In writing _The Feast of Solhoug_ in connection with _Svend Dyring's
House_, George Brandes expresses the opinion, not that the former
play is founded upon any idea borrowed from the latter, but that it
has been written under an influence exercised by the older author
upon the younger. Brandes invariably criticises my work in such a
friendly spirit that I have all reason to be obliged to him for
this suggestion, as for so much else.

Nevertheless I must maintain that he, too, is in this instance
mistaken. I have never specially admired Henrik Hertz as a dramatist.
Hence it is impossible for me to believe that he should, unknown to
myself, have been able to exercise any influence on by dramatic
production.

As regards this point and the matter in general, I might confine
myself to referring those interested to the writings of Dr. Valfrid
Vasenius, lecturer on Aesthetics at the University of Helsingfors.
In the thesis which gained him his degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
_Henrik Ibsen's Dramatic Poetry in its First stage_ (1879), and
also in _Henrik Ibsen: The Portrait of a Skald_ (Jos. Seligman &
Co., Stockholm, 1882), Valsenious states and supports his views on
the subject of the play at present in question, supplementing them
in the latter work by what I told him, very briefly, when we were
together at Munich three years ago.

But, to prevent all misconception, I will now myself give a short
account of the origin of _The Feast at Solhoug_.

I began this Preface with the statement that _The Feast at Solhoug_
was written in the summer 1855.