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created for so limited an end; and if in his tragedy an author wishes to cater to the delicate palates of his refined friends, those touches should be, as in Shakspeare, altogether subordinate; they should keep up with beautiful insignificance merely, like violets among the loftier and more robust flowers that characterize the work. Ex pede Herculem, is fair reasoning for a critic, but to carve a foot and call it Hercules-to write a prettiness, and call it tragedy, is but an indefinite mixture of blunder and impudence. In the annals of stage history, we always find the drama dependent on the audience before whom it was to be represented; and proportionably as that audience was free, mixed, and popular, we find the drama to have been grand, sublime, and original. Every one's knowledge will here fill up a paragraph for itself concerning the Grecian and Roman stage. In Italy, the audience of tragedy became soon confined to the learned, owing to the musical and operative propensities of the people, as well as to the mental thraldom imposed by religion. The tragic pieces from Trissino to Maffei are nothings absolute nothings; they addressed an assembly of learned and tasteful churchmen, whose vein was ridicule and raillery; and who could tolerate serious feeling, only when it was cold; and even then, but for formsake. Alfieri arose late, and having no audience but an imaginary one to look to, he wrote a second edition of the Grecian Drama, to which he hoped the Italians would suit themselves-till that distant day, his works may remain in the closet, In France, the ruling audience of tragedy was the Court. A new piece was first brought forward there, and the smile or frown of the monarch passed a judgment without appeal. To this smile the drama adapted itself, and became what it is -utterly contemptible for any one that has a thought beyond his ears. In England, thanks to the Reformation, the theatre became free, and obedient solely to a public audience; where, we

may be sure, the blunt English yeoman exercised his full share of influence. We see the consequence; the world has never had, and never will have, such a theatre. The puritans overturned the stage; and when it was revived, the court and cavaliers sought to take possession of it, in imitation of the French. Then commenced the reign of the pit and the beaux-esprits; and, from that day, the drama fell.

We are, like Lord Byron,* aristocrats by birth and feeling, but we have a drop of the tiers etat in us, and grow republican at times; nowhere more so than in a theatre. We forget the garter beneath our knee, and the ribbon in our button-hole-the Golden Fleece and the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour become invisible on our generous swelling breast-we look up and around with a sentiment of fraternity, and with proud humiliation rejoice that so many are in one respect almost as great as ourselves. "One touch of nature maketh the whole world kin."

How beautiful the line! How trebly beautiful, had not the Cockneys bequoted it! Who can doubt that it was not in his theatre Shakespeare conceived the thought and moulded the verse? It must have been so-we have felt the sentiment there a thousand times, and should have built the very line ourselves, in this very article, had not the poet had the impudence to write it before us.

Vulgarity is the essence of the dramatic genius-not conventional vulgarity or cant, but vulgarity, properly so called the current sentiments-the unsophisticated passions-the simple, straight-forward language of vulgar life.

To write an epic, or to found a school, we may refine upon refinement —we may create supererogation of gentility and heroism-and idle folk may be found who will educate their hotbed sympathies for the prepense enjoyment of such imaginations; but let these never be embodied in a tragedy. Antithetic characters, unintelligible

Query. Was Lord Byron born an aristocrat ?-If we mistake not, neither he himself, nor his friends, could have had expectations at the hour of his birth, that he would ever enjoy a title. And had the aristocratic baby of an hour old-had the little gentleman titled hopes, how does that make him an aristocrat? "Un lord disoit spirituellement:" relates Madame de Stael," Je ne puis pas devenir aristocrate, car j'ai chez moi constamment des representans du parti populaire ; ce sont mes fils cadets."

passions, wire-drawn sentiments, may be unravelled in the closet; and the nonsense of these too may be exquisite, like Coleridge's ignorance, and may well repay our trouble; but, on the stage, this is misplaced-it is all High Dutch to John Bull. The passions and characters of the acting drama must be from the staple ones of humanity-they must be drawn from observation as well as from egotism; and no one, be he ever so talented, ever so finely organized, can expect that an audience will listen to a five act panorama of his thoughts, hopes, and opinions. Indeed we prophesy that our next great dramatic genius must spring from the lower ranks of the people.

And here we approach the very core of the subject. The sign of decay, in all literature, has been peculiar and exclusive attention bestowed on language. A more advantageous effect certainly could not be brought about, than that of stablishing language, and rendering it pure and permanent. But however noble and praise-worthy the endeavour be in itself, it is by no means the way to elevate a dormant or a fallen poetry. What is chiefly admired in our ancient dramatists, is the simple, strenuous, natural style; it is thence concluded that we should take them as models, and adopt their manner and phraseology. This would be well, if the nineteenth century were the same as the sixteenth. But as there exists a material difference between them, the language that appeared simple, natural, and strong to the people of that day; and which appears possessed still of the same qualities to the critics of the present, who have no objection to transport themselves a couple of centuries back ;-this same language is to the common audience of the year eighteen hundred and twentytwo, neither simple nor natural, but, on the contrary, pedantic, extravagant, and, for the most part, nonsense. The metaphors, the phrases, the turns of expression then used, founded, as they were, on the current conversation of the day, struck, with full force, on prepared and familiar ears; but to us it is a foreign tongue, and, with all its boasted simplicity and nature, I defy a country gentleman, or a city one either, to understand one continued speech couched in its language. These ancient masters are worthy of being imitated, true, but not servilely imi

tated. Their noble and distinguishing qualities are to be adopted, but not transplanted, thought, language, and all, into a modern soil. Third-rate borrowers commit desperate blunders; they are never satisfied, and are so eager to grasp, that they steal the first thing that comes in their way, and, if it be a mill-stone, endeavour to carry it off; this has been the case with some of the Cocknies. The rising race of dramatists, have, in my humble opinion, been led astray, when they were induced to steep their souls, pens, and tongues, in these ancient worthies. They have been put on the wrong scent, and look, at this present mo ment, extremely like a baffled pack of beagles, howling here and there, and running after their tails for lack of legitimate game. How much Christophorus Northus has been to blame in this case, we won't determine-forbid, all powers propitious! that we should trouble the conscience of a gouty Sexagenarian. As to Mr Lambe, he de serves to be hanged for wasting talent, like the Schlegels, in making silkpurses out of sows' ears. And as for the Edinburgh Review, who moped after those dashing sons of genius, and took up the theme at second-hand, like a cur hastening to mumble the bone just dropt by the mastiff, we leave the old woman to her quarterly task of gleaning.

(Impudence will have a fall, and mine has already dissolved my prerogative of plurality.) I have a great mind to belabour some of the old English dramatists. It would, indeed, be a charity to abuse them, for since every museling has taken to imitate them, we shall soon think their free verse as hackneyed as Pope's couplet. I love them all dearly, therefore will run a tilt at them some of these days ;-look to your new editions, Mr Gifford, at which I intend to fly, not, however, I trust, to break my shins over them, as did Mr Jeffrey. It is time for the world to hear the other side of the question. Every one has been heard in their favour; Maga, the Quarterly, "the Monthlies, the New and the Old," the Edinburgh Review, and the Cocknies, have all bellowed forth their pleadings, and not a tongue has wagged in contravention. And even should my apostrophes fall foul of Mr North's great toe, what care I? Doth not the ocean roll between me and his crutch?

Besides, did not the worthy ancient grant me full liberty of opinion? and were not his last words to me, as I departed for the Grand Tour, these: "Lad, go thine own way; be any thing but a Jacobin or a Cockney ?"`

Enough of startling opinions, however, have been advanced for one number. The Drama is allowably in a rottèn condition, and we must probe to the bottom of the evil; it is of the utmost importance that sound principles should be ascertained, applicable to this, the royal compartment of literature. There exists no living dramatic genius, as yet displayed, notwithstanding the late publication of many exquisite closet-dramas; but a great spirit may daily, hourly arise, and the great dread should be, that this critical age doth not mislead or neutralize the talent newly generated. All other poetry may be permitted to amuse or betake itself whither it pleases; but the drama, like the history and the language of the country, should be an object of anxious and universal consideration. Materials for comparative judgment are most copious, even in our very volumes; and if Blackwood's Magazine contains nothing else than its articles of, and on the drama, they would be sufficient alone to render it worthy of its estimated value. The Teutonic drama we have introduced to the world; and, though we do not love the classic stage of France and Italy, we will yet expend some time and pages upon them. Moratin, the living comic writer of Spain, is at present engaged in writing the dramatic history of his country, which will afford new lights and further means of comparison. He promised us an article, but since the fever burst forth in Barcelona, his place of residence, we have not heard from him. His "Yes of the Maid" is a delightful comedy, and shall, please the fates, make one of our Hora Hispanica. With the Dutch we are engaged; in spite both of our exhortations and subsidies, they will act French plays; and Holland is to the French actors what America is to ours-by proceeding thither, they fill their pockets, and whet the appetites of audiences at home by their absence. Now, we tell the King of the Netherlands flatly, that while his theatre is French, his nation will be so; nor is it a joke to declare, that the battle of Waterloo and the fort

resses of Flanders are but straw bulwarks, as long as a Flemish pit enjoys the tragedies of Racine and Corneille.

The three great French dramatic writers, in tragedy at least, have one disadvantage, viz. that every foreigner knows something about them, and yet few know any thing substantial. A page or a passage of Shakespeare, even if but half understood, is sufficient to impress the mind with a deep feeling of admiration; but the French dramatists, indeed French verse, if not taken in the ensemble, is nothing. Not that they wanted feeling, but their feeling is marked more by phrase than thought. "Les vers français sont à la fois ce qu'il y a de plus facile et de plus difficile à faire. Lier l' un à l'autre des hémistiches si bien accoutumés à se trouver ensemble, ce n'est qu'un travail de memoire ; mais il faut avoir respiré l'air d'un pays, pensé, joui, souffert dans sa langue, pour peindre en poesie ce qu'on eprouve.' "To have thought, rejoiced, and suffered in the language," as de Staël so beautifully expresses it, is necessary not only for writing, but for reading its poetry. The French think, rejoice, and suffer in language, as we do in thought. With them, as with the more southern nations of Europe, words are things; and being, therefore, to speak metaphysically, independent essences, they have expressions supplementary to the thought. But even in this supplementary expression, the French tongue is so meagre, as to appear nothing to the full-cloyed ears of the south. Thus they are between two foes, and they prop themselves on either when attacked by the other. In arguing with an Italian on the beauty of their respective poetries, a Frenchman will rest on superior thought in his native verse; in arguing with an Englishman, he will rest on superior tone. There is, however, one overwhelming objection to all that French vanity can plead, their verse is utterly untranslateable-there is nothing in them; and, for experiment sake, the very first sheet we can spare for Balaam, shall be occupied with a literal translation of Racine's "Phædre."

Thanks to the labours of Ducis, it is now easy to institute a comparison between French and English tragedy. That poet has re-written in his native language, for it would be unjust to say translated, most of the dramas of

Shakespeare.* The Macbeth and the Othello of Ducis are by no means inferior to any, even the best pieces of Racine and Voltaire, but that they fall immeasurably beneath their great originals, we need not add. Here we have an intermediate standard, to which both dramas may be applied, and by which we may ascertain, almost to mathematical precision, their relative merits. A tithe of the poetry which abounds in the originals, is sufficient to animate the French plays;-feeling, imagination, character, are all reset on a minor key, to suit the squeamish tastes of the Parisian audience; and the heroes of Shakespeare make their appearance, as after a long consumption, apparently sweated down, like jockies, to the dapper weight required by the laws of the course. Extracts or translations we dare not offer to our readers, for fear they should accuse us of being profane, in uttering paraphrases of the bard divine; but we shall offer analyses of the three best of Ducis' performances-the Hamlet, the Macbeth, and the Othello. By the alterations which the scene and action undergo, our readers may judge what the spirit of the poetry itself must have suffered.

Hamlet was the poet's first essay, and it was represented for the first time in 1769. The piece commences with Claudius consulting Polonius, his confidant, as to his projects, yet in futuro, of marrying the Queen, and assuming the crown to the exclusion of Hamlet. Then follows a scene between Claudius and Gertrude; it re

presents the latter, repentant for having participated in the murder of her husband, and ends with her ordaining the coronation of Hamlet. As the first act commenced between the King and his confidant, the second opens be tween the Queen and hers, (Elvira ;) this lady has overheard sufficient to render her suspicious; and in this scene Gertrude confesses her crime. (It is to be remarked, that in the French paraphrase the guilt of Claudius is diminished, by supposing him to have been a victorious warrior, envied and disgraced by his brother; and the queen is made to excuse her crime, by averring that she assisted to poison the king, in order to save the life of her lover.) The queen begs Norceste to restore the spirits and mind of the young prince. Hamlet rushes in, exorcising the spectre"Fuis, spectre epouvantable ;"-then addressing the by-standers,

Il vole sur ma tête, il s'attache à mes pas : "Eh! quoi, vous ne le voyez pas, Je me meurs :"

This is describing a ghost à la Française with a vengeance. Only ima gine the ghost flying over the head of Hamlet, instead of preserving the awful, still, imperturbable demeanour, which characterizes it in the original. Hamlet at length becomes calm, and relates to Norceste the appearance, words, &c. of the spirit. (In this recital, the author, for the first time, makes use of the exact language of Shakespeare.) He gives as his reason for not killing Claudius, the love he

The

*Shakespeare has been translated into Italian by Leoni, with partial success. Romeo and Juliet is thought to be the best rendered. The whole version is in verse, our poet's prose dialogues as well as his others. The Leonis are two brothers, resident at Florence, and are continually occupied in translations from our tongue. Milton has also issued from their hands, but not well performed-except the Allegro and Penseroso, which are said to rival their originals.

The best French literal translation of Shakespeare is Letourneur's; he was aided by Fontaine, Malherbe, and the Count de Caticàlan, who had long lived in England. Guiyot has published a later translation. The merits of which are well summed up by Jouy, in one of his critical essays.

"On remarque que Letourneur ne cherche jamais à se mettre á la place du grand poete qu'il traduit, qu'il ne veut pas faire l'écrivain, il se content d'être naturel et vrai, et n'aspire qu'à bien faire connaître son modèle. Les nouveaux traducteurs de Shakspear n'ont pas toujours suivi cette route, ils veulent briller aussi; le style doctrinaire se glisse à chaque page, en courant après la concision, en procédant par les géneralités, les traces du poete sont toujours presque effaçés, et le prosateur ambitieux surgit de ce fratas enluminé, et place son ombre entre le poete et lui."

Jouy follows this up with quoting Mercutio's description of Queen Mab, which he calls marivaudage. It certainly cuts a strange appearance in French prose.

bears his daughter Ophelia ; and engages Norceste to go to the King, and relate to him the assassination of the English monarch, for the purpose of observing what effect it would produce on the royal conscience. The third act commences between Polonius and Claudius, (whom we have perhaps prematurely called king,) plotting to prevent the crowning of Hamlet. The second scene of the third act answers to our play-scene; and is exceedingly meagre and wretched, the relation of the English king's death being substituted for our episodic drama. At the end of the act, Ophelia appears, and informs the Queen, that love for her is the cause of Hamlet's madness. The fourth act opens with Hamlet's soliloquy; it is interrupted by the appearance of Ophelia, who, not very delicately, acquaints the prince, that she has disclosed the secret of their loves, and settled the affair with the Queen. He answers very ungallantly, “Le bonheur quelquefois est plus loin qu'on

ne pense.

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for the purpose of consulting a sage old man, who is to acquaint him with important tidings. He mentions the rebellion of Cador, against whom Macbeth conducts the royal army, and indulges in presentiments and fears of ill fortune and an untimely end. Ducis is extremely fond of the prophetic mental horrors of the German school. From the second scene, in which the old man appears, we learn that Duncan has committed, secretly, his son Malcolm (supposed dead) to the care of this old man, (Sevar,) that he may be out of the reach of Cador. Duncan inquires of the character and education of his son ;-this is a poor and useless imitation of the original scene between Macduff and Malcolm. At the end of this act is a Variante, to be used or not, ad libitum ; in which the three witches make a brief appearance, and hint at the conflict then engaged. The second act takes place near Macbeth's castle, which "doit être d'un caractere terrible," as we are informed. Except one or two scenes of little import, it passes between Macbeth and his lady, (Fredegonde.) The former has just returned; he relates his having met with the witches, to whom the poet, in obedience to the usual bad taste of the French with respect to imaginative propriety, gives a classic and incongru→ ous occupation.

"Dans les flancs entr'ouverts d'un enfant égorgé,

Pour consultér le sort, leur bras s'etait plongé."

He could not understand a Scotch

witch, without metamorphosing her Fredegonde

into a Roman augur. tempts Macbeth to aim at the crown. In the last scene of the act, Duncan and Glamis enter, and are conducted to their apartments. Act the third, Fredegonde urges Macbeth to murder Duncan, saying, that she had consulted Iphyctone, who declared he should be king. They do not know Malcolm to exist, but suppose Glamis alone between them and the throne. Fredegonde still urges Macbeth-the dialogue between them is very fine, and literally taken from Shakespeare. He is about to perpetrate the crime, when interrupted by the cry of "To arms! Cador has attacked the castle!"

Act fourth commences between Macbeth and Fredegonde, after the murder of the King. The people enter, and

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