Earlier than these poems was Landor's "Count Julian" (1812), which, like them, presents qualities suited for the closet and not for the stage. As in some of the "Imaginary Conversations," Landor takes it for granted that his audience understands the story and the motives of the actors as well as he himself. The reader gradually disentangles the situations and is stirred by the splendid poetry; but no audience could make out what it was all about. His other poetical tragedies, written a quarter of a century later, show no improvement of these defects, nor do they present dramatic themes as interesting or as powerfully conceived as those in "Count Julian." "Otho the Great," the tragedy which Keats hoped would lift him out of the mire,[49] was devised for Kean, and apparently accepted for Drury Lane. Charles Brown furnished him "description of each scene entire, with the characters to be brought forward, the events, and everything connected with it"; and Keats merely wrote the verse up to the fifth act, when he took the entire management into his own hands. The result of this peculiar collaboration was what might have been expected. The plot and characterization follow old types; and the poetry, though not lacking in fine passages, is inferior to nearly everything else that Keats wrote in his _annus mirabilis_, 1819. Scott's dramas are somewhat out of place when grouped with these other closet tragedies, for they are varied in character, representing a number of the proclivities that we have noticed in the romantic drama.[50] "The House of Aspen," written in prose at about the time of "Goetz," was intended for the stage and considered by Kemble for representation. Based on a German tale and showing the influence of "Goetz," it offers no important deviations from the terroristic drama. "The Doom of Devorgoil," designed for Terry at the Adelphi, is a melodrama with many songs and a mixture of mimic goblins with supernatural machinery that was found to be so objectionable as to prevent its performance. It is interesting as one of the very few cases in which a man of literary reputation undertook to meet the requirements of the illegitimate drama. None of the other plays, which are in blank verse, was intended for the stage. "Macduff's Cross" is a mere sketch in one act; "Halidon Hill" a two-act dramatization of border warfare; "Auchindrane," in three acts, is a more fully developed tragedy. "Halidon Hill" has a clearness and directness of characterization and a vigor of movement which suggest that had the auspices been more favorable, the historical drama might have had another great exponent. "Auchindrane," though retaining a little of the Radcliffian mystery and mystification which Scott never quite outgrew, also tells its domestic story with a directness and verisimilitude not usual among the romanticists. German translation, terroristic tragedy, spectral melodrama, dramatic sketches for