Reinwald in Meiningen; and
persuaded her to go to Solituede to comfort and support her people
there. Had not the true Sister-heart at once acceded to her Brother's
wishes, he had himself ta