In “Friedensfest” and “Einsame Menschen” the influence of Ibsen can be traced more distinctly than in any of Hauptmann’s other works. “Friedensfest” recalls in many respects Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” without any servile copying on the part of the younger author—who has presented his characters with a power and originality, a truth and subtlety peculiarly his own. Moreover he has not been so relentless as Ibsen. Although the “Family Catastrophe,” as he calls it, is gloomy enough, in a sense the play ends more hopefully; the doom has not fallen on the younger members of the Scholz family, with whose hereditary qualities the play chiefly deals, and we are permitted to hope, if we choose, that it may never fall. Hauptmann’s genius shows itself here of a softer and less uncompromising mould than Ibsen’s. We feel that in as far as the play has any tendency, it leans rather towards meliorism than pessimism. Like Ibsen’s later works, however, it is more objective in treatment than “Ghosts”—more a “family document” pure and simple, than a “tendency” drama. But it is not my business here to tell the story of the play or to attempt any interpretation. I have merely helped to render it into English. In translating, we have tried to give the broken, elliptical language in which Hauptmann’s characters express themselves, as faithfully as possible—to keep the half-finished sentences and interjaculatory outbursts without losing anything of the meaning of the play. Here and there, the rude colloquialism of the speakers, especially of Mrs Scholz and Friebe, have rendered our task almost impossible. We can only plead that we have done our best. JANET ACHURCH. THE COMING OF PEACE PERSONS DR FRITZ SCHOLZ, aged 68. MINNA SCHOLZ, _his wife_, aged 46. AUGUSTA, } aged 29. ROBERT, } _their children_, aged 28. WILLIAM, } aged 26. _So far as possible the above should show a family likeness._ MRS BUCHNER, aged 42. IDA, _her daughter_, aged 20. FRIEBE, _servant to the Scholzs_, aged 50. The Play takes place on Christmas Eve 188—, in a lonely country house, near Erkner, in Brandenburg. SCENE. A high, roomy, white-washed Hall—hung with old-fashioned pictures—horns and heads of different animals. A chandelier of stag’s horns hanging from the middle of the roof-tree is filled with fresh candles. At the back, in the middle of the wall, is a porch, which projects into the hall, with a glass door, through which is seen the heavy carved oaken door of the house. On the top of the porch is a stuffed moorcock: right and left above the level of the porch are windows—frozen and partly dim with snow. To the left is an open arch, built like a gateway—which leads by the staircase to the upper stories. Two low doors in the same wall lead—one to the cellar, the other to the kitchen.