memorabile existimo, sceleris atque periculi novitate._ So the
conspiracy was to be a _facinus_ and a _scelus_, and the hero, of
course, another 'exalted criminal' in the style of Karl Moor. In the
stage version we observe that the motto from Sallust has been dropped,
and that while the title of 'tragedy' (_Trauerspiel_) is retained, the
adjective 'republican' is omitted. Furthermore, without any radical
revision of the preceding portraiture taken as a whole, a non-tragical
conclusion has been substituted for the final catastrophe. Fiesco, hard
pressed by the strenuous Verrina, declares that his heart has been right
all along; only he was resolved that Genoa's freedom should be his work
and his alone. So he breaks his scepter, concludes an eternal friendship
with the amazed Verrina, and bids the people embrace their 'happiest
fellow-citizen.' Thus the original version, which had called itself a
republican tragedy and was a tragedy without being republican, became a
play which is truly republican without being called so, but is no longer
a tragedy.

This singular _volte-face_ on the part of our dramatist has of course
been the subject of infinite discussion. The most of the critics appear
to regard it as a mistake, to say the least. One of them,
Bellermann,[46] surmises that Schiller made the change against his will
to meet the views of Dalberg. But of this there is no clear proof; and
surely we cannot suppose that Schiller would have consented even
reluctantly to a change which he himself felt to be utterly absurd
because a complete stultification of the preceding plot. He must have
felt that the new ending was artistically at least possible. And so it
is. It is with 'Fiesco' somewhat as with the Bible: the conclusion that
one reaches must depend upon the particular texts that one selects for
emphasis. If we accent certain passages and pass lightly over others, we
get the impression that it is a tragedy of selfish ambition doomed to