When a poet has been convicted of sin against fact, we poor pedantic critics incline, merely on that account, to question his literary power. The chance, or the need, to display some superiority in knowledge to a writer whose work we undertake to discuss, is apt to inflate us with such an undue sense of our own importance that we unfairly minimize his merit.

As there is abundant evidence, reliable though anonymous, that scholarly circles are not without special interest just now in the ballet, it may be the proper time to consider that form of art in some of its historical relations to the theater. A recent book by Henry Prunières, le Ballet de cour en France avant Benserade et Lully, gives us for the first time a thorough treatment of the ballet during one of its great periods, the first half of the seventeenth century. It is only now, therefore, that the relations which then existed between the ballets and the plays of France can be adequately discussed. A full treatment of the subject would require and may attract the labors of a doctor's dissertation, but the general relationships can be established from material we already possess and special cases can be pointed out in which one genre borrowed directly and indisputably from the other.

Henry Crabb Robinson occupies a unique position in the history of literary relations between England and Germany. He exerted influence in both directions, tho his greatest service consisted in making Englishmen acquainted with German literature. While a student in Germany from 1800 to 1805, he interpreted English ideas diplomatically among the Germans, whenever the opportunity presented itself; and, after his return to England, he labored incessantly for the rest of his life, over sixty years, to create a more general taste for German works of art, especially for the works of Goethe, among his own countrymen. Indeed, he came to be considered by many literary men and women, both in England and on the Continent, as an oracle, well worth consulting on matters English or German, even on European affairs in general. It was Crabb Robinson who taught Madame de Staël her first lessons in German philosophy; and this same Robinson, during his third visit to Germany in 1829, astonished Goethe by his extraordinary knowledge of modern German literature and life. On the other hand, Goethe was glad to hear him read Byron, Milton, and Coleridge in the original. In England his position was much the same. Not only many minor writers sought and obtained his aid, but both Coleridge and Carlyle, in their studies of German literature, obtained many helpful suggestions from Crabb Robinson. He was always ready to lend a helping hand to all who wanted it, and sometimes to those who did not. Robinson's influence was chiefly personal, to be sure; but the personal influence of a man who loved his subject was needed under the circumstances, and was salutary, even tho the man was somewhat importunate.

Except incidentally, a treatment of pastoral does not form a considerable part of discussions upon eighteenth-century literature. No doubt this is because the eighteenth century, for all the artificiality and futility that the term connotes, still is for us the period of revolutions; we desire to see in it first of all the beginning of the new order of social ideas; it is only natural that these ideas should be sought in those writings that would appear to be the farthest removed from literary tradition. But it is hardly reasonable to expect by this method to form a correct idea of the time; not only what a priori represents reaction, but also that which continues traditions soon to be entirely abondoned, must be studied, if we would form the right estimate, not only of the period as a whole, but even of those very ideas posited as representative of the trend of the time.

It is the purpose of this paper to make a critical inquiry into the actual use of the term Miracle Play in England from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The present state of opinion among most historians of the English drama is that the term there during that period came to include all religious plays. The trend of this view during the last sixty or seventy years, as it develops from conservative statement to absolute, sweeping generalization, forms an interesting chapter in the history of critical nomenclature.

Am 8. Februar 1916 ist Gustav Falke in Grossborstel bei Hamburg gestorben. Die Nachricht von seinem Fortgang ist in Deutschlands zweitem Kriegsjahr fast unhörbar verhallt. Im Deutschen Reich war er wohl hochangesehen, ja verehrt, aber doch nicht in aller Munde wie so mancher andere, der es weniger verdiente. Denn still war sein Erfolg wie sein Leben und Wirken. Er ist nur sehr selten vor die Öffentlichkeit getreten, weil ihm, wie er selbst sagte, alle lauten Worte und Gebärden peinlich waren. Er wollte auch kein Neuerer sein. Daher ist er nach einem kurzen Sturm und Drang abseits auf seinem Felde und still unentwegt bei seinem Dichten geblieben. Und wenn man ihn besuchte, so konnte man bald merken, dass seine gleichmässige Liebenswürdigkeit ein reiches Geistesleben umfriedete. Er wusste nicht nur allgemein über das moderne Deutschland gut Bescheid, er hatte auch besonders seine eigenen sicheren Ansichten über Kunst und Literatur. Sein “Abseitssein” war demnach nichts anderes als die stete stille Selbstzucht des Einsamen, von der Friedrich Lienhard einmal sagt: “Wer es mit seinem Volke und dessen Kultur und Literatur ernst meint, der muss sich vor allen Dingen zu einer gewissen… . Einsamkeit erziehen, anders ist ein Beherrschen und Überschauen nicht möglich!” Oder wie Falke es in seinem Gedicht Der Alte ausdrückt:

Und bin nun über Leid und Zeit
Und meinen Sternen näher
Und schaue in die Ewigkeit,
Ein stillgemuter Späher.

The legendary Life of Judas the Betrayer, based, it is usually said, on the Greek myth of Œdipus, is found in almost every language and country of mediæval Europe. It was written down in Latin as early as the twelfth century. By the end of the thirteenth century it was turned into the vernacular in lands as far apart as Wales, Catalonia, and Bohemia. At the close of the Middle Ages it had become the possession of the folk, and since that period—to some extent even during the fifteenth century—it has spread northward and eastward into Scandinavia, Finland, Russia, and Bulgaria. It was related in Greek, probably in the Middle Ages, although the manuscripts are of a much later date. It was still told orally in Galicia at the end of the last century. As a regular part of the ecclesiastical literature of the West it received canonization, so to say, late in the thirteenth century, in the great legendary of Jacopo da Voragine; but, on the other hand, it is a remarkable fact that in the Middle Ages, so far as I have been able to learn, none of the reputable church writers (with the exception of Jacopo) recognized or even mentioned it. And furthermore, mediaeval sculptors and carvers of wood and ivory, who gave themselves with so much zeal to the plastic representation of legendary matter, completely eschewed or overlooked the ‘early life’ of Judas. Not indeed that either the church writers or artists sought to avoid contact with such a wicked character; on the contrary, they devoted considerable space to him, rejecting only his apocryphal career. However this omission may be explained, the fact must be recognized as of some interest.