Thus, in the classical period of that literature, of which Goethe and Schiller were the ruling stars, the drama had a full share of the loftiest of its achievements. Of these, the dramatic works of Goethe vary so widely in form and character, and connect themselves so intimately with the different phases of the development of his own self-directed poetic genius, that it was impossible for any of them to become the starting-points of any general growths in the history of the German drama. His way of composition was, moreover, so peculiar to himself--conception often preceding execution by many years, part being added to part under the influence of new sentiments and ideas and views of art, flexibly followed by changes of form--that the history of his dramas cannot be severed from his general poetic and personal biography. His _Clavigo_ and _Stella_, which succeeded _Götz_, are domestic dramas in prose; but neither by these, nor by the series of charming pastorals and operas which he composed for the Weimar court, could any influence be exercised upon the progress of the national drama. In the first conception of his _Faust_, he had indeed sought the suggestion of his theme partly in popular legend, partly in a domestic motive familiar to the authors of the _Sturm und Drang_ (the story of Gretchen); the later additions to the First Part, and the Second Part generally, are the results of metaphysical and critical studies and meditations belonging to wholly different spheres of thought and experience. The dramatic unity of the whole is thus, at the most, external only; and the standard of judgment to be applied to this wondrous poem is not one of dramatic criticism. _Egmont_, originally designed as a companion to _Götz_, was not completed till many years later; there are few dramas more effective in parts, but the idea of a historic play is lost in the elaboration of the most graceful of love episodes. In _Iphigenia_ and _Tasso_, Goethe exhibited the perfection of form of which his classical period had enabled him to acquire the mastery; but the sphere of the action of the former (perfect though it is as a dramatic action), and the nature of that of the latter, are equally remote from the demands of the popular stage. Schiller's genius, unlike Goethe's, was naturally and consistently suited to the claims of the theatre. His juvenile works, _The Robbers_, _Fiesco_, _Kabale und Liebe_, vibrating under the influence of an age of social revolution, combined in their prose form the truthful expression of passion with a considerable admixture of extravagance. But, with true insight into the demands of his art, and with unequalled single-mindedness and self-devotion to it, Schiller gradually emancipated himself from his earlier style; and with his earliest tragedy in verse, _Don Carlos_, the first period of his dramatic authorship ends, and the promise of the second announces itself. The works which belong to this--from the _Wallenstein_ trilogy