d brilliancy of
imagination with delightful touches of pathos and delicate tenderness.
It was assumed that Rostand was endowed to an extraordinary degree both
with theatrical genius and the poetic faculty. _L'Aiglon_ fell short of
this too favourable judgment. It is more a dramatic poem than a real
drama, and the author handles history with the same childish
incompetence and inaccuracy as Hugo did in _Cromwell_, in _Ruy Blas_ and
_Hernani_. The persistent approbation of the public seemed, however, to
indicate a growing taste for poetry, even when unsupported by dramatic
interest--a curious symptom among the least poetical of modern European
races.

To sum up, the French, as regards the present condition of their drama,
were confronted with two alternative movements. Naturalism, furthered by
science and philosophy, was contending against traditions three
centuries old, and seemed unable to crystallize into masterly works;
while romantic drama, founded on vague and exploded theories, had become
embodied in productions of real artistic beauty, which have been warmly
welcomed by the general playgoer. It should nevertheless be noted that
in _Cyrano_ and _L'Aiglon_ human will, which was the main-spring of
Corneille's tragedy and Hugo's drama, tried to reassert itself, but was
baffled by circumstance, and had to submit to inexorable laws. This
showed that the victorious school would have to reckon with the
doctrines of the defeated party, and suggested that a determinist
theatre might be the ultimate outcome of a compromise. (A. FI.)

(f) _English Drama._

Among the nations of Germanic descent the English alone succeeded,
mainly through the influence of the Renaissance movement, in
transforming the later growths of the medieval drama into the beginnings
of a great and enduring national dramatic literature, second neither in
volume nor in splendour to any other in the records of the world. And,
although in England, as elsewhere, the preparatory process had been
continuing for some generations, its consummation coincided with one of
the greatest epochs of English national history, and indeed forms one of
the chief glories of that epoch itself; so that, in thinking or speaking
of the Elizabethan age and the Elizabethan drama, the one can scarcely
be thought or spoken of without the other.

Beginnings of the regular drama.

It is of course conceivable that the regular drama, or drama proper,
might in England have been