satire at the expense of 'high-born fools and scoundrels'. As he worked,
the possibilities of his theme developed. An abstract enthusiasm for the
rights of man was kindled by honest love of the common people, and by
the lingering smart of a personal wrong, into a holy zeal of vengeance.
President Walter was painted in colors which were taken largely from the
political history and the _chronique scandaleuse_ of the Wuerttemberg
court. As this court had its angel of light in soiled garments, Lady
Milford was fitted out with the benevolent qualities of Franziska von
Hohenheim; and as the portrait grew In firmness its author fell in love
with it, like the young Goethe with his Adelheid. When he came to depict
the jealousy of Ferdinand, he had the advantage of a personal
acquaintance with the green-eyed monster. Thus the play was extracted
from the book of life, as Schiller had been able to read it, and that
accounts for its vitality. But in his details he is nowhere less
original. Not only in the general conception of important characters,
but in particular scenes, situations, motives, contrasts and forms of
expression, we can see the influence of the literary tradition which he
inherited.

To show the exact nature and the full extent of this indebtedness would
be a tedious undertaking, which would require pages of quotation from
works whose chief interest now is that they served as quarry for
Schiller. Three or four illustrations will suffice. Our play begins with
a scene which at once recalls what was originally the opening scene of
Wagner's 'Infanticide'. In both there is a blustering father,--Lessing's
Odoardo reduced to the bourgeois sphere,--discoursing with his silly
wife upon the dangers that threaten their daughter from keeping
aristocratic company. In both the domestic thunderer expresses himself
in rough, strong language, and is only made the more furious by his
wife's efforts to allay his fears. In Wagner's next scene Magister