. NAPOLEON.*

IT was indeed " rainbow-chasing," as Dr. Wickham defined it, when his son Geoffrey crossed the Channel to test his new theory of human relations on Napoleon himself. " I think the secret of living—where life seems so chaotic, flowing, and unstable— ilea in the discovery of an organic soul, first in ourselves, then in ether human creatures, and finally even in the mysterious currents between ourselves and them " ; and this theory he must " bring to bear on the most powerful living antagonist." But if it was folly, it was the folly of the idealist. It had a touch of the sublime in it, and the episode is related by Mr. Trench with an imagination, literary distinction, and dramatic power that make the play a notable addition to the poetic drama—for though written only partly in verse, its place is distinctly in that category. Geoffrey Wickham attains his end, and at the moment when Napoleon is debating whether to strike England or Austria he comes to his parley with the great Emperor. Napoleon listens at first with amusement, then with growing interest, to the plea that he should have a wider vision, should engraft his Empire on a common faith or passion : "Because you have no loves you have no eyes. Your naked energy working lovelessly, Be it balanced like a planet, is not wise.

You have tried all arts of government save one. The impersonal—the art of self-effacement."

Wickham reminds Napoleon of those earlier years when " the Little Corporal " appeared as the saviour of the Republic—the Republic he has now betrayed : " I had remembered— Though I could have cursed myself that cared for you— The half-starved leader of inspired battalions When the red earth rose in furrows after you Sweeping through Italy, that as you came Leapt up as a dog leaps to meet its master— The starry voice that was to free mankind ! What though you proved her plunderer, and a king ? . . .

I had remembered only that France trusts you, Infinitely loves—what a strange patience love is !Infinitely trusts whom she has so rewarded.

You are changed, Napoleon. Asia has at a touch transformed Young Caesar. Now uponthe desert's gate Sits an Egyptian vulture, brooding, brooding, Over old sand. Old desert news he hears Two thousand prisoners sick are shot at die& ; Sackful of rebel heads poured out in Cairo In the public square, to over-awe the people. It was young Perseus, deliverer of France, It was my Captain, did these things."

Napoleon meets ,eloquence with sophistry. True " I betrayed the Republic. Well, I saved the Revolution !

I cooled the hot-heads, but I fired the cold !

France has more need of me than I of her,

And if I fall—and I shall never fall—

It is Europe shall be humbled, and not I ! "

He asks abruptly of the dreamer : _" But now—what would you have me do ? Now, now ?

Up to this.night, you have made great wars. Return, And make peace great : build the new France ; Deepen her liberties ; subtiliz3 her laws, And make her justice tender."

For such a dream Napoleon has only mockery :

" Do the men of France pay me to be their brother ? A sympathetic burgess in their likeness ?

They pay me for my difference from themselves."

He adds contemptuously that Geoffrey's " art of life's to follow fieldpaths." Let him go back to it, and leave Napbleon to " the dangerous high road." Worn out by privation, his dreams broken, inspired by fanatical passion, Geoffrey can at last think only of how to free the world from this " conjurer self-entranced in jugglery," this man drunk with ambition who glories in his " nightmare world "—" a wilderness of individuals, the strongest, I ! " But it is Geoffrey who falls, and the Emperor strides on to mark his first footprint on the Danube, to carry out his boast that " over the dead body of the Holy Roman Empire I shall hold the midnight mass in Vienna."

The play has faults. It is unwieldy in construction, the threads are not always connected, and the writing is at times over • Namteran :a Play. By 'Horben .Treneh..-0110ri ; at the University Press. 110s. Bd.__ net.] elaborated. But these defects cannot outweigh its poetic quality, its power of characterization, and its intense drama. The scenes in Napoleon's room at Boulogne and those in Wickham's boat are particularly noteworthy. It would be interesting to see how it would stand the test of production. Its form would make. it the despair of any but the most enterprising of theatrical p.oducers, yet the drama of it seems to demand interpretation, and should carry it successfully through technical difficulties.