or translation, to give
admittance to the dramatic masterpieces of other nations also, and to
Shakespeare in particular, without going far in the search for
theatrical novelty or effect. But a change came over the spirit of
German theatrical management with the endeavours of H. Laube, from about
the middle of the century onwards, at Vienna (and Leipzig), which
avowedly placed the demands of the theatre as such above those of
literary merit or even of national sentiment. In a less combative
spirit, F. Dingelstedt, both at Munich, which under King Maximilian he
had made a kindly nurse of German culture, and, after his efforts there
had come to an untimely end,[314] at Weimar and at Vienna, raised the
theatre to a very high level of artistic achievement. The most memorable
event in the annals of his managements was the production on the Weimar
stage of the series of Shakespeare's _histories_. At a rather later
period, of which the height extended from 1874 to 1890, the company of
actors in the service, and under the personal direction, of Duke George
of Saxe-Meiningen, created a great effect by their performances both in
and outside Germany--not so much by their artistic improvements in
scenery and decoration, as by the extraordinary perfection of their
_ensemble_. But no dramaturgic achievement in the century could compare
in grandeur either of conception or of execution with Richard Wagner's
Bayreuth performances, where, for the first time in the history of the
modern stage, the artistic instinct ruled supreme in all the conditions
of the work and its presentment. Though the _Ring of the Nibelungs_ and
its successors belong to opera rather than drama proper, the importance
of their production (1876) should be overlooked by no student of the
dramatic art. Potent as has been the influence of foreign dramatic
literatures--whether French or Scandinavian--and that of a movement
which has been common to them all, and from which the German was perhaps
the least likely to exclude itself, the most notable feature in the
recent history of the German drama has been its quick response to wholly
new demands, which, though the attempt was made with some persistence,
could no longer be met without an effort to span the widths and sound
the depths of a more spacious and more self-conscious era.[315]

h. _Dutch Drama._

Among other modern European dramas the Dutch is interesting both in its
beginnings, which to all intents and purpose