I am not sure that it suits _The Princess of Hanover_ quite so well--which is curious, considering that we have, in the royal theme of this drama, a subject which might be supposed to require an ornate style. But in treating the tragic love-story of Sophia of Zell the poet was bound to reproduce something of the atmosphere of the Hanoverian Court, with its intrigues and indecencies and absurd conventionality. And at such points poetry lends too large a dignity. In those scenes, however, where as in "Wild Justice," the author comes to deal with naked passion and with turbulent thought that is driving some person of the drama to disaster, the instrument is admirably fitted to its purpose. Thus, in the second half of the play, when the unfortunate Princess at last yields to her lover, Königsmarck, and plots with him to escape from her sottish husband, there are moments when it seems that no other medium would serve. There is, for example, the crucial scene in the second act when the endurance of the Princess finally gives way. The action turns here directly towards its tragic culmination; for the Princess, who had hitherto saved her honour at the cost of her love, suddenly breaks down at an insult from the old Electress. The revulsion of feeling as she flings restraint away carries her to an ecstatic sense of liberty. As the Electress goes out and she is left alone with her lady-in-waiting, she laughs bitterly and declares that she is now free for ever from the House of Hanover. LEONORA. Weeping, dear lady, Will balm our misery better than laughter. PRINCESS. Misery? I am mad with all the joy Of all my years, my youth-consuming years' Hoarded, unspent delight. Say, Leonora, Where are my wings? Do they not shoot up radiant, A splendour of snowy vans, swimming the air Just ere the rush of rapture? One might quote a dozen such passages, in which a rush of emotion seems to overflow most naturally into poetical extravagance. There is the rhapsody of the Electress--significantly, upon the theme of Queen Elizabeth. There are the love-scenes, passionate or tender, between Königsmarck and the Princess; and the fierce moods--of sheer avidity or hatred or remorse--of the courtesan who contrives their downfall. But the only other illustration which need be given is taken from the last scene of the play; and has a further importance which must be noted. I mean the tragic irony which underlies it, and, running throughout the scene, closes the play on a note of appalling mockery.