atrical, and not, as in his
later dramas, also philosophically symbolic. Wagner's aim in Siegfried's
Death was equally theatrical, and not, as it afterwards became in the
dramas of which Siegfried's antagonist Wotan is the hero, likewise
philosophically symbolic. The two master-dramatists therefore produce
practically the same version of Brynhild. Thus on the second evening of
The Ring we see Brynhild in the character of the truth-divining instinct
in religion, cast into an enchanted slumber and surrounded by the fires
of hell lest she should overthrow a Church corrupted by its alliance
with government. On the fourth evening, we find her swearing a malicious
lie to gratify her personal jealousy, and then plotting a treacherous
murder with a fool and a scoundrel. In the original draft of Siegfried's
Death, the incongruity is carried still further by the conclusion, at
which the dead Brynhild, restored to her godhead by Wotan, and again a
Valkyrie, carries the slain Siegfried to Valhalla to live there happily
ever after with its pious heroes.

As to Siegfried himself, he talks of women, both in this second act and
the next, with the air of a man of the world. "Their tantrums," he
says, "are soon over." Such speeches do not belong to the novice of the
preceding drama, but to the original Siegfried's Tod, with its leading
characters sketched on the ordinary romantic lines from the old Sagas,
and not yet reminted as the original creations of Wagner's genius whose
acquaintance we have made on the two previous evenings. The very
title "Siegfried's Death" survives as a strong theatrical point in the
following passage. Gunther, in his rage and despair, cries, "Save me,
Hagen: save my honor and thy mother's who bore us both." "Nothing can
save thee," replies Hagen: "neither brain nor hand, but SIEGFRIED'S
DEATH." And Gunther echoes with a shudder, "SIEGFRIED'S DEATH!"

A WAGNERIAN NEWSPAPER CONTROVERSY

The devotion which Wagner's work inspires has been illustrated lately
in a public correspondence on this very point. A writer in The Daily
Telegraph having commented on the falsehood uttered by Brynhild in
accusing Siegfried of having betrayed Gunther with her, a correspondence
in defence of the beloved heroine was opened in The Daily Chronicle. The
imputation of falsehood to Brynhild was strongly resented and combated,
in spite of the unanswerable evidence of the text. It was contended that
Brynhild's statement must be ta