The text of The Concealed Fansyes, which has hitherto remained unprinted, is preserved in the Bodleian library in Rawlinson MS. Poet. 16, which bears the following title: “Poems, songs, and a pastorall, by the Rt honble the Lady Jane Cavendish and Lady Elizabeth Brackley.” Though the play was listed by Halliwell-Phillipps, students of the drama have displayed very little curiosity in regard to it. Indeed, aside from a few communications which appeared many years ago in Notes and Queries, I have not found the slightest discussion of this play.

Dans un article précédent, nous avons déjà signalé quelques influences probables sur le Zadig de Voltaire. Le hasard des lectures nous a permis d'en découvrir d'autres qui paraissent avoir échappé aux recherches des commentateurs et à la sagacité des critiques. Nous les donnons ci-après en suivant l'ordre chronologique des sources.

No student of Moses Mendelssohn can read far into his works without being struck by the frequency and variety of his references to the English. Aside from constant references to Shakespeare, Shaftesbury, Locke, Burke, and the outstanding poets of his own time, the student finds such diverse matters as Amory's Life of John Buncle, Harris's Hermes, Edward Clarke's Letters concerning the State of Spain, Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, the tragedies of Moore, the criticism of Roscommon, the Monthly Review, quotations from English plays, translations from English poems, and imitations of the Spectator articles dealing with the Fear of May. These references begin at the earliest period of Mendelssohn's literary career and continue to the end of his life; they show that he was a lifelong student of every important phase of English literature.

In a series of papers published now a number of years ago I endeavored to define the relation of the fable to kindred forms, proposed a classification based on the collection of Marie de France, traced certain developments in the history of the rimed fable in England, and followed out the concept of the fable as poetry in English criticism.

Even a cursory examination of the two stout volumes of H. H. Houben's Verbotene Literatur von der klassischen Zeit bis zur Gegenwart vividly brings home to the reader the significant rôle that censorship has played in the history of German literature during the past one hundred and fifty years. Here we find represented not only the authors of Young Germany, Heine, Gutzkow, Laube, Wienbarg, Mundt, and modern writers, such as Dehmel, Hauptmann, Schönherr, Sudermann, but even relatively harmless poets like Bettina von Arnim, Grillparzer, Hebbel, Heyse. Despite the fact that Schnitzler is listed in the announcement at the end of the first volume as among those to be treated in the second volume, he is nevertheless conspicuously absent, while such lesser lights as Bahr, Dreyer, Fulda, Hartleben are included. Houben himself has recognized the Austrian poet's title to a place of honor in this literary rogues' gallery. In discussing Maria von Magdala by Heyse, who drew a sharp line between his poetic muse and the sensationalism and unbridled freedom of the modern dramatists, Houben points out that in one respect Heyse has far outdone the younger generation, “durch einen solennen Zensurskandal, der anderthalb Jahre die Öffentlichkeit in Atem hielt und in seiner kulturhistorischen Bedeutung höchstens durch den Kampf um Schnitzlers Reigen übertroffen wurde.”

The almost complete centralization of power in the monarch, which became an accomplished fact in France during the reign of Louis XIV and continued to be the national policy under his successor, had the inevitable result of destroying all semblance of political life in the country. Cut off from participation in their government, the French people gradually lost interest in the affairs of the nation. During this period, until the Seven Years' War, the manifestations of a genuine spirit of patriotism are few. Faguet is essentially right when he states that one of the salient characteristics of the eighteenth century is the progressive diminution of the spirit of patriotism. For want of opportunities to express itself this spirit had become dormant, but it was far from being dead, as later events showed.

The revival of interest in the picturesque past made the decade following 1760 a period of notable importance. The Ossianic poems, from 1760 to 1763, Evans's Specimens, 1764, Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance, 1762, the second edition of Warton's Observations, 1762, the Castle of Otranto, 1764, and Percy's Reliques, 1765, form a rather imposing array as documents of the romantic revival. Anything, therefore, which casts light on this movement during these years may be not without value, and it is to serve this purpose that the group of Percy-Warton letters is here offered to the reader. Some extracts from them were included in footnotes in Dr. Rinaker's study of Thomas Warton, but the correspondence has never been printed entire. The three Percy letters in the Huntington library, which are here added, have not previously appeared in print.

L'histoire littéraire fait son gibier de tout, et il y a déjà longtemps que critiques et commentateurs ont considéré la géographie comme une province de leur domaine, fertile à l'occasion encore qu'éloignée. Lorsque Taine, dans une lettre à Havet datée du 29 Avril 1864, parle, entre autres, de l'influence du sol et du climat sur le génie d'une littérature ou d'un art, il ajoute modestement, ou en guise de justification: “Mon idée traîne par terre depuis Montesquieu. … Je l'ai ramassée, voilà tout.” Il aurait pu remonter plus haut, et invoquer l'abbé Dubos, ou Fontenelle, voire Jean Bodin. Mais est-il rien de plus vain que de rechercher dans le passé le moment précis où telle ou telle idée a pris naissance? L'humanité n'avait pas attendu Bodin pour se douter qu'entre le milieu et l'homme se noue tout un réseau de correspondances subtiles. Les épithètes dont le vieil Homère se sert pour caractériser ses héros et leurs pays d'origine en sont une preuve entre mille. Il arrive un moment où l'idée qui flottait vague et presque inconsciente dans l'esprit des hommes se cristallise, devient une théorie, puis une doctrine. C'est le moment que les historiens notent avec soin comme celui de son action et de sa puissance. C'est, bien plus souvent, l'heure où elle perd de sa justesse: combattue par la critique, elle s'exagère, et l'intelligence qui l'adopte en arrive à des conclusions logiques peut-être, mais trop dédaigneuses de l'infinie variété des choses pour retenir longtemps l'adhésion.

Schnitzler's early dramas from Anatol (1889) to Der Schleier der Beatrice (1899) deal largely with problems of love as seen through the eyes of philandering youth. His dramas after the turn of the century treat problems of married life as these confront middle-aged people. The most important of the latter dramas are: Der einsame Weg (1903), Zwischenspiel (1904), and Das weite Land (1910). The last named play was begun in 1902 and underwent radical transformations before its appearance eight years later. A study of its genesis ought to shed important light upon the final published version.

Among the collected letters of Ritson, the first mention to be found of the volume the fortunes of which we shall follow is under date of March 5, 1794, where Ritson writes to Paton of Edinburgh:

The impression of another little volume, of which I believe I showed you a fragment, entitled The Caledonian Muse, which had engaged my attention for a great many years, and was at last got nearly ready for publication, has been lately destroyed by a fire in the printers house; so that I neither possess, nor can procure, one single complete copy. Sic transit gloria mundi!

In seinem kleinen Aufsatz, “Über Königliche Hoheit” (1910), sagt Thomas Mann:

Der Fürst, den ich eigentlich im Sinne hatte, ist der, von dem Schiller seinen Karl VII. sagen lässt: ‘Drum soll der Sänger mit dem König gehen, sie beide wohnen auf der Menschheit Höhen.’ Die anspielungsreiche Analyse des fürstlichen Daseins als eines formalen, unsachlichen, übersachlichen, mit einem Worte artistischen Daseins und die Erlösung der Hoheit durch die Liebe: Das ist der Inhalt meines Romans, und, voller Sympathie für jede Art ‘Sonderfall,’ predigt er Menschlichkeit.

The fact that Jonson's Volpone is the source of Les Héritiers Rabourdin is known, but the precise relationship of the French play to the English original and to the German adaptation, Herr von Fuchs, has not been examined. A comparative study of these three plays reveals some interesting similarities and contrasts.

The old and long prevalent idea of the importance of Teresa Guiccioli's influence upon Byron was virtually exploded by Miss Mayne in her biography of the poet, but there has never been an adequate or truly sympathetic criticism of this relation. With the earlier biographers intent on defending or attacking Byron's character, there could be no hope of intelligent comment, and while Miss Mayne's treatment of this subject is remarkable for its freedom from prejudice, it is nevertheless too much influenced by her woman's point of view to be really satisfactory. By far the most helpful observations upon Byron's feeling towards the Guiccioli will be found in a set of letters written by him to Alexander Scott during the summer of 1819, and now published for the first time. These letters are of interest, not only in casting light upon the poet's affair with the Countess, but because they describe as none of his other writings do, his typical attitude toward the women he loved.