y admired him as a writer.
Their intercourse was of the kind he liked, sober, as well as free and
mirthful. It was the careless, calm, honest effusion of his feelings
that he wanted, not the noisy tumults and coarse delirium of
dissipation. For this, under any of its forms, he at no time showed
the smallest relish.

A visit to Weimar had long been one of Schiller's projects: he now
first accomplished it in 1787. Saxony had been, for ages, the Attica
of Germany; and Weimar had, of late, become its Athens. In this
literary city, Schiller found what he expected, sympathy and
brotherhood with men of kindred minds. To Goethe he was not
introduced;[17] but Herder and Wieland received him with a cordial
welcome; with the latter he soon formed a most friendly intimacy.
Wieland, the Nestor of German letters, was grown gray in the service:
Schiller reverenced him as a father, and he was treated by him as a
son. 'We shall have bright hours,' he said; 'Wieland is still young,
when he loves.' Wieland had long edited the _Deutsche Mercur_: in
consequence of their connexion, Schiller now took part in contributing
to that work. Some of his smaller poems, one or two fragments of the
History of the Netherlands, and the _Letters on Don Carlos_, first
appeared here. His own _Thalia_ still continued to come out at
Leipzig. With these for his incidental employments, with the Belgian
Revolt for his chief study, and the best society in Germany for his
leisure, Schiller felt no wish to leave Weimar. The place and what it
held contented him so much, that he thought of selecting it for his
permanent abode. 'You know the men,' he writes, 'of whom Germany is
proud; a Herder, a Wieland, with their brethren; and one wall now
encloses me and them. What excellencies are in Weimar! In this city,
at least in this territory, I mean to settle for life, and at length
once more to get a country.'

[Footnote 17: Doering says, 'Goethe was at this time absent
in Italy;' an error, as will by and by appear.]

So occupied and so intentioned, he continued to reside at Weimar. Some
months after his arrival, he received an invitation from his early
patroness and kind protectress, Madam von Wolzogen, to come and visit
her at Bauerbach. Schiller went accordingly to this his ancient city
of refuge; he again found all the warm hospitality, which he had of
old experienced when its character could less be mistaken; but his
excursion thither produced more lastin