r gradually sinking into a German professor, the sphere of
his sympathies narrowed, the aim of his ambition lowered. His energies
were absorbed in collecting materials and elaborating his "History of the
Thirty Years' War," which was published in 1792. The conception of his
great dramatic Trilogy, the "Wallenstein," which dates from 1791, was
allowed to languish until it was taken up again for Goethe, and finished
for Goethe in 1799. Goethe knew how to admire and encourage, but he also
knew how to criticise and advise. Schiller, by nature meditative rather
than observant, had been most powerfully attracted by Kant's ideal
philosophy. Next to his historical researches, most of his time at Jena
was given to metaphysical studies. Not only his mind, but his language
suffered from the attenuating influences of that rarefied atmosphere which
pervades the higher regions of metaphysical thought. His mind was
attracted by the general and the ideal, and lost all interest in the
individual and the real. This was not a right frame of mind, either for an
historian or a dramatic poet. In Goethe, too, the philosophical element
was strong, but it was kept under by the practical tendencies of his mind.
Schiller looked for his ideal beyond the real world; and, like the
pictures of a Raphael, his conceptions seemed to surpass in purity and
harmony all that human eye had ever seen. Goethe had discovered that the
truest ideal lies hidden in real life; and like the master-works of a
Michael Angelo, his poetry reflected that highest beauty which is revealed
in the endless variety of creation, and must there be discovered by the
artist and the poet. In Schiller's early works every character was the
personification of an idea. In his "Wallenstein" we meet for the first
time with real men and real life. In his "Don Carlos," Schiller, under
various disguises more or less transparent, acts every part himself. In
"Wallenstein" the heroes of the "Thirty Years' War" maintain their own
individuality, and are not forced to discuss the social problems of
Rousseau, or the metaphysical theories of Kant. Schiller was himself aware
of this change, though he was hardly conscious of its full bearing. While
engaged in composing his "Wallenstein," he writes to a friend:--

"I do my business very differently from what I used to do. The
subject seems to be so much outside me that I can hardly get up
any feeling for it. The subject I treat leaves me co