has been called "a specialist in the natural history of the Russian
merchant," and his birth, upbringing, family connections and vocations
gave him exceptional facilities for penetrating into the life of that
class which he was the first to put into Russian literature. His best
period was from 1850 to 1860, but all his work received prompt and
universal recognition from his countrymen. In 1859 Dobroliubov's famous
article, "The Realm of Darkness," appeared, analysing the contents of all
Ostrovsky's dramas, and on the publication of "The Storm" in 1860, it was
followed by another article from the same critic, "A Ray of Light in the
Realm of Darkness." These articles were practically a brief for the case
of the Liberals, or party of Progress, against the official and Slavophil
party. Ostrovsky's dramas in general are marked by intense sombreness,
biting humour and merciless realism. "The Storm" is the most poetical of
his works, but all his leading plays still hold the stage.

"The Storm" will repay a minute examination by all who recognise that in
England to-day we have a stage without art, truth to life, or national
significance. There is not a superfluous line in the play: all is drama,
natural, simple, deep. There is no _falsity_, no forced situations, no
sensational effects, none of the shallow or flashy caricatures of daily
life that our heterogeneous public demands. All the reproach that lives
for us in the word _theatrical_ is worlds removed from "The Storm." The
people who like 'farcical comedy' and social melodrama, and 'musical
sketches' will find "The Storm" deep, forbidding and gloomy. The critic
will find it an abiding analysis of a people's temperament. The reader
will find it literature.

E. G. _November_, 1898.