text:  What care we for his Sir Simon Bette and his Guisebert Grutt? And of what avail is it to attempt within the limits of a drama and under the trammels of verse what can be much better done in the freedom and amplitude of prose? Under what disadvantages does the historical play appear after the historical novels of the Author of Waverley! The author of _Philip van Artevelde_ and _Edwin the Fair_ seems to shrink from idealizing character lest he should depart from historic truth