rose in
power, and expanded in terrible beauty, accordingly as it was wrought
upon by the pressure of circumstances and the conflict of passions."

The memory of this must have affected the interpretation of Mr.
Skinner, when, as _Lanciotto_, in his revival of the piece at the
Chicago Grand Opera House, August 22, 1901, with Aubrey Boucicault
as _Paolo_, Marcia Van Dresser as _Francesca_, and William Norris as
_Pepe_, he met with such success. "D'Annunzio gives us the soldier and
the brute," he wrote me in 1904. "Boker's hero is an idealist--almost
a dreamer." The fact is, Boker was recalling his memories of _Othello_
and _Richard III_, if not of _Hamlet_, as Skinner suggests. In another
respect did the Barrett performance affect the later revival. The
portrayal of _Pepe_, by Norris, was based on what he called "the James
tradition," Louis James having, as Winter wrote, "a laughter that is
more terrible than malice."

Lawrence Barrett's interest in the American drama was never very
pronounced. He sought Boker's "Francesca da Rimini," as he sought W.D.
Howells' "Yorick's Love" (given at Cleveland, Ohio, October 26, 1878),
because the roles therein suited his temperament. Between him and
Boker, there was some misunderstanding of short duration, about
royalties, but this was bridged over, and Boker's final attempts at
playwriting were made for him. The reader is referred to Vol. 32,
n.s. Vol. XXV, no. 2, June, 1917, of the _Publications of the Modern
Language Association of America_, for statements as to Boker's
"profits" from the stage.

After Otis Skinner's revival of "Francesca da Rimini," it was played
for a while by Frederick Ward and Louis James in association (1893)
and by Frank C. Bangs in 1892.

Hosts of dramas have been written on "Francesca da Rimini," and
every poet has essayed at one time or another to surpass Dante's
incomparable lines. Music scores have glorified this passionate love
story, while marble and canvas have caught the external expression of
it. In its portrayal, actual history has taken on legendary character,
and so "Francesca da Rimini" now ranks as a theme with the history
of Lancelot and Guinevere, of Tristan and Isolde. It has become the
inspiration for Maeterlinck in "Pelleas and Melisande," who has viewed
the Italian passion through a mirage of mysticism.

Into "The Divine Comedy," the account of Francesca and Paolo is
dropped, keen, sensitive and delicate, as though the poet, a fri