their titles their respective viewpoints: The Fatal Dowry; The Fair Penitent; Der Graf von Charolais. DER GRAF VON CHAROLAIS, be it observed;—this new redaction is no longer the tale of a “fatal dowry;” no longer is the first part of the dual theme merely introductory and accessory—it is coördinate with the second. Beer-Hofmann has sought to achieve a kind of unity from his double plot by making his fundamental theme not the adulterous intrigue, but the destiny of Charolais, thus converting the play into a Tragedy of Fate, which pursues the hero inexorably through all his life. This strictly classical motif animating the donnee of a Jacobean play reproduced in the twentieth century presents, as might be expected, the aspect of an exotic growth, which is not lessened by the extreme sensuousness of treatment throughout, such as has always been one of the cardinal and distinctive qualities of the Decadent School the world over. But as a contrast in the dramatic technique and verse of Jacobean and modern times, Der Graf von Charolais is extremely interesting. The difference is striking between the severe simplicity of three centuries ago, and the elaborate stagecraft of to-day, its insistence on detail, and studied care in the portraiture of minor characters. Yet minutia do not make tragedy, and while their superficial realism and the congeniality of the contemporary point of view undeniably lend to Beer-Hofmann’s redaction a palatability and a power to interest and appeal which its original does not possess to the modern reader, yet a discriminating critic will turn back to the old play with a feeling that, for all its stiffness and conventions, he breathes there a more vital air. To the enrichment of his theme Beer-Hofmann contributes every ingenious effect possible to symbolism, delicate suggestion, and scenic device; this exterior decoration is gorgeous in its color and seductive warmth, but no amount of such stuff can compensate for the fundamental flaw in the crucial episode of his tragedy. In spite of the care which he has lavished on the scene between his heroine and her seducer, the surrender of the wife—three years married, a mother, and loving both husband and child—remains insufficiently motivated and sheerly inexplicable, and by this vital, inherent defect the play must fall. Moreover, it lacks a hero. Romont can no longer play the main part he did in former versions; he is reduced to a mere shadow. In a tragedy of Fate, which blights a man’s career, phase by phase, with persistent, relentless hand, that man must necessarily be the central figure, and, of right, should be an imposing figure—a protagonist at once gigantic and appealing, who will draw all hearts to him in pity and terror at the helpless, hopeless struggle of over-matched 

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