be regretted, was more excusable than the abuse with which their adversaries retorted.
The Xenions raised a storm of indignation, as was to be expected, and Anti-Xenions were written by many of those who had been attacked. But while the tenor of the Xenions is lofty in spite of their personal character, and while we feel the high aims of Goethe and Schiller in their attempts to purify literature, the Anti-Xenions are wholly personal. They are rude, malicious and mean. They insinuate that the Xenions were prompted by vile motives; that Goethe and Schiller wanted more praise and flattery; that they were envious of the laurels of others and wanted to be the sole usurpers of Mount Parnassus. Schiller was called Kant's ape, and Goethe was reproached with his family relations.
The history of the Xenions is their justification. The Anti-Xenions are, in themselves alone, a wholesale condemnation of the opposition made to Goethe and Schiller.
Goethe wrote to Schiller concerning the reception which the Xenions found, on December 5, 1796:
"It is real fun to observe what has been
