The first of Gutzkow's plays that it still gives one a reasonable amount of pleasure to see is _Zopf und Schwert_ ("Pigtail and Sword"), written in 1843. It is a play which has kept its place on the German stage, but which never gained a firm footing outside of Germany from the fact of its being a species of national drama. The beat of a Prussian's heart is felt in it. Gutzkow's aim was to represent Frederick William I. and his court in a comedy like those which Scribe was bringing out so successfully about the same time. The historic appreciation is, however, far from being so superficial as in Scribe's comedies. Gutzkow had an eye for the admirable as well as for the comical qualities of the miserly family tyrant, the monarch of Spartan severity. But the very fact of the play being a comedy made a really profound study of the character an impossibility. And it was not Gutzkow's habit, and still less was it Laube's, to investigate into historical characters and situations until they arrived at the historic, as opposed to the traditional truth. Their history was simply the vehicle of a more or less cleverly concocted plot. We have only to open the first volume of Carlyle's _Frederick the Great_ to find such an immensely more powerful and impressive picture of the eccentric Prussian king with his tall grenadiers, that Gutzkow's in comparison shrinks into a mild pleasantry. And we have only to look at a few pages of the Memoirs of Gutzkow's heroine, Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, to see that in the relations between her and her father there was no suggestion of comedy. But, putting aside all thought of historical correctness, we have a very pretty intrigue-play, with a historic colouring which cannot fail to appeal to lovers of Prussia. _Zopf und Schwert_ is a species of light-hearted pendant to Kleist's serious _Prins von Homburg_. Of the other plays written by Gutzkow in the Forties, _Das Urbild des Tartüffe_ ("The Prototype of Tartuffe") has been the most successful, but it is a much over-estimated work. A very charming little work is _Der Königslieutenant_, an unassuming play, written for Goethe's centenary, and treating of him in his youthful days. The long historical novels, _Die Ritter vom Geist_ ("The Knights of the Spirit"), _Der Zauberer von Rom_ ("The Roman Magician"), &c, which Gutzkow wrote during the reaction period after 1848, and which immensely strengthened his hold over the minds of his contemporaries, do not come within the scope of the present work. They were the forerunners of Spielhagen's long series of novels.