That Schiller's _genius_ profited by this laborious and ardent study of Æsthetic Metaphysics, has frequently been doubted, and sometimes denied. That, after such investigations, the process of composition would become more difficult, might be inferred from the nature of the case. That also the principles of this critical theory were in part erroneous, in still greater part too far-fetched and fine-spun for application to the business of writing, we may farther venture to assert. But excellence, not ease of composition, is the thing to be desired; and in a mind like Schiller's, so full of energy, of images and thoughts and creative power, the more sedulous practice of selection was little likely to be detrimental. And though considerable errors might mingle with the rules by which he judged himself, the habit of judging carelessly, or not at all, is far worse than that of sometimes judging wrong. Besides, once accustomed to attend strictly to the operations of his genius, and rigorously to try its products, such a man as Schiller could not fail in time to discover what was false in the principles by which he tried them, and consequently, in the end, to retain the benefits of this procedure without its evils. There is doubtless a purism in taste, a rigid fantastical demand of perfection, a horror at approaching the limits of impropriety, which obstructs the free impulse of the faculties, and if excessive, would altogether deaden them. But the excess on the other side is much more frequent, and, for high endowments, infinitely more pernicious. After the strongest efforts, there may be little realised; without strong efforts, there must be little. That too much care does hurt in any of our tasks is a doctrine so flattering to indolence, that we ought to receive it with extreme caution. In works impressed with the stamp of true genius, their quality, not their extent, is what we value: a dull man may spend his lifetime writing little; better so than writing much; but a man of powerful mind is liable to no such danger. Of all our authors, Gray is perhaps the only one that from fastidiousness of taste has written less than he should have done: there are thousands that have erred the other way. What would a Spanish reader give, had Lope de Vega composed a hundred times as little, and that little a hundred times as well! Schiller's own ideas on these points appear to be sufficiently sound: they are sketched in the following extract of a letter, interesting also as a record of his purposes and intellectual condition at this period: