name was not given and the work purported (fallaciously) to have been
published at Frankfurt and Leipzig. The anonymity was not taken
seriously, however, and the Stuttgart medicus soon found himself a bit
of a literary lion. He was pointed out on the street as the man who had
written 'The Robbers', and distinguished travellers began to call upon
him. The reviewers mingled praise and blame, and the most thoughtful of
them, one Timme, declared in the Erfurt _Zeitung_ that here if anywhere
was the coming Shakspere,--which was a little wild from posterity's
point of view, but not an unpleasant thing for a young author to read in
a newspaper.

Luckily for Schiller his work was not long left to make its way as 'mere
literature'. Among those to whom he had sent the sheets was a Mannheim
bookseller, named Schwan, who had an eye for dramatic merit. Before
Schwan had read many pages it came over him that here was a prize for
the stage, and he hurried with it to Baron Dalberg, intendant of the
Mannheim theater. Dalberg was easily convinced,--only the work would
need to be radically revised. A complimentary letter was addressed to
Schiller, proposing a stage version of 'The Robbers' and offering to
bring out future plays that he might write. Schiller was quite willing,
notwithstanding his preface, and about the middle of August he addressed
himself to his task. Profiting by the suggestions of Dalberg and the
reviewers, he devoted six weeks to adding, subtracting, re-writing, and
re-arranging,--a new masterpiece, he averred, would have cost him less
labor. But Dalberg was not yet satisfied; correspondence ensued about
various points, Schiller showing himself very tractable, and it was not
until the close of the year that the stage version was finally ready. It
was played on the 12th of January, 1782,--its author having stolen away
from Stuttgart to see the performance,--and scored an unheard-of
success.[31] Shortly afterwards the new version, in slightly modified