By this time Schiller had undertaken the editorship of a new literary magazine to be called Die Horen, which was to be financed by the enterprising publisher Cotta in Stuttgart.  The plan was that it should eclipse all previous undertakings of its kind.  But it was to eschew politics.  Germany was just then agitated by the fierce passions of the revolutionary epoch, and this excitement was regarded by Schiller as ominous for the nation.  There was need of esthetic education.  So he proposed to keep the Horen clear of politics and try to divert the minds of men into the serener regions of letters and art.  To Goethe, who also hated the Revolution, this was a highly acceptable program.  So he readily undertook to write for the Horen, and thus he and Schiller soon became linked together in the public mind as allied champions of a cause.  It is for this reason that the Germans are wont to call them the Dioscuri.

By way of signalizing their community of interest the Dioscuri presently began to write satirical distichs at the expense of men and tendencies that they did not like.  For example: 

  Gentlemen, keep your seats! for the curs but covet your places,
  Elegant places to hear all the other dogs bark.

The making of these more or less caustic epigrams amused them.  Sometimes one would suggest the topic and the other write the distich; again, one would do the hexameter, the other the pentameter.  They agreed that neither should ever claim separate property in the Xenia, as they were called.  The number grew apace, until it reached nearly a thousand.  About half the number on hand were published in 1797 in Schiller’s Musenalmanach and had the effect of setting all Germany agog with curiosity, rage or solemn glee.  Some of those hit replied in kind or in vicious attacks, and for a little while there was great excitement.  But having discharged their broadside Goethe and Schiller did not further pursue the ignoble warfare.  They wisely came to the conclusion that the best way to elevate the public taste was not to assail the bad in mordant personal epigrams, but to exemplify the good in creative work.

After his nine years of fruitful wandering in other fields Schiller returned at last, in 1796, to dramatic poetry.  Once more it came in his way to write for the stage, since Goethe was now director of the Weimar theatre.  After some hesitation between Wallenstein and The Knights of Malta, both of which had long haunted his thoughts, he decided in favor of the former.  It occupied him for three years and finally left his hands as a long affair in three parts.  Yet it is not a trilogy in the proper sense, but a play in ten acts, preceded by a dramatic prelude.  At first Schiller found the material refractory.  The actual Wallenstein had never exhibited truly heroic qualities of any kind, and his history involved only the cold passions of ambition, envy, and vindictiveness.  Whether he