pitiless duties, which so fatally impel mankind to death and disaster, will readily take root in the consciousness that a healthy, living light has adequately penetrated; in such there will be no room for honour or vengeance, or conventions that clamour for blood. Prejudices that call for tears will no longer be found there, or the justice that demands unhappiness. The gods who insist on sacrifice, the love that asks for death, all these will have been dethroned; and when the sun has entered into the consciousness of him who is wise, as we may hope it will some day enter into the consciousness of all men, no duties will be discovered therein but one alone, which is that it behoves us to do the least possible harm and the utmost good, and love others as we love ourselves; and from this duty no drama can spring.

And now let us see what takes place in Ibsen's dramas. Here we descend at times very far into the depths of human consciousness, but the drama remains possible only because in our descent there goes with us a singular light, red, as it were, and sombre, capricious,―unhallowed, we almost might call it,—a light that illumines only strange phantoms. And in truth nearly all the duties which form the active principles of Ibsen's tragedies are embittered and morbid; they are duties whose home is without, and no longer within, the healthy, enlightened consciousness; and duties we believe to have discovered outside this zone are often most closely akin to a sort of morbid and gloomy madness.

It must not be imagined, however, as it would indeed be far from my thoughts-that these remarks of mine in any way detract from my admiration for the great Scandinavian poet. And, indeed, if it be true that Ibsen has offered but few helpful examples, elements, precepts, to the morality of our time, he is still the only dramatist who has seen a new poetry and set it forth on the stage, and succeeded in enwrapping it with a kind of sombre, ferocious beauty and grandeur (too ferocious and sombre even for it to be general or definite); as he is the only one who has borrowed nothing from the poetry, beauty, and grandeur of the violently illumined dramas of antiquity and the Renaissance.

But until such time as the human consciousness shall contain

more useful passions and fewer nefarious duties, and the theatre of the world shall consequently present to us more happiness and fewer tragedies, we must still recognise the existence, at this very moment, deep down in the hearts of all men of loyal intention, of a great duty of charity and justice which undermines all the others. And it is perhaps from the struggle of this duty against our egoism, indifference, and ignorance that the veritable drama of our century shall spring into being. Hauptmann has made the attempt in Die Weber, Björnson in Au delà des Forces, Mirbean in Les Mauvais Bergers, de Curel in Le Repas du Lion, but all these very honourable endeavours notwithstanding, the achievement has been not yet. Once this gap has been bridged, on the stage as in actual life, it will be permissible perhaps to speak of a new theatre-a theatre of peace and happiness, and of beauty without tears.

Translated by ALFRED SUTRO.

CHARLES THE BOLD.

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN.

[EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN, a leading English historical scholar, was born in Staffordshire, August 2, 1823; became a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. His first preoccupation was with mediæval architecture, which led him to ecclesiastical and political antiquarian studies; he very early formed the design of writing the history of the genesis, achievement, and effects of the Norman Conquest; his detestation alike of the Turks and of the Austrian Empire which protected Europe from the Turks-as both built up on the ruins of the freedom of the East European states-was the basis of a vast quantity of essay and review writing on mediæval Europe; and there was hardly any historical subject which was not touched upon by his tireless industry, and his enormous and minute scholarship. His first work was a "History of Architecture" (1849); his next a series of lectures on the "History and Conquests of the Saracens" (1856); the chief of his many other works are the unfinished "History of Federal Government" (1863); his masterpiece, the "History of the Norman Conquest" (1867-1876; supplementary volume on the reign of William Rufus, in 1882); several works on early English history, the English constitution, etc.; "Historical Geography of Europe," "General Sketch of European History," and several others in this line; "Comparative Politics"; the "Continuity of History"; four volumes of "Historical Essays"; "Methods of Historical Study"; lectures at Oxford, where he was regius professor of modern history, and four volumes of a "History of Sicily" intended to fill fourteen (1891-1894). He died at Alicante, Spain, March 16, 1892.]

THE position of Charles was a very peculiar one; it requires a successful shaking off of modern notions fully to take in what it was. He held the rank of one of the first princes in Europe without being a king, and without possessing an inch of ground for which he did not owe service to some superior lord. And more than this, he did not owe service to one lord only. The phrase of "Great Powers" had not been invented in the fifteenth century; but there can be no doubt that if it had been, the Duke of Burgundy would have ranked among

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the foremost of them. He was, in actual strength, the equal of his royal neighbor to the west, and far more than the equal of his Imperial neighbor to the east. Yet for every inch of his territories he owed a vassal's duty to one or other of them. Placed on the borders of France and the Empire, some of his territories were held of the Empire and some of the French crown. Charles, Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders and Artois, was a vassal of France; but Charles, Duke of Brabant, Count of Burgundy, Holland, and a dozen other duchies and counties, held his dominions as a vassal of Cæsar. His dominions were large in positive extent, and they were valuable out of all proportion to their extent. No other prince in Europe was the direct sovereign of so many rich and flourishing cities, rendered still more rich and flourishing through the long, and, in the main, peaceful administration of his father. The cities of the Netherlands were incomparably greater and more prosperous than those of France or England; and, though they enjoyed large municipal privileges, they were not, like those of Germany, independent commonwealths, acknowledging only an external superior in their nominal lord. Other parts of his dominions, the duchy of Burgundy especially, were as rich in men as Flanders was rich in money.

So far the Duke of Burgundy had some great advantages over every other prince of his time. But, on the other hand, his dominions were further removed than those of any prince in Europe from forming a compact whole. He was not king of one kingdom, but duke, count, and lord of innumerable duchies, counties, and lordships, acquired by different means, held by different titles and of different overlords, speaking . different languages, subject to different laws, transmitted according to different rules of succession, and each subject to possible escheat to its own lord. These various territories, moreover, had as little geographical as they had political connection. They lay in two large masses, the two Burgundies forming one and the Low Countries forming the other, so that their common master could not go from one of his capitals to another without passing through a foreign territory.

And even within these two great masses, there were portions of territory intersecting the ducal dominions which there was no hope of annexing by fair means. The dominions of a neighboring duke or count might be acquired by marriage, by purchase, by exchange, by various means short of open rob