And so it really was. In point of readableness 'The Defection of the Netherlands' is vastly superior to any previous historical writing in the German language. The stately march of its paragraphs, each bearing the impress of a serious and lofty mind; the care with which seemingly small matters are logically connected with great issues, the mingling of philosophic reflection with the narrative,--all this gave to the work an air of literary distinction. It was actually interesting, and this was much in a land that had no historical classics whatsoever. To be interesting was what Schiller frankly aimed at; he wished to 'convince one portion of his readers that history might be written with fidelity to the facts, but without becoming a trial to the reader's patience; and another portion that it might borrow something from a kindred art without becoming romance'. And he succeeded. In reading him it is easy to see that the poetic habit of conceiving his characters to fit a preconceived scheme, his vivid imagination, his love of sharp contrasts, telling analogies and broad generalizations, occasionally distort the true relation of things. He was an artist rather than a scholar, and one must e'en accept him as such. A letter to Karoline von Beulwitz puts the matter thus:
I shall always be a poor authority for any future investigator who has the misfortune to consult me. But perhaps at the expense of historic truth I shall find readers, and here and there I may hit upon that other kind of truth which is philosophic. History is in general only a magazine for my fancy, and the objects must content themselves with the form, they take under my hands.
The animating Idea of 'The Defection of the Netherlands' is the same that Goethe found running through all the writings of Schiller--the idea of freedom. From the days of his youth 'freedom', however unphilosophically he might think about it, had connoted for his imagination the highest and holiest interest of mankind; and when he began his first historical work his enthusiasm had not yet been sicklied o'er by the events of the Paris Terror. He saw in the Dutch revolt a glorious battle for liberty; the struggle of a small trading population against the proudest, richest and most powerful monarch of the century; a cause seemingly hopeless at first, but growing stronger through pluck, union, tenacity and wise leadership, until the Spanish Goliath was completely beaten. It was magnificent and Schiller desired that his countrymen should feel its magnificence and take to heart its lesson. So he adorned his title-page with an emblem of freedom,--a broad-brimmed hat and a feather upon a pole,--and began his treatise with a bugle-blast that left no doubt of his purpose: 'I have thought it worth while to set up before the world this fair monument of civic strength, in order to waken in the breast of my people a joyous self-consciousness, and to give a fresh and pertinent example of what men may venture for a good cause and may accomplish by united action.'