hem, appear only as farcical interludes, which,
with our love of the logical and harmonious, must strike us as
intolerable.

But Shakespeare is most marvelous when he adapts and recasts plays
already in existence. We can institute a comparison in the case of _King
John_ and _Lear_; for the older dramas are still extant. But in these
instances, likewise, he is again rather a poet than a dramatist.

But let us, in conclusion, proceed to the solution of the riddle. The
imperfection of the English stage has been represented to us by
well-informed men. There is not a trace of those requirements of realism
to which we have gradually become used through improvements in
machinery, the art of perspective, the wardrobe, and from which it would
be difficult to lead us back into the infancy of those beginnings, to
the days of a stage upon which little was seen, where everything was
only _indicated_, where the public was satisfied to assume the chamber
of the king lying behind a green curtain, the trumpeter who sounded the
trumpet always at a certain spot, and many like things. Who at present
would permit such assumptions? Under those conditions Shakespeare's
plays were highly interesting tales, only they were recited by a number
of persons, who, in order to make somewhat more of an impression, were
characteristically masked as the occasion demanded, moved about, came
and went, but left it to the spectator's imagination to fancy at will
paradise and palaces on the empty stage.

How, indeed, did Schroeder achieve the great credit of putting
Shakespeare's plays upon the German stage but by epitomizing the
epitomizer? Schroeder confined himself entirely to what was effective; he
discarded everything else, indeed, even much that was essential, when it
seemed to him that the effect upon his nation, upon his time, would be
impaired. Thus it is true, for example, that by omitting the first scene
of _King Lear_ he changed the character of the piece; but he was right,
after all, for in that scene Lear appears so ridiculous that one can not
wholly blame his daughters. The old man awakens our pity, but we have no
sympathy for him, and it is sympathy that Schroeder wished to arouse as
well as abhorrence of the two daughters, who, though unnatural, are not
absolutely reprehensible.

In the old play which is Shakespeare's source, this scene is productive,
in the course of the play, of the most pleasing effects. Lear flees to
France; daughter