play-goers of Bergen was _St. John's
Night_, 1853, a piece which has not been printed; in 1854 he revived
_The Warrior's Barrow_; in 1855 he made an immense although irregular
advance with _Lady Inger at Oestraat_; in 1856 he produced _The Feast at
Solhoug_; in 1857 a rewritten version of the early _Olaf Liljekrans_.
These are the juvenile works of Ibsen, which are scarcely counted in
the recognized canon of his writings. None of them is completely
representative of his genius, and several are not yet within reach of
the English reader. Yet they have a considerable importance, and must
detain us for a while. They are remarkable as showing the vigor of the
effort by which he attempted to create an independent style for himself,
no less than the great difficulties which he encountered in following
this admirable aim.

_Lady Inger at Oestraat_, written in the winter of 1854 but not published
until 1857, is unique among Ibsen's works as a romantic exercise in
the manner of Scribe. It is the sole example of a theme taken by him
directly from comparatively modern history, and treated purely for its
value as a study of contemporary intrigue. From this point of view it
curiously exemplifies a remark of Hazlitt: "The progress of manners
and knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps
destroy both tragedy and comedy.... At last, there will be nothing left,
good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real life."

When Ibsen undertook to write about Inger Gyldenloeve, he was but little
acquainted with the particulars of her history. He conceived her, as he
found her in the incomplete chronicles he consulted, as a Matriarch,
a wonderful and heroic elderly woman around whom all the hopes of an
embittered patriotism were legitimately centred. Unfortunately, "the
progress of knowledge," as Hazlitt would say, exposed the falsity of
this conception. A closer inspection of the documents, and further
analysis of the condition of Norway in 1528, destroyed the fair
illusion, and showed Ibsen in the light of an indulgent idealist.

Here is what Jaeger [Note: In _En literaert Livsbillede_] has to give us
of the disconcerting results of research:

In real life Lady Inger was not a woman formed upon so grand a plan. She
was the descendant of an old and noble family which had preserved
its dignity, and she consequently was the wealthiest landowner in the
country. This, and this alone, gives her a right t