condemnation of the well-made play that in nine cases out of ten—and even in the hands of far more experienced playwrights than the young Bergen “theatre-poet”—it is apt to prove ill-made after all. Far be it from me, however, to speak in pure disparagement of _Lady Inger_. With all its defects, it seems to me manifestly the work of a great poet—the only one of Ibsen’s plays prior to _The Vikings at Helgeland_ of which this can be said. It may be that early impressions mislead me; but I still cannot help seeing in Lady Inger a figure of truly tragic grandeur; in Nils Lykke one of the few really seductive seducers in literature; and in many passages of the dialogue, the touch of a master hand. W. A. ----- Footnote 1: See Introduction to _The Wild Duck_, p. xxiii. Footnote 2: He continued to dabble in painting until he was thirty, or thereabouts. Footnote 3: Preface to the second edition of _Catilina_, 1875. Footnote 4: This is his own statement of the order of events. According to Halvdan Koht (_Samlede Værker_, vol. x. p. i) he arrived in Christiania in March 1850, and _Catilina_ did not appear until April. Footnote 5: The history of Ibsen’s connection with the Bergen Theatre is written at some length in an article by me, entitled “Ibsen’s Apprenticeship,” published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for January 1904. From that article I quote freely in the following pages. Footnote 6: Provost (“Provst”) is an ecclesiastical title, roughly equivalent to Dean. Footnote 7: See article by Dr. Julius Elias in _Die neue Rundschau_, December 1906, p. 1463. Dr. Brahm, in the same magazine (p. 1414), writes as though this were Ibsen’s first meeting with his wife; and a note by Halvdan Koht, in the Norwegian edition of Ibsen’s Letters, seems to bear out this view. But it would appear that what Fru Ibsen told Dr. Elias was that on the date mentioned Ibsen for “the first time visited at her father’s house.” The terms of the anecdote almost compel us to assume that he had previously met her elsewhere. It seems almost inconceivable that Ibsen, of all people, should have made such a speech to a lady on their very first meeting. Footnote 8: Stage Society performances, January 28 and 29, 1906. Lady Inger was played by Miss Edyth Olive, Elina by Miss Alice Crawford, Nils Lykke by Mr. Henry Ainley, Olaf Skaktavl by Mr. Alfred Brydone, and Nils Stenssön by Mr. Harcourt Williams. Footnote 9: These two plays were produced, respectively, in March and October 1854, at the very time when Ibsen must have been planning and composing _Lady Inger_. ----- THE FEAST AT SOLHOUG INTRODUCTION