guages admits the possibility of writing equally well in both, and Baggesen, also a Dane, had already given the example of a great genius for versification in a foreign idiom. A fine dramatic imagination discovers itself in the tragedies of Ehlenschläger. They are said to have met with great success on the stage of Copenhagen: in the closet, they are calculated to excite interest under two principal relations: first, because the author has sometimes found the means of reconciling the regularity of the French drama with the diversity of situations. which the German taste requires; and secondly, because he has represented, in a manner at once true and poetical, the history and the fables of ancient Scandinavia.

We are little acquainted with the North, which touches upon the confines of the habitable world; the long nights of the northern countries, during which only the reflection of the snow seems to enlighten the earth; the darkness which bounds the horizon in the distance, even when the vault of heaven is illuminated by the stars, all seem to give the idea of unknown space, of a nocturnal universe by which our world is encircled. The air, so piercing as to congeal the breath, drives all warmth backwards on the soul, and nature herself, in these climates, appears made only to concentrate man within himself.

The heroes of northern poetical fiction have something gigantic in them. In their character, superstition is united to strength, while everywhere else it seems to partake of weakness. Images, drawn from the rigor of the climate, characterize the poetry of the Scandinavians; they call vultures the wolves of the air; the boiling lakes formed by volcanoes preserve during winter the birds that seek refuge in the atmosphere by which these lakes are surrounded; in these regions of cloud, every thing is impressed with a character of grandeur and gloom.

The Scandinavian nations possessed a sort of physical strength that seemed to exclude deliberation, and impelled the will, like a rock precipitating itself to the bottom of the mountain. The iron men of Germany cannot make us suffi

ciently comprehend these inhabitants of the extremity of the earth: they unite the irritability of passion to the persevering coldness of resolution; and nature herself has not disdained to paint them with a poet's pencil, when she placed in Iceland a volcano which vomits torrents of fire from a bosom of eternal

snow.

Ehlenschläger has created for himself an entirely new career, in taking for the subjects of his plays the heroic traditions of his country; and, by following this example, the literature of the North may one day become equally celebrated with that of Germany.

It is here that I choose to terminate the review which I meant to give of those pieces of the German theatre which partake in any degree of the character of tragedy. I shall not sum up the defects and beauties which this tableau may present to us. There is so much diversity of genius and of system among the dramatic poets of Germany, that the same judgment cannot apply to all. Besides, the greatest praise that can be bestowed upon them is that very diversity; for, in the empire of literature, as in others, unanimity is almost always a sign of servitude.

CHAPTER XXVI.

OF COMEDY.

THE IDEAL of tragic character consists, says W. Schlegel, in the victory obtained by the will over destiny, or over our passions; that of comedy, on the contrary, expresses the empire of physical over moral existence: whence it follows that gluttony and poltroonery are, in all places, an inexhaustible subject of pleasantry. The love of life appears to man the most ridicu lous and the most vulgar of feelings, and the laughter which seizes upon mortal beings, when contemplating the object of

one of their fellow-mortals suffering under the apprehension of death, is a noble attribute of the soul.

But when we quit the circle, a little too common, of these universal pleasantries, when we arrive at the ridiculous extravagances of self-love, we find that they partake of an infinite. variety, according to the habits and tastes of each nation. Gayety may flow either from natural inspiration, or social relations; in the former case, it is suitable to men of all countries; in the latter, it differs with the difference of times, places, and customs; for the efforts of vanity being always directed towards making an impression on others, it is necessary to know what is attended with most success at such an epoch, and in such a place, in order to ascertain to what particular object those efforts should be applied: there are countries in which fashion renders ridiculous even fashion itself, which appears to have for its object to place every man out of the reach of ridicule, by giving to all a similar mode of existence. In the German comedies, the great world is, in general, but badly described; there are few good models to be imitated in this respect society does not attract distinguished characters, and its greatest charm, which consists in the agreeable art of reciprocal pleasantry, would not succeed among them; it would soon dash in pieces the self-love which is accustomed to enjoy itself in tranquillity, and it might easily also wither that virtue which would take offence even at an innocent pleasantry.

The Germans seldom bring forward on the stage objects of ridicule taken from the manners of their own nation; they do not observe others, and are still less capable of examining themselves, under external relations; they would fancy that in so doing, they were in a manner wanting to the fidelity which hey owe to themselves. Besides, susceptibility, which is one of the characteristic features of their nature, renders it very difficult to them to handle pleasantry with lightness; they frequently do not understand it, and, when they do understand it, it vexes them, and they dare not make use of it in their turn; it is like a gun, which they are afraid of seeing burst in their hands.

There are not, then, many specimens in Germany of that species of comedy which has the absurdities of society for its object. Natural originality would be better perceived among them; for every man lives after his own fashion in a country where the despotism of custom does not hold its sittings in a great capital; but, although there is a greater freedom of opinion in Germany than in England itself, English originality is invested with more lively colors, because the movement that exists in the political state in England, gives better opportunity to every man to display himself as he is.

In the south of Germany, particularly at Vienna, a sufficient vein of gayety is discoverable in the farces. The Tyrolese buffoon, Casperle, has a character peculiar to himself; and in all these pieces, of somewhat low comedy, both authors and actors make it their rule to have no pretension to elegance, and establish themselves in the natural, with an energy and decision, which amply compensates the want of artificial refinements. The Germans prefer strong to delicate humor; they seek truth in their tragedies, and caricature in their comedies. All the intricacies of the heart are known to them; but the refinement of social wit does not excite them to gayety; the trouble that it costs them to comprehend, deprives them of the enjoyment of it.

I shall have occasion to speak elsewhere of Iffland, the first actor of Germany, and one of her most lively writers; he has composed several pieces, which are excellent in the delineation of character, and the representation of domestic manners; and these family pictures are rendered the more striking, by the personages of a truly comic cast that are always introduced into them: nevertheless, we may sometimes find with these comedies the fault of being too reasonable; they are too carefully adapted to fulfil the purpose of the motto in front of the stage: to correct by laughing (corriger les mœurs en riant) They have too many young people in debt, too many fathers of families who have become embarrassed. Moral lessons are not the province of comedy, and there is even some danger in admitting them into it; for when they prove fatiguing, it is too

possible that the impression produced at the theatre may be come the habitual feeling of real life.

Kotzebue has borrowed from a Danish poet, Holberg, a comedy which has met with great success in Germany; it is entitled Don Ranudo Colibrados; it is a ruined gentleman, who tries to pass himself off for a man of fortune, and employs, in making a show, the little money he has, which is scarcely sufficient to keep himself and his family from starving. The subject of this piece serves as an appendage and contrast to Molière's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, who wishes to pass for a gentleman; there are many lively, and some truly comic scenes in the Poor Nobleman; but it is a barbarous sort of comedy. The point of ridicule that Molière has seized is intrinsically gay, but there is real misery at the foundation of that which the Danish poet has adopted; no doubt, it almost always requires great intrepidity of genius to treat human life as a jest, and comic force supposes a character at least of indifference; but it would be wrong to push this force so far as to brave the feeling of compassion; art itself would suffer by it, to say nothing of delicacy; for the slightest impression of grief is sufficient to tarnish all that is poetical in the full abandonment of the soul to gayety.

The comedies of Kotzebue's own invention, in general, bear marks of the same talent as his tragic pieces, the knowledge of stage effect, and an imagination fruitful in the invention of striking situations. It has been for some time past pretended, that to laugh or cry proves nothing in favor either of comedy or tragedy; I am far from being of this opinion: the desire of lively emotions is the source of the greatest pleasures that can be derived from the fine arts; but we must not conclude from thence that tragedy should be changed into melodrama, or omedies into Bartholomew Fair farces, but real talent consists in composing in such a manner, as to produce, in the same play, or even in the same scene of a play, food for the tears or the laughter of the populace, and an inexhaustible subject for the reflections of the thinking part of the audience.

Parody, properly so called, can hardly be admitted on the