SCHILLER 121 youthful dread returned to him, and he expressed a doubt whether he had not mistaken his vocation. The encouragement of Goethe went far to sustain him ; between these two great poets existed a warm friendship, and Goethe showed his confidence in Schiller by asking him to correct " Egmont " for the stage. But still he desponded, and it was not till he read Goethe's " Wilhelm Meister " that the full force of poetic fervor awoke within him. " Wallenstein " had been laid aside ; he took it up again with glowing feelings ; he wrote " The Glove " and " The Ring of Polycrates ; " he revised " The Ghostseer " for a new edition ; and later o%he had the joy of witnessing a masterly performance of the part of Wallenstein by the fine actor, Graff. Following his great dramatic trilogy, "The Camp of Wallenstein," "The Piccolomini," and "The Death of Wallen stein " (the English rights in which he sold to Bell, the publisher, for ,60), Schiller now devoted himself to " Mary Stuart " and " Macbeth," and still farther undermined his health by regularly burning the midnight oil. On May 14, 1790, " Macbeth " was performed, and received with tumultuous applause ; three days before this performance he had read to the players the first four acts of " Mary Stuart," and when the last and fifth act was written he said to Korner, " I am only now beginning to understand my trade." Following " Mary Stuart," he wrote "The Maid of Orleans," and then he was absorbed in what is perhaps the greatest of his works, " William Tell," the first reading of which took place in Goethe's house on March 6, 1804. On the 9th it was rehearsed at the theatre, and on the very next day he commenced a new drama, " Demetrius, or, The Bloody Bridal of Moscow," thus following out, as indeed he had done through- out the whole of his career, his axiom that life without industry was valueless. " William Tell " was a triumphant success, and may be said to have been the last leaf in his laurel wreath, for he was destined not to live long after this great triumph. On May 9, 1805, Re died, at the early age of forty-six, and all Germany mourned the loss. " Dear good one ! " he said to his devoted wife, fondling her hand and kissing it the day before his death. It is recorded that in his last hours he spoke of hearing in his dreams the pealing of a bell. It may be that his own beautiful poem, " The Song of the Bell," was in his mind, and that, with the conviction that death was nigh, the fancy was inspired by the lines in his poem : " And as the strains die on the ear That it peals forth with tuneful might, So let it teach that nought lasts here, That all things earthly take their flight."
