Although Schiller had, by the publication of this tragedy, forfeited the good opinion of the Grand Duke of Wurtemberg, yet its great popularity gained him may new friends and correspondents. Among these was Freiherr Von Dalberg, superintendent of the theatre of AIanheirn, under whose patronage Schiller remodelled the Robbers, and had it brought on the stage in 1781. Schiller went to Manheim in disguise, to see the first representation of his tragedy; but he was discovered, and put under arrest during a week for the offence. Having committed the same act a second time, he dreaded more rigorous measures, and he was therefore induced to quit Stutgard in Oc tober 1782. Afraid of residing so near to Stutgard or Manheim, he went to Franconia, and was living principally at Oggersheim under the name of Schmidt, when Madame Von Wollzogen, whose sons had been his fellow students at Stutgard, invited him to their country-house at Bauerbach, near Meinungen. Be neath her hospitable roof he resumed his poetical labours, and in the course of a year he brought out his tragedies of Perschworung des Fiesco, (Conspiracy of Fiesco,) and Kabale tend Liebe, (Court intriguing and Love.) During his arrest at Stutgard he had be gun Fiesco, which was published along with another piece in 1783, and soon after brought out on the Man beim stage.
Schiller had long been ambitious of being appointed theatrical poet at Manheim; and his friend Dalberg was now able to assist him in procuring that appoint ment, which he obtained in Sept. 1783, and which, while it gave him a situation of respectability, held out to him the prospect of a seasonable remuneration. He was soon after elected a member of the German Society at Manheim, and acknowledged a subject of the Elector Palatine.
Schiller now engaged himself in bringing out a pe riodical work devoted to the concerns of the stage, the main purpose of which was to advance the drama tic art. The first number of this work, entitled the Rheinische Thalia, enriched with three acts of his Don Carlos, appeared in 1785, and with the exception of one short interruption was continued till 1794. This work, besides his dramatic speculations and perform ances, contains several of his poems.
About this period Schiller composed his Philoso phical Letters, a short and unfinished fragment, which is interesting only as containing the speculations of its author on various metaphysical subjects, which must always possess a deep interest to every reflecting mind.
The first number of his Thalia had obtained Scbil ler such favour from the Duke of Sachsen Weimar, that this prince transmitted to him the title of a coun sellor, and about the same time he received from Leip sig four miniature portraits, two of which were of very beautiful young ladies, who had admired his writings, and sent him this hidden mark of their esteem. This little incident is supposed to have induc
ed him to remove to Leipsig, which he did in the end of March 1785. In this city, however, he did not long remain, and having received pressing invitations to Dresden, he followed the new impulse, and went to that capital at the end of summer. Here he took up his residence with the Apellationsrath Korner, who lived at Loschwitz, near Dresden; and he completed his Don Carlos, which was published in 1786. It is writ ten in blank verse, and is the first of Schiller's plays that hears the marks of matured genius.
Schiller seems now to have taken a distaste at the drama, and to have occupied himself with the compo sition of various lyrical productions. Some of these have been mentioned by his biographer as among the most finished efforts of his genius, viz. the Walk, the Song of the Bell, his Ritter Toggenburg, his Cranes of Ibycus, and his Hero and Leander. Another poem, written about this time, and entitled The Freethinking of Passion, is said to have originated in a real but hopeless attachment to one of the first beauties of Dres den, who is said to have sat for the picture of the princess Eboli in Don Carlos. The celebrity of the thaumaturgic exploits of the conjuror Cagliostro at Paris, seems to have given rise to a novel which Schil ler now produced, under the title of Geisterscher, or the Ghost Seer, two volumes of which were published.
The composition of this work seems to have given its author a dislike to fictitious writing, and he now resolved to devote his mind to the study of history. The composition of Don Carlos had led him to study the affairs of Spain under Philip II. and he was thus induced to take the Revolt of the Netherlands as the subject of his first history. While engaged in this work he projected a more extended one under the title of a History of the most remarkable Conspiracies and Revolutions in the Middle and Later 4ga, of which he published the first volume in 1787, but it is little more than a translation of St. Real's Conspiracy of Bedmar against Venice.
6 Our author had long contemplated a visit to Wei mar. which he at last effected in 1787. In this litera ry city resided Goethe, Herder and Wieland. With the two last he became extremely intimate; but Goethe, from his dislike of the Robbers, avoided an introduc tion to Schiller. In the midst of the best society in Germany, and occupied with his historical work, he continued his residence at Weimar. His old patroness Madame Von Wollzogen again invited him to Bauer bach; and at Rudolstadt, where he staid during a part of that visit, he first saw the Fraulein Lengefeld, a lady who made a deep impression on his heart, and who entertained for him a reciprocal feeling.