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ard III. or Macbeth? The scene in one of them begins in Delphi, and concludes at Athens; this surely violates the unity of place; and that which begins with the taking of Troy, and passes over a sea-voyage as swiftly as a seavoyage is passed over in Othello, equally violates the unity of time. In the mean while the subject preserves its unity; and quite as much in the modern tragedy as in the antient; since, probably, the spectators, after having seen one piece, went away during the interval, and followed their inclinations, till the succeeding piece was announced.

It does not follow, that we allow the Poet an unlimited privilege of transporting us, at his pleasure, from place to place, in an instant. A scene in Britain shifted to a scene in Rome, and again shifted, in a moment, to Britain, is not to be endured. This is licentiousness, not liberty; it cannot be prepared for, as it ought to be; and to censure, on this account, Shakespeare must continue liable.

which appears astonishing to us, was not only justifiable on this principle, but absolutely essential; and far from considering then in the light of a last resource, the Greeks would with justice have considered as a last resource the being obliged to allow a player with vulgar, ignoble, or strongly marked individual features, to represent an Apollo or a Hercules. To them this would have appeared downright profanation.

Now, this is partly true; and combines with the idea, that the appearances of the gods on the stage, were mere appearances, and were so understood. The deities could assume what shape they pleased; but in the Greek tragedies they retained their characte ristic lineaments, (always exempt from passion and suffering) though the Spectator was at liberty to think them insubstantial. The forms of masks for human characters, which were to shew greater susceptibility of feeling, are more embarrassing. The lecturer praises the artists of Athens, who were, however, cautious in forming likenesses of great men, for satirical comedy: Aristophanes could find uo workman who would take off Creon. The art of maskmaking is not wholly unknown in Italy: for, says our author

We have obtained a knowledge of the masks from the imitations in stone which have come down to us. They display both beauty and variety. That great variety must have taken place in the tragical department (in the comic, we can have 1.0 doubt about the matter) is evident from the rich store of technical expressions in the Greek language for every gradation of the age, and character of masks. See the Onomasticon of Jul. Poilux. In the marble

M. Schlegel has done his best to render the form and arrangement of the Grecian stage intelligible; but, for want of a delineation, his labours terminate in darkness visible. We consider ours-lves as being pretty much at home on the subject; yet dare not affirm, that we fully understand him. His explanations of the causes for the use of masks among the antients, are among the best we have seen; but, by what inadvertence he could forget the whole suite of masks, with the other theatrical accompaniments in the volumes containing the Antiquities found at Herculaneum, exceeds our comprehension. They would have furnished much illustration, gene-thinness of the mass from which the real rally; and of some things, in particular. Nor would it have been unworthy of him to have hinted, at least, at the tickets for admission, (though a humble subject) which he would have found in that important work.

As this subject-Masks is among the, most obscure to modern readers, we shall admit an extract or two, which may assist in illustrating it.

The fidelity of the representation was less their object than its beauty; with us it exactly the reverse, The use of masks,

masks, however, we can neither see the

masks were executed, the more delicate

colouring, nor the exquisite mechanism of the joinings. The abundance of excell at workmen possessed by Athens, in every thing which had a reference to the plastic arts, will warrant the conjecture that they were in this respect inimitable. Those who have seen the masks of wax in the grand stile, which in some degree contain the whole head, lately contrived at the Roman carnival, may form to themselves a pretty good idea of the theatrical masks of the ancients. They imitate life even to its movements in a most masterly manner, and at such a distance as that from which the

ancient players were seen, the deception is most perfect. They always contain the apple of the eye, as we see it in the ancient masks, and the person covered sees merely through the aperture left for the iris. The ancients must have gone still farther, and contrived also an iris for the masks, accord

ing to the anecdote of the singer Thamyris, who, in a piece which was probably of Sophocles, made his appearance with a blue and a black eye. Even accidental circumstances were imitated; for instance, the cheeks of Tyro, down which the blood had rolled from the cruel conduct of his stepmother. The head from the mask must no doubt have appeared somewhat large for

the rest of the figure; but this disproportion, in tragedy at least, would not be perceived from the elevation of the cothur

Dus.

from which he steps at once to the Italian, to Tasso and Guarini, to Metastasio and Alfieri. The French stage he treats rather roughly the rules by which it has been guided, he exposes, as founded on mistakes of Greek principles; and the great Voltaire dwindles under his crushing hand to a mere malkin of antient learning. The costume of the former French school he ridicules:

Let us hear the description of Voltaire of his discourse to Cinua and Maximus in the the manner in which Augustus delivered time of Louis XIV. Augustus entered with the step of a braggadocio, his head covered with a four-cornered peruque which hung down to his girdle; the peruque was stuck full of laurel leaves, and above this he wore a large hat with a double row of red feathers. He seated himself ou a huge easy chair with two steps, Cinna and Maximus on two small chairs; and the pompous declamation fully corresponded to the ostentatious manner in which he made

his

appearance. As at that time, and even long afterwards, tragedies were acted in the newest fashioned court dress, with large cravats, swords, and hats, no other movements were practicable but such as were allowable in an anti-chamber, or, at most, a slight waving of the hand; and it was even considered a bold theatrical attempt, when, in the last scene of Polyeucte, Seve

rus entered with his hat on his head for the purpose of accusing Felix of treachery, and the latter listened to him with his hat under his arm.

The Grecian mythology was a web of local and national traditions: and the Poets had much the same advantage in treating the appearance of superuatural beings, as Shakespeare had in introducing his fairies. The public voice allowed there were, or had been, such beings, and that they had visited, and probably still did visit, this lower world; their feats, too, were preserved by a popular persuasion, just strong enough to ensure the Poet a balance in his favour. Of this he took advantage; and, provided he kept within the bounds of prudence, all was well, National partialities, also, were carefully studied: before an Athenian audience, Athens was praised to the skies; before an English audience, the popularity of Queen Elizabeth protected from severity, one of the boldest adventures of the stage, in the play of Henry VIII. The music, and the dancing, were religious, on the Greek theatre; not so, on the modern stage. The pomp is now different; but whether it is more affecting, may be doubted. The Comedy of Greece was certainly too personal: Mr. S. has at-does not coufine his censures to times tempted to justify Aristophanes; but, the attempt cannot be thought successful: his object was any thing, but patriotic

and virtuous.

We cannot follow this writer through the whole of his work; but must content ourselves with reporting, that he allots six lectures to the Grecian stage, And dramatic writers-His reference Is the Roman theatre is very succinct;

The costume of the English stage kept even pace with that of the French. Addison's Cato made his appearance in a full-bottom peruque of enormous dimensions, flowing down below his Roman girdle; while his daughter spread her hoop across the stage, and in the dying scene attended her father, who in a fashionable Banian robe, died comme il faut. in an easy chair of the newest taste and construction. But our author

past: he even ventures to criticise the players, with all thir improvements. French players, the present French

I have found occasionally, even in the action of the very best players of the present day, sudden leaps from the measured sowhich the general tone of the composition lemnity in recitation and gesticulation required, to a boisterousness of passion absolutely convulsive, without any due pro

paration or softening by intervening gradations. They are led to this by a sort of obscure feeling, that the conventional forms of poetry generally impede the movements of nature; when the poet any where leaves them at liberty they then indemnify themselves for the former constraint, and load, as it were, this rare moment of abandon ment with the whole amount of life and

of his partiality for the British Bard, the following passage may be quoted:

Shakspeare's comic talent is equally wonderful with that which he has shown in the pathetic and tragic: it stands on an equal elevation, and possesses equal extent and profundity; all that I before wished was, not to admit that the former preponderated. He is highly invective in comic situations and motives: it will be hardly possible to shew whence he has taken any dramas he has generally laid hold of someof them; whereas in the serious part of his thing already known. His comic characteriza ion is equally true, various, and profound with his serious. So little is he dis

posed to caricature, that we may rather say many of his traits are almost too nice and delicate for the stage, that they can be only properly seized by a great actor, and fully understood by a very acute audience. Not only has he delineated many kinds of folly, he has also contrived to exhibit mere

animation which had been kept back, and which ought to have been equally diffused over the whole. Hence their convulsive and obstreperous violence. In bravura they take care not to be deficient; but they fre quently lose sight of the true spirit of the composition. In general, they consider their parts as a sort of mosaic work of brilliant passages (with the single exception of the powerful Talma), and they rather endeavour to make the most of each separate passage, independently of the rest, than to go back to the invisible central point of the character, and to consider the whole of the expressions as so many emanations from that point. They are always afraid of un-stupidity in a most diverting and enterderdoing their parts; and hence they are worse qualified for reserved action, for eloquent silence, where, under an appearance outward tranquillity, the most hidden emotions of the mind are betrayed. However, this is a part which is seldom imposed on them by their poets; and if the cause of the above excessive violence in the expression of passion is not to be found in their works, they at all events occasion the actor to lay greater stress on superficial brilliancy than on a profound knowledge of character.

of

taining manner. There is also a peculiar species of the farcical to be found in his pieces, which seems to us to be introduced in a more arbitrary manner, but which, however, is founded in imitation of actual

custom, This is the introduction of the dress, called in English, Clown, who apbuffoon; the fool with his cap and motly pears in several comedies, though not in all, but in Lear alone of the tragedies, and who generally exercises his wit merely in conversation with the principal persons, though he is also sometimes incorporated with the action. In those times it was not

After perusing this passage, can the reader wonder at the universal combi-only usual for princes to keep court fools, nation of the French journals against Mr. Schlegel? What! dispute the taste of the Great Nation! Well might they wish him, as Voltaire wished all German critics, "more wit, with fewer consonants."

To the Comedy and Comedians of France, the author does full justice; and it must be acknowledged, that they play these pieces with a gentility, an ease, a vivacity, and an apparent plensure, which captivates the spectator. This is the natural disposition of the people; and is strongly aided by the force of a long continued study and discipline, to which the actors of few (if any) other nations can bring themselves to submit. After all, however, Mr. S. seems to recur to Shakespeare with peculiar pleasure. As an iustance

but in many distinguished families they retained, along with other servants, such an exhilerating house-mate as a good antidote against the insipidity and wearisomeness of ordinary life, as a welcome interruption of established formalities. Great men, and even churchmen, did not consider it beneath their dignity to recruit and solace themselves after important concerns with the conversation of their fools; the cel brated Sir Thomas More had his fool painted along with himself by Holbein. Shakspeare appears to have lived immediately before the time when the custom began to be abolished; in the English comic authors who succeeded him the clown is no longer to be found. The dismissal of the fool has been extolled as a proof of refinement; and our honest forefathers have been pitied for taking delight In such a coarse and farcical entertainment. I am much rather however disposed to believe, that the practice was dropped from

the difficulty in finding fools able to do full justice to their parts on the other hand, reason, with all its conceit of itself, has become too timid to tolerate such bold irony; it is always careful lest the mantle of its gravity should be disturbed in any of its folds; and rather than allow a privileged place to folly beside itself, it has unconsciously assumed the part of the ridiculous; but, alas! a heavy and cheerless ridicule.

From these remarks, the reader will perceive that Mr. S. had taken pains to make himself master of the leading points in Shakespeare's History. Had he consulted Mr. Douce's Essay on the Clowns of Shakespeare, he might greatly have enriched his observations, as well by accuracy, as by completeness.

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fication of errors: good sense and superior information should guide, should controul; and these will always be supported by an enlightened public. It is true, indeed, that some reformations have been made; that the dissoluteness of the scene as exhibited formerly, would not be endured by a modern audience; yet all confess, that much remains to be done, to satisfy the judicious; and to render this branch of public amusement such as Mr. Schlegel, with all friends to truth, nature, morality, and patriotism, would wish it.

Histoire de l'Origine, des Progres, et de la Décadence & Diverses Factions, &c. History of the Origin, Progress, and Decay of the Several Factions which agitated France from July 14, 1789, to the Abdication of Napoleon. By Joseph Lavalice. 3 Vols. 8vo. Price 11. 7s. Murray, London. 1816.

An examination, seriutim, of Shakesspeare's dramas which follow these remarks, must be taken, as proof, that the audience to which these Lectures were delivered, were more or less, acquainted with the English Poet: and this, in its turn, proves that such must be the fashion in Germany. Dryden is lowered by Mr. S. almost to pity, The present state of the English Drama affords but few remarks. The Spanish stage succeeds: and the German closes the series, with the hope of real im-rulers of those factions published: while provements and better times.

M. Lavallée observes, justly enough, that foreign nations, England included, could not see the factions which agitated France, truly, through the medium of those documents, which the

the sufferings of all the neighbouring These Lectures must be considered as nations, with their natural consequences, addressed as they really were—to a was a bad prism, through which to German audience: we cannot recom-contemplate the French nation during There ought mend them as models in every part to a those turbulent times. similar course addressed to an English audience. There are many things known among us, which are not known in Germany; on the other hand, there are, no doubt, many prejudices, and many feelings, popular in Germany, which are peculiar to that country. These contribute to establish essential differences, differences to be well considered, and regulated or waived, with great discre

tion.

It is but just that what the public pay for, they should receive with as much advantage as possible. Every department of art has its rules: to violate those rules is, to treat the public with contempt; for, among a mixed audience there will always be some who understand proprieties sufficiently well. It is Bot enough to plead precedent in justi

to be, undoubtedly, some distinction made, between the nation, and that soi-disant representative of it, Paris, which was the seat, or at least, the centre, of those atrocities which degraded France, in the eyes of lutegrity and Honour. But, after all, the people must take their share of the blame; had they been virtuous, they had not been plagued so deeply and so desperately.

Our judgment on the more remote causes of the French Revolution is well known: they had been long brooding ;, they dated far back; they combined, and burst out at a favourable moment, when the spirits of the nation were agitated; but, they had their origin in the ill-advised measures of Louis XIV. in the licentiousness of the Regency, no less than in the extravagance and dis

solutess of Louis XV. and, in that blunder in Politics, the American War.This is partly the opinion of the author; though he takes another view of the subject.

If the Public Officer to whom that most important concern, the care of the National Finances, was entrusted, were fit for his office, he was fit for it independent of this trifling jeu d'esprit, and ought to have been maintained in his place, accordingly if his powers were unequal to the burden of his place; it was injustice to the state to continue him in office, by whatever arts, and tricks of another nature, he might recommend himself. He was not Coach-maker general, but Comptroleur General.

A man who was a party to some of the transactions of the times, and who saw the maddest of them, from the window of his official apartment, if not closer, is likely enough to be acquainted with many anecdotes; and to recollect many observations made by himself, and others. This is the principal merit of these volumes. They record some facts, M. de Calonne, in whose hands the not known to all the world; but also finances now were, was not liked by the others, and those the major part, which King; but he possesed the great art of inare not distinguished by novelty, or by Bluencing the Queen, furmshing funds for completeness the narrator hints at her expences, without closely examining them; but does not know them tho-lively gallantries of which men in public them, and playing off a multitude of those roughly.

life know so well how to avail themselves, We presume that the writer of this to establish their credit. If kings are not work was not the Editor of it: as a always proof against these fascinations, native of France, he must have correct- their success is more certain among queens; ed much of the style in revising it, with for this single reason, that queens are femany of the press errors, which give of the journey to Fontainebleau, a period males. Thus, for instance, in expectation pain to the reader. From some pas-usually marked by the fall of some minisages, we judge favourably of his taster, and foreseeing the possibility that the lents; others seem to be injured by king might demand his portfolio from haste, or negligence; they are mere him, the wily courtier prepared his procurrent composition. We shall not, there-ject, and in the most profound secrecy, fore, attempt to analyse the perform-waited the event of his scheme, to parry ance, but shall describe it as a History of off the blow. The journey took place; a section of the French Revolution, proand the dismission of M. de Calode was per to be known; but, not equal to what whispered by every body. The minister's serenity never forsook him; and one morn might be expected from an Actor reallying he obtained an interview with the admitted behind the scenes. As the chief use to be derived from these pages, is that of enlarging our knowledge of the French character, we shall do little more than translate a few extracts, which may assist our endeavours for that purpose. It is of minor import, at the present moment, to become arquainted with the past, as a matter of History; but, if it enable us to form a better judgment on the present, or to combine more rational probabilities into our conjectures on the future, it performs an office at once valuable and salutary: the Historian lays us under an obligation; and we derive no inconsi-cend to step as far as the balcony. The derable benefit from his labours.

queen, under pretence of official business,

After a conversation of some minutes. dismissing his ministerial gravity, well preserved, to the moment, he assumed a flattering smile, by which he well know how to animate his countenance, on occasion. Madam, said he, I have a favour to beg of your Majesty.-What is that?-It is, to be allowed to make a present to Monsieur le Dauphin, of a trifling toy, which may afford that august child a moment's amusement. The Queen, knowing M. de Calonne's ingenuity, began to laugh. Very readily, said she; let us see this toy.-I am quite ashamed of my importunity, but in order to see it your Majesty will condes

windows are open. The Queen advances towards them: What does she see? A

To what puerilities the statesmen of little coach, of the most elegant form, enFrance were reduced, we may learnriched with the most valuable paiutings, from an anecdote, which very strongly drawn by eight ponies of the smallest size, marks the state of the French Court, and perfectly well matched, driven by

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