156 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of those with whom he mingled. To the end of a long life he 

 continued to be the pride of the old, who could appreciate his 

 genius, and the delight of the young, who loved to call him 

 " Father Wieland." 



Goethe and Herder were invited by the government of the 

 little Grand Duchy to be the companions of Wieland and tlie 

 ducal family ; the former having established a literary reputa- 

 tion in his native city of Frankfort, the latter a voluminous 

 and popular writer, rapidly rising into fame. Schiller was 

 first invited to a professorship at Jena, the university being 

 under the patronage of the Grand Duke of Weimar, but owing 

 to the condition of his health he was induced to reside at the 

 little capital on a pension, I believe. These four great writers 

 did more than any who had preceded them, or indeed of their 

 own day, to establish the high character and reputation of 

 German literature. 



Schiller has been called the Shakespeare of Germany and no 

 German poet deserves to be better known. One of his youthful 

 productions, The Robbers, gave him a high position, but it 

 is by Don Carlos, Maria Stuart, The Bride of Messina, and 

 Wallenstein, that he should be judged, and either of these would 

 have established the reputation of any man of his time. Nor is 

 he less happy in lyric poetry. Many of his shorter poems are 

 full of pathos, truth and beauty, and are to this day regarded 

 as the gems of the language. 



Goethe lived to sing tiie dirge over all his compeers. Herder, 

 Wieland and Schiller. His was a brilliant and sparkling genius, 

 as remarkable for its universality as for its richness and force. 

 More than half of his long life was passed in Weimar, and 

 for many years before his death he was the object of the 

 unbounded admiration of his countrymen. He excelled in 

 every style of poetry ; but it was not in poetry alone. As a natu- 

 ralist and a critic in the arts, as a biographer, as a novelist and 

 historian he acquired a high rank. He was indefatigable as a 

 worker in whatever he undertook. He was as many-sided as 

 the phases of the human mind. 



Near Wieland's house there stands the grand and life-like 

 bronze statue of both Schiller and Goethe, on the same granite 

 pedestal. It is a fitting monument to these two great men. 

 They walked together in life ; they gained an envied immor- 



