Historic truth is said to be preserved in it, as far as
the material events are concerned--with the usual exception of such
occasional dilatations and compressions of time as are required in
dramatic composition. And notwithstanding the limited imagination and
the too artificial passion which characterise it, _Philip van
Artevelde_ is in very many respects a noble work, as it certainly is
its author's chef-d'oeuvre. It has been pronounced by no mean
authority the superior of every dramatic composition of modern times,
including the _Sardanapalus_ of Lord Byron, the _Remorse_ of
Coleridge, and the _Cenci_ of Shelley. The portraiture of Philip is
one of those elaborate and highly-finished studies which repay as well
as require minute investigation. He is at once profoundly meditative
and surpassingly active. His energy of brain is only rivalled by his
readiness of hand. In him the active mood and the passive--the
practical and the ideal--the objective and the subjective--are not as
parallel lines that never meet, but are sections of one line,
describing the circle of his all-embracing mind.
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