absurdities take its place, and the critics
themselves, if we except Schlegel, never seemed to divine that tragedy
and comedy sprout from one and the same root, and that the former
absolutely cannot unfold in all its greatness if the latter remains
behind it. Confining the conception of comedy to the narrow etymological
meaning of its name, and inferring the intrinsic impossibility of the
poem from the accidental lack of a poet, we have imagined that we could
not have a comedy, when on the contrary we, precisely, should and ought
to have the very best, for reasons which cannot be developed thus in
passing. Our tragedy, on the other hand, wished to take the second step
before the first; it was not satisfied to start out to conquer the world
from our own territory; it preferred to wander about as a homeless
vagabond among all the peoples of the earth; and only when it had fully
persuaded itself that one cannot grow fat off begged bread did it return
in shame to its mother's breast. But, in Germany, in the meantime, the
enthusiasm which can seldom or never be re-awakened had evaporated, and
when _Wallenstein_ and _William Tell_, when _Hermann's Battle_ and the
_Prince of Homburg_ appeared, the fusion of the theatre with life, which
might perhaps have still been possible at the time of _Iphigenia_, was
no longer to be thought of. People had become used to looking upon the
stage as a source of amusement, and, as a rule, whatever sinks to the
level of a pastime is forever degraded. This was the cause of all the
evil; this was the reason why for a long time dogs and monkeys,
prestidigitators and modern athletes, celebrated their triumphs where
art should have proclaimed her most profound oracles, and where a people
should have found refreshment and elevation in quiet self-enjoyment, in
the mild exertion of all their powers, and in the sensation of arousing
their most secret sympathies and antipathies.

Wienbarg believes that a turning point has now been reached. To this
belief we owe his present literary contribution "which consists in
seeking critically to elucidate, in irregularly appearing pamphlets,
modern dramatic literature--especially book-dramas, which are rarely or
not at all seen on the stage. He is guided in his selection each time by
some dramatic-educational purpose for author and public, and continually
bears in mind an ideal centre of taste in the historic-poetic
consciousness of the nation." Such an undertaking