ime, unlike distance of space, makes objects larger and more vivid; over
the common things of contemporary life there hangs a mist of familiarity
that often makes their meaning obscure. There are also moments when we
feel that but little artistic pleasure is to be gained from the study of
the modern realistic school. Its works are powerful but they are
painful, and after a time we tire of their harshness, their violence and
their crudity. They exaggerate the importance of facts and underrate the
importance of fiction. Such, at any rate, is the mood--and what is
criticism itself but a mood?--produced in us by a perusal of Mr.
Coleridge's Demetrius. It is the story of a young lad of unknown
parentage who is brought up in the household of a Polish noble. He is a
tall, fair-looking youth, by name Alexis, with a pride of bearing and
grace of manner that seem strange in one of such low station. Suddenly
he is recognised by an exiled Russian noble as Demetrius, the son of Ivan
the Terrible who was supposed to have been murdered by the usurper Boris.
His identity is still further established by a strange cross of seven
emeralds that he wears round his neck, and by a Greek inscription in his
book of prayers which discloses the secret of his birth and the story of
his rescue. He himself feels that the blood of kings beats in his veins,
and appeals to the nobles of the Polish Diet to espouse his cause. By
his passionate utterance he makes them acknowledge him as the true Tsar
and invades Russia at the head of a large army. The people throng to him
from every side, and Marfa, the widow of Ivan the Terrible, escapes from
the convent in which she has been immured by Boris and comes to meet her
son. At first she seems not to recognise him, but the music of his voice
and the wonderful eloquence of his pleading win her over, and she
embraces him in presence of the army and admits him to be her child. The
usurper, terrified at the tidings, and deserted by his soldiers, commits
suicide, and Alexis enters Moscow in triumph, and is crowned in the
Kremlin. Yet he is not the true Demetrius, after all. He is deceived
himself and he deceives others. Mr. Coleridge has drawn his character
with delicate subtlety and quick insight, and the scene in which he
discovers that he is no son of Ivan's and has no right to the name he
claims, is exceedingly powerful and dramatic. One point of resemblance
does exist between Alexis and the real D