weapon of defence for us, for the German is no more impervious to ridicule than other people; and it was quite pitiful at times to see a German soldier trying to carry out an order without being laughed at. His usual method was to explain the order to one of the prisoners and get him to announce it in his own words; this, in fact, was practically the only way to get things done. It was this lack of humour, I believe, that caused the wonderful Hymn of Hate' to be sung so much. The German is quite incapable of taking things lightly or naturally. During the first two years of war, the National Anthem was sung continuously from all the troop-trains that passed the Camp; and they despised us because we were able to content ourselves with such an obviously foolish song as 'Tipperary.'

From the summer of 1916 till the end, a sort of heavy depression seemed to settle down on the Germans. They looked at the map of Europe and saw their armies everywhere victorious; and yet the war showed no signs of ending. Our spirits, on the other hand, were as buoyant as ever, and we were quite confident of a complete and final victory. It was a problem too great for the German mind, and one felt almost sorry for them. They had been schooled in a certain groove of thought that taught them that military victories meant the triumph of Germany; they had the victories, but, instead of triumph, there loomed before them only famine and despair. It was at this time that the general opinion turned from the idea of peace with annexations and indemnities to peace by compromise. When they talked to us of such a peace they naturally found no sympathy. This, too, seemed to puzzle them, because it could only mean that we seriously believed in the total defeat of Germany-a thing impossible and incredible.

This state of depression, deepening into despondency, and relieved only by the ever fainter hope of a Verständigungsfrieden,' continued till the outbreak of the Revolution. During the March offensive there seemed to be a faint flicker of hope that perhaps even now Germany might be victorious, but, when that failed, they realised that all was up with them. When the Revolution broke out, they turned with amazing ease from their rôle of bully to the most abject form of cringing. The servility

which they displayed after the signing of the Armistice was even more despicable than their bullying during the four years of our imprisonment. The Commandant of Berlin came into the Camp and, after making a speech apologising for all the brutalities of the past four years, tried to raise a cheer for the German people; but on this occasion—and it was almost the only one-the German addressing us was not cheered. The prisoners simply grinned and held their peace. Each of us was sent home armed with a pamphlet from the Ruhleben Soldiers' Council, beseeching us to tell the people of England what really splendid people the Germans were, asking us to see that food was sent to them, and speaking of us in a most laudatory way. The thing that tickled us most was that they praised us because our spirits had never been broken; and yet the members of the Ruhleben Soldiers' Council were the very men who had done their worst to break them. That pamphlet was the crowning humour of our internment.

ERIC FARMER.

Art. 9. THE PLAYS OF THE BROTHERS ÁLVAREZ QUINTERO.

1. Comedias Escogidas de Serafín y Joaquín Álvarez Quintero. Five vols. Madrid: Biblioteca Renacimiento, 1910 and 1911.

2. El Último Capitulo, Paso de Comedia. Madrid: Sociedad de Autores Españoles, 1910.

3. Herida de Muerte, Paso de Comedia; Puebla de las Mujeres, Comedia en Dos Actos; El Hombre que hace reir, Monologo. Madrid: Velasco, 1910-12.

4. Mundo, Mundillo . . . Comedia en Tres Actos; Malvaloca, Drama en Tres Actos; Sin Palabras, Comedia en Un Acto. Biblioteca Renacimiento, 1912-13.

And other Works by the same Authors.

'OUR country is just now in the midst of a Renaissance, which is most strikingly manifested in the department of the Arts.' Thus spoke the well-known Spanish authoress, Doña Blanca de los Rios, in a speech delivered at the inauguration of a statue of Menéndez y Pelayo at the National Library at Madrid in the summer of 1917; and I scarcely think that any one who has followed recent developments in Spain will be inclined to dispute her statement. And, if this be so, what more natural than that this renewal of youth and vigour in the arts should display itself conspicuously in drama-in the field, that is, in which the Spanish genius has of old time found its favourite and most complete expression? It is true that the Spanish theatre was never at any time quite so slavishly under French influence as was our own during some of the later decades of last century; and that for at least a hundred years back it has never lacked, not merely able playwrights, but characteristically Spanish dramatists who were men of genius. It were perhaps as profitable to demand popularity in this country for a painting of Murillo's vaporoso period as for a tragedy of Zorrilla's. But that is not Zorrilla's affair. He knew his own countrymen and could captivate them—at times with claptrap, and at times with inspired verse and lofty re-incarnation of their country's golden past. Were there no moments, I might ask, when our own so much greater dramaturge was equally indulgent? With more

of culture and less violent inequality than Tenorio,' Echegaray has not fared much better among ourselves; for the audience which could claim to enjoy the radically un-English Dame aux Camélias' has not clamoured for more repetitions of El Gran Galeoto.' Was it that star names were wanting from the Echegaray playbill, or that our great and just respect for French art is an exclusive sentiment? It may be that the day of the lately-deceased dramatic poet upon the English boards is yet to come. Meantime, what of his successors?

To pass from the storm and passion of Galeoto' to the serene domesticity of the Álvarez Quintero theatre is like passing from tempestuous seas into a land-locked bay, where winds and waves may ruffle a dead surface, or excite to an exhilarating opposition, but possess no power to ravage or to wreck. Indeed, in the latest catalogue of the authors' works, a list of over seventy pieces contains but two 'dramas,' 'La Pena' and 'Malvaloca,' and not a single tragedy, the remainder being made up of comedies, zarzuelas, sainetes, and so forth. It is with 'El Genio Alegre,' then, that we shall have to do throughout these pages-a spirit of liveliness and contentment, which passes at times into pensiveness and pathos, and at times into a subdued passion, as in La Zagala' ('The Country Girl'), 'El Amor que pasa,' 'Nena Teruel,' but scarcely beyond these points; and a spirit of temperate liveliness, too, which, if it now and then enters the region of broad farce, as in 'El Ojito Derecho,' never for a moment loses sight of its true object of painting manners and illustrating character. And this last-named characteristic it is which gives, as I believe, to all that the Quintero brothers have written its sterling value as art. They are never anxious, as so many playwrights are, to raise a laugh for the laugh's sake; never visibly solicitous, as Hugo and Sardou used to be, to thrill, enthral, electrify, their audience. On the contrary, their one preoccupation is to get their characters exhibited and let them work out their destinies for themselves.

In this connexion, let us begin with a word or two as to the form of the Quintero drama, and its relation to the dramatic movement in other European countries. It will be remembered, then, that, following upon the school of Augier, Sardou, Dumas fils, there arose in

France a school of dramatists-of which Henri Lavedan may be chosen as representative--who aimed at discarding, or as far as possible eliminating from their plays, what was obviously artificial or belonging to theatrical convention or device. Scenic exaggeration, præternaturally witty dialogue, the coup de théâtre, and the like it was felt that to such things as these too much had been sacrificed, and that they were fast losing their hold upon that very public which, as was supposed, could not do without them. There had been a movement against these things as long ago as when L'Ami Fritz' of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian was performed at the Comédie Française, with Coquelin in the name-part. But it was not the main movement of the day, and it did not suffice to kill '-which, after all, means little more than to put out of fashion-the things which it discountenanced. Perhaps it was Hugo, that great master of cliché, who, just as by his romantic excesses he had paved the way for Zola, struck a harder blow at stage conventionality than any other writer. For it is the men who do a doubtful thing conspicuously well that, in the long run, reveal its weakness.

Some quarter of a century ago, then, the sails of the dramatic ship (if I may use the figure) were hanging flaccid and unfilled, and the seamen were whistling for a wind, when a light air coming from the north set their craft in motion once more. That light air blew from Bergen, and in less time almost than it takes to write of it, had developed into a stiff breeze, nay, half a gale. I say half a gale advisedly; for, if Ibsen failed to make his view of life acceptable, he at least did much to modify, and, I believe, improve the technique of the theatre. So that, whilst rejecting his morbid psychology, his dramatis persona of neurotics and degenerates, and his preferential treatment of the problems of bankrupt human relationships, it is from him that later dramatists have learnt much of their less complicated methods of procedure, their more fearless devotion to truth, their less dependence upon stage convention and greater reliance upon fact. Among these later dramatists, I include Shaw and Galsworthy and Houghton, no less than Brieux and Donnay, and-though on the face of it nothing could well be less like Ibsen than their comedies