In reading these lives, together with the voluminous literature which is intended to illustrate the character of the German poet, we frequently felt inclined to ask one question, to which none of Schiller’s biographers has returned a satisfactory answer: “What were the peculiar circumstances which brought out in Germany, and in the second half of the eighteenth century, a man of the moral character, and a poet of the creative genius, of Schiller?” Granted that he was endowed by nature with the highest talents, how did he grow to be a poet, such as we know him, different from all other German poets, and yet in thought, feeling, and language the most truly German of all the poets of Germany? Are we reduced to appeal to the mysterious working of an unknown power, if we wish to explain to ourselves why, in the same country and at the same time, poetical genius assumed such different forms as are seen in the writings of Schiller and Goethe? Is it to be ascribed to what is called individuality, a word which in truth explains nothing; or is it possible for the historian and psychologist to discover the hidden influences which act on the growing mind, and produce that striking variety of poetical genius which we admire in the works of contemporaneous poets, such as Schiller and Goethe in Germany, or Wordsworth and Byron in England? Men grow not only from within, but also from without. We know that a poet is born,—_poeta nascitur_,—but we also know that his character must be formed; the seed is given, but the furrow must be ploughed in which it is to grow; and the same grain which, if thrown on cultivated soil, springs into fullness and vigor, will dwindle away, stunted and broken, if cast upon shallow and untilled land. There are certain events in the life of every man which fashion and stamp his character; they may seem small and unimportant in themselves, but they are great and important to each of us; they mark that slight bend where two lines which had been running parallel begin to diverge, never to meet again. The Greeks call such events _epochs_, _i.e._ halts. We halt for a moment, we look about and wonder, and then choose our further way in life. It is the duty of biographers to discover such epochs, such halting-points, in the lives of their heroes; and we shall endeavor to do the same in the life of Schiller by watching the various influences which determined the direction of his genius at different periods of his poetical career.