Two of these posthumous pieces, Brothers’ Quarrels in the House of Habsburg and Libussa, undoubtedly reveal the advancing years of their author, in a good and in a bad sense.  They lack the theatrical self-evidence of the earlier dramas.  But on the other hand, they are rich in the ripest wisdom of their creator, and in significance of characterization as well as in profundity of idea they amply atone for absence of the more superficial qualities.  Kaiser Rudolf II. in Brothers’ Quarrels is one of the most human of the men who in the face of inevitable calamity have pursued a Fabian policy.  Even to personal predilections, like fondness for the dramas of Lope, he is a replica of the mature Grillparzer himself. Libussa presents in Primislaus a somewhat colorless but nevertheless thoroughly masculine representative of practical cooeperation and progress, and in Libussa, the heroine, a typical feminine martyr to duty.

[Illustration:  FRANZ GRILLPARZER In his Sixtieth Year]

The third of the posthumous pieces, however, The Jewess of Toledo, may perhaps be said to mark the climax of Grillparzer’s productive activity.  It is an eminently modern drama of passion in classical dignity of form.  Grillparzer noted the subject as early as 1813.  In 1824 he read Lope de Vega’s play on it, and wrote in trochees two scenes of his own; in 1848-49—­perhaps with Lola Montez and the king of Bavaria in mind—­he worked further on it, and about 1855 brought the work to an end.  The play is properly called The Jewess of Toledo; for Rachel, the Jewess, is at the centre of the action, and is a marvelous creation—­“a mere woman, nothing but her sex”; but the king, though relatively passive, is the most important character.  He is attracted to Rachel by a charm that he has never known in his coldly virtuous English consort, and, after an error forgivable because made comprehensible, is taught the duty of personal sacrifice to morality and to the state.  In doctrine and in inner form this drama is comparable to Hebbel’s Agnes Bernauer; it is a companion piece to A Faithful Servant of his Master, and the sensuality of Rachel contrasts instructively with the spirituality of Hero.  The genuine dramatic collision of antithetical forces produces, furthermore, a new synthesis, the effect of which is to make us wish morality less austere and the sense of obligation stronger than they at first are in two persons good by nature but caused to err by circumstances.  In the series of dramas thus passed in review there is a great variety of setting and incident, and an abundance of dramatic motifs that show Grillparzer to have been one of the most opulent of playwrights.  The range of characters, too, each presented with due regard for milieu, is seen to be considerable, and upon closer examination would be seen to be more considerable still.  The greatest richness is found in the characters of women.  Grillparzer himself lacked