y, which he describes under the characteristic
conditions of each period, with the most conscientious attention to
manners and customs and social environment. The same family thus
appears from generation to generation under the changing conditions of
the different epochs of German history, and the whole forms together
the consecutive _Culturgeschichte_ of the nation.

This whole long series of 'The Ancestors' stands as a monument of
careful research into the most minute factors of German life in their
time of action. Freytag's antiquarianism is not of the dilettante kind
that is content to masquerade modern motives in ancient garb and
setting. He was fully conscious of all the elements of his problem,
and he sought to reproduce the intellectual point of view of his
actors, and to account for their motives of action, as well as to
picture accurately their material environment. It is in his
super-conscientiousness in these directions that the inherent
weakness of the novels of this series lies. They are too palpably
reconstructions with a purpose. Their didacticism is wrapped around
them like a garment; and much of the time, that is all that is visible
upon the surface. As the series advances this fault grows upon them.
They are in reality of very unequal interest. 'Ingo' and 'Ingraban'
are the sprightliest in action, and have been as a consequence the
most widely read of these later works, many of which are, in part at
least, far too serious of purpose to play their part conspicuously
well as novels.

The novels of 'The Ancestors' are a culmination of Freytag's literary
evolution. As a playwright he will no doubt be forgotten except for
'The Journalists'; in which he has, however, left an imperishable play
which German critics have not hesitated to call the best comedy of the
century. The two novels of modern life from his middle period form
together his greatest work, although here, and particularly in 'The
Lost Manuscript,' he has overweighted his material with abstract
discussion, in which his perspective has sometimes all but
disappeared. Subsequently, both the 'Bilder' and 'Die Ahnen' show his
decided predilection for historical studies. The struggle in his own
case was between the scholar and the man of letters, in which the
scholar eventually won possession of the field.

Freytag's other work includes--'Die Technik des Dramas' (The Technique
of the Drama: 1863), a consideration of the principles of dramatic
co