e of romance writing, but in this also he manifests
the national weakness. In every one of his countless works the most
striking feature is the lack of organization. They were begun and
completed without their author's ever thinking out a plot, or its mode
of treatment.

Kukolnik's "Alf and Adona," in which at least one hundred and fifty
characters are brought upon the stage, has not one whose appearance is
designed to concentrate the interest of the audience. Each comes in to
show himself, and goes out not to be in the way any longer. Everything
is described and explained with equal minuteness, from the pile of
cabbages by the wayside, to the murder of a prince; and instead of a
historical action there is nothing but unconnected details. The same
is the case with his "Eveline and Baillerole," in which Cardinal
Richelieu is represented as a destroyer of the aristocracy, and which
also is made up of countless unconnected scenes, that in part are
certainly done with some neatness. These remarks apply to the works
of Iwan Wanenko and I. Boriczewski, to I. Zchewen's "Sunshine", five
volumes strong; to the compositions of Wolkow, Czerujawski, Ulitinins,
Th. Van Dim, (a pseudonym,) in fact to everything that has yet
appeared.

On the part of the Imperial family, as we have already said,
everything has been done for the Russian stage that could possibly be
done, and is done no where else. The extremest liberality favors the
artists, schools are provided in order to raise them from the domain
of gross buffoonery to that of true art, the most magnificent premiums
are given to the best, actors are made equal in rank to officers of
state, they are held only to twenty-five years' service, reckoning
from their debut,--and finally, they receive for the rest of their
lives a pension equal to their full salaries. High rewards are given
to Russian star-actors, in order if possible to draw talent of every
sort forth from the dry steppes of native art. The Russian actors are
compelled on pain of punishment to go regularly to the German theater,
with a view to their improvement, and in order to make this as
effective as may be, enormous compensations attract the best German
stars to St. Petersburg. And yet all this is useless, and the Russian
theater is not raised above the dignity of a workshop. Only the comic
side of the national character, a burlesque and droll simplicity, is
admirably represented by actors whose skill and the scope o