substance of the French tragedies: it cannot be said in an Al exandrine verse that one comes in or goes out, that one sleeps or wakes, without seeking some poetical turn by which to ex press it; and numberless sentiments and effects are banished from the theatre, not by the rules of tragedy, but by the very exigencies of the verse. Racine is the only French writer who, in the scene between Joas and Athalie, has once ventured to sport with these difficulties; he has managed to give a simplicity equally noble and natural to the language of a child: but this admirable effort of an unparalleled genius does not prevent the multiplication of artificial difficulties from being too frequently an obstacle to the most happy inventions.

M. Benj. Constant, in the so justly admired preface to his tragedy of Walstein, has remarked that the Germans painted characters, the French only passions, in their dramatic pieces. To dilineate characters, it is necessary to abandon the majestic tone which is exclusively admitted into French tragedy; for it is impossible to make known the faults and qualities of a man, but by presenting him under different aspects: in nature, the vulgar often mixes with the sublime, and sometimes relieves its effect: in short, the true action of a character cannot be represented but in a space of time somewhat considerable, and in twenty-four hours there is no room for any thing but a catastrophe. It will perhaps be contended, that catastrophes are more suitable to the theatre than the minute shades of character; the emotion excited by lively passions pleases the greater part of the spectators more than the attention required for the observation of the human heart. The national taste alone can decide upon these different dramatic systems; but it is justice to acknowledge, that if foreigners have a different. conception of the theatrical art from ourselves, it is neither through ignorance nor barbarism, but in consequence of profound reflections which are worthy of being examined.

Shakspeare, whom they choose to call a barbarian, has, perhaps, too philosophical a spirit, too subtle a penetration, for the instantaneous perception of the theatre; he judges characters with the impartiality of a superior being, and sometimes

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represents them with an irony almost Machiavelian; his compositions have so much depth, that the rapidity of theatrical action makes us lose a great part of the ideas which they contain in this respect, his pieces deserve more to be read than to be seen. By the very force of his imagination, Shakspeare often suffers his action to grow cool, and the French understand much better how to paint their characters as well as their decorations with those striking colors which produce effect at a distance. What! will they say, can Shakspeare be reproached with having too much nicety in his perceptions, he who has indulged himself in situations so terrible? Shakspeare often reunites qualities, and even faults, that are contrary to each other; he is sometimes within, sometimes without the sphere of art; but he possesses the knowledge of the human heart even more than that of the theatre.

In their dramas, their comic operas, and their comedies, the French evince a sagacity and a grace which only themselves possess in the same degree; and, from one end of Europe to the other, they perform scarcely any thing but translations of French pieces; but it is not the same with their tragedies. As the severe rules to which they are subjected, occasion their being all more or less confined within the same circle, the perfection of style is indispensable to the admiration which they are calculated to inspire. If any innovation on the rules of tragedy were risked in France, all the world would immediately cry out, a melodrama! But is it a matter of no importance whatever, to ascertain what it is that causes so many people to be pleased with melodramas? In England, all classes are equally attracted by the pieces of Shakspeare. Our finest tragedies in France do not interest the people; under the pretence of a taste too pure and a sentiment too refined to support certain emotions, the art is divided into two branches; the worst plays contain the most touching situations ill expressed, and the finest paint with admirable skill situations often cold, because they are dignified: we possess few tragedies capable of exciting at the same time the imaginations of all ranks of society.

These observations are not intended to convey the slightest blame against our great masters. In the foreign dramas there are scenes which produce more lively impressions, but nothing to be compared to the imposing and well-combined general effect of our dramatic chefs-d'oeuvre: the point is only to know whether, in being confined, as at present, to the imitation of these chefs-d'œuvre, we shall ever produce any new ones. Nothing in life ought to be stationary; and art is petrified when it refuses to change. Twenty years of revolution have given to the imagination other wants than those which it experienced when the romances of Crébillon painted the love and the manners of the age. Greek subjects are exhausted; one man only, Le Mercier, has been able to reap new glory from an ancient subject, Agamemnon; but the taste of the age naturally inclines to historical tragedy.

Every thing is tragic in the events by which nations are interested; and this immense drama, which the human race has for these six thousand years past been performing, would furnish innumerable subjects for the theatre, if more freedom were allowed to the dramatic art. Rules are but the itinerary of genius; they only teach us that Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, have passed that way; but provided we arrive at the same end, why cavil about the road? And is not the end that of moving, at the same time that we ennoble, the soul?

Curiosity is one of the great excitements of the theatre; but the only inexhaustible interest is that which is inspired by deep affection. We love that species of poetry which discovers man to man; we love to see how a creature like ourselves combats with suffering, sinks under it, triumphs over it, is rendered subject, or rises superior, to the power of fate. In some of our tragedies we find situations equally violent with those of the English and German; but these situations are not represented in all their force; and their effect is sometimes softened, or even altogether effaced, by affectation. Our authors seldom depart from a sort of conventional nature which clothes in its own colors ancient manners with the resemblance of those of modern times, vice with that of virtue, assassination with that

of gallantry. This nature is beautiful and adorned with care, but she fatigues us in the end; and the desire of plunging into deeper mysteries must obtain invincible possession of genius.

It is much to be desired, then, that we could overleap the barriers with which this art is surrounded by the law of rhymes and hemistichs; we should allow greater boldness, and exact a more intimate acquaintance with history; for, if we confine ourselves exclusively to these every-day fainter impressions of the same great productions of genius, we shall at last see upon the stage nothing but so many heroic puppets, sacrificing love to duty, preferring death to slavery, inspired by antithesis in actions as in words, but without any resemblance to that astonishing creature which is called man, or any relation to that fearful destiny which by turns impels and pursues him.

The defects of the German theatre are obvious: every thing that looks like want of acquaintance with the world, whether in art or in society, immediately strikes the most superficial. observer; but, to feel the beauties which come from the soul, it is necessary to appreciate the works that are presented to us with a sort of candor which is altogether consistent with the highest superiority of mind. Ridicule is often only a vulgar sentiment translated into impertinence. The faculty of perceiving and admiring real greatness through all the faults of bad taste in literature, as through all the inconsistencies with which it is sometimes surrounded in the conduct of life, is the only faculty that does honor to the critic.

In making my readers acquainted with a theatre founded on principles so different from our own, I certainly do not pretend that these principles are better, still less that they ought to be adopted in France: but foreign combinations may excite new ideas; and when we see with what sterility our literature is threatened, it seems to me difficult not to desire that our writers may enlarge a little the limits of the course: would they not do well to become conquerors, in their turn, in the empire of the imagination? It would cost the French but little to follow such advice.

CHAPTER XVI.

OF THE DRAMAS OF LESSING.

THE German theatre did not exist before Lessing; they performed only translations and imitations of foreign dramas. The theatre requires, even more than any other branch of literature, a capital, a centre of union for the resources of wealth and of the arts; in Germany every thing is scattered abroad. In one town they have actors, in another, authors, in a third, spectators; and nowhere a focus in which to collect them together. Lessing exerted the natural activity of his character in giving a national theatre to his countrymen, and he wrote a journal entitled Dramaturgie, in which he examined most of the pieces translated from the French, which were then acted in Germany: the correctness of thought which he uisplays in his criticisms, evinces even more of a philosophical spirit than knowledge of the art. Lessing generally thought like Diderot on the subject of dramatic poetry. He believed that the strict regularity of the French tragedies was an obstacle to the adoption of a great many simple and affecting subjects, and that it was necessary to invent new dramas to supply the want of them. But Diderot, in his dramas, substituted the affectation of simplicity in the room of a more usual affectation, while the genius of Lessing is really simple and sincere. He was the first to give to the Germans the honorable impulse of following their own genius in their theatrical works. The originality of his character shows itself in his dramas: yet are they subjected to the same principles as ours; their form has nothing in it peculiar, and though he troubled himself little about the unity of time and place, he did not rise, like Goethe and Schiller, to the conception of a new system. \ Minna von