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man before her is not the creature of her dreams, but a very commonplace, selfish person. In the excitement of this new discovery, her own conscious- ness of having done something the world at least would think wrong, disappears. She has touched ground, and has begun to hope. She has found out what manner of man she had been living with, and she has in the discovery realised a latent spark of independent womanhood in lierself. The selfishness of Helmer, which has been dis- closed in various previous liints, comes fully out. He fails to realise that the crime has been committed solely for him, and sees alone the consequences to himself of its discovery. He looks upon his wife as a serpent whom he has been unconsciously cherish- ing. The scene between them is full of power. It is so epigrammatic, so telling. There is not an un- necessary word. The blatant selfishness is not over- done, nor is the prompt revulsion of feeling, when Helmer finds that the danger is over, and that he is safe, for awkward consequences are avoided by the holder of the forged security foregoing his claim. Helmer jTorgives his wife ; but the consequences of her discovery now appear. She has realised that she has been living in a doll's house, that she has grown up, not as an indejiendent person, but as the shadow of another, — first of her father, and then of her husband. She realises that her nature, morally and intellectually, has been crippled, that she has not grown as she ought to have grown, that there are many strange anomalies that she must examine and understand, as, for example, how in saving a husband's life a woman may commit a crime ; how in saving a dying father trouble a woman should do a shameful deed ; how she could live for years with a man and not understand him ; how, in short, she could grow up without thinking and knowing as an independent organism ought. She feels that she can no longer be a doll in Helmer's house, she must lead a life of her own. She must leave him. Helmer's sensuous passion comes to plead against this ; but it is unavailing, and Nora goes, leaving her children and Helmer to lead their own lives. She herself embarks upon a life which is hence- forward to be her own. The charm of Nora is to be felt rather than expressed. Part of Ibsen's peculiar power is the facility with which, working in simple materials, he creates a pervasive atmosphere. One feels as if a window were opened into everyday affairs, and as if a fresh breeze were blown in upon them. A thousand questions suggest themselves from studying Nora. Does the education of girls fit them to become ' perfect mothers ' . Are they so well developed themselves that they may be trusted with the development of generations yet to be ? In this, as in some other lines, Ibsen is in full accord with ^Vhitman, who pleads in his SpecimeH Days for ' a new-founded literature, a literature underlying life, religious, consistent with science, handling the elements and forces with competent power, teaching and training men, and — perhaps the most precious of its results — achieving the entire redemption of woman out of these incredible holds and webs of silliness, millinery, and every kind of dyspeptic depletion, and thus ensuring a strong and sweet Female Race — a race of Perfect Mothers.' This passage might be entirely applied to the Ibsen dramas ; for they fulfil the conditions of such a literature precisely. Ibsen nowhere, as yet, gives us with any completeness what he conceives to be the jjositive side. Nora is not a ' perfect mother.' She is the product of evil conditions, and we are left to speculate on the possibility of her emancipation from them. But the conditions which resulted in her growth are not foreign to us ; and what Ibsen has done has been to set them in a clear, strong light for our understanding. Jasies Mavor, REVIEWS AND NOTES. Chaucer. [The Canterbury Poeis.) Selected and edited by Frederick Noel Paton. London: Walter Scott, iSSS. If the publication in the dainty volumes of the Canterbury Series, of examples from English and other classics, should induce, as it is said to be doing, the rank and file of the reading public to explore the fields of English literature in true scholar's fashion for them- selves, the objections that are made against mere extracts are answered by events. When we remember, however, into whose hands these volumes come, and realise that for many of these they must comprise the sum-total of their knowledge of the author in. question, a serious responsibility is seen to rest upon the editor of the examples and the writer of the Introduction. He acts as a kind of mediator between the scholar and the ingenuous public. However heavy the temptation to hit oft" his subject in a few phrases, it must be resisted, and as much information and solid criticism given as may be. The editors of the Canterbuiy Series have almost invariably suc- ceeded in fulfilling this condition ; and although we are disinclined to criticise sharply an introduction necessarily hedged about by limitations of space, it must be pointed out that that on Chaucer is in many ways unsatisfactory. The strain of it is extremely factual, but the facts are, for the most part, trivial. No one unacquainted with the position of Chaucer, as the father of English poetry, would realise it from perusing the Introduction— not that there is any attempt to dethrone Chaucer, but simply that the writer does not seem to realise the proportions of his subject. When he does generalise, he discusses useless questions. *It is impossible,' he says, 'to insist too strongly on the fact that Chaucer was by instinct and upbringing a gentleman.' One maybe permitted to