folk-song and making no use of the uncanny, the gruesome, or the
supernatural. There is no mystery in them, no resort to verbal tricks
such as Bürger had employed in _Lenore_. The subjects are not derived
from German folk-lore, but from Greek legend or medieval romance.
Their great merit is the strong and vivid, yet always noble, style
with which the details are set forth.

[Illustration: THE CHURCH IN WHICH SCHILLER WAS MARRIED]

We come back now to the province of art in which Schiller himself felt
that his strength lay, and to which he devoted nearly all his strength
during his remaining years. The very successful performance of the
complete _Wallenstein_ in the spring of 1799 added greatly to his
prestige, for discerning judges could see that something extraordinary
had been achieved. Weimar had by this time become the acknowledged
centre of German letters, and its modest little theatre now took on
fresh glory. Schiller had made himself very useful as a translator and
adapter, and Goethe was disposed to lean heavily on his friend's
superior knowledge of stage-craft. In order to be nearer to the
theatre and its director, Schiller moved over to Weimar in December,
1799, and took up his abode in what is now called the Schillerstrasse.
He was already working at _Mary Stuart_, which was finished the
following spring and first played on June 14, 1800.

In _Mary Stuart_, as in _Wallenstein_, Schiller focused his light on a
famous personage who was the subject of passionate controversy. But of
course he did not wish to make a Catholic play, or a Protestant play,
or to have its effect dependent in any way on the spectator's
pre-assumed attitude toward the purely political questions involved.
So he decided to omit Mary's trial and to let the curtain rise on her