action. Secondly, There is evidence that in the Eumenides of Eschylus, and the Ajax of Sophocles, the scene is actually changed, in defiance of the presence of the Chorus; and a much greater violation of probability is incurred than could have taken place in a modern theatre, where, before every ers. Thirdly, The ancients were less hardly pressed by this rule than the modern writers. From the dimensions of their theatres, and the size of their stages, the place of action was considerably larger, and might be held to include a wider extent than ours. The climate of Greece admitted of many things being transacted with propriety in the open air; and, finally, they had a contrivance for displaying the interior of a house or temple to the audience, which, if not an actual change of scene, was adapted to the same purpose. inquire whether this is worth preserving, at the cost of imposing heavy restrictions on dramatic genius. But granting the affirmative, probability is as much violated by compressing the events of twenty-four hours into a period of only three, as if the author had exercised the still greater license of the English and Spanish theatres. There is no charm in the re-change of scene, the stage is emptied of the performvolution of the sun, which circumscribes, within that particular period, the events of a Drama. When the magic circle drawn around the author by the actual date of representation is once obliterated, the argument grounded upon probability falls; and he may extend his narrative unconfined by any rule, except what may be considered as resolving itself into the unity of action. A week, a month, a year, years-may be included in the course of the Drama, provided always the poet has power so to rivet the attention of the audience on the passing scene, that the lapse of time shall pass unregarded. There must be none of those marked pauses which force upon the spectator's attention the breach of this unity. Still less 'ought the judicious dramatist to permit his piece to embrace such a space of time, as shall necessarily produce the change on the persons of the characters ridiculed by Boileau. The extravagant conduct of the plot in the Winter's Tale has gone far to depreciate that Drama, which, in passages of detached beauty, is inferior to none of Shakspeare's, in the opinion of the best judges. It might perhaps be improved in acting, by performing the three first acts as a play, and the fourth and fifth as an afterpiece. Yet, even as it is now acted, who is it that, notwithstanding the cold objection arising out of the breach of unity, witnesses, without delight, the exquisite contrast betwixt the court and the hamlet, the fascinating and simple elegance of Perdita, or the witty rogueries of Autolycus? The poet is too powerful for the critic, and we lose the exercise of our judgment in the warmth of our admiration. If this long litigated question, therefore, is to be disposed of by precedent, we have shown that the rule of the ancients was neither absolute, nor did the circumstances of their stage correspond with those of ours; to which it may be added, that the simple and inartificial structure of their plots seldom required a change of scene. But, surely, it is of less consequence merely to ascertain what was the practice of the ancients, than to consider how far such practice is founded upon truth, good taste, and general effect. Granting, therefore, that the supposed illusion, which transports the spectator to the actual scene of action, really exists, let us inquire whether, in sacrificing the privilege of an occasional change of scene, we do not run the risk of shocking the spectator, and disturbing his delightful dreams, by other absurdities and improbabilities, attendant necessarily on a scrupulous adherence to this restriction. If the action is always to pass in the scene, some place of general resort must be adopted, a hall, anteroom, or the like. It can seldom be so fortunately selected but that much must be necessarily discussed there, which, in order to preserve any appearance of probability, should be transacted elsewhere; that many persons must be introduced, whose presence in that particular place must appear unnatu ral; and that much must be done there, which the very circumstances of the piece render totally absurd. Dennis has applied these observations with great force, and at the same time with great bitterness, in his critique upon Cato, which Johnson has quoted at length in his Life of Addison. The scene, it must be remembered, is laid, during the whole Drama, with scrupulous attention to the classical The faults of Shakspeare, or of his age, we do not, however, recommend to the modern dramatist, whose modesty will certainly place him in his own estimation far beneath that powerful magician, whose art could fascinate us even by means of deformity itself. But if, for his own sake, the author ought to avoid such gross violations of dramatic rule, the public, for theirs, ought not to tie him down to such severe limitations as must cramp, at least, if they do not destroy, his power of affording them pleasure. If the whole five acts are to be compressed within the space of twenty-four hours, the events must, in the general case, be either so much crowded upon each other as to defeat the very probability which it is the purpose of this law to pre-rule, in the great hall of Cato's palace at Utica. serve; or, many of them, being supposed to have happened before the commencement of the piece, must be detailed in narrative, which never fails to have a bad effect on the stage. Here the conspirators lay their plots, the lovers carry on their intrigues; and yet Sempronius, with great inconsistency, diguises himself as Juba, to obtain entrance into this vestibule, which was com The same objections apply to the rigid enforce-mon to all. Here Cato retires to moralize, and ment of the third unity, that of Place; and, indeed, the French authors have used respecting it the license of relaxing, in practice, the severity of their theory. They have frequently infringed the rule which they affirm to be inviolable; and their flexible creed permits the place to be changed, provided the audience are not transported out of the city where the scene is laid. This mitigation of doctrine, like that granted in the unity of time, is a virtual resignation of the principle contended for. Let us examine, however, upon what that principle is founded. The rule, which prohibits the shifting the scene during the period of performance, was borrowed by the French from the ancients, without considering the peculiar circumstances in which it arose. First, We have seen already that, during the ancient Drama, there was no division into acts, and that the action was only suspended during the songs of the Chorus, who themselves represented a certain class of personages connected with the scene. The stage, therefore, was always filled; and a supposed change of place would have implied the violent im-ly probability, that the whole Chorus were transported, while in the sight of the spectators, and employed in the discharge of their parts, to the new scene of chides his son for interrupting him, and, although Amis, dans ce palais on peut nous écouter; It would be an invidious, but no difficult task, to show that several of the chefs-d'œuvres of the French Drama are liable to similar objections; and that the awkward dilemmas in which the unity of place involves them, are far more likely to destroy the illusion of the performance, than the mere change of scene would have done. But we refer the reader to the Dramaturgie of Lessing upon this curious topic. spectator, a tone of feeling similar to that which existed in his own bosom, ere it was bodied forth by his pencil, tongue, or pen. It is the artist's object, in short, to tune the readers imagination to the same pitch with his own; and to communicate, as well as colours and words can do, the same sublime sensations which had dictated his own compositions. The tragedian attempts to attain this object still more forcibly, because his art combines those of the The main question yet remains behind, namely, poet, orator, and artist, by storming, as it were, the whether such an illusion is actually produced in the imagination at once through the eye and the ear. minds of the audience by the best acted play, as in- Undoubtedly, a Drama with such advantages, and duces them to suppose themselves witnessing a rea-with those of dresses and costume, approaches more lity; an illusion, in short so complete, as to suffer nearly to actual reality; and, therefore, has a better interruption from the occasional extension of time, chance of attaining its object, especially when ador change of place, in the course of the piece? We dressing the sluggish and inert fancies of the multido not hesitate to say, that no such impression was tude; although it may remain a doubtful question, ever produced on a sane understanding; and that whether, with all these means and appliances, minds the Parisian critic, in whose presence the unities of a high poetic temperature may not receive a more are never violated, no more mistakes Talma for Ne- lively impression from the solitary perusal, than from ro, than a London citizen identifies Kemble with the representation, of one of Shakspeare's plays. Coriolanus, or Kean with Richard III. The ancients, But, to the most ignorant spectator, however unacfrom the distance of the stage, and their mode of customed to the trick of the scene, the excitement dressing and disguising their characters, might cer- which his fancy receives, falls materially short of tainly approach a step nearer to reality; and, pro- actual mental delusion. Even the sapient Partridge ducing on their stage, the very images of the deities himself never thought of being startled at the apparithey worshipped, speaking the language which they tion of the King of Denmark, which he knew to be accounted proper to them, it is probable that, to only a man in a strange dress; it was the terror so minds capable of high excitation, there might be a admirably expressed by Garrick, which communishade of this illusion in their representations. The cated itself to his feelings, and made him reverse solemn distance of the stage, the continuous and the case of the fiends, and tremble without believing. uninterrupted action, kept the attention of the In truth, the effects produced upon this imaginary Greeks at once more closely rivetted, and more ab- character, as described by an excellent judge of hustracted from surrounding circumstances. But, in man nature, exhibit, probably, the highest point of the modern theatre, the rapid succession of inter-illusion to which theatrical exhibition can conduct vals for reflection; the well-known features of the a rational being. In an agony of terror which made actors; the language which they speak, differing his knees knock against each other, he never forgets frequently from that which belongs to the age and that he is only witnessing a play. The presence of country where the scene is laid-interrupt, at every Mrs. Millar and his master assures him against the turn, every approximation to the fantastic vision of reality of the apparition, yet he is no more able to reality into which those writers who insist upon the subdue his terrors by this comfortable reflection, strict observance of the unities, suppose the audience than we have been to check our tears, although well to be lulled. To use the nervous words of John-aware that the Belvidera, with whose sorrows we son, "It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatic fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited." There is a conventional treaty between the author and the audience, that, upon certain suppositions being granted by the latter, his powers of imagination shall be exerted for the amusement of the spectators. The postulates which are demanded, even upon the French theatre, and under the strictest model, are of no ordinary magnitude. Although the stage is lighted with lamps, the spectator must say with the subjugated Catharine, "I grant it is the sun that shines so bright." The painted canvass must pass for a landscape; the well known faces of the performers for those of ancient Greeks, or Romans, or Saracens, and the present time for many ages distant. He that submits to such a convention ought not scrupulously to limit his own enjoyment. That which is supposed Rome in one act, may, in the next, be fancied Paris; and as for time, it is, to use the words of Dr. Johnof all modes of existence, most obsequious to imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and, therefore, willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see their imitation." son, If dramatic representation does not produce the impression of reality, in what, it may be asked, consists its power? We reply, that its effects are produced by the powerful emotions which it excites in the minds of the spectators. The professors of every fine art operate their impressions in the same manner, though they address themselves to different organs. The painter exhibits his scene to the eye; the orator pours his thunder upon the ear; the poet awakens the imagination of his reader by written description; but each has the same motive, the hope, namely, of exciting in the reader, hearer, or sympathised, was no other than our own inimitable Mrs. Siddons. With all our passions and all our sympathies, we are still conscious of the ideal character of that which excites them; and it is probably this very consciousness of the unreality of the scene, that refines our sorrows into a melancholy, yet delicious emotion, and extracts from it that bitterness necessarily connected with a display of similar misery in actual life. If, therefore, no allusion subsists of a character to be affected by a change of scene, or by the prolongation of the time beyond the rules of Aristotle, the very foundation of these unities is undermined: but, at the same time, every judicious author will use liberty with prudence. If we are inclined to ascend to the origin of these celebrated rules, we ought not to be satisfied with the ipse dixit of a Grecian critic, who wrote so many centuries ago, and whose works have reference to a state of dramatic composition which has now no existence. Upon the revival of letters, indeed, the authority of Aristotle was considered as omnipotent; but even Boileau remonstrated against his authority when weighed with that of reason and common sense. "Un pedant enivré de sa vaine science, Tout hérissé de Grec, tout bouth d'arrogance, Et qui de mille auteurs retenus mot pour mot, Dans la teste entassez, n'a souvent fait qu' un sot, Croit qu' un livre fait tout, et que sans Aristote La raison ne voit goutte, et la bon sens radote." The opinions of Aristotle must be judged of according to the opportunities and authorities which lay open before him; and from the high critical judgment he has displayed, we can scarce err in supposing he would have drawn different results in different circumstances. Dr. Drake, whose industry and taste have concentrated so much curious information respecting Shakspeare and his age, has quoted upon this topic a striking passage from Mr. Morgan's Essay on the Character of Falstaff. Speaking, says Dr. Drake, of the magic influence which our poet almost invariably exerts over his auditors, Mr. Morgan remarks, that "on such an occasion, a fellow like Rymer, waking from his trance, shall lift up his constable's staff, and charge this great magician, this daring practiser of arts inhibited, in the name of Aristotle to surrender whilst Aristotle himself, disowning his wretched officer, would fall prostrate at his feet and acknowledge his supremacy.-O supreme of dramatic excellence! (might he say,) not to me be imputed the insolence of fools. The bards of Greece were confined within the narrow circle of the Chorus, and hence they found themselves constrained to practise, for the most part, the precision, and copy the details, of nature. I followed them, and knew not that a larger circle might be drawn, and the Drama extended to the whole reach of human genius. Convinced, I see that a more compendious nature may be obtained; a nature of effects only, to which neither the relation of place, or continuity of time, are always essential. Nature, condescending to the faculties and apprehensions of man, has drawn through human life a regular chain of visible causes and effects: But Poetry delights in surprise, conceals her steps, seizes at once upon the heart, and obtains the sublime of things without betraying the rounds of her ascent. True poetry is magic not nature; an effect from causes hidden or unknown. To the magician I prescribed no laws; his law and his power are one; his power is his law. If his end is obtained, who shall question his course? Means, whether apparent or hidden, are justified in poesy by success; but then most perfect and most admirable when most concealed. ་་ the case, the interest of the plot, and, above all, the talents of the author. He that despises the praise of regularity which is attainable by study, cannot reckon on the indulgence of the audience, unless on the condition of indemnifying them by force of genius. If a definitive rule were to be adopted, we should say, that it would certainly be judicious to place any change of place or extension of time at the beginning of a new act; as the falling of the curtain and cessation of the action have prepared the audience to set off, as it were, upon a new score. But we consider the whole of these points of propriety as secondary to the real purposes of the Drama, and not as limitary of that gifted genius, who can, in the whirlwind of his scene, bear the imagination of his audience along with him over the boundaries of place, "While panting Time toils after them in vain. But it is not upon the observance of the unities alone that the French found their pretensions to a classical Theatre. They boast also to have discarded that intermixture of tragic and comic scenes, which was anciently universal upon the Spanish and English stages. If it had been only understood by this reformation, that the French condemned and renounced that species of tragi-comedy, which comprehended two distinct plots, the one of a serious, the other of a humorous character, and these two totally unconnected, we give them full credit for their restriction. Dryden, in the Spanish Friar, and other pieces; and Southern, both in Oroonoko and Isabella, as well as many other authors of their age, have in this particular transgressed unpardonably the unity of action. For, in the cases we have quoted, the combination of the two plots is so slight, that the serious and comic scenes, separated, might each furnish forth a separate Drama: so that the audience appear to be listening not to one play only, but to two dramatie actions independent of each other, although contained in the same piece. So far, therefore, we heartily agree in the rule which excludes such an unhappy interchange of inconsistent scenes, moving upon opposite principles and interests. When, however, the French critics carry this rule further, and proscribe the appearance of comic or inferior characters, however intimately connected with the tragic plot, we would observe, in the first place, that they run the risk of dimin ishing the reality of the scene; and secondly, that they exclude a class of circumstances essential to its beauty. Yes, continues Mr. Morgan, whatever may be the neglect of some, or the censure of others, there are those who firmly believe, that this wild, this uncultivated barbarian, as he has been called, has not yet obtained one half of his fame; and who trust that some new Stagyrite will arise, who, instead of pecking at the surface of things, will enter into the inward soul of his compositions, and expel, by the force of congenial feelings, those foreign impurities which have stained and disgraced his page. And as to those spots which still remain, they may perhaps become invisible, to those who shall seek them through the medium of his beauties, instead of looking for those beauties, as is too frequently done, through the smoke of some real or imputed obscurity. When the hand of time shall have brushed off his present editors and commentators, and when the very name of Voltaire, and even the memory of the language in which he has written, shall be no more, On the first point, it must be observed, that the the Apalachian mountains, the banks of the Ohio, rule which imposes upon valets and subordinate perand the plains of Sciola, shall resound with the ac-sonages the necessity of talking as harmonious verse cents of this barbarian. In his native tongue he and as elegant poetry as their masters, entirely shall roll the genuine passions of nature; nor shall ruins the probability of the action. Where all is the griefs of Lear be alleviated, or the charms and wit elegant, nothing can be sublime; where all is ornaof Rosalind be abated by time."+ mented, nothing can be impressive; where all is In adopting the views of those authors who have tuned to the same smooth falsetto of sentiment, pleaded for the liberty of the poet, it is not our inten- much or all may be ingenious, but nothing can be tion to deny, that great advantages may be obtained natural or real. By such an assimilation of manners by the observance of the unities; not considering and language, we stamp fiction on the very front of them as in themselves essential to the play; but our dramatic representation. The touches of nature only as points upon which the credibility and intelli- which Shakspeare has exhibited in his lower and gibility of the action in some sort depend. We ac-gayer characters, like the chastened back-ground knowledge, for example, that the author would be of a landscape, increase the effect of the principal deficient in dramatic art, who should divide the in- group. The light and fanciful humour of Mercutio, terest of his piece into two or more separate plots, serves, for example, to enhance and illustrate the instead of combining it in one progressive action. romantic and passionate character of Romeo. Even We confess, moreover, that the writer, who more the doating fondness and silly peevishness of the violently extends the time, or more frequently Nurse tend to relieve the soft and affectionate chachanges the place of representation, than can be racter of Juliet, and to place her before the audience justified by the necessity of the story, and vindicated in a point of view, which those who have seen Miss by his exertion of dramatic force, acts unwisely, in O'Neil perform Juliet, in the fifth scene of the so far as he is likely to embarrass a great part of the second act, know how to appreciate. A contrast is audience, who, from imperfect hearing, or slowness effected, which a French author dared not attempt; of comprehension, may find it difficult to apprehend but of which every bosom at once acknowledges the plot of his play. The latitude which we are dis- the power and the truth. Let us suppose, that the posed to grant, is regulated by the circumstances of gay and gallant Mercutio had as little character as Rymer was a calumniator of Shakspeare. the walking confidant of a French hero, who echoes Shakspeare and his Times, by Nathan Drake, M. D. p. 553, the hexameters of his friend in hexameters of a lower level; or let us suppose the nurse of Juliet to be 554, vol. II. A 際 R ESSAY ON THE DRAMA. 63 a gentle Nora, as sublime in white linen as her prin- | cite their common-places of gallantry, in language cipal in white satin; and let the reader judge as cold as it exaggerated, and as inconsistent with whether the piece would gain in dignity or decorum, passion and feeling as with propriety and common any thing proportioned to what it must lose in sense. truth and interest. The audience at once sympathi- misplaced garnishment of a love intrigue between zes with the friendship of Romeo and Mercutio, ren- Theseus, brought there for no other purpose, and a Even the horrid tale of Edipus has the dered more natural and more interesting, by the certain Dircé, whom, in the midst of the pestilence, very contrast of their characters; and each specta- he thus gallantly compliments: tor feels as a passion, not as a matter of reflection, that desire of vengeance which impels Romeo against Tibalt; for we acknowledge as an amiable and interesting individual, the friend whom he has lost by the Sword of the Capulet. Even the anilities of the Nurse give a reality to the piece, which, whatever French critics may pretend, is much more seriously disturbed by inconsistency of manners, than by breach of their dramatic unities. "God forbid," says Mr. Puff, in the Critic, "that, in a free country, all the fine words in the language should be engrossed by the higher characters of the piece." The French critics did not carry their ideas of equality quite so far; but they tuned the notes of their subalterns just one pitch lower than those of their principal characters, so that their language, similar in style, but lower in sentiment and diction, presents still that subordinate resemblance and correspondence to that of their superiors, which the worsted lace upon the livery of a servant bears to the embroidery upon the coat of his master. L'absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste." itself so absurdly, is all that the French have conThe predominance of a passion which expresses descended to adopt from the age of chivalry, so rich in more dramatic stores; and they have borrowed it in all its pedantry, and without its tenderness and fire. Riccoboni has probably alleged the true reason for the introduction of these heavy scenes of love intrigue, which is, that at little expense of labour to the author, they fill up three quarters of the action of his play. We quote, from the French version, as that immediately before us, and most generally intelligible: "Par exemple, otons de NICOMEDE les dir scenes de LAODICE; de L'EDIPE, les dix scenes de DIRCE; de POLIEUCTE les scenes d'amour de SEVERE: de la PHEDRE de Monsieur Racine, les six seenes d'ARICIE,-et nous verrons que non seulement l'action ne sera point interrompue, mais qu'elle en sera It is not to mere expression which these remarks ces scenes de tendresses n'ont servi qu'à ralentir l'acplus vive; en sorte que l'on verra manifestement, que are confined; for if we consult the course of human tion de la piece, à la refroidir, et à rendre les heros life, we shall find that mirth and sorrow, and events moins grands. Si, après ces deux meilleurs Tragewhich cause both, are more nearly allied than per- dies de la France, on examine tous les autres, on conhaps it is altogether pleasing to allow. Considered noitra bien mieux cette verité. Lorsque l'amour relatively to a spectator, an incident may often ex-fait le sujet de la tragedie, ce sentiment, si intercite a mingled emotion, partaking at once of that essant par lui-meme, occupe la scene avec raison which is moving, and that which is ludicrous; and j'aime l'amour de PHEDRE, mais de PHEDRE seule. there is no reader who has not, at some period of Under this thraldom, the fathers of the French his life, met with events at which he hesitated stage long laboured, notwithstanding the noble exwhether to laugh or to cry. It remains to be proved, ample of Athalie, the chef-d'œuvre of Racine. By why scenes of this dubious, yet interesting descrip- the example of Voltaire, in one or two of his best tion, should be excluded from the legitimate Drama, pieces, they have of late ventured occasionally to while their force is acknowledged in that of human discard their uninteresting Cupid, whose appearance life. We acknowledge the difficulty of bringing on the stage as a matter of course and of cerethem upon the scene with their full and correspond-mony, produced as little effect as when his altar ing effect. It was, perhaps, under this persuasion, and godhead are depicted on the semicircle of a that the Fool, whose wild jests were too much the fan. result of habit and practice to be subdued even by the terrors of the storm, has been banished from the ficial, and affected character of the French tragedy, We have already observed, that the refined, artiterrific scene of King Lear. But, in yielding to this arose from its immediate connexion with the pleadifficulty, the terrible contrast has been thus de-sures and with the presence of an absolute sovereign. stroyed, in which Shakspeare exhibited the halfperceptions of the natural Fool, as contrasted with the assumed insanity of Edgar, and the real madness of the old King. They who prefer to this living variety of emotion, the cold uniformity of a French scene of passion, must be numbered among those who read for the pleasure of criticism, and without hope of partaking the enthusiasm of the From the same circumstance, however, the French stage derived several advantages. A degree of discipline, unknown in other theatres, was early introduced among the French actors; and those of a subordinate rank, who, on the English stage, sometimes exhibit intolerable, contemptuous, and wilful negligence, become compelled, on that of France, to pay the same attention to their parts as their supossess in the subordinate parts to which they are periors, and to exert what limited talents they adapted. The effect of this common diligence upon the scene, is a general harmony and correspondence in its parts, which never fails to strike a stranger with admiration While we differ from French criticism respecting the right to demand an accurate compliance with the unities, and decline to censure that casual intermixture of comic character which gives at once reality and variety to the Drama, we are no less disposed to condemn the impertinent love-scenes, which these authors have, as a matter of etiquette, Parisian stage, an improved and splendid style of introduced into all their tragedies, however alien scenery, decoration, and accompaniments. The The Royal protection also, early produced on the from the passion on which they are grounded. The scenes and machinery which they borrowed from French Drama assumed its present form under the Italy, they improved with their usual alert ingenuity. auspices of Louis XIV., who aimed at combining They were still further improved under the auspices all the characters of a hero of romance. The same of Voltaire, the first who had the merit of introduspirit which inspired the dull monotony of the end- cing natural and correct costume. Before his time less folios of Scudery and Calprenede, seemed to the actors, whether Romans or Scythians, appeared dictate to Corneille, and even to Racine, those scenes in the full dress of the French court; and Augustus of frigid metaphysical passion which encumber their himself was represented in a huge full-bottomed best plays. We do not dispute the deep interest wig, surmounted by a crown of laurel. The strict which attaches to the passion of love, so congenial national costume introduced by Voltaire is now obto the human breast, when it forms the ground-served. That author has also the merit of excludwork of the play; but it is intolerably nauseous to ing the idle crowd of courtiers and men of fashion, find a dull love tale mingled as an indispensable in- who thronged the stage during the time of representgredient in every dramatic plot, however inconsist- ation, and formed a sort of semicircle round the ent with the rest of the piece. The Amoureux and actors, leaving them thus but a few yards of an Amoureuse of the piece come regularly forth to re-area free for performance, and disconcerting at once the performers and the audience, by the whimsical intermixture of players and spectators. The nerves of those pedants who contended most strenuously for the illusion of the scene, and who objected against its being interrupted by an occasional breach of the dramatic unities, do not appear to have suffered from the singular presence of this Chorus. talk like men of no peculiar character or distinct age and nation; but, like the other heroes of the French dramatic school, are "all honourable men;" who speak in high, grave, buskined rhymes, where an artificial brilliancy of language, richness of met aphor, and grandeur of sentment, are substituted for that concise and energetic tone of dialogue, which shows at once the national and individual character of the personage who uses it. In Mahomet, Alzirę and one or two other pieces, Voltaire has attempted some discrimination of national character; the groundwork, however, is still French; and under every disguise, whether of the turban of the Ottoman the feathery crown of the savage, or the silk tunic of the Chinese, the character of that singular people car. be easily recognised. Voltaire probably saw the deficiency of the national Drama with his usual acuteness; but, like the ancient philosophers, he contentedly joined in the idolatry which he despised. It was not decoration and splendour alone which the French stage owed to Louis XIV. Its principal obligation was for that patronage which called forth in its service the talents of Corneille and Racine, the Homer and Virgil of the French Drama. However constrained by pedantic rules; however withheld from using that infinite variety of materials, which national and individual character presented to them; however frequently compelled by system to adopt a pompous, solemn, and declamatory style of dialogue -these distinguished authors still remain the proudest boast of the classical age of France, and a high honour to the European republic of letters. It seems probable that Corneille, It seems, indeed, extremely doubtful, whether the if left to the exercise of his own judgment, would French tragedy can ever be brought many steps have approximated more to the romantic drama. nearer to nature. That nation is so unfortunate as The Cid possesses many of the charms of that to have no poetical language; so that some degree species of composition. In the character of Don of unnatural exaltation of sentiment is almost neces Gourmas, he has drawn a national portrait of the sary to sustain the tone of tragedy at a pitch higher Spanish nobility, for which very excellence he was than that of ordinary life. The people are passionsubjected to the censure of the Academy, his national ately fond of ridicule; their authors are equally court of criticism. In a general point of view, he afraid of incurring it: they are aware, like their late seems to have been ambitious of overawing his au- ruler, that there is but one step betwixt the sublime dience by a display of the proud, the severe, the am- and the ridiculous; and they are afraid to aim at bitious, and the terrible. Tyrants and conquerors the former, lest their attempt falling short, should have never sat to a painter of greater skill; and the expose them to derision. They cannot reckon on romantic tone of feeling which he adopts in his more the mercy or enthusiasm of their audience; and perfect characters is allied to that of chivalry. But while they banish combats and deaths, and even Corneille was deficient in tenderness, in dramatic violent action of any kind, from the stage, this seems art, and in the power of moving the passions. His chiefly on account of the manifest risk, that a people fame, too, was injured by the multiplicity of his ef- more alive to the ludicrous than the lofty, migat forts to extend it. Critics of his own nation have laugh when they should applaud. The drunken and numbered about twenty of his Dramas, which have dizzy fury with which Richard, as personated by little to recommend them; and no foreign reader is Kean, continues to make the motion of striking afvery likely to verify or refute the censure, since he ter he has lost his weapon, would be caviare to the must previously read them to an end. Parisian parterre. Men must compound with their Racine, who began to write when the classical fet-poets and actors, and pardon something like extraters were clinched and rivetted upon the French vagance, on the score of enthusiasm. But if they Drama, did not make that effort of struggling with are nationally dead to that enthusiasm, they resemhis chains, which we observe in the elder drama-ble a deaf man listening to eloquence, who is more tists; he was strong where Corneille evinced weak- likely to be moved to laughter by the gestures of ness, and weak in the points where his predecessor the orator, than to catch fire at his passionate deshowed vigour. Racine delineated the passion of clamation. love with truth, softness, and fidelity; and his scenes of this sort, form the strongest possible contrast with those in which he, as well as Corneille, sacrificed to the dull Cupid of metaphysical romance. In refinement and harmony of versification, Racine has hitherto been unequalled; and his Athalie is, perhaps, likely to be generally acknowledged as the most finished production of the French Drama. Above all, the French people are wedded to their own opinions. Each Parisian is, or supposes himself, master of the rules of the critical art; and whatever limitations it imposes on the author, the spectators receive some indemnification from the pleasure of sitting in judgment upon him. To require from a dancer to exhibit his agility without touching any of the lines of a diagrama chalked on the floor, Subsequent dramatists, down to the time of Vol- would deprive the performance of much ease, taire, were contented with imitating the works of strength, and grace; but still the spectator of such these two great models; until the active and inge- a species of dance, might feel a certain interest in nious spirit of that celebrated author seems tacitly watching the dexterity with which the artist avoided to have meditated further experimental alterations treading on the interdicted limits, and a certain than he thought it prudent to defend or to avow. pride in detecting occasional infringements. In the His extreme vivacity and acute intellect were min- same manner. the French critic obtains a triumph gled, as is not unfrequent in such temperaments, from watching the transgressions of the dramate with a certain nervous timidity, which prevented poet against the laws of Aristotle; equal, perhaps, him from attempting open and bold innovation, even to the more legitimate pleasure he might have dewhere he felt compliance with existing rules most rived from the unfettered exercise of his talents. inconvenient and dispiriting. He borrowed, there- Upon the whole, the French tragedy, though its regufore, liberally from Shakspeare, whose irregulari-lations seem to us founded in pedantry, and its senties were the frequent object of his ridicule; and he timents to belong to a state of false and artificial did not hesitate tacitly to infringe the dramatic uni- refinement, contains, nevertheless, passages of such ties in his plays, while in his criticism he holds them perfect poetry and exquisite moral beauty, that to up as altogether inviolable. While he altered the hear them declaimed with the art of Talma, cancostume of the stage, and brought it nearer to that not but afford a very high pitch of intellectual gratiof national truth, he made one or two irresolute fication. steps towards the introduction of national charac- The French comedy assumed a regular shape ter. If we were, indeed, to believe the admirers of about the same period with the tragedy; and MoCorneille, little remained to be done in this depart-liere was in his department what Corneille and Rament; he had already, it is said, taught his Romans to speak as Romans, and his Greeks as Greeks; but of such national discrimination foreigners are unable to perceive a trace. His heroes, one and all, cine were in theirs; an original author, approached in excellence by none of those that succeeded him. The form which he assumed for a model was that of the comedy of Menander; and he has copied pretty |