From the Christian heroine to the pagan hero we turn with a feeling of relief. The very title of Mr. de Vere's drama challenges criticism. To write about Alexander the Great is one thing; to make Alexander speak for himself is another. The world, fashionable as it is to abuse its taste, is discriminating in the conferring of titles that are universal. Local magnates of greater or less magnitude are common enough; but men whom all civilized nations in all ages have agreed to crown with greatness are very few and very far between. From the number of these the son of Philip of Macedon probably stands out pre-eminent In his brief career he accomplished more than any human conqueror ever accomplished, and he succeeded in leaving more after him. So complete and marvellous was his success, and so gigantic his projects, while his means were proportionately limited, that, beyond all possibility of doubt, the man, young as he was, must have been a marvellous genius. Being so, he must not only have done great deeds, but thought great thoughts. He must have been fitted in every way to be a leader of men. This, perhaps the most marvellous character in human history, is the one of all others whom Mr. de Vere, with a courage which, if not justified by the result, can only be looked upon as either rashness or folly, has undertaken to set living and real before us, speaking the speech, thinking the thoughts, scheming the schemes, dreaming the dreams of Alexander. Greatness thus becomes one of the necessary standards by which we must judge Mr. de Vere's work. If his chief character is not great in thought and word, as we know him to have been in deed, he is not Alexander, and this work can only be regarded as a more pretentious failure than the other. If he is great in thought and speech, where are the elements of his greatness to be found? In the brain of the author, in the conception of the poet—nowhere else. For in this case the speeches are not, as they were in the other, ready made and to hand. The record of Alexander's deeds we have; but Alexander we must imagine for ourselves. What manner of man, then, is this that Mr. de Vere has given us? is the first and most natural question to be asked.
Friend and foe alike are busy about him. At the opening of the play Parmenio, the testy but honest-hearted [pg 354] veteran of Philip, before Alexander has yet made his appearance, in words where the admiration of the soldier and the irritability and jealousy of old age are admirably blended, says:
“A realm his father owed me,
And knew it well. The son is reverent too,
But with a difference, sir. In Philip's time
My voice was Delphic on the battle-field.
This young man taps the springs of my experience,
As though with water to allay his wine
Of keener inspirations. ‘Speak thy thought,
Parmenio!’ Ere my words are half-way out