a ministerial portfolio. He took office a second time in 1872, and later filled the post of Minister of Finance, which he resigned on the proclamation of the Republic. Retiring from public life, he went to Paris; and while there wrote, being then a little past forty, his first dramatic work, The Check-Book,' a domestic drama in one act, which was represented anonymously in Madrid two years later, when the author for the third time held a ministerial portfolio.

'The Check-Book' was followed in rapid succession by a series of productions whose titles, 'La Esposa del Vengador' (The Avenger's Bride), La Ultima Noche' (The Last Night), 'En el Puño de la Espada' (In the Hilt of the Sword), Como Empieza y Como Acaba' (How it Begins and How it Ends), sufficiently indicate their character. They are of unequal merit, but all show dramatic power of a high order. But on the representation in 1877 of 'Locura o Santidad?' (Madman or Saint?), the fame of the statesman and the scientist was completely and finally eclipsed by that of the dramatist, in whom the press and public of Madrid unanimously recognized a new and vital force in the Spanish drama. In this tragedy the keynote of Echegaray's philosophy is clearly struck. Moral perfection, unfaltering obedience to the right, is the end and aim of man; and the catastrophe is brought about by the inability of the hero to make those nearest to him accept this ideal of life. "Then virtue is but a lie," he cries, when the conviction of his moral isolation is forced upon him; "and you, all of you whom I have most loved in this world, perceiving what I regarded as divinity in you, are only miserable egoists, incapable of sacrifice, a prey to greed and the mere playthings of passion! Then you are all of you but clay; you resolve yourselves to dust and let the wind of the tempest carry you off! . . . Beings shaped without conscience or free-will are simply atoms that meet to-day and separate to-morrow. Such is matterthen let it go!"

But the punishment of sin, in Echegaray's moral code, is visited upon the innocent equally with the guilty; and the guilty are never allowed to escape the retributive consequences of their wrong-doing. The pessimistic coloring of the picture would be at times unendurably oppressive, were it not relieved and lightened by the moral dignity of the hero. Echegaray's pessimism is, so to say, altruistic, never egoistic; and the compensating sense of righteousness vindicated rarely fails to explain, if not to justify, his darkest scenes.

Judged by the canons of art, Echegaray's dramatic productions will be found to have many imperfections. But their defects are the defects of genius, not of mediocrity, and spring generally from an excess of imagination, not from poverty of invention or faulty insight. The plot is often overweighted with an accumulation of incidents,

and the means employed to bring about the desired end are often lacking in verisimilitude. Synthetic rather than analytic in his methods, and a master in producing contrasts, Echegaray captivates the imagination by arts which the cooler judgment not seldom condemns. His characters too are not always inhabitants of the real world, and not infrequently act contrary to the laws which govern it. The secondary characters are too often carelessly drawn, sometimes being mere shadowy outlines, while an altogether disproportionate part of the development of the plot is intrusted to them.

On the other hand, in the world of the passions Echegaray treads with secure step. Its labyrinthine windings, its depths and its heights, are all familiar to him. Here every accent uttered is the accent of truth; every act is prompted by unerring instinct. Nothing is false; nothing is trivial; nothing is strained. The elemental forces of nature seem to be at work, and the catastrophe results as inevitably from their action as if decreed by fate.

The genius of Echegaray, which in its irregular grandeur and its ethical tendency has been not inaptly likened by a Spanish critic to that of Victor Hugo, rarely descends from the tragic heights on which it achieved its first and its greatest triumphs; but that its range has been limited by choice, not nature, is abundantly proved in the best of his lighter productions, 'Un Critico Incipiente (An Embryo Critic). Of his achievement in tragedy the culminating point was. reached-after a second series of noteworthy productions, among them 'Lo Que no Puede Decirse' (What Cannot be Told), 'Mar Sin Orillas' (A Shoreless Sea), and 'En el Seno de la Muerte' (In the Bosom of Death) - in El Gran Galeoto' (The Great Galeoto), represented in 1881 before an audience which hailed its author as a "prodigy of genius," a second Shakespeare. Other notable works followed, 'Conflicto entre Dos Deberes' (Conflict between Two Duties), 'Vida Alegre y Muerte Triste' (A Merry Life and a Sad Death), 'Lo Sublime en lo Vulgar' (The Sublime in the Commonplace); but 'El Gran Galeoto' has remained thus far its author's supreme dramatic achievement. In its title is personified the evil speaking which not always with evil intent, sometimes even with the best motives, slays, with a venom surer than that of the adder's tongue, the reputation which it attacks; turning innocence itself by its contaminating power into guilt.

Ines-András en? Hidade of me happiness world ever watt me qus-1 28 de of rem.re

Lorence Fassie -^0% remorse"* Shet If happiness could ever met ter agent What new fatality fats in the air and hangs threateningly above my bead? kem.re. I are surprised another word in paning! I traverse rooms and halls, and I from one place to another, urged by intolerable anguish, and I hear words that I do not understand, and I meet glances that I do not understand, and tears greet me here and smiles there, and no one opposes me, and every one arcids me cr watches me. [Aloud.] What is this? What is this?

Inez [hurrying to him and throwing herself into his arms]—

Father!

Lorenzo-Inez! How pale you are! Why are your lips drawn as if with pain? Why do you feign smiles that end in sighs!How lovely in her sorrow! And I am to blame for all!

Inez-No, father.

Lorenzo-How cruel I am! Ah! you think it, although you do not say it.

Edward-Inez is an angel. Rebellious thoughts can find no place in her heart; but who that sees her can fail to think it and to say it?

Lorenzo-No one; you are right.

--

Edward [with energy]—If I am right, then you are wrong. Lorenzo I am right also. There is something more pallid than the pallid brow of a lovesick maiden; there is something sadder than the sad tears that fall from her beautiful eyes; something more bitter than the smile that contracts her lips; something more tragic than the death of her beloved.

Edward [with scornful vehemence]- And what is that pallor, what are those tears, and what the tragedies you speak of?

Lorenzo-Insensate! [Seizing him by the arm.] The pallor of crime, the tears of remorse, the consciousness of our own vile

ness.

Edward- And it would be vile, and criminal, and a source of remorse, to make Inez happy?

Lorenzo [despairingly] — It ought not to be so- but it would! [Pause.] And this it is that tortures me. This is the thought that is driving me mad!

Inez - No, father, do not say that! Follow the path you have marked out for yourself, without thought of me. What does it

matter whether I live or die?

Lorenzo Inez!

Inez - But do not vacillate - and above all, let no one see that you vacillate; let your speech be clear and convincing as it is now; let not anger blind you. Be calm, be calm, father; I implore it of you in the name of God.

Lorenzo-What do you mean by those words? I do not understand you.

Inez - Do I rightly know myself what I mean? There I am going. I do not wish to pain you.

Edward [to Lorenzo] - Ah, if you would but listen to your heart; if you would but silence the cavilings of your conscience. Inez [to Edward]- Leave him in peace come with me; do not anger him, or you will make him hate you.

Lorenzo Poor girl! She too struggles, but she too will conquer! [With an outburst of pride.] She will show that she is indeed my daughter!

[Inez and Edward go up the stage; passing the study door, Inez sees the keepers and gives a start of horror.]

Ines-What sinister vision affrights my gaze!- No, father, do

not enter there.

FROM MADMAN OR SAINT?'

[Don Lorenzo, a man of wealth and position living in Madrid, has discov. ered that he is the son, not as he and all the world had supposed, of the lady whose wealth and name he has inherited, but of his nurse Juana, who dies after she has revealed to him the secret of his birth. In consequence he resolves publicly to renounce his name and his possessions, although by doing so he will prevent the marriage of his daughter Inez to Edward, the son of the Duchess of Almonte. The mother will consent to Don Lorenzo's renunciation of his possessions but not of his name, as this would throw a stigma on Inez's origin. He refuses to listen either to the reasoning or to the entreaties of his wife, the duchess, Edward, and Dr. Tomás. Finally they are persuaded that he is mad, and Dr. Tomás calls in a specialist to examine him. The specialist, with two keepers, arrives at the house at the same time with the notary, whom Don Lorenzo has sent for to make before him a formal act of renunciation of his name and possessions.]

Don Lorenzo enters and stands listening to Inez

ON LORENZO [aside]—“Die,” she said!

DON

Edward-You to die! No, Inez, not that; do not say

that.

Ines-And why not? If I do not die of grief — if happiness could ever visit me again- I should die of remorse.

Lorenzo [aside] - "Of remorse!" She! "If happiness could ever visit her again!" What new fatality floats in the air and hangs threateningly above my head? Remorse! I have surprised another word in passing! I traverse rooms and halls, and I go from one place to another, urged by intolerable anguish, and I hear words that I do not understand, and I meet glances that I do not understand, and tears greet me here and smiles there, and no one opposes me, and every one avoids me or watches me. [Aloud.] What is this? What is this?

Inez [hurrying to him and throwing herself into his arms]Father!

Lorenzo-Inez! How pale you are! Why are your lips drawn as if with pain? Why do you feign smiles that end in sighs!How lovely in her sorrow! And I am to blame for all!

place in her heart; but who that sees her can fail to think it and to say it?