On this stage, as on all others in Germany, the same actors play both comic and tragic parts. It is said that this diversity stands in the way of their ever becoming eminent in either. Yet the greatest of theatrical geniuses, Garrick and Talma,

themselves and their poems on the standpoint of the independent literary drama. The old schism between the genres again presented itself, the scholarly in opposition to the popular drama; and poetic art again won the supremacy over dramatic. Don Carlos and Wallenstein were not conceived for the actual stage, and could only be adapted to it with great labor and sacrifice; in writing Faust, Tasso, and the Natürliche Tochter, Goethe did not contemplate their representation, which must be considered purely as a theatrical experiment. It was a natural consequence that, since the two great poets adapted their works to the theatre just as it was, and were by no means excessively fastidious in their mode of doing it, they, with the same sort of violence, pushed forward the art of representation, and here also had to content themselves with what could be achieved by merely external discipline. Dramatic art had not reached that point of culture which could prepare it perfectly to comprehend and master their poems, and reproduce them independently. Now if this new school was to make its authority in taste acknowledged, that authority must necessarily be exercised with a certain despotism;-with despotism towards the actors and the public, since both were deeply imbued with naturalism. Like the unfortunate Neuber, like Schroeder in his eightieth year, Schiller and Goethe placed themselves in decided opposition to the taste of the majority. They maintained a thoroughly aristocratic position with respect to the public, and defended the ideal principle with all the power of their pre-eminent genius; nay, they did not scorn to attack the prevalent taste with the sharpest weapons of satire. Their correspondence exhibits their contempt for the masses, and for the champions of the popular taste, in all that rudeness which seems inseparable from the enthusiasm of great souls for a more exalted humanity. Nowhere did they sue for the approbation of the multitude; nowhere did they accommodate themselves to the ruling taste, or even flatter it.

"The despotic energy with which Goethe carried out the ideal principle, in spite of all difficulties, necessarily made itself felt in his direction of the theatre. He had to urge forward dramatic art, and to wring from the public a formal respect for the experiments of his school; a double task, which obliged him to surpass even Schroeder in the peremptoriness of his ommands.

"How great the difficulty which was here to be overcome, can scarcely be appreciated in the present day, when every variety of verse is current on the most insignificant stage. The language of poetry was lost; the attempt to restore the Alexandrines had everywhere failed; rhythmic feeling, which the higher development of the opera had certainly extended among artists, was not yet understood, not yet applied to language. That even Mannheim, where attempts had most frequently been made with

have united them both. The flexibility of organs, which transmits different impressions with equal facility, seems to me the seal of natural talent; and in fiction, as in reality, melancholy Beand gayety are possibly derived from the same source.

iambic verse, had remained far from clear as to its principle, was proved by Iffland's very defective treatise on this verse. Schroeder, in the repre sentation of Don Carlos at Hamburg, true to his system, had laid no weight on the rhetorical side. Thus there existed difficulties similar to those which, at the end of the seventeenth century, hindered the spread of the Alexandrine verse, and the influence of the Silesian school of poets on literature. It was fortunate, therefore, that the poets who introduced the new metrical language were consummate masters in its use, and that they had opportunity and power enough to solve the problem practically. When this had once been done, imitation might be calculated upon, and the influential mediator, Iffland, offered himself readily for that purpose. But immediately another problem urged itself-namely, how to treat correctly the doggerel rhymes in Wallenstein's Lager. The great poets feared the danger which lay for the reciter in the irregularity of the rhyme-in the temptation to fall too perceptibly on the rhyme; but, remarkably enough, this point was soon settled. It was as if the medieval popular verse lay in the German blood; it only required a summons to call it forth again naturally and flowingly, as in the time of Hans Sachs, and Jacob Ayrer. The system of direction which was introduced by Schroeder, and in which the highest value was attached to reading-rehearsals as the basis of all artistic execution, was adopted by Goethe; in this case, in which the rhetorical part of the representation was so new and so surpassingly important, these rehearsals must not only be multiplied, but converted into formal exercises in reading. And so difficult was it to give rhythm its due, that Goethe, in the zeal of demonstration, went so far as to seize the arm of a principal and popular actress, and to move it backwards and forwards in iambic measure, so as make the rhythm intelligible by the accompaniment of a resentfully accentuated sch. The solution of the new problem involved hard trials of patience on all sides, and many a custom which had become prevalent under the old system, was a hindrance to the work. Thus, Goethe writes to Schiller, after a reading-rehearsal: "Mlle. Teller read the Duchess yesterday so far well that she did not read falsely, but too feebly, and too much in rehearsal fashion. She assures me that all will be different on the stage. As this is a universal whim with actors, I cannot blame her in particular for it, though this folly is the principal cause that no important part is properly learned, and that at last so much depends on chance.""

"Not only were there difficulties of rhythm, but also of pronunciation to be overcome. The German language, harsh as it is at the best, becomes hideous in the careless licenses of pronunciation which various cities and classes adopt-as people who are too ugly tc hope for any admiration of their persons, come at last entirely to neglect their appearance. The Sua

sides, in Germany the pathetic and the humorous so often suc ceed and are mingled with each other in tragedies, that it is very desirable for the actors to possess the power of expressing both alike; and the best German actor, Iffland, has given the example of it with deserved success. I have not met in Germany with any good actors in high comedy, marquises, coxcombs, etc. What constitutes grace in this description of parts, is that which the Italians call the disinvoltura, and which the French would express by the air dégagé. The hab it which the Germans possess, of giving importance to every thing, is precisely that which is most contrary to this easy lightness. But it is impossible to carry originality, the comic vein, and the art of painting characters, to a greater length than Iffland has done in his parts. I do not believe that we have ever seen on the French stage a genius more varied or more unexpected than his, or an actor who ventures to render natural defects and absurdities with so striking an expression. There are certain given models in comedy, avaricious fathers, spendthrift sons, knavish servants, duped guardians; but If fland's parts, such as he conceives them, can enter into none of these moulds: each of them must be designated by its name; for they are so many individuals remarkably different from each other, and in all of whom Iffland appears to exist as in himself.

His manner of playing tragedy is also, in my opinion, of

bians. Austrians, and especially the Weimarians, plagued Goethe terribly with their snorting of that 'language of horses,' as Charles V called it. 'One would scarcely believe that b, p, d, and t, are generally considered to be four different letters,' said the poet to Eckermann, for they only speak of a hard and a soft b, and of a hard and a soft d, and thus seem tacitly to intimate that p and t do not exist. With such people, pein (pain) sounds sike bein (leg), pass (pass) like bass (bass), and teckel (a terrier) like deckel (cover). Thus, an actor, in an impassioned moment bidding his mistress cease her reproaches, exclaimed, O ente (Oh, duck!) meaning 0 ende (Oh cease!) "-(Lewes, Life and Works of Goethe, vol. ii. pp. 248–253.)--Ed.

1 "Ludecus, in his Aus Goethe's Leben: Wahrheit und keine Dichtung, tells story of Graf, Schiller's favorite actor, who, on seeing the great Talma, exclaimed, 'Dalma ist ein Gott!' "

grand effect. The calm simplicity of his declamation in the fine part of Wallenstein, can never be effaced from the memory. The impression he produces is gradual; it seems at first that his apparent coldness will prove incapable of exciting any emotion: but, as the play goes on, that emotion grows upon us in a continually accelerated progression, and the smallest word exercises a great power, when there reigns in the general tone a noble tranquillity, that sets off every shade, and constantly preserves the same color of character amid all the variations of passion.

Iffland, who is as superior in the theory as in the practice of his art, has published several remarkably sensible works on declamation; he gives at first a sketch of the different epochs of the history of the German theatre, the stiff and heavy imitation of the French, the larmoyante sensibility of dramas, of a nature so prosaic, as to have made the writers even forget the art of versifying; finally, the return to poetry and imagi uation that constitutes the prevailing taste in Germany at the present time. There is not an accent, not a gesture, of which Iffland has not been able to discover the cause as a philosopher and an artist.

One character in his pieces furnishes him with the most ingenious observations on comic performance; it is that of a inan advanced in years, who all at once abandons his old sentiments and habits to clothe himself in the costume and opinions of the new generation. The character of this man has nothing wicked in it, and yet he is as much led astray by vanity, as if it had been intrinsically bad. He has suffered his daughter to contract a reasonable, though obscure alliance, and then, on a sudden, advises her to obtain a divorce. With some fashionable toy in his hand, smiling graciously, and balancing himself, now on one foot, then on the other, he proposes to his child to break the most sacred ties; but the existence of old age that discovers itself through a forced elegance, the real embarrassment struggling through his apparent indifference, these are traits which Iffland has seized with admirable sagacity.

In treating of Franz Moor, the brother of Schiller's Captain of the Robbers, Iffland examines in what manner the parts of villains should be played. "The actor," he says, "must take pains to make it appear by what motives the character has become what it is, what circumstances have contributed to the depravation of the soul; in short, the actor should become the sedulous defender of the part he represents." In fact, there can be no truth, even in villainy, unless we attend to the shades of character which evince that man becomes bad only by degrees.

Iffland reminds us also of the prodigious sensation excited. in the play of Emilia Galotti, by Eckhoff, formerly a very celebrated German actor. When Odoardo is informed by the prince's mistress that the honor of his daughter is threatened, he wishes to conceal from this woman, whom he despises, the indignation and grief that she excites in his soul, and his hands, unknown to himself, were employed in tearing the plume on his hat, with a convulsive motion that produced an effect truly Lerrible. The actors who succeeded Eckhoff took care to tear their plumes also; but they fell to the ground without anybody's remarking it; for genuine emotion was wanting, to give to the most indifferent actions that sublime truth which agitates the soul of the spectators.

Iffiand's theory of gestures is very ingenious. He laughs at those arms of windmills that can answer no purpose but in the deciamation of moral sentences, and he thinks that, in general, gestures few in number, and confined within narrow limits, give better indication of real passions; but in this respect, as in many others, there are two very distinct classes of talentthat which bears the character of poetical enthusiasm, and that which springs from the spirit of observation; the one or the other must predominate, according to the nature of the piece and of the parts. The gestures which are inspired by grace, and by the sentiment of the beautiful, are not those best adapted to characterize particular personages. Poetry expresses perfection in general, rather than a peculiar mode of existence or feeling. The art of the tragic actor consists ther