who talk like that do not torture their enemy to
death; they backbite him."

The third part opens with Sigurd's appearance at court, where he reveals
his origin and asks for his share of the kingdom. The king is not
disinclined to grant his request, but is overruled by his councillors,
who profit by his weakness and rule in his name. They fear this man of
many battles, with the mark of kingship on his brow; and they determine
to murder him. But Sigurd escapes from prison, and, holding the king
responsible for the treachery, kills him. From this time forth he is an
outlaw, hunted over field and fell, and roaming with untold sufferings
through the mountains and wildernesses. There he meets a Finnish maiden
who loves him, reveals his fate to him, and implores him to abandon his
ambition and dwell among her people. These scenes amid the eternal
wastes of snow are perhaps the most striking in the trilogy and most
abounding in exquisite poetic thought. Sigurd hastens hence to his doom
at the battle of Holmengra, where he is defeated, and, with fiendish
atrocity, slowly tortured to death. The rather lyrical monologue
preceding his death, in which he bids farewell to life and calmly
adjusts his gaze to eternity, is very beautiful, but, historically, a
trifle out of tune. Barring these occasional lapses from the key, the
trilogy of "Sigurd Slembe" is a noble work.

A respectful, and in part enthusiastic, reception had been accorded to
Bjoernson's early plays. But his first dramatic triumph he celebrated at
the performance of "Mary Stuart in Scotland." Externally this is the
most effective of his plays. The dialogue is often brilliant, and
bristles with telling points. It is eminently "actable," presenting
striking tableaus and situations. Behind the author we catch a glimpse
of the practical stage-manager who knows how a scene will look on the
boards and how a speech will sound--who can surmise with tolerable
accuracy how they will affect a first-night audience.

"Mary Stuart" is theatrically no less than dramatically conceived.
Theatrically it is far superior to Swinburne's "Chastelard" (not to
speak of his interminable musical verbiage in "Bothwell") but it is
paler, colder, and poetically inferior. The voluptuous warmth and wealth
of color, the exquisite levity, the _debonnaire_ grace of the
Swinburnian drama we seek in vain. Bjoernson is vigorous, but he is not
subtile. Mere feline amorousness, such as Swinburne so inimita