'Criticism must now make good to me the damage she herself has done. And damaged me she most certainly has; for the boldness, the living glow which I felt before a rule was known to me, have for several years been wanting. I now _see_ myself _create_ and _form_: I watch the play of inspiration; and my fancy, knowing she is not without witnesses of her movements, no longer moves with equal freedom. I hope, however, ultimately to advance so far that _art_ shall become a second _nature_, as polished manners are to well-bred men; then Imagination will regain her former freedom, and submit to none but voluntary limitations.' Schiller's subsequent writings are the best proof that in these expectations he had not miscalculated. The historical and critical studies, in which he had been so extensively and seriously engaged, could not remain without effect on Schiller's general intellectual character. He had spent five active years in studies directed almost solely to the understanding, or the faculties connected with it; and such industry united to such ardour had produced an immense accession of ideas. History had furnished him with pictures of manners and events, of strange conjunctures and conditions of existence; it had given him more minute and truer conceptions of human nature in its many forms, new and more accurate opinions on the character and end of man. The domain of his mind was both enlarged and enlightened; a multitude of images and detached facts and perceptions had been laid up in his memory; and his intellect was at once enriched by acquired thoughts, and strengthened by increased exercise on a wider circle of knowledge.