It is upon these peculiarities that the excellence which characterizes Schiller as a writer rests.

It contained an opinion of Goethe's notes to "Rameau's Nephew," which exhibit French literature at that time, and which he had given Schiller to look over.

She it was who, with deepest love for Switzerland, which she calls the land of her affections, where she passed happy youthful days from 1783 to 1784, led Schiller to it, and by her fresh, lively descriptions made him partake of it; and so prepared the way for the genius which could embrace and penetrate all things for the masterly representation of the country, which, unfortunately, his feet never trod.

This power of poetry, of an invisible force created purely by the intellect and vanishing away when brought into contact with reality, belonged essentially to the sphere of ideas which occupied Schiller so intensely.

In the summer following his return home from Havre he accompanied his parents on a continental tour, stopping amongst other places at Weimar, where he saw Schiller.

"On Sunday," says he, "I took [Schiller's] 'Don Carlos' with me in our boat, and rowed myself out of sight of the village into the solitude of the autumn woods.

" With Tell off his hands Schiller next threw his tireless energy on a Russian subjectthe story of Dmitri, reputed son of Ivan the Terrible.