d swears allegiance to Goethe. In
the ensuing years he learns English, Greek, and Spanish; Shakespeare
supplants Goethe in his esteem, and he is attracted first to Calderon
and then to Lope de Vega in whom, ere long, he discovers the dramatic
spirit most closely akin to his.

We read of Grillparzer, as of Goethe, that as a child he was fond of
improvising dramatic performances with his playmates. Occasionally he
was privileged to attend an operetta or a spectacular play at one of the
minor theatres. When he reached adolescence he experimented with a large
number of historical and fantastic subjects, and he left plans and
fragments that, unoriginal as most of them are, give earnest of a talent
for scenic manipulation and for the representation of character. These
juvenile pieces are full of reminiscences of Schiller and Shakespeare.
Grillparzer's first completed drama of any magnitude, _Blanca of
Castile_ (1807-09), is almost to be called Schiller's _Don Carlos_ over
again, both as to the plot and as to the literary style--though of
course the young man's imitation seems like a caricature. The fragments
_Spartacus_ (1810) and _Alfred the Great_ (1812), inspired by patriotic
grief for Austria humiliated by Napoleon, are Shakespearean in many
scenes, but are in their general disposition strongly influenced by
Schiller's _Robbers and Maid of Orleans_. In all three of these pieces,
the constant reference to inscrutable fate proves that Grillparzer is a
disciple of Schiller and a son of his time.

There is, therefore, a double significance in the earliest play of
Grillparzer's to be performed on the stage, _The Ancestress_
(1816)--first, in that, continuing in the direction foreshadowed by its
predecessors, it takes its place beside the popular dramas of fate
written by Werner and Muellner; and secondly, because at the same time
the poet, now yielding more to the congenial impulse of Spanish
influences, establishes his independence even in the treatment of a more
or less conventional theme. Furthermore, _The Ancestress_ marks the
beginning of Grillparzer's friendship with Schreyvogel. Grillparzer had
translated some scenes of Calderon's _Life is a Dream_ which, published
in 1816 by an enemy of Schreyvogel's who wished to discredit the
adaptation which Schreyvogel had made for the _Burgtheater,_ served only
to bring the two men together; for Schreyvogel was generous and
Grillparzer innocent of any hostile intention. As early