Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/100

 88 RECENT FOREIGN LITERATURE. to past times, and he writes of Sardou and of Henri Becque, whose play ' La Parisienne ' still remains the best exponent of the three-cornered menage that has ever been written. Capus's con- clusion is the old one that the subjeCt of a play is of the least importance, there are always subjects to hand in abundance, but what is lacking is the artist to treat them. The most interesting essay is perhaps that on ' Tartuffe/ which in Capus's judgment is the play that gives us all we seek at the theatre, all that we have any right to demand c une distradtion d'une qualite superieure; la sensation dire&e de la verite ; la vie en mouvement et en adlion ; un accroissement, si petit, si infiniment petit qu'il soit, de notre connaissance de I'homme.' Very few plays can give that satisfaction, for c c'est un des poles de notre theatre, et chaque fois que celui-ci retombe vers le faux, ce qui lui arrive periodique- ment, lorsqu'il a fait un grand effort, que ce soit le faux tragique, le faux sentiment ou le faux esprit, c'est vers MolieVe et vers Tartuffe qu'il faut regarder pour retrouver notre route.' ' Das Burgtheater Statistischer Ruckblick, 1776- 1913,' by Otto Rub, with an introduction by Hugo Thimig, forms an interesting record of the activities of the great theatre of Vienna. It is instructive to learn that German translations of plays by fifty-nine English dramatists have been played in those years, and that between 1778 and 1912, twenty-seven of the thirty-seven plays of Shakespeare were given in two thousand one hun-