which not only saves the distortions and obscurities that rhyme often brings in its train but is also specially favourable to that continuity of thought and expression so needful in dialogue.

The plot of the play is based on one of Lord Lytton’s Lost Tales of Miletus called the Secret way, and for the sake of easy understanding, the outline of that Scythian story as enlarged and adapted in this Dravidian play may be thus presented.

Jivaka, the king of Madura, falls under the evil influence of his wicked minister Kudila, who to strengthen his hold upon his master, leads him to quit his capital with all its old associations and to take up his abode permanently at Tinnevelly, where in due course, a suitable palace and fortress are erected. His family priest Sundara - a saintly Guru - out of tender affection and pity for the misguided monarch, joins him soon after the completion of the new capital. It is with the reception of Sundara in Jivaka’s court that the play opens. When the sage is shown over the new fortifications, he admires not their strength but talks only of possible ruin. He secures, however, before departing to his hermitage, now put up in the suburbs of Tinnevelly, the key of a room in the palace, under the pretence of having to perform certain sacred rites there for the safety of the royal family. (Act I scene 1). That evening, Manonmani, the only daughter of the king, spends her time as usual with her favourite maid Vani a strong willed young woman, and chides her in her own inexperience, for passionately preferring her lover Nataraja ( a handsome young man of a contemplative turn of mind but with no apparent wealth or position) to Paladeva, the dissolute son of Kudila, chosen for her by her avaricious father. (Act I scene 2). But that verynight a change comes over Manonmani. In her sleep she sees the vision of a divinely beautiful person and falls in love with him. The report of her consequent indisposition is brought to the king the next morning, as he sits in court attending to the complaint brought against Vani by her father, for perversely rejecting a bridegroom duly selected for her by her parents. (Act I scene 3) Surprised at the sudden illness of his daughter, the king goes into her private room and accidentally meets there Sundara on his morning visit to his cell, and understands from him not only the nature of his daughter’s disease, but also the remedy for it - viz; the marriage of Manonmani with Purushothama Varma, the youthful and