hearted woman, but turned finally by uncontrolled power and a sense of early and repeated wrong to ambition and revenge. It would have been impressive to have traced step by step this change into the historic tyrant. What we have are some powerful scenes, worked out in stately verses, between Don Pedro and his beloved Maria, and between the brothers Fadrique and Henriquez.
The "Irene" displays better than any other piece the writer's intense worship of Nature, which in this poem she was pleased to people with a world of imaginary beings. The Nature worship she continued to the end; whilst the fairy visions which had been the fancy of her childhood, thus once recalled, died quite away and were succeeded, as we see in her later verses, by imaginings more human and concrete.
But the dramatic piece that will attract the chief interest is "Olga," which, though not complete, has its scheme and dénouement so worked out that its effect as a drama can be judged. It is, I think, the most original, and perhaps the most powerful, of her dramatic efforts. The plot, however startling in its incidents and tragic in its issues, is entirely within
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