In discussing the Prince of Homburg I could limit myself to a general outline, as it is not possible that any one who reads the play could ever have the least doubt whether the characters are correctly drawn.  We have not such an easy task with Koerner’s Zriny, but rather must take the opposite way.  In order not to overpass the limits of this essay, however, we will pay less attention to the play as a totality, which, indeed, can occupy our attention only if the first investigation prove favorable to the author.

The idea which kindles Zriny’s enthusiasm is unconditional obedience to Emperor and Fatherland.  It must be admitted that it is an idea which may have arisen in many a human breast in the year 1566, and which certainly animated the heroic Zriny.  It is not sufficient, however, for the dramatic poet to give utterance to what fills the soul of his hero, for that falls to the lot of history to perform.  While the historian looks upon every individual as a bomb, whose course and effect he must calculate, but with whose origin he is but slightly concerned, it is the affair of the dramatic poet—­who, if he recognizes his high mission, strives to complete history—­to show how the character whom he has chosen as a subject for treatment has become what he is.  We find this, for example, in Shakespeare, to go back to the Bible of the playwright.  Every passion which he describes we see as roots and tree at one and the same time.  Theodor Koerner simplified the matter, he only shows us the flame; whence it comes he leaves in doubt, and therefore has himself to thank if we are undecided whether his heroes are pursuing will-o’-the-wisps, or—­to use his favorite metaphor—­stars.  I need not call attention to the fact that this way is by far the easier.

The plot of this play is sufficiently well known.  I will therefore turn immediately to a closer examination of the several characters.  Honor to whom honor is due; let Sultan Soliman advance.  I will not pause at the first scene in which he appears, although even there he reveals damnable weaknesses.  After all a Turk may be forgiven for losing his temper because his physician-in-ordinary does not know how long he will live.  In the second scene Koerner has tried to outline the hero who demands Vienna for his funeral torch.  He has not succeeded as well as he might.

  “Karl, Karl!”—­cries Soliman in his beard—­“If only thou
  Thy Europe now would lie here at my feet”

[Illustration:  THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE HUNS AND THE NIBELUNGS From the Painting by Schnorr von Carolsfeld]

Every other hero would have considered that in which Soliman beheld the curse of his life to be the greatest favor fortune could have shown him.  I do not expect much from the hound—­this parable is very well suited to the Turks—­who only fights with little yelping dogs.  How far Mr. Koerner has succeeded in spreading the oriental coloring over his picture is shown very plainly in the fourth scene, where Soliman receives his generals with the words: