The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-08

Nero. By stephen Phillips Thii drama in four acts will add to .ths fame of the young English poet.
 The action of the play is rapid dramatic. The characters are alive and true to our conception of them as historians. Perhaps every character il a little softened. little humanized b, Mr. Phillips's touch. The fieise incl. dents ot Nero's reign also join witf Nr. Phillips's just handling.
 Rome is not burned by Nero's order - all historians later. than Tacitus state. but MT. Phillips takes the bet ter statement of Tacitus that the ori' gin of the fire was uncertain, the ru' mors reported it to be the work of the hated Caesar. The work is liesurely and largely done as works master hand. A 4-i
 The construction is clear and strong as of structure not builded for day.
 The style is simple and direct There are scenes of tenderness that never fall into affectation. There is fine ness and delicacy of style that never descends to fastidfousness.
 L. Annaeus Seneca recalled from charge of the education of her son. Nero, when whom soothsayers have declared shall be emperor
 Seneca knows his pupil and just before the purple robe is to be put upon Nero he makes a prophecy of the coming events of the emperors reign. Too true a prophecy for even Seneca's wisdom to have made at that time, but poets have an independent right to arrange events for less prophecies or events to suit their plan and meas ures:
 T have watched him. True. the harp.
 the song,
 The theatre delight this dreamer: there He lives but in imagination; yet Suppose this aesthete made omnipotent Feeling there is no bar he cannot
 break,
 Knowing there is no bound he cannot Might he not then dcspise the written A petty music and a penny scene? Conceive a spectacle not witnessed yet, When he, an artist in ornnipotence. Uses for color this red blood of ours. Composes music out of dreadful cries, His orchestra our human aronies, His rhythms lamentations of tht wind. His poets fire not concentrated by
 words, But now translated into burning cities, His scenes the lives of men. their
 deaths drama,
 His dream the desolation of mankind. And all the pulsing world his theatre"
 "An artist in omnipotence" is the poets conception of Nero. An artist in planning the death of his victims. Young Brittanicus dies at the feast where soft music lulls, where showers of roses fall upon the feasters. white snow to cool the heated red of the cup of wine that is to give him cour- age for his poems recital. That poem is Brittanicuss own song.
 "An artist in omnipotenee" when he consents to the plan of Africanus Burnes and Tigeleuas to drown his mother, Agrippina, by means of the wonderful! This gives beauty to an
 act
 Which else were ugly and of one un-
 worthy.
 So mighty is she that her proper doom Could come but by some elemental aid. Her splendid trouble asketh but the sea For sepulchre; her spirit limitles= A multitudinous and waning grave"
 An artist omnipotent" when his first tn ught on beholding Pappacea dead Is:
 T have begun to write her epitaph."
 "An artist omnipotent" as he watches Rome in flames. careles- of the suf- fering under tha sea of red and gold, needless of his statesman's pleading for some sudden edict' to stay the flames: '. e
 .'Rage!,
 IS6B0 Ou.
 See, see!
 How beautiful
 Like a rose magnificently burning"
 This conception of an artist in om- impotence is the poets stroke of gen. tus. Tn all the ange of human char acteristics there is nothing more keen iy cruel, more long s~lf indulgent, more coldly callous to the suffering of others than the artistic tempera- ment. It is harder to be at the same time a great man and a great poet than it is for the rich man to Enter The Gates.
 The true poet counts a thousand tears as notsing against single smile. A thousand sighs but small ballast against well tuned couplet.
 Nero's was the only artistic tenn perament to held the world upon his tablet, to play his part with all the world his stage, to sing his songs with life and death and war and world empire for chorous.
 e all the earth tonight into these
 hands committedi
 Empurpled in omnipotence. My softest whisper thunders in the
 sky