in the tragedy sometimes apparently rated as his master-work by judges whose verdict would on any such question be worthy at least of all considerate respect. No one that I know of has ever been absurd enough to make identity in tone of thought or feeling, in quality of spirit or of style, the ground for a comparison of Hugo with Shakespeare: they are of course as widely different as are their respective countries and their respective times: but never since the death of Shakespeare had there been so perfect and harmonious a fusion of the highest comedy with the deepest tragedy as in the five many-voiced and many-coloured acts of Ruy Blas.
At the age of forty Victor Hugo gave to the stage which for thirteen years had been glorified by his genius the last work he was ever to write for it. There may perhaps be other readers besides myself who take even more delight in Les Burgraves than in some of the preceding plays which had been more regular in action, more plausible in story, less open to the magnificent reproach of being too good for the stage—as the Hamlet which came finally from the recasting hand of Shakespeare was found to be, in the judgment even of Shakespeare's fellows; too rich in lyric beauty, too superb in epic state. The previous year had seen the publication of the marvellously eloquent, copious, and vivid letters which gave to the world the impressions received by its greatest poet in a tour on the Rhine made five years earlier—that is, in the year of Ruy Blas. In this book, as Gautier at once observed, the inspiration of Les Burgraves is evidently and easily traceable. Among numberless masterpieces of description, from which I have barely time to select for mention the view of Bishop Hatto's tower by the appro-
