and a very prolific one too, but his writings are superficial and barren. On several occasions he criticised Goethe severely, and our great poets asserted that in fighting superstition he attacked poetry, and in attempting to suppress the belief in spirits he also tried to abolish spirit. So Goethe makes him say in the Walpurgisnacht:
"Ich sag's Euch Geistern in's Gesicht,
Den Geistes-Despotismus leid ich nicht;
Mein Geist kann ihn nicht exerciren."
[I tell you, spirits, to your face,
I give to spirit-despotism no place;
My spirit cannot practise it at all.]
Tr. by Bayard Taylor.
The irritation of the literary dwarfs showed itself in malevolent reviews of Schiller's literary enterprise, Die Horen.
Schiller wrote to Goethe June 15, 1795:
"I have thought for some time that it would be well to open a critical arena in Die Horen. Yet we should not give away our rights by formally inviting the public and the authors. The public would certainly be represented by the most miserable voices, and the authors, as we know from experience, would become very importunate.
