to _Tell_--are the acknowledged masterpieces of the German poetic drama, treating historic themes reconstructed by conscious dramatic workmanship, and clothing their dialogue in a noble vestment of rhetorical verse. The plays of Schiller are the living embodiment of the theory of tragedy elaborated by Hegel, according to which its proper theme is the divine, or, in other words, the moving ethical, element in human action. In one of his later plays, _The Bride of Messina_, Schiller attempted a new use of the chorus of Greek tragedy; but the endeavour was a splendid error, and destined to exercise no lasting effect. The reaction against Schiller's ascendancy began with writers who could not reconcile themselves with the cosmopolitan and non-national elements in his genius, and is still represented by eminent critics; but the future must be left to settle the contention. The popular stage. Schiller's later dramas had gradually conquered the stage, over which his juvenile works had in this time triumphantly passed, but on which his _Don Carlos_ had met with a cold welcome. For a long time, however, its favourites were authors of a very different order, who suited themselves to the demands of a public tolerably indifferent to the literary progress of the drama. After popular tastes had oscillated between the imitators of _Gotz_ and those of _Emilia Galotti_, they entered into a more settled phase, as the establishment of standing theatres at the courts and in the large towns increased the demand for good "acting" plays. Famous actors, such as Schröder and A. W. Iffland, sought by translations or compositions of their own to meet the popular likings, which largely took the direction of that irrepressible favourite of theatrical audiences, the sentimental domestic drama.[288] But the most successful purveyor of such wares was an author who, though not himself an actor, understood the theatre with a professional instinct--August von Kotzebue. His productivity ranged from the domestic drama and comedy of all kinds to attempts to rival Schiller and Shakespeare in verse; and though his popularity (which ultimately proved his doom) brought upon him the bitterest attacks of the romantic school and other literary authorities, his self-conceit is not astonishing, and the time has come for saying that there is some exaggeration in the contempt which has been lavished upon him by posterity.[289] Nor should it be forgotten that German literature had so far failed to furnish the comic stage with any successors to _Minna von Barnhelm_; for Goethe's efforts to dramatize characteristic events or figures of the Revolutionary age[290] must be dismissed as failures, not from a theatrical point of view only. The joint efforts of Goethe and Schiller for the Weimar stage, important in many respects for the history of the German drama, at the same time reveal the want of a national dramatic literature sufficient to supply the needs of a theatre endeavouring to