with a gloss of their own and that is nothing less than making their artistic productions serve indirectly a high moral purpose. As true artists they know that their productions should not directly take to preaching moralities. If they did so, they would forth with become sorry specimens of art fit only to be consigned to the limbo of Oblivion. Knowing this, the great poets have invariably composed their works and kept the ethical purpose subtly and furtively running beneath the artistic current which flows through them in full view and with a force almost tangible. So general has become this method of execution with the great masters that critics have now almost made a companion-rule out of the gloss itself that unless some great ethical purpose is served, be it ever so indirect, a work of art, however finished, should not be brought into the highest class. That class is reserved only for the select company of those gifted souls who can, by the touch of their magic wand, fuse the ethical and artistic ends into a unity of pleasure of the highest order, not within the reach of the lesser artists. Thus then are we justified in inquiring whether the play before us, over and above its artistic purpose, serves any moral purpose of its own and if so what that purpose, serves any moral purpose of its own and if so what that purpose is. The central action of the drama to which everything else is subordinated is the marriage of MANONMANI with PURUSHOTHAMA. Both the lovers became enamoured of each other by what seems to us as the merest accident of their seeing each other in their dreams. And only by another accident did they meet at the marriage hall improvised for PALADEVA, the bridegroom - elect, and unite in a wedlock which came upon them both as a surprise. What power it is that brought about the dreams of the lovers and what power, that threw the couple into the bonds of wedlock, we have no means of knowing. Nor does the poet anywhere admit us into the secret. It is an enigma he himself has not unravelled. Thus the central action rests on an enigma. But to stop with this bald conclusion is to miss the great lesson the poet has hidden beneath the teachings of SUNDARA, KARUNAKARA, NISHTAPARA, NATARAJA, NARAYANA, MANONMANI and even VANI. All these seem to rely on a larger hope, born of faith, by which they are led to believe that the imperfections and calamities of this world, however trying and overwhelming at times, are bound to disappear in the workings of a Power, which is all-perfect and all-knowing. The temporary inequalities and eccentricities of fortune which puzzle us in this vale of life, 'in this bank and shoal of time,' the virtuous man suffering and the vicious man riding on to fortune will, in this view, be all corrected by a Power which transcends human thought and even conception. Now to this optimistic doctrine, whatever may be the value we may attach as a philosophy of thought, we have to subscribe ourselves unreservedly as a philosophy of life. We have to welcome all that tends to human happiness, all that tends to enlarge man's estate in life, from whatever quarter