[Footnote 40: Concerning the provenience and the philosophic connection of the youthful Schiller's ideas of love and friendship the reader will do well to consult Kuno Fischer, "Schiller-Schriften", I, 41 ff.] [Footnote 41: Of course this roseate statement to his Highness took no account of his debts, which had not yet begun to be particularly pressing.] CHAPTER IV The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa Ein Diadem erkämpfen ist grosz; es wegwerfen ist göttlich. _'Fiesco'_. As we have seen, 'Fiesco' was written during the summer and fall of 1782. The following winter, having been rejected by the Mannheim stage, it was published as a literary drama. This first edition bore the sub-title: 'A Republican Tragedy.' There is a very general agreement that 'Fiesco' is upon the whole the weakest of Schiller's plays. As a 'republican tragedy' it is a disappointment, since its political import, though obvious enough to one acquainted with Schiller from other sources, is not brought out distinctly in the play itself. Neither the friend nor the enemy of republicanism, in any historical or human sense of the word, can derive the slightest edification from 'Fiesco,' The political talk is vague and unpractical, and we get no clear idea of the contending forces. When the curtain goes down upon the chaos of intrigue, one is at a loss to know how one is expected to feel. And yet the play is full of powerful scenes, developed with masterly dramatic skill. As a mere spectacle it rivals 'The Robbers', to which as a drama it is decidedly inferior. In general its defects strike the reader more than the spectator. It is not the hand of the dramatist but the eye of the historian that is lacking. In other words the author, with all his seeming profundity of philosophic reflection, was simply not ripe for historical tragedy.