The Xenions raised a storm of indignation, as was to be expected, and Anti-Xenions were written by many of those who had been attacked. But while the tenor of the Xenions is lofty in spite of their personal character, and while we feel the high aims of Goethe and Schiller in their attempts to purify literature, the Anti-Xenions are _wholly_ personal. They are rude, malicious and mean. They insinuate that the Xenions were prompted by vile motives; that Goethe and Schiller wanted more praise and flattery; that they were envious of the laurels of others and wanted to be the sole usurpers of Mount Parnassus. Schiller was called Kant’s ape, and Goethe was reproached with his family relations. The history of the Xenions is their justification. The Anti-Xenions are, in themselves alone, a wholesale condemnation of the opposition made to Goethe and Schiller. Goethe wrote to Schiller concerning the reception which the Xenions found, on December 5, 1796: “It is real fun to observe what has been offensive to this kind of people, and also what they think has been offensive to us. How trivial, empty, and mean they consider the life of others, and how they direct their arrows against the outside of the works! How little do they know that a man who takes life seriously lives in an impregnable castle!” Goethe and Schiller had wielded a vigorous and two-edged weapon in the Xenions. They had severely chastised their antagonists for incompetency; but now it devolved upon themselves to prove the right of their censorship, and they were conscious of this duty. Goethe wrote, November 15, 1806: “After the bold venture of the Xenions, we must confine our labors strictly to great and worthy works of art. We must shame our adversaries by transmuting our Protean nature henceforth into noble and good forms.” Events proved that both Goethe and Schiller were not only willing but able to fulfil these intentions. Their antagonists have disappeared. Some of them would now be entirely forgotten had not the two poets immortalized them in the Xenions. Some Xenions are of mere transitory importance, especially such as contain allusions and criticisms that are lost to those who are not thoroughly versed in the history of the times, while others are gems of permanent value, reflecting in a few words flashes of the deepest wisdom, and they ought to be better known among English-speaking people. We have therefore extracted and translated those which we deem worthy of preservation for all time. Goethe and Schiller’s distichs, we are sorry to add, are not always very elegant, and sometimes lack in smoothness and correctness. The first half of their pentameters is often very weak, and many of the second parts are extremely awkward, as for instance in the distich on page 163, where we read: ....“Und warum kei′ne?” Aus Re′ligion′.