s views, which sway hither and
thither as wrought on by events. Another group approximates to the
passionless Insight of the Ages. The remainder are eclectically
chosen auxiliaries whose signification may be readily discerned.
In point of literary form, the scheme of contrasted Choruses and
other conventions of this external feature was shaped with a single
view to the modern expression of a modern outlook, and in frank
divergence from classical and other dramatic precedent which ruled
the ancient voicings of ancient themes.

It may hardly be necessary to inform readers that in devising this
chronicle-piece no attempt has been made to create that completely
organic structure of action, and closely-webbed development of
character and motive, which are demanded in a drama strictly self-
contained. A panoramic show like the present is a series of historical
"ordinates" [to use a term in geometry]: the subject is familiar to
all; and foreknowledge is assumed to fill in the junctions required
to combine the scenes into an artistic unity. Should the mental
spectator be unwilling or unable to do this, a historical presentment
on an intermittent plan, in which the _dramatis personae_ number some
hundreds, exclusive of crowds and armies, becomes in his individual
case unsuitable.

In this assumption of a completion of the action by those to whom
the drama is addressed, it is interesting, if unnecessary, to name
an exemplar as old as Aeschylus, whose plays are, as Dr. Verrall
reminds us,[2] scenes from stories taken as known, and would be
unintelligible without supplementary scenes of the imagination.

Readers will readily discern, too, that _The Dynasts_ is intended
simply for mental performance, and not for the stage. Some critics
have averred that to declare a drama[3] as being not for the stage is
to make an announcement whose subject and predicate cancel each
other. The question seems to be an unimportant matter of terminology.
Compositions cast in this shape were, without doubt, originally
written for the stage only, and as a consequence their nomenclature
of "Act," "Scene," and the like, was drawn directly from the vehicle
of representation. But in the course of time such a shape would
reveal itself to be an eminently readable one; moreover, by dispensing
with the theatre altogether, a freedom of treatment was attainable
in this form that was denied where the material possibilities of
stagery had to be rigorousl