Another important movement, closely connected with the philosophical ideas of Fichte and Schelling, began at this time to arrest attention. It was the movement which led to the formation of the Romantic School. The critical leaders of this school, August and Frederick Schlegel, were both for a while lecturers at the University of Jena, where they exercised a powerful influence through their literary journal, _The Athenæum_. With them, and with Tieck and Novalis, Goethe, always anxious to encourage young writers who seemed to give indications of genius, sought to maintain the most friendly relations. He even caused to be represented on the Weimar stage two rather crude plays, “Ion” and “Alarcos,” the former by August Schlegel, the latter by Frederick Schlegel. The writers of the Romantic school ultimately diverged widely from Goethe’s methods, but all that was really vital in their teaching had already been embodied in his works, and it was chiefly from him that they originally derived the best and most fruitful of their impulses. In the winter of 1803-4 Madame de Staël paid her famous visit to Weimar. Goethe did not fail to do due honour to so distinguished a guest, but, like Schiller, he was soon fatigued by her restless curiosity and endless talk. He interested her the more deeply because she could not but see that the air of patronage with which she had been disposed to meet him was wholly out of place. For no other German writer did she conceive so strong a respect. Meanwhile, Schiller, quickened by Goethe’s unfailing sympathy, had been producing in rapid succession the great plays of his last years--“Mary Stuart,” “The Maid of Orleans,” “The Bride of Messina,” and “William Tell.” Goethe had at this period, so far as the drama was concerned, no corresponding period of activity. In 1800 and 1801 he produced only translations of Voltaire’s “Mahomet” and “Tancred.” He was working, however, at an important poetical drama, “Die Natürliche Tochter” (“The Natural Daughter”). This drama was intended to be the first member of a trilogy dealing with the ideas on which the French Revolution had been compelling all the world to reflect. The trilogy was to represent the overthrow and re-establishment of an ancient monarchy, its overthrow being due to corrupt government, its re-establishment to the frank recognition of popular rights. The only part of the scheme he succeeded in working out was “Die Natürliche Tochter,” in which we are permitted to see some of the abuses that were to have led to revolution. The facts on which the idea of the play was based Goethe found in the “Mémoires historiques de Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon Conti,” published at Paris in 1797. Eugenie, the heroine, is the natural daughter of a duke, the uncle of the king; and the question on which the interest depends is whether she shall allow herself to be publicly acknowledged as one in whose veins there is royal blood, or whether she shall remain, as she has been