penetrating view of human nature, which could strip folly and vice of all their disguise, and expose them to laughter and scorn when they most hoped for honour and respect; also from the extreme naiveté as well as force of the expressions which effect the author's purpose. A father consults his friends about the deep melancholy into which his daughter is fallen : one advises to procure for her a handsome piece of plate, beautifully sculptured, as an object which cannot fail to give pleasure to the most disconsolate mind. The celebrated answer, vous êtes orfèvre, Monsieur Josse, at once unmasks the private views of the selfish adviser, and has afforded a measure by which all men, from Molière's time to our own, may judge of the disinterested character of such friendly counsels. This short, dry, sudden, and unexpected humour of Molière, seconded as it always is by the soundest good sense, is one great proof of his knowledge of his art. The tragic may

be greatly enlivened by some previous preparation, as the advance of a mighty host with its ensigns displayed has, even at a distance, an effect upon the nerves of those whom it is about to assail. But wit is most successful when it bursts from an unexpected ambush, and carries its point by surprise. The best jest will lose its effect on the stage, if so much preparation is employed as leads the spectator to anticipate what is coming, as it will suffer in society if introduced with the preface of "I'll tell you a good thing!" In this species of surprise Molière surpasses every writer of comedy, but the jest at which you laugh springs as naturally out of the subject, as if it had been obvious to your apprehension from the very commencement of the scene. A brief sentence, a word, even an exclamation, is often sufficient to produce the full effect of the ludicrous, as a spark will spring a mine, in the place and time when the explosion is least suspected. The most unexpected means in the hands of this great artist are also the most certain; and you are first made sensible of what he has aimed at, when you admire his arrow quivering in the centre of the mark.

The depth and force of Molière's common sense is equally remark able in displaying his own just and sound opinions, as in exposing the false taste and affectation of others. Ariste, Philinte, and the other personages of his drama, to whom (as the ancients did to their choruses) he has ascribed the task of moralizing upon the subject of the scene, and expressing the sentiments which must be supposed those of the author himself, have all the firmness, strength, and simplicity proper to the enunciation of truth and wisdom; and much more of both will be found within the precincts of Molière's works, than in the formal lessons of men of less acute capacity.

Molière himself knew the force and value of his simplicity, although sometimes objected to by fastidious critics as hurrying him into occa sional vulgarity. In order that he might not depart from it, he adopted the well-known practice of reading his pieces while in marascript to

own.

his housekeeper, La Foret, and observing the effect they produced on so plain, but shrewd and sensible a mind, before bringing them on the stage. The habit of being called into consultations of this kind had given the good dame such an accurate tact, that it was in vain that Molière tried to pass upon her the composition of another poet for his The circumstance proves how well she deserved to sit in the chair of censorship which her master had assigned her. Mons. Taschereau thinks that the opinion of La Foret was only demanded by Molière upon low and farcical subjects. But though we allow that some parts of his higher comedy might be above her sphere, we can easily conceive that the author might have an interest in knowing exactly how much his housekeeper, at once an exact and favourable specimen of a great majority of his audiences,-might be able to comprehend of his higher comedy, and in what particulars it was elevated beyond the line of her understanding. Nor is it unreasonable to conceive, that an author who desired above all other things to be generally understood, should have paused on the passages which La Foret comprehended less perfectly, and omitted or explained what was like to prove caviar to the multitude. It would not be perhaps unnatural to suppose, that to the shrewd, frank, acute, and penetrating character of Molière's housekeeper we owe the original idea of those clever and faithful, but caustic and satirical, female domestics, the Toinettes and Nicoles, whom he has produced on the stage with so much effect.

Some readers may be disappointed, that after pronouncing Molière the prince of the writers of comedy, we should have limited the talents by which he attained such pre-eminence to the possession of common sense, however sound, of observation, however acute, and of expression, however forcible, true, and simple. It is not, however, by talents of a different class from those enjoyed by the rest of humanity that the ingredients which form great men are constituted. On the contrary, such peculiar tastes and talents only produce singularity. The real source of greatness in almost every department is an extraordinary proportion of some distinguishing quality proper to all mankind,and of which therefore all mankind, less or more, comprehends the character and the value. A man with four arms would be a monster for romance or for a show; it is the individual that can best make use of the ordinary conformation of his body, who obtains a superiority over his fellow-creatures by strength or agility. In a word, the general qualities of sound judgment, clear views, and powerful expression of what is distinctly perceived, acquire the same value, as they rise in degree above the general capacity of humanity, with that obtained by diamonds, which in proportion to their weight in carats become almost inestimable, while the smaller sparks of the same precious substance are of ordinary occurrence, and held comparatively in slight esteem.

270

ON THE SUPERNATURAL IN FICTITIOUS COMPOSITION.*

No source of romantic fiction, and no mode of exciting the feelings of interest which the authors in that description of literature desire to produce, seems more directly accessible than the love of the supernatural. It is common to all classes of mankind, and perhaps is to none so familiar as to those who assume a certain degree of scepticism on the subject; since the reader may have often observed in conversation, that the person who professes himself most incredulous on the subject of marvellous stories, often ends his remarks by indulging the company with some well-attested anecdote, which it is difficult or impossible to account for on the narrator's own principles of absolute scepticism. The belief itself, though easily capable of being pushed into superstition and absurdity, has its origin not only in the facts upon which our holy religion is founded, but upon the principles of our nature, which teach us that while we are probationers in this sublunary state, we are neighbours to, and encompassed by, the shadowy world, of which our mental faculties are too obscure to comprehend the laws, our corporeal organs too coarse and gross to perceive the inhabitants. All professors of the Christian Religion believe that there was a time when the Divine Power showed itself more visibly on earth than in these our latter days; controlling and suspending, for its own purposes, the ordinary laws of the universe; and the Roman Catholic Church, at least, holds it as an article of faith, that miracles descend to the present time. Without entering into that controversy, it is enough that a firm belief in the great truths of our religion has induced wise and good men, even in Protestant countries, to subscribe to Dr. Johnson's doubts respecting supernatural appearances.

"That the dead are seen no more, said Imlac, I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become

*

I. Hoffmann's Leben und Nachlass. 2 vols. Berlin, 1823. 2. Hoffmann s Serapionsbrüder. 6 vols. 1819-26. 3. Hoffmann's Nachtstücke. 2 vols. 1816

universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another could not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and some who deny it with their tongues, confess it by their fears."

Upon such principles as these there lingers in the breasts even of philosophers, a reluctance to decide dogmatically upon a point where they do not and cannot possess any, save negative, evidence. Yet this inclination to believe in the marvellous gradually becomes weaker. Men cannot but remark that (since the scriptural miracles have ceased) the belief in prodigies and supernatural events has gradually declined in proportion to the advancement of human knowledge; and that since the age has become enlightened, the occurrence of tolerably well attested anecdotes of the supernatural character are so few, as to render it more probable that the witnesses have laboured under some strange and temporary delusion, rather than that the laws of nature have been altered or suspended. At this period of human knowledge the marvellous is so much identified with fabulous, as to be considered generally as belonging to the same class.

It is not so in early history, which is full of supernatural incidents; and although we now use the word romance as synonymous with fictitious composition, yet as it originally only meant a poem or prose work contained in the Romaunce language, there is little doubt that the doughty chivalry who listened to the songs of the minstrel, “held each strange tale devoutly true," and that the feats of knighthood which he recounted, mingled with tales of magic and supernatural interference, were esteemed as veracious as the legends of the monks, to which they bore a strong resemblance. This period of society, however, must have long past before the Romancer began to select, and arrange with care, the nature of the materials out of which he constructed his story. It was not when society, however differing in degree and station, was levelled and confounded by one dark cloud of ignorance, involving the noble as well as the mean, that it need be scrupulously considered to what class of persons the author addressed himself, or with what species of decoration he ornamented his story. "Homo was then a common name for all men," and all were equally pleased with the same style of composition. This, however, was gradually altered. As the knowledge to which we have before alluded made more general progress, it became impossible to detain the attention of the better instructed class by the simple and gross fables to which the present generation would only listen in childhood, though they had been held in honour by their fathers during youth, manhood, and old age.

It was also discovered that the supernatural in fictitious composition requires to be managed with considerable delicacy, as criticism begins

to be more on the alert. The interest which it excites is indeed a powerful spring; but it is one which is peculiarly subject to be exhausted by coarse handling and repeated pressure. It is also of a character which it is extremely difficult to sustain, and of which a very small proportion may be said to be better than the whole. The marvellous, more than any other attribute of fictitious narrative, loses its effect by being brought much into view. The imagination of the reader is to be excited, if possible, without being gratified. If once, like Macbeth, we "sup full with horrors," our taste for the banquet is ended, and the thrill of terror with which we hear or read of a night-shriek, becomes lost in that sated indifference with which the tyrant came at length to listen to the most deep catastrophes that could affect his house. The incidents of a supernatural character are usually those of a dark and undefinable nature, such as arise in the mind of the Lady in the Mask of Comus,-incidents to which our fears attach more consequence, as we cannot exactly tell what it is we behold, or what is to be apprehended from it :

66

"A thousand fantasies

Begin to throng into my memory,

Of calling shapes and beck'ning shadows dire,
And aery tongues that syllable men's names

On sands, and shores, and desart wildernesses."

Burke observes upon obscurity, that it is necessary to make anything terrible, and notices "how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning such sorts of beings." He represents also, that no person seems better to have understood the secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious obscurity, than Milton. His description of Death, in the second book, is admirably studied; it is astonishing with what a gloomy pomp, with what a significant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and colouring, he has finished the portrait of the king of terrors. 'The other shape,

If shape it might be called, which shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb:

Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,—

For each seemed either; black he stood as night;

Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell;

And shook a deadly dart. What seemed his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on.'

In this description all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible and sublime to the last degree."

The only quotation worthy to be mentioned along with the passage we have just taken down, is the well-known apparition introduced with circumstances of terrific obscurity in the book of Job :

"Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ears received a