An important paper is Tieck’s explanation of the _Piccolomini_ and the _Wallenstein_. I saw these plays develop from beginning to end, and I am filled with admiration at the degree of penetration which he shows in treating a work which, although one of the most excellent not only on the German stage but on all stages, yet in itself is unequal, and for that reason often fails to satisfy the critic, although the crowd, which does not take the separate parts with such strictness, is necessarily charmed with it as a whole. Most of the places where Tieck finds something to criticize, I find reason to consider as pathological. If Schiller had not been suffering from a long wasting disease, which finally killed him, the whole thing would have been different. Our correspondence, which relates in the clearest way the circumstances under which _Wallenstein_ was written, will stimulate thoughtful people to much profitable reflection, and persuade them to think ever more seriously how closely our æsthetics is connected with physiology, pathology, and physics: in this way they may realize the light which these sciences throw upon the conditions to which individuals as well as whole nations, the most extensive world-epochs as well as daily affairs, are subjected. ON DIDACTIC POETRY (1827) Didactic poetry is not a distinct poetic style or genre in the same sense as the lyric, epic, and dramatic. Every one will understand this who recognizes that the latter differ in form, and therefore didactic poetry, which derives its name from its content, cannot be put in the same category. All poetry should be instructive, but unobviously so. It should draw the attention of a reader to the idea which is of value to be imparted; but he himself must draw the lesson out of it, as he does out of life. Didactic or schoolmasterly poetry is a hybrid between poetry and rhetoric. For that reason, as it approximates now one and now the other, it is able to possess more or less of poetic value. But, like descriptive and satirical poetry, it is always a secondary and subordinate species, which in a true æsthetic is always placed between the art of poetry and the art of speech. The intrinsic worth of didactic poetry, that is to say, of an edifying art-work, written with charm and vigor, and graced with rhythm and melody and the ornament of imaginative power, is for that reason in no way lessened. From the rhymed chronicles, from the verse-maxims of the old pedagogues, down to the best of this class, all have their value, considered in their place and taken at their proper worth.