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COURSE OF LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 DRAMATIC ART AND LITERATURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 AUGUSTUS WILLIAM SCHLEGEL. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN BLACK. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 HOGAN & THOMPSON, 139£ MARKET STREET. 
 PITTSBURGH,-D. M. HOGAN. 
 
 1833. 
 

 In Exchange 
 Univ. of North Carottm* 
 JAN 3 t 1934 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 C. SHERMAN &, CO. PRINTERS, NO. 19 ST. JAMES STREET. 
 
PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR. 
 
 The Lectures of A. W. Schlegel on Dramatic Poetry have ob- 
 tained high celebrity on the Continent, and been much alluded to of 
 late in several publications in this country. The boldness of his 
 attacks on rules which are considered as sacred by the French critics, 
 and on works of which the French nation in general have long been 
 proud, called forth a more than ordinary degree of indignation against 
 his work in France. It was amusing enough to observe the hostility 
 carried on against him in the Parisian Journals. The writers in these 
 Journals found it much easier to condemn M. Schlegel than to refute 
 him : they allowed that what he said was very ingenious, and had a 
 great appearance of truth; but still they said it was not truth. They 
 never however, as far as I could observe, thought proper to grapple 
 with him, to point out anything unfounded in his premises, or illogi- 
 cal in the conclusions which he drew from them: they generally 
 confined themselves to mere assertions, or to minute and unimportant 
 observations by which the real question was in no manner affected. 
 
 In this country the work will no doubt meet with a very different 
 reception. Here we have no want of scholars to appreciate the value 
 of his views of the ancient drama ; and it will be no disadvantage to 
 him, in our eyes, that he has been unsparing in his attack on the 
 literature of our enemies. It will hardly fail to astonish us, however, 
 to find a stranger better acquainted with the brightest poetical ornament 
 of this country than any of ourselves ; and that the admiration of the 
 English nation for Shakspeare should first obtain a truly enlightened 
 interpreter in a critic of Germany. 
 
 It is not for me, however, to enlarge on the merits of a work which 
 has already obtained so high a reputation. I shall better consult my 
 own advantage in giving a short extract from the animated account of 
 
iv translator's preface. 
 
 M. Schleoel's Lectures in the late work on Germany by Madame de 
 Stael:— 
 
 " W. Schlegel has given a course of Dramatic Literature at Vien- 
 na, which comprises everything remarkable that has been composed 
 for the theatre from the time of the Grecians to our own days : it is 
 not a barren nomenclature of the works of the various authors ; he 
 seizes the spirit of their different sorts of literature with all the imagi- 
 nation of a poet. We are sensible that to produce such consequences 
 extraordinary studies are required : but learning is not perceived in 
 this work, except by his perfect knowledge of the chefs-d'oeuvre of 
 composition. In a few pages we reap the fruit of the labour of a 
 whole life ; every opinion formed by the author, every epithet given 
 to the writers of whom he speaks, is beautiful and just, concise and 
 animated. He has found the art of treating the finest pieces of poetry 
 as so many wonders of nature, and of painting them in lively colours 
 which do not injure the justness of the outline; for we cannot repeat 
 too often, that imagination, far from being an enemy to truth, brings 
 it forward more than any other faculty of the mind ; and all those 
 who depend upon it as an excuse for indefinite terms or exaggerated 
 expressions, are at least as destitute of poetry as of good sense. 
 
 " An analysis of the principles on which both tragedy and comedy 
 are founded, is treated in this course with much depth of philosophy : 
 this kind of merit is often found among the German writers ; but 
 Schlegel has no equal in the art of inspiring his own admiration ; 
 in general, he shows himself attached to a simple taste, sometimes 
 bordering on rusticity : but he deviates from his usual opinions in 
 favour of the inhabitants of the south. Their play on words is not 
 the object of his censure; he detests the affectation which owes its 
 existence to the spirit of society : but that which is excited by the 
 luxury of imagination pleases him, in poetry, as the profusion of 
 colours and perfumes would do in nature. Schlegel, after having 
 acquired a great reputation by his translation of Shakspeare, became 
 also enamoured of Calderon, but with a very different sort of attach- 
 ment from that with which Shakspeare had inspired him ; for while 
 the English author is deep and gloomy in his knowledge of the hu- 
 man heart, the Spanish poet gives himself up with pleasure and de- 
 light to the beauty of life, to the sincerity of faith, and to all the 
 brilliancy of those virtues which derive their colouring from the sun- 
 shine of the soul. 
 
" I was at Vienna when W. Schlegel gave his public course of 
 Lectures. I expected only good sense and instruction where the ob- 
 ject was merely to convey information: I was astonished to hear a 
 critic as eloquent as an orator, and who, far from falling upon defects, 
 which are the eternal food of mean and little jealousy, sought only the 
 means of reviving a creative genius." 
 
 Thus far Mad. de Stael. — In taking upon me to become the inter- 
 preter of a work of this description to my countrymen, I am aware 
 that I have incurred no slight degree of responsibility. How I have 
 executed my task it is not for me to speak, but for the reader to judge. 
 This much, however, 1 will say, — that I have always endeavoured 
 to discover the true meaning of the author, and that I believe I have 
 seldom mistaken it. Those who are best acquainted with the psy- 
 chological riches of the German language, will be the most disposed 
 to look on my labour with an eye of indulgence. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 From the size of the present work, it will not be expected that it 
 should contain either a course of dramatic literature bibliographically 
 complete, or a history of the theatre compiled with antiquarian accu- 
 racy. Of books containing dry accounts and lists of names there are 
 already enough. My purpose was to give a general view, and to 
 develope those ideas which ought to guide us in our estimate of the 
 value of the dramatic productions of various ages and nations. 
 
 The greatest part of the following Lectures, with the exception of 
 a few observations of a secondary nature, the suggestion of the mo- 
 ment, were delivered orally as they now appear in print. The 
 only alteration consists in a more commodious distribution, and here 
 and there in additions, where the limits of the time prevented me 
 from handling many matters with uniform minuteness. This may 
 afford a compensation for the animation of oral delivery which some- 
 times throws a veil over deficiencies of expression, and always ex- 
 cites a certain degree of expectation. 
 
 I delivered these Lectures, in the spring of 1808, at Vienna, to a 
 brilliant audience of nearly three hundred individuals of both sexes. 
 The inhabitants of Vienna have long been in the habit of refuting the 
 injurious descriptions which many writers of the North of Germany 
 have given of that capital, by the kindest reception of all learned men 
 and artists belonging to those regions, and by the most disinterested 
 warmth which a just sensibility has not been able to cool. I found 
 here the cordiality of better times united with that amiable animation 
 of the South, which is often denied to German seriousness, and the 
 universal diffusion of a keen taste for intellectual entertainment. To 
 this circumstance alone I must attribute it that not a few of the men 
 
VIII 
 
 who hold the most important places at court, in the state, and in the 
 army, artists and literary men of merit, women of the choicest social 
 cultivation, not merely paid me an occasional visit, but devoted to me 
 an uninterrupted attention. 
 
 With joy I seize this fresh opportunity of laying my gratitude at 
 the feet of the benignant monarch who, in the permission to deliver 
 these Lectures communicated to me by way of distinction immediate- 
 ly from his own hand, gave me an honourable testimony of his gra- 
 cious confidence, which I, as a foreigner who had not the happiness 
 to be born under his sceptre, and merely felt myself bound as a Ger- 
 man and a citizen of the world to wish bim every blessing and pros- 
 perity, could not possibly have merited. 
 
 Many enlightened patrons and zealous promoters of everything 
 good and becoming have merited my gratitude for the assistance which 
 they gave to my undertaking, and the encouragement which they 
 afforded me during its execution. 
 
 The whole of my auditors rendered my labour extremely agreeable 
 to me by their indulgence, their attentive participation, and their 
 readiness to distinguish, in a feeling manner, every passage which 
 seemed worthy of their applause. 
 
 It was a flattering moment for me, which I shall never forget, when, 
 in the last hour, after I had called up recollections of the old German 
 renown sacred to every one possessed of true patriotic sentiment, and 
 when the minds of my auditors were thus more solemnly attuned, I 
 was at last obliged to take my leave powerfully agitated by the reflec- 
 tion that this relation, founded on a common love for a nobler mental 
 cultivation, would be so soon dissolved, and that 1 should never again 
 see those together who were then assembled around me. A general 
 emotion was perceptible, excited by so much that I could not say, but 
 respecting which our hearts understood each other. In the mental 
 dominion of thought and poetry, inaccessible to worldly power, the 
 Germans, who are separated in so many ways from each other, still 
 feel their unity; and in this feeling, whose interpreter the writer and 
 orator must be, amidst our clouded prospects we may still cherish the 
 elevating presage of the great and immortal calling of our people, 
 who from time immemorial have remained unmixed in their present 
 habitations. 
 
 Geneva, February , 1809. 
 
OBSERVATION PREFIXED TO PART OF THE WORK PRINTED IN 1811. 
 
 The declaration in the Preface that these Lectures were, with some 
 additions, printed as they were delivered, is in so far to be corrected, 
 that the additions in the second part are much more considerable than 
 in the first.* The restriction, in point of time in the oral delivery, 
 compelled me to leave more gaps in the last half than in the first. 
 The part respecting Shakspeare and the English theatre, in particular, 
 have been almost altogether re-written. I have been prevented, partly 
 by the want of leisure and partly by the limits of the work, from 
 treating of the Spanish theatre with that fulness which its importance 
 deserves. 
 
 * The English edition of this book was printed in two vols., part of the tenth 
 and the concluding Lectures formed the second part. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Introduction. Spirit of true criticism. Difference of taste between the ancients 
 and moderns. Classical and romantic poetry and art. Division of dramatic 
 literature : the ancients, their imitators, and the romantic poets. Definition of 
 the drama. View of the theatres of all nations. 1 
 
 LECTURE H. 
 
 Theatrical effect. Importance of the stage. Principal species of the drama. 
 Essence of tragedy and comedy. Seriousness and mirth. How far it is possi- 
 ble to become acquainted with the ancients without knowing the original Ian- 
 guages. Winklemann. 18 
 
 LECTURE in. 
 
 Structure of the stage among the Greeks. Their acting. Use of Masks. False 
 comparison of ancient tragedy to the opera. Tragical lyric poetry. Essence 
 of the Greek tragedies. Ideality of the representation. Idea of fate. Source 
 of the pleasure derived from tragical representations. Import of the chorus. 
 The materials of the Greek tragedy derived from mythology. Comparison 
 of the plastic arts. 30 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Progress of the tragic art among the Greeks. Their different styles. iEschylus. 
 Connexion in a trilogy of iEschylus. His remaining works. Life and poetical 
 character of Sophocles. Character of his different tragedies. 51 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Euripides. His merits and defects. Decline of tragic poetry through him. 
 
 Comparison between the Choephorae of iEschylus, the Electra of Sophocles, 
 
 and that of Euripides. Character of the remaining works of the latter. The 
 
 satirical drama. Alexandrine tragic poets. 78 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The old comedy proved to be completely a contrast to tragedy. Parody. Ide- 
 ality of comedy the reverse of that of tragedy. Mirthful caprice. Allegoric 
 and political signification. The chorus and its parabases. Aristophanes. His 
 character as an artist. Description and character of his remaining works. A 
 scene translated from the Acharnse by way of Appendix. 106 
 
 LECTURE Vn. 
 
 Whether the middle comedy was a distinct species. Origin of the new comedy. 
 A mixed species. Its prosaic character. Whether versification is essential to 
 comedy. Subordinate kinds. Pieces of character and of intrigue. The comic 
 of observation, of self-consciousness, and arbitrary comic. Morality of come- 
 dy. Plautus and Terence as imitators of the Greeks here cited and character- 
 ized for want of the originals. Moral ancTsocial aim of the Attic comedy. 
 Statues of two comic authors. 131 
 
 LECTURE VIE. 
 
 Roman theatre. Native kinds : Attellanic Fables, Mimi, Comedia Togata. 
 Greek tragedy transplanted to Rome. Tragic authors of a former epoch, and 
 of the Augustan age. Idea of a national Roman tragedy. Causes of the want 
 of success of the Romans in tragedy. Seneca. The Italians. Pastoral dra- 
 mas of Tasso and Guarino. Small progress in tragedy. Metastasio and Alfi- 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 eri. Character of both. Comedies of Ariosto, Aretin, Porta. Improvisatore 
 masks. Goldoni. Gozzi. Latest state. 153 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Antiquities of the French stage. Influence of Aristotle and the imitation of the 
 ancients. Investigation of the three unities. What is unity of action ? Unity 
 of time. Was it observed by the Greeks ? Unity of place as connected with 
 it. Mischief resulting from too narrow rules on the subject. 179 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 The same subject continued. Influence of these rules on French tragedy. Man- 
 ner of treating mythological and historical materials. Idea of tragical dignity. 
 Observations of conventional rules. False system of expositions. Use at first 
 made of the Spanish theatre. General character of Corneille, "Racine, and 
 Voltaire. Review of their most important works. Thomas Corneille, and Cre- 
 billon. French tragic theatre. 199 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 French comedy. Moliere. Criticism of his works. Scarron, Boursault, Reg- 
 nard ; Comedies in the time of the Regency ; Marivaux and Destouches ; Piron 
 and Gresset. Later attempts. The heroic opera: Quinault. Operettes and 
 Vaudevilles. Diderot's attempted change of the theatre. The weeping drama. 
 Beaumarchais. Melo-dramas. Merits and defects of the histrionic art. 241 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 Comparison of the English and Spanish theatres. Spirit of the romantic drama. 
 Shakspeare. His age and the circumstances of his life. How far costume is 
 necessary, or may be dispensed with. Shakspeare the greatest drawer of cha- 
 racters. Vindication of the genuineness of his pathos. Play on words. Mo- 
 ral delicacy. Irony. Mixture of the tragic and comic. The part of the Fool 
 or Clown. Shakspeare's language and versification. Account of his several 
 works : comedies, tragedies, and historical dramas. Appendix on the pieces 
 of Shakspeare said to be spurious. 271 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Two periods of the English theatre ; the first the most important. The first con- 
 formation of the stage, and its advantages. State of the histrionic art in Shak- 
 speare's time. Antiquities of dramatic literature. Lilly, Marlow, Heywood. 
 Ben Jonson. Criticism of his works. Masks. Beaumont and Fletcher. Ge- 
 neral characterization of these poets, and remarks on some of their pieces. 
 Massinger and other contemporaries of Charles the First. Closing of the stage 
 by the Puritans. Revival of the stage under Charles the Second. Depravity 
 of taste and morals. Dryden, Otway, and others. Characterization of the 
 comic poets from Wycherly and Congreve to the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. Tragedies of the same period. Rowe. Addison's Cato. Later pieces. 
 Familiar tragedy : Lillo. Garrick. Latest state. 368 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 Spanish Theatre. Its three periods ; Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon. Spi- 
 rit of the Spanish poets in general. Influence of the national history on it. 
 Form, and various species of the Spanish drama. Decline since the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century. 4 405 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 Origin of the German theatre. Hans Sachs. Gryphius. The age of Gottsched. 
 Wretched imitation of the French. Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller. Review 
 of their works. Their influence on chivalrous dramas, affecting dramas, and 
 family pictures. Prospect for futurity. 421 
 
LECTURES 
 
 DRAMATIC LITERATURE 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Introduction — Spirit of true criticism — Difference of taste between the ancients 
 and moderns — Classical and romantic poetry and art — Division of dramatic 
 literature: the ancients, their imitators, and the romantic poets — Definition 
 of the drama — View of the theatres of all nations. 
 
 The object which we propose to ourselves in these Lectures is 
 to investigate the principles of dramatic literature, and to con- 
 sider whatever is connected with the fable, composition, and re- 
 presentation, of theatrical productions. We have selected the 
 drama in preference to every other department of poetry. It 
 will not be expected of us that we should enter scientifically into 
 the first principles of theory. Poetry is in general closely con- 
 nected with the other fine arts; and, in some degree, the eldest 
 sister and guide of the rest. The necessity for the fine arts, and 
 the pleasure derivable from them, originate in a principle of our 
 nature, which it is the business of the philosopher to investigate 
 and to classify. This object has given rise to many profound 
 disquisitions, especially in Germany; and the name of aesthetic* 
 (perceptive) has, with no great degree of propriety, been con- 
 ferred on this department of philosophy. Aesthetics, or the 
 philosophical theory of beauty and art, is of the utmost import- 
 ance in its connexion with other inquiries into the human mindj 
 but, considered by itself, it is not of sufficient practical instruc- 
 tion; and it can only become so by its union with the history of 
 the arts. We give the appellation of criticism to the intermediate 
 
 * From Aio-d-HTtKo, sentiendi vim habeas. — Trans. 
 
 1 
 
2 LECTURES ON 
 
 province between general theory and experience or history. The 
 comparing together and judging the existing productions of the 
 human mind must supply us with a knowledge of the means which 
 are requisite for the conception and execution of masterly works 
 of art. • 
 
 We will therefore endeavour to throw light on the history of 
 the dramatic art by the torch of criticism. In the course of this 
 attempt it will be necessary to adopt many a proposition, without 
 proof, from general theory; but I hope that the manner in which 
 this shall be done will not be considered as objectionable. 
 
 Before I proceed farther, I wish to say a few words respecting 
 the spirit of my criticism, a study to which I have devoted a 
 great part of my life. We see numbers of men, and even whole 
 nations, so much fettered by the habits of their education and 
 modes of living, that they cannot shake themselves free from 
 them, even in the enjoyment of the fine arts. Nothing to them 
 appears natural, proper, or beautiful, which is foreign to their 
 language, their manners, or their social relations. In this ex- 
 clusive mode of seeing and feeling, it is no doubt possible, by 
 means of cultivation, to attain a great nicety of discrimination in 
 the narrow circle within which they are limited and circumscribed. 
 But no man can be a true critic or connoisseur who does not pos- 
 sess a universality of mind, who does not possess the flexibility, 
 which, throwing aside all personal predilections and blind habits, 
 enables him to transport himself into the peculiarities of other ages 
 and nations, to feel them as it were from their proper central 
 point; and, what ennobles human nature, to recognize and respect 
 whatever is beautiful and grand under those external modifications 
 which are necessary to their existence, and which sometimes even 
 seem to disguise them. There is no monopoly of poetry for 
 certain ages and nations; and consequently that despotism in taste, 
 by which it is attempted to make those rules universal which 
 were at first perhaps arbitrarily established, is a pretension which 
 ought never to be allowed. Poetry, taken in its widest accepta- 
 tion, as the power of creating what is beautiful, and representing 
 it to the eye or the ear, is a universal gift of Heaven, which is 
 even shared to a certain extent by those whom we call barbarians 
 and savages. Internal excellence is alone decisive, and where 
 this exists we must not allow ourselves to be repelled by external 
 appearances. Everything must be traced up to the root of our 
 existence: if it has sprung from thence, it must possess an un- 
 doubted worth; but if, without possessing a living germ, it is 
 merely an external appendage, it can never thrive nor acquire a 
 proper growth. Many productions which appear at first sight 
 dazzling phenomena in the province of the fine arts, and which 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 3 
 
 as a whole have been honoured with the appellation of works of 
 a golden age, resemble the mimic gardens of children: impatient 
 to witness the work of their hands they break off here and there 
 branches and flowers, and plant them in the earth; everything at 
 first assumes a noble appearance; the childish gardener struts 
 proudly up and down among his elegant beds, till the rootless 
 plants begin to droop, and hang down their withered leaves and 
 flowers, and nothing soon remains but the bare twigs, while the 
 dark forest, on which no art or care was ever bestowed, and 
 which towered up towards heaven long before human remem- 
 brance, bears every blast unshaken, and fills the solitary beholder 
 with religious awe. 
 
 Let us now think of applying the idea which we have been 
 developing, of the universality of true criticism, to the history of 
 poetry and the fine arts. We generally limit it, (although there 
 may be much which deserves to be known beyond this circle) as 
 ,we limit what we call universal history to whatever has had a 
 nearer or more remote influence on the present cultivation of 
 Europe: consequently to the works of the Greeks and Romans, 
 and of those of the modern European nations, who first and 
 chiefly distinguished themselves in art and literature. It is well 
 known that, three centuries and a half ago, the study of ancient 
 literature, by the diffusion of the Grecian language, (for the Latin 
 was never extinct,) received a new life: the classical authors were 
 sought after with avidity, and made accessible by means of the 
 press; and the monuments of ancient art were carefully dug up 
 and preserved. All this excited the human mind in a powerful 
 manner, and formed a decided epoch in the history of our culti- 
 vation; the fruits have extended to our times, and will extend to 
 a period beyond the power of our calculation. But the study of 
 the ancients was immediately carried to a most pernicious extent. 
 The learned, who were chiefly in the possession of this know- 
 ledge, and who were incapable of distinguishing themselves by 
 their own productions, yielded an unlimited deference to the 
 ancients, and with great appearance of reason, as they are models 
 in their kind. They maintained that nothing could be hoped for 
 the human mind but in the imitation of the ancients; and they 
 only esteemed in the works of the moderns whatever resembled, 
 or seemed to bear a resemblance to, those of antiquity. Every- 
 thing else was rejected by them as barbarous and unnatural. It 
 was quite otherwise with the great poets and artists. However 
 strong their enthusiasm for the ancients, and however determined 
 their purpose of entering into competition with them, they were 
 compelled by the characteristic peculiarity of their minds, to 
 
4 LECTURES ON 
 
 proceed in a track of their own, and to impress upon their pro- 
 ductions the stamp of their own genius. Such was the case with 
 Dante among the Italians, the father of modern poetry; he ac- 
 knowledged Virgil for his instructer, but produced a work which, 
 of all others, differs the most from the iEneid, and far excels it 
 in our opinion, in strength, truth, depth, and comprehension. It 
 was the same afterwards with Ariosto, who has most unaccounta- 
 bly been compared to Homer; for nothing can be more unlike. It 
 was the same in the fine arts with Michael Angelo and Raphael, 
 who were without doubt well acquainted with the antique. When 
 we ground our judgment of modern painters merely on their re- 
 semblance of the ancients, we must necessarily be unjust towards 
 them; and hence Winkelmann has undoubtedly been guilty of 
 injustice to Raphael. As the poets for the most part acquiesced 
 in the doctrines of the learned, we may observe a curious struggle 
 in them between their natural inclination and their imagined duty. 
 When they sacrificed to the latter they were praised by the 
 learned; but by yielding to their own inclinations they became 
 the favourites of the people. What preserves the heroic poems 
 of a Tasso and a Camoens to this day alive, in the hearts and on 
 the lips of their countrymen, is by no means their imperfect re- 
 semblance to Virgil, or even to Homer, but in Tasso the tender 
 feeling of chivalrous love and honour, and in Camoens the glow- 
 ing inspiration of patriotic heroism. 
 
 Those very ages, nations, and classes, that were least in want 
 of a poetry of their own, were the most assiduous in their imita- 
 tion of the ancients. Hence the dull scholastic exercises which 
 could at most excite a cold admiration. But, in the fine arts, 
 mere imitation is always fruitless; what we borrow from others 
 must be again as it were born in us, to produce a poetical effect. 
 Of what avail is all foreign imitation? Art cannot exist without 
 nature, and man can give nothing to his fellow men but him- 
 self. 
 
 The genuine followers of the ancients, those who attempted to 
 rival them, who from a similarity of disposition and cultivation 
 proceeded in their track, and acted in their spirit, were at all 
 times as few as their mechanical spiritless imitators were nume- 
 rous. The great body of critics, seduced by external appearance, 
 have been always but too indulgent even to these imitators. 
 They held them up as correct modern classics, while those ani- 
 mated poets, who had become the favourites of their respective 
 nations, and to whose sublimity it was impossible to be altoge- 
 ther blind, were at most but tolerated by them as rude and wild 
 natural geniuses. But the unqualified separation of genius and 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 5 
 
 taste which they assume is altogether untenable. Genius is the 
 almost unconscious choice of the highest degree of excellence, 
 and consequently it is taste in its greatest perfection. 
 
 In this state, nearly, matters continued till a period not far 
 back, when several inquiring minds, chiefly Germans, endea- 
 voured to clear up the misconception, and to hold the ancients in 
 proper estimation, without being insensible to the merits of the 
 moderns of a totally different description. The apparent contra- 
 diction did not intimidate them. — The groundwork of human 
 nature is no doubt everywhere the same ; but in all our investi- 
 gations we may observe that there is no fundamental power 
 throughout the whole range of nature so simple, but that it is ca- 
 pable of dividing and diverging into opposite directions. The 
 whole play of living motion hinges on harmony and contrast. 
 Why then should not this phenomenon be repeated in the his- 
 tory of man? This idea led, perhaps, to the discovery of the true 
 key to the ancient and modern history of poetry and the fine 
 arts. Those who adopted it gave to the peculiar spirit of modern 
 art, as opposed to the antique or classical, the name of roman- 
 tic. The appellation is certainly not unsuitable: the word is de- 
 rived from romance, the name of the language of the people 
 which was formed from the mixture of Latin and Teutonic, in 
 the same manner as modern cultivation is the fruit of the union 
 of the peculiarities of the northern nations with the fragments of 
 antiquity. Hence the cultivation of the ancients was much more 
 of a piece than ours. 
 
 The distinction which we have just stated can hardly fail to 
 appear well founded, if it can be shown that the same contrast in 
 the labours of the ancients and moderns runs symmetrically, I 
 might almost say systematically, throughout every branch of art, 
 as far as our knowledge of antiquity extends; that it is as evident 
 in music and the plastic arts as in poetry. This proposition still 
 remains to be demonstrated in its full extent, though we have 
 many excellent observations on different parts of the subject. 
 
 Among the foreign authors who wrote before this school can 
 be said to have been formed in Germany, we may mention Rous- 
 seau, who acknowledged the contrast in music, and demonstrated 
 that rhythmus and melody constituted the prevailing principle of 
 the ancients, and harmony that of the moderns. In his preju- 
 dices against harmony, however, we altogether differ from him. 
 On the subject of the plastic arts an ingenious observation was 
 made by Hemsterhuys, that the ancient painters were probably 
 too much sculptors, and that the modern sculptors are too much 
 painters. This is the exact point of difference; for I shall dis- 
 
LECTURES ON 
 
 tinctly show, in the sequel, that the spirit of ancient art and poe- 
 try is plastic, and that of the moderns picturesque. 
 
 By an example taken from another art, that of architecture, I 
 shall endeavour to illustrate what I mean by this contrast. In 
 the middle ages there prevailed a style öf architecture, which, in 
 the last centuries especially, was carried to the utmost degree of 
 perfection; and which, whether justly or unjustly, has been 
 called Gothic architecture. When, on the general revival of 
 classical antiquity, the imitation of Grecian architecture became 
 prevalent, and but too frequently without a due regard to the dif- 
 ference of climate and manners and the destination of the struc- 
 ture, the zealots of this new taste passed a sweeping sentence of 
 condemnation on the Gothic, which they reprobated as tasteless, 
 gloomy, and barbarous. This was in some degree pardonable in 
 the Italians, among whom a love for ancient architecture, from 
 the remains of classical edifices which they inherited, and the si- 
 milarity of their climate to that of the Greeks, might in some 
 sort be said to be innate. But with us, inhabitants of the North, 
 the first powerful impression on entering a Gothic cathedral is 
 not so easily eradicated. We feel, on the contrary, a strong de- 
 sire to investigate and to justify the source of this impression. 
 A very slight attention will convince us, that the Gothic archi- 
 tecture not only displays an extraordinary degree of mechanical 
 dexterity, but also an astonishing power of invention; and, on a 
 closer examination, we become impressed with the strongest con- 
 viction of its profound character, and of its constituting a full and 
 perfect system in itself, as well as the Grecian. 
 
 To the application! — The Pantheon is not more different from 
 Westminster Abbey or the church of St. Stephen at Vienna, than 
 the structure of a tragedy of Sophocles from a drama of Shaks- 
 peare. The comparison between these wonderful productions 
 of poetry and architecture might be carried still farther. But 
 does our admiration of the one compel us to depreciate the other? 
 May we not admit that each is great and admirable in its kind, 
 although the one is, and ought to be, different from the other? 
 The experiment is worth attempting. We will quarrel with no 
 man for his predilection either for the Grecian or the Gothic. 
 The world is wide, and affords room for a great diversity of ob- 
 jects. Narrow and exclusive prepossessions will never consti- 
 tute a genuine critic or connoisseur, who ought, on the contrary, 
 to possess the power of elevating himself above all partial views, 
 and of subduing all personal inclinations. 
 
 For the justification of our object, namely, the grand division 
 which we lay down in the history of art, and according to which 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 7 
 
 we conceive ourselves equally warranted in establishing the same 
 division in dramatic literature, it might be sufficient merely to 
 have stated this contrast between the ancient, or classical, and 
 the romantic. But as there are exclusive admirers of the an- 
 cients, who never cease asserting that all deviation from them is 
 merely the whim of recent critics, who express themselves on 
 the subject in a language full of mystery, but cautiously avoid 
 conveying their sentiments in a tangible shape, I shall endeavour 
 to explain the origin and spirit of the romantic, and then leave 
 the world to judge if the use of the word, and of the idea which 
 it is intended to convey, are sufficiently justified. 
 v The formation* of the Greeks was a natural education in its 
 utmost perfection. Of a beautiful and noble race, endowed with 
 susceptible senses and a clear understanding, placed beneath a 
 mild heaven, they lived and bloomed in the full health of exist- 
 ence; and, under a singular coincidence of favourable circum- 
 stances, performed all of which our circumscribed nature is ca- 
 pable. The whole of their art and their poetry is expressive of 
 the consciousness of this harmony of all their faculties. They 
 have invented the poetry of gladness. 
 
 Their religion was the deification of the powers of nature and 
 of the earthly life: but this worship, which, among other nations, 
 clouded the imagination with images of horror, and filled the 
 heart with unrelenting cruelty, assumed, among the Greeks, a 
 mild, a grand, and a dignified form. Superstition, too often the 
 tyrant of the human faculties, seemed to have here contributed 
 to their freest developement. It cherished the arts by which it 
 was ornamented, and the idols became models of ideal beauty. 
 
 But however far the Greeks may have carried beauty, and 
 even morality, we cannot allow any higher character to their 
 formation than that of a refined and ennobled sensuality. Let it 
 not be understood that I assert this to be true in every instance. 
 The conjectures of a few philosophers, and the irradiations of 
 poetical inspiration, constitute an exception. Man can never al- 
 together turn aside his thoughts from infinity, and some obscure 
 recollections will always remind him of his original home; but 
 we are now speaking of the principal object towards which his 
 endeavours are directed. 
 
 Religion is the root of human existence. Were it possible for 
 man to renounce all religion, including that of which he is un- 
 conscious, and over which he has no control, he would become 
 a mere surface without any internal substance. When this cen- 
 
 * Bildung in the original. Formation is hardly used in this sense in En- 
 glish; but I know no single English word which approaches nearer to it. Bil- 
 den in German is synonymous with the Greek m.eto-o-u. — Trasts. 
 
8 LECTURES ON 
 
 tre is disturbed, the whole system of the mental faculties must 
 receive another direction. 
 
 And this is what has actually taken place in modern Europe 
 through the introduction of Christianity. This sublime and be- 
 neficent religion has regenerated the ancient world from its state 
 of exhaustion and debasement; it has become the guiding prin- 
 ciple in the history of modern nations, and even at this day, 
 when many suppose they have shaken off its authority, they will 
 find themselves in all human affairs much more under its influ- 
 ence than they themselves are aware. 
 
 After Christianity, the character of Europe, since the com- 
 mencement of the middle ages, has been chiefly influenced by 
 the Germanic race of northern conquerors, who infused new life 
 and vigour into a degenerated people. The stern nature of the 
 north drives man back within himself; and what is withdrawn from 
 the free developement of the senses, must, in noble dispositions, 
 be added to their earnestness of mind. Hence the honest cor- 
 diality with which Christianity was received by all the Teutonic 
 tribes, in whom it penetrated more deeply, displayed more 
 powerful effects, and became more interwoven with all human 
 feelings, than in the case of any other people. 
 
 From a union of the rough but honest heroism of the northern 
 conquerors and the sentiments of Christianity, chivalry had its 
 origin, of which the object was, by holy and respected vows, to 
 guard those who bore arms from every rude and ungenerous abuse 
 of strength, into which it was so easy to deviate. 
 
 With the virtues of chivalry was associated a new and purer 
 spirit of love, an inspired homage for genuine female worth, 
 which was now revered as the pinnacle of humanity; and, en- 
 joined by religion itself under the image of a virgin mother, in- 
 fused into all hearts a sentiment of unalloyed goodness. 
 
 As Christianity was not, like the heathen worship, satisfied 
 with certain external acts, but claimed a dominion over the whole 
 inward man and the most hidden movements of the heart; the 
 feeling of moral independence was in like manner preserved 
 alive by the laws of honour, a worldly morality, as it were, 
 which was often a variance with the religious, yet in so far re- 
 sembled it, that it never calculated consequences, but consecrated 
 unconditionally certain principles of action, as truths elevated 
 beyond all the investigation of casuistical reasoning. 
 
 Chivalry, love, and honour, with religion itself, are the objects 
 of the natural poetry which poured itself out in the middle ages 
 with incredible fulness, and preceded the more artificial forma- 
 tion of the romantic character. This age had also its mythology, 
 consisting of chivalrous tales and legends; but their wonders and 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 9 
 
 their heroism were the very reverse of those of the ancient my- 
 thology. 
 
 Several inquirers, who, in other respects, entertain the same 
 conception of the peculiarities of the moderns, and trace them to 
 the same source that we do, have placed the essence of the north- 
 ern poetry in melancholy; and to this when properly understood, 
 we have nothing to object. 
 
 Among the Greeks human nature was in itself all-sufficient; 
 they were conscious of no wants, and aspired at no higher per- 
 fection than that which they could actually attain by the exercise 
 of their own faculties. We, however, are taught by superior 
 wisdom that man, through a high offence, forfeited the place for 
 which he was originally destined; and that the whole object of his 
 earthly existence is to strive to regain that situation, which, if 
 left to his own strength, he could never accomplish. The reli- 
 gion of the senses had only in view the possession of outward 
 and perishable blessings; and immortality, in so far as it was be- 
 lieved, appeared in an obscure distance like a shadow, a faint 
 dream of this bright and vivid futurity. The very reverse of all 
 this is the case with the Christian: everything finite and mortal 
 is lost in the contemplation of infinity; life has become a shadow 
 and darkness, and the first dawning of our real existence opens 
 in the world beyond the grave. Such a religion must waken the 
 foreboding, which slumbers in every feeling heart, to the most 
 thorough consciousness, that the happiness after which we strive 
 we can never here attain ; that no external object can ever en- 
 tirely fiM our souls; and that every mortal enjoyment is but a 
 fleeting and momentary deception. When the soul, resting as it 
 were under the willows of exile,* breathes out its longing for its 
 distant home, the prevailing character of its songs must be melan- 
 choly. Hence the poetry of the ancients was the poetry of en- 
 joyment, and ours is that of desire: the former has its foundation 
 in the scene which is present, while the latter hovers betwixt 
 recollection and hope. Let me not be understood to affirm that 
 everything flows in one strain of wailing and complaint, and that 
 the voice of melancholy must always be loudly heard. As the 
 austerity of tragedy was not incompatible with the joyous views 
 of the Greeks, so the romantic poetry can assume every tone, 
 even that of the most lively gladness; but still it will always, in 
 some shape or other, bear traces of the source from which it ori- 
 ginated. The feeling of the moderns is, upon the whole, more 
 intense, their fancy more incorporeal, and their thoughts more 
 
 * Trauerweiden der Verbannung, literally, the weeping willows of banishment; 
 an allusion, as every reader must know, to the 137th Psalm. Linnaeus, from 
 this Psalm, calls the weeping willow Salix Babyhnica. — Trakts. 
 
 2 
 
10 LECTURES ON 
 
 contemplative. In nature, it is true, the boundaries of objects 
 run more into one another, and things are not so distinctly sepa- 
 rated as we must exhibit them for the sake of producing a dis- 
 tinct impression. 
 
 The Grecian idea of humanity consisted in a perfect concord 
 and proportion between all the powers, — a natural harmony. 
 The moderns again have arrived at the consciousness of the in- 
 ternal discord which renders such an idea impossible; and hence 
 the endeavour of their poetry is to reconcile these two worlds 
 between which we find ourselves divided, and to melt them in* 
 dissolubly into one another. The impressions of the senses are 
 consecrated, as it were, from their mysterious connexion with 
 higher feelings; and the soul, on the other hand, embodies its 
 forebodings, or nameless visions of infinity, in the phenomena of 
 the senses. 
 
 In the Grecian art and poetry we find an original and uncon- 
 scious unity of form and subject; in the modern, so far as it has 
 remained true to its own spirit, we observe a keen struggle to 
 unite the two, as being naturally in opposition to each other. The 
 Grecian executed what it proposed in the utmost perfection; but 
 the modern can only do justice to its endeavours after what is 
 infinite by approximation; and, from a certain appearance of im- 
 perfection, is in greater danger of not being duly appreciated. 
 
 It would lead us too far, if in the separate arts of architecture, 
 music, and painting, (for the moderns have never had a sculp- 
 ture of their own,) we should endeavour to point out the distinc- 
 tions which we have here announced, to show the contrast ob- 
 servable in the character of the same arts among the ancients, 
 and thoroughly to investigate and demonstrate their kindred aim. 
 
 Neither can we here enter into a more particular consideration 
 of the different kinds and forms of the romantic poetry, but must 
 return to our object, which is dramatic literature. Its division, 
 as in the other departments of art, into the antique and the ro- 
 mantic, will point out to us the course which we have to pursue. 
 
 We shall begin with the ancients; then proceed to their imi- 
 tators, genuine or supposed successors among the moderns; and 
 lastly, we shall consider those poets of latter times, who, either 
 disregarding the classical models, or purposely deviating from 
 them, have proceeded in a path of their own. 
 
 Of the ancient dramatists the Greeks can alone be considered 
 as important. The Romans were in this branch at first mere 
 translators of the Greeks, and afterwards imitators, and not always 
 successful imitators. Besides much less of them has been pre- 
 served. Among the modern nations an endeavour to restore the 
 ancient stage, and, if possible, to perfect it, has been displayed in 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 11 
 
 a very conspicuous manner by the Italians and the French. In 
 other nations, also, more or less, especially of late, attempts of 
 the same kind have at times been made in tragedy; for in come- 
 dy, the form under which it appears in Plautus and Terence has 
 certainly been more prevalent. Of all the studied imitations of 
 the ancient tragedy the French is that which is the most splendid, 
 which has acquired the greatest renown, and which, consequently, 
 deserves the most attentive investigation. After the French 
 come the modern Italians; viz. Metastasio and Alfieri. The na- 
 tive countries of the romantic drama, which strictly speaking, 
 can neither be called tragedy nor comedy in the sense of the an- 
 cients, are England and Spain. It began to flourish at the same 
 time in both, somewhat more than two hundred years ago, through 
 Shakspeare and Lope de Vega. 
 
 The German stage is the last of all, and has been influenced in 
 the greatest variety of ways by all those which preceded it. It 
 will be proper therefore also to enter last upon its consideration. 
 By this means we shall be better enabled to decide with respect 
 to the directions which it has hitherto taken, and to point out the 
 prospects which are still open to it. 
 
 When I promise to go through the history of the Greek and 
 Roman, of the Italian and French, and of the English and Spa- 
 nish Theatres, in the few hours which are dedicated to these 
 Lectures, I wish it to be understood that I can only enter into 
 such an account of them, as will comprehend their most essential 
 peculiarities under general points of view. Although I confine 
 myself to one branch of poetry, the mass of materials compre- 
 hended within that branch is too extensive to be taken in by the 
 eye at once, and this would be the case, were I even to limit my- 
 self to one of its subordinate departments. We might read our- 
 selves to death with farces. In the ordinary histories of litera- 
 ture the poets of one language, and one description, are enume- 
 rated in succession, without any discrimination, like so many 
 Assyrian and Egyptian Kings in the ancient universal history. 
 There are persons who have an unconquerable passion for the 
 titles of books, and we willingly concede to them the privilege of 
 increasing their number by books on the titles of books. It is 
 much the same thing, however, as in the history of a war to give 
 the name of every soldier who fought in the files of the hostile 
 armies. We speak only of the generals, and those who perform- 
 ed actions of distinction. In like manner the battles of the hu- 
 man mind, if I may use the expression, have been won by a few 
 intellectual heroes. The history of the developement of art and 
 its various forms may be therefore exhibited in the characteristic 
 
ID LECTURES ON 
 
 view of a number, by no means considerable, of elevated and 
 creative minds. 
 
 Before, however, entering upon such a history as we have now 
 described, it will be previously necessary to consider what is 
 meant by dramatic, theatrical, tragic and comic. 
 
 What is dramatic? To many the answer will seem very easy: 
 where various persons are introduced conversing together, and the 
 poet does not speak in his own person. This is, however, merely 
 the first external foundation of the form; it is dialogue. When 
 the characters deliver thoughts and sentiments opposed to each 
 other, but which operate no change, and which leave the minds 
 of both in exactly the same state in which they were at the com- 
 mencement; the conversation may indeed be deserving of atten- 
 tion, but can be productive of no dramatic interest. I shall make 
 this clear by alluding to a more tranquil species of dialogue, not 
 adapted for the stage, the philosophic. When, in Plato, Socrates 
 asks the conceited sophist Hippias, what is the meaning of the 
 beautiful, the latter is at once ready with a superficial answer, but 
 is afterwards compelled by the disguised attacks of Socrates to 
 give up his former definition, and to grope about him for other 
 ideas, till, ashamed at last and irritated at the superiority of the 
 sage who has convicted him of his ignorance, he is reduced to 
 quit the field; this dialogue is not merely philosophically instruc- 
 tive, but arrests the attention like a little drama. And therefore 
 this animation in the progress of the thoughts, the anxiety with 
 which we look to the result, in a word, the dramatic nature of 
 the dialogues of Plato has always been very justly celebrated. 
 
 From this we may conceive the great charm of dramatic poetry. 
 Action is the true enjoyment of life, nay, life itself. Mere passive 
 enjoyments may lull us into a state of obtuse satisfaction, but even 
 then, when possessed of internal activity, we cannot avoid being 
 soon wearied. The great bulk of mankind are merely from their 
 incapacity for uncommon exertions, confined within a narrow 
 circle of insignificant operations. Their days flow on in succes- 
 sion according to the drowsy laws of custom, their life is imper- 
 ceptible in its progress, and the bursting torrent of the first pas- 
 sions of youth soon settles into a stagnant marsh. From the dis- 
 content which they feel with their situation they are compelled 
 to have recourse to all sorts of diversions, which uniformly con- 
 sist in a species of occupation that may be renounced at pleasure, 
 and though a struggle with difficulties, yet with difficulties that 
 are easily surmounted. But of all diversions the theatre is un- 
 doubtedly the most entertaining. We see important actions 
 when we cannot act importantly ourselves. The highest object 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 13 
 
 of human activity is man, and in the drama we see men, from 
 motives of friendship or hostility, measure their powers with each 
 other, influence each other as intellectual and moral beings by 
 their thoughts, sentiments, and passions, and decidedly determine 
 their reciprocal relations. The art of the poet is to separate from 
 the fable whatever does not essentially belong to it, whatever, in 
 the daily necessities of real life, and the petty occupations to which 
 they give rise, interrupts the progress of important actions, and 
 to concentrate within a narrow space a number of events calculat- 
 ed to fill the minds of the hearers with attention and expectation. 
 In this manner it affords us a renovated picture of life; a compen- 
 dium of whatever is animated and interesting in human existence. 
 This is not all. — Even in a lively verbal relation, it is fre- 
 quently customary to introduce persons in conversation with each 
 other, and to give a corresponding variety to the tone and lan- 
 guage. But the gaps, which these conversations still leave in 
 the story, are filled up with a description of the accompanying 
 circumstances, or other particulars, by the person who relates in 
 his own name. The dramatic poet must renounce all such assist- 
 ance; but for this he is richly recompensed in the following in- 
 vention. He requires each of the characters in his action to be 
 represented by a real person; that this person in size, age, and 
 figure, should resemble as much as possible the ideas which 
 we are to form of his imaginary being, and even assume every 
 peculiarity by which that being is distinguished; that every speech 
 should be delivered in a suitable tone of voice, and accompanied 
 by corresponding looks and motions; and that those external cir- 
 cumstances should be added which are necessary to give the 
 hearers a clear idea of what is going forward. Moreover these 
 representations of the creatures of his imagination must appear in 
 the costume suitable to their assumed rank, age, and country; 
 partly that they may bear a greater resemblance to them, and 
 partly because there is something characteristic even in the 
 dresses. Lastly, he must see them surrounded by a place which in 
 some degree resembles that where, according to his fable, the 
 action took place, because this also contributes to the resemblance: 
 he places them on a scene. All this brings us to the idea of the 
 theatre. It is evident that in the form of dramatic poetry, that 
 is, in the representation of an action by dialogue without any re- 
 lation, the ingredient of a theatre is essentially necessary. We 
 allow that there are dramatic works which were not originally 
 destined by their authors for the stage, and which would not pro- 
 duce any great effect on it, that, still afford great pleasure in the 
 perusal. I am however very much inclined to doubt whether 
 they would produce the same strong impression upon a person 
 
11 LECTURES ON 
 
 who had never seen a play, and never heard a description of one, 
 which they do upon us. We are accustomed, in reading dramatic 
 works, to supply the representation ourselves. 
 
 The invention of the dramatic art, and that of a theatre, seem 
 to lie very near one another. Man has a great disposition to 
 mimicry; when he enters vividly into the situation, sentiments, 
 and passions of others, he even involuntarily puts on a resem- 
 blance to them in his gestures. Children are perpetually going 
 out of themselves; it is one of their chief amusements to repre- 
 sent those grown people whom they have had an opportunity of 
 observing, or whatever comes in their way; and with the happy 
 flexibility of their imagination, they can exhibit all the character- 
 istics of assumed dignity in. a father, a schoolmaster, or a king. 
 The sole step which is requisite for the invention of a drama, 
 namely, the separating and extracting the mimetic elements and 
 fragments from social life, and representing them collected to- 
 gether into one mass, has not however been taken in many na- 
 tions. In the very minute description of ancient Egypt in Hero- 
 dotus and other writers, I do not recollect observing the smallest 
 trace of it. The Etrurians again, who in many respects resem- 
 bled the Egyptians, had their theatrical representations; and, 
 what is singular enough, the Etruscan name for an actor, histrio, 
 is preserved in living languages down to the present day. The 
 Arabians and Persians, though possessed of a rich poetical litera- 
 ture, are unacquainted with any sort of drama. It was the same 
 with Europe in the middle ages. On the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity, the plays handed down among the Greeks and Romans 
 were abolished, partly from their reference to heathen ideas, and 
 partly because they had degenerated into the most impudent and 
 indecent immorality; and they were not again revived till after 
 the lapse of nearly a thousand years. Even in the fourteenth 
 century we do not find in Boccacio, who, however, gives us a 
 most accurate picture of the whole constitution of social life, the 
 smallest trace of plays. In place of them they had then only story- 
 tellers, minstrels, and jugglers, (conteurs, menesiriers, jong- 
 leurs). On the other hand we are by no means entitled to as- 
 sume, that the invention of the drama has only once taken place 
 in the world, and that it has always been borrowed by one peo- 
 ple from another. The English navigators mention that among 
 the islanders of the South Seas, who in every mental qualification 
 and acquirement are in such a low scale of civilization, they yet 
 observed a rude drama, in which a common event in life was 
 imitated for the sake of diversion. And to go to the other ex- 
 treme: among the Indians, the people from whom perhaps all 
 the cultivation of the human race has been derived, plays were 
 
DRAMATIC LITER ATUBE. 15 
 
 known long before they could have experienced any foreign in- 
 fluence. It has lately been made known to Europe, that they 
 have a rich dramatic literature, which ascends back for more than 
 two thousand years. The only specimen of their plays (nataks) 
 hitherto known to us is the delightful Sakontala, which, notwith- 
 standing the colouring of a foreign climate, bears in its general 
 structure such a striking resemblance to our romantic drama, that 
 we might be inclined to suspect we owe this resemblance to the 
 predilection for Shakspeare entertained by Jones the English 
 translator, if his fidelity were not confirmed by other learned 
 orientalists. In the golden times of India, the representation of 
 this natak served to delight the splendid Imperial court of Delhi; 
 but it would appear that, from the misery of numberless oppres- 
 sions, the dramatic art in that country is now entirely at an end. 
 The Chinese again have their standing national theatre, stationary 
 perhaps in every sense of the word; and I do not doubt that, in 
 the establishment of arbitrary rules, and the delicate observance 
 of insignificant points of decorum, they leave the most correct 
 Europeans very far behind them. When the new European 
 stage in the fifteenth century had its origin in the allegorical and 
 spiritual pieces called Moralities and Mysteries, this origin was 
 not owing to the influence of the ancient dramatists, who did not 
 come into circulation till some time afterwards. In those rude 
 beginnings lay the germ of the romantic drama as a peculiar in- 
 vention. 
 
 In this wide extent of theatrical entertainments, we may again 
 remark how great the distance in dramatic talent between nations 
 equally distinguished for intellect; so that theatrical talent, which 
 is essentially different from a poetical gift in general, seems also to 
 have this specific peculiarity. We are not to wonder at the con- 
 trast between the Greeks and Romans, for the Greeks were alto- 
 gether a nation devoted to art, and the Romans a practical people. 
 Among the latter the fine arts were introduced as a luxury, cal- 
 culated to produce corruption and degeneracy. They carried 
 this luxury so far with respect to the theatre itself, that the per- 
 fection of the essential part of the performance was soon forgot 
 in the immensity of the decorations. Even among the Greeks 
 the dramatic art was far from general. The theatre was invented 
 in Athens, and in Athens alone it was carried to perfection. The 
 Doric dramas of Epicharraus form only a slight exception. All 
 the great creative dramatists of the Greeks were born and formed 
 in Attica. Throughout the whole extent of the Grecian nation, 
 with whatever success the fine arts were almost everywhere 
 practised, in all other places but Athens they could only admire 
 the productions of the Attic stage, without being able to rival them. 
 
16 LECTURES ON 
 
 The difference in this respect is astonishing between the Span- 
 iards and their neighbours the Portuguese, related to them by 
 descent and by language. The Spaniards possess a dramatic 
 literature of inexhaustible wealth; their dramatists in fertility re- 
 semble the Greeks, of whom more than a hundred pieces can 
 frequently be named. Whatever judgment in other respects 
 may be pronounced on their merits, the praise of invention has 
 never yet been denied to them; this has in fact been but too well 
 ascertained, as Italians, French, and English have all availed 
 themselves of the ingenious inventions of the Spaniards, and often 
 without pointing out the source from which they derived them. 
 The Portuguese again, who in other branches of poetry rival the 
 Spaniards, have hardly done anything in this department, and 
 have never even had a national theatre; they were from time to 
 time visited by strolling Spanish players; and they chose rather 
 to listen to a foreign dialect, which if not taught them they could 
 not always understand, than to invent, or at least to translate and 
 imitate, for themselves. 
 
 Among the many talents for art and literature displayed by the 
 Italians, the dramatic is by no means pre-eminent, and this defect 
 they would almost seem to have inherited from the Romans, in 
 the same manner as their great talent for mimicry and buffoonery 
 ascends back to the most ancient times. The extemporary com- 
 positions called Fabulas Mellanse, the only original and national 
 dramatic form of the Romans, in respect of plan, were not per- 
 haps more perfect than what is called the Commedia dell 9 Jlrte, 
 or extemporary comedy with masks. In the ancient Saturnalia 
 we have probably the germ of the present carnival, which is en- 
 tirely an Italian invention. The opera and ballet were also the 
 invention of the Italians: a species of theatrical amusements, in 
 which the dramatic interest is entirely subordinate to music and 
 dancing. 
 
 If the German genius has not developed itself with the same 
 fulness and ease in the dramatic branch as in other departments 
 of literature, this deficiency arises perhaps from the peculiar char- 
 acter of the nation. The Germans are a speculative people, that 
 is, a people who wish to become acquainted with the principle of 
 whatever they are engaged in by reflection and meditation. On 
 that very account they are not sufficiently practical; for if we 
 wish to act with dexterity, vigour, and determination, we must 
 some time or other believe that we have become masters of our 
 subject, and not to be perpetually returning to demonstrate its 
 theory; we must even have settled ourselves into a certain par- 
 tiality of idea. In the invention and conduct of a drama the 
 practical spirit must prevail: the dramatic poet is not allowed to 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 17 
 
 dream that he is inspired, he must go the straightest way to his 
 object; and the Germans are but too apt to lose sight of their ob- 
 ject in the course of their way to it. Besides, in the drama the 
 national features must be marked in the most prominent manner, 
 and the national character of the Germans is modest and averse 
 to everything like pretension ; and the noble endeavour to become 
 acquainted with, and to appropriate to ourselves whatever is ex- 
 cellent in others, is not seldom accompanied with the undervalu- 
 ing our own worth. Hence our stage has often, in form and 
 subject, been under more than a due degree of foreign influence. 
 Our object is not, however, the mere passive repetition of the 
 Grecian or French, the Spanish or English theatres; but we seek, 
 as it appears to me, a form which contains whatever is truly poeti- 
 cal in all these theatres, with the exception of what is founded in 
 local circumstances; in the subject, however, the German national 
 features ought certainly to predominate. 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Theatrical effect — Importance of the stage. Principal species of the drama — 
 Essence of tragedy and comedy — Seriousness and mirth — How far it is pos- 
 sible to become acquainted with the ancients without knowing the original 
 languages— Winkelmann. 
 
 After this rapid view of what may be called the map of dra- 
 matic literature, we return to the examination of the principal 
 idea. We have already shown that the supposition of a visible 
 representation is essential to the dramatic form ; and a dramatic 
 work can therefore be considered in a double point of view, how 
 far it is poetical, and how far it is theatrical. The two are by 
 no means inseparable. I do not mean the poetical expression: I 
 am not now considering the versification and the ornaments of 
 language, though without a higher merit these are the least essen- 
 tial parts of theatrical works, but the poetry in the spirit and plan 
 of a piece; and this may exist in a high degree, when it is even 
 written in prose. How does a drama become poetical? Most 
 assuredly in the very same way as works in other branches be- 
 come so. It must in the first place be a connected whole, and 
 complete within itself. But this is merely the negative condi- 
 tion of the form of a work of art, by which it is distinguished 
 from the phenomena of nature, which flow into one another, and 
 do not possess an independent existence. To be poetical it is 
 necessary that it should be a mirror of ideas, that is, thoughts and 
 feelings in their character necessary and eternally true, which 
 soar above this earthly life, and that it should exhibit them em- 
 bodied before us. The ideas which in this view are essential to 
 the different departments of the drama will hereafter be the object 
 of our investigation. We shall also, by way of contrast, show 
 that without them a drama becomes altogether prosaic and em- 
 pirical, that is, composed by the understanding from the observa- 
 tion of reality. 
 
 But how does a dramatic work become theatrical, or fitted to 
 appear with advantage on the stage? It is often difficult in a sin- 
 gle instance to determine whether it may possess such a proper- 
 ty or not. — This is frequently the subject of great controversy, 
 especially when the 6elf-love of authors and players comes into 
 collision ; the one throws the blame of the failure on the other, 
 and those who advocate the cause of the author complain of the 
 inadequacy of the representation, and the insufficiency of the 
 means afforded to do justice to his conceptions. — But in general 
 
LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 19 
 
 the answer to this question is by no means so difficult. The ob- 
 ject proposed is to produce an impression on an assembled crowd, 
 to gain their attention, and to excite in them an interest and par- 
 ticipation. This part of his business is common to the poet with 
 the orator. How does the latter attain his end? By perspicuity, 
 celerity, and force. Whatever exceeds the ordinary measure 
 of patience or comprehension must be carefully avoided by him. 
 Moreover, a number of men assembled together constitute an ob- 
 ject of distraction to one another, if their eyes and ears are not 
 directed to a common object beyond their circle. Hence the 
 dramatic poet, as well as the orator, must at the very commence- 
 ment produce such a strong impression as to draw his hearers 
 from themselves, and become masters, as it were, of their bodily 
 attention. There is a species of poetry capable of producing a 
 soft emotion in a mind turned to solitary contemplation, as the 
 gentle breezes draw forth accordant sounds from an iEolian harp. 
 However excellent this poetry may be in itself, without some 
 other accompaniment its tones would be lost on the stage. The 
 melting harmonica is not calculated to regulate the march of an 
 army, and kindle its military enthusiasm. For this we must 
 have piercing instruments, but above all a decided rhythmus, to 
 quicken the pulsation and give a more rapid motion to the senses. 
 The grand requisite in a drama is to make this rhythmus visible 
 in its progress. When this has once been effected, the poet may 
 the sooner halt in his rapid career, and indulge his own inclina- 
 tions. There are points, when the most simple or artless tale, 
 the inspired lyric, the most profound thoughts, and remote allu- 
 sions, the smartest corruscations of wit, and the most dazzling 
 flights of a sportive or ethereal fancy, are all in their place, and 
 when the willing audience, even those who cannot entirely com- 
 prehend them, follow the whole with a greedy ear, like a music 
 in harmony with their feelings. The great art of the poet is to 
 avail himself of the effect of contrasts, wherever he can, to ex- 
 hibit at times, in as clear a manner, a quiet stillness, the musings 
 of self contemplation, and even the indolent resignation of ex- 
 hausted nature, as at other times the most tumultuous emotions, 
 the most raging storm of the passions. With respect to the the- 
 atrical, however, we must never forget that much must be suited 
 to the capacities and inclinations of the audience, and conse- 
 quently to the national character in general, and the particular 
 degree of civilization. Dramatic poetry is in a certain sense the 
 most worldly of all, for from the stillness of an inspired mind, it 
 exhibits itself in the midst of the noise and tumult of social life. 
 The dramatic poet is, more than any other, obliged to court ex- 
 ternal favour for applause. But he ought to lower himself only 
 
20 LECTURES ON 
 
 in appearance to his hearers; in reality, however, elevate them 
 to himself. 
 
 In producing an impression on an assembled multitude, the 
 following circumstance deserves to be weighed, that the whole 
 amount of its importance may be ascertained. In ordinary inter- 
 course men exhibit only their exteriors to one another. They 
 are withheld by suspicion or indifference from allowing others 
 to look into what passes within them; and to speak with any- 
 thing like emotion or agitation of that which is nearest our heart 
 would be considered unsuitable to the tone of polished society. 
 The orator and the dramatic poet find means to break down these 
 barriers of conventional reserve. While they transport their 
 hearers to such scenes of mental agitation, that their external 
 signs break involuntarily forth, every man perceives in those 
 around him the same degree of emotion, and those who before 
 were strangers to one another, become in a moment intimately 
 acquainted. The tears which the orator or the dramatic poet 
 compels them to shed for persecuted innocence, or a dying hero, 
 make friends and brothers of them all. The effect produced by 
 seeing a number of others share in the same emotions, on an in- 
 tense feeling which usually retires into solitude, or only opens 
 itself to the confidence of friendship, is astonishingly powerful. 
 The belief in the justness of the feeling becomes unshaken from 
 its diffusion; we feel ourselves strong among so many associates, 
 and the minds of all flow together in one great and overflowing 
 stream. Hence the privilege of influencing an assembled crowd 
 is exposed to a most dangerous abuse. As we may inspire them 
 in the most disinterested manner, for the noblest and best of pur- 
 poses, we may also ensnare them by the deceitful webs of so- 
 phistry, and dazzle them by the glare of false magnanimity, of 
 which the crimes may be painted as virtues and even as sacri- 
 fices. Under the delightful dress of oratory and poetry, the poi- 
 son steals imperceptibly into the ear and the heart. Above all 
 things let the comic poet take heed, as from the nature of his 
 subject he has a tendency to split on this rock, lest he afford an 
 opportunity for the lower and baser parts of human nature to ex- 
 hibit themselves without any disguise; for if, by the appearance 
 of a common participation in these ignoble propensities, the 
 shame is once overcome, which generally confines them within 
 the bounds of decency, the depraved inclinations soon break out 
 with the most unbridled licentiousness. 
 
 The powerful nature of such an engine for either good or bad 
 purposes has justly, in all times, drawn the attention of the le- 
 gislature to the drama. Many regulations have been devised by 
 different states, to render it subservient to their views, and to 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 21 
 
 guard against abuses. The great difficulty is to combine such a 
 degree of freedom as is necessary for the production of works of 
 excellence, with the precautions demanded by the customs and 
 institutions of every state. In Athens the theatre flourished un- 
 der the protection of religion, with the most unlimited freedom, 
 and the public morality preserved it for a time from degeneracy. 
 The comedies of Aristophanes, which with our views and habits 
 appear so intolerably licentious, and in which the senate and the 
 people themselves are covered with ridicule, were the seal of the 
 Athenian freedom. Plato, again, who lived in the very same 
 Athens, and witnessed or anticipated the decline of art, proposed 
 the entire banishment of dramatic poets from his ideal republic. 
 Few states however have conceived it necessary to subscribe to 
 this severe sentence of condemnation; but few also have thought 
 proper to leave the theatre to itself, without any superinten- 
 dence. In many Christian countries the dramatic art has been 
 honoured by being made subservient to religion, in the composi- 
 tion of spiritual subjects; and in Spain, more especially, competi- 
 tion has given birth to many works which neither devotion nor 
 poetry will disown. In other states and under other circum- 
 stances, this has been thought offensive and unadvisable. Where 
 a previous censureship, and not merely an after responsibility on 
 the part of the poet and player, is considered indispensable before 
 a piece can appear on the stage, it will be found perhaps the most 
 difficult of application to the very point of all others of the great- 
 est importance: namely, the spirit and general impression of a 
 piece. From the nature of the dramatic art, the poet must put 
 much into the mouths of his characters of which he does not 
 himself approve, and he conceives that his own sentiments should 
 be appreciated from the spirit and connexion of the whole. It 
 may again happen that a piece is perfectly inoffensive with re- 
 spect to single speeches, and that they defy all censureship, 
 while upon the whole it may be calculated to produce the most 
 dangerous effects. We have in our times seen but too many 
 plays favourably received throughout Europe, overflowing with 
 ebullitions of good-heartedness and traits of magnanimity, and 
 in which, notwithstanding, a mind of any penetration could not 
 mistake the concealed aim of the writer to sap the foundations of 
 moral principles, and the respect for whatever ought to be held 
 in veneration by men; and by that means to make the dissolute 
 effeminacy of his contemporaries the panders to his success.* On 
 the other hand, if any person were to undertake the defence of 
 the moral tendency of Aristophanes, who has such a bad name, 
 
 * The author it is supposed alludes to Kotzebue — Tbaiss. 
 
22 LECTURES ON 
 
 and whose licentiousness in particular passages appears quite ir- 
 reconcilable with our ideas, he would found it on the general 
 object of his pieces, in which he at least displays the sentiments 
 of a patriotic citizen. 
 
 The purport of these observations is to show the importance of 
 the object of our consideration in a convincing manner. The 
 theatre, where the magic of many combined arts can be display- 
 ed; where the most elevated and profound poetry has the most 
 finished action for its interpreter, action which is at once eloquence 
 and a living picture; while architecture lends her splendid recep- 
 tacle, and painting her perspective deceptions, and even music 
 contributes its assistance to attemper the minds, or to heighten by 
 its melody the agitation into which they are already thrown; the 
 theatre, in short, where the whole of the social cultivation and 
 art of a nation, the fruits of centuries of continued exertions, may 
 be represented in a few hours — has an extraordinary charm for 
 every age, sex, and rank, and was ever the most delightful amuse- 
 ment of cultivated nations. Here, the prince, the statesman, and 
 the leader of an army, see the great events of past times, resem- 
 bling those in which they themselves may be called to act, laid 
 open in their inmost springs and relations; the philosopher finds 
 a subject for the deepest reflections on the nature and constitution 
 of man ; the artist follows with a curious eye the groups which 
 pass rapidly before him, which in his infancy he embodies into 
 future pictures; the susceptible youth opens his heart to every 
 elevated feeling; age becomes young in recollection; even child- 
 hood sits with anxious expectation before the gaudy curtain, which 
 is to be drawn up with a rustling noise, and to display so many 
 unknown wonders: all are recreated, all are exhilarated, and all 
 feel themselves for a time elevated above the sorrows and the 
 daily cares and troubles of life. As the dramatic art, with the 
 arts which are subservient to it, from neglect and contempt of 
 artists and the public for one another, may degenerate to such a 
 degree as to convert the theatre into the most trivial and stupid 
 amusement, and even a downright waste of time, we conceive 
 that we shall attempt something more than a light entertainment, 
 if we enter on a consideration of the works produced by the most 
 distinguished nations in their most flourishing times, and institute 
 an inquiry into the means of ennobling and perfecting an art of 
 such high importance. 
 
 So much for the importance of our object. We shall now enter 
 into a preliminary consideration of the two opposite kinds into 
 which all dramatic poetry may be divided, the tragic and comic, 
 and examine the meaning and import of each. 
 
 The three principal kinds of poetry are the epic, the lyric, and 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 23 
 
 the dramatic. All the other are either subordinate, or derived 
 from these, or formed from combinations of them. When we 
 wish to represent to ourselves these three kinds in all their purity, 
 we must go back to the times in which they appeared among the 
 Greeks. The theory is susceptible of the most convenient appli- 
 cation from the history of Grecian poetry; for this poetry is well 
 entitled to the appellation of systematical; and it contains, for 
 every independent idea derived from experience, the most decisive 
 and unexceptionable examples. 
 
 It is singular that in the epic and lyric poetry there is no such 
 division into two opposite kinds, as in the dramatic. The comic 
 epopee has y it is true, been styled a peculiar species, but it is a 
 mere parody of the epos, and consists in applying its solemn de- 
 velopement, which seems only suitable to great objects, to trifling 
 and insignificant events. In lyric poetry there are only intervals 
 and gradations between the song, the ode, and the elegy, but no 
 proper contrast. 
 
 The spirit of the epic poem, as it appears in Homer, the father 
 of epic poetry, is clear self-possession. The epos is a tragical re- 
 presentation of an action in progress. The poet relates joyful as 
 well as mournful events, but he relates them with equanimity, 
 and considers them as already past, and at a certain distance 
 from us. 
 
 The lyric poem is the musical expression of mental emotions 
 by language. The essence of musical feeling consists in this, that 
 we endeavour from a sense of pleasure to dwell on, and even to 
 perpetuate in our minds, some kind of emotion of a joyful or pain- 
 ful nature. The feeling must consequently be so much mitigated 
 as not to impel us, from desire of pleasure or dread of pain, to 
 tear ourselves from it, but such as to allow us, unconcerned at 
 the flight of time, to feel ourselves at home for a single moment 
 of our existence. 
 
 The dramatic poet represents external events as well as the 
 epic, but he represents them as real and present. He also claims 
 our participation, though not so exclusively as the lyric poet; but 
 he excites a much more immediate feeling of joy and sorrow. 
 He calls forth all the emotions which we experience on seeing 
 the deeds and destinies of real men, and resolves these emotions 
 into the gratification of a harmonious feeling, by the general effect 
 of his impressions. As he approaches so closely to life, and even 
 endeavours to give life to the whole of his poetry, the equanim- 
 ity of the epic poet would in him be indifference; he must con- 
 sider himself as forming an essential point in the relations of hu- 
 man life, and compel his audience to participate in the same feeling. 
 
 That I may return to a more simple and intelligible language, 
 
24 LECTURES ON 
 
 the tragic and comic bear the same relation to one another as 
 earnestness and mirth. Every man is acquainted with both 
 these modifications of mipd from his own experience. But their 
 essence and their source is a subject that demands a deep philoso- 
 phical investigation. Both, indeed, bear the stamp of our com- 
 mon nature; but earnestness belongs more to the moral, and mirth 
 to the sensual side. The creatures destitute of reason are incapa- 
 ble of either seriousness or mirth. Animals seem indeed at times 
 to labour as if they were earnestly intent upon an aim, and as if 
 they made the present moment subordinate to the future; at other 
 times they sport, that is, they give themselves up without object 
 to the pleasure of existence : but they do not possess consciousness, 
 which alone can elevate both these conditions to true earnestness 
 and mirth. To man alone, of all the animals with which we are 
 acquainted, is it permitted to look back towards the past, and 
 forward into futurity; and he has purchased this noble privilege 
 at a dear rate. Earnestness, in the most extensive signification, 
 is the direction of our mental powers to some aim. But as soon 
 as we begin to call ourselves to account for our actions, reason 
 compels us to fix this aim higher and higher, till we come at last 
 to the highest end of our existence: and here the desire for what 
 is infinite, which dwells in our being, is thwarted by the limits 
 of the finite by which we are fettered. All that we do, all that 
 we effect, is vain and perishable; death stands everywhere in the 
 back-ground, and every good or ill spent moment brings us in 
 closer contact with him; and even when a man has been so 
 singularly successful as to reach the utmost term of life without 
 misfortune, he must still submit to leave all that is dear to him 
 on earth, or to be left himself in a state of destitution. There is 
 no bond of love without separation, no enjoyment without grief 
 for its loss. When we contemplate however the relations of our 
 existence to the extreme limit of possibilities: when we reflect on 
 its entire dependence on an endless chain of causes and effects: 
 when we consider that we are exposed in our weak and helpless 
 state to struggle with the immeasurable powers of nature, and 
 with conflicting desires on the shores of an unknown world, and 
 in danger of shipwreck at our very birth; that we are subject to 
 all manner of errors and deceptions, every one of which is capa- 
 ble of undoing us; that in our passions we carry our own enemy 
 in our bosoms; that every moment demands from us the sacrifice 
 of our dearest inclinations in the name of the most sacred duties, 
 and that we may at one blow be robbed of all that we have 
 acquired by toils and difficulties; that with every extension of 
 possession the danger of loss is proportionally increased, and 
 we are only the more exposed to the snares of hostile attack: 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 25 
 
 then every mind which is not dead to feeling must be overpow- 
 ered by an inexpressible melancholy, against which there is no 
 other protection than the consciousness of a destiny soaring above 
 this earthly life. This is the tragic tone; and when the mind 
 dwells on the consideration of the possible, as an existing reality, 
 when that tone is inspired by the most striking examples of violent 
 revolutions in human destiny, either from dejection of soul, or 
 after powerful but ineffectual struggles; then tragic poetry has 
 its origin. We thus see that tragic poetry has its foundation in 
 our nature, and to a certain extent we have answered the question: 
 why we are fond of mournful representations, and even find 
 something consoling and elevating in them? The accordance 
 which we have described is inseparable from strong feeling; and 
 when there is an internal dissonance which poetry cannot re- 
 move, it should at least endeavour to attempt an ideal solution. 
 
 As earnestness, in the highest degree, is the essence of the 
 tragic tone, the essence of the comic is mirth. The disposition 
 to mirth is a forgetfulness of all gloomy considerations in the 
 pleasant feeling of the present happiness. We are then inclined 
 to view everything in a sportive light, and to admit no impres- 
 sions calculated to disturb or ruffle us. The imperfections of 
 men, and the irregularities in their conduct to one another, be- 
 come no longer an object of our dislike and compassion, but serve, 
 by their contrasts, to entertain the mind and delight the fancy. 
 The comic poet must therefore carefully abstain from whatever 
 is calculated to excite moral disgust with the conduct of men, or 
 sympathy with their situation, because this would inevitably 
 bring us back to earnestness. He must paint their irregularities 
 as arising out of the predominance of the sensual part of their na- 
 ture, and as constituting a mere ludicrous infirmity, which can 
 be attended with no ruinous consequences. This is uniformly 
 what takes place in what we call comedy, in which however 
 there is still a mixture of seriousness, as I shall show in the se- 
 quel. The oldest comedy of the Greeks was, however, entirely 
 gay, and in that respect formed the most complete contrast with 
 their tragedy. Not only the characters and situations of indivi- 
 duals were worked up into a picture of the true comic, but the 
 state, the constitution, the gods, and nature, were all fantastically 
 painted in the most extravagantly ridiculous and laughable colours. 
 
 When we have formed in this manner a pure idea of the tragic 
 and comic, as exhibited to us in Grecian examples, we shall then 
 be enabled to analyze the various mixtures of both, displayed by 
 the moderns, and to discriminate and separate the legitimate in- 
 gredients from those of a different description. 
 
 In the history of poetry and the fine arts among the Greeks, 
 
 4 
 
26 LECTURES ON 
 
 their developement was subjected to an invariable law of separa- 
 ting in the most rigid manner everything dissimilar, and after- 
 wards combining and elevating the similar, by internal excel- 
 lence, to one independent and harmonious whole. Hence the vari- 
 ous departments, with them, are all confined within their natural 
 boundaries, and the different styles distinctly marked. In begin- 
 ning, therefore, with the history of the Grecian art and poetry, 
 we are not merely observing the order of time, but also the order 
 of ideas. 
 
 In the majority of my hearers, I can hardly suppose an imme- 
 diate knowledge of the Greeks, derived from the study of the 
 original language. Translations in prose, or even in verse, which 
 are nothing more than dresses in the modern taste, can afford no 
 true idea of the Grecian drama. True and faithful translations, 
 which endeavour in expression and versification to rise to the 
 height of the original, have as yet been attempted only in German. 
 But although our language is extremely flexible, and in many re- 
 spects resembling the Greek, it is still a battle with unequal wea- 
 pons; and stiffness and hardness not unfrequently supply the 
 place of the easy sweetness of the Greek. But we are even far 
 from having yet done all that can perhaps be accomplished: I 
 know of no translation of a Greek tragedian deserving of unquali- 
 fied praise. But even supposing the translation as perfect as 
 possible, and to deviate very little from the original, the reader 
 who is not acquainted with the other works of the Greeks, will 
 be perpetually disturbed by the foreign nature of the subject, by 
 national peculiarities, and numerous allusions which cannot be 
 understood without learning, and prevented by particular parts, 
 from forming a clear idea of the whole. So long as we have to 
 struggle with difficulties, it is impossible for us to have any true 
 enjoyment of art. To feel the ancients as we ought, we must 
 have become in some degree one of themselves, and breathed as 
 it were the Grecian air. 
 
 What is the best means of becoming imbued with the spirit of 
 the Greeks, without a knowledge of their language? I answer 
 without hesitation, — the study of the antique; and when this is 
 impossible in the original, it is, by means of casts, to a certain 
 extent within the power of every man. These models of the 
 human form require no interpretation; their elevated character is 
 imperishable, and will always be recognized throughout every 
 succession of ages, and in every clime, where a noble race of men 
 related to the Greek (which the European undoubtedly is) shall 
 exist, and wherever the unkindness of nature has not sunk the 
 human features too much below the pure standard, and, by habit- 
 uating them to their own deformity, rendered them insensible 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 27 
 
 to genuine corporeal beauty. Respecting the inimitable perfec- 
 tion of the antique in its few remains of a first rate character, there 
 is but one voice throughout the whole of civilized Europe; and if 
 ever their merit was called in question, it was in times when the 
 plastic art of the moderns had sunk to the lowest degree of man- 
 nerism. Not only all intelligent artists, but all men of any de- 
 gree of feeling, bow with the most enthusiastic adoration to the 
 masterly productions of ancient sculpture. 
 
 The best key to enter this sanctuary of beauty, by deep and 
 self-collected contemplation, is the history of art of our immortal 
 Winkel mann. In particular parts, there are no doubt many de- 
 ficiencies; it is even full of important errors, but no man has so 
 deeply penetrated into the innermost spirit of Grecian art. 
 Winkelmann transformed himself completely into an ancient, 
 and lived only in appearance in his own century, unmoved by 
 its influence. 
 
 The immediate subject of his work is the plastic arts, but it 
 contains also many important views respecting other branches 
 of Grecian cultivation, and is very useful as a preparation for the 
 understanding their poetry, and especially their dramatic poetry. 
 As this was destined for visible representation before spectators 
 whose eye must have been as difficult to please on the stage as 
 elsewhere, we have no better means of feeling the whole dignity 
 of their idea of the tragic, and of giving it a sort of theatrical ani- 
 mation, than to have always present to our fancy the forms of their 
 gods and heroes. This may appear somewhat singular at pre- 
 sent, but I hope to be able in the sequel to demonstrate, in a 
 more convincing manner, that we can only become properly ac- 
 quainted with the tragedies of Sophocles, before the groups of 
 Niobe or Laocoon. 
 
 We are yet without a work in which the formation and cultiva- 
 tion of the Greeks in poetry, art, science, and social life, should 
 be painted as one grand and harmonious whole, as a true work of 
 nature displaying the most astonishing symmetry and proportion 
 in its parts, and in which the connexion of their common deve- 
 lopement should be traced in the same spirit which Winkelmann 
 has exhibited in the part which he has executed. An attempt 
 has indeed been made in a popular work which is in every body's 
 hands, I mean the travels of the Younger Anacharsis. This book 
 is valuable for its learning, and may be very useful in diffusing a 
 knowledge of antiquities; but without censuring the errors of 
 the dress in which it is exhibited, it betrays more good will to 
 do justice to the Greeks, than ability to enter deeply into their 
 spirit. In this respect the work is in many points superficial, 
 
28 LECTURES ON 
 
 and even disfigured with modern views. It is not the travels of 
 a young Scythian, but of an old Parisian. 
 
 The superiority of the Greeks, as I have already said, is the 
 most universally acknowledged in the fine arts. An enthusiasm 
 for their literature is in a great measure confined to the English 
 and Germans, among whom also the study of the Grecian lan- 
 guage is the most zealously prosecuted. It is singular that the 
 French critics of all others, they who principally acknowledge the 
 remains of the theoretical writing of the ancients on literature, 
 Aristotle, Horace, Quinctilian, &c. as infallible standards of 
 taste, should yet distinguish themselves by the contemptuous 
 and irreverent manner in which they speak of their poetical 
 compositions, and especially of their dramatic literature. Look 
 for instance, into a book very much read, — La Harpe's Cours 
 de Litterature. It contains many nice observations respect- 
 ing the French Theatre; but he who should think of knowing 
 the Greeks from it would be very ill advised: the author was 
 as much deficient in a solid knowledge of their literature as in a 
 sense for relishing it. Voltaire is often, also, most insupportable 
 in the depreciation of the Greeks: he elevates or lowers them at 
 the suggestions of his caprice, or as the necessity of the moment 
 to produce such or such an effect on the mind of the public ren- 
 ders it expedient. I remember too to have read a rapid view of 
 the Greek tragedies, somewhere in Metastasio, in which he treats 
 their poets like so many school-boys. Racine is much more 
 modest, and cannot be in any manner charged with this sort of 
 presumption: he was of all of them, the best acquainted with the 
 Greeks. It is easy to see into the motives of these hostile critics. 
 The national vanity, and the vanity of the author, will afford us 
 an easy solution: they conceive they have far surpassed the an- 
 cients, and they venture to commit such observations to the 
 public, knowing that the works of the ancient poets, accessible 
 only to the learned, have come down to us a mere dead letter, 
 without the animating accompaniment of recitation, music, ideal 
 and truly plastic imitation, and scenic pomp; all which in Athens 
 was in such wonderful harmony with the poetry, that if once it 
 could be represented to our eye and ear, it would silence the 
 whole herd of these noisy and interested critics. The ancient 
 statues require no commentary; they speak for themselves, and 
 everything like supposed competition on the part of a modern 
 artist would appear only in the light of ludicrous pretension. In 
 the theatre, we lay great stress on the infancy of the art; and 
 because their poets lived two thousand years before us, we con- 
 clude that we must have carried it farther than they did. In 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 29 
 
 this way poor ^Eschylus is generally got rid of. But if we are 
 to call it the infancy of the dramatic art, it was the infancy of a 
 Hercules, who strangled serpents in his cradle. 
 
 I have already expressed myself on the subject of that partial- 
 ity for the ancients, which would limit their excellence to a frigid 
 exemption from error, and which exhibits them as models in 
 such a way as to put a stop to everything like improvement, 
 and reduce us to abandon the exercise of art as altogether fruit- 
 less. I am much rather disposed to believe that poetry, as the 
 fervid expression of our whole being, must assume a new and pe- 
 culiar form in different ages. I entertain, however, an enthusias- 
 tic adoration for the Greeks, as a people endowed by the peculiar 
 favour of nature with the most perfect feeling for art, in the con- 
 sciousness of which they gave to all nations with which they were 
 acquainted, compared with themselves, the appellation of barba- 
 rians, — an appellation, in the use of which they were in some 
 degree justified. I would not wish to imitate certain travellers, 
 who, in returning from a country which their readers cannot 
 easily visit, tell so many wondrous things as to injure their cre- 
 dibility. I shall rather endeavour to characterize them as they 
 appear to me after sedulous and repeated study, without conceal- 
 ing their defects, and to bring a living picture of the Grecian 
 scene before the eyes of my hearers. 
 
 We shall first treat of the Tragedy of the Greeks, then of their 
 old Comedy, and lastly of the new Comedy which arose out 
 of it. 
 
 The same theatrical accompaniments were common to all the, 
 three kinds. We must, therefore, give a short preliminary view 
 of their architecture and ornaments, that we may have a distinct 
 idea of their representation. 
 
 The histrionic art of the ancients had also many peculiarities, 
 the use of masks for example, although these were quite differ- 
 ent in tragedy and comedy; in the former ideal, and in the lat- 
 ter, at least in the old comedy, somewhat caricatured. 
 
 In Tragedy, we shall first consider what constituted its most 
 distinctive peculiarity among the ancients: the ideality of there- 
 presentation, the prevailing idea of destiny, and the chorus; and 
 we shall lastly treat of their mythology as the materials of tragic 
 poetry. We shall then proceed to characterize, in the tragedians 
 still remaining, the different styles, that is, the necessary epochs 
 in the history of the tragic art. 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Structure of the stage among the Greeks. — Their acting. — Use of masks.— 
 False comparison of ancient tragedy to the Opera. — Tragical Lyric Poetry. — 
 Essence of the Greek Tragedies. — Ideality of the representation. — Idea of 
 fate. — Source of the pleasure derived from tragical representations. — Import 
 of the chorus. — The materials of the Greek tragedy derived from mythology. 
 — Comparison with the plastic art. 
 
 When we hear the word theatre, we naturally think of what 
 with us bears the same name; and yet nothing can be more dif- 
 ferent from our theatre than the Grecian in every part of its con- 
 struction. If in reading the Grecian pieces we associate our own 
 stage with them, the light in which we shall view them must be 
 false in every respect. 
 
 The accurate mathematical dimensions of the principal part of 
 it are to be found in Vitruvius, who also distinctly points out the 
 great difference between the Greek and Roman theatres. But 
 these and similar passages of the ancient writers have been most 
 perversely interpreted by architects unacquainted with the ancient 
 dramatists;* and the philologists on the other hand, who were 
 altogether ignorant of architecture, have also fallen into egre- 
 gious errors. The ancient dramatists are still, therefore, alto- 
 gether in want of that sort of illustration which relates to scenic 
 regulation. In many tragedies I conceive that my ideas on this 
 subject are sufficiently clear; but others again present difficulties 
 which are not so easily solved. We find ourselves most at a loss 
 in figuring to ourselves the representation of the pieces of Aristo- 
 phanes: the ingenious poet must have brought his wonderful in- 
 ventions before the eyes of his audience, in a manner equally 
 bold and astonishing. Even Barthelemy's description of the 
 Grecian stage is not a little confused; and the subjoined plan ex- 
 tremely erroneous; in the place which he assigns for the repre- 
 sentation of the pieces, in Antigone and Ajax for instance, he is 
 altogether wrong. The following observations will riot therefore 
 appear the less superfluous.! 
 
 * We have a remarkable instance of this, in the pretended ancient theatre 
 of Palladio, at Vicenza. Herculaneum, it is true, had not then been discovered, 
 and the ruins of the ancient theatre are not easily understood, if we have never 
 seen one in an entire state. 
 
 \ I am partly indebted for them to the illustrations of a learned architect, 
 M. Genelli, of Berlin, author of the ingenious Letters on Vitruvius. We have 
 compared several Greek tragedies with our interpretation of this description of 
 Vitruvius, and endeavoured to figure to ourselves the manner in which they 
 were represented; and I afterwards found my ideas confirmed, on an examina- 
 tion of the theatre of Herculaneum, and the two very small theatres at Pompeii. 
 
LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 31 
 
 The theatres of the Greeks were quite open above, and their 
 dramas were always acted in open day, and beneath the canopy of 
 heaven. The Romans, at an after period, endeavoured by a 
 covering to shelter the audience from the rays of the sun; but 
 this degree of luxury was hardly ever enjoyed by the Greeks. 
 Such a state of things appears very inconvenient to us; but the 
 Greeks had nothing of effeminacy about them, and we must not 
 forget, too, the beauty of their climate. When they were over- 
 taken by a storm or a shower, the play was of course interrupted ; 
 and they would much rather expose themselves to an accidental 
 inconvenience, than, by shutting themselves up in a close and 
 crowded house, entirely destroy the serenity of a religious solem- 
 nity, which their plays certainly were.* To have covered in 
 the scene itself, and imprisoned gods and heroes in dark and 
 gloomy apartments with difficulty lighted up, would have appeared 
 still more ridiculous to them. An action which so nobly served 
 to establish the belief of the relation with heaven could only be 
 exhibited under an unobstructed heaven, and under the very eyes 
 of the gods as it were, for whom, according to Seneca, the sight 
 of a brave man struggling with adversity is a becoming spectacle. 
 With respect to the supposed inconvenience, which, according to 
 the assertion of many modern critics, was felt by the poets from 
 the necessity of always laying the scene of their pieces before 
 houses, a circumstance that often forced them to violate proba- 
 bility, this inconvenience was very little felt by tragedy and the 
 older comedy. The Greeks, like so many southern nations of 
 the present day, lived much more in the open air, than we do, 
 and transacted many things in public places which usually take 
 place with us in houses. For the theatre did not represent the 
 street, but a place before the house belonging to it, where the 
 altar stood on which sacrifices to the household gods were offered 
 up. Here the women, who lived in so retired a manner among 
 the Greeks, even those who were unmarried, might appear with- 
 out any impropriety. Neither was it impossible for them to 
 give a view of the interior of the houses; and this was effected, 
 as we shall immediately see by means of the encyclema. 
 
 But the principal reason for this observance was that publici- 
 ty, according to the republican notions of the Greeks, was es- 
 sential to a grave and important transaction. This is clearly 
 proved by the presence of the chorus, whose remaining on many 
 occasions when secret transactions were going on has been judged 
 
 * They carefully made choice of a beautiful situation. The theatre at 
 Tauromenium, at present Taormim, in Sicily, of which the ruins are still visible, 
 was, according to Munter's description, situated in such a manner that the audi- 
 ence had a view of JEtna over the back ground of the theatre. 
 
32 LECTURES ON 
 
 of according to rules of propriety inapplicable to that country, 
 and most undeservedly censured. 
 
 The theatres of the ancients were, in comparison with the 
 small scale of ours, of a colossal magnitude, partly for the sake of 
 containing the whole of the people, with the concourse of stran- 
 gers who flocked to the festivals, and partly to correspond with 
 the majesty of the dramas represented in them, which required 
 to be seen at a respectful distance. The seats of the spectators 
 consisted of steps which rose backwards round the semicircle of 
 the orchestra, (called by us the pit,) so that they could all see 
 with equal convenience. The effect of distance was remedied 
 by an artificial heightening of the subject, represented to the eye 
 and ear, produced by means of masks, and contrivances for in- 
 creasing the loudness of the voice, and the size of the figures. 
 Vitruvius speaks also of vehicles of sound, distributed through- 
 out the building; but the commentators are very much at va- 
 riance with respect to them. We may without hesitation ven- 
 ture to assume, that the theatres of the ancients were constructed 
 on excellent acoustical principles. 
 
 The lowest step of the amphitheatre was still raised consider- 
 bly above the orchestra, and the stage was placed opposite to it, 
 at an equal degree of elevation. The sunk semicircle of the or- 
 chestra contained no spectators, and was destined for another 
 purpose. It was otherwise however with the Romans, but 
 we are not at present considering the distribution of their thea- 
 tres. 
 
 The stage consisted of a strip which stretched from one end of 
 the building to the other, and of which the depth bore little pro- 
 portion to this breadth. This was called the logeum y in Latin 
 pulpitum, and the usual place for the persons who spoke was in 
 the middle of it. Behind this middle part, the scene went in- 
 wards in a quadrangular form, with less depth, however, than 
 breadth. The space here comprehended was called the prosce- 
 nium. The remaining part of the logeum, to the right and left 
 of the scene, had, both before the brink which adjoined the or- 
 chestra, and behind, a wall possessing no scenical decorations, 
 but entirely simple, or at most architecturally ornamented, which 
 was elevated to an equal height with the uppermost steps for the 
 audience. 
 
 The decoration was contrived in such a manner, that the prin- 
 cipal object in front covered the back-ground, and the prospects 
 of distance were given at the two sides, the very reverse of the 
 mode adopted by us. This had also its rules: on the left, ap- 
 peared the town to which the palace, temple, or whatever occu- 
 pied the middle, belonged; on the right, the open country, land- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 33 
 
 scape, mountains, sea-shore, &c. The lateral decorations were 
 composed of triangles which turned on an axis fastened under- 
 neath; and in this manner the change of scene was effected.* In 
 the hindmost decoration it is probable that many things were ex- 
 hibited in a bodily form which are only painted with us. When 
 a palace or temple was represented, there appeared in the prosce- 
 nium an altar, which answered a number of purposes in the per- 
 formance of the pieces. 
 
 The decoration was for the most part architectural, but it was 
 also not unfrequently a painted landscape, as in Prometheus, 
 when it represented Caucasus; or in Philoctetus, where the de- 
 sert island of Lemnos, with its rocks, and his cave were exhibit- 
 ed. It is clear, from a passage of Plato, that the Greeks, in the 
 deceptions of theatrical perspective, carried things much farther 
 than we are disposed to allow from some wretched landscapes 
 discovered in Plerculaneum. 
 
 In the back wall of this scene there was a large main entrance, 
 and two side entrances. It has been maintained, that from them 
 it might be discovered whether an actor played a principal or 
 under part, as in the first case he came in at the main entrance, 
 and in the second, at the side doors. But this should be under- 
 stood with the distinction, that it must have been regulated ac- 
 cording to the nature of the piece. As the hindmost decoration 
 was generally a palace, in which the principal characters of royal 
 descent resided, they naturally came through the great door, 
 while the servants resided in the wings. There were two other 
 entrances; the one at the end of the logeum, from whence the 
 inhabitants of the town came; the other underneath in the orches- 
 tra, which was the side for those who had to come from a dis- 
 tance: they ascended a staircase of the logeum opposite to the 
 orchestra, which could be applied to all sorts of purposes accord- 
 ing to circumstances. The entrance, therefore, with respect to 
 the lateral decorations, declared the place from whence the play- 
 ers were supposed to come: and it might naturally happen, that 
 the principal characters were in a situation to avail themselves 
 with propriety of the two last mentioned entrances. The situa- 
 tion of these entrances serves to explain many passages in the 
 ancient dramas, where the persons standing in the middle see 
 some one advancing, long before he approaches them. Beneath 
 
 * According to an observation on Virgil, by Servius, the change of scene 
 was partly produced by revolving, and partly by withdrawing. The former 
 applies to the lateral decorations, and the latter to the middle or back-ground. 
 The partition in the middle opened, disappeared at both sides, and exhibited to 
 view a new picture. But all the parts of the scene were not always changed at 
 the same time. 
 
 5 
 
34 LECTURES ON 
 
 the seats of the spectators, a stair was somewhere constructed, 
 which was called the Charonic, and through which the shadows 
 of the departed, without being perceived by the audience, as- 
 cended into the orchestra, and then, by the stair which we for- 
 merly mentioned, made their appearance on the stage. The 
 nearest brink of the logeum sometimes represented the sea-shore. 
 The Greeks were well skilled in availing themselves even of 
 what lay beyond the decoration, and making it subservient to 
 scenical effect. I doubt not, therefore, that in the Eumenides 
 the spectators were twice addressed as an assembled people; 
 first, by Pythia, when she calls upon the Greeks to consult the 
 oracle; and a second time, when Pallas, by a herald, commands 
 silence throughout the place of judgment. The frequent ad- 
 dresses to heaven were undoubtedly addressed to a real heaven; 
 and when Electra on her first appearance exclaims: "0 holy 
 light, and thou air which fillest the expanse between earth and 
 heaven !" she probably turned towards the rising sun. The 
 whole of this procedure is highly deserving of praise; and though 
 modern critics have censured the mixture of reality and imitation, 
 as destructive of theatrical illusion, this only proves that they 
 have misunderstood the essence of the illusion which can be pro- 
 duced by an artificial representation. If we are to be truly de- 
 ceived by a picture, that is, if we are to believe in the reality of 
 the object which we see, we must not perceive its limits, but 
 look at it through an opening; the frame at once declares it for a 
 picture. In scenical decorations we are now unavoidably com- 
 pelled to make use of architectural contrivances, productive of 
 the same effect as the frames of pictures. It is consequently 
 much better to avoid this, and to renounce the modern illusion, 
 though it may have its advantages, for the sake of extending the 
 view beyond the mere decoration. It was, generally speaking, 
 a principle of the Greeks, that everything imitated on the stage 
 should, if possible, consist of actual representation; and only 
 where this could not be done were they satisfied with a symboli- 
 cal exhibition. 
 
 The machinery for the descent of gods through the air, or the 
 withdrawing of men from the earth, was placed aloft behind the 
 walls of the two sides of the scene, and consequently removed 
 from the sight of the spectators. Even in the time of iEschy- 
 lus, great use was made of it, as he not only brings Oceanus 
 through the air on a griffin, but also introduces the whole choir 
 of ocean nymphs, at least fifteen in number, in a winged chariot 
 There were hollow places beneath the stage, and contrivances 
 for thunder and lightning, for the apparent fall or burning of a 
 house, &c. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 35 
 
 An upper story could be added to the farthermost wall of the 
 scene, when they wished to represent a tower with a wide 
 prospect, or anything similar. The encyclema could be thrust 
 behind the great middle entrance, a machine of a semicircular 
 form within, and covered above, which represented the objects 
 contained in it as in a house. This was used for producing a 
 great theatrical effect, as we may see from many pieces. The 
 side door of the entrance would naturally be then open, or the 
 curtain which ocvered it withdrawn. 
 
 A stage curtain, which, we clearly see from a description of 
 Ovid, was not dropped, but drawn upwards, is mentioned both 
 by Greek and Roman writers, and the Latin appellation, aulaeum, 
 is even borrowed from the Greeks. I suspect, however, that 
 the curtain on the Attic stage was not in use at its commencement. 
 In the pieces of iEschylus and Sophocles the scene is evidently 
 empty at the opening as well as the conclusion, and therefore it 
 did not require any contrivance for preventing the view of the 
 spectators. However, in many of the pieces of Euripides, per- 
 haps also in the (Edipus Tyrannus, the stage is at once filled, 
 and represents a standing group who could not have been first 
 assembled under the eyes of the spectators. It must be recollected., 
 that it was only the comparatively small proscenium, and not the 
 logeum, which was covered by the curtain; for, from its great 
 breadth, to have attempted to screen the logeum would have been 
 almost impracticable, without answering any good end. 
 
 The entrances of the chorus were beneath in the orchestra, in 
 which it generally remained, and in which also it performed its 
 solemn dance, going backwards and forwards during the choral 
 songs. In the front of the orchestra, opposite to the middle of 
 the scene, there was an elevation with steps, resembling an altar, 
 as high as the stage, which was called thymele. This was the 
 station of the chorus when it did not sing, but merely took an 
 interest in the action. The leader of the chorus then took his 
 station on the top of the thymele, to see what was passing on the 
 stage, and to communicate with the characters. For though the 
 choral song was common to the whole, yet when it entered into 
 the dialogue one person spoke for the rest; and hence we are to 
 account for the shifting from thou to ye in addressing them. 
 The thymele was situated in the very centre of the building; all 
 the measurements were calculated from it, and the semicircle of 
 the amphitheatre was described round that point. It was, there- 
 fore, an excellent contrivance to place the chorus, who were the 
 ideal representatives of the spectators, in the very situation where 
 all the radii were concentrated. 
 
 The tragical imitation of the ancients were altogether ideal, 
 
36 LECTURES ON 
 
 and rhythmical ; and in forming a judgment of it we must always 
 keep this in view. It was ideal, as its chief object was the highest 
 dignity and sweetness; and rhythmical, as the gestures and in- 
 flections of voice were measured in a more solemn manner than 
 in real life. As the plastic art of the Greeks was formed, if we 
 may so express ourselves, with scientific strictness on the most 
 general conception, and embodied into various general characters 
 which were gradually invested with the charms of animation, so 
 that individuality was the last thing to which they turned their 
 attention; in like manner in the mimetic art, their first idea was 
 to exhibit their personages with heroical grandeur, a dignity more 
 than human, and an ideal beauty: their second was character; 
 and the last of all passion, which in the collision was thus forced 
 to give way. The fidelity of the representation was less their 
 object than its beauty: with us it is exactly the reverse. The 
 use of masks, which appears astonishing to us, was not only justi- 
 fiable on this principle, but absolutely essential; and far from con- 
 sidering them in the light of a last resource, the Greeks would 
 with justice have considered as a last resource the being obliged 
 to allow a player with vulgar, ignoble, or strongly marked indi- 
 vidual features, to represent an Apollo or a Hercules. To them 
 this would have appeared downright profanation. How limited 
 is the power of the most finished actor, in changing the character 
 of his features! And yet this has the most unfavourable influence 
 on the expression of the passion, as all passion is tinged by the 
 character. Neither are we obliged to have recourse to the con- 
 jecture, that they changed the masks in the different scenes, for 
 the purpose of assuming a greater degree of joy or sorrow.* This 
 would by no means have been sufficient, as the passions are often 
 changed in the same scene: and then modern critics would still 
 be obliged to suppose, that the masks exhibited a different ap- 
 pearance on one side, from what they did on the other, and that 
 that side was turned towards the spectators which the circum- 
 stances of the moment required.! No; the countenance remain- 
 
 * I call it conjecture, though Barthelemy, in his Anacharsis, considers it a 
 settled point. He cites no authorities, and I do not recollect any. 
 
 -j- Voltaire, in his Essay on the Tragedy of the Ancients and Moderns, pre- 
 fixed to Semiramis, has actually gone so far. Amidst a multitude of supposed 
 improprieties which he crowds together to confound the admirers of ancient 
 tragedy, the following is one: Aucune nation (that is to say, excepting the 
 Greeks) ne fait paraitre ses acteurs surdes especesd'echasses, le visage convert d'un 
 masque, qui exprime la douleur d'un coti et lajoye de Vautre. In a conscientious 
 inquiry into the evidence for an assertion so very improbable, and yet so boldly 
 made, I can only find one passage in Quinctilian, lib. xi. cap. 3. and an allusion 
 of Platonius still more vague. (Vide Aristoph. ed. Küster, prolegom. p. x.) Both 
 passages refer only to the new comedy, and only amount to this, that in some 
 characters the eyebrows were dissimilar. As to the view with which this took 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 37 
 
 ed from beginning to end the very same, as we may see from the 
 antique masks cut out in stone. For the expression of the pas- 
 sion, the motion of the arms and hands, the attitudes, and the 
 tone of the voice, remained to them. We complain of the want 
 of the expression of the face, without reflecting, that at such a 
 great distance its effect would have been lost. 
 
 We are not now inquiring whether, without the use of masks, 
 it may not be possible to attain a higher degree of separate excel- 
 lence in the mimetic art. This we would very willingly allow. 
 Cicero, it is true, speaks of the expression, the softness, and deli- 
 cacy of the acting of Roscius, in the same terms that a modern 
 critic would apply to Garrick or Schröder. But I will not lay 
 any stress on the acting of this celebrated player, the excellence 
 of which has become proverbial, because it appears from a pas- 
 sage in Cicero that he frequently played without a mask, and that 
 this was preferred by his contemporaries. I doubt, however, 
 whether this ever took place among the Greeks. But the same 
 writer relates, that actors in general, for the sake of acquiring the 
 most perfect purity and flexibility of voice, (and not merely the 
 musical voice, otherwise the example would not have been ap- 
 plicable to the orator,) submitted to such a course of uninterrupted 
 exercises as our modern players, even the French who are the 
 strictest in their discipline, would consider a most intolerable op- 
 pression. The ancients could show their dexterity in the mimetic 
 art, considered by itself without the accompaniment of words, in 
 their pantomimes, which they carried to a degree of perfection 
 altogether unknown to the moderns. In tragedy, however, the 
 great object in the art was strict subordination ; the whole was to 
 appear animated by one spirit, and hence, not merely the poetry, 
 but the musical accompaniment, the scenical decoration and re- 
 presentation, were all the creation of the poet. The player was 
 a mere tool, and his excellency consisted in the accuracy with 
 which he filled up his part, and by no means in arbitrary bra- 
 vura, or an ostentatious display of skill. 
 
 As from the quality of their writing materials they had not 
 the convenience of many copies, the parts were studied from the 
 repeated delivery of the poet, and the chorus exercised in the 
 same manner. This was called teaching a piece. As the poet 
 
 place, I shall afterwards say a word or two in considering- the new Greek cora- 
 edy. Voltaire, however, is without excuse, as the mention of the cothurnus 
 leaves no doubt that he alluded to tragic masks. But his error had probably 
 no such learned origin. In most cases, it would be a fruitless task to trace the 
 source of his ignorance. The whole description of the Greek tragedy, as well 
 as that of the cothurnus in particular, is worthy of the man whose knowledge 
 of antiquity was such, that in his Essay on Tragedy, prefixed to Brutus, he 
 boasts of having introduced the Roman Senate on the stage in red mantles. 
 
38 LECTURES ON 
 
 was also a musician, and for the most part a player likewise, this 
 must have greatly contributed to the perfection of the representa- 
 tion. 
 
 We may safely allow that the task of the modern player, who 
 must change his person without concealing it, is much more dif- 
 ficult; but this difficulty affords us no just criterion for deciding 
 which of the two merits the preference as a representation of the 
 noble and the beautiful. 
 
 As the features of the player acquired a more decided expres- 
 sion from the mask, as his voice was strengthened by a contriv- 
 ance for that purpose, the cothurnus, which consisted of several 
 considerable additions to his soles, as we may see in the ancient 
 statues of Melpomene, raised in like manner his figure considera- 
 bly above the middle standard. The female parts were also 
 played by men, as the voice and other qualities of women would 
 have conveyed an inadequate idea of the energy of tragic heroines. 
 
 The forms of the masks,* and the whole appearance of the 
 tragic figures, we may easily suppose, were sufficiently beautiful 
 and dignified. We should do well to have the ancient sculpture 
 always present to our minds; and the most accurate conception, 
 perhaps, that we can possibly have, is to imagine them so many 
 statues in the grand style endowed with life and motion. But, 
 as in sculpture, they were fond of dispensing as much as possible 
 with dress, for the sake of exhibiting the more essential beauty 
 
 * We have obtained a knowledge of them from the imitations in stone which 
 have come down to us. They display both beauty and variety. That great 
 variety must have taken place in the tragical department (in the comic, we can 
 have no doubt about the matter) is evident from the rich store of technical 
 expressions in the Greek language for every gradation of the age, and character 
 of masks. See the Onomasticon of Jul. Pollux. In the marble masks, however, 
 we can neither see the thinness of the mass from which the real masks were 
 executed, the more delicate colouring, nor the exquisite mechanism of the join- 
 ings. The abundance of excellent workmen possessed by Athens, in everything 
 which had a reference to the plastic arts, will warrant the conjecture that they 
 were in this respect inimitable. Those who have seen the masks of wax in the 
 grand style, which in some degree contain the whole head, lately contrived at 
 the Roman carnival, may form to themselves a pretty good idea of the theatrical 
 masks of the ancients. They imitate life even to its movements in a most mas- 
 terly manner, and at such a distance as that from which the ancient players were 
 seen, the deception is most perfect. They always contain the apple of the eye, 
 as we see it in the ancient masks, and the person covered sees merely through 
 the aperture left for the iris. The ancients must have gone still farther, and 
 contrived also an iris for the masks, according to the anecdote of the singer 
 Thamyris, who, in a piece which was probably of Sophocles, made his appear- 
 ance with a blue and a black eye. Even accidental circumstances were imitat- 
 ed; for instance, the cheeks of Tyro, down which the blood had rolled from 
 the cruel conduct of his stepmother. The head from the mask must no doubt 
 have appeared somewhat large for the rest of the figure; but this disproportion, 
 in tragedy at least, would not be perceived from the elevation of the cothurnus. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 39 
 
 of the figure; on the stage they would endeavour from an oppo- 
 site principle to clothe as much as they could well do, both from 
 a regard to decency, and because the actual forms of the body 
 would not correspond sufficiently with the beauty of the coun- 
 tenance. They would also exhibit their divinities, which in 
 sculpture we always observe either entirely naked, or only half 
 covered, in a complete dress. They had recourse to a number 
 of means for giving a suitable strength to the forms of the limbs, 
 and thus restoring proportion to the increased height of the 
 player. 
 
 The great breadth of the theatre in proportion to its depth 
 must have given to the grouping of the figures the simple and 
 distinct order of the bas-relief. We prefer on the stage, as well 
 as everywhere else, groups of a picturesque description, more 
 crowded, in part covered by themselves, and stretching out into 
 distance; but the ancients were so little fond of foreshortening, 
 that even in their painting they generally avoided it. The ges- 
 tures accompanied the rhythmus of the declamation, and were in- 
 tended to display the utmost beauty and sweetness. The poetical 
 conception required a certain degree of repose in the action, and 
 that the whole should be kept in masses, so as to exhibit a suc- 
 cession of plastic attitudes, and it is not improbable that the player 
 remained for some time motionless in the same position. But 
 we are not to suppose from this, that the Greeks were contented 
 with a cold and spiritless representation of the passions. How 
 could we reconcile such a supposition with the fact, that whole 
 lines of their tragedies are frequently dedicated to inarticulate ex- 
 clamations of pain, with which we have nothing to correspond in 
 any of our modern languages? 
 
 It has been often conjectured that the delivery of their dia- 
 logue must have resembled the modern recitative. For this conjec- 
 ture there is no other foundation than that the Greek, like almost 
 all the southern languages, must have been pronounced with a 
 greater musical inflexion of the voice than our languages of the 
 north. In other respects I conceive that their tragic declamation 
 must have been altogether unlike recitative, much more measur- 
 ed, and far removed from its learned and artificial modulation. 
 
 The ancient tragedy has also been frequently compared with 
 the opera, because it was accompanied with music and dancing.* 
 But this betrays the most complete ignorance of the spirit of class- 
 ical antiquity. Their dancing and music had nothing in com- 
 mon with ours, but the name. In tragedy the chief object was 
 
 * Even Barthelemy falls into this error in a note to the 70th chapter of 
 Anacharsis. 
 
40 LECTURES ON 
 
 the poetry, and every other thing was strictly subordinate to it. 
 But in the opera the poetry is merely an accessory, the means of 
 connecting the different parts together; and it is almost buried 
 under its associates. The best prescription for the composition 
 of the text of an opera is to give a poetical sketch, which may be 
 afterwards filled up and coloured by the other arts. This anar- 
 chy of the arts, where music, dancing, and decoration endeavour 
 to surpass each other by the most profuse display of dazzling 
 charms, constitutes the very essence of the opera. What sort of 
 opera music would it be, where the words should receive a mere 
 rhythmical accompaniment of the simplest modulations? The fan- 
 tastic magic of the opera consists altogether in the luxurious com- 
 petition of the different means, and in the perplexity of an over- 
 powering superfluity. This would at once be destroyed by an 
 approximation to the severity of the ancient taste in any one 
 point, even in that of the costume; for the contrast would render 
 the variety in all the other departments quite insupportable. The 
 costume of the opera ought to be dazzling, and overladen with 
 ornaments; and hence many things which have been censured as 
 unnatural, such as exhibiting heroes warbling and trilling in the 
 excess of despondency, are perfectly justifiable. This fairy world 
 is not peopled by real men, but by a singular kind of singing 
 creatures. Neither is it any disadvantage to us that the opera is 
 conveyed in a language which is not generally understood ; the 
 text is altogether lost in the music, and the language the most har- 
 monious and musical, and which contains the greatest number of 
 open vowels, and distinct accents for recitative, is therefore the 
 best. It would be as absurd to attempt to give to the opera the 
 simplicity of the Grecian tragedy, as it is to declare that there 
 is any resemblance between them. 
 
 In the syllabic composition which then at least prevailed in 
 the Grecian music, the solemn choral song, of which we may 
 form to ourselves some idea from our artless national airs, and 
 more especially those sung in churches, had no other instrument- 
 al accompaniment than a single flute, which certainly could not 
 in the slightest degree impair the distinctness of the words. The 
 choruses and lyrical songs, in general, are the parts the most dif- 
 ficult to understand of the ancient tragedy, and they must have 
 also been the most difficult to contemporary auditors. They 
 abound with most involved constructions, the most unusual ex- 
 pressions, and the boldest images and allusions. Why then should 
 the poets have lavished such labour and art on them, if all this 
 labour and art were to be lost in the delivery? Such a display 
 of ornament without aim was very unlike the way of thinking of 
 the Greeks. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 41 
 
 In the syllabic measure of their tragedies, there generally pre- 
 vails a highly finished regularity, which by no means however 
 appears a stiff symmetrical uniformity. Besides the infinite va- 
 riety of the lyrical strophes, which were always invented by the 
 poet for the occasion, they have also a measure to denote the 
 mental transition from the dialogue to the lyric, the anapest; and 
 two for the dialogue itself, of which the one by far the most gen- 
 eral, the iambic trimeter, denoted the regular progress of the ac- 
 tion, and the other, the trochaic tetrameter, was expressive of 
 sudden passion. It would lead us too far into the depths of 
 Greek metres, were we to venture at present on a more minute 
 account of the quality and import of these measures. I merely 
 wished to make this remark, as so much has been said of the sim- 
 plicity of the ancient tragedy, which in the general plan, at least 
 in the two oldest poets, it is impossible not to allow; but this 
 simplicity is merely applicable to the plan, for the richest variety 
 of poetical ornament is observable in the execution. It must be 
 remembered that the utmost accuracy in the delivery of the dif- 
 ferent modes of versification was expected from the player, as 
 the delicacy of the Grecian ear would not excuse, even in an 
 orator, the false quantity of a single syllable. 
 
 We come now to the essence of the Greek tragedy itself. In 
 stating that the conception was ideal, we are not to understand 
 that the different characters were all morally perfect. In this 
 case what room could there be for such an opposition or conflict, 
 as the plot of a drama requires? Weaknesses, errors, and even 
 crimes, were portrayed in them, but the manners were always 
 elevated above reality, and every person was invested with such 
 a portion of dignity and grandeur as was compatible with the 
 share which he possessed in the action. The ideality of the re- 
 presentation chiefly consisted in the elevation to a higher sphere. 
 The tragical poetry wished wholly to separate the image of hu- 
 manity which it exhibited to us, from the ground of nature to 
 which man is in reality chained down, like a feudal slave. How 
 was this to be accomplished? By exhibiting to us an image 
 hovering in the air? But this would have been incompatible 
 with the law of gravitation and with the earthly materials of which 
 our bodies are framed. Frequently, what we praise in art as 
 ideal is really nothing more. But the production of airy floating 
 shadows can make no durable impression on the mind. The 
 Greeks, however, succeeded in combining in the most perfect 
 manner in their art ideality with reality, or, dropping school terms, 
 an elevation more than human with all the truth of life, and all 
 the energy of bodily qualities. They did not allow their figures 
 to flutter without consistency in empty space, but they fixed the 
 
 6 
 
IB LECTURES ON 
 
 statue of humanity on the eternal and immovable basis of moral 
 liberty; and that it might stand there unshaken, being formed of 
 stone or brass, or some more solid mass than the living human 
 bodies, it made an impression by its own weight, and from its 
 very elevation and magnificence it was only the more decidedly 
 subjected to the law of gravity. 
 
 Inward liberty and external necessity are the two poles of the 
 tragic world. Each of these ideas can only appear in the most 
 perfect manner by the contrast of the other. As the feeling *of 
 internal dignity elevates the man above the unlimited dominion 
 of impulse and native instinct, and in a word absolves him from 
 the guardianship of nature, so the necessity which he must also 
 recognize ought to be no mere natural necessity, but to lie beyond 
 the world of sense in the abyss of infinitude; and it must conse- 
 quently be represented as the invincible power of fate. Hence 
 it extends also to the world of the gods: for the Grecian gods are 
 mere powers of nature; and although immeasurably higher than 
 mortal man, yet, compared with infinitude, they are on an equal 
 footing with himself. In Homer and the tragedians, the gods are 
 introduced in a manner altogether different. In the former their 
 appearance is arbitrary and accidental, and can communicate no 
 higher interest to the epic poem than the charm of the wonderful. 
 But in tragedy the gods either enter in obedience to fate, and to 
 carry its decrees into execution; or they endeavour in a godlike 
 manner to assert their liberty of action, and appear involved in 
 the same struggles with destiny which man has to encounter. 
 
 This is the essence of the tragic in the sense of the ancients. 
 We are accustomed to give to all terrible or sorrowful events the 
 appellation of tragic, and it is certain that such events are selected 
 in preference by tragedy, though a melancholy conclusion is by 
 no means indispensably necessary, and several ancient tragedies, 
 viz. the Eumenides, Philoctetus, and in some degree also the 
 CEdipus Colonus, without mentioning many of the pieces of Eu- 
 ripides, have a happy and enlivening termination. 
 
 But why does tragedy select those objects which are so dread- 
 fully repugnant to the wishes and the wants of our sensible nature? 
 This question has often been asked, and seldom answered in a very 
 satisfactory manner. Some have said that the pleasure of such 
 representations arises from the comparison between the calmness 
 and tranquillity of our own situation, and the storms and per- 
 plexities to which the victims of passion are exposed. But when 
 we take a warm interest in a tragedy, we cease to think of our- 
 selves; and when this is not the case, it is the best of all proofs 
 that we take but a feeble interest, and that the tragedy has failed 
 in its effect. Others again have had recourse to our feeling for 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 43 
 
 moral improvement, which is gratified by the view of poetical 
 justice in the reward of the good and the punishment of the wick- 
 ed. But he whom the aspect of such dreadful examples could 
 in reality improve, would be conscious of a sentiment of depres- 
 sion and humiliation, very far removed from genuine morality 
 and elevation of mind. Besides, poetical justice is by no means 
 indispensable in a good tragedy; it may end with the suffering 
 of the just and the triumph of the wicked, when the balance is 
 once restored by the prospect of futurity. Small will be our im- 
 provement, if with Aristotle we say that the object of tragedy is 
 to purify the passions by pity and terror. In the first place the 
 commentators have never been able to agree as to the meaning of 
 this proposition, and have had recourse to the most forced expla- 
 nations. Look for instance into the Dramaturgie of Lessing. 
 Lessing gives a new explanation, and conceives he has found in 
 Aristotle a poetical Euclid. But mathematical demonstrations 
 are subject to no misconception, and geometrical evidence is not 
 applicable to the theory of the fine arts. Supposing however 
 tragedy to operate this moral cure in us, it must do so by the 
 painful feelings of terror and compassion: and it remains to be 
 proved how we should take a pleasure in subjecting ourselves to 
 such an operation. 
 
 Others have been pleased to say that we are attracted to thea- 
 trical representations from the want of some violent agitation to 
 rouse us out of the torpor of everyday life. I have already ac- 
 knowledged the existence of this want, when speaking of the 
 attractions of the drama; and to it we are even to attribute the 
 fights of wild beasts and gladiators among the Romans. But must 
 we who are less indurated, and more inclined to tender feelings, 
 be desirous of seeing demi-gods and heroes descend into the 
 bloody lists of the tragic stage, like so many desperate gladiators, 
 that our nerves may be shaken by the aspect of their sufferings? 
 No: it is not the aspect of suffering which constitutes the charm 
 of a tragedy, or the amusement of a circus or wild beast fight. In 
 the latter we see a display of activity, strength, and courage, 
 qualities related to the mental and moral powers of man. The 
 satisfaction which we derive from the representation of the pow- 
 erful situations and overwhelming passions in a good tragedy, 
 must be ascribed either to the feeling of the dignity of human 
 nature, excited by the great models exhibited to us, or to the trace 
 of a higher order of things, impressed on the apparently irregular 
 progress of events, and secretly revealed in them; or to both of 
 these causes together. 
 
 The true cause, therefore, why in tragical representations we 
 cannot exclude even that which appears harsh and cruel is, that a 
 
44 LECTURES ON 
 
 spiritual and invisible power can only be measured by the oppo- 
 sition which it encounters from some external force that can be 
 taken in by the senses. The moral freedom of man can therefore 
 only be displayed in a conflict with the impulse of the senses: so 
 long as it is not called into action by a higher power, it is either 
 actually dormant in him, or appears to slumber, as it can fill no 
 part as a mere natural entity. The moral part of our nature can 
 only be preserved amidst struggles and difficulties, and if we were 
 therefore to ascribe a distinctive aim to tragedy, as instructive, 
 it should be this: that all these sufferings must be experienced, 
 and all these difficulties overcome, to establish the claims of the 
 mind to a divine origin, and teach us to estimate the earthly ex- 
 istence as vain and insignificant. 
 
 With respect to everything connected with this point, I refer 
 my hearers to the Section on the Sublime in Kant's Criticism 
 of the Judgment {Kritik der Urtheilskraft), to the complete 
 perfection of which nothing is wanting but a more definite idea 
 of the tragedy of the ancients, with which he does not seem to 
 have been very well acquainted. 
 
 I come now to another peculiarity which distinguishes the 
 tragedy of the ancients from ours, I mean the chorus. We must 
 consider it as the personification of opinion on the action which 
 is going on; the incorporation into the representation itself of the 
 sentiments of the poet, as the interpreter for the whole human 
 race. This is the general poetical character which we must here 
 assign to it, and that character is by no means affected by the cir- 
 cumstance that tiie chorus had a local origin in the feasts of Bac- 
 chus, and that it always had a peculiar national signification with 
 the Greeks. We have already said that, with their republican 
 way of thinking, publicity was considered essential to every im- 
 portant transaction. As in their compositions they went back to 
 the heroic ages, they gave a certain republican cast to the families 
 ,of their heroes, by carrying on the action either in presence of 
 the elders of the people, or t hose persons whose characters entitled 
 them to respect. This publicity does not, it is true, correspond 
 with Homer's picture of the manners of the heroic age; but both 
 in the costume and the mythology, the dramatic poetry generally 
 displayed a spirit of independence and conscious liberty. 
 
 The chorus was therefore introduced to give the whole that 
 appearance of reality which was most consistent with the fable. 
 Whatever it might be in particular pieces, it represented in gene- 
 ral, first the national spirit, and then the general participation of 
 mankind. In a word, the chorus is the ideal spectator. It miti- 
 gates the impression oi a heart-rending or moving story, while 
 it conveys to the actual spectator a lyrical and musical expression 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 45 
 
 of his own motions, and elevates him to the region of considera- 
 tion. 
 
 The modern critics have never known what to make of the 
 chorus; and this is the less to be wondered at, as Aristotle affords 
 no satisfactory solution of the difficulty. The business of the 
 chorus is better painted by Horace, who ascribes to it a general 
 expression of moral participation, instruction and admonition. 
 But the critics in question have either believed that its chief ob- 
 ject was to prevent the stage from ever being altogether empty, 
 although the proper place for the chorus was not upon the stage; 
 or they have censured it as a superfluous and laughable accompa- 
 niment, and seemed astonished at the supposed impropriety of 
 carrying on secret transactions in the presence of assembled 
 multitudes. This they consider as the principal reason for the 
 observance of the unity of place, as it could not be changed by 
 the poet, without the dismission of the chorus, an act which 
 would have required at least some sort of pretext; they believe 
 that the chorus owed its continuance from the first origin of tra- 
 gedy merely to accident; and as it is easy to perceive that in 
 Euripides, the last tragic poet which we have, the choral songs 
 have frequently little or no connection with the fable, and form a 
 mere episodical ornament, they therefore conclude that the 
 Greeks had only to take one other step in dramatic art, to ex- 
 plode the chorus altogether. To refute these superficial conjec- 
 tures, it is only necessary to observe, that Sophocles wrote a 
 Treatise on the chorus, in prose, in opposition to the principles 
 of some other poets, and that far from following blindly the 
 practice which he found established, like an intelligent artist, he 
 could assign reasons for the system which he adopted. 
 
 Modern poets of the very first rank, since the revival of the 
 study of the ancients, have often attempted to introduce the chorus 
 in their pieces, for the most part without a correct, and always 
 without a vivid idea of its destination. But we have no suitable 
 singing or dancing, neither have we, as our theatres are con- 
 structed, any place for it; and it will hardly ever succeed, there- 
 fore, in becoming naturalized with us. 
 
 The Greek tragedy, in its pure and unaltered state, will al- 
 ways for our theatre remain an exotic plant, which we can hardly 
 hope to cultivate with any success, even in the hot-house of 
 learned art and criticism. The Grecian mythology, which con- 
 stitutes the materials of ancient tragedy, is as foreign to the 
 minds and imaginations of most of the spectators, as its form and 
 mode of representation. But to endeavour to constrain another 
 subject, a historical one for example, to assume that form, must 
 always be a most unprofitable and hopeless attempt. 
 
46 LECTURES ON 
 
 I have called mythology the chief materials of tragedy. We 
 know, indeed, of two historical tragedies, by Grecian authors: 
 the Capture of Miletus, of Phrynichus, and the Persians, of 
 JEschylus, a piece which still exists; but these singular excep- 
 tions, both belonging to an epoch when the art had not attained 
 its full maturity, among so many hundred examples of a different 
 description, serve to establish more strongly the truth of the rule. 
 The sentence passed by the Athenians on Phrynichus, whom 
 they subjected to a pecuniary fine because, in the representation 
 of contemporary calamities which with due caution they might 
 have avoided, he bad agitated them in too violent a manner, how- 
 ever hard and arbitrary it may appear in a judicial point of view, 
 displays however a correct feeling with respect to the subject and 
 the limits of art. The mind suffering under the near reality 
 of the subject cannot possess the necessary repose and self-posses- 
 sion which are necessary for the reception of pure tragical impres- 
 sions. The heroic fables, on the other hand, appear always at a cer- 
 tain distance, and in the light of the wonderful. The wonderful 
 possesses the advantage of being believed, and insomedegreedisbe- 
 lieved, at the same time: believed in so far as it is founded on tlje 
 connexion with other opinions; disbelieved while we never take 
 such an immediate interest in it as we do in what wears the hue of 
 the everyday life of our own age. The Grecian mythology was a 
 web of national and local traditions, held in equal honour as a 
 part of religion and as an introduction to history; everywhere 
 preserved in full life among the people by customs and monu- 
 ments, and by the numberless works of epic and mythical poets. 
 The tragedians had only therefore to engraft one species of poetry 
 on another: they were always allowed their use of certain estab- 
 lished fables, invaluable for their dignity, grandeur, and remoteness 
 from all accessary ideas of petty description. Everything, down 
 to the very errors and weaknesses of that departed race of heroes 
 who claimed their descent from the gods, was consecrated in the 
 eyes of the people. Those heroes were painted as beings endow- 
 ed with more than human strength; but, so far from possessing 
 unerring virtue and wisdom, they were also represented as under 
 the dominion of furious and unbridled passions. It was a wild 
 age of effervescence: the cultivation of social order had not as 
 yet rendered the soil of morality arable, and it yielded at the 
 same time the most beneficent and poisonous productions, with 
 the fresh and luxuriant fulness of a creative nature. Here the 
 monstrous and ferocious were not a necessary indication of that 
 degradation and corruption with which they are necessarily as- 
 sociated under the developement of law and order, and which 
 fill us with sentiments of horror and aversion. The criminals 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 47 
 
 of the fabulous ages are not, if we may be allowed the expression, 
 amenable to the tribunals of men, but consigned over to a higher 
 jurisdiction. Some are of opinion that the Greeks, in their re- 
 publican zeal, took a particular pleasure in witnessing the repre- 
 sentation of the outrages and consequent calamities of the differ- 
 ent royal families, and are almost disposed to consider the ancient 
 tragedy, in general, as a satire on monarchical government. This 
 party view would, however, have deadened the interest of the 
 audience, and consequently destroyed the effect which it was the 
 aim of the tragedy to produce. But we must remark, that the 
 royal families, whose crimes and misfortunes afforded the most 
 abundant materials for tragical pictures of a horrible description, 
 were the Pelopidse of Mycense, and the Labdacidse of Thebes, 
 families which were foreign to the Athenians, for w T hom the pieces 
 were composed. We do not see that the Attic poets endeavour- 
 ed to exhibit the ancient kings of their country in an odious 
 light; on the contrary, they always hold up their national hero, 
 Theseus, for public admiration, as a model of justice and modera- 
 tion, the champion of the oppressed, the first lawgiver, and even 
 the founder of their liberty; and it was one of their favourite 
 modes of flattering the people, to persuade them that, even in the 
 heroic ages, Athens was distinguished above all the other states of 
 Greece, for obedience to the laws, humanity, and a knowledge 
 of the rights of nations. The general revolution, by which the 
 independent kingdoms of ancient Greece were converted into a 
 community of free states, had separated the heroic age from the 
 age of social cultivation, by a wide interval, beyond which the 
 genealogy of a very few families only was attempted to be traced. 
 This was extremely advantageous for the ideal elevation of the char- 
 acters of theirtragedy, as few human things will admit o'f a close in- 
 spection into them, wthout betraying thier imperfections. But in 
 the very different relations of the age in which those heroes lived, 
 the standard of mere civil and domestic morality was not applicable, 
 and the feeling must go back to the primary ingredients of hu- 
 manity. Before the existence of constitutions, — before the pro- 
 per developement of law and right, the sovereigns and rulers 
 were their own lawgivers in a world not yet subjected to order; 
 and the fullest scope was thus given to the dominion of will 
 for good and for bad purposes. Hereditary rule, therefore, ex- 
 hibited more striking instances of sudden changes of fortune than 
 the later times of political equality. In these respects the high 
 rank of the principal characters was essential, or at least favour- 
 able to tragic representation, and not because, according to the idea 
 of some moderns, those only who can occasion the happiness 
 
48 LECTURES ON 
 
 or misery of numbers are sufficiently important to interest us in 
 their behalf, nor because internal elevation of sentiment must be 
 clothed with external dignity, to claim our honour and admiration. 
 The Greek tragedians paint the downfall of kingly houses with- 
 out any reference to the condition of the people; they show us 
 the man in the king, and, far from veiling their heroes from our 
 sight in their purple mantles, they allow us to look through their 
 vain splendour, into a bosom torn and harrowed up by passions. 
 That the regal pomp was not so necessary as the heroic costume 
 is evident, not only from the practice of the ancients, but from 
 the tragedies of the moderns having a reference to the throne, 
 produced under different circumstances, namely the existence of 
 monarchical government. They dare not draw from existing 
 reality, for nothing is less suitable for tragedy than a court, and a 
 court life. Where they do not therefore paint an ideal kingdom 
 with distant manners, they fall into stiffness and formality, which 
 are much more destructive to freedom and boldness of character, 
 and to deep pathos, than the narrow circle of private life. 
 
 A few mythological fables only seem originally marked out for 
 tragedy: such, for example, as the long-continued alternation of 
 aggressions, vengeance, and maledictions, which we witness in the 
 house of Atreus. When we examine the names of the pieces 
 which are lost, we have great difficulty in conceiving how the 
 mythological fables on which they are founded, as they are known 
 to us, could afford sufficient materials for the developement of an 
 entire tragedy. It is true, the poets, in the various relations of 
 the same story, had a great amplitude of selection; and this very 
 variety justified them in going still farther, and making conside- 
 rable alterations in the circumstances of an event, so that the in- 
 ventions added to one piece sometimes contradict the accounts 
 given by the same poet in another. We are, however, princi- 
 pally to ascribe the productiveness of mythology, for the tragic 
 art, to the principle which we observe so powerful throughout 
 the whole historical range of Grecian cultivation; namely, that 
 the power which preponderated for the time assimilated every- 
 thing to itself. As the heroic fables, in all their deviations, were 
 easily developed into the tranquil fulness and light variety of epic 
 poetry, they were afterwards adapted to the object which the 
 tragedians proposed to accomplish, by earnestness, energy, and 
 compression; and what in this change of destination appeared in- 
 applicable to tragedy still afforded materials for a sort of half spor- 
 tive, though ideal representation, in the subordinate walk of the 
 satirical drama. 
 
 I shall be forgiven, I hope, if I attempt to illustrate the above 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 49 
 
 reflections on the essence of the ancient tragedy, by a comparison 
 borrowed from the plastic arts, which will, I trust, be found 
 somewhat more than a mere fanciful allusion. 
 
 The Homeric epic is, in poetry, what half-raised workmanship 
 is in sculpture, and tragedy the distinctly separated group. 
 
 The poem of Homer sprung from the soil of the traditionary 
 tale, is not yet purified from it, as the figures of a bas-relief are borne 
 by a back-ground which is foreign to them. These figures ap- 
 pear depressed, and in the epic poem all is painted as past and 
 remote. In the bas-relief they are generally throvyn into profile, 
 and in the epic characterized in the most, artless manner: they 
 are, in the former, not properly grouped, but follow one another; 
 and the Homeric heroes, in like manner, advance singly in succes- 
 sion before us. It has been remarked that the Iliad is not defi- 
 nitively closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to 
 precede and to follow. The bas-relief is equally boundless, and 
 may be continued ad infinitum, either from before or behind, 
 on which account the ancients preferred the selection of those ob- 
 jects for it, which admitted of an indefinite extension, as the trains 
 at sacrifices, dances, and rows of combatants, &c. Hence they 
 also exhibited bas-reliefs on round surfaces, such as vases, or the 
 frieze of a rotunda, where the two ends are withdrawn from our 
 sight by the curvature, and where, on our advancing, one object 
 appears as another disappears. The reading of the Homeric 
 poetry very much resembles such a circumgiration, as the present 
 object alone arrests our attention, while that which precedes and 
 follows is allowed to disappear. 
 
 But in the distinctly formed group, as in tragedy, sculpture 
 and poetry bring before our eyes an independent and definite 
 whole. To separate it from natural reality, the former places it 
 on a base, as on an ideal ground. It also removes as much as 
 possible all foreign and accidental accessaries, that the eye may 
 wholly rest on the essential objects, the figures themselves. These 
 figures are wrought into the most complete rounding, yet they re- 
 fuse the illusion of colours, and announce by the purity and uni- 
 formity of the mass of which they are constructed, a creation not 
 endowed with perishable life, but of a higher and more elevated 
 character. 
 
 Beauty is the object of sculpture, and repose is most advanta- 
 geous for the display of beauty. Repose alone, therefore, is 
 suitable to the figure. But a number of figures can only be con- 
 nected together and grouped by one action. The group repre- 
 sents beauty in motion, and the object of it is to combine both in 
 the highest degree. This can only be effected when the artist 
 finds means, in the most violent bodily or mental anguish, to 
 
 7 
 
50 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 moderate the expression by manly resistance, calm grandeur, or 
 inherent sweetness, in such a manner that, with the most moving 
 truth, the features of beauty shall yet in nowise be disfigured. 
 The observation of Winkelmann on this subject is inimitable. He 
 says that beauty with the ancients was the tongue on the balance 
 of expression, and in this sense the groups of Niobe and Laocoön 
 are master-pieces; the one in the sublime and serious, the other 
 in the learned and ornamental style. 
 
 The comparison with ancient tragedy is the more apposite here, 
 as we know that both iEschylus and Sophocles produced a Niobe, 
 and that Sophocles was also the author of a Laocoön. In Lao- 
 coön the conflicting sufferings and anguish of the body, and the 
 resistance of the soul, are balanced with the most wonderful 
 equilibrium. The children calling for help, tender objects of our 
 compassion, and not of our admiration, draw us back to the ap- 
 pearance of the father, who seems to turn his eyes in vain to the 
 gods. The convolving serpents exhibit to us the inevitable des- 
 tiny which unites together the characters in so dreadful a manner. 
 And yet the beauty of proportion, the delightful flow of the atti- 
 tude, are not lost in this violent struggle; and a representation the 
 most frightful to the senses is yet treated w T ith a degree of mode- 
 ration, while a mild breath of sweetness is diffused over the whole. 
 
 In the group of Niobe there is also the most perfect mixture 
 of terror and pity. The upturned looks of the mother, and the 
 mouth half open in supplication, seem to accuse the invisible wrath 
 of Heaven. The daughter, clinging in the agonies of death to 
 the bosom of her mother, in her infantine innocence can have no 
 other fear than for herself: the innate impulse of self-preservation 
 was never represented in a manner more tender and affecting. 
 Can there on the other hand be exhibited to the senses a more 
 beautiful image of self-devoting heroic magnanimity than Niobe, 
 as she bends her body forwards, that if possible she may alone 
 receive the destructive bolt? Pride and repugnance are melted 
 down in the most ardent maternal love. The more than earthly 
 dignity of the features are the less disfigured by pain, as from the 
 quick repetition of the shocks she appears, as in the fable, to have 
 become insensible and motionless. But before this figure, twice 
 transformed into stone, and yet so inimitably animated, — before 
 this line of demarcation of all human suffering, the most callous 
 beholder is dissolved in tears. 
 
 In all the agitation produced by the sight of these groups, 
 there is still somewhat in them which invites us to composed 
 contemplation; and in the same manner, the tragedy of the an- 
 cients leads us, even in the course of the representation, to the 
 most elevated reflections on our existence, and those mysteries in 
 our destiny which can never wholly be explained. 
 
( 51 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Progress of the tragic art among the Greeks — Their different styles — JEschylus 
 — Connexion in a trilogy of JEschylus — His remaining works — Life and poeti- 
 cal character of Sophocles — Character of his different tragedies. 
 
 Of the inexhaustible stores possessed by the Greeks in the de- 
 partment of tragedy, which the public competition at the Athe- 
 nian festivals called into being, as the rival poets always contended 
 for a prize, very little indeed has come down to us. We only 
 possess works of three of their numerous tragedians, JEschylus, 
 Sophocles, and Euripides, and these in no proportion to the num- 
 ber of their compositions. The three authors in question were 
 selected by the Alexandrian critics as the foundation for the study 
 of ancient Grecian literature, not because they alone were deserv- 
 ing of estimation, but because they afforded the best illustration 
 of the various styles of tragedy. Of each of the two oldest poets, 
 we have seven remaining pieces; in these however we have, ac- 
 cording to the testimony of the ancients, several of their most 
 distinguished productions. Of Euripides we have a much greater 
 number, and we might well exchange many of them for other 
 works which are now lost; for example, the satirical dramas of 
 Achaeus, iEscbylus, and Sophocles, several pieces of Phrynichus 
 for the sake of comparison with iEschylus, or of Agathon, whom 
 Plato describes as effeminate, but sweet and affecting, and who 
 was a contemporary of Euripides though somewhat younger. 
 
 We leave to antiquarians the car of the strolling Thespis, the 
 competition for a he-goat, from which the name of tragedy was 
 derived, the visages of the first improvisatore actors smeared 
 over with lees, that they may ascertain the rude beginnings from 
 which iEschylus, by one gigantic stride, gave that dignified 
 character to tragedy under which it appears in his works, and 
 shall proceed immediately to the consideration of the poets them- 
 selves. 
 
 The tragic style (giving to the word style the sense which it 
 receives in the plastic arts, and not the exclusive signification in 
 writing) of iEschylus is grand, severe, and not unfrequently 
 hard: in the style of Sophocles we observe the most complete 
 proportion and harmonious sweetness: the style of Euripides is 
 soft and luxuriant; extravagant in his easy fulness, he sacrifices 
 the general effect to brilliant passages. From the analogy which 
 the undisturbed developement of the fine arts among the Greeks 
 
52 LECTURES ON 
 
 everywhere öfters to us, we may compare the epochs of tragic 
 art to those of sculpture. TEschylus is the Phidias of the tragic 
 art, Sophocles the Polycletus, and Euripides the Lysippus. Phi- 
 dias formed suhlime images of the gods, but he was still attached 
 to the extrinsic magnificence of materials; and he surrounded 
 their majestic repose with images of the most violent struggles. 
 Polycletus carried the art to perfection, and hence one of his 
 statues was called the rule of beauty. Lysippus distinguished 
 himself by the fire of his works; but in his time sculpture had 
 deviated from its original destination, and was much more desi- 
 rous of expressing the charm of motion and life than of adhering 
 to ideality of form. 
 
 iEschylus is to be considered as the creator of tragedy, which 
 sprung from him completely armed, like Pallas from the head of 
 Jupiter. He clothed it in a state of suitable dignity, and gave it 
 an appropriate place of exhibition; he was the inventor of scenic 
 pomp, and not only instructed the chorus in singing and dancing, 
 but appeared himself in the character of a player. He was the 
 first who gave developement to the dialogue, and limits to the 
 lyrical part of the tragedy, which still however occupies too 
 much space in his pieces. He draws his characters with a few 
 bold and strongly marked features. The plans are simple in the 
 extreme: he did not understand the art of enriching and varying 
 an action, and dividing its developement and catastrophe into 
 parts, bearing a due proportion to each other. Hence his action 
 often stands still, and this circumstance becomes still more appa- 
 rent, from the undue extension of his choral songs. But all his 
 poetry betrays a sublime and serious mind. Terror is his ele- 
 ment, and not the softer affections; he holds up the head of Me- 
 dusa to his astonished spectators. His manner of treating fate is 
 austere in the extreme: he suspends it over the heads of mortals 
 in all its gloomy majesty. The cothurnus of JEschylus has as it 
 were an iron weight: gigantic figures alone stalk before our eyes. 
 It seems as if it required an effort in him, to condescend to paint 
 mere men to us: he abounds most in the representation of gods, 
 and seems to dwell with particular delight in exhibiting the Ti- 
 tans, those ancient gods who signify the dark powers of primitive 
 nature, and who had long been driven into- Tartarus beneath a 
 better regulated world. He endeavours to swell out his language 
 to a gigantic sublimity, corresponding with the standard of his 
 characters. Hence he abounds in harsh combinations and over- 
 strained epithets, and the lyrical parts of his pieces are often ob- 
 scure in the extreme, from the involved nature of the construc- 
 tion. He resembles Dante and Shakspeare in the very singular 
 cast of his images and expressions. These images are nowise 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 53 
 
 deficient in the terrible graces, which almost all the writers of 
 antiquity celebrate in iEschylus. 
 
 iEschylus flourished in the very first vigour of the Grecian 
 freedom, after its successful struggle, and he seems to have been 
 thoroughly imbued with a proud feeling of the superiority which 
 this struggle reflected on the nation to which he belonged. He 
 was an eye-witness of the greatest and most glorious event in the 
 history of Greece, the overthrow and annihilation of the Persian 
 hosts under Darius and Xerxes, and had fought in the memorable 
 battles of Ivlarathon and Salamis with distinguished bravery. In 
 the Persians he has, in an indirect manner, sung the triumph 
 w r hich he contributed to obtain, while he paints the downfall of 
 the Persian projects, and the ignominious return of the fugitive 
 monarch to his royal residence. He describes in the most vivid 
 and glowing colours the battle of Salamis. In this piece, and in 
 the Seven before Thebes, a warlike vein gushes forth; the per- 
 sonal inclination of the poet for the life of a hero shines through- 
 out with the most dazzling lustre. It was well remarked by 
 Gorgias, the sophist, that Mars, instead of Bacchus, dictated this 
 last drama; for Bacchus, and not Apollo, was the patron of tragic 
 poets, which may appear somewhat singular on a first view of the 
 matter, but then we must recollect that Bacchus was not merely 
 the god of wine and joy, but also the god of the highest degree 
 of inspiration. 
 
 Among the remaining pieces of iEschylus, we have what is 
 highly deserving of our attention, a complete trilogy. The an- 
 tiquarian account of trilogies is this, that in the more early times 
 the poet did not contend for the prize with a single piece, but 
 with three, which however were not always connected together 
 by their contents, and that a fourth satirical drama was also at- 
 tached to them. All these were successively represented in one 
 day. The idea which we must form of the trilogy in relation to 
 the tragic art is this: a tragedy cannot be. indefinitely lengthened 
 and continued, like the Homeric epic poem for example, to which 
 whole rhapsodies have been appended; for this is too indepen- 
 dent and complete within itself. Notwithstanding this circum- 
 stance, however, several tragedies may be connected together by 
 means of a common destiny running throughout all their actions 
 in one great cycle. Hence the fixing on the number three ad- 
 mits of a satisfactory explanation. It is the thesis, the antithesis, 
 and the connexion. The advantage of this conjunction was that, 
 in the consideration of the connected fables, a more ample degree 
 of gratification was derived than could possibly be obtained from 
 a single, action. The objects of the three tragedies might be se- 
 
54 LECTURES ON 
 
 parated by a wide interval of time, or follow close upon one an- 
 other. 
 
 The three pieces of the trilogy of iEschylus are Jlgamemnon, 
 the Choephorx or Electra, and the Eumenides or Furies. The 
 object of the first is the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, 
 on his return from Troy. In the second, Orestes avenges his fa- 
 ther by killing his mother: facto plus et sceleratus eodem. This 
 deed, although perpetrated from the most powerful motives, is re- 
 pugnant however to natural and moral order. Orestes as a prince 
 was, it is true, entitled to exercise justice even on the members 
 of his own family; but he was under the necessity of stealing in 
 disguise into the dwelling of the tyrannical usurper of his throne, 
 and of going to work like an assassin. The memory of his fa- 
 ther pleads his excuse; but although Clytemnestra has deserved 
 death, the blood of his mother still rises up in judgment against 
 him. This is represented in the Eumenides in the form of a 
 contention among the gods, some of whom approve of the deed 
 of Orestes, while others persecute him, till at last the divine wis- 
 dom under the figure of Minerva, reconciles the opposite claims, 
 establishes a peace, and puts an end to the long series of crimes 
 and punishments which desolated the royal house of Atreus. 
 
 A considerable interval takes place between the period of the 
 first and second pieces, during which Orestes grows up to man- 
 hood. The second and third are connected together immediate- 
 ly in the order of time. Orestes takes flight after the murder of 
 his mother to Delphi, where we find him at the commencement 
 of the Eumenides. 
 
 In each of the two first pieces, there is a visible reference to 
 the one which follows. In Agamemnon, Cassandra and the 
 chorus prophesy, at the close, to the arrogant Clytemnestra and 
 her paramour iEgisthus, the punishment which awaits them at 
 the hands of Orestes. In the Choephorse, Orestes, immediately 
 after the execution of the deed, finds no longer any repose; the 
 furies of his mother begin to persecute him, and he announces 
 his resolution of taking refuge in Delphi. 
 
 The connexion is therefore evident throughout, and we may 
 consider the three pieces, which were connected together even 
 in the representation, as so many acts of one great and entire 
 drama. I mention this as a preliminary justification of Shak- 
 speare and other modern poets, in connecting together in one re- 
 presentation a larger circle of human destinies, as we can pro- 
 duce to the critics who object to this the supposed example of 
 the ancients. 
 
 In Agamemnon it was the intention of JEschylus to exhibit to 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 55 
 
 us a sudden fall from the highest pinnacle of prosperity and fame, 
 into the abyss of ruin. The prince, the hero, the general of the 
 whole of the Greeks, in the very moment when he has succeeded 
 in concluding the most glorious action, the destruction of Troy, 
 the fame of which is to be re-echoed from the mouths of the 
 greatest poets of all ages, on entering the threshold of his house, 
 after which he has long sighed, is strangled amidst the unsus- 
 pected preparations for a festival, according to- the expression of 
 Homer, "like an ox in the stall," strangled by his faithless wife; 
 her unworthy seducer takes possession of his throne, and the 
 children are consigned to banishment, or to hopeless servitude. 
 
 With the view of giving the greater effect to this dreadful al- 
 ternation of fortune, the poet has previously thrown a splendour 
 over the destruction of Troy. He has done this in the first half 
 of the piece in a manner peculiar to himself, which, however 
 singular, must be allowed to be impressive in the extreme, and to 
 lay fast hold of the imagination. It is of importance to Clytem- 
 nestra not to be surprised by the arrival of her husband. She has 
 therefore arranged an uninterrupted series of signal fires from 
 Troy to Mycenae to announce to her that great event. The piece 
 commences with the speech of a watchman, who supplicates the 
 gods for a release from his toils, as for ten long years he has been 
 exposed to the cold dews of night, has witnessed the various 
 changes of the stars, and looked in vain for the expected signal; 
 at the same time he sighs in secret for the internal ruin of the 
 royal house. At this moment he sees the blaze of the long 
 wished-for fires, and hastens to announce it to his mistress. A 
 chorus of aged persons appears, and in their songs they trace 
 back the Trojan war, throughout all its eventful changes of for- 
 tune from its first origin, and recount all the prophecies relating 
 to it, and the sacrifice of Iphigenia, at the expense of which the 
 voyage of the Greeks was purchased. Clytemnestra declares the 
 joyful cause of the sacrifice which she orders, and the herald 
 Talthybius immediately makes his appearance, who as an eye- 
 witness announces the drama of the conquered and plundered 
 city consigned as a prey to the flames, the joy of the victors, 
 and the glory of their leader. He displays with reluctance, as 
 if unwilling to shade the brilliancy of his picture, the subsequent 
 misfortunes of the Greeks, their dispersion, and the shipwreck 
 suffered by many of them, an immediate symptom of the wrath 
 of the gods. We easily see how little the unity of place was 
 observed by the poet, and that he rather avails himself of the 
 prerogative of his mental dominion over the powers of nature, 
 and adds wings to the circling hours in their course towards their 
 dreadful goal. Agamemnon now comes, borne in a sort of tri- 
 
56 LECTURES ON 
 
 umphal procession; and seated on another car, laden with booty, 
 follows Cassandra, his prisoner of war and mistress, according to 
 the privilege of the heroes of those days. Clytemnestra greets him 
 with hypocritical joy and veneration; she orders her slaves to cover 
 the ground with the most costly embroideries of purple, that it 
 might not be touched by the foot of the conqueror. Agamem- 
 non, with sage moderation refuses to receive an honour due only 
 to the gods; at last he yields to their invitations, and enters the 
 house. The chorus then begins to utter dark forebodings. Cly- 
 temnestra returns to allure Cassandra to her destruction by the 
 art of soft persuasion. The latter remains dumb and motionless, 
 but the queen is hardly gone, when, seized with a prophetic 
 rage, she breaks out into the most perplexing lamentations, af- 
 terwards unveils her prophecies more distinctly to the chorus; 
 she sees in her mind all the enormities which have been perpe- 
 trated in that house; the repast of Thyestes, which the sun re- 
 fused to look on: the shadows of the dilacerated children appear 
 to her on the battlements of the palace. She also sees the death 
 prepared for her master, and although horror-struck at the atro- 
 cious spectacle, as if seized with an overpowering fury, she 
 rushes into the house to meet her inevitable death; we then hear 
 behind the scenes the sighs of the dying Agamemnon. The 
 palace opens; Clytemnestra stands beside the body of her king 
 and husband, an undaunted criminal, who not only confesses the 
 deed, but boasts of it as a just requital for Agamemnon's ambi- 
 tious sacrifice of Iphigenia. The jealousy towards Cassandra, 
 and the criminal union with the unworthy iEgisthus, which is 
 first disclosed after the completion of the murder towards the 
 conclusion of the piece, are motives which she throws entirely 
 into the back ground, and hardly touches on: this was necessary 
 to preserve the dignity of the object. But Clytemnestra would 
 have been improperly portrayed as a weak woman seduced from 
 her duty; she appeared with the features of that heroic age so 
 rich in bloody catastrophes, in which all the passions were vio- 
 lent, and in which, both in good and evil, men exceeded the or- 
 dinary standard of later and more puny ages. What is so re- 
 volting, what affords such a deep proof of the degeneracy of hu- 
 man nature, as the spectacle of horrid crimes conceived in a pu- 
 sillanimous bosom? When such crimes are to be portrayed by 
 the poet, he must neither endeavour to embellish them, nor to 
 mitigate our horror and aversion. The consequence which is 
 thus given to the sacrifice of Iphigenia has this particular advan- 
 tage, that it keeps within some bounds our discontent at the fall 
 of Agamemnon. He cannot be pronounced wholly innocent; 
 an earlier crime recoils on his own head; and besides, according 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 57 
 
 to the religious idea of the ancients, an old curse hung over his 
 house: iEgisthus, the contriver of his destruction, is a son of 
 that very Thyestes on whom his father Atreus took such an un- 
 natural revenge; and this fatal connexion is conveyed to our 
 minds in the most vivid manner by the chorus, and more espe- 
 cially by the prophecies of Cassandra. 
 
 I pass over the subsequent piece of the Choephorae for the pre- 
 sent; I shall speak of it when I come to institute a comparison 
 between the manner in which the three poets have handled the 
 same subject. 
 
 The fable of the Eumenides is, as I have already said, the jus- 
 tification and absolution of Orestes from his bloody crime: it is a 
 trial, but a trial where the gods are accusers, and defenders, and 
 judges; and the manner in which the subject is treated corres- 
 ponds with its majesty and importance. The scene itself brought 
 before the eyes of the Greeks the highest objects of veneration 
 which were known to them. 
 
 It opens before the celebrated temple at Delphi, which occupies 
 the back ground; the aged Pythia enters in sacerdotal pomp, ad- 
 dresses her prayers to all the gods who presided, or still preside, 
 over the oracle, harangues the assembled people (the actual), and 
 goes into the temple to seat herself on the tripod. She returns 
 full of consternation, and describes what she has seen in the 
 temple: a man stained with blood, supplicating protection, sur- 
 rounded by sleeping women with serpent hair; she then makes 
 her exit by the same entrance. Apollo now appears with Orestes 
 in his traveller's garb, and a sword and olive branch in his hands. 
 He promises him his farther protection, commands him to flee 
 to Athens, and recommends him to the care of the present but 
 invisible Mercury, to whom travellers, and especially those who 
 were under the necessity of concealing their journey 3 were usu- 
 ally consigned. 
 
 Orestes goes off at the side allotted to strangers; Apollo re- 
 enters the temple, which remains open, and the furies are seen 
 in the interior sleeping on their seats. Clytemneslra now ascends 
 by the charonic stairs through the orchestra, and appears on the 
 stage. We are not to suppose her a haggard skeleton, but a 
 figure with the appearance of life, though paler, still bearing 
 her wounds in her breast, and shrouded in ethereal-coloured 
 vestments. She calls repeatedly to the Furies in the language of 
 vehement reproach, and then disappears, probably through a trap- 
 door. The Furies awake, and when they no longer find Orestes, 
 they dance in wild commotion round the stage during the choral 
 song. Apollo returns from the temple, and expels them from 
 his sanctuary as profanatory beings. We may here suppose him 
 
 " 8 
 
58 LECTURES ON 
 
 appearing with the sublime displeasure of the Apollo of the Vati- 
 can, with bow and quiver, or clothed in his sacred tunic and 
 chlamys. 
 
 The scene now changes; but as the Greeks on such occasions 
 were fond of going the shortest way to work, the back ground 
 remained probably unchanged, and had now to represent the' 
 temple of Minerva, on the hill of Mars (Areopagus), and the 
 lateral decorations would be converted into Athens and the sur- 
 rounding landscape. Orestes comes as from another land, and em- 
 braces as a suppliant the statue of Pallas placed before the temple. 
 The chorus (who, according to the directions of the poet, were 
 clothed in black, with purple girdles, and serpents in their hair, 
 the masks with something of the terrible beauty of Medusa heads, 
 and even the age marked on plastic principles) follow him on 
 foot to this place, but remain throughout the remainder of the 
 piece beneath in the orchestra. The Furies had at first exhi- 
 bited the rage of beasts of prey at the escape of their booty, but 
 they now sing with tranquil dignity their high and terrible office 
 among mortals, claim the head of Orestes as forfeited to them and 
 consecrate it with mysterious charms of endless pain. Pallas, 
 the warlike virgin, appears in a chariot and four at the interces- 
 sion of the suppliant. She listens with calm dignity to the mu- 
 tual complaints of Orestes and his adversaries, and finally under- 
 takes, after due reflection, the office of umpire at the solicitation 
 of the two parties. The assembled judges take their seats on 
 the steps of the temple, the herald commands silence among the 
 people by sound of trumpet, as at an actual tribunal. Apollo 
 advances to advocate the cause of the youth, the Furies in vain 
 oppose his interference, and the arguments for and against the 
 deed are gone through in short speeches. The judges throw 
 their calculi into the urn, Pallas throws in a white one; all are 
 wrought up to the highest pitch of expectation; Orestes calls 
 out full of anguish to his protector: 
 
 O Phoebus Apollo, how is the cause decided? 
 
 The Furies on the other hand: 
 
 O black night, mother of all things, dost thou behold this? 
 
 In the enumeration of the black and white pebbles, they are 
 found equal in number, and the accused is therefore declared by 
 Pallas acquitted of the charge. He breaks out into joyful ex- 
 pressions of thanks, while the Furies on the other hand declaim 
 against the arrogance of the young gods, who take such liberties 
 with the race of Titan. Pallas bears their rage with equanimity, 
 addresses them in the language of kindness, and even of venera- 
 tion; and these beings, so untractable in their general disposi- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 59 
 
 tion, are unable to withstand the power of her mild and convinc- 
 ing eloquence. They promise to bless the land over which she 
 has dominion, while Pallas assigns them a sanctuary in the Attic 
 territory, where they are to be called the Eumenides, that is, the 
 benevolent. The whole ends with a solemn procession round 
 the theatre, with songs of invocation, while bands of children, 
 women, and old men, in purple robes and with torches in their 
 hands, accompany the Furies in their exit. 
 
 Let us now take a retrospective view of the whole trilogy. 
 In Agamemnon we observe in the deed which is planned and 
 executed, the greatest display of arbitrary will and power: the 
 principal character is a great criminal; and the piece ends with 
 the revolting impressions produced by the sight of triumphant 
 tyranny and crime. I have already alluded to the circumstance 
 of a previous destiny. 
 
 The deed in the Choephorae is partly recommended by Apollo 
 as appointment of fate, and partly originates in natural motives: 
 the desire of avenging the father, and the fraternal love for the 
 oppressed Electra. After the deed the struggle between the 
 most sacred feelings first becomes manifest, and allows no repose 
 to the distracted youth. 
 
 From the very commencement, the Eumenides stands on the 
 very highest tragical elevation: all the past is concentrated as it 
 were in one focus. Orestes has merely been the passive instru- 
 ment of fate; and free agency is transferred to the more elevated 
 sphere of the gods. Pallas is properly the principal character. 
 The opposition between the most sacred relations, which fre- 
 quently appears beyond the power of mortal solution, is repre- 
 sented as a contention in the world of the gods. 
 
 And this leads me to the deep import of the whole. The an- 
 cient mythology is in general symbolical, although not allegorical; 
 for the two are quite distinct. Allegory is the personification of 
 an idea, a fable solely undertaken with such a view; but that is 
 symbolical which has been created by the imagination for other 
 purposes, or which has a reality in itself independent of the idea, 
 but which at the same time is easily susceptible of a symbolical 
 explanation; and even of itself suggests it. 
 
 The Titans, in general, mean the dark primary powers of na- 
 ture and of mind; the Jater gods, what enters more within the 
 circle of consciousness. The former are more nearly related to 
 original chaos, the latter belong to a world already subjected to 
 order. The Furies are the dreadful powers of conscience, in so 
 far as it rests on obscure feelings and forebodings, and yields to 
 no principles of reason. In vain Orestes dwells on the just mo- 
 tives for the deed, the voice of blood resounds in his ear. Apollo 
 
60 LECTURES ON 
 
 is the god of youth, of the noble ebullition of passionate discon- 
 tent, of the bold daring action: hence this deed was commanded 
 by him. Pallas is cool wisdom, justice, and moderation, which 
 alone can allay the dispute. 
 
 Even the sleep of the Furies in the temple is symbolical; for 
 only in the holy place, in the bosom of religion, can the fugitive 
 find rest from the stings of his conscience. Scarcely however 
 has he again ventured into the world, when the image of his 
 murdered mother appears, and again awakes them. The very 
 speech of Clytemnestra is symbolical, as well as the attributes of 
 the Furies, the serpents, and the sucking of blood. The same 
 may be said of the aversion of Apollo for them; in fact this sym- 
 bolical application runs throughout the whole. — The equal co- 
 gency of the motives for and against the deed is denoted by the 
 divided number of the judges. When at last a sanctuary is 
 allotted to the softened Furies in the Athenian territory, this is 
 as much as to say that reason shall not everywhere assert her 
 power against the instinctive impulse, that there are certain 
 boundaries in the human mind which are not to be passed, and 
 which every person possessed of a sentiment of reverence will 
 beware of touching, if he wishes to preserve inward peace. 
 
 So much for the deep philosophical import, which we are not 
 to wonder at finding in this poet, who, according to the testimony 
 of Cicero, was a Pythagorean. iEschylus had also his political 
 views. The first of these was the rendering Athens illustrious. 
 Delphi was the religious centre of Greece, and yet how it is 
 thrown into the shade! It can only shelter Orestes from the first 
 onset of persecution, but not afford him a complete freedom; this 
 is reserved for the land where law and humanity flourish. His 
 principal object 'however was the recommending as essential to 
 the welfare of Athens the Areopagus/* an uncorruptible yet mild 
 
 • I do not find that this aim has ever been ascribed to JEschylus by the ex- 
 press testimony of any ancient writer. Jt is however not to be mistaken, espe- 
 cially in the speech of Pallas, beginning with the 680th verse. This coincides 
 with the account that in the very year when the piece was represented, Olymp. 
 lxxx. 1. a certain Ephialtes excited the people against the Areopagus, which was 
 the best guardian of the old and more austere constitution, and kept democratic 
 extravagance in check. This Ephialtes was murdered one night by an unknown 
 hand. iEschylus received the first prize in the theatrical games, but we know 
 at the same time that he left Athens immediately afterwards, and passed his re- 
 maining years in Sicily. It is possible that, although the theatrical judges did 
 him the justice to which he was entitled, he might be held in aversion by the 
 multitude notwithstanding, and that this without any express sentence of banish- 
 ment might have induced him to leave his native city. The story of the sight 
 of the terrible chorus of Furies having thrown children into mortal convulsions, 
 and caused women to miscarry, appears to me fabulous. A poet would hardly 
 have been crowned, who had been the occasion of profaning the festival by such 
 ^occurrences. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 61 
 
 tribunal, in which the white pebble of Pallas in favour of the ac- 
 cused does honour to the humanity of the Athenians. The poet 
 shows us the origin of an institution fraught with blessings to 
 humanity, in an immense circle of crimes. 
 
 But it will be asked, are not aims of this description prejudicial 
 to the pure poetical impression which the whole ought to produce? 
 Most undoubtedly, in the manner in which other poets, and es- 
 pecially Euripides, have proceeded in such cases. But in iEs- 
 chylus the aim is much more subservient to the poetry than the 
 poetry to the aim. He does not lower himself to a circumscribed 
 reality, but elevates it on the contrary to a higher sphere, and con- 
 nects it with the most sublime conceptions. 
 
 In the Orestiad (for so the three connected pieces are called) 
 we certainly possess one of the most sublime poems that ever was 
 conceived by the human imagination, and probably the most 
 mature and faultless of all the productions of his genius. The 
 period of their composition confirms this supposition; for he was 
 at least sixty years of age when he brought these dramas on the 
 stage, the last which he ever submitted in competition for the 
 prize at Athens. Every one of his pieces however which have 
 come down to us is remarkable either for the display of some 
 peculiar property of the poet, or as indicative of the step in the 
 art on which he stood at the time. 
 
 I should be disposed to consider the Suppliants one of his 
 more early works. It probably stood in a trilogy between two 
 other tragedies on the same subject, the names of which are still 
 preserved, namely the Egyptians and the Danaidze. The first 
 describes the flight of the JDanaidas from Egypt to avoid the mar- 
 riage with their uncles, whom they detested; the second the pro- 
 tection which they sought and obtained in Argos; the third the 
 murder of the husbands whom they were compelled to receive. 
 We are disposed to view the contents of the two first pieces, as 
 mere detached scenes, and introductions to the tragical action 
 which first properly commences in the last. But tragedy on this 
 footing was as complete, considered as one whole, as the single 
 pieces were defective from the necessity of being taken in con- 
 nexion with others. In the Suppliants the chorus not only takes a 
 part in the action as in the Eumenides, but it is even the princi- 
 pal character towards whom our interest is directed. This modi- 
 fication of tragedy is neither favourable for the display of pecu- 
 liarity of character, nor the exciting an interest by means of pow- 
 erful passions; or to speak in the language of Grecian art it is 
 neither advantageous for ethos nor for pathos. The chorus has 
 but one voice and one soul: the dispositions common to fifty 
 young women (for the chorus of Danaidse certainly amounted to 
 
 
62 LECTURES ON 
 
 this number) would have been placed by the display of an exclu- 
 sive peculiarity in opposition with the nature of things; and 
 therefore such a multitude could only be painted with the common 
 features of humanity, those common to their sex and age, and 
 those of their nation. In this last respect the will of iEschylus 
 is more conspicuous than his performance: he lays a great stress 
 on the foreign race of the Danaidae; but this they only declare 
 themselves, without allowing the foreign character to be disco- 
 vered from their discourse. The sentiments, resolutions, and ac- 
 tions of a number of people manifested with this uniformity, and 
 conceived and executed like the movements of a regular army, 
 can hardly receive the appearance of what proceeds freely and 
 immediately from the inward inclinations. We take a much 
 stronger interest in the situation and fate of a single example with 
 which we have become intimately acquainted, than in a multitude 
 of uniformly repeated impressions massed together. We have 
 more than reason to doubt whether iEschylus treated the fable 
 of the third piece in such a way that Hypermnestra, the only one 
 of the Danaidae who is an exception to the rest, becomes the 
 principal object from her compassion or her love: he probably 
 here adopted the very same mode of expressing the complaints, 
 the wishes, the cares, and supplications of the whole, the social 
 solemnity of their action and suffering, in majestic choral songs. 
 In the same manner in the Seven before Thebes, the king and 
 the messenger, whose speeches occupy the greatest part of the 
 piece, speak more in virtue of their office, than as interpreters of 
 personal feelings. The description of the attack with which the 
 city is threatened, and of the seven leaders who, like the heaven- 
 storming giants, have sworn its destruction, and who display their 
 arrogance in the symbols borne on their shields, is an epic sub- 
 ject clothed in the pomp of tragedy. This long and highly-fin- 
 ished preparation is of less value than the single agitating moment, 
 when Eteocles, who has hitherto displayed the utmost degree of 
 prudence and firmness, and stationed a patriotic hero at each gate 
 against one of the insolent enemies, as the seventh, the author of 
 the whole mischief, Polynices is described to him, carried along 
 by the furies of the paternal curse, insists on becoming himself 
 the antagonist, and notwithstanding all the entreaties of the chorus, 
 with the clear consciousness of inevitable ruin, rushes headlong 
 to the fratricidal strife. The war is in itself no subject for tragedy, 
 and the poet hurries us rapidly from the ominous and important 
 preparation to the determination: the city is saved, the two com- 
 petitors for the throne fall by the hands of each other, and the 
 whole is closed by their funeral dirge, in which a part is taken by 
 the sisters and chorus of Theban virgins. It is remarkable that 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 63 
 
 the resolution of Antigone to inter her brother, notwithstandingthe 
 prohibition, with which Sophocles opens his piece ofthat name, is 
 woven into the conclusion of this, a circumstance which imme- 
 diately connects it with a newdevelopement, as in the Choephorae. 
 
 I could wish to believe that iEschylus composed the Persians 
 from mere complacency for Hiero King of Syracuse, who was 
 desirous of having the great events of the Persian war brought 
 under his review. Such is the substance of one tradition; but 
 according to another the piece had been before exhibited in 
 Athens. We have already alluded to this drama, which, both in 
 point of selection of subject, and the manner of handling it, is 
 undoubtedly the most imperfect of all the tragedies of the poet 
 that we possess. Our expectation is hardly excited in the com- 
 mencement by the vision of Atossa; the whole catastrophe im- 
 mediately opens on us with the first message, and no farther pro- 
 gress can be even imagined. But although not a legitimate 
 drama, we may still consider it as a proud triumphal song in 
 honour of liberty, clothed in soft and unceasing lamentations for 
 the fallen majesty of the vanquished. The poet with great judg- 
 ment, both here and in the Seven before Thebes, describes the 
 result of the battle, not as accidental, which is almost always the 
 case in Homer, (for accident ought never to have a place in 
 tragedy), but as the result of arrogant and blind presumption on 
 the one hand, and resolute moderation on the other. 
 
 The Chained Prometheus held also a middle place between 
 two others, the Fire-bringing and the Freed Prometheus, if we 
 dare reckon the first, which without question was a satirical 
 drama, as part of a trilogy. A considerable fragment of the 
 Freed Prometheus has been preserved to us in the Latin transla- 
 tion of Attius. 
 
 The Chained Prometheus is the representation of constancy 
 under suffering, and that the never-ending suffering of a god. 
 Exiled to a naked rock on the shore of the encircling ocean, this 
 drama still embraces the world, the Olympus of the gods, and the 
 earth of mortals, all scarcely yet reposing in a secure state above 
 the dread abyss of the dark Titanian powers. The idea of a 
 self-devoting divinity has been mysteriously inculcated in many 
 religions, as a confused foreboding of the true ; here however it 
 appears in a most alarming contrast with the consolations of reve- 
 lation. For Prometheus does not suffer on an understanding 
 with the power by whom the world is governed, but he atones 
 for his disobedience, and that disobedience consists in nothing but 
 the attempt to give perfection to the human race. It is thus an 
 image of human nature itself: endowed with a miserable foresight 
 and bound down to a narrow existence, without an ally, and with 
 
64 LECTURES ON 
 
 ling to oppose to the combined and inexorable powers of 
 re, but an unshaken will and the consciousness of elevated 
 
 nothi 
 
 nature, 
 
 claims. The other poems of the Greek tragedians are single 
 
 tragedies; but this may be called tragedy itself: its purest spirit 
 
 is revealed with all the annihilating and overpowering influence 
 
 of its first unmitigated austerity. 
 
 There is little external action in this piece: Prometheus mere- 
 ly suffers and resolves from the beginning to the end; and his 
 sufferings and resolutions are always the same. But the poet has 
 contrived in a masterly manner to introduce variety and progress 
 into that which in itself was determinately fixed, and given us a 
 scale for the measurement of the matchless power of his sublime 
 Titans in the objects by which he has surrounded them. We 
 have the first silence of Prometheus while he is chained down 
 under the harsh inspection of Strength and Force, whose threats 
 serve only to excite a useless compassion in Vulcan, who carries 
 them into execution ; then his solitary complaints, the arrival of 
 the tender ocean nymphs, whose kind but disheartening sympa- 
 thy induces him to give vent to his feelings, to relate the causes 
 of his fall, and to reveal the future, though with prudent reserve 
 he reveals it only in part; the visit of the ancient Oceanus, a kin- 
 dred god of the race of the Titans, who, under the pretext of a 
 zealous attachment to his cause, advises him to submission to- 
 wards Jupiter, and who is on that account dismissed with proud 
 contempt; the introduction of the raving Io, driven about from 
 place to place, the victim of the same tyranny from which Pro- 
 metheus himself suffers; his prophecy of the wanderings to which 
 she is still doomed, and the fate which at last awaits her, con- 
 nected in some degree with his own, as from her blood he is to 
 receive a deliverer after the lapse of many ages; the appearance 
 of Mercury as the messenger of the tyrant of the world, who 
 with threats commands him to disclose the secret by which Ju- 
 piter may remain on his throne secure from all the malice of fate; 
 and lastly the yawning of the earth before Prometheus has well 
 declared his refusal, amidst thunder and lightning, storms and 
 earthquake, by which he himself and the rock to which he is 
 chained are swallowed up in the abyss of the nether world. The 
 triumph of subjection was never celebrated in more glorious 
 strains, and we have difficulty in conceiving how the poet in the 
 Freed Prometheus could sustain himself on such an elevation. 
 
 In the dramas of iEschylus we have one of many examples 
 that, in art as well as nature, gigantic productions precede those 
 that evince regularity of proportion, which again in their turn 
 decline gradually into littleness and insignificance, and that 
 poetry in its original appearance approaches always the nearest to 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 65 
 
 the reverence of religion, whatever form the latter may assume 
 among the various races of men. 
 
 A saying of the poet, which has been preserved, affords us a 
 proof that he endeavoured to maintain himself on this elevation, 
 and purposely avoided all artificial cultivation, which might have 
 the effect of lowering the divinity of his character. His breth- 
 ren stimulated him to write a new Paean. He answered: "The 
 old one of Tynachus is the best, and the same thing would hap- 
 pen here that was observable in a comparison between the ancient 
 and modern statues; for the former with all their simplicity were 
 considered as divine, and the modern, with all the care bestowed 
 on their execution, were indeed admired, but bore much less of 
 the impression of a divinity." He carried his boldness in reli- 
 gious matters, as in everything else, to the utmost limits; and he 
 was even accused of having in one of his pieces disclosed the Eleu- 
 sinian mysteries, and only absolved on the intercession of his 
 brother Amynias, who displayed the wounds which he had re- 
 ceived in the battle of Salamis. He perhaps believed that in the 
 poetic communication was contained the initiation into the mys- 
 teries, and that nothing was in this way revealed to any one who 
 was not worthy of it. 
 
 The tragic style of iEschylus is still imperfect, and not unfre- 
 quently runs into the unmixed epic and lyric. It is often dis- 
 jointed, irregular, and hard. To compose more regular and skil- 
 ful tragedies than those of iEschylus was by no means difficult; 
 but in the more than mortal grandeur which he displayed, it was 
 impossible that he should ever be surpassed; and even Sophocles, 
 his younger and more fortunate rival, did not in this respect 
 equal him. The latter, in speaking of iEschylus, gave a proof 
 that he was himself a reflecting artist: "iEschylus does what is 
 right without knowing it." These few simple words exhaust 
 the whole of what we understand by powerful genius unconscious 
 of its powers. 
 
 The birth-year of Sophocles was nearly at an equal distance 
 between that of his predecessor and of Euripides, so that he was 
 about half a lifetime from each: in this all the accounts are 
 found to coincide. He was however during the greatest part of 
 his life the contemporary of both. He frequently contended for 
 the tragic garland with iEschylus, and he outlived Euripides, 
 who himself attained a good age. If I may speak in the spirit of 
 the ancient religion, it seems that a beneficent Providence wished 
 to evince to the human race, in the instance of this individual, 
 the dignity and felicity of their lot, as he was endowed with 
 every divine gift, with all that can adorn and elevate the mind 
 and the heart, and crowned with every blessing imaginable 
 
 9 
 
66 LECTURES ON 
 
 in this life. Descended from rich and honoured parents, and 
 born a free citizen of the most cultivated state of Greece, such 
 were the advantages with which he entered the world. Beauty 
 of body and of soul, and the uninterrupted enjoyment of both in 
 the utmost perfection, till the extreme limits of human existence ; 
 an education the most extensive, yet select, in gymnastics and 
 music, the former so important in the developement of the bodi- 
 ly powers, and the latter in the communication of harmony; the 
 sweet blossom of youth, and the ripe fruit of age; the possession 
 and continued enjoyment of poetry and art, and the exercise of 
 serene wisdom; love and respect among his fellow citizens, fame 
 in other countries, and the countenance and favour of the gods: 
 these are the general features of the life of this pious and virtuous 
 poet. It would seem as if the gods, in return for his dedicating 
 himself at an early age to Bacchus, as the giver of all joy, and 
 the author of the cultivation of the human race, by the represen- 
 tation of tragical dramas for his festivals, had wished to confer 
 immortality on him, so long did they delay the hour of his death; 
 but as this was impossible, they extinguished his life at least as 
 gently as possible, that he might imperceptibly change one im- 
 mortality for another, the long duration of his earthly existence 
 for an imperishable name. When a youth of sixteen, he was 
 selected, on account of his beauty, to play on the lyre, and to 
 dance in the Greek manner before the chorus of youths who, 
 after the battle of Salamis (in which iEschylus fought, and which 
 he has so nobly described) executed the Paean round the trophy 
 erected on that occasion; so that the fairest developement of his 
 youthful beauty coincided with the moment when the Athenian 
 people had attained the epoch of their highest glory. He held 
 the rank of general along with Pericles and Thucydides, and, 
 when arrived at a more advanced age, the priesthood of a native 
 hero. In his twenty-fifth year he began to represent tragedies; 
 twenty times he was victorious; he often gained the second place, 
 and he never was ranked in the third. In this career he pro- 
 ceeded with increasing success till he exceeded his ninetieth 
 year; and some of his greatest works were even the fruit of a 
 still later period. There is a story of an accusation brought 
 against him by one or more of his elder sons, of having become 
 childish from age, because he was too fond of a grandchild by 
 a second wife, and of being no longer in a condition to manage 
 his own affairs. In his defence he merely read to his judges 
 his (Edipus in Colonos, which he had then composed in honour 
 of Colonos, his birth-place, and the astonished judges, without 
 farther consultation, conducted him in triumph to his house. If 
 it be true that the second (Edipus was written at so late an age, 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 67 
 
 as from its mature serenity and total freedom from the impetu- 
 osity and violence of youth we have good reason to conclude that 
 it actually was, it affords us at once a pleasing picture of the de- 
 light and reverence which attended his concluding years. Al- 
 though the various accounts of his death appear fabulous, they all 
 coincide in this, that he departed without a struggle, while em- 
 ployed in his art, or something connected with it, and that, like 
 an old swan of Apollo, he breathed out his life in song. I consi- 
 der also the story of the Lacedemonian general who had fortified 
 the burying-ground of his fathers, and who, twice exhorted by 
 Bacchus in a vision to allow Sophocles to be there interred, des- 
 patched a herald to the Athenians on the subject, with a number 
 of other circumstances, as the strongest possible proof of the esta- 
 blished reverence in which his name was held. In calling him 
 virtuous and pious, I spoke in the true sense of the words; for 
 although his works breathe the real character of ancient grandeur, 
 sweetness, and simplicity, of all the Grecian poets he is also the 
 individual whose feelings bear the strongest affinity to the spirit 
 of our religion. 
 
 One gift alone was refused to him by nature: a voice attuned 
 to song. He could only call forth and direct the harmonious ef- 
 fusions of other voices; he was therefore compelled to depart 
 from the established practice of the poet acting a part in his own 
 pieces, and only once (a very characteristic trait) made his ap- 
 pearance in the character of the blind singer Thamyris playing 
 on the cithara. 
 
 As iEschylus, who raised tragic poetry from its rude begin- 
 nings to the dignity of the cothurnus, was his predecessor; the 
 historical relations in which he stood to Sophocles enabled the 
 latter to avail himself of the inventions of his original master, so 
 that iEschylus appears as the rough designer, and Sophocles as 
 the finished successor. The more artful construction of the 
 dramas of the latter is easily perceived: the limitation of the cho- 
 rus with respect to the dialogue, the polish of the rhythmus, and 
 the pure Attic diction, the introduction of a greater number of 
 characters, the increase of contrivance in the fable, the multipli- 
 cation of incidents, a greater degree of developement, the more 
 tranquil continuance of all the moments of the action, and the 
 greater degree of theatrical effect given to incidents of a decisive 
 nature, the more perfect rounding of the whole, even considered 
 in a mere external point of view. But he excelled iEschylus in 
 somewhat still more essential, and proved himself deserving of 
 the good fortune of having such a preceptor, and of entering in- 
 to competition with him in the same subjects: I mean the har- 
 monious perfection of his mind, by which he fulfilled from in- 
 
68 LECTURES ON 
 
 clination every duty prescribed by the laws of beauty, and of 
 which the impulse was in him accompanied by the most clear 
 consciousness. It was impossible to exceed JEschylus in boldness 
 of conception; I am inclined however to believe that Sophocles 
 appears only less bold from his wisdom and moderation, as he 
 always goes to work with the greatest energy, and perhaps with 
 even a more determined severity, like a man who knows the ex- 
 tent of his powers, and is determined, when he does not exceed 
 them, to stand up with the greater confidence for his rights.* As 
 iEschylus delights in transporting us to the convulsions of the 
 primary world of the Titans, Sophocles on the other hand never 
 avails himself of the gods but when their appearance is necessary; 
 he formed men, according to the general confession of antiquity, 
 better, that is, not more moral, or exempt from error, but more 
 beautiful and noble than they appeared in real life; and while he 
 took everything in the most human signification, he was at the 
 same time aware of their superior destination. According to all 
 appearance he was also more moderate than iEschylus in his 
 scenic ornaments; he displayed perhaps more taste and selection 
 in his objects, but did not attempt the same colossal pomp. 
 
 To characterize the native sweetness and affection so eminent 
 in this poet, the ancients gave him the appellation of the Attic 
 bee. Whoever is thoroughly imbued with the feeling of this 
 property may flatter himself that a sense for ancient art has 
 arisen within him: for the affected sentimentality of the present 
 day, far from coinciding with him in this opinion, would both 
 in the representation of bodily sufferings, and in the language 
 and economy of the tragedies of Sophocles, find much of an un- 
 supportable austerity. 
 
 When we consider the great fertility of Sophocles, for according 
 to some he wrote a hundred and thirty pieces (of which however 
 seventeen were pronounced spurious by Aristophanes the gram- 
 marian,) and eighty according to the most moderate account, we 
 cannot help wondering that seven only should have come down 
 
 * This idea has been so happily expressed by the greatest genius perhaps 
 of the last century, that the translator hopes he will be forgiven for here tran- 
 scribing the passage: "I can truly say that, poor and unknown as I then was, 
 I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my works, as I have at this 
 moment, when the public has decided in their favour. It ever was my opinion, 
 that the mistakes and blunders both in a rational and religious point of view, of 
 which we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance of them- 
 selves. To know myself, had been all along my constant study. I weighed 
 myself alone; I balanced myself with others; I watched every means of informa- 
 tion to see how much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet; I studied assi- 
 duously nature's design in my formation — where the lights and shades in my 
 character were intended. — Letter from Burns to Dr. Moore, in Currie's Life.— 
 Thaws. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 69 
 
 to us. Chance however has so far favoured us, that in these seven 
 pieces we find several which were held by the ancients as his 
 greatest works, Antigone for example, Electra, and the two 
 CEdipus; and these have also come down to us tolerably free 
 from mutilation and corruption in their text. The first (Edipus 
 and Philoctetes have been generally, without any good reason, 
 preferred to all the others by the modern critics: the first on ac- 
 count of the artifice of the plot, in which the dreadful catastro- 
 phe, powerfully calculated to excite our curiosity (a rare case in 
 the Greek tragedies,) is brought about inevitably by a succession 
 of causes, all dependent on each other; the latter on account of 
 the masterly display of character, the beautiful contrast observa- 
 ble in the three leading individuals, and the simple structure of 
 the piece, in which, with so few persons, everything proceeds 
 from the truest motives. But the whole of the tragedies of So- 
 phocles are conspicuous for their separate excellencies. In An- 
 tigone we have the purest display of female heroism; in Jijax 
 the manly feeling of honour in its whole force; in the Trachinise 
 (or, as we should name it, the Dying Hercules,) the female le- 
 vity of Dejanira is beautifully atoned for by her death, and the 
 sufferings of Hercules are portrayed with suitable dignity; Elec- 
 tro, is distinguished for energy and pathos; in CEdipus Colone- 
 us there prevails the mildest emotion, and over the whole piece 
 there is diffused the utmost sweetness. I will not undertake to 
 weigh the respective merits of these pieces against each other: 
 but I am free to confess that I entertain a singular predilection 
 for the last of them, as it appears to me the most expressive of 
 the personal feelings of the poet himself. As this piece was 
 written for the very purpose of throwing a lustre on Athens, and 
 the spot of his birth more particularly, he appears to have labour- 
 ed it with a remarkable degree of fondness. 
 
 Ajax and Antigone are usually the least understood. We cannot 
 conceive how these pieces should be continued so long after what 
 we generally call the catastrophe. I shall hereafter submit an 
 observation on this subject. 
 
 Of all the fables of the ancient mythology into which fate is 
 made to enter, the story of (Edipus is perhaps the most ingeni- 
 ous; but yet there are others, as for example Niobe, which with- 
 out such a complication of incidents are highly calculated to af- 
 ford us a simple representation of human arrogance, and the pun- 
 ishment suspended over it by the gods, conceived on a more co- 
 lossal scale, and in a grander style. The very intrigue of (Edi- 
 pus detracts from its elevation of character. Intrigue in the dra- 
 matic sense is a complication arising from the crossing of pur- 
 poses and events, and the fate of (Edipus affords this in a high 
 
70 LECTURES ON 
 
 degree, as all that is done by his parents or himself to escape the 
 predicted horrors serve only the more to involve him. But that 
 which gives so grand and terrible a character to this drama, is 
 the circumstance which, for the most part, however, is overlook- 
 ed; that it is the CEdipus who solved the riddle of the Sphinx 
 relating to human life, to whom his own life remains an inextri- 
 cable riddle, till it is cleared up to him in the most dreadful man- 
 ner when too late, and when all is irrecoverably lost. This is 
 an admirable picture of the pretension of human wisdom, which 
 is ever aspiring at general improvement, while the possessor 
 knows not how to make the proper application to himself. 
 
 Notwithstanding the severe conclusion of the first CEdipus, we 
 are so far reconciled to it by the violence, suspicion, and haugh- 
 tiness in the character of CEdipus, that our feelings are not 
 wrought up to the highest pitch of indignation against the eruelty 
 of his fate. It was necessary in so far to sacrifice the character 
 of CEdipus, who raises himself however in our estimation by his 
 fatherly care and heroic zeal for the welfare of the people, that 
 allow him, in his honest inquiries after the author of the crime, 
 to hasten his own destruction. It was necessary for the sake of 
 the contrast which his future misery exhibits, to allow him to 
 appear before Tiresias and Creon, clothed in all the pride of re- 
 gal dignity. In his earlier transactions we may already remark 
 something of suspicion and violence; in the uneasiness he still 
 felt at the charge of being a supposititious child, notwithstanding 
 all the assurances of Polybos, and in the bloody quarrel in which 
 he was afterwards engaged with Laius. This character he seems 
 to have inherited from both his parents. The arrogant levity of 
 Jocasta, which induces her to treat the oracle with derision when 
 she conceived it was not confirmed by the event, though it is af- 
 terwards consummated in her own sufferings, was not indeed 
 inherited by her son : he is on the contrary conspicuous 
 throughout for the purity of his intentions; and the care and 
 anxiety with which he fled from the predicted crime, added 
 naturally to the poignancy of his despair, when he found that he 
 had nevertheless committed it. His blindness is indeed dread- 
 ful, as the explanation is so very obvious; for example, when he 
 puts the question to Jocasta, how did Laius look? and she an- 
 swers he had become gray-haired, otherwise in appearance he 
 was not unlike CEdipus. This is also another feature of her le- 
 vity, that she should not have been struck with the resemblance 
 to her husband, a circumstance that might have led her to recog- 
 nize him as her son. On a closer dissection of the piece, we shall 
 find the utmost propriety and circumspection in every feature of 
 it. As we are however accustomed to extol the correctness of 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 71 
 
 Sophocles, and to boast more especially of the probability which 
 prevails throughout this (Edipus, I must here remark that this 
 very piece is a proof that on this subject the ancient artists fol- 
 lowed very different principles from those of modern critics. 
 For, according to the way of thinking of the latter, nothing 
 could be more improbable than that (Edipus should, during such 
 a length of time, have never inquired into the circumstances of 
 the death of Laius, and that the scars on his feet, and even the 
 name which he bore, should have excited no suspicion in Jocas- 
 ta, &c. But the ancients did not produce their works of art for 
 calculating and prosaic understandings; and an improbability 
 which required dissection to be found out, and which did not ap- 
 pear in the course of the representation itself, passed with them 
 for no improbability. 
 
 The diversity of character of JEschylus and Sophocles is no- 
 where more conspicuous than in the Eumenides and the (Edipus 
 Coloneus, as both these pieces have the same aim. This aim is 
 to confer glory on Athens as the sacred abode of law and human- 
 ity, where the crimes of illustrious families of other countries 
 might, by a higher mediation, be at last propitiated; and hence 
 an ever-during prosperity was predicted to the Athenian people. 
 The patriotic and free-minded JEsehylus has recourse to a judicial, 
 and the pious Sophocles to a religious, proceeding. The (Edipus 
 Coloneus may be styled his consecration after death; for as he 
 was bent down by the consciousness of inevitable crimes, and 
 lengthened misery, the gods, it would appear, were desirous of 
 conferring on him this honour, to show that in the terrible example 
 which they made of him, they had no intention of visiting him in 
 particular with punishment, but merely wished to give a severe 
 lesson to the human race. Sophocles, whose whole life might be 
 called one continued worship of the gods, was particularly fond 
 of adorning the last moments of existence with the splendour of 
 a religious festival; and the emotion which he produces on such 
 occasions is very different from that which the thought of morality 
 is in general calculated to excite. That the tortured and exhausted 
 (Edipus should at last find peace and repose in the grove of the 
 Furies, in the very spot from which all other mortals fled with 
 aversion and horror, he whose misfortune consisted in having done 
 that at which every human being must shudder, without the 
 consciousness or warning of any inward feeling to guide him; in 
 this there is a profound and mysterious sense. 
 
 iEschylus has given us in the person of Pallas a more majestic 
 representation of the Attic cultivation, presence of mind, mode- 
 ration, mildness, and magnanimity; but Sophocles, who was so 
 much inclined to draw down everything divine into the province. 
 
72 LECTURES ON 
 
 of humanity, has developed them in a more refined manner in 
 his Theseus. He who is desirous of seeing the Grecian heroism 
 accurately contrasted with the Barbarian, would do well to con- 
 sider this character with attention. 
 
 In iEschylus, before the victim of persecution can be saved, 
 and the land can participate in the blessings, the hellish horror 
 of the Furies must congeal the blood of the spectator, and make 
 his hair stand on an end, and the whole rancour of these goddeses 
 of rage must be exhausted: the transition to their peaceful retreat 
 is therefore the more astonishing; it seems as if the whole human 
 race were redeemed from their power. In Sophocles however 
 they do not even once make their appearance, but are altogether 
 kept in the back-ground; and they are not called by their proper 
 name, but made known to us by descriptions in which they are 
 a good deal spared. But even this obscurity and distance, so 
 suitable to these daughters of night, is calculated to excite in us 
 a still dread in which the bodily senses have no part. The cloth- 
 ing the grove of the Furies with all the charms of a southern 
 spring completes the sweetness of the poem; and were I to select 
 an image of the poetry of Sophocles from his tragedies, I should 
 describe it as a sacred grove of the dark goddesses of fate, in 
 which the laurel, the olive, and the wine display their luxuriant 
 vegetation, and the song of the nightingale is for ever heard. 
 
 Two of the pieces of Sophocles, agreeably to the Greek way 
 of thinking, turn on the sacred rights of the dead, and the im- 
 portance of interment; in Antigone the whole of the action hinges 
 on this, and in Ajax it forms the satisfactory conclusion of the 
 piece. 
 
 The female portrait of Jintigone is characterized by great aus- 
 terity, and it is sufficient of itself to put an end to all the seductive 
 representations of Greek allurement, which of late have been so 
 universally current. Her discontent when Ismene refuses to 
 participate in her daring resolution; the manner in which she 
 afterwards repulses Ismene when she repents of her weakness, 
 borders on hardness; her silence and speeches against Creon, by 
 which she provokes him to carry his tyrannical determination into 
 execution, display all the steadfastness of purpose and the most 
 masculine mind. The poet has however discovered the secret of 
 painting the lovely affection of the female disposition in one single 
 line, when in answer to the assertion of Creon, that Polynices 
 was an enemy to his country, she answers: 
 
 My love shall go with thine, but not my hate.* 
 
 * This is the version of Franklin, but it does not convey the meaning of the 
 original, and I am not aware that the English language is sufficiently flexible 
 to admit of an exact translation. The German which, though far inferior to the 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 73 
 
 She puts a constraint on her feelings as long as possible, that she 
 may not, by giving loose to them, render the firmness of her 
 determination problematical. When however she is led out to 
 an inevitable death, she pours herself out in the most tender and 
 affecting wailings over her hard and untimely fate, and does not 
 hesitate, though a chaste virgin, to mourn her löst bridal, and the 
 unenjoyed blessings of the marriage state. Yet she never in a 
 single syllable betrays any inclination for Haemon, and not even 
 mentions the name of that amiable youth. * It would have been 
 betraying a weakness to have shown, after such a heroic resolu- 
 tion, that she had any tie which still bound her to existence; but to 
 have relinquished those common enjoyments which the gods have 
 scattered throughout this life, without a feeling of melancholy, 
 would have been unsuitable to the devout sanctity of her mind. 
 On a first review the chorus in Antigone may appear weak, as it 
 accedes at once to the tyrannical commands of Creon, without 
 opposition, and without even attempting to make the slightest 
 representation in favour of the young heroine. But to exhibit 
 the determination and the deed of Antigone in their full glory, it 
 was necessary that she should have no support and no dependance. 
 The very subjection of the chorus increases our impression of the 
 irresistible nature of the royal commands. For this reason it was 
 necessary to mingle in its concluding discourse with Antigone 
 the most painful recollections, that she might drink the cup of 
 earthly sufferings to the very dregs. The case is very different 
 in Electra, where the chorus takes such an interest in the fate of 
 the two principal characters, and encourages them to the com- 
 mission of the deed, as the moral feelings are divided respecting 
 it, whereas there is no such contention in Antigone, who could 
 only have been deterred from her purpose by merely external 
 fears. 
 
 After the fulfilment of the deed, and the infliction of the suffer- 
 ing for it, there still remains the correction of the arrogance of 
 Creon, by which the death of Antigone is to be avenged; and the 
 destruction of his whole family, with his own despair, could alone 
 be a sufficient atonement for the sacrifice of so valuable a life. 
 We have therefore the wife of the king, who is not even named 
 before, brought at last on the stage, that she may hear the mis- 
 fortune, and put an end to her existence. With the Grecian 
 
 Greek in harmony, is little behind in flexibility, has in this respect great advan- 
 tage over the English; and Schlegel* s " nicht mitzuhassen, mitzulieben bin ich 
 da" represents exactly O uroi <rvvixQuv ax>.d crv/uqtxav i<pw. — Trans. 
 
 * Barthelemy asserts the contrary; but the lines to which he refers, in the 
 more correct manuscripts, and even according to the connexion of the whole 
 passage, belong to Ismene. 
 
 10 
 
74 LECTURES ON 
 
 feeling, it would have been impossible to have considered the 
 poem as concluded with the death of Antigone, without a penal 
 retaliation. 
 
 It is the same in Ajax. His arrogance, which was punished 
 with a degrading insanity, is atoned for by the deep shame which 
 at length drives him to self-murder. The persecution of the un- 
 fortunate man must not however be carried any farther, and when 
 it is in contemplation to disgrace his remains by the refusal of 
 interment, even when Ulysses interferes, whom he had looked 
 upon as his mortal enemy, and to whom Pallas, in the dreadful 
 introductory scene, shows the nothingness of the human race in 
 the example of the delirious Ajax: he appears as a sort of personi- 
 fication of moderation, which, if it had been possessed by Ajax, 
 would have prevented his fall. 
 
 Self-murder is frequent in the ancient mythology, especially 
 in the part of it converted into tragedy ; but it generally takes 
 place, though not in a state of insanity, yet in a state of agitation, 
 after a sudden calamity which leaves no room for consideration. 
 Such self-murders as those of Jocasta, Haemon, Eurydice, and 
 Dejanira, appear merely in the light of a subordinate appendage 
 in the tragical pictures of Sophocles; but the suicide of Ajax is a 
 cool determination, a free action, and of sufficient importance to 
 become the principal object of the piece. It is not the last fatal 
 crisis of a slow mental malady, as is so often the case in the more 
 effeminate modern times; still less is it that more theoretical tedium 
 of life, founded on a conviction of its worthlessness, which induced 
 so many of the latter Romans, on Epicurean as well as Stoical 
 principles to put an end to their existence. Ajax is not by any 
 unmanly despondency unfaithful to his rough heroism. His 
 delirium is over, as well as his first inconsolable state, when he 
 awakes to a knowledge of himself; and it is not till the most com- 
 plete return to consciousness, after he has had time to measure the 
 depth of the abyss into which he has been plunged by the divine 
 destiny, that he contemplates his situation as ruined beyond re- 
 medy: his honour wounded by the loss of the arms of Achilles; 
 the unfortunate termination of his vindictive rage, which in his 
 infatuation had been wasted on defenceless flocks; he himself, 
 after a long and reproachless heroic career, a source of amusement 
 to his enemies, an object of derision and abomination to the 
 Greeks, and the shame of his honoured father if he should so re- 
 turn to him: he decides according to his maxim, "to live glori- 
 ously or to die gloriously," and the latter course only remains 
 open to him. Even the dissimulation, the first perhaps which 
 he ever practised in his life, by which he quiets his companions, 
 that he may not be disturbed in the execution of his design, must 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 75 
 
 be considered in the light of greatness of soul. He appoints 
 Teucer guardian to his infant boy, the future consolation of his 
 forlorn parents; and, like Cato, he does not die till he has ar- 
 ranged the concerns of all his family. As Antigone in her female 
 tenderness, so even he in his wild manner seems in his last speech 
 to feel the majesty of the light of the sun, from which he takes 
 his final leave. His rough mind rejects all pity, and therefore 
 excites it the more powerfully. What an image of awaking out 
 of the tumult of passion, when the tent opens, and he sits lament- 
 ing amidst the slaughtered herds. 
 
 As Ajax, in the feeling of inextinguishable shame, is induced 
 to form the violent resolution of throwing away life, Philoctetes 
 on the other hand bears its wearisome load, during long years 
 of misery, with the most persevering patience. If Ajax is hon- 
 oured by his despair, Philoctetes is equally ennobled by his con- 
 stancy. As the instinct of self-preservation came into collision 
 with no moral impulse, it was proper to exhibit it in its entire 
 strength. Nature has armed with this instinct whatever is pos- 
 sessed of the breath of life, and the vigour with which every hos- 
 tile attack on existence is repelled is the strongest proof of its 
 excellence. In the presence, it is true, of that human society by 
 which he had been abandoned, and in the dependence on their 
 superiority, Philoctetes would no more have been desirous of 
 life than Ajax. But he finds himself alone in the midst of nature, 
 he dreads nothing from the frightful aspect which she exhibits to 
 him, and still even clings to the maternal bosom of the all-nour- 
 ishing earth. Exiled on a desert island, tormented by an incurable 
 wound, solitary and helpless as he is, he still by his arrows pro- 
 cures his food from the fowls of the forest, the rock bears allevia- 
 ting plants, his cave yields him a shelter and coolness in summer, 
 in winter he is warmed by the mid-day sun, or kindled branches; 
 even the raging attacks of his pain at length exhaust themselves, 
 and leave him in a refreshing sleep. Alas! it is the artificial re- 
 finements, the oppressive burden of a relaxing and deadening 
 superfluity which render men indifferent to the value of life: 
 when it is stripped of all foreign appendages, though borne down 
 with sufferings so that the naked existence alone remains, still will 
 its sweets flow from the heart at each pulsation throughout every 
 vein of the body. This poor unfortunate man! ten long years 
 has he struggled ; and yet he still lives and cleaves to life and hope. 
 What a force of truth there is in all this! What moves us the 
 most however in Philoctetes is, that he, who by an abuse of power 
 was cast out from society, so soon as it again approaches him, is ex- 
 posed to a second and still more dangerous evil, that of falsehood. 
 
 The apprehension lest he might be deprived of his bow, his 
 
76 LECTURES ON 
 
 last means of subsistence, would be too painful for the spectator, 
 if he did not from the beginning entertain some suspicion that 
 the open and sincere Neoptolemus will not be able to carry- 
 through to the end the character which he assumed so much 
 against his will. It is not without reason after this deception, 
 that Philoctetes turns away from men to those inanimate com- 
 panions, to which the innate want of society had attached him. 
 He calls on the island and its volcanoes to witness the fresh in- 
 justice which he has suffered ; he believes that his beloved bow 
 feels a pain in being torn from him; and at length he takes a 
 melancholy leave of his hospitable cavern, the fountains and the 
 wave-washed cliffs from which he so often looked in vain to the 
 ocean: so inclined to love is the uncorrupted mind of man. 
 
 Respecting the bodily sufferings of Philoctetes and the manner 
 of representing them, Lessing had in his Laocoön declared him- 
 self against Winkelmann, and Herder again has in the Silvas 
 Critical* contradicted Lessing. Both the two last writers have 
 made many excellent observations on the piece, although we 
 must allow with Herder, that Winkelmann was correct in affirm- 
 ing that the Philoctetes of Sophocles suffers like Laocoön in the 
 celebrated group, namely, with the struggling of a heroic soul 
 never altogether overcome by the pain. 
 
 The Trachinias appears to me so very inferior in worth to 
 the other pieces of Sophocles which have come down to us, 
 that I could wish to have some foundation for supposing that 
 this tragedy was composed in the same age, in his school, and 
 perhaps by his son Jophon, and that it was by mistake attributed 
 to Sophocles. There is much both in the structure and disposi- 
 tion, and in the style of the piece, calculated to excite suspicion; 
 and many critics have remarked that the introductory soliloquy 
 of Dejanira, without any motive, is very unlike the character of 
 the prologues of Sophocles. Although however the rules of 
 art of the poet are observed on the whole, yet this is done in a 
 superficial manner, and we nowhere perceive the deep mind of 
 Sophocles. But as no one writer of antiquity appears to have 
 doubted its authenticity, and as Cicero even cites the complaint 
 of Hercules as from an indisputable work of Sophocles, we are 
 compelled to content ourselves with the remark, that the trage- 
 dian has for once remained below his usual elevation. 
 
 This brings us to the consideration of a question which will 
 still occupy the critic a great deal more in the examination of the 
 works of Euripides: how far the invention and execution of a 
 
 * In den Kritischen Wäldern, literally, in the Critical Forests. The Latin 
 expression Silva Critical familar to us. — Trans. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 77 
 
 drama must belong to one man, that he may pass for its author. 
 Dramatic literature affords numerous examples of plays composed 
 by several persons in common. It is well known that Euripides, 
 in the execution of his pieces, availed himself of the assistance of 
 Kephisophon, a learned servant; and he perhaps also consulted 
 with him respecting his plots. It appears certain however that in 
 Athens there had then been formed dramatic schools of art, of such 
 a character as usually arise when poetical talents are called into 
 exercise by public competition, and with great fulness and pre- 
 paration : schools of art which contain scholars of such excellence 
 and of such kindred genius, that the master may confide a part 
 of the execution, and even the plan, to them, and yet allow the 
 whole to pass under his name without any injury to his fame. 
 Such were the schools of painting of the sixteenth century, and 
 every one knows what a remarkable degree of critical acumen 
 is necessary to discover in many of Raphael's pictures how much 
 of them properly belongs to himself. Sophocles had educated 
 his son Jophon to the tragic art, and he could easily therefore 
 receive assistance from him in the execution of his pieces, espe- 
 cially as it was necessary that the tragedies that were to compete 
 for the prize should be ready and got by heart by a certain day: 
 he might also on the other hand execute occasional passages for 
 the works originally planned by the son; and the pieces of this 
 description, in which the hand of the master was perceivable, 
 would be naturally attributed to the more celebrated name. 
 
( 78 ) 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Euripides — His merits and defects — Decline of tragic poetry through him — 
 Comparison between the Choephorse of JEschylus, the Electra of Sophocles, 
 and that of Euripides— Character of the remaining works of the latter — The 
 satirical drama — Alexandrian tragic poets. 
 
 When we consider Euripides by himself, without any com- 
 parison with his predecessors, when we take a separate view of 
 some of his better pieces, and detached scenes throughout the 
 others, we cannot refuse to him an extraordinary degree of praise. 
 But on the other hand when we place him in connexion with the 
 history of art, when we consider his pieces as a whole, and reflect 
 on the object which he appears in general to have had in view 
 in all the works which have come down to us, we are compelled 
 to bestow severe censure on him on various accounts. Of few 
 writers may both good and evil be said with so much truth. He 
 was a man of infinite ingenuity, and practised in the greatest 
 variety of mental arts; but neither the sublime seriousness of 
 mind, nor the severe wisdom, which we revere in iEschylus and 
 Sophocles, regulated in him a luxuriant fulness of the most splen- 
 did and amiable qualities. His constant aim is to please by what- 
 ever means: and hence he is so very unequal to himself: fre- 
 quently he has passages of the most overpowering beauty, and 
 at other times he sinks into the most downright common-place. 
 With all his errors he possesses an admirable ease and lightness, 
 and a certain insinuating power which it is difficult to withstand. 
 
 These preliminary observations I have judged necessary, as it 
 might otherwise be objected to me that I am at variance with 
 myself, having a short time ago, in a small French treatise, en- 
 deavoured to show the superiority of a piece of Euripides, com- 
 pared with an imitation of Racine. There I fixed my attention 
 on a detached drama, and that one of the best of the works of this 
 poet; but here I consider everything from the most general points 
 of view, and with a reference to the highest demands of art, and 
 must therefore justify my enthusiasm for ancient tragedy by a 
 keen examination into the traces of its degeneracy and decline, 
 that my predilection may not appear blind and extravagant. 
 
 We may compare a perfection in art and poetry to the summit 
 of a steep mountain, where a load forced up with labour cannot 
 long remain, but immediately rolls down the other side. It de- 
 scends according to the laws of gravity with quickness and ease, 
 and is seen with satisfaction; for the mass follows its natural in- 
 
LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 79 
 
 elination, while the laborious ascent is in some degree a painful 
 spectacle. Hence it happens, for example, that the paintings of 
 periods during which art was on the decline are much more 
 pleasing to the unlearned eye, than those which preceded the 
 period of its perfection. The genuine connoisseur, on the other 
 hand, will rank the pictures of a Zuccheri and others, who gave 
 the tone when the great schools of the sixteenth century degene- 
 rated into empty and superficial mannerism, far below the works 
 of a Mantegna, Perugino, and, their contemporaries, in real and 
 essential worth. Or let us suppose the highest perfection of art 
 a focus: at an equal distance on the nearest and farthest side, the 
 collected rays occupy the same space, but on this side they labour 
 together in producing one common effect; whereas on the other 
 they fly asunder, till at last they are altogether lost. 
 
 We have besides a particular reason for censuring without 
 reserve the errors of this poet: namely, that our age is infected 
 with the same vices with those which procured for Euripides so 
 much favour, if not real respect, from his contemporaries. In our 
 times we have seen a number of plays which, though in substance 
 and form far below those of Euripides, bear yet in so far a re- 
 semblance to them, that they seduce and corrupt the feelings by 
 means of effeminate, and sometimes even tender, emotions, while 
 their general tendency is to produce a true moral licentiousness. 
 
 What I shall say on this subject will not, for the most part, 
 possess even novelty. Although the moderns have not unfre- 
 quently preferred Euripides to his two predecessors, and have 
 unquestionably read, admired, and imitated him much more: 
 whether attracted by the greater affinity of views and sentiments, 
 or led astray by an opinion of Aristotle which they have not un- 
 derstood; it so happens however that many of the ancients, some 
 of them even the contemporaries of Euripides, were of the same 
 opinion with myself. In Anacharsis we find this mixture of 
 praise and censure at least alluded to, though the author softens 
 everything for the sake of his object of showing the Grecian pro- 
 ductions of every description in the most advantageous light. 
 
 We possess some cutting sayings of Sophocles respecting 
 Euripides, though he was so far from being actuated by anything 
 like the jealousy of authorship, that he mourned his death, and, 
 in a piece which was shortly after exhibited, refused to his actors 
 the ornament of the floral crown. I consider myself warranted 
 in viewing the accusation of Plato against the tragic poets, that 
 they gave men too much up to the dominion' of the passions, and 
 rendered them effeminate by putting extravagant lamentations in 
 the mouths of their heroes, as directed against Euripides alone; 
 for with respect to his predecessors the injustice of them would 
 
SO LECTURES ON 
 
 have been universally evident. The derisory attacks of Aristo- 
 phanes are well known, though not sufficiently understood and 
 appreciated. Aristotle bestows on him many a severe censure, 
 and when he calls Euripides the most tragic of poets, he by no 
 means ascribes to him the greatest perfection in the tragic art in 
 general, but merely alludes to the effect which is produced by 
 unfortunate catastrophes; for he immediately adds: " although he 
 does not regulate other things well." The Scholiast of Euripides, 
 too, contains many a short and forcible criticism on particular pieces, 
 among which are perhaps preserved several of the opinions of 
 the Alexandrian critics, those critics of whom Aristarchus, one 
 of the number, from his judgment and acuteness, has had his 
 name handed down to posterity, as a by-word for a literary judge. 
 
 In Euripides we no longer find the essence of the ancient tra- 
 gedy in its pure and unmixed state; its characteristical features 
 are already in part extinguished. We have already placed this 
 essence in the prevailing idea of destiny, in the ideality of the 
 composition, and in the signification of the chorus. 
 
 Euripides inherited, it is true, the idea of destiny from his pre- 
 decessors, and his belief of it was sharpened by the tragic practice; 
 but yet in him fate is seldom the invisible spirit of the whole com- 
 position, the radical thought of the tragic world. We have seen 
 that this idea may be exhibited under severer or milder aspects; 
 that the obscure terror of destiny may, in the connexion of a whole 
 trilogy, be cleared up to the signification of a wise and beneficent 
 providence. Euripides however has drawn it down from the 
 region of the infinite; and inevitable necessity not unfrequently 
 degenerates in him into the caprice of accident. He can no 
 longer therefore give it its proper and peculiar direction, namely, 
 by contrast and opposition, to elevate the moral liberty of man. 
 How few of his pieces turn on the constant struggle with the de- 
 crees of fate, or even on a heroic subjection to them! His char- 
 acters generally suffer because they must, and not because they 
 will. 
 
 The mutual subordination of character and passion to ideal ele- 
 vation, which we find observed in the same order in Sophocles, 
 and in the plastic artists of the Greeks, Euripides has completely 
 reversed. Passion is the principal object with him; his next care 
 is for character, and when these endeavours leave him still any 
 remaining room, he occasionally seeks to connect grandeur and 
 dignity with the more frequent display of amiable attractions. 
 
 It has been already admitted that the persons in tragedy ought 
 not to be all equally exempt from error, as there would then be 
 no opposition among them, and consequently no room for a plot. 
 But Euripides has, as Aristotle observes, frequently painted his 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 81 
 
 characters in black colours without any necessity, as for example, 
 his Menelaus in Orestes. He was warranted by the traditions 
 sanctioned by popular belief, in attributing great crimes to many 
 of the old heroes, but he invented besides many base and paltry 
 traits for them of his own free inclination. It was by no means 
 the object of Euripides to represent the race of heroes as tower- 
 ing above the men of his own age by their gigantic stature; he 
 rather endeavours to fill up, or to build over, the chasm between 
 his contemporaries and that wonderful world of old, and to sur- 
 prise the gods and heroes in their undress, a mode of observa- 
 tion, it is usually said, of which no greatness can stand the test. 
 He introduces his spectators to a sort of familiar acquaintance 
 with them ; he does not draw the supernatural and fabulous into 
 the circle of humanity (which we praised in Sophocles,) but 
 within the limits of imperfect individuality. This is the mean- 
 ing of Sophocles, when he said that he himself painted men as 
 they ought to be, and Euripides as they actually were. Not that 
 his own persons are always represented as models of irreproach- 
 able behaviour; his opinion referred merely to ideal elevation 
 and sweetness in character and manners. It seems as if Euripi- 
 des was always well pleased to be enabled to say to his specta- 
 tors, See! those beings were men, had exactly the same weak- 
 nesses, and acted from the same motives as yourselves, and even 
 the lowest among you. He paints therefore with particular love 
 and complacency the defects and moral failings of his characters, 
 and he even allows them to make a disclosure of them in naive 
 self-confessions. — They are frequently not merely undignified, 
 but they even boast of their imperfections. 
 
 The chorus is for the most part in him an unessential orna- 
 ment: its songs are frequently wholly episodical, without any 
 reference to the action, and more distinguished for brilliancy 
 than for sublimity and true inspiration. "We must" consider 
 the chorus," says Aristotle, "as one of the actors, and as a part 
 of the whole; it must enter into the action: not as in Euripides, 
 but as Sophocles has done." The ancient comic writers enjoy- 
 ed the privilege of allowing the chorus occasionally to address 
 the spectators in its own name; this was called a parabasis, and, 
 as I shall afterwards show, was suitable to the spirit of comedy. 
 Although the practice is by no means tragical, it w*as however, 
 according to the testimony of Julius Pollux, frequently adopted 
 by Euripides in his dramas, who so far forgot himself on some 
 of those occasions, that, in the Danaidas for instance, the chorus, 
 which consisted of females, made use of grammatical inflexions 
 which belonged only to the male sex. 
 
 This poet has thus at the same time destroyed the internal es- 
 
 11 
 
82 LECTURES ON 
 
 sence of tragedy, and sinned against the laws of beauty and pro- 
 portion in its external structure. He generally sacrifices the 
 whole to the effect of particular parts, and in these he is also 
 more ambitious of foreign attractions than of genuine poetical 
 beauty. 
 
 In the accompanying music, he adopted all the innovations 
 invented by Timotheus, and selected those melodies which were 
 most in unison with the effeminacy of his poetry. He proceed- 
 ed in the same manner with his syllabic measures ; his versifica- 
 tion is luxuriant and breaks through every rule. The same di- 
 luted and effeminate character would, on a more profound inves- 
 tigation, be unquestionably found to belong also to the rhythmi 
 of his choral songs. 
 
 On all occasions he exhibits to satiety those charms that are 
 merely of a corporeal nature, which Winkelmann calls a flattery 
 of the coarse external senses; whatever is calculated to excite, to 
 strike, and to produce a strong effect without true worth for the 
 mind and the feelings. He labours for effect in a degree which 
 cannot be allowed to the tragic poet. For example, he hardly 
 ever omits an opportunity of throwing his characters into a sud- 
 den and useless terror ; his aged persons are always complaining 
 of the wants and helplessness of age, and crawl with trembling 
 joints up the ascent from the orchestra to the stage, which fre- 
 quently represented the declivity of a mountain, sighing over 
 the misery of their situation. He is always endeavouring to 
 move, and for the sake of emotion he not only violates probabi- 
 lity but even the connexion of his pieces. He is strong in his 
 pictures of misfortune; but he often claims our compassion, not 
 for the inward agony of the soul, nor for pain which the suffer- 
 ing individual endeavours to overcome, and to bear with manly 
 fortitude, but for the unreserved expression of bodily misery. 
 He is fond of reducing his heroes to the condition of beggars, of 
 allowing them to suffer hunger and want, of exhibiting them 
 with all the external signs of mendicity, and displaying their tat- 
 tered rags, as Aristophanes has so humourously remarked in his 
 Acharnse. 
 
 Euripides was a frequenter of the schools of the philosophers, 
 (he was a scholar of Anaxagoras, and not of Socrates, as many 
 have erroneously stated, having only been connected with the 
 latter by social intercourse;) and he displays a particular vanity 
 in introducing philosophical doctrines on all occasions, in my 
 opinion in a very imperfect manner, as we should not be able to 
 understand these doctrines from him if we were not before ac- 
 quainted with them. He conceives it too vulgar a thing to be- 
 lieve in the gods in the simple manner of the people, and he 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 83 
 
 therefore seizes every opportunity of interspersing something of 
 their allegorical signification, and of giving his spectators to un- 
 derstand that the nature of his own belief was very problematical. 
 We may distinguish in him a twofold character: the poet whose 
 productions were consecrated to a religious solemnity which ex- 
 isted under the protection of religion, and which was therefore 
 under a reciprocal obligation of returning that protection with 
 honour and reverence; and the sophist with his philosophical 
 dicta, who endeavoured to introduce his sceptical opinions and 
 doubts into the fabulous prodigies connected with the religion 
 from which he derived the subjects of his pieces. But while he 
 shakes the groundworks of religion, he acts at the same time 
 the moralist; and for the sake of popularity he applied to the he- 
 roic life, and the heroic ages what could only be suitable to the 
 social relations of his contemporaries. He throws out a multi- 
 tude of moral maxims, many of which he often repeats, and for 
 the most part they are either trite, or fundamentally false. With 
 all this moral ostentation, the aim of his pieces, the general im- 
 pression which the}^ are calculated to produce is sometimes ex- 
 tremely immoral. An anecdote is told of him, that he intro- 
 duced Bellerophon with a silly eulogium on wealth, in which he 
 preferred it to all domestic happiness, and ended with observing, 
 if Aphrodite (who bore the appellation of the golden) shone like 
 gold, she was deserving of the love of mortals; and that the 
 spectators took umbrage at this, raised a loud outcry, and wish- 
 ed to stone both actor and poet. Euripides then sprang forward, 
 and called out: " Wait only till the end, he will be requited ac- 
 cordingly!" In like manner he defended himself against the 
 objection that his Ixion expressed himself in too disgusting and 
 abominable language, by observing that the piece concluded with 
 his being broken on the wheel. But the assistance of poetical 
 justice in punishing the baseness of his characters is not always 
 called in. In some of his pieces the wicked escape altogether 
 untouched. Lies and other infamous practices are openly protect- 
 ed, especially when he can assign for them a supposed noble mo- 
 tive. He has also very much at his command the seductive so- 
 phistry of the passions, by which an appearance can be lent to 
 everything. The following verse in justification of perjury, and 
 in which the reservatio inentalis of the casuists seems to be 
 substantially expressed, is well known: 
 
 The tongue swore, but the sense swore not. 
 
 In the connexion in which this verse is uttered, and on account 
 of which he was so often ridiculed by Aristophanes, there is in- 
 
84 LECTURES ON 
 
 deed a justification; but the formula is nevertheless bad, on ac- 
 count of the possible abuse of its application. Another verse of 
 Euripides: " For the sake of power it is worth while to commit 
 injustice, but in other respects we must be just;" was frequently 
 in the mouth of Caesar, with the like intention of making a bad 
 application of it. 
 
 Euripides was frequently condemned by the ancients for his 
 seductive invitations to the enjoyment of sensual love. Every 
 man must be disgusted when Hecuba, for the sake of inducing 
 Agamemnon to punish Polymestor, reminds him of the pleasures 
 which he has enjoyed in the arms of Cassandra his captive and 
 mistress, according to the laws of the heroic ages: she wishes to 
 purchase the avenging her murdered son with the sanction and 
 humiliating confession of the degradation of her living daughter. 
 He was the first poet who ever thought of making the unbridled 
 passion of a Medea, and the unnatural love of a Phaedra, the 
 principal subject of his dramas, as from the manners of the an- 
 cients we may easily conceive why love, which with them was 
 less honoured by tender feelings, should appear to hold only a 
 subordinate rank in their older tragedies. With all this import- 
 ance which he has communicated to his female parts, he is noto- 
 riously famed for his hatred of women ; and it is impossible to 
 deny that he abounds in passages displaying the weaknesses of 
 the female sex, and the superiority of men, to whom he evident- 
 ly endeavoured by that means to pay court, as though the latter 
 were not the whole of his audience, they yet constituted by far 
 the greater part of it. A cutting saying and an epigram of So- 
 phocles, on this subject, have been preserved, in which he ac- 
 counts for the misogyny of Euripides from his having had am- 
 ple occasion to become acquainted with their powers of seduction 
 by his own illicit inclinations. In the manner in which women 
 are painted by Euripides, we may observe upon the whole a 
 great deal of sensibility, even for the more noble charms of fe- 
 male modesty, but no true respect. 
 
 The substantial freedom with respect to the manner of treating 
 the fables, which was one of the prerogatives of the tragic art, is 
 frequently carried by Euripides to the most licentious extreme. 
 We know that the fables of Hyginus, which differ so essentially 
 from those which are generally received, were partly extracted 
 from his pieces. As he frequently rejected all the circumstances 
 which were generally known, and to which the people" were 
 accustomed, he was reduced to the necessity of explaining in a 
 prologue the situation of things in his drama, and the course 
 which they take. Lessing, in his Dramaturgie, has pronounced 
 a singular enough opinion; he thinks that it is a proof of an 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 85 
 
 advance in the dramatic art, that Euripides gave himself wholly 
 up to the effect of situations, without calculating on the excite- 
 ment of curiosity. But I cannot see why the uncertainty of ex- 
 pectation, amidst the impressions which a dramatic poem pro- 
 duces, should not be allowed a legitimate place in such a work. 
 The objection that a piece will only please in this manner for the 
 first time, because on an acquaintance with it we know the result 
 beforehand, may be easily answered : if the representation is at 
 all powerful, it will always arrest the attention of the spectator in 
 such a manner, that he will forget what he already knew, and 
 be again excited to the same height of expectation. Moreover, 
 these prologues give the commencement of the pieces of Euri- 
 pides a very uniform and monotonous appearance; nothing can 
 have a more awkward effect than for a person to come forward 
 and say, I am so and so; this and that has happened, and the 
 following will still take place. It resembles the labels in the 
 mouths of the figures in old pictures, which could only be ex- 
 cusable in the great simplicity of style in ancient times. But 
 then all the rest ought to correspond, which is by no means the 
 case with Euripides, where the characters always discourse in the 
 latest tone of the then existing manners. Both in his prologues 
 and catastrophes he is exceedingly liberal of insignificant ap- 
 pearances of the gods, who are only elevated above men by the 
 machine in which they are suspended, and whom we should 
 never otherwise suspect for divinities. 
 
 The manner of the ancient tragedians, who combined every- 
 thing in large masses, and exhibited repose and motion distinctly 
 contrasted with each other, was carried by him to an unwarrant- 
 able extreme. At one time, for the sake of giving spirit to his 
 dialogue, he carries the practice observed by his predecessors, of 
 giving a succession of speeches in single verses, to such an immo- 
 derate length, that questions and answers, or objections and re- 
 flections, fly about like arrows, and many of them so unnecessary 
 that the half of these lines might well be spared. At another 
 time he pours himself out in endless speeches, where he endea- 
 vours to give a brilliant display of his oratorical powers in ingeni- 
 ous arguments, or in the excitation of compassion. Many of his 
 scenes have altogether the appearance of a lawsuit, where two 
 persons opposed to each other, with a third for a judge, do not 
 even confine themselves to what their situation requires, but ex- 
 patiate in a wide field, accusing their adversary, and defending 
 themselves with all the turns and involutions which are usual 
 with advocates and sycophants. In this manner the poet endea- 
 vours to make his poetry entertaining to the Athenians, from its 
 resemblance to their favourite daily occupation of conducting, 
 
86 LECTURES ON 
 
 deciding, or at least listening to, lawsuits. Hence Quinctilian 
 expressly recommends him to the young orator, and with great 
 justice, as capable of furnishing him with more instruction than 
 the older tragedians. But such a recommendation is by no means 
 highly honourable to him; for eloquence may no doubt have a 
 place "in the drama when it is suited to the character and the ob- 
 ject of the person who speaks; but if rhetoric supplies the place 
 of the immediate expression of emotion, it ceases to be poetical. 
 The style of Euripides is upon the whole too loose, although 
 he has many happy images and ingenious turns: it has neither 
 the dignity nor the energy of the style of iEschylus, nor the 
 chaste sweetness of that of Sophocles. In his expressions he 
 frequently affects the singular and uncommon, though at other 
 times he becomes too familiar, and the tone of the discourse as- 
 sumes a confidential appearance, and descends from the elevation 
 of the cothurnus to the level ground. In this respect, as well as 
 in the picture of several characteristic peculiarities, bordering on 
 the ludicrous (for instance, the unsuitable behaviour of Pentheus 
 in a female dress, the gluttony of Hercules, and his immoderate 
 claims on the hospitality of Admetus), Euripides was a precursor 
 of the new comedy, to which he had an evident inclination, as 
 he frequently paints the men and manners of his own times under 
 the names of the heroic ages. Hence Menander expressed a 
 most marked admiration for him, and proclaimed himself his 
 scholar; and we have a fragment of Philemon which displays 
 such an extravagant admiration, that it hardly appears to have 
 been seriously meant. " If the dead," he either himself says, or 
 allows one of his characters to say, "were still to have feeling, as 
 some people suppose, I should hang myself for the sake of seeing 
 Euripides." — The opinion of Aristophanes, his contemporary, 
 forms a striking contrast with this adoration of the latter comic 
 authors. Aristophanes persecutes him unceasingly with the 
 utmost bitterness; he seems as if he were appointed to be his 
 constant scourge, that none of his moral or poetical extravagance? 
 might remain unpunished. Although Aristophanes, as a comi< 
 poet, is, generally speaking, in the relation of parody to the tra 
 gedians, yet he never attacks Sophocles, and even where h* 
 takes the part of iEschylus, at which we can hardly help smiling, 
 his reverence for him is still visible, and he takes every oppor- 
 tunity of contrasting his gigantic powers with the petty refine- 
 ment of Euripides. He has exposed the sophistical subtility, 
 the rhetorical and philosophical pretensions, the immorality and 
 seductive effeminacy, and the excitations to undisguised sensuality, 
 of- Euripides, with all the powers of understanding, and with an 
 inexhaustible flow of wit. As the modern critics have generally 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 87 
 
 however considered Aristophanes in no other light than an ex- 
 travagant and libellous farce writer, and have not been able to 
 understand the truths which he veiled under his amusing dis- 
 guises, they have paid little attention to his opinion. 
 
 Notwithstanding these observations, we must never forget that 
 Euripides was still a Grecian, and the contemporary of many of 
 the greatest names of Greece in politics, philosophy, history, and 
 the plastic arts. If, on comparing him with his predecessors, we 
 must rank him far beneath them, he appears still great when 
 placed by the side of many of the moderns. He has a particu- 
 lar strength in portraying the errors of a diseased soul, pursuing 
 even to madness the passions of which it is the slave. He is 
 admirable where the object calls chiefly for emotion, and requires 
 the display of no higher qualities; and he is still more so where 
 pathos and moral beauty are united. Few of his pieces are 
 without particular passages of the most overpowering beauty. It 
 is by no means my intention to deny him the possession of the 
 most astonishing talents; I have only stated that these talents 
 were not united with a mind in which the austerity of moral 
 principles, and the sanctity of religious feelings, were held in the 
 highest honour. 
 
 The relation in which Euripides stood to his two great pre- 
 decessors, may be placed in the clearest light by a comparison of 
 the three pieces which we fortunately possess on the same sub- 
 ject, namely, the avenging murder of Clytemnestra by her son 
 Orestes. 
 
 The scene of the Choephorse of JEschylus is before the royal 
 palace; the grave of Agamemnon appears on the stage. Orestes 
 is seen with his faithful Pylades, and opens the play (which is 
 unfortunately somewhat mutilated at the commencement), at the 
 sepulchre with a prayer to Mercury, and with an invocation to 
 his father, in which he promises to avenge him, and to whom he 
 consecrates a lock. He sees a female train in mourning weeds 
 issue from the palace, who bring a libation to the grave; and, as 
 he thinks he recognizes his sister among them, he retires with 
 Pylades that he may first overhear them. The chorus, which 
 consists of captive Trojan virgins, reveals with mournful gestures 
 the occasion of its mission, namely, a dreadful dream of Clytem- 
 nestra; it adds obscure forebodings of the impending revenge for 
 the bloody crime and bewails its lot in being obliged to serve 
 unworthy superiors. Electra asks the chorus if they mean to 
 fulfil the commission of her hostile mother, or if they are to pour 
 out their offering in silence; and in compliance with their advice, 
 she also offers up a prayer to the subterranean Mercury and the 
 soul of her father, in her own name and that of the absent Orestes, 
 
88 LECTURES ON 
 
 that he may appear and avenge him. In pouring out the offering 
 she joins in the lamentations of the chorus for the departed. She 
 then conjectures, from finding a lock of hair resembling her own 
 in colour, and seeing footsteps near the grave, that her brother has 
 been there; and when she is almost frantic with joy at the thought, 
 her brother steps forward and discovers himself. He soon over- 
 comes her doubts by exhibiting to her a tissue woven by herself: 
 they give themselves up to their joy ; he addresses a prayer to 
 Jupiter, and makes known that Apollo has called on him, under 
 the most dreadful threats of persecution from the furies of his 
 father, to destroy those who were guilty of his death in the same 
 manner in which he was destroyed, namely by guile and cunning. 
 We have now hymns on the part of the chorus and Electra ; which 
 consist of prayers to her father's shade and the subterranean divi- 
 nities, and a recapitulation of the motives for the deed, especially 
 those derived from the death of Agamemnon. Orestes inquires 
 into the vision which induced Clytemnestra to offer the libation, 
 and hears that she dreamt that she gave her breast to a dragon in 
 her son's cradle, and suckled it with her blood. He now resolves 
 to become the dragon, and announces more distinctly his intention 
 of stealing into the house as a disguised stranger, and attacking 
 both her and ./Egisthus by surprise. With this view he with- 
 draws along with Pylades. The subject of the next choral hymn 
 is the boundless audacity of men in general, and especially of 
 women in their illicit passions, confirmed by the most terrible 
 mythical examples,, and the avenging justice which alw r ays at last 
 overtakes them. Orestes returns as a stranger with Pylades, and 
 desires admission into the palace. Clytemnestra comes out, and 
 when she learns from him the death of Orestes, at which Electra 
 assumes a feigned grief, she invites him to enter and partake of 
 their hospitality. After a short prayer of the chorus, the nurse 
 comes and mourns her foster child ; the chorus inspires her with 
 some hopes of his being still in life, and advises her to contrive 
 to bring iEgisthus to Clytemnestra without his body-guard. On 
 the approaching aspect of danger, the chorus proffers prayers to 
 Jupiter and Mercury for the success of the deed. iEgisthus 
 enters in conversation with the messenger, can hardly allow him- 
 self to be persuaded of the truth of the joyful news of the death 
 of Orestes, and hastens into the house for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining it, from whence, after a short prayer of the chorus, we 
 hear the cries of the murdered. A servant rushes out, and gives 
 the alarm at the door of the female dwelling, to warn Clytemnes- 
 tra. She hears it, comes forward, and demands an axe to defend 
 herself; but as Orestes rushes instantaneously on her with the 
 bloody sword, her courage fails her, and she holds up to him the 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 89 
 
 maternal breast in the most moving manner. Hesitating in his 
 purpose, he asks the counsel of Py lades, who in a few lines ex- 
 horts him by the most cogent reasons to persist; after an alterna- 
 tion of accusation and defence, he pursues her into the house, that 
 he may sacrifice her beside the body of JEgisthus. The chorus 
 rejoices in a grave hymn at the completion of the retaliation. 
 The great door of the palace opens, and exhibits in the inside the 
 two dead bodies on one bed. Orestes orders the servants to un- 
 fold the capacious vestment in which his father was entangled 
 when he was slain, that it may be seen by all the beholders; the 
 chorus recognize the bloody spots in it, and mourn afresh the 
 murder of Agamemnon. Orestes, while he feels that his mind 
 is becoming confused, lays hold of an opportunity of justifying 
 himself; he declares his intention of repairing to Delphi to purify 
 himself from the bloody deed, and flies with terror from the furies 
 of his mother, whom the chorus does not perceive, but conceives 
 to be a mere phantom of his imagination, but who nevertheless 
 will no longer allow him any repose. The chorus concludes 
 with a reflection on the threefold scene of murder, in the royal 
 palace, since the repast of Thyestes. 
 
 The scene of the Electra of Sophocles is also laid before the 
 palace, but does not contain the grave of Agamemnon. At break 
 of day Pylades, Orestes, and the guardian by whom he was pre- 
 served when his father was slain, enter the stage as arriving from 
 another country. The tutor who acts as his guide commences 
 with a description of his native city, and he is answered by Ores- 
 tes who mentions the commission of Apollo, and the manner in 
 which he intends to carry it into execution, after which the young 
 man puts up a prayer to his domestic gods and his father's house. 
 Electra is heard complaining within; Orestes is desirous of greet- 
 ing her without delay, but the old man leads him away to per- 
 form a sacrifice at the grave of his father. Electra then appears, 
 and pours out her sorrow in a pathetic address to heaven, and her 
 unconquerable desire of revenge in a prayer to the infernal deities. 
 The chorus, which consists of native virgins, endeavours to con- 
 sole her; and, in an interchange of hymns and conversation, Elec- 
 tra discloses her deep sorrow, the ignominy and oppression under 
 which she suffers, and her hopelessness from the delay of Orestes, 
 whom she has frequently admonished; and she turns a deaf ear 
 to all the grounds of consolation adduced by the chorus. Chry- 
 sothemis, the youngest daughter of Clytemnestra, whose yield- 
 ingness of disposition naturally renders her the favourite of her 
 mother, approaches with a mortuary offering which she is carry- 
 ing to the grave of her father. An altercation arises between the 
 two sisters respecting their difference of sentiment, and Chryso- 
 
 12 
 
90 LECTURES ON 
 
 themis mentions to Electra that JEgisthus, whom she sets at de- 
 fiance, and who is at that time absent in the country, has deter- 
 mined to adopt the most severe measures towards her. She then 
 learns that Clytemnestra dreamt of the return of Agamemnon to 
 life, of his having planted his sceptre in the ground on which the 
 house stood, which grew up to a tree that overshadowed the 
 whole land; and, alarmed at this, that she has commissioned 
 Chrysothemis to carry an oblation to his grave. Electra counsels 
 her not to execute the commands of her audacious mother, but to 
 put up a prayer for herself and her sister, and for the return of 
 Orestes to revenge her father, when she reaches the grave; she 
 adds to the oblation her own girdle and a lock of her hair. 
 Chrysothemis goes off, promising obedience to her wishes. The 
 chorus predicts from the dream, that retaliation is at hand, and 
 connects the crimes in the house of Pelops, with the first enormity 
 committed by that ancestor. Clytemnestra rebukes her daughter, 
 against whom however she is milder than usual, probably from 
 the effect of the dream; she defends her murder of Agamemnon, 
 Electra condemns her for it, but yet no violent altercation takes 
 place. Clytemnestra then proffers a prayer at the altar before 
 the house to Apollo for health and long life, and in secret for the 
 death of her son. The guardian of Orestes arrives, and, as the 
 messenger of a Phocean friend, announces the death of Orestes, 
 and minutely enumerates all the circumstances which attended 
 his being killed in a chariot-race at the Pythian games. Clytem- 
 nestra can scarcely conceal her triumphant joy, although she is 
 at first visited by the feelings of a mother, and she invites the 
 messenger to partake their hospitality. Electra, in affecting 
 speeches and hymns, gives herself up to her grief, and the chorus 
 in vain endeavours to console her. Chrysothemis returns from 
 the grave, full of joy in the assurance that Orestes is in the vicini- 
 ty: she has found his lock of hair, his libation, and garland. The 
 despair of Electra is now renewed; she recounts to her sister the 
 gloomy relation of the supposed messenger, and exhorts her, as 
 all their hopes are at an end, to join in the daring deed of destroy- 
 ing iEgisthus, a determination which Chrysothemis, who does 
 not possess resolution enough, rejects as foolish; and after a violent 
 altercation she enters the house. The chorus now bewails Elec- 
 tra, who is thus left altogether destitute. Orestes returns with 
 Pylades and several servants bearing an urn with the pretended 
 ashes of the deceased. Electra supplicates him for the urn, and 
 laments over it in the most affecting language, which agitates 
 Orestes to such a degree that he can no longer conceal himself: 
 after some preparation he discloses himself to her, and confirms 
 his account by the production of the seal-ring of their father. She 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 91 
 
 gives expression to her boundless joy in speeches and odes, till 
 the guardian comes out, and reprimands both of them for their 
 want of consideration. Electra with some difficulty recognizes 
 in him the faithful servant to whom she had entrusted the care of 
 Orestes, and expresses her gratitude to him. At the suggestion 
 of the guardian, Orestes and Pylades accompany him with all 
 speed into the house, that they may surprise Clytemnestra while 
 still alone. Electra offers up a prayer for them to Apollo; the 
 choral ode announces the moment of retaliation. We hear in the 
 house the cries of the affrighted Clytemnestra, her short prayer, 
 her wailings, when she feels herself wounded. Electra from 
 without stimulates Orestes to complete the deed, and he comes out 
 with bloody hands; as the chorus however sees iEgisthus ad- 
 vancing, he re-enters the house in haste for the purpose of sur- 
 prising him. iEgisthus inquires into the death of Orestes, and 
 is led to believe from the ambiguous language of Electra that his 
 corpse is in the palace. He commands all the gates to be thrown 
 open, immediately, for the purpose of convincing those inhabitants 
 who yielded obedience with reluctance to his sovereignty, that 
 they had no longer any hopes in Orestes. The middle entrance 
 opens, and exhibits in the interior of the palace a body lying on 
 the bed covered over: Orestes stands beside the body, and invites 
 iEgisthus to uncover it; and he now beholds the bloody corpse 
 of Clytemnestra, and concludes himself lost beyond remedy. He 
 requests to be allowed to speak, but this is opposed by Electra. 
 Orestes constrains him to enter the house, that he may kill him 
 on the very spot where his own father was murdered. 
 
 The scene of the Electra of Euripides is not in Mycenae, but 
 on the borders of the territory of Argos, in the open country, and 
 before a solitary and miserable cot. The owner, an old country- 
 man, comes out and relates in a prologue to the spectators the 
 concerns of the royal house, as already in part related, with the 
 addition however, that not contented with treating Electra with 
 ignominy, and leaving her in a state of celibacy, they had forced 
 her to marry beneath her rank, and to accept of him for a hus- 
 band: the motives for this proceeding, as stated by him, are sin- 
 gular enough; he affirms however that he entertains too much 
 respect for her to reduce her to the humiliation of becoming in 
 reality his wife. — They live therefore in a virgin marriage. 
 Electra comes before it is yet break of day, bearing a water pit- 
 cher upon her head, and with her hair close cut in the servile 
 manner: her husband entreats her not to torment herself with 
 labours like these to which she had not been accustomed, but she 
 will not be withheld from the discharge of her duty as the mis- 
 
92 LECTURES ON 
 
 tress of a house; and both separate, he to his field-labours, and 
 she to her occupations. Orestes now enters with Pylades, and 
 discloses in a speech to him, that he had already sacrificed at the 
 grave of his father, but durst not enter the town, and that he 
 wished to discover his married sister, whom he knew to dwell 
 somewhere at hand on the frontiers, that he might learn from 
 her the state of affairs. He sees Electra approach with the water 
 pitcher, and retires. In an ode she laments her own fate and 
 that of her father. The chorus, consisting of rustic virgins, 
 makes its appearance, and exhorts her to take part in a festival 
 of Juno, which she however in her poverty and depression, 
 pointing to her ragged clothes, will not consent to. The chorus 
 offer to lend her their festal ornaments, but she still refuses. She 
 perceives Orestes and Pylades in their hiding-place, takes them 
 for robbers, and wishes to escape into the house; when Orestes 
 steps forward and prevents her, she imagines he intends to mur- 
 der her; he tranquillizes her, and communicates the news of 
 Orestes being in life. On this he inquires into her situation and 
 the spectators are again refreshed with an account of the whole 
 circumstances. Orestes still restrains from disclosing himself, 
 promises however to communicate any message from Electra to 
 her brother, and testifies such an interest in her situation as might 
 be expected from a stranger. The chorus on this occasion be- 
 comes impatient to learn something from the city; and Electra 
 after describing her own distress, paints the luxury and arro- 
 gance of her mother and iEgisthus, who amuse themselves with 
 coursing over Agamemnon's grave, and throwing stones at it. 
 The peasant returns from labour, and finds it rather indecorous 
 that his wife should be prating with young men, but when he 
 hears that they bring news of Orestes, he invites them in a friend- 
 ly manner into his house. Orestes, on witnessing the behaviour 
 of the worthy man, makes the reflection that the most respecta- 
 ble people are frequently to be found in low stations, and in 
 lowly garb. Electra upbraids her husband on account of the in- 
 vitation, as he knew they had nothing in the house ; he is of 
 opinion that the strangers will be satisfied with what he has, that 
 a good housewife can always make the most of things, and that 
 they have at least more than a day's provisions. She despatches 
 him to the old guardian and deliverer of Orestes, who lives in 
 the country beside them, that he may come and bring some- 
 thing with him to entertain the strangers. The peasant, as he 
 leaves them, utters sentences respecting riches and moderation. 
 The chorus soar in an ode to the expedition of the Greeks to 
 Troy, describe at great length the figures of a shield, which 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 93 
 
 Achilles received from Thetis, and conclude with expressing a 
 wish that Clytemnestra may be punished for her audacious 
 crime. 
 
 The old guardian, who with no small difficulty mounts up to 
 the house, brings Electra a lamb, a cheese, and some wine; he 
 then begins to weep, and does not fail to wipe his eyes with his 
 tattered garments. To the questions of Electra he answers, that 
 at the grave of Agamemnon he found traces of an oblation and a 
 lock of hair, and thence he conjectured that Orestes had been 
 there. We have then an allusion to the means which in iEschy- 
 lus are made to lead to the discovery, the resemblance of the 
 locks, the print of the feet, and the tissue, with a refutation of 
 them. The probability of this part of the drama of iEschylus 
 may perhaps admit of justification, and at all events we are dis- 
 posed to overlook it; but the express reference to another repre- 
 sentation of the same subject, is the most foreign and destructive 
 to genuine poetry of all measures that can possibly be conceived. 
 The guests come out; the old man considers Orestes with atten- 
 tion, recognizes him, and convinces Electra by a scar above his 
 eyebrow which he received from a fall (a most noble invention, 
 which he substitutes in place of that of iEschylus,) that he is her 
 brother; they embrace one another, and give themselves up to 
 their joy during a short choral ode. In a long dialogue, Orestes, 
 the old man, and Electra, form a plan for the execution of the 
 deed. The old man informs them that iEgisthus is at present 
 in the country sacrificing to the nymphs, and there Orestes re- 
 solves to steal as a guest, and to fall on him. Clytemnestra, from 
 a dread of the unpleasant language which she might be obliged 
 to hear, has not accompanied her husband; and Electra under- 
 takes to entice her mother to make her appearance, by the false 
 report of her being in child-bed. The brother and sister now 
 join in prayers to the gods for a successful issue of their plan. 
 Electra declares that she will put an end to her existence if it 
 fails, and that she will keep a sword in readiness for that pur- 
 pose. The old man goes off with Orestes to conduct him to 
 iEgisthus, and afterwards to repair to Clytemnestra. The cho- 
 rus sings the golden ram, which Thyestes, by the assistance of 
 the faithless wife of Atreus, was enabled to carry off from him, 
 and the repast of his own children, with which he was punished 
 in return; a sight at which the sun turned aside from his course; 
 but this circumstance, however, the chorus very wisely adds, 
 that it was very much inclined to call in question. Groans and 
 tumultuous voices are heard at a distance; Electra conceives that 
 her brother has been overcome, and determines on killing her- 
 self. But immediately a messenger arrives, who gives a long- 
 
91 LECTURES ON 
 
 winded account of the destruction of iEgisthus, interlarded with 
 many a joke. Amidst the rejoicings of the chorus, Electra crowns 
 her brother with flowers, who holds the head of iEgisthus by the 
 hair in his hands. She in a long speech upbraids this head with 
 its follies and crimes, and among other things observes to it: no 
 man will ever thrive who marries a woman with whom he for- 
 merly lived in illicit intercourse ; that it is indecorous when a 
 woman obtains the mastery in a house, &c. Clytemnestra is 
 seen to approach; Orestes begins to have scruples of conscience 
 respecting his intention of murdering his mother, and the pro- 
 priety of obeying the oracle, but yields to the arguments of Elec- 
 tra, and agrees to execute his purpose within the house. The 
 queen arrives drawn in a chariot sumptuously hung with tapestry, 
 and surrounded by Trojan slaves; Electra wishes to assist her in 
 alighting, but this she refuses. She then urges the sacrifice of 
 Iphigenia as a justification of her conduct towards Agamemnon, 
 and calls even upon her daughter to state her reasons against the 
 act, that an opportunity may be given to the latter of delivering 
 a subtle discourse, in which, among other things, she reproaches 
 her mother with having, during the absence of Agamemnon, sat 
 too much before her glass, and paid greater attention to her dress 
 than was proper. Clytemnestra is not angry, although her daugh- 
 ter does not hesitate to announce the intention of murdering her 
 if possible; she makes inquiries respecting the child-birth, and 
 enters the hut that she may perform the sacrifice of purification. 
 Electra accompanies her with a speech of derision. On this the 
 chorus begins an ode on the retaliation: the cries of Clytemnes- 
 tra are heard, and the brother and sister come out stained with 
 blood. They are full of repentance and despair at the deed w r hich 
 they have committed, become agitated by a repetition of the mi- 
 serable language and gestures of their mother, Orestes determines 
 on flight, and Electra asks: who will now take her in marriage? 
 Castor and Pollux, their uncles, appear in the air, abuse Apollo 
 on account of his oracle, command Orestes to secure himself from 
 the furies by submission to the tribunal of the Areopagus, and 
 predict a number of events which will happen to him. They 
 then establish a marriage between Electra and Pylades; her first 
 husband is to go to Phocis, where he is to be richly provided for. 
 After a renewal of their lamentations, the brother and sister take 
 leave of one another for life, and the piece concludes. 
 
 We easily perceive that iEschylus has viewed the subject in 
 its most terrible aspect, and drawn it within the dominion of the 
 dark divinities, into which he so willingly entered. The grave 
 of Agamemnon is the obscure point, from which the vindictory 
 retaliation of Agamemnon issues; his discontented shade, the soul 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 95 
 
 of the whole poem. The external imperfection so easily remark- 
 ed, that the piece remains too long at the same point, without any- 
 perceptible progress, is atoned for by a true internal perfection: 
 for it is the boding stillness of expectation before a storm or an 
 earthquake. It is true the prayers are sometimes repeated, but 
 their number produces the impression of a great and unheard of 
 purpose, for which human strength and human motives are not 
 alone sufficient. In the murder of Clytemnestra, and her heart- 
 rending appeal, the poet has gone to the very extremity of what 
 may be allowed to feeling, without taking the part of the criminal. 
 As the crime which is to be punished is from the very beginning 
 kept in view by the grave, it is brought still nearer to our minds 
 towards the conclusion, by the exhibition of the vestment: Aga- 
 memnon, after being fully avenged, is as it were still murdered 
 in representation. The flight of Orestes betrays no unsuitable 
 repentance or weakness, but is merely the inevitable tribute which 
 he is forced to pay to offended nature. 
 
 It is only necessary to draw the attention generally to the ad- 
 mirable arrangement of Sophocles. What a beautiful introduc- 
 tion precedes, in him, the mission of the queen to the grave, 
 with which iEschylus at once begins! How beautifully he has 
 adorned the relation of the Pythian games! What wonderful judg- 
 ment in the prolongation of the pathos of Electra: first her general 
 lamentations, then the hopes which she derives from the dream, 
 the annihilation of these hopes by the news of the death, the new 
 and rejected hopes of Chrysothemis, and lastly her wailings over 
 the urn. The heroism of Electra is beautifully contrasted with 
 the irresolution of her sister. The poet has given altogether a 
 new turn to the subject, by making Electra the chief object of our 
 interest. In this noble pair he has given to the female an un* 
 shaken constancy in true and noble sentiments, and the heroism 
 of suffering, and to the male he has imparted all the becoming 
 energy of a ) r oung hero. The circumspection and experience of 
 the old man are again opposed to their youthful warmth; that 
 Pylades in the works of both poets is silent, is a proof how much 
 in ancient art everything unnecessary and superfluous was held 
 in aversion. 
 
 But that which more particularly characterizes the tragedy of 
 Sophocles, is the celestial purity, the fresh breath of life and 
 youth, which is diffused over so dreadful a subject. The bright 
 divinity Apollo, who commanded the deed, appears to have shed 
 his influence over it; even the break of day at the commence- 
 ment is significant. The grave, and the world of shadows are 
 kept in the distance: what in iEsehylus is effected by the spirit 
 of the murdered monarch, proceeds here from the mind of the 
 
96 LECTURES ON 
 
 still existing Electra, which is endowed with an equal capacity 
 for inextinguishable hatred and ardent love. The disposition to 
 avoid everything dark and ominous, is remarkable even in the 
 very first speech of Orestes, when he says it does not grieve him 
 to be reputed dead, when he feels himself alive in the fulness of 
 health and strength. He is neither beset with doubts nor stings 
 of conscience, either before or after the deed, so that here the 
 purpose is more determined than in iEschylus; and the appalling 
 scene with JEgisthus, and the reserving him for an ignominious 
 execution, is conceived with more austerity than in the other 
 drama. The nocturnal vision of Clytemnestra affords the most 
 striking image of the relation which the two poets bear to each 
 other: both are equally suitable, significant, and ominous; that 
 of iEschylus is grander, but appalling to the senses, that of So- 
 phocles majestically beautiful, even in terror. 
 
 The piece of Euripides affords a singular example of poetic, or 
 rather unpoetic, perversity; we should never have done, were 
 we to attempt to point out all the improbable and unnecessary 
 circumstances, and all the contradictions, which are contained in 
 it. Why, for instance, does Orestes fruitlessly torment his sister 
 so long without disclosing himself? The poet has an easy task, 
 when he has nothing more to do than to throw aside whatever 
 stands in his way, as in the case of the peasant, of whom, after 
 the departure of the guardian, we have no farther account. For 
 the sake of appearing original, and from an idea, that to make 
 Orestes kill the king and queen in the middle of their capital was 
 not consistent with probability, Euripides has involved himself 
 in much greater improbabilities. Whatever there is of tragical 
 in his drama is not his own, but belongs either to the fable or the 
 labour of his predecessors. It becomes no tragedy in his hands, 
 but is wrought down to a family picture, in the modern significa- 
 tion of the word. The effect produced by the poverty of Elec- 
 tra is pitiful in the extreme: the poet has betrayed his secret in 
 the contentment with which she bears her wretchedness. All 
 the preparations for the deed are marked by levity, and a want 
 of internal conviction: it is downright torture to exhibit iEgis- 
 thus displaying a good-natured hospitality, and Clytemnestra 
 sympathizing with her daughter, that even compassion may be 
 excited in their favour; the deed, immediately after the execu- 
 tion, is again extinguished by the most weak repentance, a re- 
 pentance which arises from no moral feeling, but merely from a 
 commotion of the senses. I shall say nothing of his abuse of the 
 oracle of Delphi. As it has destroyed the whole drama, I can- 
 not see why Euripides should have written it, except to provide 
 a fortunate marriage for Electra, and to reward the peasant for 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 97 
 
 his forbearance. I could wish that the marriage of Pylades had 
 been completed, and that a sum of money had been paid to the 
 peasant; and then everything would have ended to the satisfac- 
 tion of the spectators, as in an ordinary comedy. 
 
 That I may not however appear unjust, I must confess that the 
 Electra is perhaps the very worst of his whole pieces. Was it 
 the rage for novelty that led him into such an error? He was 
 truly to be pitied for having been preceded in the same subject 
 by two such men as Sophocles and iEschylus. But who com- 
 pelled him to measure his powers with them, and to think even 
 of writing an Electra? 
 
 We can give only a short account of some of the great num- 
 ber of pieces of Euripides, which have come down to us. 
 
 On the score of beautiful morality, there is none of them per- 
 haps so deserving of praise as Alceste. Her determination to 
 die, and the farewell which she takes of her husband and children, 
 are represented with the most overpowering pathos. His mo- 
 deration in not allowing the heroine to speak on being brought 
 back from the world below, that he might not draw aside the 
 mysterious veil from the condition of the dead is deserving of 
 high praise. Admetus it is true, and more especially his father, 
 sink too much in our estimation from their selfish love of life; 
 and Hercules appears, at first, coarse even to rudeness, after- 
 wards more noble and worthy of himself, and at last jovial, when, 
 for the sake of the joke, he introduces to Admetus his veiled wife 
 as a new bride. 
 
 Iphigenia in Jiulis is a subject peculiarly suited to the incli- 
 nations and powers of Euripides; the object here is to excite a 
 tender emotion for the innocent and unsuspecting youth of the 
 heroine: but Iphigenia is still far from being an Antigone. 
 Aristotle has already remarked that the character is not sustained: 
 "Iphigenia, when she implores her life, by no means resembles 
 the Iphigenia who afterwards yields herself up a willing sacrifice. " 
 
 Ion is also one of his most delightful pieces, on account of the 
 pictures of innocence and priestly sanctity in the boy whose 
 name it bears. In the course of the plot, it is true, there are not 
 a few improbabilities, deficiencies, and repetitions; a'nd the catas- 
 trophe produced by a falsehood, in which both gods and men 
 unite against Xuthus, can hardly be satisfactory to our feelings. 
 
 In the representation of female passions, and the errors of a 
 diseased mind, the Phaedra and Medea have been deservedly 
 praised. The former of these pieces dazzles us by the sublime 
 and beautiful heroism of Hipjjolytus; and it is also deserving of 
 the highest recommendation on account of the observation of pro- 
 priety and moral strictness, in a subject of so critical a nature. 
 
 13 
 
K LECTURES ON 
 
 This liowever is not so much the merit of the poet as the result 
 of the delicacy of feeling of his contemporaries; for the Hippo- 
 lyhts which we possess, according to the testimony of the scho- 
 liast, is an improvement upon an earlier one, in which there 
 were traits of a repulsive and censurable nature.* 
 
 The commencement of Medea is admirable; her desperate 
 situation is depicted in the conversation between her nurse and 
 the tutor of her children, and in her own heart-rending wailings 
 behind the scene. As soon however as she makes her appear- 
 ance, the poet takes care to cool our agitation by the number of 
 general and common-place reflections which he puts into her 
 mouth. She appears still less deserving of our respect in the 
 scene with j^Egeus, in which, having in contemplation a terrible 
 revenge on Jason, she first secures to herself a place of refuge, 
 and seems almost on the point of hinting at a new alliance. This 
 is very unlike the daring criminal who subjected the powers of 
 nature to a subserviency to her ungovernable passions, and who 
 flew from land to land like a desolating meteor; — the Medea who, 
 abandoned by all the w T orld, found sufficient resources in her- 
 self. Nothing but a predilection for Athenian antiquities could 
 induce Euripides to adopt this cold substitution. He would 
 otherwise have painted, in the most vivid colours, the union in 
 the same person of the powerful enchantress and the weak wo- 
 man, in her sexual relations. As it is we are keenly affected by 
 the display of maternal tenderness in the midst of the prepara- 
 tions for the cruel deed. She announces however her purpose 
 much too soon, and in too definite a manner, instead of allowing 
 us to guess at her intentions from the ominous expressions which 
 might escape from a dark and perturbed mind. When she ex- 
 ecutes it, the impulse of revenge on Jason ought to have been 
 already sufficiently gratified by the ignominious death of his 
 young wife and her father; and the new motive that Jason would 
 infallibly murder the children, and that she must therefore an- 
 ticipate him, will by no means bear examination: for she could 
 as easily have saved the living children with herself, as have 
 carried off their dead bodies in the dragon-chariot. Still however 
 this may perhaps be justified by the perturbation of mind into 
 which she was plunged by the completion of the crime. 
 
 * The learned and acute Brunck, without citing any authority, or the coinci- 
 dence of a fragment in corroboration, says that Seneca in his Hippolytus fol- 
 lowed the plan of the first of Euripides which was called the Veiled Hippoly- 
 tus. — How far this was mere conjecture I cannot say, but yet I should be in- 
 clined to doubt whether Euripides, even in the drama which was censured, 
 admitted the scene of the declaration of love, which Racine however has not 
 hesitated to adopt from Seneca into his Phsßdra. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 99 
 
 Such a picture of universal sorrow, of the fall of flourishing 
 families and states from the greatest glory to the lowest necessity, 
 and even to entire annihilation, as that which is exhibited in the 
 Troades, might obtain for Euripides, from Aristotle, the name 
 of the most tragic of poets. The conclusion, when the captive 
 women, allotted to their different masters, leave Troy in flames 
 behind them, and proceed towards the ships, is truly grand. It 
 is impossible however for a piece to have less action, in the ener- 
 getical sense of the word: it is a series of situations and events 
 which have no other connexion than that they are all derived from 
 the conquest of Troy, but they have in no respect a common aim. 
 The accumulation of helpless suffering, without even an opposi- 
 tion of sentiment, at last wearies us, and exhausts our compassion. 
 The greater the effort to avert a calamity, the greater the impres- 
 sion it afterwards produces, when it bursts through the restraint. 
 But when so little concern is shown, as is here the case with 
 Astyanax, for the speech of Talthybius himself does not betray 
 the slightest attempt to save him, the spectator soon acquiesces in 
 like manner. In this way Euripides frequently fails. In the 
 uninterrupted demands on our compassion in the piece, the 
 pathos is not duly economized, and gradually heightened; for 
 instance, the lamentation of Andromache for her living son is 
 much more heart-rending than that of Hecuba for her son that is 
 dead. The effect of the latter is however supported by the 
 aspect of a small corse in the shield of Hector. Much was cal- 
 culated on the visual attractions of the piece: hence Helen ap- 
 pears splendidly dressed for the sake of contrast with the cap- 
 tive slaves, Andromache is mounted on a chariot laden with 
 spoils; and I doubt not but that, at the conclusion, the whole 
 decorations were exhibited in flames. The trial of Helen in- 
 terrupts our compassion by an idle altercation, which ends in 
 nothing; for notwithstanding the accusation of Hecuba, Mene- 
 laus abides by the resolution which he had before formed. The 
 defence of Helen may be considered as capable of affording nearly 
 the same degree of entertainment which we derive from the 
 sophistical eulogium of Isocrates in her favour. 
 
 It was not enough for Euripides to have represented Hecuba 
 throughout a whole piece in sackcloth and ashes, and pouring out 
 her lamentations; he has still introduced her as the principal 
 figure in another tragedy, which bears her name. The two ac- 
 tions of this piece, the sacrifice of Polyxena, and the revenge of 
 Polymestor, on account of the murder of Polydorus, have nothing 
 in common with each other but their connexion with Hecuba. 
 The first half possesses great beauties of the kind in which 
 Euripides is chiefly successful: pictures of tender youth, female 
 
100 LECTURES ON 
 
 innocence, and noble resignation to an early and violent death. 
 A human sacrifice, the triumph of barbaric superstition, is re- 
 presented as executed, suffered, and beheld, with that 'Hellenism 
 of feeling, which among the Greeks effected at so early a period 
 the abolition of such sacrifices. But the second half destroys 
 these soft impressions in a highly repulsive manner. It is filled 
 with the revengeful artifices of Hecuba; the blind avarice of 
 Polymestor, and the paltry politics of Agamemnon, who dares 
 not venture on calling the Thracian king to account, but who 
 nevertheless delivers him into the hands of his captive women. 
 Neither is it very suitable that Hecuba, advanced in years, bereft 
 of strength, and overwhelmed with sorrow, should display so 
 much presence of mind in the execution of her revenge, and 
 such a command of her tongue in her accusation and her derision 
 of Polymestor. 
 
 We have another example of two distinct and separate actions 
 in the same tragedy, the Raging Hercules. The first is the op- 
 pression of his family during his absence, and their deliverance 
 through his return; the second, his repentance after the sudden 
 madness, during which he murdered his wife and children. The 
 two actions follow, but by no means arise out of one another. 
 
 The Phmnissde is rich in tragical events, in the common ac- 
 ceptation of the word: the son of Creon, to save the town, precipi- 
 tates himself from the walls; Eteocles and Polynices perish by 
 the hands of each other ; Jocasta falls by her own hand over 
 their dead bodies; the Argives who advance against Thebes are 
 destroyed in battle; Polynices remains uninterred; and lastly, 
 (Edipus and Antigone are driven out to banishment. — After this 
 enumeration, the scholiast remarks the arbitrary manner in which 
 the poet has proceeded. "This drama," says he, "is beautiful 
 in theatrical representation, because it is full of foreign incidents. 
 Antigone looking down from the walls has nothing to do with 
 the action, and Polynices, under the protection of a cessation of 
 hostilities, enters the town without any effect being thereby pro- 
 duced. Among these superfluities, the addition of the exiled 
 (Edipus, with a loquacious ode, is pre-eminently without an ob- 
 ject. " This is a severe sentence, but it is just. 
 
 The scholiast on Orestes is not more lenient: "The piece is 
 one of those which produce a great effect on the stage, but which 
 is extremely defective in the characters ; for, with the exception 
 of Pylades, all the rest are worth nothing." Moreover, " It has 
 a catastrophe more suitable to comedy than tragedy ." This 
 drama begins indeed in the most agitating manner. Orestes, af- 
 ter the murder of his mother, is represented lying on his bed, 
 afflicted with anguish of soul and delirium; Electra sits at his 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 101 
 
 feet, and she and the chorus remain in trembling expectation of 
 his awaking. Afterwards however everything takes a perverse 
 turn, and ends with the most forced theatrical contrivances. 
 
 The piece of Iphigenia in Taurus, in which the fate of 
 Orestes is still further followed out, appears less wild and extra- 
 vagant, but it seldom rises above mediocrity in the representa- 
 tion either of character or passion. The mutual recognition of 
 brother and sister, after such adventures and actions, when Iphi- 
 genia, who formerly herself trembled at the bloody altar, was on 
 the point of yielding up her brother to a similar fate, does not 
 however produce more than a transient emotion. The flight of 
 Orestes and his sister is not highly calculated to excite our inte- 
 rest: the artifice by which it is effected by Iphigenia is willingly 
 credited by Thoas, who does not attempt to give any opposition, 
 till both are safe, and then he is reduced to silence by an ordi- 
 nary appearance of the gods towards the conclusion. This means 
 has been so used and abused by Euripides, that of his eighteen 
 tragedies, in nine of them a divinity descends for the full unra- 
 veling of the catastrophe. 
 
 In Andromache Orestes makes his appearance for the fourth 
 time. The scholiast, in whose opinions we think that we can 
 generally recognize the sentiments of the most important of an- 
 cient critics, declares this a piece of the second rank in which 
 he can only praise single scenes. Among those which Racine has 
 adopted as the foundation of his free imitations, we can have no 
 difficulty in recognizing the very worst parts of the work, and 
 therefore the French critics have an easy victory in their en- 
 deavours to depreciate the Grecian predecessor, from whom Ra- 
 cine has in fact derived little more than the first suggestion of 
 his tragedy. 
 
 The Bacchse represent the infectious and tumultuous inspira- 
 tion of the worship of Bacchus, with great sensual power and 
 vividness of conception. The obstinate disbelief of Pentheus, his 
 blindness, and dreadful punishment by the hands of his own mo- 
 ther, form a bold picture. The effect on the stage must be extra- 
 ordinary. — Imagine, only, a chorus with flying and dishevelled 
 hair and dresses, tambourines, cymbals, &c. in their hands, like 
 the Bacchantae on bas-reliefs, raving up and down the orchestra, 
 and executing their inspired dances amidst tumultuous music, 
 which was altogether unusual, as the choral odes were generally 
 delivered with a solemn step, and without any other accompani- 
 ment than a flute. Here the luxuriance of ornament, which Eu- 
 ripides always affects, was for once in its proper place. When 
 therefore several of the modern critics attempt to depreciate this 
 piece, and to assign to it a very low rank, they do not seem to 
 me to know what they themselves would wish. I cannot help 
 
102 LECTURES ON 
 
 admiring in the composition of this piece, the harmony and unity 
 which we so seldom observe in Euripides, the abstinence from 
 everything foreign to the subject, so that all the effects and all 
 the motives flow from one source, and contribute to one object. 
 After Hippolytus, I should be inclined to assign the first place 
 to this among all the remaining works of Euripides. 
 
 The Heraclidae and the Supplices are true occasional trage- 
 dies, and could only be successful from their flattery of the 
 Athenians. They celebrate two ancient heroic deeds of Athens, 
 on which the eulogistic orator, Isocrates, who always mixed up 
 the fabulous with the historical, lays an astonishingly great stress : 
 the protection of the children of Hercules, the ancestors of the 
 Lacedemonian kings, from the persecution of Eurystheus, and 
 the interment of the Seven before Thebes and their army, gain- 
 ed in favour of Adrastus, king of Argos, by a victory over the 
 Thebans. The Supplices were represented, as we know, during 
 the Peloponnesian war, after the conclusion of a treaty between the 
 Argives and the Lacedaemonians: this piece was intended to recal 
 to the memory of the Argives their ancient obligation to Athens, 
 and to show how little they could hope to prosper in the war against 
 the Athenians. The Heraclidsß was undoubtedly written with 
 a similar view in respect to Lacedaemon. Of the two pieces 
 however, which are both cast in the same mould, the Female 
 Suppliants, so called from the mothers of the vanquished and 
 fallen heroes, is by far the richest in poetical merit; the Heracli- 
 dx appears, as it were, but a faint impression of the other. In 
 the former piece, it is true, Theseus appears at first in a very un- 
 amiable light, as he upbraids the unfortunate Adrastus with his 
 errors at too great length, and perhaps without much justice, be- 
 fore he condescends to assist him; the contest between Theseus 
 and the Argive herald, respecting the precedency of monarchi- 
 cal or democratical constitutions, is justly banished from the 
 stage to the school of rhetoricians; and the moral eulogium of 
 Adrastus over the fallen heroes is very much out of character. I 
 am convinced that Euripides had here an intention of drawing 
 the characters of particular Athenian generals, who had fallen in 
 some battle. In a dramatic point of view however the passage 
 will not admit of this justification ; but without such an object it 
 would have been silly and ridiculous, in describing those heroes 
 of the age of Hercules, a Capaneus for instance, who set even 
 heaven itself at defiance, to have launched out into the praise of 
 their civic virtues. How much Euripides was disposed to wan- 
 der out of his subject in quest of foreign allusions, even allusions 
 to himself, we may see from a speech of Adrastus, who without 
 any cause is made to say, " It is not just that the poet, while he de- 
 lights others with his works, should himself suffer inconvenience." 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 103 
 
 However, the funeral dirges and the swansong of Evadne are af- 
 fectingly beautiful, although Evadne, in a literal sense, is intro- 
 duced into the drama altogether unexpectedly. 
 
 The Heraclidas is a very poor piece, and singularly bad to- 
 wards the conclusion. We hear nothing more of the sacrifice of 
 Macaria, after it is over: as the determination seems to cost her- 
 self no struggle, it makes as little impression upon others. The 
 Athenian king, Demophon, does not return again ; neither does 
 Iolaus, the companion of Hercules and tutor of his children, 
 whose youth is so wonderfully renewed : Hyllus, the heroic son 
 of Hercules, never even makes his appearance; and nobody at 
 last remains but Alcmene, who keeps quarrelling with Eurys- 
 theus. Euripides seems to have taken a particular pleasure in 
 drawing such implacable and revengeful old women: he has ex- 
 hibited Hecuba twice in this light, opposed to Helen and Poly- 
 mestor. The constant recurrence of the same means and mo- 
 tives is a sure symptom of mannerism. We have in the works 
 of this poet three examples of the sacrifice of females, which are 
 moving from their resignation: Iphigenia, Polyxena, and Maca- 
 ria; the voluntary death of Alceste and Evadne, belong also in 
 some sort to this class. Supplicants are in like manner a favour- 
 ite subject with him, where the spectator is oppressed with ap- 
 prehension lest they should be forcibly torn from the sanctuary 
 of the altar. I have already dwelt upon the introduction of dei- 
 ties towards the conclusion. 
 
 The most entertaining of all tragedies is Helen, a marvellous 
 drama, full of wonderful adventures and appearances, which are 
 evidently much more suited to comedy. The invention on which 
 it is founded is, that Helen remained concealed in Egypt (so far 
 the assertion of the ^Egyptian priests went), while Paris carried 
 off an airy shape, which bore a resemblance to her, and about 
 which the Greeks and Trojans fought with one another for ten 
 years. By this contrivance the virtue of the heroine is saved, 
 and Menelaus, in confirmation of the ridicule cast by Aristo- 
 phanes on the beggary of the heroes of Euripides, appears in a 
 ragged eleemosynary state, and is represented as perfectly satis- 
 fied. But this manner of improving mythology bears a resem- 
 blance to the Tales of the Thousand and One Nights. 
 
 Modern philologists have dedicated voluminous treatises, to 
 prove the illegitimacy of Rhesus, the subject of which is taken 
 from the eleventh book of the Iliad. Their opinion is, that the 
 piece contains such a number of improbabilities and contradictions, 
 that it is altogether unworthy of Euripides. But this is by no 
 means a legitimate conclusion. Are not the faults which they 
 censure unavoidably derived from the selection of a subject, so 
 very inconvenient as a nightly enterprize? In a question respect- 
 
10-1 LECTURES ON 
 
 ing the legitimacy of any work, our concern is not so much with 
 its merit or demerit, as whether its style and peculiarities bear a 
 resemblance to those of the pretended author. The few words 
 of the scholiast amount to a very different opinion: "Some have 
 considered this drama as illegitimate, and not the production of 
 Euripides, for it bears more traces of the style of Sophocles. But it 
 is inscribed in the Didascalise as legitimate, and the accuracy 
 with respect to the appearances of the starry heaven betrays Eu- 
 ripides." I imagine I understand also what is meant by the 
 style of Sophocles, which I do not indeed find in the general 
 disposition, but in detached scenes. Hence, if the piece is to be 
 taken from Euripides, I should be disposed to attribute it to an 
 eclectic imitator, but rather of the school of Sophocles than of 
 Euripides, and only a little later than the period of both. This 
 I infer from the familiarity of many of the scenes, as tragedy was 
 then inclining to the civic or familiar drama; for at a still later 
 period in the Alexandrian time, it fell into an opposite error, that 
 of bombast. 
 
 The Cyclops is a satirical drama. This is a mixed and secon- 
 dary species of tragic poetry, which we have already in passing 
 alluded to. The want of some relaxation for the mind, after the 
 stern severity of tragedy, appears to have given rise to the satiri- 
 cal drama, as well as to afterpieces in general. The satirical drama 
 never possessed an independent existence; it was given as an 
 appendage to several tragedies, and from all that we can conjec- 
 ture was always considerably shorter. In external form it re- 
 sembled tragedy, and the materials were in like manner mytho- 
 logical. The distinctive mark was a chorus consisting of satyrs, 
 who accompanied such heroic adventures as were of a more 
 cheerful hue, (many in the Odyssey for instance; for here also, 
 as in many other respects, the germ is to be found in Homer,) or 
 could be made to wear such an appearance, with lively songs, 
 gestures, and movements. The immediate cause of this species 
 of drama was derived from the festivals of Bacchus, where satyr- 
 masks were a common disguise. In mythological stories, with 
 which Bacchus had no concern, these constant attendants of his 
 were, no doubt, in some sort arbitrarily introduced, but still not 
 without a degree of propriety. As nature, in her original free- 
 dom, appeared rich in wonderful productions to the fancy of the 
 Greeks, they could with propriety people the wild landscapes, 
 far from polished cities, where the scene was usually laid, with 
 that sensual and gay sylvan creation. The compositions of demi- 
 gods and demi-beasts, forming an amusing contrast. We liBve an 
 example in the Cyclops of the manner in which the poets pro- 
 ceeded in such subjects. It is not without amusement, though 
 the real substance of it is nearly all contained in the Odyssey; 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 105 
 
 only the pranks of Silenus and his band appear a little coarse now 
 and then. We must confess that the greatest merit of this piece, in 
 our eyes, is its rarity, as it is the only remaining thing of its kind 
 which we possess. In these satirical dramas, iEschylus must with- 
 out doubt have displayed more boldness and meaning in his mirth ; 
 as for instance, when he made Prometheus bring down his hea- 
 venly fire to the rude and stupid race of mortals; and Sophocles, 
 as we may conjecture from the few samples we have, must have 
 been more elegant and moral, when he introduced the goddesses 
 contending for the prize of beauty, or Nausicaa, when she offered 
 her protection to the shipwrecked Ulysses. It is a striking fea- 
 ture of the light way of living of the Greeks, of the hilarity of 
 disposition, so foreign to everything like stately dignity, which 
 led them to admire whatever was suitable and agreeable in art, 
 even in things of the least importance, that in this drama called 
 Nausicaa, or the Washers, where according to Homer the prin- 
 cess at the end of the washing recreates herself with her maids in 
 playing at ball, Sophocles himself appeared playing at ball, and 
 by his grace in this bodily exercise acquired much applause. The 
 great poet, the respected Athenian citizen, the man who had 
 already perhaps been a general, appeared publicly in female cloth- 
 ing, and as, on account of the feebleness of his voice, he could not 
 play the principal part of Nausicaa, he acted perhaps the mute 
 under part of a maid, for the sake of giving the slight ornament 
 of bodily activity to the representation of his piece. 
 
 The history of ancient tragedy ends with Euripides, although 
 there were a number of still later tragedians; Agathon for in- 
 stance, whom Aristophanes describes as breathing ointment, and 
 crowned with flowers, and who is represented by Plato in his 
 Symposion, a discourse in the taste of the sophist Gorgias, as 
 abounding in the most exquisite ornaments, and the most dazzling 
 antitheses. He commenced with mythology, as the natural ma- 
 terials of tragedy, and occasionally wrote pieces with fictitious 
 names, (a transition towards the new comedy) one of which was 
 called the Flower, and was probably therefore neither seriously 
 affecting nor terrible, but in the style of the idyl. 
 
 The Alexandrian literati also occupied themselves with com- 
 posing tragedies; but were we to judge of them from the only 
 piecewhich has come down to us, the Alexandra of Lycophron, 
 which consists of an endless prophetic monologue, overladen with 
 an obscure mythology, these productions of subtlety and artifice 
 must have been extremely inanimate, and untheatrical, and alto- 
 gether destitute of interest. The creative powers of the Greeks 
 were so completely exhausted, that they were under the neces- 
 sity of repeating the works of their ancient masters. 
 
 14 
 
( 106 ) 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The old comedy proved to be completely a contrast to tragedy — Parody — 
 Ideality of comedy the reverse of that of tragedy — Mirthful caprice — Alle- 
 goric and political signification — The chorus and its parabases — Aristophanes 
 — His character as an artist — Description and character of his remaining works 
 A scene translated from the Acharnx by way of Appendix. 
 
 We now leave tragic poetry for the consideration of a species 
 of an entirely opposite description, the old comedy. Striking 
 as this diversity is, we shall however commence with pointing 
 out a certain symmetry of contrast between them, which may 
 have a tendency to exhibit the essential character of both in a 
 clearer light. In forming ajudgment of the old comedy, we must 
 banish every idea of what is called comedy by the moderns, and 
 what went by the same name among the Greeks themselves at 
 an after period. These two species of comedy differ from each 
 other, not only in accidental peculiarities (such as the introduction 
 of real names and characters in the old), but in the most essential 
 characteristics. We must also guard ourselves against consider- 
 ing the old comedy as the rude commencement of a branch of the 
 drama, which was afterwards carried to a higher degree of per- 
 fection,* an idea which many, from the unbridled licentiousness 
 of the old comic writers, have allowed themselves to entertain. 
 The first however is much more entitled to the appellation of the 
 genuine poetical species; and the new comedy, as I shall show in 
 the sequel, is a falling off into prose and reality. 
 
 We shall form the best idea of the old comedy, in considering 
 it as the complete contrast to tragedy. This was probably the 
 meaning of the assertion of Socrates, which is mentioned by Plato 
 towards the end of his Symposium. He tells us that, after the 
 other guests had dispersed or fallen asleep, Socrates continued 
 awake with Aristophanes and Agathon, and that while he drank 
 with them out of a large cup, he forced them to confess, though 
 unwillingly, that it was the business of one man to be equally 
 
 * This is the sense in which the section of Barthelemy, in Anachards on the 
 old comedy is composed: one of the poorest and most erroneous parts of his 
 work. With the pitiful arrogance of ignorance, Voltaire pronounced a sweep- 
 ing condemnation of Aristophanes, (in his Philosophical Dictionary, under the 
 article AtMe) and the modern French critics have for the most part followed 
 his example. We may however find the foundation of all the erroneous opin- 
 ions of the moderns on this subject, and the same prosaical mode of viewing it, 
 in the comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, in Plutarch. 
 
LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 107 
 
 master of tragic and comic composition, and that the tragic poet, 
 in virtue of his art, was also a comic poet. This was not only 
 repugnant to the general opinion, which wholly separated the 
 two kinds of talent, but also to experience, as no tragic poet had 
 ever attempted to distinguish himself in the comic department, 
 or vice versa; and the reason of this is evident from their essen- 
 tial characters. The Platonic Socrates says, at another time, on 
 the subject of comic imitation: we can only become acquainted 
 with things of opposite characters through each other, and con- 
 sequently we can only know what is laughable and ludicrous by 
 knowing also what is serious. If the divine Plato had been 
 pleased to communicate his own thoughts, or those of his mas- 
 ter, respecting the manner of carrying the sentiments of their 
 dialogue into execution, we should undoubtedly have been re- 
 lieved from the necessity of the following investigation. 
 
 One view of the relation of comic to tragic poetry may be com- 
 prehended under the idea of parody. This parody however was 
 infinitely more powerful than that of the comic epopee, as the 
 subject parodied was brought much more vividly before the mind 
 by means of scenic representation, than the epopee, in which the 
 transactions of a distant age were related as already past. The 
 subject of the comic parody was a recent action, and as the re- 
 presentation took place on the same stage where the spectators 
 were accustomed to see its grave model, this must have contri- 
 buted very much to heighten the effect. It happened also that 
 not merely single scenes, but the very form of tragic composi- 
 tion was parodied, and the parody not only extended to the 
 poetry, but also to the music and dancing, to the acting, and the 
 scenic decorations. Nay, even when the drama trod in the foot- 
 steps of the plastic arts, it was still the subject of comic parody, 
 as the ideal figures of deities were evidently transformed into ca- 
 ricatures.* The more the productions of all these arts came with- 
 in the operation of the external senses, the more the Greeks, in 
 popular festivals, religious ceremonies, and solemn processions, 
 were accustomed to, and familiar with, the noble style which was 
 the native element of tragic representation, so much the more irre- 
 sistibly ludicrous must have been the effect of the general parody 
 of the arts, which it was the object of comedy to exhibit. 
 
 But this idea does not exhaust the essential character of come- 
 dy: for parody always supposes a reference to the subject which 
 is parodied, and a necessary dependence on it. The old comedy 
 however is a species of poetry as independent and original as tra- 
 
 * As an example of this, I may allude to the well-known vase-figures, where 
 Mercury and Jupiter are represented as comic-masks, meditating the descent 
 by a ladder to Alcmene. 
 
10S LECTURES ON 
 
 gedy itself; it stands upon an equal elevation, that is, it extends 
 is far beyond the limits of reality into the regions of a creative 
 fancy. 
 
 Tragedy is the most serious description of poetry, and comedy- 
 altogether sportive. Seriousness consists, as I have already ob- 
 served in the introduction, in the direction of the mental powers 
 to an object, and the limitation of their activity to that object. 
 The opposite quality therefore consists in the apparent want of 
 aim, and freedom from all restraint in the exercise of the mental 
 powers; and it is therefore the more perfect, the greater the 
 scale on which these powers are exhibited, and the more vivid 
 the appearance of this want of aim, and of the prevalence of 
 whim and caprice. Wit and raillery may be employed in a 
 sportive manner, but they are also both of them compatible with 
 the most austere earnestness, as is proved by the example of the 
 later Roman satires, and the ancient Iambic poetry of the Greeks, 
 where these means are made subservient to the expression of ha- 
 tred and discontent. 
 
 The new comedy, it is true, represents what is laughable in 
 character, and in the contrast of situations and combinations; and 
 it is the more comic the more it is distinguished by a want of 
 aim: misconceptions, erroneous notions, the fruitless efforts of 
 ludicrous passion, especially if the whole at last terminates in 
 nothing; but still with all this mirth, the form of the represen- 
 tation itself is serious, and regularly connected with a certain 
 aim. In the old comedy the form was sportive, and was charac- 
 terized by an apparent whim and caprice; the whole production 
 was one entire jest on a large scale, which again contained a 
 world of separate jests within itself, and each occupied its own 
 place, without appearing to have any concern with the rest. In 
 tragedy, if I may be allowed to explain my meaning by a simile, 
 the monarchical constitution prevails, but a monarchy without 
 despotism, as in the heroic times of the Greeks: everything 
 yields a willing obedience to the dignity of the heroic sceptre. 
 Comedy again is a more democratic species of poetry, and is 
 more inclined even to the confusion of anarchy, than to any cir- 
 cumscription of general liberty, in the exercise of the mental pow- 
 ers, and even in separate thoughts, sallies, and allusions. 
 
 Whatever is dignified, noble, and grand in human nature, will 
 only admit of a serious representation; for the person represent- 
 ing feels himself opposed by the subject in the exact ratio of its 
 elevation, and is consequently tied down by it. The comic poet 
 must therefore divest his characters of all qualities of this descrip- 
 tion; he must even deny the existence of such qualities alto- 
 gether, and form an ideal of human nature in an opposite sense 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 109 
 
 to that of the tragedians, namely, in one that is odious and base. 
 But as the tragic ideal is not a collective model of all possible 
 virtues, neither does this inverted ideality consist in an aggrega- 
 tion of moral enormities and marks of degeneracy, beyond what 
 is to be found in real life, but rather in a dependence on the ani- 
 mal part of our being, in the want of freedom and independence, 
 in the want of coherence, and in the contradictions of the inward 
 man, from which all our follies and infatuations have their origin. 
 
 The serious ideal consists of the unity and harmonious blend- 
 ing of the sensual man in the mental, which we see most clearly 
 exemplified in the plastic arts, where the form, when in a com- 
 plete state, is merely a symbol of mental perfection, and of the 
 most elevated moral ideas, and where the body is wholly im- 
 bued by the soul, which is everywhere visible.* The merry or 
 ludicrous ideal, on the other hand, consists in the perfect harmo- 
 ny and concord of the higher part of our nature, with the animal 
 part as the prevailing principle. Reason and intellect are repre- 
 sented as voluntary slaves of the senses. 
 
 Hence we shall find that which in Aristophanes has given so 
 much offence, flows necessarily from the very principle of come- 
 dy: the frequent allusion to the lower necessities of the body, 
 the wanton pictures of animal desire, which, in spite of all the 
 restraints imposed on it by morality and decency, is always 
 breaking loose without the consciousness of the individual. If 
 we reflect attentively, we shall find that even yet on our own 
 stages, the infallible and inexhaustible source of the ludicrous is 
 derived from the same ungovernable impulses of sensuality at 
 variance with higher duties: cowardice, childish vanity, loquaci- 
 ty, gulosity, laziness, &c. Hence in the caducity of age, libidi- 
 nous desires are more laughable than at an earlier period, as we 
 see that they do not arise from mere animal impulse, but that 
 reason has only served to extend the dominion of the senses be- 
 yond their proper limits. In drunkenness, too, individuals in 
 some degree place themselves in the condition of the comic ideal. 
 
 We must not allow ourselves to entertain the erroneous idea, 
 that the old comic writers gave the names of existing persons to 
 their characters, and exhibited them on the stage with all the 
 circumstances peculiar to certain individuals. For such histori- 
 cal characters have always with them an allegorical signification, 
 
 * I am afraid that this may be considered somewhat too mystical by many 
 English readers. I subjoin the original, as I cannot translate the passage to my 
 own satisfaction: Wie wir es auf das klarste in der Plastik erkennen, wo die Vol- 
 lendung der Gestalt nur Sinnbild geistiger Vollkommenheit und der höchsten sittli- 
 chen Ideen wird, wo der Körper ganz vom Geist durchdrungen und bis zur Ver- 
 klärung vergeistigt ist. — Trans. 
 
110 LECTURES ON 
 
 and represent a class; and as their features were overcharged in 
 the masks, their characters were overcharged in like manner in 
 the representation. But still this constant allusion to the nearest 
 reality, which not only allowed the poet, in the character of the 
 chorus, to converse with the public in a general way, but also to 
 point at certain individual spectators, is of essential importance 
 in any view of this species of poetry. — As tragedy delights in 
 harmonious unity, comedy flourishes in a chaotic exuberance: 
 it seeks out the most glaring and diversified objects, and the most 
 strongly marked oppositions. It works up therefore the most 
 singular, unheard of, and even impossible adventures, with the 
 local and peculiar circumstances which are nearest at hand. 
 
 The comic poet, as well as the tragic, transports his characters 
 to an ideal element; not however to a world subjected to neces- 
 sity, but one where the caprice of an inventive wit prevails with- 
 out restraint, and where all the laws of reality are suspended. 
 He is at liberty therefore to invent an action as sprightly and 
 fantastic as possible; it may even be unconnected and contra- 
 dictory, if it be calculated to place a circle of comic incidents 
 and characters in the clearest light. In this last respect, the 
 work should, nay must, have a leading aim, or it will otherwise 
 be defective in solidity; and in this view also the comedies of 
 Aristophanes may be considered as perfectly systematical. But 
 then, that the comic inspiration may not be lost, this aim must 
 be made a matter of diversion, and be concealed in a multitude 
 of foreign intermixtures of all descriptions. Comedy at its com- 
 mencement, namely in the hands of its Doric founder, Epichar- 
 mus, borrowed its materials chiefly from the mythical world. 
 Even in its maturity it appears not to have renounced this choice 
 altogether, as we may see from many of the titles of the lost 
 pieces of Aristophanes and his contemporaries; and at a later 
 period, in the interval between the old and new comedy, for 
 particular reasons, it returned again to mythology, with a pecu- 
 liar degree of predilection. But as the contrast between the 
 materials and the form is here in its proper place, and nothing 
 can be more directly opposed to the exhibition of the ludicrous, 
 than the most important and serious concerns of men, the pecu- 
 liar subject of the old comedy was naturally therefore taken from 
 public life and the state. It is altogether political, and the pri- 
 vate and family life, beyond which the new never soars, was only 
 introduced occasionally and indirectly, with a reference to the 
 public. The chorus is therefore essential to it, as being in some 
 sort a representation of the public: it must by no means be con- 
 sidered as something accidental, which we may account for in 
 the local origin of old comedy; we may assign as a more sub- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. Ill 
 
 stantial reason, that it belongs to the complete parody of the 
 tragic form. It contributes also to the expression of that festal 
 gladness of which comedy was the most unrestrained effusion. 
 For in all the popular and religious festivals of the Greeks, choral 
 songs, accompanied by dancing, were exhibited. The comic 
 chorus transforms itself occasionally into such an expression of 
 the public joy, as for instance, when the women who celebrate 
 the Thesmophoriae in the piece that bears that name, in the midst 
 of the most amusing drolleries, begin to chant their melodious 
 hymn in honour of the gods of the festival, in the same manner 
 as once took place on a real occasion. At these times we observe 
 such a display of sublime lyric poetry, that the passages may be 
 transplanted into tragedy without any change or modification. 
 There is one deviation however from the tragic model, as it fre- 
 quently happens that there are several choruses in the same com- 
 edy, who at one time all sing together, and in opposite positions, 
 and at other times change with, and succeed each other, without 
 any general reference. The most remarkable peculiarity how- 
 ever of the comic chorus, is the parabasis, an address to the 
 spectators by the chorus, in the name and under the authority 
 of the poet, which has no concern with the subject of the piece. 
 Sometimes he enlarges on his own merits, and ridicules the pre- 
 tensions of his rivals; at other times he avails himself of his 
 rights as an Athenian citizen to deliver, in every assembly of 
 the people, proposals of a serious or ludicrous nature for the 
 public good. The parabasis may, strictly speaking, be consider- 
 ed as repugnant to the essence of dramatic representation: for in 
 the drama the poet should disappear behind the characters; and 
 these characters ought to discourse and act as if they were alone, 
 and without any perceptible reference to the spectators. All 
 tragical impressions are therefore by such intermixtures infallibly 
 destroyed; but these intentional interruptions or intermezzos, 
 though even more serious in themselves than the subject of the 
 representation, are hailed with welcome in the comic tone, as we 
 are then unwilling to submit to the constraint of an employment 
 of the mind, which by continuance assumes the appearance of 
 labour. The parabasis may partly have owed its invention to 
 the circumstance of the comic poets not having such ample 
 materials as the tragic, to fill up the intervals of the action when 
 the stage was empty, by affecting and inspired poetry. But it is 
 consistent with the essence of the old comedy, where not merely 
 the subject, but the whole action, was sportive and jocular. The 
 unlimited dominion of fun* is evident even in this, that the dra- 
 
 * This word is not in the best repute, for what reason the translator is not 
 aware; but as it is expressive, and corresponds with the original, scherz, he has 
 not hesitated to use it.— Trass. 
 
Hfl LECTURES ON 
 
 matic form itself is not seriously adhered to, and that its laws are 
 often suspended; as in a droll disguise we sometimes venture to 
 lay aside the mask. The practice of throwing out allusions and 
 hints to the pit is even retained in the comedy of the present 
 day, and is often found to be attended with great success, although 
 unconditionally reprobated by many critics. I shall afterwards 
 examine how far, and in what departments of comedy, these 
 allusions are admissible. 
 
 To sum up in a few words the aim and object of tragedy and 
 comedy, we may observe, that as tragedy elevates us by painful 
 feelings to the most dignified view of humanity, in the words of 
 Plato — "the imitation of the most beautiful and exemplary life;" 
 comedy, on the other hand, from a derisory and degrading way 
 of viewing all things, converts them into a source of the most 
 petulent hilarity. 
 
 We have now but one comic writer of the old kind, and we 
 cannot therefore, in forming an opinion of his merits, derive any 
 assistance from a comparison with other masters. Aristophanes 
 had many predecessors, Magnes, Cratinus, Crates, and others; he 
 was indeed one of the latest comic authors, as he survived even the 
 old comedy itself. We have no reason however to believe that 
 we witness its decline in him, as in the case of the last tragedians; 
 for in all probability the old comedy was still rising in merit, and he 
 himself one of its most perfect poets. It was very different with the 
 old comedy and with tragedy ; the latter died a natural, and the for- 
 mer a violent death. Tragedy ceased to exist, because that species 
 of poetry seemed to be exhausted, because it was abandoned, and 
 because no person could again rise to the same elevation. Comedy 
 was deprived by the hand of power of that unrestrained freedom 
 which was necessary to its existence. Horace, in a few words, 
 informs us of this catastrophe. "To these (Thespis and ^schy- 
 lus) followed the old comedy, not without great praise; but its 
 freedom degenerated into licentiousness, and into a violence which 
 deservedly called for the interposition of the law. The law was 
 enacted, and the chorus preserved an unworthy silence, after it 
 was deprived of the power to injure."* Towards the end of the 
 Peloponnesian war, when a few individuals, contrary to the consti- 
 tution, had assumed the supreme authority in Athens, a law was 
 enacted, empowering every person attacked by comic poets, to 
 bring them to justice; and a prohibition was issued against the 
 introduction of real persons on the stage, or the use of such masks 
 
 * Successit vetus his comedia, non sine multa 
 Laude, sed in Vitium libertas excidit, et vim 
 Dignam lege regi: lex est accepta: chorusque 
 Turpiter obticuit, sublato jure nocendi. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 113 
 
 as bore a resemblance to their features, &c. This gave rise to 
 what is called the middle comedy. The same form was still 
 continued; and the representation, though not allegorical, remain- 
 ed always a parody. But the essence existed no more, and this 
 species must have become insipid when no longer seasoned by 
 the salt of personal ridicule. Its whole attraction consisted in 
 idealizing jocularly the nearest reality, that is, in representing it 
 under the light of the most preposterous perversity ; and how was 
 it possible to lash even the general errors of the state, without 
 giving displeasure to individuals? I cannot therefore agree with 
 Horace in the opinion that its abuse gave rise to this restriction. 
 The old comedy flourished during the existence of the Athenian 
 liberty; and both were oppressed under the same circumstances, 
 and by the same persons. So far from the calumnies of Aristo- 
 phanes having been the occasion of the death of Socrates, as many 
 persons, without a knowledge of history, have thought proper 
 to assert (for the Clouds were composed a great number of years 
 before), it was under the same violent usurpation of power that 
 the sportive censure of Aristophanes was reduced to silence, and 
 the graver animadversions of Socrates were punished with death. 
 We do not see that the persecution of Aristophanes was produc- 
 tive of any detriment to Euripides; the people of Athens beheld 
 with admiration the tragedies of the one, and the parody by the 
 other, represented on the same stage; every variety of talent was 
 allowed to flourish undisturbed in the enjoyment of equal rights. 
 Never was there sovereign, for such was the Athenian people, 
 who could with better humour bear the most unwelcome truths, 
 and even to be openly laughed at. If the abuses in the adminis- 
 tration of the state were not by these means corrected, still it was 
 a grand point that this unreserved exposure should be even 
 tolerated. Besides, Aristophanes always shows himself a zealous 
 patriot; he attacks the powerful deceivers of the people, those 
 whom the grave Thucydides describes as so pestilential; he coun- 
 selled peace in the civil war, which for ever destroyed the pros- 
 perity of Greece; he everywhere recommends the simplicity 
 and austerity of ancient manners. So much for the political im- 
 port of the old comedy. 
 
 But I hear it said, Aristophanes was an immoral buffoon. 
 Yes, among other things, he was that also; and we are by no 
 means disposed to justify the man, who with such great talents, 
 could allow himself to sink so very low, whether from the im- 
 pulse of rude inclinations, or from an idea of the necessity of 
 gaining over the people, that he might tell them bold and un- 
 pleasant truths. We know at least that he boasts of having been 
 much more sparing than his rivals in the use of obscene jests to 
 
 15 
 
114 LECTURES ON 
 
 cain the laughter of the mob, and of having in this carried his art 
 to perfection. That we may not be unjust towards him, we must 
 consider what appears in him so repulsive to us, not according 
 to modern ideas, but in the point of view of the then state of the 
 world. In many respects the ethics of the ancients were alto- 
 gether different from ours, and of a much freer character. This 
 arose from the very nature of their religion, which was a true 
 natural worship, and had sanctioned many public customs grossly 
 injurious to decency. Besides, from the very retired manner in 
 which the women lived,'* while the men were almost constantly 
 together, the language of conversation possessed a certain rude- 
 ness, as is always the case under similar circumstances. In mo- 
 dern Europe, since the origin of chivalry, women have given 
 the tone of social life, and to the respectful homage which we 
 yield to them, we owe the prevalence of a nobler morality in 
 conversation, in the fine arts, and in poetry. Besides, the an- 
 cient comic writers, who took the world as they found it, had 
 before their eyes a very great degree of corruption of morals. 
 
 * This brings us to the consideration of the question so much agitated by an- 
 tiquaries, whether the Grecian women were present at the representation of 
 plays, and more especially of comedies. I consider myself entitled to affirm 
 that in tragedies they were present, as the story of the Eumenides in JEschylus 
 could not have been invented with any degree of propriety, had women never 
 visited the theatre; and as there is a passage in Plato (De Leg. lib. ii. p. 658. 
 D.) in which he mentions the predilection of cultivated females for tragical 
 composition. — Moreover Julius Pollux, among the technical expressions rela- 
 tive to the theatre, mentions the Greek word for spectatress. But in the case 
 of the old comedy, I should be inclined to think that they were not present. 
 However, its indecency alone does not appear to be a decisive proof. Even in 
 the religious festivals the eyes of the women must have been exposed to many 
 sights of great indecency. But in the numerous addresses in Aristophanes to 
 the spectators, even where he distinguishes them according to their respective 
 ages and otherwise, we never observe any mention of spectatresses, and the 
 poet would hardly have omitted the opportunity which this afforded him for 
 some witticism or joke. The only passage with which I am acquainted, whence 
 any conclusion may be drawn in favour of the presence of women, is Pax, v. 
 963—967. But still it remains doubtful, and I recommend it to the considera- 
 tion of the critic. — Author. 
 
 There is an express mention of women in the passage here alluded to: 
 OIKETH2. 
 
 tZv StCOJUiVUV 
 
 ovx. to-riv ouJiis, oa-rtt ob xp&m i%u 
 
 TPTrA102. 
 ov% *' yvVstiMf i\etßov ; 
 
 but then their presence might possibly be feigned to give a handle for the 
 coarse joke that follows, 
 
 OAA.' iX. \o-7TlfdLV 
 
 <fwo-Qu<riy cturttis avfpis, Traus. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 115 
 
 The most honourable testimony in favour of Aristophanes, is 
 that of the sage Plato, who, in an epigram, says that the Graces 
 would have selected his mind for their residence, who constantly 
 read him, and who transmitted the Clouds to Dionysius the el- 
 der, with the remark, that from this play (in which, with the 
 trade of the sophists, philosophy itself, and even his master So- 
 crates were attacked,) he would be able to become acquainted 
 with the state of Athens. He could hardly mean merely that 
 the play might be considered a proof of the unbridled democratic 
 freedom which prevailed in Athens, but must have intended to 
 acknowledge the profound knowledge of the world possessed by 
 the poet, and his insight into the whole machinery of the civil 
 constitution. Plato has also characterized him in an admirable 
 manner in his Symprosion, where he puts into his mouth a 
 speech on love, which Aristophanes, far from everything like 
 high enthusiasm, considers merely in a sensual view. His de- 
 scription of it is however equally original and ingenious. 
 
 We might apply to the pieces of Aristophanes the motto of a 
 pleasant and acute adventurer in Goethe: "Mad but wise." 
 Here we are best enabled to conceive why the dramatic art was 
 consecrated to Bacchus: it is the drunkenness of poetry, the 
 Bacchanalia of fun. This faculty will at times assert its rights 
 as well as others; and hence several nations have set apart cer- 
 tain festivals, such as Saturnalia, Carnivals, &c. in which the peo- 
 ple may give themselves altogether up to frolicsome follies, that 
 when once the fit is over, the}' may remain quiet, and apply 
 themselves to serious concerns during the rest of the year. The 
 old comedy is a general masking of the world, during which 
 many things happen that are not authorized by the ordinary 
 rules of propriety, but during which also many things that are 
 diverting, witty, and even instructive, come out, which with- 
 out this momentary suspension of order would never be heard of. 
 
 However vulgar and even corrupted Aristophanes may have 
 been in his personal inclinations, and however much some of his 
 jokes may have violated the laws of morality and taste, we can- 
 not deny to him, both in the general plan and execution of his 
 poems, the praise of care, and the masterly hand of a finished art- 
 ist. His language is extremely elegant, it displays the purest 
 Atticism, and he accommodates it with the greatest dexterity to 
 every tone, from the most familiar dialogue up to the high ele- 
 vation of the dithyrambic ode. We cannot doubt that he w r ould 
 have been equally successful in grave poetry, when we see the 
 wanton luxuriance with which he sometimes lavishes it, for the 
 purpose of immediately destroying the impression. The elegant 
 choice of the language which he generally uses is the more at- 
 
116 LECTURES ON 
 
 tractive from the contrast occasionally displayed by him; for he 
 not only indulges at times in the rudest expressions of the peo- 
 ple, in foreign dialects, and even in the mutilated articulation of 
 the Greek in the mouths of barbarians, but he extends the same 
 arbitrary power, which he exercised over nature and human af- 
 fairs, to language itself, and by composition, allusion to names of 
 persons, or imitation of particular sounds, produces words of the 
 most singular description. The structure of his versification is not 
 less artificial than that of the tragedians ; he uses the same forms, 
 but differently modified: his object is ease and variety instead of 
 gravity and dignity ; but amidst all this apparent irregularity he 
 still adheres with great accuracy to the laws of metrical compo- 
 sition. As Aristophanes appears to me to have displayed, in the 
 exercise of his separate but infinitely varied art, the richest de- 
 velopement of almost every poetical property, whenever I read 
 his works, I am equally astonished at the extraordinary qualifica- 
 tions which they suppose his spectators to have possessed. We 
 might expect, from the citizens of a popular government, an in- 
 timate acquaintance with the history and constitution of their 
 country, with public events and transactions, with the peculiari- 
 ties of all their contemporaries of any note or consequence. But 
 Aristophanes supposes his audience to have also possessed an ex- 
 tensive acquaintance with the mechanism of poetry, they must 
 have had almost every word of the tragical master-pieces by 
 heart, to understand his parodies. And what a quick presence 
 of mind they must have had to catch in such a rapid flight, the 
 lightest and most complicated irony, the most unexpected sallies, 
 and unusual allusions, which are frequently denoted by the mere 
 inflection of a syllable! We may boldly affirm, that notwith- 
 standing all the explanations which have come down to us, not- 
 withstanding the accumulation of learning which has been dis- 
 played, the half of the wit of Aristophanes is altogether lost to 
 the moderns. These comedies which, amidst all their farcical 
 peculiarities, display the most extensive knowledge of human 
 life, could only as a source of popular amusement be properly 
 understood and appreciated by the incredible acuteness and vi- 
 vacity of the Attic intellect. We may envy the poet who could 
 reckon on so clever and accomplished a public; but this was in 
 truth a very dangerous advantage. Spectators, whose under- 
 standings were so quick, would not be easily pleased. Aristo- 
 phanes complains of the excessive fastidiousness of the taste of 
 the Athenians, with whom the most admired of his predecessors 
 were immediately out of favour, when the smallest trace of a 
 falling off in their mental powers was perceivable. But again, 
 he allows that the other Greeks bore not the slightest comparison 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 117 
 
 to them in a knowledge of the dramatic art. All the talents of 
 Athens strove to excel in this department, and the competition 
 was limited to the short period of a few festivals, during which 
 the people always expected a succession of novelties. The dis- 
 tribution of the prizes (on which all depended, there being no 
 other remaining notification of the public opinion) was deter- 
 mined by a single representation. We may easily imagine the 
 state of perfection which this representation would attain under 
 the directing care of the poet. If we also take into consideration 
 the high state of the tributary arts, the utmost distinctness of de- 
 livery of the most finished poetry, both in speaking and singing, 
 with the magnificence and great extent of the theatre, we shall 
 then have some idea of a theatrical enjoyment, which has never, 
 in an equal degree, been since known in the world. 
 
 Although among the remaining works of Aristophanes, we 
 have several of his earliest pieces, they all bear the stamp of ma- 
 turity. But he had long laboured, in silence, to perfect himself 
 in the exercise of an art which he conceived to be of all others 
 the most difficult; nay, from diffidence (in his own words, like 
 a young maiden who consigns to the care of others the child of 
 her secret love), he even gave out his earliest pieces under con- 
 cealed names. He appeared for the first time without this dis- 
 guise in the Horsemen, and here he displayed the most un- 
 daunted resolution in openly attacking the popular opinion. His 
 object was nothing less than the overthrow of Cleon, who after 
 the death of Pericles was at the head of all state affairs, and who 
 was a promoter of war, and a worthless and vulgar man, but at the 
 same time the idol of an infatuated people. The only opponents 
 of Cleon were the rich proprietors who constituted the class of 
 horsemen or Knights: they were interwoven by Aristophanes in 
 the strongest manner in his party, as they formed the chorus. He 
 had used the precaution of never naming Cleon, though he por- 
 trayed him in such a way that it was impossible to mistake him. 
 Yet such was the dread entertained of the party of Cleon, that no 
 mask-maker would venture to execute his likeness: the poet 
 therefore embraced the resolution of acting the part himself, with 
 his face merely painted over. We may easily imagine the storms 
 and tumults which this representation must have excited among 
 the assembled crowd; the bold and well concerted efforts of the 
 poet were however crowned with a successful result: his piece 
 obtained the prize. He was proud of this theatrical heroism, and 
 often alludes with a feeling of satisfaction to the Herculean va- 
 lour with which he first combated the mighty monster. It is not 
 easily possible for a play to be more historical and political; and 
 its rhetorical power in exciting our displeasure against Cleon is 
 
118 LECTURES ON 
 
 almost irresistible: it is a true dramatic philippic. It does not 
 however appear to me the most fortunate in point of amusement 
 and invention. The thought of the serious danger he was in- 
 curring may possibly have disposed him to a more serious tone 
 than was suitable to comedy, or he may have been stimulated by 
 the persecution already suffered from Cleon to vent his rage 
 against him in too Archilochean a manner. When the storm of 
 cutting invective is somewhat over, we have then several droll 
 scenes, such as that where the two demagogues, the leather-dealer 
 (that is, Cleon), and the sausage-seller, vie with each other by 
 all manner of predictions and dainties to gain the favour of De- 
 mos, a personification of the people, who has become childish 
 through age, a scene humorous in the highest degree; and the 
 piece ends with a triumphal rejoicing, which may almost be said 
 to be affecting, when the scene changes from the Pnyx, the place 
 where the people assembled, to the majestic Propylseon, and 
 when Demos, whose youth has been renewed in a wonderful 
 manner, comes forward in the garb of an ancient Athenian, and 
 shows that with early strength he has also recovered the senti- 
 ments of the age of the battle of Marathon. 
 
 With the exception of this attack on Cleon, and with the ex- 
 ception also of the attacks on Euripides, whom he seems to have 
 pursued with the most unrelenting perseverance, the other pieces 
 of Aristophanes are not so exclusively pointed against individuals. 
 They have always a general, and for the most part a very impor- 
 tant aim, which the poet, with all his turnings, extravagance, and 
 foreign intermixtures, never loses from his sight. The plays of 
 Peace, Acharnse, and Lysistrata, will be found to recommend 
 peace; and one object of the women in the assembly of the peo- 
 ple, of the women at the festival of the Thesmophorim, and of 
 Lysistrata, is to throw ridicule on the relations and the morals 
 of the female sex. In the Clouds he laughs at the metaphysics 
 of the sophists, in the Wasps at the rage of the Athenians for 
 hearing and determining law-suits; the subject of the Frogs is 
 the decline of the tragic art, and Plutus is an allegory on the 
 unjust distribution of wealth. The Birds are, of all his pieces, 
 the one of which the aim is the least apparent, and it is on that 
 very account one of the most diverting. 
 
 Peace begins in the most spirited and lively manner; the 
 tranquilly-disposed Trygseus rides on a dunghill-beetle to heaven 
 in the manner of Bellerophon; War, a desolating giant, with 
 Tumult his companion, in place of all the other gods, inhabits 
 Olympus, and pounds the cities in a great mortar, making use 
 of the celebrated generals as pestles; Peace lies bound in a deep 
 well, and is dragged up by a rope, through the united efforts of 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 119 
 
 all the Grecian states: all these ingenious and fanciful inventions 
 are calculated to produce the most ludicrous effect. The play is 
 not however afterwards sustained at an equal elevation; nothing 
 remains but to sacrifice, and to carouse in honour of the recovered 
 Goddess of Peace, when the importunate visits of such persons as 
 found their advantage in war furnish an elegant entertainment, 
 but one which by no means corresponds to the expectations to 
 which the commencement gives rise. We have here an addi- 
 tional example to prove that the ancient comic writers not only 
 changed the decoration during the intervals, when the stage was 
 empty, but also while an actor was in sight. The scene changes 
 from Attica to Olympus, while Trygaeus is suspended in the air 
 on his beetle, and calls anxiously to the director of themachinary 
 to take care that he does not break his neck. His descent into 
 the orchestra afterwards denotes his return to the earth. It is 
 possible to overlook the freedom taken by the tragedians with 
 the unity of place and time, on which such ridiculous stress has 
 been laid by many of the moderns, but the bold manner in which 
 the old comic writer subjects these external circumstances to his 
 sportive caprice is so striking, that it must force itself on the 
 attention of the most short-sighted individual: and yet in all the 
 treatises on the constitution of the Greek stage, due respect has 
 never yet been paid to it.- 
 
 The */2 char nse, an earlier piece,* appears to me to possess a 
 much higher degree of excellence than Peace, on account of the 
 continual progress of the story, and the increasing drollery, 
 which at last ends in a Bacchanalian revelry. Dikaiopolis, the 
 honest citizen, enraged at the base artifices by which the people 
 are deceived, and by which they are induced to reject all propo- 
 sals for peace, sends an embassy to Lacedaemon, and concludes a 
 treaty for himself and his family. He then retires to the country, 
 and in spite of every obstacle, sets apart a piece of ground before 
 his house, where there is a peaceful market for the people of the 
 neighbouring states, while the rest of the country is suffering from 
 the calamities of war. The blessings of peace are represented in 
 the most tempting manner for hungry stomachs: the fat Boeotian 
 brings his delicious eels and poultry for sale, and nothing is 
 thought of but feasting and carousing. Lamachus, the celebrated 
 general, who lives on the other side, is, in consequence of a sud- 
 den eruption of the enemies, called on to defend the frontiers; 
 Dikaiopolis on the other hand is invited by his neighbours to a 
 
 • The Didascaliac give it a place in the year immediately preceding the ap- 
 pearance of the Horsemen. It is therefore the first of the remaining pieces of 
 Aristophanes, and the only one of those which he gave out under a concealed 
 name, that has come down to us. 
 
120 LECTURES ON 
 
 feast, where every one brings his own drink. The preparations 
 for war, and the preparations in the kitchen, are now carried on 
 with equal industry and alacrity: here the lance is laid hold of, 
 and there the spit; the harness lies in one corner, and the wine 
 flagon in another; some are fixing feathers to their helmets, and 
 others are plucking thrushes. Shortly afterwards Lamachus 
 returns, supported by two of his companions in arms, with a 
 broken head and a lame foot, and. from the other side we see 
 Dikaiopolis carried in drunk, by two good-natured maidens. 
 The lamentations of the one are perpetually mimicked and ridi- 
 culed in the rejoicings of the other; and with this contrast, which 
 is carried to the very utmost extent, the piece is brought to a 
 conclusion. 
 
 Lysistrata is in such bad repute, that we dare only mention 
 it in a cursory manner, as we are treading on burning ashes. 
 According to the story of the poet, the women have taken it into 
 their heads, by means of a rigid determination, to compel their 
 husbands to make peace. Under the guidance of a shrewd leader 
 they organize a conspiracy for this purpose throughout all Greece, 
 and at the same time gain possession of the port of Acropolis in 
 Athens. The hard situation to which the men are reduced by 
 this separation gives rise to the most laughable scenes; plenipo- 
 tentiaries appear from the two hostile powers, and peace is 
 speedily concluded under the management of the sage Lysistrata. 
 Notwithstanding the mad indecencies which are contained in the 
 piece, its aim, when stript of them, is upon the whole extremely 
 innocent: the longing for the enjoyment of domestic joys, so 
 often interrupted by the absence of the husbands, is made the 
 means of putting an end to the calamitous war by which Greece 
 had so long been torn in pieces. The honest bluntness of the 
 Lacedemonians is here portrayed in a most inimitable manner. 
 
 The Ecclesiazusse is in like manner a female government, but a 
 much more depraved one than the former. The women steal, in the 
 dress of men, into the assemblies of the people, and by means of 
 the majority of voices which they have obtained in this clandes- 
 tine manner, they decree a new constitution, in which there is to 
 be a community of goods and of women. This is a satire on the 
 ideal republics of the philosophers, with such laws as Protagoras 
 before Plato had framed. The comedy appears to me to labour 
 under the very same fault with Peace', the introduction, the 
 secret assembly of the women, the rehearsal of their parts as 
 men, the counting of the popular assembly, are all handled in the 
 most masterly manner; but towards the middle the action stands 
 still. Nothing remains but the representation of the perplexities 
 and confusion which arise from the various communities, espe- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 121 
 
 cially the community of women, and from the prescribed equa- 
 lity of rights in the love of the old and the ugly, as well as of the 
 young and the beautiful. These perplexities are pleasant enough, 
 but they turn too much on a repetition of the joke. Generally 
 speaking, the old allegorical comedy is exposed to the danger of 
 sinking in its progress. When we begin with turning the world 
 upside down, the most wonderful incidents follow one another as 
 a matter of course, but they are apt to appear petty and insigni- 
 ficant, when compared with the decisive traits of a frolicsome 
 nature which are first exhibited. 
 
 The Thesmophoriazusse has a proper intrigue, a knot which 
 is first loosed at the conclusion, and possesses therefore a great 
 advantage over the rest. Euripides, on account of the well 
 known hatred of women displayed in his tragedies, was to be 
 accused and condemned at the festival of the Thesmophoriae, 
 where women only were admissible. After a fruitless attempt 
 to induce the effeminate poet Agathon to undertake the hazardous 
 experiment, Euripides prevails on his aged father-in-law Mnesi- 
 lochus, to disguise himself as a woman, that under this assumed 
 appearance he may plead his cause. The manner in which he does 
 this gives rise to suspicions, and he is discovered to be a man; 
 he flies to the altar for refuge, and to secure himself still more from 
 the impending danger, he snatches a child from the arms of one 
 of the women, and threatens to kill it if they do not cease to per- 
 secute him. When he attempts to strangle it, it turns out to be 
 a leather wine-flask wrapped up like a child. Euripides now 
 appears in a number of different shapes to save his friend: at one 
 time he is Menelaus, who finds Helen again in Egypt; at another 
 time he is Echo, who assists the fettered Andromeda to pour out 
 her lamentations, and immediately afterwards he appears as Per- 
 seus, who wishes to relieve her from her rock. He at length 
 accomplishes the freedom of Mnesilochus from the sort of pillory 
 in which he was confined, by assuming the character of a pro- 
 curess, and enticing away the officer of justice who guards him, a 
 simple barbarian, by the charms of a female flute player. These 
 parodied scenes, composed almost entirely in the very words of 
 the tragedies, are inimitable. We may always, generally speak- 
 ing, lay our account with the most ingenious and apposite ridi- 
 cule, whenever Euripides happens to be introduced; it seems as 
 if the mind of Aristophanes had possessed a peculiar and specific 
 power of giving a comic turn to the poetry of this tragedian. 
 
 The Clouds is well known, but has not however for the most 
 part been either sufficiently understood or appreciated. The ob- 
 ject of the piece is to show, that by a fondness for philosophical 
 subtilities the warlike exercises come to be neglected, that specu- 
 
 16 
 
li'J LECTURES ON 
 
 lation only serves to shake the foundations of religion and morals, 
 and that by the arts of sophistry, every right is rendered ques- 
 tionable, and the worst cause is frequently victorious. The 
 Clouds themselves, as the chorus of the piece (for the poet con- 
 verts these substances into persons, and dresses them out in a 
 singular enough manner), are an allegory on the metaphysical 
 speculations which do not rest on the ground of experience, but 
 float about, without any definite shape or body, in the kingdom 
 of possibilities. We may observe in general that it is one of the 
 peculiarities of the mirth of Aristophanes to adopt a metaphor 
 literally, and to exhibit it in this way before the eyes of the 
 spectators. It is said of a man addicted to unintelligible re- 
 veries, that he is up in the clouds, and accordingly Socrates is 
 actually let down in a basket at his first appearance. Whether 
 this applies exactly to him is another question; but we have 
 reason to believe that the philosophy of Socrates was of a very 
 ideal cast, and that it was by no means so limited to popular ap- 
 plication, as Xenophon would have us to believe. But why has 
 Aristophanes given us a personification of the sophistical meta- 
 physics in the venerable Socrates, who was himself a determined 
 opponent of the Sophists? There was probably some personal 
 grudge at the bottom of this, and we must not attempt to justify 
 it; but the choice of the name by no means diminishes the merit 
 of the picture itself. Aristophanes declares this play the most 
 elaborate of all his works: but in his opinions we are not to take 
 him exactly at his word. He lavishes upon himself on all occa- 
 sions, and without the least hesitation, the most extravagant 
 praises; and this was considered to constitute a part of the free- 
 doms which comedy was allowed to take. But the Clouds was 
 treated with great severity at its representation, and twice con- 
 tended in vain for the prize. 
 
 The Frogs, as we have already said, is a piece of which the 
 subject is the decline of the tragic art. Euripides was dead, as 
 well as Sophocles and Agathon, and none but poets of the second 
 rank were then remaining. Bacchus feels the want of Euripides, 
 and resolves on bringing him back from the world below. In 
 this he imitates Hercules, but although he is furnished with his 
 lion-skin and club, he is very unlike him in his sentiments, and 
 affords us, by his pusillanimity, much matter for laughter. Here 
 we have a characteristic specimen of the audacity of Aristo- 
 phanes: he does not even spare the patron of his own art, in 
 whose honour the drama was exhibited. It was thought that the 
 gods understood a joke as well, if not better, than men. Bac- 
 chus rows over the Acherusian lake, where the frogs greet him 
 with their melodious croakings. The proper chorus however 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 123 
 
 consists of the shades of those initiated in the Eleusinian myste- 
 ries, and odes of astonishing beauty are put in their mouths. 
 iEschylus had at first seated himself on the tragic throne in the 
 world below, but Euripides was now desirous of ejecting him 
 from it. Pluto presides, and appoints Bacchus to determine this 
 great controversy; the two poets, the sublime and enraged 
 iEschylus, and the subtle and vain Euripides, take opposite po- 
 sitions and deliver specimens of their poetical powers; they sing 
 and speak against each other, and in all their features are charac- 
 terized in the most masterly manner. At last a balance is brought 
 on which each of them lays a verse; but notwithstanding all the 
 efforts of Euripides to produce heavy verses, those of iEschylus 
 always make the scale of his rival kick the beam. At last he 
 becomes impatient of the conflict, and proposes that Euripides 
 himself, with all his works, his wife, children, and Kephisophon, 
 shall get into one scale, and he will only put into the other two 
 verses. Bacchus has in the mean time been gained over to 
 iEschylus, and although he swore to Euripides that he would 
 take him back from the world below, he dismissed him with a 
 parody of one of his own verses in Hippolytus: 
 
 The tongue swore, however I make choice of iEschylus. 
 
 iEschylus consequently returns to the living, and delivers over 
 the tragic throne in his absence to Sophocles. 
 
 The observation on the changes of place, which I made when 
 mentioning Peace, may be here repeated. The scene is first 
 at Thebes, of which both Bacchus and Hercules were natives; 
 the stage is afterwards changed, without its ever being left by 
 Bacchus, to the nearest side of the Acherusian lake, which must 
 have been represented by the opening of the orchestra, and it 
 was not till Bacchus landed at the other end of the logeum that 
 the decorations represented the world below, with the palace of 
 Pluto in the back ground. This is not a mere conjecture, it is 
 expressly stated by the old scholiast. 
 
 The Wasp is in my opinion the feeblest piece of Aristophanes. 
 The subject is too limited, the folly represented appears a disease 
 of too singular a description, without a sufficient universality of 
 application, and the action is drawm out to too great a length. 
 The poet speaks this time in very modest language of his 
 means of entertainment, and does not even promise us an im- 
 moderate laughter. 
 
 On the other hand, the Birds transports us, by one of the 
 boldest and richest inventions, into the kingdom of the fantasti- 
 cally wonderful, and delights us with a display of the gayest 
 hilarity: it is a merry, rapid, and highly varied composition. I 
 
124 LECTURES ON 
 
 cannot agree with the old critic in thinking that this work is 
 chiefly characterized by its general and undisguised satire on the 
 corruptions of the Athenian state, and of all human institutions. 
 It seems rather to be marked by a display of the most harmless 
 pranks, in which gods as well as mortals participate, and the 
 poet does not seem to have had any particular aim in view. 
 Whatever in natural history, in mythology, in the doctrine of di- 
 vination, in the fables of iEsop, or even in proverbial expressions, 
 contained anything remarkable with relation to birds, has been 
 ingeniously drawn by the poet within his circle; he goes even 
 back to cosmogony, and shows that at first the raven-winged 
 night laid a wind-egg, over which the lovely Eros, with golden 
 pinions (without doubt a bird), brooded, and thence occasioned 
 the origin of all things. Two fugitives of the human race fall 
 into the dominion of the birds, who resolve to revenge them- 
 selves on them for the numerous cruelties which they have suf- 
 fered; the two men contrive to save themselves by convincing 
 the bird of their preeminency over all other creatures, and they 
 advise them to collect all their strength in one immense state; 
 the wondrous city, Cloudcuckooburg, is then built above the earth ; 
 all sorts of unbidden guests, priests, poets, soothsayers, geometers, 
 scribes, sycophants, wish to nestle in the new state, but are 
 driven out; new gods are appointed, naturally enough, after the 
 image of the birds, as those of men bore a resemblance to them- 
 selves; the old gods are shut out from Olympus, so that no odour 
 of sacrifices can reach them; in their emergency, they send an 
 embassy, consisting of the carniverous Hercules, Neptune, who, 
 according to the common expression, swears by Neptune, and a 
 Thracian god, who is not very familiar with Greek, but speaks 
 a sort of mixed jargon ; but yet these gods are under the necessi- 
 ty of submitting to the proposed conditions, and the sovereignty 
 of the world remains to the birds. However much all this re- 
 sembles a mere farcical joke, it may be said however to have this 
 philosophical signification, that it considers all things from above 
 in a sort of bird's-eye view, whereas the most of our ideas are 
 only true in a human point of view. 
 
 The old critics were of opinion that Cratinus was powerful 
 in living satire and direct attack, but that he was deficient in a 
 pleasant humour, in the talent of developing his subject in an ad- 
 vantageous manner, and filling up his pieces with the necessary 
 details; that Eupolis was agreeable in his jocularity, and skilful 
 in the use of ingenious allusions and contrivances, so that he 
 never even needed the assistance of the parabasis to say what- 
 ever he chose, but that he was deficient in satirical force; that 
 Aristophanes, by a happy middle course, united the advantages 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 125 
 
 of both, and that in him we have satire and pleasantry combined 
 in the most perfect and attractive manner. From these statements 
 I conceive myself justified in assuming that among the pieces of 
 Aristophanes, the Horsemen is the most in the style of Crati- 
 nus, and the Birds the nearest to the style of Eupolis; and that 
 he had their respective manners in view when he composed these 
 pieces. For although he boasts of his independent originality, 
 and of his never borrowing anything from others, it was hardly 
 possible that among such distinguished associates, all mutual in- 
 fluence should be excluded. If the opinion to which I have al- 
 luded is well founded, we have to lament the loss of the works 
 of Cratinus, perhaps principally for the light which they threw 
 on the manners of the times, and the knowledge which they dis- 
 played of the Athenian constitution, and the loss of the works of 
 Eupolis, chiefly for the comic form in which they were deli- 
 vered. 
 
 Plutus was one of the earlier pieces of the poet, but as we 
 have it, it is one of his last works; for the first piece was after- 
 wards recast by him. In its essence it belongs to the old come- 
 dy, but in the sparingness of personal satire, and in the mild tone 
 which prevails throughout the whole, we may perceive an ap- 
 proximation to the middle comedy. The old comedy was first 
 decisively suppressed by a formal enactment, but before this 
 event Aristophanes may have deemed it prudent to avoid exer- 
 cising his democratical prerogative in all its extent. It has even 
 been said (perhaps without any foundation, as the circumstance 
 has been denied by others) that Alcibiades ordered Eupolis to be 
 drowned on account of a piece which he had aimed at him. 
 Dangers of this description would repress the most ardent zeal of 
 authorship: it is but just that those who are desirous of affording 
 pleasure to their fellow citizens should at least be secure in their 
 lives. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE, 
 
 As we do not, so far as I know, possess anything like a satis- 
 factory poetical translation of Aristophanes, and as this author, 
 for many reasons, will ever be untranslatable, I have been in- 
 duced to communicate to my readers the scene in the Jlcharnse, 
 in which Euripides makes his appearance; not because this piece 
 does not contain many other scenes of equal, if not superior 
 merit, but because it has a reference to the character of this trage- 
 dian as an artist, and because it is both free from indecency, and 
 maybe easily understood. 
 
 The Acharnians, a country people of Attica, who have suffer- 
 ed a great deal from the enemy are highly enraged at Dikaiopo- 
 lis on account of the peace which he has concluded with the 
 Lacedaemonians, and have determined to stone him. He under- 
 takes to speak for the Lacedaemonians, remaining all the time be- 
 hind a block, that he may lose his head if he does not succeed in 
 convincing them. On account of this ticklish undertaking, he 
 calls on Euripides, for the purpose of obtaining from him the tat- 
 tered garments in which his heroes were in the habit of exciting 
 commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet 
 to occupy the middle of the back ground.* 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 It is now time to pluck up a valiant resolution, 
 And therefore must I pay a visit to Euripides. 
 Boy, boy! 
 
 * The translation of M. Schlegel is in a sort of free measure, which, as far 
 as my limited knowledge of German parody will allow me to judge, seems to 
 resemble that of the original. The nearest approximation to the ancient Iam- 
 bic, which would be tolerated in English, is our blank verse; but I have con- 
 fined myself to a translation in prose, in which the line of Greek is contained in 
 the line of English. — Trans. 
 
LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 127 
 
 Kephisophon ( appears. J 
 
 Who is there? 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 Is Euripides within? 395 
 
 Kephisophon. 
 He is within, and yet not within, if you can understand that. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 How within and not within? 
 
 It is all very true however, old man. 
 His mind is out collecting verses,* 
 And not within. But he himself is aloft composing 
 A tragedy. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 O thrice fortunate Euripides, 400 
 
 Who possessest a servant of such shrewd discernment. 
 Call him. 
 
 It is impossible. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 But you must — 
 1 will not go, but continue to knock at the door. 
 Euripides, my little Euripides \\ 
 
 Hear me if ever you heard any man. 405 
 
 Dikaiopolis calls you, the Chollidian, I. 
 Euripides. 
 
 I have not time. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 Come roll yourself out4 
 
 Euripides.™ 
 
 It is impossible.§ 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 
 Come consent. 
 
 Euripides. 
 Well, I will roll myself out. I have not time to come down. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 Euripides. 
 
 Euripides. 
 Why do you bawl so. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 What! you are composing aloft then, 410 
 
 Instead of below. You are famous at representing the lame. 
 Have you the rags there you use in tragedies, 
 
 • The Greek diminutive iaruwia. is here correctly expressed by the German 
 verschen, but I suspect versicle would not be tolerated in English. — Trans. 
 
 ■j- Evf>i7riSiov — in the German Euripidelein. — Trans. 
 
 \ A technical expression from the Encyclema, which was thrust out. 
 
 § Euripides appears in the upper story; but as in an altana, or sitting in an 
 open gallery. 
 
128 LECTURES ON 
 
 The dress cf commiseration? You are the man for beggars! 
 
 I kneel down in supplication to you, Euripides. 
 
 dive me the rag's of one of your old plays; 415 
 
 I have a long speech to make to the chorus, 
 
 And if I do not succeed I must expect death. 
 
 Euripides. 
 What rags do you want? Those in which old CEneus, 
 That unfortunate old man, stood the combat? 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 No, it was not CEneus, but a person still more wretched. 420 
 
 Euripides. . , 
 
 Those of the blind Phoenix? 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 No, not Phoenix, no: 
 It was another, still more miserable than Phoenix. 
 
 Euripides. 
 What sort of rags does the man want? 
 O! you mean those of the beggar Philoctetus. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 No, but a person still more beggarly. 425 
 
 Euripides. 
 You mean perhaps the sordid habiliments 
 In which the lame Bellerophon was attired? 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 Not Bellerophon. The man I mean 
 Was lame, demanded alms, garrulous, and bold of speech. 
 
 Euripides. 
 O ! I know — Telephus the Mysian — 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 
 Ay, Telephus. 430 
 
 Give me this man's apparel, I beseech you. 
 
 Euripides. 
 Boy give him the rags of Telephus, 
 They He there above the rags of Thyestes, 
 And under those of Inous. 
 
 Kephisophon. 
 
 Here! take them away. 
 Dikaiopolis (~ clothing himself in them J. 
 O Jupiter, who lookest down on, and seest through everything,* 435 
 
 Assist me in equipping myself most miserably. 
 Euripides, as you have favoured me with these, 
 Give me also the concomitants of the rags : 
 The little Mysian cap to put upon my head; 
 
 For to-day I must look like a beggar, 440 
 
 Yet still remain who I am, though I do not appear so.f 
 The spectators must know who I am, 
 But the chorus stand round like fools, 
 That I may tickle them with my rhetorical flowers. 
 
 * Allusion to the holes in the mantle, while he holds it up against the light, 
 f These two lines, and line 446, are taken from the tragedy of Telephus. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 129 
 
 Euripides. 
 I will give it to you; for your contrivance is admirable. 445 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 Hail to thee, Telephus! as far as I can perceive, 
 It succeeds: already I feel myself filling with elegancies of expression. 
 But I still want the beggar's staff. 
 
 Euripides. 
 Here, take it, and depart from these stone posts. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 O my mind, thou seest how I am driven from this habitation 450 
 
 In want of many little things. Become now 
 Tough and obstinate in beggary and praying. Euripides, 
 Give me a little basket in which a hole has been burnt by the lanthorn. 
 
 Euripides. 
 What occasion hast thou, O wretched man, for this basket? 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 No occasion at all, but still I wish to take it. 455 
 
 Euripides. 
 Begone now, leave the house, you become importunate. 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 
 Alas! 
 May you be as happy as ever your mother was.* 
 
 Euripides. 
 Come, leave me now. 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 No, you must give me one thing yet, 
 A little cup broken round the brim. 
 
 Euripides. 
 There take it and begone. Know that you are now troublesome. 460 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 Thou knowest not, by Zeus, the evils which thou occasionest. 
 But 0! sweetest Euripides, still one thing yet, 
 Give me a little pot filled with fungi. 
 
 Euripides. 
 
 man, thou wilt carry off the whole tragedy. 
 Take it too, and depart 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 I go now. 465 
 
 But what am I to do? I must still have one thing, or if I have it not, 
 
 1 am ruined. Hear me, O sweetest Euripides ! 
 
 When I have this I shall be gone, and not tease you longer. \ 
 Give me the refuse cabbage leaves in the basket.^ 
 
 Euripides. 
 You ruin me. See there! My whole play has disappeared. 470 
 
 * A poor retailer of vegetables. 
 
 f This line is omitted in the German translation. — Thaws. 
 
 * This and line 479 allude to the employment of the mother of Euripides. 
 
 17 
 
130 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 Dikaiopolis {appearing as if he wished to go.) 
 Nothing- more now. Now I go. I am in truth very 
 Troublesome, not seeming* to dread those who command. 
 O wretched man that I am, I am ruined! I have forgot 
 One thing, which of all others is the most important, 
 My dearest little Euripides! O my darling, 475 
 
 May I perish miserably, but I must still beg one thing from you, 
 One thing alone, this alone, this one thing alone.- 
 Give me the chervil which you inherited from your mother. 
 
 Euripides. 
 The man is insulting me — shut the door on him. 
 
 ( The Encyclema shuts, and Euripides and Kephisophon retire 
 into the house.) 
 
 Dikaiopolis. 
 O my mind, we must proceed without the chervil, 480 
 
 But art thou aware what a conflict awaits thee, 
 Having to plead the cause of the Lacedaemonians. 
 Proceed now, O my mind, behold the contest! 
 "Why dost thou hesitate? hast thou not devoured Euripides? 
 Thou shalt be extolled. Come then, O wretched heart, 485 
 
 Repair thither, and there have thy head 
 In readiness for the block, saying what seems best to thee. 
 Courage! proceed! be of good cheer, my heart. 
 
( 131 ) 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Whether the middle comedy was a distinct species — Origin of the new comedy 
 — A mixed species — Its prosaic character — Whether versification is essential 
 to comedy — Subordinate kinds — Pieces of character, and of intrigue — The 
 comic of observation, of self-consciousness, and arbitrary comic — Morality of 
 comedy — Plautus and Terence as imitators of the Greeks here cited and 
 characterized for want of the originals — Moral and social aim of the Attic 
 comedy — Statues of two comic authors. 
 
 The ancient critics mention the existence of a middle comedy, 
 between the new and the old. Its distinctive peculiarities are 
 variously stated: at one time in the abstinence from personal 
 satire, and the introduction of real characters, and at another time 
 in the dismissal of the chorus. The introduction of real persons 
 under their true names was at no time an indispensable requisite. 
 We find characters in many pieces, even of Aristophanes, in no 
 respect historical, but altogether fictitious, with significant names 
 in the manner of the new comedy, and personal satire is only oc- 
 casionally resorted to. The right of personal satire was no doubt 
 essential to the old comedy, as I have already attempted to show; 
 and by losing this right the comic writers were no longer enabled 
 to throw ridicule on public actions and the state. When they 
 confined themselves to private life, the chorus ceased to have any 
 longer a signification. An accidental circumstance contributed to 
 accelerate its removal. The dress and instruction of the chorus 
 required a great out-lay; but when comedy came to forfeit its 
 political privileges, and consequently also its festal dignity, and 
 was degraded to a mere source of amusement, the poet found no 
 longer any rich patrons to defray the expense of the chorus. 
 
 Platonius gives us still another trait of the middle comedy. 
 On account of the danger of alluding to public affairs, the comic 
 writers, he says, had turned all their powers of satire against 
 serious poetry, both epic and tragic, and exposed its absurdities 
 and contradictions; and the JEolosikon of Aristophanes, which 
 was written at a late period of his life, was of such a kind. This 
 description involves the idea of parody, which we included under 
 the old comedy at our commencement. Platonius gives us the 
 Ulysses of Cratinus, a burlesque of the Odyssey, as an instance. 
 But no play of Cratinus could, in the order of time, belong to the 
 middle comedy; for his death is mentioned by Aristophanes in 
 his Peace. And as to the drama of Eupolis, in which he de- 
 scribed what is called by us a Utopia, or lubberly land, what else 
 was it but a parody of the poetical tales of the golden age? Are 
 
132 LECTURES ON 
 
 not the ascent to heaven of Trygaeus, and the descent to hell of 
 Bacchus in Aristophanes, ludicrous imitations of the deeds of 
 Bellerophon and Hercules, sung in epic and tragic poetry? Many 
 other parodies of tragic scenes might be mentioned. In the limi- 
 tation to this peculiarity, we shall in vain seek for a real and dis- 
 tinct line of separation. The frolicsome caprice, and allegoric 
 signification of the composition are, poetically considered, the only 
 essential peculiarities of the old comedy. Wherever we find 
 them, we shall rank the work in this class, in whatever times, 
 and under whatever circumstances, it may have been composed. 
 
 As the new comedy arose merely from the interdiction of the 
 old, that is, the depriving it of its political freedom, we may easily 
 conceive that an interval of vacillation, and endeavours to supply 
 its place, would take place before a new comic form could be de- 
 veloped and fully established. Hence there may have been several 
 kinds of the middle comedy, several gradations between the old 
 and the new; and in this opinion some men of learning have con- 
 curred. This is therefore a matter of historical certainty; but 
 in a technical point of view, a transition is not a separate kind. 
 
 We proceed therefore immediately to the new comedy, the 
 species of poetry which with us receives the appellation of com- 
 edy. I imagine that we shall form a more correct notion of this 
 species, if we consider it in connexion with the history of art, 
 and from an examination of its various ingredients pronounce it 
 mixed and conditional, than if we were to term it an original and 
 pure species, as is done by those who either care nothing for the 
 old comedy, or consider it as a mere rude commencement. Hence 
 the infinite importance of Aristophanes, as we have in him what 
 there is no other example of in the world. 
 
 The new comedy may, in certain respects, be described as the 
 old, in a tamed state, but in productions of genius, tameness is 
 not generally considered as praise. The new comic writers en- 
 deavoured to supply the place of the unconditional freedom of 
 satire and gaiety, which was lost by a mixture of seriousness bor- 
 rowed from tragedy, both in the form of the representation and 
 general developement, and in the impressions which they labour- 
 ed to produce. We have seen that tragic poetry, in its last epoch, 
 descended from its ideal elevation, and approached near to com- 
 mon reality, both in the characters and in the tone of the dia- 
 logue, but more especially in the endeavour after practical in- 
 struction respecting the manner in which civil and domestic 
 life might best be regulated. — This attempt at utility in Euripi- 
 des was ironically praised by Aristophanes.* Euripides was the 
 precursor of the new comedy; and the poets of this species have 
 • The Frogs, v. 971—991. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 133 
 
 # 
 
 always admired him in a particular manner, and acknowledged 
 him as their master. — The similarity of tone and spirit is even 
 so great that moral maxims of Euripides have been ascribed to 
 Menander, and of Menander to Euripides. On the other hand, 
 we find among the fragments of Menander, consolations which 
 rise to the height of the true tragic tone. 
 
 Hence the new comedy is a mixture of seriousness and mirth.* 
 The poet no longer himself turns poetry and the world into ridi- 
 cule, he no longer gives himself up to a sportive and frolicsome 
 inspiration, but endeavours to discover the ridiculous in the ob- 
 jects themselves; in human characters and their situations he 
 paints what occasions mirth, in a word, what is pleasant and 
 laughable. But it must no longer appear as the mere creation of 
 his fancy, but seem probable, that is, real. Hence we must again 
 modify the comic ideal of human nature which we laid down 
 above by this law, and determine the different kinds and grada- 
 tions of the comic accordingly. 
 
 The highest tragic seriousness, as I have already shown, runs 
 always into the infinite; and the object of tragedy, properly 
 speaking, is the struggle between the finite and outward exist- 
 ence, and the inward disposition which grasps at infinitude. The 
 subdued seriousness of the new comedy, on the other hand, re- 
 mains always within the circle of experience. The place oifate 
 is supplied by accident, for such is the empirical idea of that 
 which lies beyond our power or control. Hence we actually 
 find among the fragments of the comic writers many expressions 
 relative to accident, as in the tragedians respecting fate. To un- 
 conditional necessity, moral liberty could alone be opposed; ac- 
 cident was, by the understanding, to be made subservient to the 
 advantage of the individual. On this account, the whole mora- 
 lity of the new comedy exactly resembles that of the fable; it is 
 nothing more than prudence. In this sense, it was said by an 
 ancient critic, with sufficient comprehension, and with inimitable 
 brevity at the same time, that tragedy was the flight of life, co- 
 medy its regulation. 
 
 The idea of the old comedy is a fantastic illusion, a pleasant 
 
 • The original here is not susceptible of an exact translation into English. 
 Though the German language has this great advantage, that there are few 
 ideas which may not be expressed in it in words of Teutonic origin, yet words 
 derived from Greek and Latin are also occasionally used indiscriminately with 
 the Teutonic synonymes, for the sake of variety or otherwise. Thus the gene- 
 ric word spiel (play,) is formed into lustspiel (comedy,) trauerspiel (tragedy,) 
 sing-spiel (opera,) Schauspiel (drama;) but the Germans also use tragaedie, ko- 
 msedie t opera and drama. In the text, the author proposes, for the sake of dis- 
 tinction, to give the name of lustspiel to the new comedy, to distinguish it from 
 the old; but having only the single term comedy in English, I must, in trans- 
 lating lustspiely make use of the two words, new comedy. — Thaws. 
 
134 LECTURES ON 
 
 dream, which at last, with the exception of the general effect, all 
 ends in nothing. The new comedy, on the other hand, is se- 
 rious in its form. It rejects everything of a contradictory na- 
 ture, which might have the effect of destroying the impressions 
 of reality. It endeavours after union and connexion, and it has, 
 in common with tragedy, a formal developement and catastrophe. 
 It connects together too, like tragedy, events, as causes and ef- 
 fects; but it connects them by the laws of experience, without any 
 reference, as in tragedy, to one idea. As the latter endeavours to 
 satisfy our feelings towards the conclusion, in like manner the new 
 comedy endeavours to attain, at least, an apparent point of rest for 
 the understanding. I may remark, in passing, that this is by no 
 means an easy problem for the comic writer: he must contrive 
 at last to get rid of the contradictions, with the complication and 
 intricacy of which we have been diverted, in a proper and suita- 
 ble manner; when he attempts an actual equalization by making 
 all his fools reasonable, and by improving or punishing all those 
 who are evil disposed, there is then an end of everything like a 
 pleasant and comical impression. 
 
 Such were the comic and tragic ingredients of the new come- 
 dy. There is yet a third however, which is in itself neither 
 comic, nor tragic, nor even, generally speaking, of a poetic na- 
 ture. I allude to the truth of the portraiture. The ideal and 
 caricature, both in the plastic art and in dramatic poetry, lay 
 claim to no other truth, than that of their signification; they must 
 not seem real individual beings. Tragedy moves in an ideal, 
 and the old comedy in a fanciful or fantastical world. As the 
 creative power of the fancy was circumscribed in the new come- 
 dy, it became necessary to afford some equivalent to the under- 
 standing, and this consists in the probability of the subjects re- 
 presented, on which the mind may exercise its powers of discri- 
 mination. I do not mean the calculation of the rarity or fre- 
 quency of the subject which is represented (for without the li- 
 berty of depicting singularities, and with a rigid adherence to 
 every-day life, comic amusement would be impossible,) but the 
 individual truth of the picture. The new comedy must be a true 
 image of the manners of the day, and it must have a local and 
 national determination; and although we see comedies of other 
 times, and other nations, brought upon the stage, yet we still en- 
 deavour to trace this resemblance in them, and are pleased when 
 we find it. I do not mean, by the truth of the portrait, that the 
 comic characters must be altogether individual. The most pro- 
 minent features of different individuals of a class may be com- 
 bined together in a certain degree of completeness, provided they 
 are clothed with a sufficient degree of peculiarity to have an in- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 135 
 
 dividual life, and are not represented as examples of an abstract 
 idea. But in so far as the new comedy depicts the constitution 
 of social and domestic life in general, it is a portrait; from this 
 prosaical side it must be variously modified according to time 
 and place, while the comic motives, from their poetical princi- 
 ple, remain ever the same. 
 
 The ancients have already acknowledged the new comedy as 
 a faithful picture of life. Full of this idea, the grammarian Aris- 
 tophanes exclaimed in a tone of expression somewhat affected, 
 though highly ingenious: " life and Menander! which of you 
 two has imitated the other?" Horace informs us that it was doubt- 
 ed by some whether comedy could be styled a poem, because it 
 neither in the subject, nor in the language, displayed the impres- 
 sive elevation of other kinds of poetry, and the composition was 
 merely distinguished from ordinary discourse by the versifica- 
 tion. But it was urged by others that comedy occasionally ele- 
 vated her tone, for instance, when an enraged father reproaches 
 his son with his profligacy. This answer however is rejected by 
 Horace as insufficient. "Would Pomponius," says he, with a 
 biting application, " hear anything else, were his father still 
 alive?" To answer the doubt, we must examine wherein the 
 new comedy differs from individual reality. In the first place it 
 is a fictitious whole, composed of congruous parts, agreeably to 
 the scale of art. Moreover, the subject represented is handled 
 according to the conditions of theatrical exhibition; everything 
 foreign and incongruous is separated, and the legitimate mate- 
 rials are subjected to a more rapid progress, than in real life; 
 over the whole subject, situations as well as characters, a certain 
 clearness and distinctness of appearance is thrown, which the 
 fleeting and indeterminate shadowings of real life are seldom 
 found to possess. This is what constitutes the poetical in the 
 form of the new comedy ; the prosaical principle lies in the ma- 
 terials, in the expected resemblance to somewhat that is indivi- 
 dual and external. 
 
 We may now proceed to the consideration of the question 
 which has given rise to so much dispute, whether versification is 
 essential to comedy, and whether a comedy written in prose is 
 an imperfect production. This question has been frequently an- 
 swered in the affirmative on the authority of the ancients, who, 
 it is true, had no theatrical productions in prose; but this might 
 have arisen from accidental circumstances, for example, the great 
 extent of the stage, in which verse, from its more emphatic deli- 
 very, must have been better heard than prose. These critics 
 forget that the Mimi of Sophron, so much admired by Plato, 
 were written in prose. And what were these Mimi, if, from the 
 
136 LECTURES ON 
 
 allegation that some of the idyls of Theocritus were an imitation 
 of them in hexameters, we may venture to form any idea of 
 them? They were pictures of real life, in which every appear- 
 ance of poetry was most studiously avoided. This consists in 
 the dramatic concatenation, which did not certainly take place 
 in these pieces; they were mere detached scenes, in which one 
 thing succeeded another accidentally, and without preparation, 
 as the particular hour of any working-day or holiday brought it 
 about. The want of dramatic interest was supplied by mimicry, 
 that is, by the most accurate representation of individual peculi- 
 arities in action and language, which arose from nationality de- 
 termined by local circumstances, and from sex, age, rank, and 
 occupation. 
 
 Even in versified comedy, the language must, in the choice of 
 words and phrases, differ very little, and in a manner that is 
 hardly perceptible, from that of conversation; the freedoms of 
 poetical expression, indispensable in other departments of poetry 
 are here inadmissible. The versification must not differ from 
 the common, unconstrained, and negligent tone of conversa- 
 tion, and seems to be that which would first suggest itself. Its 
 cadence must not serve to elevate the characters as in tragedy, 
 where along with the unusual sublimity of the language, it be- 
 comes as it were a mental cothurnus. In comedy the verse 
 must merely serve to give greater lightness, spirit, and elegance 
 to the dialogue. The question whether a comedy ought to be ver- 
 sified or not, must be determined by the circumstance, whether it 
 would be more suitable to the subject to give this degree of perfec- 
 tion of form to the dialogue, or to imitate rhetorical and grammati- 
 cal errors, even the physical imperfections of speech. This last 
 case however has not been so frequently the cause of producing 
 comedies in prose in modern times, as the ease and convenience of 
 the author, and in some degree also of the player. I would how- 
 ever recommend to my countrymen, the Germans, the diligent 
 use of verse, and even of rhyme in comedy; for as we are yet 
 seeking our national comic, without knowing very well where 
 to find it, the whole composition would gain in worth, by the 
 compression of the form, and we should be enabled to guard, in 
 our very outset, against many important errors. We have not 
 yet attained such a mastery in this matter as will allow us to 
 resign ourselves to the guidance of an agreeable negligence. 
 
 As we have pronounced the new comedy a mixed species, 
 formed of comic and tragic, poetic and prosaic elements, it is 
 self-evident that in the extent of this species, several subordinate 
 species may exist, according to the preponderance of one or other 
 of the ingredients. If the poet plays in a sportive humour with 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 137 
 
 his own inventions, he produces a farce; if he confines himself 
 to the ludicrous in situations and characters, carefully avoiding 
 all serious admixtures, we shall have a pure comedy (lust spiel); 
 in proportion as seriousness prevails in the aim of the whole 
 composition, and in the interest and moral discrimination which 
 it gives rise to, the piece becomes what is called instructive or 
 sentimental comedy; and there is only another step to the fami- 
 liar or civic tragedy. Great stress has often been laid on the 
 two last mentioned species as inventions entirely new, and of 
 great importance, and peculiar theories have been devised for 
 them, &c. In the lacrymose drama of Diderot, which was after- 
 wards so much abused, the failure consisted altogether in that 
 which was new: the affectation of nature, pedantry in the 
 domestic relations, and the extravagant use of pathos. If we 
 had the whole of the comic literature of the Greeks, we should, 
 without doubt, find in it the models of all these species, with 
 this difference, that the clear head of the Greeks never allowed 
 them to fall into a chilling monotony, but regulated and mixed 
 everything with wise moderation. Have not we, among the 
 very few remaining pieces, the Captives of Plautus, which may 
 be called an affecting drama; the Step-Mother of Terence, a 
 true family picture; while the *fimphitryo borders on the fan- 
 tastic boldness of the old comedy, and the Twin-Brothers 
 (Mensechmi) is a wild piece of intrigue? Do we not find, 
 throughout all the pieces of Terence, passages of a seriously in- 
 structive, impassioned, and affecting nature? We have only to 
 call to mind the first scene of the Heautontimorumenos. We 
 are hopeful that we shall find a due place for everything, from 
 our point of view. We see here no separated kinds, but merely 
 gradations in the tone of the composition, which are marked by 
 transitions, more or less perceptible. 
 
 Neither can we allow the common division into pieces of 
 character and intrigue, to pass without some limitation. A 
 good comedy ought always to be both the one and the other, or 
 it will be deficient either in strength or animation; though some- 
 times the one, and sometimes the other will, no doubt, prepon- 
 derate. The developement of the comic character requires con- 
 trasted situations, and these again arise from the crossing of 
 purposes and events, which, as I have already shown, consti- 
 tutes intrigue in the dramatic sense. Every one knows the 
 meaning of intriguing in common life; the leading others, by 
 cunning and dissimulation, to assist our hidden views without 
 their knowledge and against their will. In the drama we meet 
 with both significations, for the cunning of the one becomes a 
 crossing event for the other. 
 
 18 
 
13S LECTURES ON 
 
 When the characters are only slightly sketched, merely as 
 much as is necessary to warrant the actions of the characters in 
 certain cases; when the incidents are so crowded, that little room 
 is left for the developement of character; when the plot is brought 
 forward in such a manner, that the strange complication of mis- 
 understandings and embarrassments, seems every moment on the 
 point of being cleared up, and yet the knot is again drawn tighter 
 and tighter: such a composition may well be called a piece of 
 intrigue. The French critics have made it fashionable to con- 
 sider a piece of this kind as very much inferior in value to one 
 of character, perhaps from their looking too much to what may 
 be retained and carried home by us from a play. It is true, the 
 piece of intrigue, in some degree, ends at last in nothing; but 
 why should it not be permitted to sport in an ingenious manner, 
 without any other object? A good comedy of this description 
 certainly requires a great display of inventive wit; besides the 
 entertainment which we derive from the sight of so much acute^ 
 ness and ingenuity, the wonderful tricks and delusions which 
 are practised, possess a very great charm for the fancy, as has 
 been proved by the example of many Spanish pieces. 
 
 It is objected to the piece of intrigue, that it deviates from the 
 natural course of things, that it is improbable. We may admit 
 the former however without also admitting the latter. The poet, 
 no doubt, exhibits before us what is unexpected, extraordinary, 
 and wonderful, even to incredibility; and he often sets out, even 
 with a great improbability, as for example, the resemblance 
 between two persons, or a disguise which is not seen through; 
 but all the incidents must afterwards have the appearance of 
 truth, and all the circumstances by means of which the affair 
 takes such a wonderful turn, must be satisfactorily explained to 
 us. As the poet, in proportion to the events which take place, 
 gives us but a slight display of wit, we are the more strict with 
 him respecting the how they are brought about. 
 
 In the comedies which are more of a characteristical nature, 
 the characters must be grouped with art, that they may serve to 
 throw light on each other. This however is very apt to degene- 
 rate into too systematical a method, where each character has 
 his symmetrical contrast, and where by such means an unnatural 
 appearance is given to the whole. Neither are those comedies 
 deserving of the highest praise, in which all other persons seem 
 merely introduced to allow, as it were, the principal character to 
 go through his different probations; especially when that char- 
 acter consists of nothing but an opinion, or a habit (for instance, 
 I'optimiste, le distrait), as if an individual could only consist 
 
PRAMATIC LITERATURE. 139 
 
 of one single peculiarity, and not be determined by all his differ^ 
 ent properties. 
 
 I have already shown in what the sportive ideal of the old 
 comedy consisted. As the new comedy ought to bear a resem-? 
 blance to a definite reality, it must, not indulge in the studied and 
 arbitrary extravagance of the former species. It must seek for 
 other sources of comic amusement, which lie nearer the province 
 of seriousness, and these are to be found in a more accurate and 
 thorough delineation of character. 
 
 In the characters of the new comedy, either the comic of ob-, 
 servation, or the self-conscious and confessed comic, will be 
 found to prevail. The former constitutes the more refined, or 
 what is called high comedy, and the latter low comedy or farce, 
 I shall explain myself more distinctly. 
 
 There are laughable peculiarities, follies, and perversities, of 
 which the possessor himself is unconscious, and which, when he 
 does perceive in any degree, he studiously endeavours to conceal, 
 as being calculated to injure him in the opinion of others. Such 
 persons do not give themselves out for what they actually are; 
 their secret escapes from them unwittingly, or against their will| 
 and when the poet portrays them, he must lend his own peculiar 
 talent for observation, that we may attain a due knowledge of 
 them. His art consists in allowing us to discover the character 
 of the individual, by overhearing him as it were, in^his unguarded 
 moments, and seizing on traits which have accidentally escaped 
 him, and in placing the spectator in such a position, that how^ 
 ever nice the observation may be, he can hardly fail to make it. 
 
 There are other moral defects, which are beheld by their pos^ 
 sessor with a certain degree of satisfaction, and which he has even 
 resolved not to remedy, but to cherish and preserve. Of this kind 
 is all that, without reference to selfish pretensions, or hostile in^ 
 clinations, merely originates in the preponderance of sensuality. 
 This may, without doubt, be united to a high degree of intellect, 
 and when such a person applies his mental powers to the con- 
 sideration of his own character, laughs at himself, confesses his 
 failings to others, or endeavours to reconcile them to them, by 
 the droll manner in which they are mentioned, we have then an 
 instance of the self-conscious comic. This kind always supposes 
 a certain inward duality of character, and the superior half, which 
 rallies and laughs at the other, has from its tone and its employ^ 
 ment, a near affinity to the comic poet himself. He occasionally 
 delivers over his functions entirely to this representative, while 
 he allows him studiously to overcharge the picture which he draws 
 of himself, and to enter into a sort of understanding with the 
 
140 LECTURES ON 
 
 spectators, to throw ridicule on the other characters. We have 
 in this way the arbitrary comic, which generally produces a 
 very powerful effect, however much the critics may affect to 
 underrate it. In the instance in question, the spirit of the old 
 comedy prevails; the privileged fool or buffoon, who has appear- 
 ed on almost all stages under different names, and whose character 
 is at one time a display of shrewdness and wit, and at another of 
 absurdity and stupidity, has inherited something of the extrava- 
 gant inspiration, and the rights and privileges of the free and un- 
 restrained old comic writer; and this is the strongest proof that 
 the old comedy, which we have described as the original species, 
 was not founded alone in the peculiar circumstances of the Greeks, 
 but is essentially rooted in the nature of things. 
 
 To keep the spectators in a merry disposition, comedy must 
 not clothe her characters with too much dignity, nor excite too 
 deep an interest in their fate, for in both these cases an entrance 
 will infallibly be given to seriousness. How is the poet to avoid 
 agitating our moral feelings, when the actions represented are of 
 a nature to give rise to disgust and contempt, or reverence and 
 love? He must always range within the province of the under- 
 standing. He must contrast men with each other, as mere phy- 
 sical beings, that they may measure their powers against one an- 
 other: I include of course the mental powers, and even allude to 
 them more particularly. In this, comedy bears the nearest af- 
 finity to fable: in the fable we have animals endowed with reason, 
 and in comedy we have men with their understanding subservient 
 to their animal propensities. By animal propensities, I mean 
 sensuality, and in a still more general sense, self-love. As hero- 
 ism and self-devotion elevate the character to the tragic, the comic 
 characters on the other hand, are complete egoists. This must 
 however be understood with due limitation: we do not mean that 
 comedy never portrays the social inclinations, but only that it 
 represents them as originating in the natural endeavour after our 
 own happiness. Whenever the poet goes beyond this, he leaves 
 the comic tone. He is not to direct our feelings to the dignity 
 or meanness, the innocence or corruption, the goodness or base- 
 ness of the characters; but to show us whether they act stupidly 
 or wisely, suitably or unsuitably, with silliness or ability. 
 
 Examples will serve to place the thing in the clearest light. 
 We possess an involuntary and immediate respect for truth, and 
 this belongs to the most deep-rooted emotions of morality. A lie 
 undertaken for a base purpose, and which threatens dangerous 
 consequences, fills us with the highest disgust, and belongs to 
 tragedy. Why then are cunning and deceit admitted as excellent 
 comic motives, supposing that they are used with no bad design, 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 141 
 
 but merely for purposes of self-love, to extricate the party from 
 a dilemma, or to attain some object, and that no dangerous con- 
 sequences are to be dreaded? It is because the deceiver is already 
 beyond the limits of the moral sphere, because truth and untruth 
 are in themselves equally indifferent to him, being only consider- 
 ed in the light of means; and we are merely entertained with the 
 display of sharpness and ready wittedness which are requisite to 
 carry on the deceit. It is still more amusing, when the deceiver 
 is himself caught in his own snare; for instance, when he is a 
 liar, but has a bad memory. On the other hand, error, when not 
 seriously dangerous, is a comic situation, more especially when 
 this disease of the understanding proceeds from a previous abuse 
 of the mental powers, from vanity, folly, or perversity. When 
 deceit and error cross one another, and are by that means multi- 
 plied, excellent comic situations are produced. Two men for 
 instance meet for the purpose of deceiving one another; both 
 however are previously warned, and on their guard, and both go 
 away deceived with respect to the success of their deceit. Or the 
 one wishes to betray the other, but tells him unwittingly the truth; 
 that other person is suspicious, and falls into the snare, merely 
 from being so much on his guard. We might in this way lay down 
 a sort of comic grammar, and show how the separate motives are 
 swallowed up in one another, with a perpetually increased effect, 
 till we come to the most artificial constructions. We should find, 
 perhaps, in this way, that the complication of misunderstandings 
 which constitutes a comedy of intrigue, is by no means so con- 
 temptible a part of the comic art, as the advocates of the comedies 
 of character are pleased to assert. 
 
 Aristotle describes the laughable as an imperfection, an impro- 
 priety which is not productive of any essential injury. Excellent! 
 for from the moment that we entertain a true sympathy with the 
 characters, the comic tone is at an end. The comic misfortune 
 must not exceed an embarrassment, which is at last got rid of, or 
 at most a merited humiliation. Of this description are certain 
 corporeal means of improvement applied to grown people, which 
 our more refined, or at least more fastidious age will not tolerate 
 on the stage, but of which Moliere, Holberg, and other masters, 
 have diligently availed themselves. The comic effect of this 
 application arises from our having a pretty conspicuous demon- 
 stration of the dependence of the mind on external things; we 
 have a practical manifestation, as it were, of the motives of action. 
 This discipline in comedy corresponds with a violent death in 
 tragedy, submitted to with heroic magnanimity. In the one 
 case, the resolution remains unshaken amidst all the horrors of 
 annihilation, the man perishes, but his principles survive; in the 
 
112 LECTURES ON 
 
 other case, the bodily existence remains uninjured, but an instan- 
 taneous change of sentiments is operated. 
 
 As comedy must place the spectator in a point of view alto- 
 gether different from that of moral dignity, with what right can 
 we demand moral instruction from comedy, with what ground 
 can we even expect such instruction? When we examine more 
 clearly the maxims of morality of the Greek comic writers, we 
 shall find that they are all of them founded on experience. We 
 do not however attain a knowledge of our duties from experience; 
 we have an immediate conviction of them from conscience; ex- 
 perience can only enlighten us with respect to what is advanta- 
 geous or disadvantageous. The instruction of comedy does not turn 
 on the dignity of the aim, but the sufficiency of the means. It is, 
 as has been already said, the doctrine of prudence; the morality of 
 result, and not of nature. Morality, in its genuine acceptation, is 
 essentially related to tragedy. 
 
 Many philosophers have reproached comedy with immorality, 
 and among others Rousseau, in his eloquent letter on the drama. 
 The aspect of the actual course of things in the world is, no doubt, 
 far from edifying; it is not however exhibited in comedy as a 
 model for our imitation, but as a warning and admonition to us. 
 It may be called the practical part of morality, the art of living. 
 Whoever is unacquainted with the world is perpetually in danger 
 of making the most erroneous application of moral principles to 
 individual cases, and, with the very best intentions in the world, of 
 occasioning much mischief both to himself and others. Comedy 
 sharpens our powers of discrimination, and gives us an acquaint- 
 ance with persons and situations; that is, it makes us wiser; and 
 this is the true and only morality which it can possibly inculcate. 
 
 So far with respect to the investigation of the general idea, 
 which must serve us as a clue to determine the merits of the dif- 
 ferent poets. I shall not be long occupied in considering the 
 small portion of the new comedy of the Greeks, which has come 
 down to us in fragments, or in the copies of Roman writers. The 
 Greek literature was extremely rich in this department : the mere 
 list of the comic writers whose works are lost, and of the names 
 of those works, so far as they are known to us, makes of itself a 
 dictionary of no small magnitude. Although the new comedy 
 developed itself, and flourished only in a short interval between 
 the end of the Peloponnesian war, and the first successors of 
 Alexander the Great, yet the stock of pieces amounted to some 
 thousands; but time has made such havoc in this superfluity of 
 works of ingenuity and wit, that nothing remains but a number 
 of detached fragments in the original language, which are fre- 
 quently disfigured in such a manner as not to be intelligible, and 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 143 
 
 about twenty translations or copies of Greek originals in Plautus, 
 and six in Terence. The labours of criticism might be here, with 
 propriety, employed in endeavouring to deduce, from a careful 
 consideration of the whole of the traces which we possess, some- 
 thing like a just estimate and characterization of what we have 
 lost. The chief point in a labour of this kind, I can take upon 
 me to mention. The fragments and maxims of the comic writers 
 are in their versification and language distinguished for the utmost 
 purity, elegance, and accuracy; the tone of society in them is 
 characterized by a certain Attic grace. The Latin comic poets 
 again are negligent in their versification, and the idea of it is al- 
 most lost in the many metrical freedoms taken by them» Even 
 in language, they are deficient in cultivation and polish, at least 
 Plautus is. Several learned Romans, and Varro among others, 
 have, it is true, praised the style of this poet, but we must learn 
 to distinguish between philological and poetical approbation. 
 Plautus and Terence were among the most ancient Roman writers, 
 and belonged to a time when the language of books was hardly 
 yet in existence, and when everything was drawn fresh from life. 
 This naive simplicity had its charms in the eyes of those Romans, 
 who belonged to the period of learned cultivation: but it was 
 much more a natural gift than the fruit of poetical art. Horace 
 condemns this excessive partiality, and asserts that Plautus and 
 the other comic poets were negligent in the composition of their 
 pieces, and wrote them in the utmost haste, that they might be 
 the sooner paid. We may safely affirm therefore that in the 
 graces and elegancies of execution, the Greek poets have always 
 lost in the Latin imitations. We must re-translate these in idea, 
 into the finished elegance which we perceive in the fragments. 
 Besides, Plautus and Terence made many changes in the general 
 plan, which would hardly be improvements. The former omitted, 
 at times, scenes and characters, and the latter made additions, 
 and melted down two plays into one. Was this done with the 
 view of improvement in their art, and were they actually desirous 
 of excelling their Grecian predecessors in the structure of their 
 pieces? I am doubtful of this. In Plautus everything ran out into 
 breadth, and he was obliged to remedy in some other way the 
 lengthening which this gave to the original ; the imitations of Te- 
 rence, on the other hand, from his want of facility and invention, 
 turned out somewhat bad, and the gaps were filled up by him with 
 materials derived from different pieces. He was even reproached 
 by his contemporaries with having falsified and destroyed a num- 
 ber of Grecian pieces, for the purpose of making a few Latin ones 
 out of them. 
 
 Plautus and Terence are generally mentioned as writers, in 
 
144 LECTURES ON 
 
 every respect, original. The Romans were to be forgiven for this: 
 they possessed but little of a peculiar poetical spirit, and this poeti- 
 cal literature owed its origin, for the most part, first to translation, 
 then to a freer imitation, and finally to an appropriation and new 
 modelling of the Greek. They allowed therefore a particular 
 sort of translation to pass for originality. We find in the apolo- 
 getic prologues of Terence, as an excuse for his plagiarism, that 
 he was accused of it, because he had again made use of a subject 
 already translated from the Greek. As we cannot however now 
 consider these writers in the light of creative artists, and as they 
 are only important to us in so far as we are enabled through their 
 means to become acquainted with the shape of the new Grecian 
 comedy, I shall take this opportunity of saying a few words with 
 respect to their character, and then return to the consideration of 
 of the new Greek comic writers. 
 
 Among the Greeks, the poets and artists lived at all times in 
 the most honourable relations; among the Romans however, polite 
 literature was at first cultivated by men of the lowest rank, by 
 needy foreigners, and even by slaves. Plautus and Terence, who 
 lived nearly about the same period, towards the end of the se- 
 cond Punic war, and in the interval between the second and third, 
 were of the lowest rank: the former, a miserable day-labourer, 
 and the latter, a Carthaginian slave, and afterwards a freed man. 
 Their fortunes, however, were very different. Plautus was 
 obliged to hire himself out in the intervals, when he was not em- 
 ployed in writing comedies, as a beast of burden in a hand-mill; 
 Terence became the inmate of the elder Scipio and his bosom 
 friend Lselius, and they deigned to admit him to such a degree 
 of familiarity, that he was charged with being assisted by these 
 noble Romans in the composition of his pieces, and it was even 
 said that they allowed their own labours to pass under his name. 
 The habits of their lives are perceivable in their respective modes 
 of writing: the bold roughness of Plautus, and his famed jests, 
 betray his intercourse with the lower classes; in Terence, again, 
 we can discern the trace of good society. They are to be dis- 
 tinguished also from the choice of the pieces on which they em- 
 ployed themselves. Plautus generally inclines to the farcical and 
 the exaggerated, and often to disgusting drollery; Terence pre- 
 fers the delicately characteristic, and the moderate, and he ap- 
 proaches the seriously instructive and sentimental kind. Some of 
 the pieces of Plautus are taken from Diphilus and Philemon, but 
 we have reason to believe that he added a considerable degree of 
 coarseness to his originals; from whom he derived the others we 
 know not, except we are to consider ourselves warranted by the 
 assertion of Horace, " it is said that Plautus took for his model the 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 145 
 
 Sicilian Epicharmus," in conjecturing that he borrowed the Jlm- 
 phitryo, a piece which is of quite a different kind from the others, 
 and which he himself calls a tragi-comedy, from the old Doric co- 
 mic writer, who employed himself chiefly on mythological subjects. 
 Among the pieces of Terence, whose copies, with the exception 
 of changes in the composition, are probably much more faithful 
 in detail than those of the other, we find two from Appollodorus, 
 and the rest from Menander. Julius Caesar has honoured Terence 
 with some verses, in which he calls him a Menander, praising 
 the smoothness of his style, and only lamenting that he has lost 
 a certain comic strength, which belonged to his original. 
 
 This naturally brings us back to the Grecian masters. Diphi- 
 lus, Philemon, Appollodorus, and Menander, are certainly four of 
 the most celebrated names among them. The palm, for elegance, 
 delicacy, and sweetness, is with one voice given to Menander, al- 
 though Philemon frequently carried off the prize from him, proba- 
 bly because he wrote more in the taste of the multitude, or because 
 he availed himself of adventitious means of success. This was at 
 least insinuated by Menander, who when he met his rival one 
 day said to him: "Pray Philemon, dost thou not blush when 
 thou obtainest the victory over me?" 
 
 Menander flourished after Alexander the Great, and he was 
 the contemporary of Demetrius Phalereus. He was instructed in 
 philosophy by Theophrastus, but his inclinations led him to that 
 of Epicurus, and he boasted in an epigram, " that if Themistocles 
 freed his country from slavery, Epicurus freed it from irration- 
 ality." He was fond of the choicest sensual enjoyments: Pha> 
 drus describes him to us in an unfinished tale, as betraying, even 
 in his exterior, all the marks of a vicious effeminacy; and his 
 love intrigue with the coquette Glycera is well known. The 
 Epicurean philosophy, which placed the highest felicity of life in 
 the benevolent affections, but which neither spurred men on to 
 heroic action, nor allowed them to feel the want of it, could 
 hardly fail to be well received among the Greeks, after the loss 
 of their old and glorious freedom: it was admirably calculated to 
 operate as a consolation to them, with their cheerful and mild 
 way of thinking. It is perhaps the most suitable for the comic 
 poety as the stoical philosophy is for the tragedian. The object 
 of the former is merely to produce mitigated impressions, and 
 by no means to excite a strong degree of discontent with human 
 infirmities. We may easily conceive too why the Greeks con^ 
 ceived a passion for the new comedy at the very period when 
 they lost their freedom, as it drew them from a participation in 
 human affairs in general, and political events, and absorbed their 
 attention wholly in domestic and personal concerns. 
 
 19 
 
146 LECTURES ON 
 
 The Grecian theatre was originally formed for the higher 
 walks of the drama; and we will not attempt to dissemble its in- 
 conveniences and disadvantages for comedy. The frame was too 
 wide, and it was impossible for the picture to fill it. The Greek 
 stage was open to the ^heavens, and it exhibited little or nothing 
 of the interior of the houses.* Comedy was therefore under the 
 necessity of placing the scene in the street. This gives rise to 
 many inconveniences; people frequently came out of their houses 
 to confide their secrets to one another in the streets. By such 
 means, it is true, the poets were spared the necessity of changing 
 the scene, as it was taken for granted that the families concerned 
 in the action lived in the same neighbourhood. It may be urged 
 in justification, that the Greeks, like all other southern nations, 
 lived much out of their private houses, in the open air. The 
 chief disadvantage with which this construction of the stage was 
 attended, was the circumscription of the female parts. If the 
 costume was to be observed, which the essence of the comedy 
 required, the retired manner of living of the female sex in Greece 
 rendered the exclusion of unmarried women, and young women 
 in general, altogether unavoidable. No other females could appear 
 but aged mothers, servant-maids, or courtesans. Besides depri- 
 ving the audience of many agreeable situations, this other incon- 
 venience is produced, that the whole piece frequently turns on a 
 marriage, or a passion for a young woman, who is never once seen 
 from the beginning to the end of it. 
 
 Athens, where the fictitious, as well as the actual scenes were 
 generally placed, was the centre of a small territory, and in no- 
 wise to be compared with our great cities, either in extent or po- 
 pulation. The republican equality admitted no marked distinc- 
 tion of ranks; there were no proper nobility, all were alike citi- 
 zens, richer or poorer, and for the most part, had no other occu- 
 pation than that of managing their properties. Hence the Attic 
 comedy could not well admit of the contrasts arising from diver- 
 sity of tone and cultivation; it generally continues in a sort of 
 middle state, and has something citizen-like, nay, if I may so 
 
 * The encyclema must, in some degree, have served for this purpose, as we 
 can have no doubt that, in the commencement of the Clouds, Strepsiades and 
 his son were seen sleeping on their beds. Moreover, Julius Pollux mentions 
 among the particulars of the decoration of a comedy, a sort of tent, hut, or shed, 
 with a gate, originally a stable adjoining to the middle edifice, but afterwards 
 applicable to many purposes. In the Sempstresses of Aristophanes, it represents 
 a sort of workshop. Here, or in the encyclema, entertainments were given, 
 which in the old comedies sometimes took place before the eyes of the specta- 
 tors. With the southern habits of the ancients, it was not, perhaps, so unna- 
 tural to feast with open doors, as it would be in the north of Europe. But no 
 modern commentator has yet, so far as I know, endeavoured to illustrate in a 
 proper manner the theatrical regulation of the pieces of Plautus and Terence. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 147 
 
 say, something of the manners of a small town about it, which 
 we do not see in those comedies, in which the manners of a 
 court, and the refinement or corruption of monarchical capitals 
 are portrayed. 
 
 With respect to the intercourse between the two sexes, the 
 Greeks were neither acquainted with the gallantry of modern 
 Europe, nor the union of love and enthusiastic respect and adora- 
 tion. All ended in sensual passion or marriage. The latter was, 
 by the constitution and manners of the Greeks, much more a 
 matter of duty, or an affair of convenience, than of inclination. 
 The laws were only strict in one point, the preservation of the 
 native origin of the children, which was alone legitimate. The 
 civic right was a great prerogative, the more valuable the smaller 
 the number of citizens, and this number was therefore not allow- 
 ed to increase beyond a certain point. Hence marriages with 
 foreign women were not valid. The society of a wife, who fre- 
 quently had not even been once seen before marriage, and who 
 had passed her whole life within the walls of a house, could not 
 be productive of much entertainment; this was sought after 
 among women who were entitled to less ceremony, and who 
 were generally foreigners without property, or persons who had 
 obtained their emancipation, &c. The indulgent morality of the 
 Greeks admitted of almost every degree of freedom with women 
 of this description, especially in the case of young and unmarried 
 men. The old comic authors exhibited this way of living in a 
 more undisguised way than we think consistent with decency. 
 Their comedies frequently end, like all comedies in the world, 
 with marriages (it seems this catastrophe brings seriousness along 
 with it;) but with them marriage is frequently only a means of 
 reconcilement with a father for the irregularities of an interdicted 
 amour. It sometimes happens, however, that the amour is 
 changed into a lawful marriage by means of a discovery that the 
 female, supposed to be a foreigner or slave, was by birth an 
 Athenian citizen. It deserves to be remarked that, to the fruit- 
 ful mind of the poet who carried the old comedy to perfection, 
 the first germ of the new comedy is to be attributed. Kocalus, 
 the last piece which Aristophanes composed, contained a seduc- 
 tion, a recognition, and all the leading circumstances which 
 were afterwards imitated by Menander. 
 
 From what we have premised, we may at once see nearly the 
 whole circle of characters; nay, those which perpetually recur 
 are so few, that they may be almost all of them here enumerated. 
 The austere and frugal, or the mild and yielding father, the latter 
 not unfrequently under the dominion of his wife, and making 
 common cause with his son; the housewife, either loving and 
 
148 LECTURES ON 
 
 sensible, or obstinate and domineering, and proud of the acces- 
 sion brought to her by the family property; the giddy and ex- 
 travagant, but open and amiable young man, who even in a pas- 
 sion sensual at its very commencement is capable of true attach- 
 ment; the vivacious girl, who is either thoroughly depraved, 
 vain, cunning, and selfish, or still well disposed, and susceptible 
 of higher emotions; the simple and boorish, or the cunning slave, 
 who assists his young master to deceive his old father, and obtain 
 money for the gratification of his passions by all manner of 
 tricks; (as this person plays a principal part, we shall shortly 
 state some further observations respecting him;) the flatterer 
 or accommodating parasite, who, for the sake of a good meal, is 
 ready to say or do anything that may be required of him; the 
 sycophant, a man whose business it was to set quietly disposed 
 people by the ears, and stir up law-suits, for which he offered his 
 services; the braggart soldier, who returns from foreign service, 
 generally cowardly and simple, but who assumes airs from the 
 fame of the deeds performed by him abroad; and lastly, a ser- 
 vant or pretended mother, who preaches up a bad system of mo- 
 rals to the young girl entrusted to her guidance; and the slave- 
 dealer, who speculates on the extravagant passions of young peo- 
 ple, and knows no other object than the furtherance of his own 
 selfish views. The two last characters, from their rough and 
 contumacious perversity, are, to our feelings, a true blemish in 
 the new Grecian comedy; but it was impossible, from the man- 
 ner in which it was constituted, to dispense with them. 
 
 The cunning servant is generally also the buffoon, who con- 
 fesses his own sensuality, and his want of principle, with a degree 
 of self-satisfaction and exaggeration, and who jokes at the ex- 
 pense of the other characters, and even occasionally addresses 
 the pit. This is the origin of the comic servants of the moderns, 
 but I am inclined to doubt whether, with our manners, we are 
 warranted by propriety and truth, in introducing such a charac- 
 ter. The Greek servant was a slave, exposed for life to the 
 arbitrary caprice of his master, and frequently subjected to the 
 most severe treatment. We willingly pardon the man, deprived 
 by the laws of all his original rights, who makes trick and artifice 
 his trade: he is in a state of war with his oppressors, and cun- 
 ning is his natural weapon. But in our times, a servant, free in 
 the choice of his station and his master, who assists the son in 
 carrying on a scheme to deceive the father, is a good for nothing 
 scoundrel. With respect to the open confession of sensuality, 
 which in other productions is used for giving the comic stamp 
 to servants and persons in low situations, it may be allowed to be 
 continued without impropriety: of those who have few privi- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 149 
 
 leges in life, we are not disposed to exact much; and they may 
 boldly own the vulgarity of their inclinations, without giving any 
 shock to our moral feelings. The better the condition of ser- 
 vants in real life, the less are they adapted for the stage; and it 
 is to the praise of our more humane age, that in our family pic- 
 tures, we see servants of the most respectable characters, who 
 are better adapted for exciting tears than laughter. 
 
 The repetition of the same characters was acknowledged by 
 the Greek comic writers, in their frequent use of the same name, 
 and a name which was in part expressive of the character. In this 
 they did better than many comic poets of modern times, who, for 
 the sake of novelty of character, torture themselves in an endea- 
 vour to attain complete individuality, by which they seldom pro- 
 duce any other effect than that of drawing our attention from the 
 main business of the piece, and wasting it on accessary circum- 
 stances. They fall imperceptibly back again into the old and 
 well known character. It is better to delineate the characters 
 with a certain breadth, and to leave room to the actor to deter- 
 mine them more accurately, and to enter more fully into their 
 spirit, according to the nature of each composition. In this re- 
 spect the use of masks admits of justification. Masks and the 
 other peculiarities of the ancient theatre, such as the acting in the 
 open air, were originally calculated for other departments of the 
 drama, and may seem a greater incongruity in the new comedy 
 than in the old, and in tragedy. It was certainly however un- 
 suitable to the spirit of the new, that, while in other respects it 
 approached nearer to real nature, the masks deviated more from 
 it than in the old, were more overcharged in the features, and 
 bore a greater resemblance to caricature. However astonishing 
 this may appear to us, it has been attested in too express and for- 
 mal a manner* to allow us to entertain any doubt of it. As 
 they were prohibited from bringing portraits of real persons on 
 the stage after the loss of their freedom, they were always afraid 
 lest they might accidentally stumble upon some resemblance, and 
 especially to any of their Macedonian rulers, and this was the 
 mode in which they endeavoured to secure themselves. Yet the 
 exaggeration in question would hardly be without its meaning. 
 We find it accordingly stated, that an unequal profile, with one 
 eyebrow drawn up and the other down, was expressive of use- 
 less and intermeddling activity,! and we may in fact remark that 
 
 * See Platonius, in JLrist&ph. cur. Küster, p. xi. 
 
 f See Jul. Pollux, in the section of comic masks. Compare Platonius in the 
 place cited, and Quinctilian, 1. xi. c. 3. The supposed wonderful discovery of 
 Voltaire respecting tragic masks» which I mentioned in the third lecture, will 
 hardly be forgotten. 
 
150 LECTURES ON 
 
 men, who are in the habit of looking at things with anxious ac- 
 curacy, are apt to acquire such distortions. 
 
 Among other peculiarities the masks in comedy have this ad- 
 vantage, that on the inevitable reappearance of characters the 
 spectator knows at once what he has to expect. I was once 
 present at a representation at Weimar, of the Brothers of Ter- 
 ence entirely in the ancient costume which, under the direction 
 of Goethe, furnished us a truly Attic evening. Partial masks, 
 fixed in a suitable manner to the real countenance, were made use 
 of;* and notwithstanding the smallness of the theatre, I did not 
 find that they were in any way destructive of comic effect. The 
 mask was peculiarly favourable for the jokes of the cunning 
 slave: his uncouth physiognomy, as well as his apparel, stamped 
 him for an individual of a peculiar race, as the Grecian slaves, in 
 some sort, were even from extraction, and they might therefore 
 be allowed to speak and act in a different manner from the rest 
 of the people. 
 
 From the limited circle of their civil and domestic life, and 
 the simple theme of the characters above-mentioned, the inven- 
 tion of the Greek comic writers contrived to produce an inex- 
 haustible diversity of variations, and yet they always, even in 
 that on which they grounded their developement and catastrophe, 
 remained true to their national costume, and on that account are 
 deserving of very high praise. 
 
 The circumstances of which they availed themselves for this 
 purpose were generally the following. Greece consisted of a 
 number of small separate states, which lay round one another 
 on sea-coasts and islands. Navigation was frequent, piracy far 
 from unusual, and human beings were procured in this way for 
 the supply of the slave trade. Freeborn children were either 
 carried off from their parents, or exposed by them, in virtue of 
 the right allowed to them, by the law, and unexpectedly saved 
 from destruction, and afterwards recovered by these parents. 
 All this prepares us for the recognitions of parents and children, 
 brothers and sisters, &c. which appear in the new Greek come- 
 dies, and which were borrowed by the comic writers from the 
 tragedians. The subject of the plot is present, but the singular 
 and improbable accident on which it is founded, is removed to a 
 distance of time and place, so that the comedy, though taken from 
 everyday life, has still, in some degree, a wonderful and roman- 
 tic back ground. 
 
 * This was not unknown to the ancients, as is proved by many comic masks 
 with a circular opening- of considerable -width, through which the mouth and 
 adjoining features were allowed to appear; and which, with their living motion, 
 must have produced a highly ludicrous effect, from the contrast in the fixed 
 distortion of the rest of the countenance. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 151 
 
 The Greek comic writers were acquainted with comedy in all 
 its latitude, and employed themselves diligently on all the subor- 
 dinate departments, the farce, the piece of intrigue, and the various 
 gradations of pieces of character, from caricature to the most re- 
 fined, and even the serious or sentimental drama. They possessed 
 besides a most enchanting species, of which no examples are now 
 remaining. We see from the titles of the pieces, and other cir- 
 cumstances, that they sometimes introduced historical persons, 
 as the poetess of Sappho, for instance, representing the love of 
 Alcaeus and Anacreon for her, and her passion for Phaon; the 
 story of her leap from the Leucadian rock owes its origin perhaps 
 to the comic writers alone. To judge from the objects of them, 
 these comedies must have approached to our romantic drama; 
 and the mixture of beautiful passion with the tranquil grace 
 of the ordinary comedy must undoubtedly have been very 
 attractive. 
 
 1 conceive that in the above observations I have given a faith- 
 ful picture of the Greek comedy; I have not attempted to dis- 
 guise either its defects or its narrow limits. The antique tragedy 
 and old comedy, are inimitable, and stand alone in the whole 
 range of the history of art. But in the new comedy we may at- 
 tempt to measure our strength with the Greeks, and even en- 
 deavour to surpass them. Whenever we descend from the Olym- 
 pus of true poetry to the earth, that is, whenever we mix the 
 prose of a definite reality with the ideal creations of fancy, the 
 success of productions are no longer determined by mind, and a 
 feeling for art, but by circumstances of a more or less favourable 
 nature. The figures of the gods of the Grecian sculptors are per-" 
 feet models for all ages. The noble employment of giving an 
 ideal perfection to the human form having once been embraced 
 by the fancy, with an equal degree of inspiration we could only 
 have a repetition of the same attempts. The modern statuary 
 is however the rival of the ancient in personal and individual 
 resemblances: but this is not a pure creation of art; observation 
 must here come in for its share: and whatever degree of science, 
 profundity, and taste may be displayed in the execution, the 
 artist is still tied down to the subject actually before him. 
 
 In the admirable portrait-statues of two of the most celebrated 
 comic writers of antiquity, Menander and Posidippus (formerly 
 in the Vatican, and now in the Museum in Paris), it appears to 
 me that the physiognomy of the new Greek comedy is almost 
 visibly and personally expressed. They are sitting in arm chairs, 
 with a roll in their hands, and in the most simple dress; with all 
 the ease and security of a conscious superiority in their art; and 
 in that maturity of age which is suitable for the impartial obser- 
 
152 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 vation which is requisite for comedy, but yet hale and active, 
 and free from all symptoms of caducity; we see in them that 
 corporeal vigour, which is at once a proof of soundness of consti- 
 tution of body and mind; no inspired enthusiasm, but at the 
 same time nothing of folly or extravagance; a sage seriousness 
 rather dwells on the brow, which is not however wrinkled with 
 care, but with the exercise of reflection ; yet in the alert look, 
 and the willing smile on the mouth, we cannot mistake the indi- 
 cations of a playful irony, 
 
( 153 ) 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Roman theatre.— Native kinds: Attellanic Fables, Mimi, Comedia Togata— 
 Greek tragedy transplanted to Home. — Tragic authors of a former epoch, 
 and of the Augustan age.— Idea of a national Roman tragedy. — Causes of 
 the want of success of the Romans in Tragedy. — Seneca. — The Italians. — 
 Pastoral dramas of Tasso and Guarani. — Small progress in tragedy. — Metas- 
 tasio andjAlfieri. — Character of both. — Comedies of Ariosto, Aretin, Porta. — 
 Improvisatore masks. — Goldoni. — Gozzi. — Latest state. 
 
 In the preceding part of these Lectures, we have been occu- 
 pied with an investigation into the nature of the drama in general, 
 and its peculiar appearance among the Greeks, whose stage was 
 not only original, but carried to the utmost degree of perfection. 
 In entering upon a consideration of the dramatic literature of 
 other nations, we must in general express ourselves with greater 
 brevity; and in doing so, we are not afraid that we shall be ac- 
 cused of either disproportionate length or conciseness. 
 
 And first, with respect to the Romans, whose theatre imme- 
 diately follows that of the Greeks, we have only, as it were, to 
 notice one great gap, which is partly owing to their want of 
 creative powers in this department, and partly to the loss of all 
 their theatrical productions, with the exception of a few frag- 
 ments. The only works of the good classical times, which have 
 descended to us, are those of Plautus and Terence, whom I 
 have already characterized as copyists of the Greeks. 
 
 The Romans could not be said to have had a poetry of their 
 own native growth, as it was first artificially cultivated among 
 them along with other luxuries, when the original character of 
 Rome was nearly extinguished by an imitation of foreign man- 
 ners. We have in the Latin, the example of a language modelled 
 into poetical expression, according to foreign grammatical and 
 metrical forms. This imitation of the Greek bore at first the 
 marks of great violence and constraint: the Graecism was carried 
 the length of a clumsy intermixture of the two languages. The 
 poetical style was gradually softened down, and we still perceive 
 in Catullus the last traces of its early harshness, which are not 
 however without a certain stately attraction. Those construc- 
 tions, and those compound words more especially, which were too 
 much at variance with the internal structure of the Latin, and 
 which were grating to the Roman ear, were in time thrown out, 
 and the poets at length succeeded in the age of Augustus, in pro- 
 ducing the most agreeable combination of the peculiarities of the 
 
 20 
 
154 LECTURES ON 
 
 two languages. Hardly however had this equilibrium been 
 attained, when all free developement was at a stand, and the 
 poetical expression, notwithstanding an apparent advance to 
 greater boldness and learning, was irrevocably confined within 
 the circle of those modes of expression which had once received 
 the sanction of public approbation. The Latin poetical language 
 therefore flourished only during the short interval which elapsed 
 between the period of its formation and its death; and with re- 
 spect to the spirit of the poetry, its fate cannot be said to have 
 been more successful. 
 
 The Romans were not led to the invention of theatrical amuse- 
 ments, from the want of representations to fill up the leisure of 
 their festivals, and to enliven the mind by withdrawing it from 
 the concerns of life; but in the despondency of a desolating 
 pestilence, against which all remedies seemed insufficient, they 
 had recourse to the theatre, as a means of appeasing the anger of 
 the gods, having previously been only acquainted with gymnastic 
 exercises, and circus races. The histriones, whom they sent 
 for from Etruria, were however merely dancers, who probably 
 did not attempt pantomimic movements, but endeavoured to 
 delight their audience by a display of bodily activity. The 
 oldest spoken plays, the Fabulse JHellanse y were borrowed by 
 the Romans from the Osci, the indigenous inhabitants of Italy. 
 They were satisfied with these saturse (for so they were called, 
 as at first they were merely improvisatory farces, without any 
 dramatic connexion; satura, signifying a farrago, or mixture of 
 everything), till Livius Andromicus, somewhat more than five 
 hundred years after the foundation of Rome, began the imitation 
 of the Greeks; and the regular compositions of tragedy and the 
 new comedy (the old it was impossible to transplant) were then, 
 for the first time, known in Rome. 
 
 Thus the Romans owed the first idea of a play to the Etru- 
 rians, the effusions of a sportive humour to the Oscians, and 
 the higher class of dramatic productions to the Greeks. They 
 displayed however more originality in the comic than in the 
 tragic department. The Oscians, whose language soon ceased to 
 be spoken, and of which the remains were only to be found in 
 these farces, were a race so nearly related to the Romans, that 
 their dialect must have been immediately understood by a Roman 
 audience: for if this had not been the case, how could the Romans 
 have derived any amusement from the Jltcllansel So much 
 did they appropriate this species of drama to themselves, that 
 Roman youths, of noble families, became enamoured of the 
 amusement, and used to engage in the representation; on which 
 account, even the players, who gained a livelihood by acting 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 155 
 
 the Atellanic fables, enjoyed peculiar privileges, being exempted 
 from the ignominy which attached to other theatrical artists, the 
 exclusion from corporations and from military service. 
 
 The Romans had, besides, their peculiar Mimi. The foreign 
 name of these small pieces would lead us to conclude that they 
 bore a great affinity to the Greek Mimi; they differed however 
 considerably in form; we know also that the manners portrayed 
 in them had a local truth, and that the subject was not derived 
 from Grecian compositions. 
 
 It is peculiar to Italy, that from the earliest times the people 
 have displayed a native talent for a merry, amusing, though 
 very rude species of farce or buffoonery, in extemporary speeches 
 and songs, with accompanying gestures; but this talent has 
 seldom been coupled with true dramatic knowledge. In justifi- 
 cation of this last assertion, we have only to notice what has 
 been performed in the higher walks of the drama in that country, 
 down to the very latest period. The former might be confirmed 
 by a number of circumstances, which would lead us however too 
 far from our object into the history of the Saturnalia and similar 
 customs. In the wit, and the apposite ridicule on passing events, 
 adapted to the capacity of the people, which prevail in the dia- 
 logues of Pasquino and Marforio, we even find many traces of 
 the times of the Emperors, who were not however very much 
 disposed to favour these liberties. 
 
 The conjecture that in these Mimi and Jlldlanm we must per- 
 haps seek for the first germ of the commedia deV arte, the im- 
 provisatory farce with standing masks, is more immediately con- 
 nected with our present purpose. There is a striking affinity 
 between this and the Atellanae, in the employment of different 
 dialects to produce a ludicrous effect. But how would Harlequin 
 and Pulcinello be astonished, were they to be told that they de- 
 scended in a direct line from the buffoons of the ancient Romans, 
 and even from the Oscians! — With what drollery would they be 
 disposed to requite the labours of the antiquarian, who should 
 trace back their glorious pedigree to this root! We know from 
 the figures on the Greek vases, that a dress very much resembling 
 theirs was used even in the grotesque masks of the old comedy: 
 long breeches, and a waistcoat with arms, articles of dress which 
 the Greeks, as well as the Romans, never used except on the 
 stage. Even in the present day Zanni is one of the names of 
 Harlequin; and Sannio in the Latin farces was a buffoon, who, 
 according to the accounts of ancient writers had a shaven head, 
 and a dress patched together of all colours. The figure of Pul- 
 cinello is said to be an accurate resemblance of what has been 
 found painted on the walls in Pompeii. If he came originally 
 
156 LECTURES ON 
 
 from Atella, he may still be accounted a native of his ancient 
 country. The objection that these traditions could not have 
 been preserved during the cessation of all theatrical amusements, 
 for so many centuries, will be easily got over, when we recollect 
 the freedom enjoyed during the annual carnival, and the frolic- 
 some festivals of the middle ages. 
 
 The Greek Mimi were dialogues in prose, and not destined for 
 the stage; the Roman were in verse, were represented, and often 
 delivered extempore. The most celebrated authors in this way 
 were Laberius and Syrus, contemporaries of Julius Caesar. The 
 latter, when dictator, by a courtly request, compelled Laberius, 
 a Roman knight, to appear publicly in his Mimi, although the 
 scenic employment was stigmatized with the loss of civil rights. 
 Laberius complained of this in a prologue, which we still have, 
 and in which the suffering of wounded honour is expressed in a 
 noble and affecting manner. We cannot well conceive how, in 
 this disposition of mind, he could be capable of a display of ex- 
 travagant buffoonery, nor how, with such a painful example of 
 voluntary degradation before their eyes, the spectators could take 
 any delight in it. Caesar kept his word: he gave Laberius a con- 
 siderable sum of money, and invested him anew with the knight- 
 ly ring, which however coyld not reinstate him in the opinion of 
 his fellow citizens. He took his revenge at the same time for 
 the prologue and other allusions,* by bestowing the prize on Sy- 
 rus, the slave, and afterward the freedman and scholar of Labe- 
 rius in the mimetic art. We have still a number of sentences 
 from the Mimi of Syrus, which from their internal worth and ele- 
 gant conciseness of expression, are deserving of a place by the 
 side of those of Menander. Some of them go even beyond the 
 moral horizon of serious comedy, and exhibit something like a 
 stoical elevation. How was the transition possible from low farce 
 to this elevation? And how could similar maxims be possibly 
 introduced, without such an important concatenation of human 
 relations, as that which is exhibited in the most dignified com- 
 edy? At all events, they are calculated to give us a very favour- 
 able idea of the Mimi. Horace indeed speaks slighting of the 
 literary merit of the Mimi of Laberius, either from the arbitrary 
 nature of their composition, or from the negligent manner in 
 which they were executed. However, we ought not to allow 
 
 • "What an inward humiliation Caesar would have felt, could he have sup- 
 posed that in a few generations, Nero, his successor in absolute sovereignty, from 
 a mere lust for self-degradation, frequently exhibited himself in a manner 
 which, even in a Roman of the middle rank of life, he tluen knew would excite 
 a general feeling of discontent. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 157 
 
 our opinion on this subject to be too much influenced by this 
 critical poet; for, from motives which we can easily comprehend, 
 he lays much greater stress on the careful use of the file than on 
 original boldness, and fulness of invention. One entire Mimus, 
 which unfortunately time has not spared for us, would have 
 thrown more light on the question, than all the confused accounts 
 of the grammarians, and all the conjectures of modern scholars. 
 
 The regular comedy of the Romans was for the most part pal- 
 liata, that is, it appeared in a Grecian dress, and represented 
 Grecian manners. This is the case with the whole of the come- 
 dies of Plautus and Terence. But they had also a comcedia to- 
 gata, so called from the Roman dress which was worn in it. 
 Jifranius is celebrated as the principal writer in this walk. We 
 have no remains whatever of him, and the accounts of the nature 
 of his works are so very scanty, that we cannot even determine 
 with certainty, whether the togatae were original comedies of an 
 entirely new invention, or merely Greek comedies adapted to 
 Roman manners. The last case is the more probable, as Afra- 
 nius lived in a period when the Roman genius had not yet at- 
 tempted to soar on the wings of original invention; and yet we 
 cannot well conceive the possibility of adapting Attic comedies, 
 without the greatest violence and constraint, to local circumstances 
 of so very different a nature. The way of living of the Ro- 
 mans was in general serious and grave, although in private soci- 
 ety they displayed a great turn for wit and joviality. The 
 diversity of ranks among the Romans was politically marked in 
 a very decided manner, and the wealth of private individuals was 
 frequently not inferior to that of sovereigns: women lived much 
 more in society, and acted a much more important part with them 
 than among the Greeks; and from this independence they fully 
 participated in the overwhelming tide of corruption and external 
 refinement by which it is accompanied. With these essential 
 differences, an original Roman comedy would have been a re- 
 markable phenomenon, and would have enabled us to see these 
 conquerors of the world in an aspect altogether new. That this 
 however was not accomplished in the comoedia togata, the in- 
 different manner in which it is mentioned by the ancients will 
 hardly leave us any reason to doubt. Quinctilian has not at- 
 tempted to conceal from us that the Latin literature was lamest 
 in comedy; these are the very words in which he expresses 
 himself. 
 
 With respect to tragedy, we must in the first place remark, 
 that the Grecian theatre was not introduced into Rome without 
 considerable changes in its arrangement, that the chorus had 
 no longer a place in the orchestra, in which the most distin- 
 
158 LECTURES ON 
 
 guishcd spectators, the knights and senators, now sat, but re- 
 mained on the stage itself. Hence, the same objections which we 
 urged against the attempts to introduce the chorus in modern 
 times, are equally applicable to the Roman theatre. — Other de- 
 viations from the Grecian plan were sanctioned, which could 
 hardly be considered as improvements. Even at the introduction 
 of the regular drama, Livius Andronicus, a Grecian by birth, and 
 the first tragic poet and actor of Rome, in the monodies (lyri- 
 cal pieces which were sung by one person, and not by the cho- 
 rus), separated the singing from the mimetic dancing, so that the 
 latter only remained to the actor; and instead of the former, a 
 boy stood beside the flute-player, and accompanied him with his 
 voice. Among the Greeks in better times, the tragic singing, 
 and the accompanying rhythmical gestures, were so simple, that 
 one person was sufficient to do at the same time the most ample 
 justice to both. The Romans however, it would seem, preferred 
 separate skill to harmonious unity. Hence arose their fondness, at 
 an after period, for pantomimes, of which the art was, in the time 
 of Augustus, carried to the greatest perfection. From the names 
 of the most celebrated of the performers, Pylades, Bathyllus, &c, 
 it would appear that those who practised this mute eloquence in 
 Rome were Greeks ; the lyrical pieces which their dancing ex- 
 pressed were also delivered in the Grecian language. Roscius 
 frequently played without a mask, and in this respect probably 
 he did not stand alone: but as far as we know, there never was 
 any instance of it among the Greeks. The alteration in question 
 might contribute to the more brilliant developement of his art, 
 and the Romans, who were pleased with it, showed here also 
 that they had a higher relish for the disproportionate and promi- 
 nent talents of a virtuoso, than for the harmonious impression of 
 a work of art, considered as a whole. 
 
 In the tragic literature of the Romans, there are two epochs ; 
 the first that of Livius Andronicus, Nsevius, Ennius and also of 
 Pacuvius and Attius, who both flourished somewhat later than 
 Plautus and Terence; and the second, the refined epoch of the 
 Augustan age. The former produced only translators and imi- 
 tators of the Grecian works, but it is probable that they succeed- 
 ed better in tragedy than in comedy. Elevation of expression 
 usually appears somewhat unbending in a language not sufficient- 
 ly cultivated, but still it may be attained by perseverance; but 
 to catch the negligent grace of social raillery, we must ourselves 
 be possessed of humour and refinement. Here however as well 
 as in the case of Plautus and Terence, we have not a single 
 fragment of the Greek original, to enable us to judge of the accu- 
 racy and general felicity of the copy; but a speech of considera- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 159 
 
 ble length, of the Freed Prometheus of Attius, is in no respect 
 unworthy of iEschylus, and is also, in versification, much more 
 polished* than the productions of the Latin comic writers gene- 
 rally are. This earlier style was carried to perfection by Pacu- 
 vius and Attius, whose pieces kept their place on the stage, and 
 seem to have had many admirers down to the times of Cicero, 
 and even still later. Horace directs his jealous criticism against 
 these, as well as all the other old poets. 
 
 It was the ambition of the contemporaries of Augustus, to 
 measure their power with the Greeks in a more original manner; 
 but their labours were not in every department attended with 
 equal success. The number of amateurs who attempted to shine 
 in tragedy was particularly great; and works of the Emperor 
 himself are even mentioned. Hence there is every reason for 
 supposing that Horace wrote his epistle to the Pisos, chiefly 
 with the view of deterring these young men from so dangerous 
 a career ; as they were, probably, infected by the universal pas- 
 sion, without possessing the requisite talents. One of the most re- 
 nowned tragic poets of this age was the celebrated Asinius Pollio, 
 a man of an impassioned disposition, as Pliny informs us, and who, 
 in plastic works, was fond of whatever bore the same character. 
 It was he who brought with him the well known group of the 
 Farnesian bull from Rhodes, and erected it at Rome. If his 
 tragedies bore the same relation to those of Sophocles, which 
 this bold, wild, but somewhat extravagant group does to the 
 tranquil grandeur of Niobe, we have every reason to regret their 
 loss. But the political importance of Pollio might easily blind 
 his contemporaries with respect to the value of his poetical la- 
 bours. Ovid, who tried so many departments of poetry, has 
 also attempted tragedy, and is the author of a Medea. From 
 the garrulous and common-place displays of passion in his 
 Heroldes, we might at most expect from him, in tragedy, a 
 caricature of Euripides. Quinctilian however asserts that he 
 proved here, for once, what he could have done, had he chosen 
 to restrain himself instead of yielding to his natural propensity 
 to diffuseness. 
 
 These and all the other tragic attempts of the age of Augustus 
 have perished. We cannot estimate with any degree of certainty 
 
 * In what syllabic metres could these tragedians translate the Grecian choral 
 odes? Horace declares the imitation of Pindar, whose lyrical productions bear 
 great resemblance to those of tragedy, altogether impracticable in Latin. Pro- 
 bably they never ventured into the labyrinths cf the choral, strophes, which 
 were neither calculated for the language nor the ear of the Romans. The tra- 
 gedies of Seneca never ascended higher beyond the anapest than a saphic or 
 choriambic verse, which, when monotonously repeated, is very disagreeable to 
 the ear. 
 
160 LECTURES ON 
 
 the magnitude of the loss which we have here suffered, but from 
 all appearances it is not extraordinarily great. — The Grecian 
 tragedy had at first to struggle in Rome with all the inconveni- 
 ences of a plant removed to a foreign soil; the Roman religion 
 was in some degree related to the Greek, yet by no means so 
 completely the same as many people suppose, but the heroic 
 mythology of the Greeks was merely introduced into Rome by 
 the poets, and was in nowise connected with the national recol- 
 lections. The idea of an original Roman tragedy is now present 
 to me, obscurely indeed, and in the back ground of time, and with 
 that indistinctness which anything must have, which never issu- 
 ed from the bosom of possibility into existing reality. It ought 
 to have been altogether different in substance and form from 
 that of the Greeks, and conceived in the old Roman character of 
 religion and patriotism. Everything like creative poetry can 
 only be derived from the inward life of a people, and from reli- 
 gion, the root of that life. The spirit of the Roman religion 
 was however originally, and before the substance of it was sac- 
 rificed to foreign ornament, quite different from that of the Gre- 
 cian. The latter was plastically flexible, the former sacerdotally 
 immutable. The Roman creed, and the customs founded on it, 
 were more serious, moral, pious, displayed more insight into 
 nature, and had something more of magic and mysticism, than 
 that part at least, of the Greek religion, which was not included 
 in the mysteries. As the Greek tragedy represented the struggle 
 of man in a state of freedom with destiny, a true Roman tragedy 
 ought to have exhibited the subjection of human impulse to the 
 holy and binding force of religion, and the visible presence 
 of that religion in all earthly things. But this spirit has been 
 long extinguished, when the want of poetry of a cultivated de- 
 scription first began to be felt by them. The Patricians, in their 
 origin an Etrurian sacerdotal school, had become mere statesmen 
 and warriors, who considered their hereditary priesthood in no 
 other light than that of a political form. Their sybilline books, 
 their vedams, were then unintelligible to them, not so much from 
 antiquity of character, as because they no longer possessed the 
 higher knowledge which was the key to that sanctuary. What 
 the Latin heroic tales might have become under an earlier deve- 
 lopement, as well as their peculiar colouring, we may still see, 
 from some traces in Virgil, Propertius, and Ovid, who then how- 
 ever handled them as matters of antiquity. 
 
 Moreover, although the Romans were at length desirous of 
 becoming thorough Hellenists, they were deficient in that milder 
 humanity, of which we may observe traces in Grecian history, 
 poetry, and art, even in the time of Homer. From the most 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 161 
 
 austere virtue, which, like Curtius, sacrificed every personal in- 
 clination to love of country, they proceeded, with the most fear- 
 ful rapidity, to a state of corruption from avarice and luxury, 
 equally without example. In their character they always be- 
 trayed that their first founder was not suckled at the breast of a 
 woman, but of a raging wolf. The) 7- were the tragedians of the 
 history of the world, who exhibited many a deep tragedy of 
 kings led in chains and pining in dungeons; they were the iron 
 necessity of other nations; universal destroyers for the sake of 
 rearing at last, from the ruins, the mausoleum of their own dig- 
 nity and freedom, in the midst of an obsequious world, reduced 
 to one dull uniformity. It was not given to them to excite 
 emotion by the mitigated accents of mental suffering, and to 
 touch with a delicate hand every note of the scale of feeling. 
 They naturally sought also in tragedy, by overleaping all inter- 
 vening gradations, to reach at once the extreme, both in the 
 stoicism of heroism, and the monstrous fury of criminal desires. 
 Nothing of their ancient greatness had remained to them but the 
 contempt of pain and death, when after an extravagant enjoyment 
 of life they were at last called upon to submit to these evils. 
 They then impressed this seal of their former grandeur on their 
 tragic heroes, with a self-satisfied and ostentatious profusion. 
 
 Finally, in the age of polished literature, among a people fond, 
 even to a degree of madness, of shows and spectacles, the dra- 
 matic poets were still in want of a poetical public. In the trium- 
 phal processions, the fights of gladiators and of wild beasts, all the 
 splendour of the world, all the wonders of every clime, were 
 brought before the eyes of the spectator, who was glutted with 
 scenes of the most violent and bloody description. What effect 
 could the more refined gradations of tragic pathos produce on 
 nerves so steeled? It was the ambition of the powerful among 
 them to exhibit in one day to the people, on stages erected for the 
 purpose, and immediately afterwards destroyed, the immense plun- 
 der which they derived from foreign or civil war. The relation 
 which Pliny gives of the architectural decoration of the stage erect- 
 ed by Scaurus, borders on the incredible. When magnificence 
 could be carried no farther, they endeavoured to surprise by the 
 novelty of mechanical inventions. — In this way, a Roman, at the 
 burial solemnity of his father, caused two theatres to be constructed 
 in honour of him, resting with their backs on each other, and made 
 to move in such a manner on a single hinge, that at the end of 
 the play, they were wheeled round with all the spectators with- 
 in them, and formed together into one circus, in which combats 
 of gladiators were exhibited. In the pleasure of the eyes that of 
 the ears were altogether lost; rope dancers and white elephants 
 
 21 
 
162 LECTURES ON 
 
 were preferred to every dramatic entertainment; the embroider- 
 ed purple robes of the actor were applauded, as we are told by 
 Horace, and so little attentive and quiet was the great body of 
 the spectators, that he compares their noise to that of the roaring 
 of the ocean, or of a mountain forest in a storm. 
 
 We have only one sample of the tragical talent of the Romans 
 remaining, from which however it would be unjust to draw a 
 conclusion with respect to the productions of better times; I 
 allude to the ten tragedies which go by the name of Seneca. 
 Their claim to this title appears very doubtful to me: perhaps 
 it is founded merely on the circumstance of Seneca appearing in 
 Octavia, one of these plays; but this would rather lead one to 
 draw a different conclusion. The opinions of the learned are 
 very much divided on the subject; some ascribe them partly to 
 Seneca the philosopher, and partly to his father the rhetorician; 
 others ascribe them to Seneca, a tragedian, a different person 
 from both. Hence it is generally allowed that the different 
 pieces are neither from the same hand, nor even of the same age. 
 For the honour of the Roman taste we might be inclined to con- 
 sider them the productions of a very late period of antiquity: 
 but Quinctilian quotes a verse from the Medea of Seneca, which 
 is to be found in the play of that name in the collection in 
 question, and therefore the authenticity of this piece cannot be 
 doubted, though its merits do not seem to be in any way pre- 
 eminent above the others.* We find also in Lucan a contem- 
 porary of Nero, a similar display of bombast, in which every- 
 thing great is distorted to nonsense. The state of violence and 
 constraint in which Rome was kept under a series of blood-thirsty 
 tyrants, had also given an unnatural character to eloquence and 
 poetry. The same thing has been observed in similar periods of 
 modern history. Under the wise and mild government of a 
 Vespasian and a Titus, and of a Trajan more especially, the 
 Romans returned to a purer taste. But whatever period may 
 have given birth to the tragedies of Seneca, they are beyond 
 description bombastical and frigid, unnatural in character and 
 action, revolting from their violation of every propriety, and so 
 destitute of everything like theatrical effect, that I am inclined to 
 believe they were never destined to leave the rhetorical schools for 
 the stage. These productions have nothing in common with the 
 old tragedies, those sublime creations of the poetical genius of the 
 
 * The author of this Medea makes the heroine strangle her children before 
 the eyes of the people, notwithstanding the admonition of Horace, who pro- 
 bably had an example of the Roman theatre before his eyes; for a Greek would 
 hardly have committed this error. The Roman tragedians must have had a 
 particular relish for seeking novelty and effect in such horrible exhibitions. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 163 
 
 Greeks, but the name, the outward form, and mythological mate- 
 rials; and yet they seem to have been composed with the obvious 
 intention of excelling them ; but they bear the same relation to the 
 Grecian works, which a hollow hyperbole does to the most fervent 
 truth. Every tragical common-place is spun out to the very last ; 
 all is phrase; and even the most common remark is delivered in 
 stilted language. The most complete poverty of sentiment is 
 dressed out with wit and acuteness. There is even a display 
 of fancy in them, or at least a phantom of it; for they contain an 
 example of the misapplication of every mental faculty. The 
 authors have found out the secret of being diffuse, even to weari- 
 someness, and at the same time so epigrammatically laconic, as to 
 be often obscure and unintelligible. Their characters are neither 
 ideal nor actual beings, but gigantic puppets, who are at one 
 time put in motion by the string of an unnatural heroism, and at 
 another by that of a passion equally unnatural, which no guilt nor 
 enormity can appal. 
 
 In a history of the dramatic art I should have altogether over- 
 looked the tragedies of Seneca, if, from a blind prejudice for 
 everything which has come down to us from antiquity, they had 
 not been often imitated in modern times. They were more 
 early and more generally known than the Greek tragedies. Not 
 merely learned men, without a feeling for art, have judged 
 favourably of them, nay preferred them to the Grecian tragedies, 
 but even poets have accounted them deserving of their study and 
 imitation. The influence of Seneca on Corneille's idea of tra- 
 gedy cannot be mistaken; Racine too, in his Phaedra, has con- 
 descended to borrow a good deal from him, and among other 
 things, nearly the whole scene of the declaration of love, of all 
 which we have an enumeration in Brumoy. 
 
 We now leave the productions of classical antiquity, and pro- 
 ceed to the dramatic literature of the moderns. Respecting the 
 order most convenient for the subject of which we are about to 
 treat, it may be doubtful whether we ought to consider, seriatim, 
 what each nation has accomplished, or to proceed from one to 
 another, according to the manner in which their influences have 
 been reciprocally felt and crossed by each other. The produc- 
 tions of the Italian theatre, for instance, after its first revival, had 
 an influence on the French at its commencement, but the influ- 
 ence of the latter was again felt by the Italian stage in a consider- 
 able degree. The French, before their stage had attained its full 
 maturity, borrowed still more from the Spaniards than from the 
 Italians, in later times, Voltaire attempted to enlarge their thea- 
 trical circle by an imitation of the English, but this was not pro- 
 ductive of any great effect, from their ideas of imitation of the an- 
 
164 LECTURES ON 
 
 cients, and from their taste in art, according to vvhieh everything 
 had already been immutably fixed. The English and Spanish stages 
 are nearly independent of all the rest, and also of one another; they 
 have had a great influence on the theatres of other countries, but 
 felt very little in return. But to avoid perplexity and confusion, 
 it seems more advisable to separate the different literatures from 
 each other, noticing at the same time the effects produced by 
 foreign influence. — This is the more necessary, as in some of the 
 modern nations the principle of imitation of the ancients has 
 prevailed without limitation; and in others, the romantic spirit, 
 or at least an originality altogether independent of classical 
 models: the former is the case with the Italians and French, and 
 the latter with the English and Spaniards. 
 
 I have already, in passing, alluded to the manner in which the 
 then degenerate plays of the Greeks and Romans were abolished, 
 by the introduction of Christianity, before even an end was put 
 to everything like art, by the eruptions of the northern conquer- 
 ors. After the long sleep of the dramatic and theatrical spirit in 
 the middle ages, which began to awake again in mysteries and 
 moralities, independent of classical models, the first endeavour to 
 imitate the ancients in their theatre, as well as in other arts and 
 departments of poetry, was made by the Italians. The Sopho- 
 nisba of Trissino, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, is 
 generally named as the first regular tragedy. I cannot boast of 
 having ever read this literary rarity, but I know the author, 
 on other subjects, to be a spiritless pedant ; and as even the 
 learned, who are the most earnest in their imitation of the 
 ancients, declare it a dull work of diligence, without any poetical 
 spirit, we may, without any farther examination, safely acquiesce 
 in this decision. It is singular that, while all the ancient forms, 
 even to the chorus, are scrupulously retained, the province of 
 mythology is changed for that of the Roman History. 
 
 The pastoral dramas of Tasso and Guarini, which appeared 
 towards the middle of the sixteenth" century, and in which the 
 subject, though for the most part not tragical, is however noble, 
 and even ideal, may be considered to form an epoch in poetry. 
 They are furnished with choruses of the most distinguished 
 beauty, which float, no doubt, like lyrical voices in the air, and 
 do not appear in person, and are still less introduced as constant 
 witnesses of the transactions, according to rules of probability. 
 These compositions were certainly destined for the theatre; they 
 were represented with great pomp, and we may presume in a 
 noble taste, at Ferrara and Turin. But even this gives us an idea 
 of the infancy of the theatre at that time: although there is a 
 general plot and catastrophe, yet the action stands still in single 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 165 
 
 scenes, and leads us to conclude that the spectators were but little 
 accustomed to theatrical amusements, and consequently not diffi- 
 cult to please, and that they patiently waited the developement 
 of beautiful poetry without dramatic progress. The Pastor fido 
 in particular, is an inimitable production: original and yet classi- 
 cal; romantic in the spirit of the love which it represents; in its 
 form, distinguished by the grand and simple stamp of classical 
 antiquity; with the $weet triflings of poetry, full of the high and 
 chaste beauty of feeling. No poet has succeeded so well in com- 
 bining the peculiarities of the modern and antique. He displays 
 a profound feeling of the essence of ancient tragedy; for the idea 
 of fate animates the subject of his piece, and the principal charac- 
 ters may be said to be ideal: he has also introduced caricatures, 
 and on that account called the composition a tragi-comedy; but 
 they are only caricatures from their sentiments, and not from the 
 vulgarity of their manners; in the same manner as, in ancient 
 tragedy, even the subordinate persons, slaves, or messengers, are 
 invested with a portion of the general dignity. 
 
 This production is of the utmost importance in the history of 
 poetry in general; but it had no effect on dramatic poetry, and 
 the thing could hardly be otherwise. 
 
 I return now to what may properly be called, the tragedy of 
 the Italians. After Sophonisba, and a few pieces of the same 
 period, which Calsabigi calls the first tragic lispings of Italy, a 
 number of works of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth 
 centuries are cited; but there is nothing among them which has 
 acquired any particular reputation, or which at any rate has pre- 
 served it. Although all these writers laboured, as they thought, 
 according to the rules of Aristotle, we have the following picture 
 of their tragical abortions from Calsabigi, a critic altogether de- 
 voted to the French system : " Distorted, complicated, improba- 
 ble plots, misconception of scenic regulations, useless personages, 
 double actions, inconsistency of character, gigantic or childish 
 thoughts, feeble verses, affected phrases, the total absence of har- 
 monious and natural poetry; all this decked out with ill-timed 
 descriptions and similes, or idle philosophical and political dis- 
 quisitions; in every scene some silly amour, with all the trite 
 insipidity of common-place gallantry; of tragic strength, of the 
 conflict of passions, of overpowering theatrical catastrophes, not 
 the smallest trace." We cannot prevail on ourselves to rummage 
 through the whole of the lumber of forgotten literature, and we 
 shall therefore immediately proceed to the consideration of the 
 Merope of Maffei, which appeared in the beginning of the eigh- 
 teenth century. Its success in Italy was great on its first publi- 
 cation; and in other countries it obtained an uncommon degree 
 
166 LECTURES ON 
 
 of reputation from the competition of Voltaire. The object of 
 both was to restore in some measure a lost piece of Euripides, 
 highly praised by the ancients, from the account given of its con- 
 tents by Hyginus. Voltaire, under the guise of eulogy, has criticis- 
 ed the Merope of Maffei, like a rival; and there is a lengthened 
 criticism on it in the Dramaturgie of Lessing, equally ingeni- 
 ous and impartial. He pronounces it, notwithstanding its purity 
 and simplicity of taste, as the work of a learned antiquary, rather 
 than of a mind naturally adapted for, and practised in the dramatic 
 art. We must attribute therefore the great reputation of this 
 work to the previous state of the drama in Italy. 
 
 After Maffei came Metastasio and Alfieri; the first before the 
 middle, and the other in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
 I here include the musical dramas of Metastasio, because their 
 general aim is to produce a serious and pathetic effect, because 
 they lay claim to ideality of conception, and because in their ex- 
 ternal form there is in part an observance of what is considered 
 as belonging to regular tragedy. Both poets, although totally 
 different in their aim, were however influenced in common by 
 the productions of the French stage. It is true they have both 
 declared themselves too decidedly against this school to be con- 
 sidered as properly belonging to it; they have assured us that 
 they purposely avoided reading the French models, for the sake 
 of preserving their own originality. But this very precaution 
 appears somewhat suspicious: whoever feels himself perfectly 
 secure in his own independence may without any hesitation study 
 the works of his predecessors; he will derive from them an im- 
 provement in art, and yet be enabled to stamp his peculiar cha- 
 racter on his own productions. If it is really true that these poets 
 never in reality perused the French tragedies, or only after the 
 completion of their works, some imperceptible influence must 
 have diffused itself throughout the atmosphere, which determined 
 them without their own consciousness. This is very conceivable 
 from the great reputation which, since the time of Louis XIV. 
 the French tragedies have not only enjoyed with the learned, but 
 also with the fashionable world throughout all Europe; from the 
 new modelling of several foreign theatres according to the French 
 cut; from the prevailing tone of criticism, in which negative cor- 
 rectness was everything, a tone which France gave to the litera- 
 ture of other countries. The affinity is in both undeniable, but 
 more striking in Alfieri, from the intermixture of the musical 
 element in Metastasio. I find it in the total absence of the ro- 
 mantic spirit; in a certain fanciless insipidity of composition; in 
 the manner of handling mythological and historical materials, 
 which is neither properly mythological nor historical; lastly, in 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 167 
 
 the aim to produce a tragic purity, which degenerates into mono- 
 tony. The unities of place and time have been uniformly ob- 
 served by Alfieri; the latter could only be observed by Metas- 
 tasio, as a change of scene was required of the opera poet. Alfieri 
 affords in general no food for the eyes. In his plots he aimed at 
 the antique simplicity, while Metastasio in his rich intrigues fol- 
 lowed Spanish models, and borrowed, in particular, a great deal 
 from Calderon.* Yet the harmonious ideality of the ancients 
 was as foreign to the one, as the charm of the romantic poets, 
 arising from the indissoluble mixture of elements apparently in- 
 congruous, was to the other. 
 
 Even before Metastasio, Jlpostolo Zeno had purified, as it is 
 called, the opera, a phrase which, in the sense of modern critics, 
 often means the depriving a thing of substance and vigour. He 
 formed it on tragedy, and the French tragedy more especially; 
 and a too faithful, or perhaps too slavish approximation to this 
 model, is the very cause why he left so little room for musical 
 developement, on which account his pieces were immediately 
 driven by his more expert successor from the stage of the opera. 
 It is in general a false direction in art, to attempt to introduce 
 into one species, with evident disadvantages and at the expense 
 of its own peculiar beauties, what can be accomplished more 
 perfectly in another. This originates in a chilling idea of regu- 
 larity, established at once for all subjects, instead of observing the 
 spirit of each, and ascertaining the peculiar laws by which it ought 
 to be regulated. 
 
 Metastasio threw Zeno into the shade, as, with the same object 
 in view, he displayed a greater flexibility in accommodating him- 
 self to the wants of the musician. The merits which have gain- 
 ed him the reputation of a classic among the Italians of the pre- 
 sent day, and which have made him in some degree for them 
 what Racine is for the French, are, the most perfect purity, 
 clearness, elegance, and sweetness of language in general, and in 
 particular, the softest melody and the greatest loveliness in the 
 songs. Perhaps no poet ever possessed in a greater degree the 
 talent of comprehending in a few lines the essential features of a 
 pathetic situation; the songs with which the characters make their 
 exit, are almost always the purest musical extract of their state of 
 mind which can possibly be given. But we must own at the 
 same time, that his pictures of passion are all general: his pathos 
 is purified, not only from all characteristical, but from all con- 
 templative substance; and the poetic conception, being of no 
 
 * This is expressly asserted by the learned Spaniard Arteaga in his Italian 
 work on the History of the Opera. 
 
168 LECTURES ON 
 
 great weight, proceeds unremittingly with a light and easy mo- 
 tion, the care of a richer developement being left to the musi- 
 cian. Metastasio is musical throughout,- but, to follow up the 
 simile, we may observe that of the poetical music, he possesses 
 only the part of melody, without any knowledge of harmony, or 
 the mysterious effects of counterpoint. Or to express myself in 
 a different language, he is musical, but in no respect picturesque. 
 His melodies are light and pleasant, but they are repeated with 
 small variation; when we have read a few of his pieces we are 
 acquainted with all of them, and the composition is always as a 
 whole without signification. His heroes are gallant like those of 
 Corneille, his heroines tender like those of Racine; but this has 
 been too sharply censured by many without a due consideration of 
 the wants of the opera. It appears to me that he is only censur- 
 able for the selection of materials, the severe seriousness of which 
 were incapable of being mixed up with such triflings without a strik- 
 ing incongruity. Had Metastasio not laid hold of great historical 
 names, had he borrowed his objects more frequently from mytho- 
 logy, or from compositions of a still more fanciful nature, had he 
 always made the same happy choice which he has exhibited in 
 his Achilles in Scyros, where, from the nature of the subject, the 
 heroic is interwoven with the idyllic, we might then have par- 
 doned him for universally painting all bis characters in love. 
 We should then willingly have permitted him to indulge in fan- 
 ciful allusions of a still bolder description, if we ourselves have 
 an understanding of what we ought to expect from an opera. 
 By his tragical pretensions he has injured himself: his powers 
 were not suited to the task, and the seductive flattery at which 
 he aimed was incapable of union with overpowering energy. I 
 have heard a celebrated Italian poet assert that his countrymen 
 were moved to tears by Metastasio. We can only get over such 
 a national evidence as this, by accounting for the circumstance 
 as a symptom of the moral constitution of the Italians. It appears 
 to me undeniable, that a certain melting effeminacy in feeling and 
 expression rendered Metastasio the delight of his contemporaries. 
 He has lines which, from their dignity and vigorous conciseness, 
 are perfectly suited to tragedy, and yet we perceive a certain 
 something in them, which seems to show that they were destined 
 for the flexible throat of a soprano singer. 
 
 The astonishing fortune of Metastasio throughout all Europe, 
 and especially at court, must also in a great measure be attributed 
 to his being a court poet, not merely by profession, but also by 
 the manner in which he composed, which was exactly that of the 
 tragedians of the age of Lous XIV. — Superficial splendour with- 
 out depth; prosaic sentiments and thoughts decked out with a 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 169 
 
 choice poetical language; a courtly moderation in everything, in 
 the display of passion, and in the exhibition of misfortune and 
 crime; observation of the proprieties and apparent morality, for 
 in these dramas voluptuousness is merely breathed, but never 
 named, and the heart is always in every mouth; it was impos- 
 sible that all these properties should not recommend such tra- 
 gical miniatures to the world of fashion. The pomp of noble 
 sentiments is not spared, but they are closety followed by traits 
 of baseness, perpetrated with a levity peculiar to Metastasio. It 
 not unfrequently happens that an injured fair one dismisses her 
 lover with the intention of stabbing him behind. In almost all 
 the pieces there appears a crafty knave who plays the traitor, for 
 whom there is always in readiness a display of royal magnanim- 
 ity, to make all matters even at the end. This levity with which 
 base falsehood is taken into favour, as if it were merely an ami- 
 able weakness, would have appeared extremely disgusting, if his 
 tragical incidents had taken a serious turn. But the poisoned 
 cup is always at the seasonable instant dashed from the lips; the 
 daggers are either dropped, or they are forced from the hands of 
 those who intend to use them, before the deadly blow can be 
 struck; the utmost injury received is a slight scratch; and there 
 is always some subterranean exit, affording the means of flight 
 from the dungeon and from death. The dread of the ridiculous, 
 that conscience of all poets who write for the world of fashion, 
 is very visible in his avoiding all bold measures not sanctioned 
 by custom, in his avoiding everything supernatural, because a 
 public of this description carries with it no belief in wonders, 
 even to the fantastic stage of the opera. Yet this dread has not 
 always served as a sure guide to Metastasio: besides an extrava- 
 gant use of aside, which often appears ludicrous, the subordinate 
 loves assume frequently the appearance of being intended as a 
 parody of the others. Here the Abbe, who was thoroughly 
 acquainted with the various gradations of cicisbeism, its pains 
 and its pleasures, at once betrays himself. To the favoured 
 lover there is generally opposed another, whose presence is felt 
 as an incumbrance, and who continues to urge his suit without 
 return, the soffione among the cicisbei; the former loves in all 
 stillness, and frequently finds no opportunity till the end of the 
 piece, of offering his well turned declaration of love: we might 
 call him the patito. This unintermitting love-chase is not con- 
 fined to the male parts, but extended also to the female, that in 
 everything the most brilliant contrasts may be exhibited. 
 
 A few only of the operas of Metastasio still keep possession of 
 the stage, as the change of taste in music demands a different ar- 
 rangement of the text. Metastasio seldom has choruses, and his 
 
 22 
 
170 LECTURES ON 
 
 airs are almost always for a single voice: with these the scenes 
 arc uniformly terminated, and the singer never fails to make his 
 exit with them. It appears as if, proud of having exhibited this 
 highest triumph of his feeling, he left the spectators to their 
 astonishment, whenever the chirping of the passions in the reci- 
 tatives rose in the air, to something like the more full tones of 
 the nightingale. In an opera we now require more frequent 
 duos and trios, and a crashing finale. In fact, the most difficult 
 problem for the opera poet is the mixing the complicated voices 
 of conflicting passions in one common harmony, without injuring 
 their essence: a problem however which is generally solved by 
 both poet and musical composer in a very arbitrary manner. 
 
 Mfieri) a bold and proud man, disdained to please by such 
 meretricious means as those of which Metastasio had availed him- 
 self: he was highly incensed at the emasculated and degraded 
 state of his countrymen, and the degeneracy of his contempora- 
 ries in general. This rage stimulated him to the exhibition of a 
 manly strength of mind, of stoical principles, and free opinions, 
 and on the other hand to depict all the horrors and enormities of 
 despotism. The enthusiasm was political and moral in a much 
 greater degree than it was poetical, and we must praise his tra- 
 gedies as the actions of the man rather than as the works of the 
 poet. — From his great disinclination to pursue the same path 
 with Metastasio, he naturally fell into the opposite extreme: I 
 should be disposed to call him a -Metastasio reversed. If the 
 muse of the latter is a love-sick nymph, the muse of Alfieri, is 
 an Amazon. He gave her a Spartan education, he aimed at being 
 the Cato of the theatre; but he forgot that, although the tragic 
 poet may himself be a stoic, tragic poelry itself must never be 
 stoical, if it would move and agitate us. His language is so desti- 
 tute of imagery, that his characters seem altogether deprived of 
 fancy; it is broken and harsh: he wished to steel it anew, and it 
 thereby not only lost its splendour, but became brittle and inflex- 
 ible. He is not only not musical, but positively too anti-musi- 
 cal; he tortures our feelings by the harshest dissonance, without 
 any softening or solution. — Tragedy, from its elevation of senti- 
 ment, ought in some degree to disentangle our minds from the 
 sensual power of the body; but to do this with effect, it must not 
 attempt to strip this dangerous gift of heaven of its charms: it 
 must rather show us the highest majesty of our existence sur- 
 rounded by abysses. When we read the tragedies of Alfieri, 
 the world appears in general in an obscure and repulsive aspect 
 to us. A style of composition in which the ordinary course of 
 human affairs is exhibited as dark and gloomy, and the only va- 
 riety is the horror of the extraordinary catastrophes, resembles a 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 171 
 
 climate in which the perpetual fogs of a northern winter are only 
 illumined by the fiery storm of the torrid zone. We must ex- 
 pect as little characteristical depth and refinement in Alfierias in 
 Metastasio: he exhibits only the opposite partial view of human 
 nature. His characters are in the same manner cast according 
 to naked and general ideas, and he frequently paints the extremes 
 of black and white beside one another, without any intervening 
 gradation. His knaves, for the most part, exhibit all their defor- 
 mity in their exterior; this might pass, although such a picture 
 will hardly enable us to recognize them in real life; but his vir- 
 tuous persons are not amiable, and this is a matter of much more 
 serious importance. He studiously stripped himself of all the 
 seductive graces, and even of all subordinate charms and orna- 
 ments (as if they had not been sufficiently denied by nature to 
 this caustic genius), with the view of promoting his moral aim, 
 as he thought, without reflecting that the poet has no other 
 means of leading the minds of men than the fascinations of his art. 
 
 From the tragedy of the Greeks, with which he first became 
 acquainted towards the end of his career, he was separated by a 
 wide chasm; and I cannot consider his pieces as an improvement 
 on the French tragedy. Their structure is more simple, the dia- 
 logue in some cases less conventional; the dismissal of confidents 
 has been highly extolled as a difficulty overcome by him, and an 
 improvement of the French system; he had the same aversion to 
 chamberlains and court ladies in poetry as in real life. But his 
 pieces bear no comparison with the better French tragedies in 
 pleasing and brilliant eloquence; they also display much less skill 
 in the plot, in the gradations, preparations, and transitions. Com- 
 pare, for instance, the Britanniens of Racine with the Octavia 
 ofAlfieri. Both drew their materials from Tacitus; but which 
 of them displayed the most perfect understanding of this profound 
 master of the human heart? Racine appears here as a man who 
 was thoroughly acquainted with all the corruptions of a court, 
 and who saw ancient Rome under the Emperors in this glass of 
 observation. On the other hand, if Alfieri did not expressly 
 assure us that his Octavia was a daughter of Tacitus, we might 
 be inclined to believe that she was modelled on that of the pre- 
 tended Seneca. The colours with which he paints tyrants are 
 those of the school rhetoricians. In his blustering and raging Ne- 
 ro^can we recognize the man who seemed formed by nature, as Ta- 
 citus says, "to conceal his hatred under caresses?" — the coward- 
 ly Sybarite, fantastically vain till the very last moment of his 
 existence, cruel at the first from fear, and afterwards from the 
 extravagance of desire? 
 
 If Alfieri has been here unfaithful to Tacitus, he has proved 
 
172 LECTURES ON 
 
 himself not less superficial in his attempt to translate Macchiavel 
 into the language of poetry, in the Conspiracy of the Pazzi. 
 Id this and other pieces from modern history, Philip and Don 
 Garcia, he has by no means hit the spirit and tone of modern 
 times, nor even of his own nation: his ideas of the tragic style 
 were at variance with everything like a local and determinate 
 costume. It is astonishing to see how the subjects borrowed 
 from the tragic cycles of the Greeks, as the Orestiad, for instance, 
 lose all their heroic magnificence in his hands, and assume a 
 modern and almost vulgar air. He has succeeded best in paint- 
 ing the public life of the Roman republic; and it is a great merit 
 in Virginia that the action takes place in the forum, and in part 
 before the eyes of the people. On other occasions the scene cho- 
 sen by him is for the most part so invisible and indeterminate in 
 its observed unity of place, that one would imagine it was some 
 out of the way corner, where nobody came but persons involved in 
 transactions of an unpleasant nature. The stripping his kings and 
 heroes altogether of their external pomp, produces the impression 
 that the world is actually depopulated around them. This stage 
 solitude is very striking in Saul, the scene of which is laid be- 
 tween two armies on the point of coming to a decisive battle, 
 though this piece is in other respects highly superior to the rest, 
 from a certain oriental splendour, and from the lyrical sublimity 
 in which the troubled mind of Saul is expressed. Myrrha is 
 too bold an attempt to give a colour of propriety to a subject 
 equally revolting to the senses and the feelings. The Spaniard 
 Arteaga has criticised this tragedy and that of Philip with great 
 severity, but with great truth. 
 
 I reserve for the review of the present condition of the Italian 
 theatre my remarks on what has been produced since the time of 
 Alfieri, and return to give a short sketch of the history of 
 comedy. 
 
 In this department the Italians were not at first sufficiently at- 
 tentive in their imitation of the ancients to the difference of times 
 and manners, and translations of Plautus and Terence were re- 
 presented on the oldest theatres; but they soon fell into the most 
 singular extravagancies. We have comedies of Jiriosto and 
 Macchiavel; of the former in rimeless verse, versi sdruccioli, and 
 even one in prose of the latter. Such men could produce nothing 
 which would not bear traces of their genius. But Ariosto in tfre 
 cut of his pieces kept too close to the invention of the ancients, 
 and exhibited therefore no living picture of the manners of his 
 times. In Macchiavel this is only the case in his Clizia, an 
 imitation of Plautus; the Mandragola, and another comedy 
 without a name, are sufficiently Florentine; but unfortunately 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 173 
 
 they are not of a very edifying description. A simple husband 
 who is deceived, and a hypocritical and pandering monk, play 
 the principal parts. Inventions in the style of the free and mer- 
 ry tales of Boccacio are boldly and bluntly conveyed in the form 
 of dialogue, but with respect to theatrical effect they do not dis- 
 play any great art. As Mimi, that is, as pictures of the language 
 of ordinary life with all its idiotisms, these productions are much 
 to be commended. They resemble the Latin Comic poets in their 
 indecency. This was indeed the general tone. The comedies 
 of Pietro Jiretino are merely remarkable for their immodesty. 
 It seems as if these writers, deeming the spirit of a more refined 
 love inconsistent with the essence of comedy, had exhausted the 
 very lees of the sensual amours of the Greek comedy. 
 
 At an earlier period, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 there was one unsuccessful attempt to dramatise a serious novel, 
 as a middle species between comedy and tragedy, and to adorn 
 it with poetical splendour: the Virginia of Jiccolti. I have 
 never had an opportunity of reading it, but the unfavourable re- 
 port of a literary man disposes me to think favourably of it.* 
 According to his description, it must resemble the older pieces 
 of the Spanish stage before it was yet sufficiently formed, and in 
 common with them the stanza measure is used in it. The at- 
 tempts at romantic drama have always failed in Italy, whereas in 
 Spain again all endeavours to model the theatre according to the 
 rules of the ancients, and latterly of the French, have uniformly 
 been abortive, from the difference of national taste. 
 
 We have a comedy from Tasso, Gli Intrichi d? Amove, 
 which ought rather to be called a lengthened romance in the form 
 of dialogue. So many and such wonderful events are crowded 
 together within the narrow limit of five acts, that one incident 
 treads closely upon the heels of another without the least deve- 
 lopement, which gives an unsupportable hardness to the whole. 
 Criminal designs are portrayed with indifference, and the drolle- 
 ry is made to consist in the manner in which an event anticipates 
 its consequences. We cannot here recognize the Tasso whose 
 tender feelings for love, chivalry, and honour are pronounced so 
 delightfully in his Jerusalem Delivered, on which account it has 
 
 * Bouterwek's Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit. — Erster Band, s. 334, 
 &c. — M. Bouterwek has made himself ridiculous by saying: "A poet with any 
 knowledge of dramatic interest would hardly have attempted to convert this 
 story into an ordinary comedy." Did he know or reflect that the story, as re- 
 lated by him, agrees accurately in every circumstance with the plot of Shak- 
 speare's All's Well that ends Well ? That Accolti in this comedy did not trouble 
 himself with the unities of time and place (it was indeed impossible for him to 
 observe them) draws down on him the vengeance of M. Bouterwek. Alas for 
 the fate of poor Shakspeare in this History of Poetry! 
 
174 LECTURES ON 
 
 been doubted if this work ought really to be attributed to him. 
 The richness of invention, if we may give this name to a rude 
 accumulation of incidents, is so great, that the attention is tor- 
 tured in the most painful manner, in endeavouring to avoid con- 
 founding one thing with another. 
 
 We have a multitude of Italian comedies written about this 
 period, and planned in the same manner, only with less order 
 and connexion, the chief aim being to delight by means of inde- 
 cency. A parasite and procuress are standing characters in all 
 of them. Among the comic poets of this class, Giambatista 
 Porta deserves to be distinguished. His plots are, it is true, 
 like those of the rest, imitations of Plautus and Terence, or dra- 
 matized tales; but a tender feeling is breathed throughout the 
 love-dialogues, which he seems to have laboured with peculiar 
 fondness, a feeling which forces its way through the rudeness of 
 Italian comedy, and which is so much at variance with the nature 
 of the materials. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, when the Spanish theatre flourish- 
 ed in all its glory, the Italians seem to have borrowed frequently 
 from it; but they must have disfigured the subjects which they 
 so took from not having a due understanding of them. The ne- 
 glect of the regular stage was increased by the passion for the 
 opera, in which everything else was swallowed up, and by the 
 invincible taste of the body of the people for improvisatory farces 
 with standing masks. These last are not to be despised: they 
 fix, as it were, many central points of the national character, in 
 the comic exhibition of peculiarities of speech, dress, &c. Their 
 recurrence does not by any means exclude the greatest diversity 
 in the plot of the pieces, for it is as in chess, with a small number 
 of men, every person having his determinate course, an endless 
 number of combinations is possible. But extemporary playing 
 easily degenerates into insipidity; this may have been the casein 
 Italy, notwithstanding the Italians possess a great fund of drollery 
 and fantastic wit, and a peculiar felicity in farcical gesticulation. 
 
 About the middle of the last century, Goldoni appeared as a 
 reformer of the Italian comedy, and his success was so great, that 
 he remained almost exclusively in possession of the comic stage. 
 He is certainly not deficient in theatrical skill; but, as the event 
 has proved, his substance, his depth of character, his novelty and 
 richness of invention, are not such as to ensure a durable reputa- 
 tation. His pictures of manners are true, but not sufficiently 
 elevated above the range of everyday life; he has exhausted the 
 surface of life; and as there is little progression in his dramas, 
 and everything turns usually on the same point, this adds to the 
 impression of shallowness and ennui. He would willingly have 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 175 
 
 abolished masks altogether, but he could hardly have afforded a 
 sufficient compensation from bis own means; he retained only a 
 few of them, as Harlequin, Brigheila, and Pantaloon, and limited 
 their parts. He fell into a great uniformity of character, which 
 indeed he partly confesses from his repetition of names: for in- 
 stance, his Beatrice and Rosaura are always the one a lively, and 
 the other a feeling young woman, and for any farther distinction 
 it is not to be found in him. 
 
 The excessive admiration of Goldoni, and the injury sustained 
 by the masked comedy; for which the company of Sacchi in 
 Venice possessed the highest talents, gave rise to the dramas of 
 Gozzi. They are fairy tales in a dramatic form, in which how- 
 ever, along with the wonderful, versified, and serious part, he 
 introduced the whole of the masks, and allowed them the most 
 unrestrained developement. They are pieces for effect, if ever 
 there were such pieces, of great boldness and plot, still more fan- 
 tastic than romantic, although he was the first of the comic poets 
 of Italy who showed any feeling for honour and love. The exe- 
 cution is by no means careful or skilful, but dashed off in the 
 manner of a sketch. With all his whimsical boldness he is still 
 extremely familiar; the principal motives are detailed with the 
 most unambiguous perspicuity, all the touches are coarse and 
 vigorous: he says, he knows well that his countrymen are fond 
 of the most robust situations. After his imagination had been in 
 some degree wearied with oriental tales, he applied himself to 
 the re-modelling of Spanish plays, particularly those of Calderon; 
 but here he is deserving of much less praise. The ethereal and 
 delicately shaded poetry of the Spaniard is uniformly vulgarized 
 by him, and exhibited in glaring colours; the weight of his masks 
 draws the aerial texture to the ground, as the humorous introduc- 
 tion of the gracioso in the Spanish is of a much more refined cha- 
 racter. This extravagant caricature of the masked parts served 
 as an admirable contrast to the wildly wonderful nature of the 
 fairy tale. The character of the pieces was, in the serious part, 
 as well as in the accompanying drollery, equally removed from 
 natural truth. In this manner Gozzi fell almost accidentally on 
 a fund of the deepest import, of which he was not himself per- 
 haps aware: his prosaical, and for the most part improvisatory, 
 masks, formed altogether of themselves the irony of the poetical 
 part. What I mean by irony, I shall explain more fully when I 
 come to the justification of the mixture of the tragic and comic 
 in the romantic drama of Shakspeare and Calderon. I shall only 
 here observe, that it is a sort of confession interwoven into the 
 subject itself, and expressed with more or less distinctness, of its 
 overcharged partiality in matters of fancy and feeling, by means 
 
176 LECTURES ON 
 
 of which the equilibrium is again restored. The Italians were 
 not however aware of this, and Gozzi has not found any followers 
 to carry his rude sketches to a higher degree of perfection. In- 
 stead of combining like him, only in a more refined manner, the 
 charms of wonderful poetry with exhilarating mirth; instead of 
 comparing Gozzi, notwithstanding the great disparity, with the 
 foreign masters of the romantic drama, and from the unconscious 
 affinity between them in spirit and plan, drawing the conclusion 
 that the common principle was founded in nature; the Italians 
 have contented themselves with considering the pieces of Gozzi 
 as the wild offspring of an extravagant imagination, and with 
 banishing them from the stage. The comedy with masks is held 
 in contempt by the classes who suppose themselves polished, as 
 if they were too wise for this exhibition, and it is abandoned by 
 them to the common people at the Sunday representations in the 
 theatres and in puppet-shows. Although this contempt must have 
 an injurious influence on masks, as no actor of talents devotes 
 himself to them, so that they are altogether destitute of examples 
 of the spirited and witty manners in which they were formerly 
 filled, this species is still however the only one in which we find 
 original and truly theatrical entertainment in Italy.* 
 
 In tragedy they generally imitate Alfieri, who, although it is 
 the prevailing fashion to admire him, expresses his thoughts in 
 too strong and manly a manner, to be supportable on the stage. 
 They have produced single pieces of merit, but the principles of 
 tragic art which Alfieri followed are altogether false, and in the 
 bawling and heartless declamation of their actors, this tragic 
 poetry, stripped with stoical severity of all the charms of group- 
 ing, of musical harmony, and of everything like tender feeling, is 
 represented with the most deadening uniformity and monotony. t 
 
 One of their living poets, Giovanni Pindemonti, has endea- 
 voured to introduce greater extent, variety, and nature into his 
 historical plays, but he has been severely handled by their critics 
 
 * A few years ago, I saw in Milan an excellent Truffaldin, or Harlequin, and 
 here and there in obscure theatres, and even in puppet-shows, admirable repre- 
 sentations of the old traditional jokes of the country. 
 
 f As all the rich rewards are reserved for the singers, it is natural that their 
 players, who are only introduced as a sort of fill up between singing and dancing, 
 should, for the most part, not even possess the A, B, C, of their art, a pure 
 pronunciation, and a cultivated memory. They have no idea that their parts 
 ought to be got by heart, and hence we hear every piece almost twice over in 
 an Italian theatre; the prompter speaks as loud as a good player elsewhere, and 
 in order to be distinguished from him they bawl most insufferably. It is ex- 
 ceedingly amusing to see the prompter, when from the general forgetfulness a 
 scene threatens to fall into confusion, labouring away, and stretching out his 
 head from his hole like a serpent, hurrying through the dialogue before the 
 different speakers, and entering into their parts. Of all the actors in the world, 
 I conceive those of Paris to have their parts best by heart; in this, as well as in 
 the knowledge of versification, the Germans are far inferior to them. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 177 
 
 for descending from the height of the cothurnus to attain a truth 
 of circumstance, without which it is impossible for this species 
 of drama to exist; perhaps also for deviating from the strict ob- 
 servation of the traditional rules, so blindly adored by them. If 
 the Italian verse is in fact so fastidious as not to bear many his- 
 torical peculiarities, modern names and titles for instance, let 
 them write partly in prose, and call the production not a tragedy, 
 but an historical drama. It seems in general to be assumed as an 
 undoubted principle, that the verso sciolto of eleven syllables 
 without rhyme is the only one fit for the drama, but this does not 
 seem to me to be by any means proved. This verse, in variety 
 and metrical signification, is greatly inferior to the English and 
 German rhymeless iambic, from its uniform feminine termination, 
 and from there being merely an accentuation in Italian, without 
 any syllabic measure; in the frequent transition of the sense from 
 verse to verse, according to every possible division, the lines 
 flow into one another without its being possible for the ear to 
 separate them. Alfieri imagined that he had found out the genu- 
 ine dramatic manner of treating this verse corresponding to his 
 dialogue, which consists of nothing but detached periods, or rather 
 of propositions entirely unperiodical and abruptly terminated. It 
 is possible that he carried with him into his works a personal pe- 
 culiarity, for he was exceedingly laconic; he was also, as he him- 
 self relates, determined by the example of Seneca: but what a 
 different lesson he would have learned from the Greeks! We do 
 not, it is true, connect our language so much in conversation as in 
 an oratorical harangue, but the opposite extreme is equally unna- 
 tural. We observe a certain continuity in our common discourse, 
 we give a developement to arguments and objections, and in an 
 instant we are animated by passion to a fulness of expression, to 
 a flow of eloquence, and even to lyrical sublimity. The ideal 
 dialogue of tragedy may therefore find in actual conversation all 
 the various tones and turns of poetry, with the exception of epic 
 repose. I should therefore conceive the manner of Metastasio, 
 and of Tasso, and Guarini before him, in their pastoral dramas, 
 to be much more pleasant and suitable than the monotonous verse 
 of eleven syllables: they intermix verses of seven syllables, and 
 occasionally, after a number of blank lines, introduce a couple of 
 rhymes, and even insert a rhyme in the middle of a verse. From 
 this the transition to more measured strophes, either in ottave 
 rime, or in lyrical metres, would be easy. Rhyme, and the con- 
 nexion which it occasions, having nothing in them inconsistent 
 with the essence of dramatic dialogue, and the rejection of a change 
 of measure in the drama rests merely on a chilling idea of regu- 
 larity. 
 
 23 
 
17S LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 No suitable versification has yet been invented in Italy for co- 
 medy. The verso sciolto, as is well known, does not answer; 
 it is not sufficiently familiar. The verse of twelve syllables, 
 with a sdrucciolo termination selected by Ariosto, is much bet- 
 ter, resembling the trimeter of the ancients, but is still somewhat 
 monotonous. It has been however but little cultivated. The 
 Martellian verse, a bad imitation of the Alexandrine, is a down- 
 right torture to the ear. Chiari, and occasionally Goldoni, at 
 last used it, and Gozzi by way of derision. It still remains there- 
 fore to the prejudice of a more elegant style in prose. 
 
 Of new comedies the Italians have none; if they have, the 
 pictures of manners are still more dull and superficial than those 
 of Goldoni, without drollery, without invention, and, from their 
 everyday common-place, downrightly disgusting. But they have 
 acquired a just relish for the sentimental drama and familiar tra- 
 gedy; they play with great fondness the popular German pieces 
 of this description, and even produce the most detestable imita- 
 tions of them. From being accustomed to operas and ballets, 
 their favourite dramatic amusements, in which nothing more is 
 attempted than a beautiful air or an elegant movement, from time 
 to time, it would seem that the public have altogether lost all 
 sense of dramatic connexion: they are perfectly well satisfied 
 with two acts from different operas in the same evening, or with 
 seeing the representation of the last act of an opera before the 
 first. 
 
 We do not therefore believe that we are saying too much when 
 we affirm, that both dramatic poetry and the histrionic art are in 
 the most woful decline in Italy,* that the first foundation of a 
 national theatre has not yet been laid, and that there is no pros- 
 pect of their ever having one, till the prevailing ideas on the sub- 
 ject undergo a total change. 
 
 * Calsabigi attributes the cause of this state to the want of permanent com- 
 panies of players, and of a capital. In this last reason there is certainly some 
 foundation: in England, Spain, and France, a national system of dramatic art 
 has been developed and established; in Italy and Germany, where there are 
 only capitals of separate states, but no general metropolis, great difficulties are 
 opposed to the improvement of the theatre. Calsabigi could not adduce the 
 obstacles arising from a false theory, for he was himself under their influence. 
 
( 179 ) 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Antiquities of the French stage. — Influence of Aristotle and the imitation of 
 the ancients. — Investigation of the three unities — What is unity of action? 
 — Unity of time. — Was it observed by the Greeks? — Unity of place as con- 
 nected with it. — Mischief resulting from too narrow rules on the subject. 
 
 We now proceed to the dramatic literature of the French. 
 We find no reason for dwelling at any length on the first begin- 
 nings of tragedy in France. We may therefore leave to the 
 French critics the task of depreciating the antiquities of their 
 own literature, which they do with the mere view of adding to 
 the glory of the succeeding age of Richelieu and Louis XIV. 
 Their language, it is true, was then for the first time elaborated 
 from the most indescribable wilderness of tastelessness and bar- 
 barity, while the harmonious diction of the Italian and Spanish 
 poetry, which had long before developed itself without effort in 
 the most beautiful luxuriance, was at that time rapidly degene- 
 rating. Hence, we are not to be astonished that the French lay 
 such great stress on all the negative excellencies, and endeavour 
 so much to avoid everything like impropriety, and that from the 
 dread of a relapse, this has always, since the period in question, 
 been the general object of their critical labours. When La Harpe 
 says of the tragedies of Corneille, that their tone rises above flat- 
 ness only to fall into the opposite extreme of affectation, in the 
 proofs which he adduces we see no reason to differ from him. — 
 A contemporary piece of Legouve, The Death of Henry the 
 Fourth, has been lately printed, which is not only written in a 
 ludicrous style, but in the general plan and distribution of the 
 subject, with its prologue spoken by Satan and a chorus of pages, 
 with its endless monologues and want of progress and action, be- 
 trays the infancy of the dramatic art, not a naive infancy full of 
 hope and expectation, but one disfigured by the most pedantic 
 bombast and absurdity. With respect to the earlier tragical at- 
 tempts of the French in the last half of the sixteenth, and the 
 first third part of the seventeenth century, we refer to Fontenelle, 
 La Harpe, the Melanges literaires of Suard and Andre. We 
 shall confine ourselves to the characterization of three of their 
 most celebrated tragic poets, Corneille, Racine and Voltaire, 
 who it would seem have given an immutable shape to their tra- 
 gic stage. Our chief object however is an examination of the 
 system of tragic art, practically followed by these poets, and 
 by them partly, but by the French critics universally, considered 
 
ISO LECTURES ON 
 
 as alone entitled to any authority, and every deviation from it view- 
 ed as a sin against good taste. If the system is in itself the best, we 
 shall be compelled to allow that its execution is masterly, per- 
 haps not to be surpassed. But the great question here is, how 
 far the French tragedy is in spirit and inward essence related to 
 the Greek, and whether it deserves to be considered as an im- 
 provement upon it. 
 
 Of their first attempts it is only consistent with our object to 
 observe, that the endeavour to imitate the ancients displayed itself 
 at a very early period in France; and that they considered that 
 the surest method of succeeding in this endeavour was to ob- 
 serve the strictest outward regularity of form, of which they de- 
 rived their ideas more from Aristotle, and especially from 
 Seneca, than from an intimate acquaintance with the Greek 
 models themselves. In the first tragedies which were repre- 
 sented, the Cleopatra and Dido of Jodelle, a prologue and 
 chorus were introduced: Jean de la Peruse translated the Me- 
 dea of Seneca; Garnier* s pieces are all taken from the Greek 
 tragedies or from Seneca, but in the execution they bear a much 
 closer resemblance to the latter. The writers of that day em- 
 ployed themselves also diligently on the Sophonisbe of Trissino, 
 from a regard for its classic appearance. Whoever is acquainted 
 with the mode of proceeding of real genius, which is impelled by 
 the almost unconscious and immediate contemplation of great 
 and important truths, and in nowise by mediate convictions ob- 
 tained from deductions drawn in a roundabout way, will be on 
 that account extremely suspicious of all activity in art, which 
 originates in an abstract theory. But Corneille did not, like an an- 
 tiquary, execute his dramas as so many learned school exercises, 
 on the model of the ancients. Seneca, it is true, led him astray, 
 but he knew and loved the Spanish theatre, and it had a great 
 influence on his mind. The first of his pieces with which it is 
 generally allowed that the classical epoch of French tragedy be- 
 gins, and which is certainly one of his best, the Cid, is well 
 known to have been borrowed from the Spanish. It violates con- 
 siderably the unity of place, if not also that of time, and it is ani- 
 mated throughout by the spirit of chivalrous love and honour. 
 But the opinion of his contemporaries, that a tragedy must be 
 framed accurately according to the rules of Aristotle, was so 
 universally prevalent that it bore down all opposition. Cor- 
 neille, almost at the close of his dramatic career, began to enter- 
 tain scruples of conscience, and endeavoured in a separate treatise 
 to prove that his pieces, in the composition of which he had 
 never even thought of Aristotle, were however all accurately 
 written according to his rules. This was no easy task, for he was 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 181 
 
 obliged to have recourse to all manner of forced explanations. If 
 he had established his case satisfactorily, we could only infer 
 from it that the rules of Aristotle must be very loose and inde- 
 terminate, if such dissimilar works in spirit and form, as the tra- 
 gedies of the Greeks and those of Corneille, should be equally 
 true to them. 
 
 It is quite otherwise with Racine: of all the French poets he 
 was, without doubt, the one who was best acquainted with the 
 ancients, and he did not merely study them as a scholar, he felt 
 them as a poet. He found however the practice of the theatre 
 already firmly established, and he did not undertake to deviate 
 from it for the sake of approaching these models. He only 
 therefore appropriated the separate beauties of the Greek poets; 
 but whether from respect for the taste of his age, or from incli- 
 nation, he remained faithful to the prevailing gallantry so foreign 
 to the Greek tragedy, and for the most part made it the founda- 
 tion of the intrigues of his piece. 
 
 Such was nearly the state of the French theatre till Voltaire 
 made his appearance. He possessed but a moderate knowledge 
 of the Greeks, of whom however he now and then spoke with 
 enthusiasm, that on other occasions he might rank them below 
 the more modern masters of his own nation, including himself; 
 but yet he always considered himself bound to preach up the 
 grand severity and simplicity of the Greeks as essential to tra- 
 gedy. He censured the deviations of his predecessors as errors, 
 and insisted on purifying and at the same time enlarging the 
 stage, as in his opinion, from the constraint of court manners, it 
 had been almost straitened to the dimensions of an anti-chamber. 
 He at first spoke of the bursts of genius in Shakspeare, and bor- 
 rowed many things from this poet, at that time altogether un- 
 known to his countrymen; he insisted too on greater depth in 
 the delineation of passion, on a more powerful theatrical effect; 
 he demanded a scene ornamented in a more majestic manner; 
 and, lastly, he not unfrequently endeavoured to give to his pieces 
 a political or philosophical interest altogether foreign to poetry. 
 His labours have unquestionably been of utility to the French 
 stage, although in language and versification (which in the classi- 
 fication of dramatic excellencies ought only to hold a secondary 
 place, though in France they are alone decisive of the fate of a 
 piece), he is, by most critics, considered as inferior to his prede- 
 cessors, or at least to Racine. It is now the fashion to attack 
 this idol of the last age on every point with the most unrelenting 
 and partial hostility. His innovations on the stage are therefore 
 cried down as so many literary heresies, even by the critical 
 watchmen, who seem to think that the age of Louis XIV. has 
 
182 LECTURES ON 
 
 left nothing remaining throughout every succession of ages till 
 the very end of the world, but a passive admiration of its perfec- 
 tions, and who therefore will not listen to the unhallowed idea of 
 anything like improvement. For authority is avowed with so 
 little disguise as the first principle of the French critics, that this 
 expression is quite current with them. 
 
 In so far as we have to express doubts of the unconditional 
 authority of the rules followed by the old French tragic authors, 
 of the pretended affinity between the spirit of their works, and 
 the spirit of the Greek tragedians, and of the validity of many 
 things which have been supposed to be essential properties, we 
 find an associate in Voltaire. But in many other points he has, 
 without examination, nay even unconsciously, adopted the max- 
 ims of his predecessors, and followed their practice. In opi- 
 nions founded perhaps more on national peculiarities than on hu- 
 man nature and the essence of tragic poetry in general, he is equal- 
 ly implicated with them. On this account we may include him 
 along with them in the common examination; we are not speak- 
 ing of the execution of particular parts, but of the general prin- 
 ciples of tragic art, which we are to collect from the shape of the 
 works. 
 
 The consideration of the regularity insisted on brings us back 
 to what are called the three unities of Aristotle. We shall ex- 
 amine the doctrine delivered by the Greek philosopher on this 
 subject; how far these rules were known to or observed by the 
 Greek tragedians; whether the French poets have in reality 
 overcome the difficulty of observing them without constraint and 
 improbability, or merely escaped from it with dexterity; and 
 finally, whether the merit of this observance is actually so great 
 and essential as it has been deemed, and whether on the other 
 hand more essential beauties must not be sacrificed for the sake 
 of complying with it. 
 
 We may view the French tragedy under another aspect, in 
 which it does not rest on the authority of the ancients: this is 
 the union of poetry, with a number of social observances founded 
 only on consent. On the subject in question the French are far 
 less clear than on that of the rules; for nations are usually not 
 more capable of knowing and appreciating themselves than indi- 
 viduals. It is intimately connected with the spirit of French 
 poetry in general, nay with their whole literature and the very 
 language itself. All this has in France been formed under the 
 guardianship of society, and has uniformly been guided and de- 
 termined by it, a society which zealously imitated the tone of 
 the capital, and this again took its direction from the modes of a 
 brilliant court. If such is really the case, as there can indeed be 
 no difficulty in proving, we may easily conceive why the French 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 183 
 
 literature, since the age of Louis XIV., has been and still is so 
 well received in the upper ranks of society, in the fashionable 
 world, throughout all Europe, while the body of the people, 
 everywhere true to their own manners, have never shown any- 
 thing like a cordial liking to it. In this way, even in foreign 
 countries, it finds again in some measure the place of its birth. 
 
 The far famed three unities, which have given rise to a whole 
 Iliad of critical wars, are the unities of action, time, and 
 place. 
 
 The validity of the first is universally allowed, but the diffi- 
 culty is to agree about its signification ; and here I may venture 
 to observe that it is no easy matter to come to an understanding 
 on the subject. 
 
 The unities of place and time are considered by some as merely 
 a secondary concern, while others give the utmost importance to 
 them, and affirm that without them there can be no salvation for 
 the dramatic poet. In France this zeal is not confined to the 
 learned world, but seems to be a common concern of the nation. 
 Every Frenchman, who has sucked in Boileau with his mother's 
 milk, considers himself as much a natural born champion of the 
 dramatic unities, as the kings of England since the time of 
 Henry VIII. are hereditary Defenders of the faith. 
 
 It is amusing enough to see the name of Aristotle borrowed to 
 sanction these three unities, while the only one of which he 
 speaks with any degree of fulness is the first, the unity of action. 
 With respect to the unity of time he merely throws out an in- 
 definite hint, and as to the unity of place he does not even say a 
 single syllable on the subject. 
 
 1 am not therefore in a polemical relation with Aristotle, for I 
 do not in any wise dispute the unity of action when properly 
 understood; I only consider a greater latitude with respect to 
 place and time as defensible in many species of the drama, nay 
 as even essential to them. But I must first say a few words re- 
 specting the Poetics of Aristotle, which, though consisting but of 
 a few pages, have given rise to many voluminous commentaries, 
 that we may place ourselves in the proper point of view. 
 
 It is well known that this treatise is a mere fragment, and 
 that many important subjects are in no degree touched upon in it. 
 Several learned men have even been of opinion that it is not a 
 fragment of the true original, but of an extract which some per- 
 son made for his own improvement. All philological critics are 
 however unanimous in the opinion that the text is very much 
 falsified and corrupted, and they have endeavoured to restore it 
 by their conjectural emendations. Its great obscurity is either 
 expressly lamented by the commentators or confirmed by the 
 
1S4 LECTURES ON 
 
 fact, that they all reject the interpretations of their predecessors, 
 while they cannot make their own palatable to those who follow 
 them. 
 
 It is very different with the rhetoric of Aristotle. This last 
 work is undoubtedly genuine, perfect, and easily understood. 
 How does he consider the oratorical art in it? As the sister 
 of logic, which must produce persuasion by a method somewhat 
 similar to that employed in operating conviction by logical deduc- 
 tions. This is nearly the same thing as if we were to consider 
 architecture merely as the art of building with solidity and con- 
 venience. These are certainly the first requisites, but a great 
 deal more is still necessary before we can consider it as one of 
 the fine arts. We expect that architecture should unite these 
 essential objects of an edifice with beauty of plan, and harmony 
 of proportion, and that the whole should produce a correspond- 
 ing impression. When we see that Aristotle included only in 
 oratory what is addressed to the understanding, and what is 
 subservient to an external aim without making any allowance for 
 imagination or feeling, are we to be astonished that he was still 
 less thoroughly acquainted with the secret of poetry, that art 
 which is absolved from every aim but the unconditional one of 
 creating the beautiful by means of free invention and clothing it 
 in suitable language? — I have already had the hardihood to main- 
 tain this heresy, and hitherto I have seen no reason for retracting 
 my opinion. Lessing thought otherwise. But what if Lessing, 
 with his acute and dissecting criticism, split exactly on the same 
 rock? This species of criticism is completely victorious when it 
 exposes what cannot be admitted by the understanding in works 
 which the understanding has alone produced; but it will hardly 
 be sufficient to rise to the idea of a creation of art conceived in 
 the true spirit of genius. 
 
 The philosophical theory of all the fine arts was in general but 
 little cultivated among the ancients as a separate science; of tech- 
 nical works on each separate art, in which the means of execu- 
 tion were alone considered, they had an ample sufficiency. 
 Were I to select a guide from among the ancient philosophers, 
 it should undoubtedly be Plato, who acquired the idea of the 
 beautiful not by dissection, which never can give it, but by con- 
 templative inspiration, and in whose works the germs of a gen- 
 uine philosophy of art, are everywhere scattered. 
 
 Let us now hear what Aristotle says, respecting the unity 
 of action. 
 
 "We assume that tragedy is the imitation of a perfect and en- 
 tire action which has a certain magnitude: for there may be a 
 whole without any magnitude whatever. A whole is what has 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 185 
 
 a beginning, a middle, and end. The beginning is what is 
 not necessarily after another thing, but that which from its na 
 ture has something after it, or arising out of it. The end on the 
 other hand is what in its nature is after something else, either 
 necessarily, or usually, but after which there is nothing. The 
 middle, what is itself after another thing, and after which there 
 is something. Hence poems which are properly composed 
 ought neither to begin nor to end accidentally, but according to 
 the principles above laid down." 
 
 Strictly speaking, it is a contradiction to say that a whole, 
 which must have parts, can be without magnitude. But Aristotle 
 immediately states in explanation, that he means by magnitude 
 what is essential to beauty, a certain measure which is neither so 
 small as not to allow us to distinguish its parts, nor so extensive 
 as to prevent us from taking the whole in at one view. This 
 is therefore merely an external definition of the beautiful derived 
 from experience, and founded on the quality of our organs of 
 sense and our powers of comprehension. However, his appli- 
 cation of it to the drama is singular enough. " It must have an ex- 
 tension, but such as may easily be taken in by the memory. The 
 determination of the length according to the wants of the represen- 
 tation, does not belong to the art. With respect to the essence of the 
 thing, the composition will be the more beautiful the more it is ex- 
 tended without prejudice to its comprehensibility." This opinion 
 would be highly favourable for the compositions of Shakspeare and 
 other romantic poets, who have included a much more extensive 
 circle of life, character, and events, in one picture, than is to be 
 found in the simple Greek tragedy, if we could only show that 
 they have given it the necessary unity, and such a magnitude as 
 can be clearly taken in at a view, and this we can have no hesita- 
 tion in affirming to have been actually done by them. 
 
 In another place Aristotle requires the same unity of action 
 from the epic poets, as from the dramatic; he repeats the above 
 definitions, and says that the poet must not resemble the historian, 
 who relates contemporary events, although they have had no in- 
 fluence on one another. Here we have still a more definite de- 
 mand of connexion between the events represented as causes 
 and effects, than that which was before stated in his explana- 
 tion of the parts of a whole. He owns however that the 
 epic poet may take in a much greater number of events connected 
 with one main action, as the narrative form enables him to de- 
 scribe several actions going on at the same time; on the other hand 
 the dramatic poet cannot represent many things at the same time, 
 but merely what is going on upon the stage, and the part which 
 the persons who appear there take in one action. But what if the 
 
 24 
 
186 LECTURES ON 
 
 dramatic poet should find means, from a different constitution of 
 the scene, and a more perfect theatrical perspective, to develope in 
 a due manner and without confusion, although in a more limited 
 space, a fable not inferior in extent to the epic poem? Where 
 would be the objection, if the only obstacle was the supposed im- 
 possibility? 
 
 This is nearly all which is contained in the Poetics of Aristotle 
 on the subject of unity of action. A short investigation will serve 
 to show how very much these anatomical ideas, which have been 
 stamped as rules, are below the essential requisites of poetry? 
 
 Unity of action is expected. What is action? This is gene- 
 rally got rid of, as if it was altogether self-evident. In the higher 
 proper signification, action is an activity dependent on the will of 
 man. Its unity will consist in the direction towards one sole aim; 
 and to its completion belongs all that lies between the first deter- 
 mination, and the execution of the deed. 
 
 This idea of action is applicable to many of the tragedies of the 
 ancients; for instance, the murder of his mother by Orestes, the 
 determination of (Edipus to discover and punish the murderer of 
 Laius: it is not however applicable to all of them ; still less is it 
 applicable to the greater part of modern tragedies, at least if we 
 seek the action in the principal characters. What happens through 
 them, and proceeds from them, has frequently no more connexion 
 with a voluntary determination, than the shipwreck of a vessel on 
 a rock in a storm. But even in the sense of the ancients we must 
 include in the action the determination to bear the consequences 
 of the deed with heroic resolution, and the execution of this de- 
 termination will belong to its completion. The pious determina- 
 tion of Antigone to perform the last duties to her unburied bro- 
 ther is soon executed without much difficulty; but its claims to 
 become the object of a tragedy rest in her suffering death for it 
 without repentance, and without showing any symptoms of weak- 
 ness. And to take an example from another sphere, is not Shak- 
 speare's Julius Caesar, with respect to action, constructed on the 
 same principle? Brutus is the hero of the piece: the completion 
 of his great determination does not consist in the mere assassina- 
 tion of Caesar (an action ambiguous in itself, and of which the 
 motives might have been ambition and jealousy), but in this, that 
 he proves himself the genuine champion of Roman liberty, by the 
 ready indifference with which he sacrifices his amiable life for 
 that object. 
 
 Farther, there could be no knot in the piece without opposition, 
 and this generally arises out of the contradictory motives and 
 views of the different persons. When we limit therefore the idea 
 of an action to the determination and the deed, we shall then have 
 for the most part two or three actions in one tragedy. Which of 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 187 
 
 them is the principal action? Every person thinks his own the 
 most important, for every man is his own central point. The 
 determination of Creon to maintain his royal dignity, by punish- 
 ing with death the person who inters Polynices, is equally fixed 
 with the determination of Antigone, equally important as we see 
 at the end, and not less dangerous, as it draws along with it the 
 destruction of the whole house of Creon. It may be perhaps said 
 that the negative determination is merely to be considered as the 
 completion of the affirmative. But what if each determines on 
 something not exactly opposite, but altogether different? In the 
 Andromache of Racine, Orestes wishes to prevail-on Hermione 
 to return his love; Hermione is resolved either to compel Pyr- 
 rhus to marry her, or to be revenged on him; Pyrrhus wishes to 
 get rid of Hermione, and to be united to Andromache; Andro- 
 mache is desirous of saving; her son, and at the same time remain- 
 ing true to the memory of her husband. Yet nobody ever refused 
 to allow the unity of this piece, as the whole has a common con- 
 nexion, and ends with one common catastrophe. But which of 
 the actions of the four persons is the main action? In strength of 
 passion their endeavours are pretty nearly equal to one another, 
 in all of them the whole happiness of life is at stake; the action 
 of Andromache has however the advantage of moral dignity, and 
 Racine was therefore perfectly right in naming the piece after her. 
 We see here a new definition in the conception of action, 
 namely, the reference to the idea of moral liberty, by which alone 
 man is considered as the first author of his determination. For, 
 considered within the province of experience, the determination 
 as beginning of the action is not merely cause, but is again the 
 effect of preceding motives. We have, in this reference to a higher 
 idea, sought the unity and integrity of tragedy in the sense of 
 the ancients; namely, its absolute beginning is the proof of liberty, 
 and its absolute end the acknowledgment of necessity. We con- 
 sider ourselves justified in affirming that Aristotle was altogether 
 a stranger to this view: he never speaks of the idea of fate as es- 
 sential to tragedy. We must not in general expect from him a 
 strict idea of action, as determination and deed. He says some- 
 where: " The extent of a tragedy is always sufficiently great, if, 
 by a series of probable or necessary consequences, a change from 
 infelicity to felicity, or from felicity to infelicity, can be brought 
 about." Hence it is evident that he understands by action, like 
 the whole of the moderns, merely something that takes place. 
 According to him, this action must have beginning, middle, and 
 end, and consequently consist of a plurality of events connected 
 with one another. But where are the limits of this plurality? Is 
 not the concatenation of causes and effects, backwards and for- 
 
18S LECTURES ON 
 
 wards, without end; and consequently should we not begin and 
 break off everywhere in the same arbitrary manner? In this way, 
 can there be either beginning or end, corresponding to the very 
 accurate definition of Aristotle? Completion would therefore be 
 altogether impossible. If however nothing more is required in 
 the unity of the plurality of events than casual connexion, then 
 the rule is indefinite in the extreme, and the unity may be nar- 
 rowed or enlarged at pleasure. For every series of events or ac- 
 tions, which are occasioned by one another, whatever its extent, 
 may always be comprehended under a single point of view, and 
 denoted by a single name. When Calderon, in one drama de- 
 scribes the conversion of Peru to Christianity, from the very 
 beginning, that is, the discovery of the country, to the comple- 
 tion, and when nothing actually appears in his piece which had 
 not an influence on that conversion; is not this as much an exem- 
 plification of unity in the above sense, as the most simple Grecian 
 tragedy, which however the champions of the rules of Aristotle 
 will never be induced to allow? 
 
 Corneille was well aware of the difficulty of a proper definition 
 of unity in an inevitable plurality of subordinate actions, and en- 
 deavoured in this way to get rid of it. "I assume," says he, 
 " that the unity of action consists, in comedy, in the unity of the 
 intrigue, or the obstacle to the views of the principal persons: and 
 in tragedy, in the unity of the danger, whether the hero sinks 
 under or extricates himself from it. I will not however affirm 
 that Several dangers in tragedy, and several intrigues or obstacles 
 in comedy may not be allowable, when they are necessarily con- 
 nected with one another; for then the escape from the first danger 
 does not make the action complete, because it draws a second after 
 it, and the clearing up of one intrigue does not place the acting 
 persons at their ease, because it involves them in another." 
 
 In the first place the difference here assumed between tragic 
 and comic unity is altogether unessential. For the nature of the 
 connexion is not influenced by the circumstance, that the events 
 in tragedy are more serious, and attended with great danger; the 
 embarrassment of the characters in comedy when they cannot ac- 
 complish their views, their intrigue, may equally receive the ap- 
 pellation of danger. Corneille, like most others, refers all to the 
 idea of connexion between cause and effect. No doubt when the 
 principal persons, either from marriage or death, are placed in a 
 state of tranquillity, the drama comes to a close; but if nothing 
 more is necessary to its unity than the uninterrupted progress of 
 a collision, which serves to keep up a dramatic movement, sim- 
 plicity will then be found to come but poorly off: without violat- 
 ing this rule of unity, we may go on to an almost endless accu- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 189 
 
 mulation of events, as in the Thousand and One Nights, where the 
 thread of the story is never once broken. 
 
 Be la Motte, a French author, who wrote against the whole of 
 the unities, wishes, in the place of unity of action, to substitute 
 the words, unity of interest. If the expression is not confined 
 to the interest in the fate of a single person, but is used to signify 
 in general the direction of the mind during the aspect of an event, 
 I should then consider it, so understood, as the most satisfactory 
 and the nearest to the truth. 
 
 But we should derive but little advantage from groping about 
 empirically with the commentators on Aristotle. The idea of 
 one and of whole is in no manner derived from experience, but 
 arises out of the original free-activity of our mind. To account 
 for the manner in which we in general arrive at this idea, and 
 think of one and a whole, nothing is less requisite than a system 
 of metaphysics. 
 
 The external sense perceives only in objects an indefinite plu- 
 rality of distinguishable parts; the judgment, by which we com- 
 prehend these parts in one entire and perfect unity, is always 
 founded on the reference to a higher sphere of ideas. Thus, for 
 example, the mechanical unity of a watch consists in the aim of 
 measuring time; this aim however is only obvious to the under- 
 standing, and can neither be seen by the eyes, nor laid hold of 
 by the hands: the organical unity of a plant and an animal con- 
 sists in the idea of life; and the inward contemplation of life, 
 which is itself uncorporeal, although it appears through the medi- 
 um of the corporeal world, is brought by us to the individual 
 living object, otherwise we could not obtain it through that ob- 
 ject. 
 
 The separate parts of a work of art, and consequently, returning 
 immediately to the question before us, the separate parts of a 
 tragedy, must not be received by the eye and ear alone, but be 
 taken in by the understanding. They are all subservient to one 
 common aim, namely, to produce a joint impression on the mind. 
 The unity consists therefore as in the above examples, but in a 
 higher sphere, in the feeling or in the reference to ideas. This is 
 the same thing; for the feeling, in so far as it is not merely sen- 
 sual and passive, is our sense, our organ for the infinite, which 
 forms us for ideas. 
 
 Far from rejecting therefore the law of a perfect unity in tra- 
 gedy as unnecessary, I require a unity which lies much deeper, 
 is much more fervent, and more mysterious than that with which 
 most critics are satisfied. I find this unity in the tragical com- 
 positions of Shakspeare, in as great perfection as in those of 
 iEschylus and Sophocles; while on the contrary, I do not find 
 
190 LECTURES ON 
 
 it in many of those tragedies extolled as correct by the critics of 
 the dissecting school. 
 
 I hold the logical coherence, the casual connexion, as equally 
 essential to tragedy and every serious drama, for this reason, that 
 all the mental powers influence one another, and that when the 
 understanding is compelled to make a leap, the imagination and 
 feeling of the composition no longer follow with the same alac- 
 rity; but then the champions of what is called regularity have 
 applied this prescription with a degree of petty subtlety, which 
 can have no other effect than that of impeding the poet, and ren- 
 dering it impossible for him to produce works of genuine excel- 
 lence. 
 
 Do not let us suppose that the order of sequence in a tragedy 
 resembles a slender thread, which we are every moment in anx- 
 ious dread of snapping (on account of the admitted inevitable 
 plurality of subordinate actions and interests, this simile is by no 
 means correctly applicable;) but rather let us suppose it a mighty 
 stream, which overcomes many obstacles in its raging course, 
 and at last loses itself in the repose of the ocean. It springs per- 
 haps from different fountains, and it certainly receives other 
 rivers, which hasten towards it from opposite points of the com- 
 pass. Why should not the poet be allowed to conduct various 
 independent streams of human passions and endeavours, sepa- 
 rately from each other, for a time, till the moment of their raging 
 junction, if he can place the spectator on an eminence from 
 whence he may overlook the whole of their course? And if this 
 great collection of waters should again divide into several branches, 
 and pour itself into the sea by several mouths, is it not still the 
 same stream? 
 
 So much for the unity of action. With respect to the unity of 
 place, we find only the following passage in Aristotle: "More- 
 over the epic poem is distinguished from tragedy by its length: 
 for the latter seeks as far as possible to circumscribe itself within 
 one revolution of the sun, or to exceed this very little; but the 
 epic poem is unlimited in point of time, and in that respect dif- 
 ferent from tragedy. At first however this was managed in the 
 same manner in tragedies and epic poems." 
 
 We may in the first place observe that here Aristotle gives no 
 precept, but merely makes historical mention of a peculiarity, 
 which he observed in the Grecian examples before him. But what 
 if the Greek tragedians had particular reasons for circumscribing 
 themselves within this extent of time, which with the constitu- 
 tion of our theatres would no longer have existed? We shall im- 
 mediately see that this was actually the case. 
 
 Corneille with great justice finds this rule extremely inconve- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 191 
 
 nient, and prefers therefore the easiest interpretation. He says 
 he should, without hesitation, extend the duration of the action 
 even to thirty hours. Others however stoutly insist on the ac- 
 tion occupying no longer a period than that of its representation, 
 that is from two to three hours. — The dramatic poet must, ac- 
 cording to them, be punctual to his hour. In the main, the lat- 
 ter manage their cause better than the more lenient critics. For 
 the only foundation for the rule is the observation of a probabi- 
 lity which is by them supposed to be necessary for illusion, 
 namely, that the actual time and that of the representation should 
 be the same. If we once admit a difference between them, such 
 as that from two to thirty hours, we may upon the same princi- 
 ple go still a great way farther. This idea of illusion has occa- 
 sioned great errors in the theory of art. To it we are to attribute 
 the general mistake of supposing that the subject represented is 
 confounded with reality. In that case the terrors of tragedy would 
 be a true torture to us, an incubus of the fancy. No, the thea- 
 trical as well as every other poetical illusion, is a waking dream, 
 to which we voluntarily resign ourselves. To produce it, the 
 poet and actors must agitate the minds in a powerful manner, and 
 the probabilities of calculation do not contribute in the smallest 
 degree towards it. This demand of literal deception, pushed to 
 the extreme, would exclude every poetic form; for we know 
 very well that the mythological and historical persons did not 
 speak our language, that impassioned pain does not express itself 
 in verse, &c. What sort of unpoetical spectator would he be who, 
 instead of following the incidents with his participation, should 
 like a gaoler, with his watch or his hour-glass in his hand, count 
 out to the heroes of the tragedy the minutes which they still 
 have to act and live! Is our soul then a piece of clock-work, 
 that tells the hours and minutes with infallible accuracy? Has it 
 not rather a very different measure of time for the conditions of 
 entertainment and wearisomeness? In the one case, how rapidly 
 the hours fly under an easy and varied activity; in the other, 
 in which we feel all our mental powers clogged and impeded, 
 they are stretched out to an immeasurable length. Thus it is 
 during the present; but it is completely the reverse in recollec- 
 tion: the interval of dead and dull uniformity disappears in a 
 moment; while that which marks an overflow of varied impres- 
 sions increases in the same proportion. Our body is subjected 
 to external astronomical time, because the organical operations 
 are regulated by it; but our mind has its own ideal time, which 
 is nothing but the consciousness of the progressive developement 
 of our existence. In this kind of chronometer the intervals of an 
 indifferent inactivity pass for nothing, and two important mo- 
 
192 LECTURES ON 
 
 ments, though separated by intervening years, are immediately 
 linked to one another. Hence it is usual with us, when intense- 
 ly occupied with any object previous to falling asleep, to take 
 up the very same train of thought immediately on our awaking, 
 and the intervening dreams vanish into their unessential obscu- 
 rity. It is the very same with dramatic composition: our ima- 
 gination overleaps with ease the times which are presupposed 
 and indicated, but which are omitted because nothing important 
 takes place in them ; it dwells solely on the decisive moments 
 placed before it, by the compression of which the poet gives 
 wings to the lazy course of- days and hours. 
 
 But it will be urged that the ancient tragedians observed the 
 unity of time. This expression is by no means correct; it should 
 at least be the identity of the time of the representation with the 
 actual time. And even then it does not apply to the ancients: 
 what they observe is nothing but the apparent continuity of time. 
 It is of importance to attend to this distinction of apparent; for 
 they unquestionably allow, during the choral songs, a much 
 greater number of events to take place than could actually hap- 
 pen within such a period of time. In the Agamemnon of iEschy- 
 lus the whole interval, from the destruction of Troy to his arri- 
 val in Mycense, is included, which must have consisted of a very 
 considerable number of days ; in the Trachinise of Sophocles, 
 during the course of the piece, the voyage from Thessaly to Eu- 
 bcea is thrice performed ; in the Supplices of Euripides, during 
 a single choral ode, an entire expedition from Athens against 
 Thebes takes place, a battle is fought, and the general returns 
 victorious. So far were the Greeks from this sort of minute and 
 painful calculation. They had however a particular reason for 
 observing the apparent continuity of time in the constant pre- 
 sence of the chorus. When the chorus leaves the stage, the con- 
 stant progress is then interrupted, of which we have a very 
 striking instance in the Eumenides of iEschylus, where the 
 whole interval is omitted, which was necessary to allow Ores- 
 tes to proceed from Delphi to Athens. Moreover, between 
 the three pieces of a trilogy, which were consecutively repre- 
 sented, and which constituted a whole, there were as considera- 
 ble intervals as those between the three acts of many a Spanish 
 drama. 
 
 The moderns have, from their division into acts, which was, 
 properly speaking, unknown to the Greek tragedy, a convenient 
 means of extending the period of representation without impro- 
 priety. For the poet may easily presume so far on the imagi- 
 nation of the spectator, as to suppose that he will during the in- 
 terruption of the whole representation, imagine the lapse of a 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 193 
 
 much longer interval than that which is filled up by the actual 
 time of the music which is performed between the acts; other- 
 wise he might be invited to come again the next day for the fol- 
 lowing act, to make it appear the more natural to him. The 
 division into acts had its origin with the new comedy, when the 
 chorus was excluded. Horace prescribes that a play shall neither 
 have more nor fewer than five acts. The rule is so unessential that 
 Wieland was of opinion Horace was here laughing at the young 
 Pisos in urging the importance of an observance like this with 
 such solemnity of tone. If in the ancient tragedy we are to sup- 
 pose the conclusion of an act wherever the stage remains empty, 
 and the chorus alone proceeds with dancing and song, we shall 
 often have fewer than five acts, but often also more than five. As 
 an observation that, in a representation of between two and three 
 hours, so many resting points are necessary for the attention, it 
 may be allowed to pass; but I should be anxious to hear any rea- 
 son derived ^frorn the nature of dramatic poetry, why a drama 
 must have so many and only so many divisions. But the world 
 is governed by custom and tradition: attempts to diminish the 
 number of acts have been favourably received; but it is still con- 
 sidered as a most dangerous and unhallowed innovation to exceed 
 the consecrated number of five.* 
 
 The division into acts seems to me erroneous, when nothing 
 takes place in the intervals, as is so often the case in modern 
 pieces, and when we perceive the persons at the beginning of 
 the new act in exactly the same situation as at the close of the 
 foregoing. And yet this standing still has given much less offence 
 than the adoption of a considerable interval, or the representation 
 of extravagant incidents, because the former is merely a negative 
 error. 
 
 The romantic poets take the liberty of changing the scene, 
 even during the course of an act. As the stage is always previ- 
 ously empty, these are interruptions of the continuity, which 
 justify them in the adoption of so many intervals. If we stumble 
 at this, but admit the propriety of a division into acts, we have 
 only to consider these changes of scene in the light of a greater 
 number of short acts. It will perhaps be argued, this is justify- 
 ing one error by another, the violation of the unity of time by the 
 violation of the unity of place: we shall therefore proceed to point 
 out at more length the insufficiency of the last mentioned rule. 
 
 In vain, as we have already said, shall we seek for any opinion 
 in Aristotle on the subject. It is asserted that the rule was ob- 
 
 * Three unities, five acts: why not seven persons? These rules seem to pro- 
 ceed according to odd numbers. 
 
 25 
 
194 LECTURES ON 
 
 served by the ancients. Not always, only generally. Of seven 
 pieces of iEschylus, and the same number of Sophocles, there are 
 two, the Eumenides and Jljax, in which the scene is changed. 
 That they generally retain the same scene follows naturally from 
 the constant presence of the chorus, which must be got rid of 
 in a suitable manner before a change can take place. But then 
 we have to consider that their scene represented a much wider 
 extent than ours in most cases; not a mere room, but the open 
 space before several buildings: and the disclosing the interior of 
 a house by means of the encyclema, may be considered in the 
 same light as the drawing a back curtain on our stage. 
 
 The objection to the change of scene is also founded on the 
 erroneous idea of illusion which we have already attempted to 
 refute. We must not transfer the action to another place, lest 
 the illusion should be dispelled. But even allowing that we are 
 in reality to consider the place represented as the actual place, in 
 this case the decoration of our scene ought to be altogether dif- 
 ferent from what it now is.* Johnson, a critic, in general an 
 advocate for strict rules, very judiciously observes, that if our im- 
 agination once goes so far as to transport us eighteen hundred 
 years back to Alexandria, and allows us to suppose the story of 
 Antony and Cleopatra to be taking place before us, the second 
 step of transporting ourselves from Alexandria to Rome, is much 
 more easy. The capability of our mind to fly in thought through 
 the immensity of time and space with the rapidity of lightning 
 is well known and acknowledged in real life; and shall poetry, 
 the object of which is to add all manner of wings to our imagina- 
 tion, and which has at command all the magic of genuine illusion, 
 that is, of animated and overpowering fiction, be alone obliged 
 to renounce this general prerogative of our species? 
 
 Voltaire wishes to derive the unity of place and time from the 
 unity of action, but his- conclusions are superficial in the ex- 
 treme. "For the same reason," says he, "the unity of place is 
 essential, because one action cannot go on in several places at the 
 same time." But we have already seen that several persons 
 necessarily take a part in one principal action, that it consists of 
 a plurality of subordinate actions, and why should not these go 
 on in different places? Is not the same war frequently carried 
 on in Europe and India at the same time, and must not the his- 
 torian equally recount the events which take place on both these 
 scenes? 
 
 * It is merely calculated for a single point of view: seen from every other 
 place, the broken lines betray the imperfection of the imitation. So little atten- 
 tion do the audience in general pay to these niceties, that they are not even 
 shocked when the actors enter and -disappear through a wall without a door 
 between the side scenes. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 195 
 
 "The unity of time," he adds, "is naturally connected with 
 the two first. When the poet represents to me a conspiracy, 
 and the action includes fourteen days, he must account to me for 
 all that has taken place in these fourteen days." Yes, for all that 
 belongs to the business; the rest which lies between, he passes 
 over in silence, like every good story-teller, and no person ever 
 thinks of the omission. "When he therefore places before me 
 the events of fourteeen days, this gives me at least fourteen dif- 
 ferent actions, however small they may be." No doubt, if the 
 poet were to be so unskilful as to wind off the fourteen days one 
 after another with visible precision, if we should see this exact 
 number of revolutions of days and night, and if the characters 
 were so many times to rise and go to bed. But he thrusts the 
 periods, during which the action is imperceptible in its progress, 
 into the back ground, annihilates in the composition the inter- 
 vals during which it stands absolutely still, and contrives with a 
 rapid pencil to give something like an accurate idea of the time 
 which we must suppose to have elapsed between the divisions. 
 Why is the privilege of adopting a much wider space between 
 the two extremes of the piece than that of the actual duration of 
 the representation, of importance, and even indispensable to 
 many subjects? The example of conspiracy given by Voltaire 
 comes here very opportunely. 
 
 A conspiracy contrived and executed in two hours is, in the 
 first place, not credible. Moreover, it is ethically, that is, with 
 reference to the characters of the persons of the piece, very dif- 
 ferent from the idea of a conspiracy where the determination, 
 however dangerous, must be preserved in and concealed for a 
 considerable time. Although the poet does not exhibit this 
 lapse of time immediately in the work, he allows us however to 
 perceive it perspectively as in a glass, in the minds of the 
 characters. 
 
 In this kind of perspective Shakspeare is the greatest master 
 whom I know: a single word frequently reveals an almost inter- 
 minable series of preceding states of mind. The poet, confined 
 within the narrow limits of time, will in many subjects be forced 
 to mutilate the action, while he must begin quite close to the last 
 determination, or be under the necessity of hurrying on its pro- 
 gress in a most unsuitable manner: on each supposition he must 
 diminish the grand picture of a strong purpose, not a momentary 
 effervescence, but a firm resolution maintained undauntedly, 
 amidst every change of external circumstances, till the time is 
 ripe for execution. It will no longer be what Shakspeare has so 
 often painted, and what he has described in the following lines: 
 
196 LECTURES ON 
 
 Between the acting of a dreadful thing", 
 And the first motion, all the interim is 
 Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream: 
 The genius, and the mortal instruments, 
 Are then in council; and the state of man, 
 Like to a little kingdom, suffers then 
 The nature of an insurrection. 
 
 But why are the Greek and romantic poets so different in their 
 practice with respect to place and time? The spirit of our criti- 
 cism will not allow us to follow the practice of many critics, who 
 in a summary manner pronounce the latter barbarians. We con- 
 ceive on the contrary that they lived in very cultivated times, 
 and were themselves highly cultivated. The state of the ancient 
 stage, as we have already said, led naturally to the apparent con- 
 tinuity of time and the immutability of the scene, and the obser- 
 vation of this custom was also favoured by the nature of the ma- 
 terials on which the Grecian dramatists had to work. These 
 materials were mythology, and consequently they were already 
 formed into fables; for the former poetic compositions had col- 
 lected together, and united in constant and distinct masses, what 
 in reality is detached and scattered about in every possible man- 
 ner. Moreover, the heroic age which they painted was at once 
 extremely simple in manners, and pregnant with wonderful 
 events; and hence everything of itself went straight forward 
 towards the aim of a tragical determination. 
 
 But still the principal cause of the difference is the plastic 
 spirit of the antique, and the picturesque spirit of the romantic 
 poetry. Sculpture directs our attention exclusively to the group 
 exhibited to us, it disentangles it as far as possible from all exter- 
 nal accompaniments, and where they cannot be altogether dis- 
 pensed with, they are indicated as lightly as possible. Painting, or. 
 the other hand, delights in exhibiting, in a minute manner, along 
 with the principal figures, the surrounding locality and all ,the 
 secondary objects, and to open to us in the back ground a pro- 
 spect into a boundless distance: light and perspective are its 
 peculiar charms. Hence the dramatic, and especially the tragic 
 art of the ancients annihilates in some measure the external cir- 
 cumstances of space and time; while the romantic drama adorns 
 by their changes its more diversified pictures. Or to express my- 
 self in other terms, the principle of the antique poetry is ideal, 
 that of the romantic mystical: the former subjects space and time 
 to the internal free-activity of the mind; the latter adores these 
 inconceivable essences as supernatural powers, in whom some- 
 thing of the divinity has its abode. 
 
 I come now to the influence which the above rules of unity, 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 197 
 
 strictly interpreted and received as inviolable, along with other 
 conventional rules, have had on the shape of French tragedy. 
 
 With a state of the stage altogether different, with materials for 
 the most part dissimilar, and handled in an opposite spirit, they 
 were still desirous of retaining the rules of the ancient tragedy, in 
 so far as they knew them from Aristotle. 
 
 They prescribed the same simplicity of action as in the Grecian 
 tragedy, and yet they left out the lyrical part, which is a pro- 
 tracted developement of the moment, and consequently a pause 
 in the action. This part could not indeed be retained, as we 
 no longer possess the ancient music, which was subservient to the 
 poetry instead of governing it like ours. When we deduct from 
 the Greek tragedies the choral odes, and the lyrical pieces which 
 are often put into the mouths of individuals, they are nearly one 
 half shorter than a common French tragedy. Voltaire complains 
 frequently in his prefaces of the great difficulty of procuring ma- 
 terials for five long acts. How T are the gaps arising from the 
 leaving out of the lyrical parts now filled up? By intrigue. 
 With the Greeks the action, which is calculated for a few great 
 moments, rolls on without interruption to its determination; but 
 instead of this the French have been obliged to introduce second- 
 ary characters, whose opposite views may give rise to a multi- 
 tude of impending incidents, that our attention, or rather our 
 curiosity, may be kept up to the close. Everything like simpli- 
 city was now therefore at an end; but they flattered themselves 
 that they had preserved a unity for the understanding, by means 
 of an artificial intrigue. 
 
 Intrigue is not a tragical motive in itself; it is essential to the 
 new comedy, as we have already shown. Comedy must often 
 be satisfied with an obreptitious resting-place for the understand- 
 ing, but this is by no means the poetical side of this demi-prosaic 
 species of drama. Although the French tragedy endeavours in 
 particular parts to rise as high as possible above comedy, by 
 means of seriousness, dignity and pathos, it still, in my opinion, 
 in its general structure and composition, bears but too much affi- 
 nity to it. In many French tragedies I find only a unity for the 
 understanding, while the feeling remains unsatisfied. From the 
 complication of painful and violent situations we come at last, 
 it is true, happily or unhappily, to a state of repose; but in the 
 course of affairs exhibited to us there is no secret and mysterious 
 revelation of a higher order of things; we find no allusion to the 
 consolatory idea of heaven, in the display of the dignity of human 
 nature, either in its conflicts with fate or with an over-ruling 
 providence. To such a tranquillization of feeling poetical justice 
 is partly unnecessary, and partly also, from the very ambiguous 
 
198 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE 
 
 and imperfect manner in which it is usually exercised, very far 
 from sufficient. But even poetical justice (which I cannot help 
 considering as an exemplification of a doctrine false in itself, and 
 of which the aim is not the excitation of truly moral feelings) has 
 not unfrequently been altogether neglected by the French tra- 
 gedians. 
 
 The use of intrigue is certainly well calculated to effect the 
 short duration of an important action. For whoever carries on 
 intrigues is expeditious, and loses no time in attaining his object. 
 But the violent course of human destinies proceeds with mea- 
 sured step, like the change of seasons: great designs ripen slowly; 
 the dark suggestions of deadly fraud are shy and dilatory in leav- 
 ing the abysses of the mind for the light of day; and, as Horace 
 with equal truth and beauty observes, the flying criminal is only 
 limpingly followed by penal retaliation.* Let any one attempt, 
 for instance, to circumscribe the gigantic picture of Macbetfrs 
 murder, his tyrannical usurpation, and final fall, within the nar- 
 row limits of the unity of time, and he will then see, that, how- 
 ever many of the events which Shakspeare successively exhibits 
 before us in such dread array, he may have placed anterior to 
 the commencement of the piece, and made the subject of after 
 recital, he has altogether deprived it of its sublimity of import. 
 This drama, it is true, comprehends a considerable period of 
 time: but in the rapidity of its progress have we leisure to calcu- 
 late this? We see, as it were, the fates weaving their dark web 
 on the bosom of time; and the storm and whirlwind of events, 
 which impel the hero to the first daring attempt, which after- 
 wards lead him to commit innumerable crimes to secure the fruits 
 of it, and drive him at last, amidst numerous perils, to his de- 
 struction in the heroic combat, draws us irresistibly along with 
 them. Such a tragical exhibition resembles the course of a comet, 
 which, hardly visible at first, and only important to the astro- 
 nomic eye, when appearing in the heaven in a nebulous distance, 
 soon soars with an unheard of and perpetually increasing rapidity 
 towards the central point of our system, spreading dismay among 
 the nations of the earth, till in a moment, with its portentous 
 tail, it overspreads half of the firmament with a flaming fire. 
 
 * Rar6 antecedentem scelestum 
 Deseruit pede paena claudo. 
 
 Trans. 
 
( 199 ) 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 The same subject continued — Influence of these rules on French tragedy.— 
 Manner of treating mythological and historical materials. — Idea of tragical 
 dignity. — Observations of conventional rules. — False system of expositions. 
 —Use at first made of the Spanish theatre. — General character of Corneille, 
 Racine, and Voltaire. — Review of their most important works.— Thomas Cor- 
 neille, and Crebillon. 
 
 The French poets, for the sake of the unity of time to which they 
 are subjected, must renounce all those effects which proceed from 
 the gradually accelerated growth of any object in the mind, or in 
 the external world, through the course of time. The unity of 
 time, with their wretched decoration of the stage, deprived them 
 in a great measure of whatever in a drama is calculated to fasci- 
 nate the eye. Accidental circumstances might recommend a 
 more close observance of this rule, or render it even indispen- 
 sable. From an observation of Corneille,* we are led to conjec- 
 ture that machinery was at that time, in France, extremely 
 clumsy and imperfect. It was moreover the general custom for 
 a number of distinguished spectators to have seats on both sides 
 of the stage itself, which hardly left a breadth of ten paces for 
 the free movements of the actors. Regnard, in his Distrait, 
 gives us an amusing description of the noise and confusion occa- 
 sioned by the fashionable petit maitres who in his day occupied 
 this privileged place, and who chattered and laughed behind the 
 backs of the actors, disturbing the spectators, and drawing their 
 attention from the play. This impropriety continued down to the 
 time of Voltaire, who had the merit, after repeated endeavours, 
 of at last obtaining its complete abolition, when Semiramis was 
 brought out. How could they have ventured on a change of 
 decoration in presence of such an unpoetical chorus as this, totally 
 unconnected with the piece, and yet thrust into the very middle 
 of the representation. In the Cid, the scene manifestly changes 
 several times in the course of the same act, and yet it is never 
 changed in the representation. In the English and Spanish plays 
 of those times, this was also generally the case, but still certain 
 signs were agreed on which served to denote the change of place, 
 
 * In his Premier Discours sur la Poesie Dramatique he says: "Une chanson 
 a quelquefois bonne grace; et dans les pieces des machines cet ornement est 
 redevenu necessaire pour remplir les oreilles du spectateur, pendant que ks 
 machines descendant. 
 
200 LECTURES ON 
 
 and the pliant imagination of the spectators followed the poet 
 whithersoever he chose. But in France, the young men of qua- 
 lity who sat on the stage lay in wait for opportunities of making 
 laughable discoveries; and as all theatrical effect requires a cer- 
 tain distance, and appears ludicrous when too closely seen, every- 
 thing was confined to the dialogue between a few characters, and 
 the stage was subjected to all the formalities of an anti-chamber. 
 The scene, for the most part, actually represented an anti- 
 chamber, or at least a hall in the interior of a palace. As the ac- 
 tion of the Greek tragedies is always carried on in open places 
 majestically surrounded, the French poets have given to their 
 mythological materials, in so far as the scene is concerned, the 
 manners of modern courts. In a princely palace no violence, no 
 failure in social decency is allowed; and as in a tragedy affairs 
 cannot always proceed with pure compliment, every act of a 
 bolder description, every exercise of power, everything calcu- 
 lated to make a strong impression on the senses, is transacted be- 
 hind the scenes, and merely related by confidents or other mes- 
 sengers. And yet Horace long ago remarked, that what is com- 
 municated to the ear excites the mind in a much feebler degree 
 than what is exhibited to the eye, and what the spectator relates 
 to himself. He only recommends that what is incredible and re- 
 voltingly cruel should be withdrawn from observation. The 
 dramatic effect of the visible may, it is true, be very much 
 abused; and it is possible for a theatre to degenerate into a noisy 
 arena of mere bodily exhibitions, to which words and gestures 
 may be superfluous appendages. But the opposite extreme, of 
 allowing no conviction to the eye, and always referring to some- 
 thing absent, is certainly equally undeserving of approbation. In 
 many French tragedies the spectator might be led to entertain a 
 feeling that great actions were actually taking place, but that he 
 had made choice of a place which would not admit him to be an 
 eye-witness of them. It is certain that the effect of a drama is 
 very much impaired when the effects which we observe proceed 
 from causes which are invisible and at a distance. The converse 
 of this is preferable, — to show the cause itself, and merely to allow 
 the effect to be recounted. Voltaire was aware of the injury 
 which theatrical effect suffered from the established practice of 
 the tragic stage in France; he frequently insists on richer scenical 
 decorations; and he himself in his pieces, and others after his ex- 
 ample, have ventured to represent many things to the eye, which 
 before would have been considered as unsuitable or ridiculous. 
 But notwithstanding this attempt, and the earlier one of Racine 
 in Athalie, the eye is now more out of favour than ever with the 
 fashionable critics. Wherever anything is to be seen, or any 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 201 
 
 action to be bodily executed, they scent a melodrama; and the 
 idea that tragedy, if they were not incessantly to watch over its 
 purity or rather its bald insipidity, might be gradually amalga- 
 mated with this species of play, (of which a word hereafter,) is a 
 downright abomination to them. 
 
 Voltaire has indulged in various infractions of the unity of 
 time, but still he has not dared directly to attack the rule itself as 
 unessential. He merely wishes to see a greater latitude given to 
 its interpretation. It is sufficient if the action takes place with- 
 in the walls of a palace or a town, though in different parts of it. 
 He wishes however, in order to avoid a change of decoration, 
 that it should be so contrived, as at once to comprehend the va- 
 rious scenes. Here he betrays very confused ideas, both of ar- 
 chitecture and perspective. He refers to the theatre of Palladio 
 at Vicenza, which he could hardly have ever seen: for his ac- 
 count of this theatre, which, as we have already observed, is in 
 itself only a misconception of the nature of the antique scene, ap- 
 pears to be altogether founded on descriptions which he did not 
 understand. In his Semiramis, where he first attempted to carry 
 his principles on this subject into practice, he has fallen into a 
 singular error. Instead of allowing the persons to proceed to 
 various places, he has made the places actually repair to the per- 
 sons. The scene in the third act is a cabinet; this cabinet, in 
 Voltaire's own words (before the queen leaves it,) gives way to 
 a large hall splendidly ornamented. The Mausoleum of Ninus, 
 which was at first in an open place before the palace, opposite to 
 the temple of the Magi, has also found means to steal to the side 
 of the throne in this hall. After giving out its ghost to the light 
 of day, to the terror of many beholders, and again receiving it 
 back, it repairs in the following act to its old place, where it pro- 
 bably had left its obelisks behind. In the fifth act we see that it 
 is very spacious, and provided with subterraneous passages. 
 What a noise the French critics would make, were any foreigner 
 to commit such ridiculous blunders.* 
 
 * In Brutus we have another example of this running about of the scene 
 with the persons. In front there is a spacious decoration: the Senate is assem- 
 bled between the Capitoline temple and the house of Brutus, in the open air. 
 Afterwards, on the rising" of the assembly, Arons and Albin alone remain be- 
 hind, and now it is said: qui sont supposes 6tre entres de la salle d' audience dans 
 un autre appartement de la maison de Brutus. What is the poet's meaning here ? 
 Is the scene changed without being empty, or does he trust so far to the ima- 
 gination of his spectators, as to suppose that, contrary to the evidence of their 
 senses, they will take a scene for a chamber, which is ornamented in a style 
 altogether different? And how does what in the first description is a public 
 place become afterwards a hall of audience? This decoration is either conver- 
 sant with legerdemain, or it has a bad memory. 
 
 26 
 
20.2 LECTURES ON 
 
 We may in general observe with respect to the unity of place, 
 that it is often very unsatisfactorily observed by the French 
 poets, as well as by all who follow the same system of rules, even 
 in comedy. The scene is not, it is true, changed, but things fol- 
 low one another which do not usually happen in the same place. 
 What can be more improbable than that people should confide 
 their secrets to one another in the very place near which they 
 know their enemies are? or that conspiracies should be hatched 
 against a prince in his own anti-chamber? Great importance is 
 attached to the circumstance of the stage never remaining empty 
 in the course of an act. This is called binding the scenes. But 
 the rule is frequently only observed in appearance, as the per- 
 sons of the preceding scene go out at one door in the very mo- 
 ment when those of the next are entering at another. Moreover, 
 they are not to enter or disappear without a motive distinctly an- 
 nounced: for the latter case particular pains are taken; the confi- 
 dents are despatched on missions, and persons of equal rank are 
 also expressly, however uncourteously, told to go out of the way. 
 — With all these endeavours, the scene where everything takes 
 place, is often so vaguely and contradictorily defined, that as a 
 German writer* has well said, in many pieces we ought to in- 
 sert under the list of the dramatis personse: The scene is on the 
 theatre. 
 
 These inconveniences arise almost inevitably from an anxious 
 observance of the Greek rules, under a total change of circum- 
 stances. To avoid the supposed improbability of springing from 
 one time and one place to another, they have often involved 
 themselves in real and important improbabilities. A thousand 
 times we have reason for repeating the observation of the Aca- 
 demy, in their criticism on the Cid, respecting the crowding to- 
 gether so many events in the period of twenty-four hours: "From 
 the fear of sinning against the rules of art, the poet has rather 
 chosen to sin against the rules of nature. " But this imaginary 
 contradiction between art and nature could only suggest itself to 
 minds possessed of the lowest and most limited ideas with re- 
 spect to art. 
 
 I come now to a more important point, namely, to that of the 
 materials not being handled in a manner suitable to their nature 
 and quality. The Greek tragedians, with a few exceptions, al- 
 ways selected objects from their native mythology. The French 
 tragedians borrow theirs sometimes from the ancient mythology, 
 but much more frequently from the history of almost all ages 
 and nations, and their manner of treating mythological and his- 
 
 • Joh. Elias Schlegel, in his Gedanken zur Aufnahme des Danischen Theaters. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 203 
 
 torical subjects is but too often not properly mythological, and 
 not properly historical. I shall explain myself more distinctly. 
 The poet who selects an ancient mythological fable, that is, a fa- 
 ble connected by sacred tradition with the religious belief of the 
 Greeks, should enter himself, and in like manner enable his 
 spectators to enter, into the spirit of antiquity; he should pre- 
 serve the simple manners of the heroic ages, with which such 
 violent passions and actions could alone be consistent or credible; 
 his persons should bear that near resemblance to the gods which 
 from their descent, and the frequency of their immediate inter- 
 course with them, the ancients believed them to possess; what is 
 wonderful in the Grecian religion should not be purposely avoid- 
 ed or under-stated, but placed in its true character before the 
 imaginations of the spectators, who ought to be supposed capable 
 of entering fully into the belief of it. Instead of this however 
 the French poets have given to their mythological heroes and 
 heroines the refinement of the fashionable world, and the court 
 manners of the present day; they have, because those heroes were 
 princes (shepherds of the people, Homer calls them,) given such 
 descriptions of their situations and views as could only correspond 
 with the calculating policy of a different age, and not merely set 
 antiquarian learning at defiance, but also violated everything 
 like characteristical costume. In Phasdra, this princess is to be 
 declared regent for her son till he come of age, after the sup- 
 posed death of Theseus. How could this be compatible with the 
 relations of the Grecian women of that day? It brings us down 
 to the times of a Cleopatra. Hermione remains alone, without 
 the protection of a brother or a father, at the court of Pyrrhus, 
 nay even in his palace, and yet she is not married to him. With 
 the ancients, and not merely in the Homeric age, marriage con- 
 sisted in receiving the bride into the house of the bridegroom. 
 But whatever justification there may be for the situation of Her- 
 mione in the practice of European courts, it is not the less repug- 
 nant to everything like female dignity, and the more indecorous, 
 as Hermione is in love with the unwilling Pyrrhus, and urges 
 the marriage in every possible way. What do we think the 
 Greeks would have thought of this bold and indecent measure? 
 No doubt it might appear equally offensive to French spectators, 
 if Andromache were exhibited to them in the situation in which 
 she appears in Euripides, where, as a captive, her person is en- 
 joyed by the conqueror of her country. But when the way of 
 thinking of two nations are so totally different, why will they 
 torment themselves with attempts to fashion a subject founded 
 on the manners of the one, to suit the manners of the other? 
 What is allowed to remain will always exhibit a striking incon- 
 
204 LECTURES ON 
 
 gruity with that which is new modelled, and to change the whole 
 is either impossible, or in nowise preferable to a new invention. 
 The Grecian tragedians certainly allowed themselves a great la- 
 titude in changing the circumstances of the fables, but the altera- 
 tions were always consistent with the general ideas of the heroic 
 age. On the other hand they always left the characters as they 
 received them from tradition and early fable, by means of which 
 the cunning of Ulysses, the wisdom of Nestor, and the impetu- 
 ous rage of Achilles, had almost become proverbial. Horace par- 
 ticularly insists on the rule. But how unlike the Achilles in 
 Racine's Iphigenia to the Achilles of Homer! The gallantry as- 
 cribed to him is not merely a sin against Homer, but it renders 
 the whole story improbable. Are human sacrifices conceivable 
 among a people whose chiefs and heroes are so susceptible of the 
 most tender feelings? In vain recourse is had to the power of re- 
 ligious motives: history teaches us that a cruel religion becomes 
 always milder with the manners of a people. 
 
 In these new exhibitions of ancient fables, the wonderful has 
 been studiously rejected as foreign to our belief. But when we 
 are once brought from a world in w T hich it belonged to the order 
 of things into a world entirely prosaical, and consistent with 
 historical ideas, we then find any wonderful thing, which the 
 poet can only exhibit in an insulated state, so much the more in- 
 credible. In Homer, and in the Greek tragedians, everything 
 takes place in the presence of the gods, and when they are visible, 
 or display themselves in any wonderful manner, we are in no 
 manner astonished. On the other hand, all the labour and art of 
 the modern poets, all the eloquence of their narratives, cannot 
 reconcile our minds to these exhibitions. Examples are super- 
 fluous, the thing is so universally known. Yet I cannot help 
 cursoirly remarking how singularly Racine, cautious as he gene- 
 rally is, has on an occasion of this kind involved himself in an 
 inconsistency. Respecting the origin of the fable of Theseus de- 
 scending into the world below to carry off Proserpine for his 
 friend Pirithöus, he adopts the historical explanation of Plutarch, 
 that he was the prisoner of a Thracian king, whose wife he en- 
 deavoured to carry off from the same motive. On this he grounds 
 the report of the death of Theseus, which was at first current. 
 And yet he allows Phaedra,* in a speech, to mention the fabulous 
 tradition as an earlier achievement of the hero. How many wo- 
 men then did Theseus wish to carry off for Pirithöus? Pradon 
 
 * Je l'aime, non point tel que l'ont vu les enfers, 
 Volage adorateur de mille objets divers, 
 Qui va du dieu des morts deshonorer la couche. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 205 
 
 manages this much better: when Theseus is asked by a confident 
 if he really was in the world below, he answers, how could any 
 sensible man possibly believe such a silly tale! he merely availed 
 himself of the credulity of the people, and gave out this report 
 from political motives. 
 
 So much with respect to the manner of handling mythological 
 materials. The same objection is in the first place applicable in 
 the case of the historical, namely, that the French manners of 
 the day are substituted to those which properly belong to the dif- 
 ferent persons, and that the characters do not sufficiently bear the 
 stamp of their age and their nation. But to this we must add 
 another detrimental circumstance. A mythological subject is in 
 its nature poetical, and ready for a new poetical attempt. In the 
 French tragedy as in the Greek, an equal and constant dignity is 
 required, and the French language is even much more fastidious 
 in this respect, as very many things cannot be at all mentioned in 
 poetry. But in history we are in a prosaical province, and the 
 truth of the picture requires definitions, circumstances, and fea- 
 tures, which cannot be given without a greater or less descent 
 from the elevation of the tragical cothurnus. This has been done 
 by Shakspeare the most perfect of all historical dramatists. The 
 French tragedians however have not been able to bring their 
 minds to submit to this, and hence their works are frequently de- 
 ficient in those circumstances which give life and truth to a pic- 
 ture, and when an obstinate prosaical circumstance must at last be 
 mentioned, they avail themselves of laboured and artificial cir- 
 cumlocutions. 
 
 Respecting the tragical dignity of historical subjects, peculiar 
 principles have prevailed. Corneille was in the best way of the 
 world when he brought his Cid on the stage, a story of the mid- 
 dle ages, which belonged to a kindred people, a story character- 
 ized by chivalrous love and honour, and in which the principal 
 characters are not even of princely rank. Had this example been 
 followed, a number of prejudices respecting tragical ceremony 
 would of themselves have disappeared; tragedy, from its greater 
 truth, from deriving its motives from a way of thinking still cur- 
 rent and intelligible, would have been less foreign to the heart; 
 the quality of the objects would of themselves have turned them 
 from the stiff observation of the rules of the ancients, which they 
 did not understand, as we see, for instance, that Corneille never 
 deviated so far from these rules, as in this very piece, in the train, 
 it is true, of his Spanish model; in one word, the French tragedy 
 would have become national and truly romantic. But I know not 
 what unfortunate star had the ascendant: notwithstanding the 
 extraordinary success of his Cid, Corneille did not go one step 
 
206 LECTURES ON 
 
 farther, and the attempt which he made had no imitators. In the 
 time of Louis XIV. it was considered as a matter established be- 
 yond dispute, that the French, and in general the modern Euro- 
 pean history was not adapted for tragedy. They had recourse 
 therefore to the ancient universal history: besides the Romans 
 and Grecians, they frequently hunted about among the Assyrians, 
 Babylonians, Persians, and Egyptians, for events, which, however 
 obscure they might often be, they could dress out for the tragic 
 stage. Racine made, according to his own confession, a hazardous 
 attempt with the Turks; it was successful, and since that time, 
 the necessary tragical dignity has been allowed to this barbarous 
 people,* with whom we often find the customs and habits of the 
 rudest despotism, and the most abject slavery, united in the same 
 person, and who know nothing of love, but the most luxurious 
 sensuality; while it has been refused to the Europeans, notwith- 
 standing their religion, their feeling of honour, and their respect 
 for the female sex, plead so powerfully in their favour. But it was 
 merely the modern, and more particularly the French names, 
 which could not be tolerated asuntragical and unpoetical; for the 
 heroes of antiquity are with them Frenchmen in everything but 
 the name; and antiquity was merely used as a thin veil under 
 which the modern French character could be distinctly recognized. 
 Racine's Alexander is certainly not the Alexander of history; 
 but if under this name we imagine to ourselves the great Conde, 
 the whole will appear tolerably natural. And who does not sup- 
 pose Louis XIV. and the Duchess de la Valiere represented under 
 Titus and Berenice? Did the poet wish to flatter his monarch by 
 the allusion? Voltaire expresses himself somewhat strongly, when 
 he says, that in the tragedies which succeeded those of Racine, 
 we imagine that we are reading the romances of Mademoiselle 
 Scuderi, which paint citizens of Paris under the names of heroes 
 of antiquity. He alluded here more particularly to Crebillon. 
 However much Corneille and Racine were tainted with the way 
 of thinking of their own nation, they were still at times penetrated 
 with the spirit of true objective exhibition. Corneille gives us a 
 masterly picture of the Spaniards in the Cid; and this is con- 
 ceivable enough, for he drew his materials from them. With the 
 exception of the original sin of gallantry, he succeeded also pretty 
 well with the Romans: of one part of their character at least he 
 had a tolerable conception, their predominating patriotism, and 
 unyielding pride of liberty, and the magnanimity of their political 
 sentiments. All this, it is true, is nearly the same as we find it 
 in Lucan, varnished over with a certain inflation and wself-conscious 
 pomp. The simple republican austerity, the humility of religion, 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 207 
 
 he could not attain. Racine has admirably painted the corrupt 
 manners of the Romans under the Emperors, and the timid and 
 dastardly manner in which the tyranny of Nero first began to 
 display itself. It is true he had Tacitus for a predecessor, as he 
 himself gratefully acknowledges; but still it is a great merit to 
 translate history in such an able manner into poetry. He has also 
 shown a just conception of the general spirit of Hebrew history: 
 here he was guided by religious reverence, which the poet ought 
 always in some degree to bring with him to his subject. He was 
 less successful with the Turks: Bajazet makes love wholly in the 
 European manner; the blood-thirsty policy of eastern despotism 
 is very well portrayed, it is true, in the Vizier: but the whole 
 resembles Turkey upside down, where the women, instead of 
 being slaves, have contrived to get possession of the government, 
 which wears such a revolting appearance, that we might well be 
 inclined to infer from it, the Turks are really not so much to blame 
 in keeping their women under lock and key. Neither has Vol- 
 taire, in my opinion, succeeded much better in his Mahomet and 
 Zaire: the glowing colours of an oriental fancy are nowhere to 
 be found. Voltaire has however this great merit, that he insisted 
 on treating subjects with more historical truth, and that he made 
 this the object of his own endeavours; and farther, that he again 
 elevated to the dignity of the tragical stage the chivalrous and 
 Christian characters of modern Europe, which since the time of 
 the Cid had been altogether excluded from it. His Lusignan 
 and Nerestan are among his most true, affecting, and noble crea- 
 tions ; his Tancrede, although the invention as a whole is defec- 
 tive in strength, will always personally gain over every heart, 
 like his namesake in Tasso. Alzire is highly distinguished in a 
 historical point of view. It is singular enough that Voltaire, with 
 his restless search after tragical materials, has actually completed 
 the circumnavigation of the world: for as in Alzire he exhibits 
 the American tribes of the other hemisphere, in his Dschingiskan 
 he brings Chinese on the stage, from the farthest extremity of 
 ours, who, from the faithful observation of their costume, have 
 the appearance of comic or grotesque figures. 
 
 Unfortunately Voltaire came too late with his projected re- 
 formation of the theatre: much was already ruined by the tram- 
 mels within which French tragedy had been so long confined; 
 and the prejudice which gave such disproportionate importance 
 to the observation of external rules and proprieties had, as it 
 appears, been then irrevocably established. 
 
 Next to the rules respecting the external mechanism, which 
 they had adopted without examination from the ancients, the 
 prevailing ideas of social propriety peculiar to their nation were 
 
208 LECTURES ON 
 
 the principal obstacles to the French poets in the exercise of 
 their talents, and in many cases put it altogether out of their 
 power to reach the highest tragical effect. The problem for the 
 solution of the dramatic poet is the union of the poetical form 
 with nature and truth, and consequently nothing ought to be 
 included in the former, which the latter rejects. French tra- 
 gedy, since the time of Richelieu, had developed itself under the 
 favour and protection of the court; and even its scene had, as we 
 have already observed, the appearance of an anti-chamber. In 
 such an atmosphere the spectators might suggest the idea to the 
 poet, that politeness was one of the original and essential ingre- 
 dients of human nature. In tragedy, men are opposed to each 
 other in the most dreadful strife, and in a close struggle with 
 misfortune; we can only exact an ideal dignity from them, for 
 from the nice observance of social punctilios they are absolved by 
 their situation. So long as they still possess sufficient presence 
 of mind not to violate them, so long as they do not appear com- 
 pletely overpowered by their grief and their mental agony, the 
 highest degree of emotion cannot be reached. The poet may 
 indeed be allowed to entertain that care for his persons which 
 Caesar had for himself after receiving the deadly blow, namely, 
 to make them fall with decorum. He must not exhibit human 
 nature to us in all its repulsive nakedness. The most heart-rend- 
 ing and dreadful pictures must still be possessed of beauty, must 
 be somewhat more dignified than common reality. This miracle 
 is effected by poetry: it has indescribable sighs, immediate sounds 
 of the deepest pain, in which there is still something melodious. 
 It is only a certain full-dressed and formal beauty, which is in- 
 compatible with the greatest truth of expression. And this 
 beauty is exactly that which is demanded in the style of a French 
 tragedy. No doubt there is something too in the quality of their 
 language and their versification. The French language is alto- 
 gether incapable of many bold flights, it has very little poetical 
 freedom, and it carries into poetry all the grammatical stiffness 
 of prose. Their poets have often acknowledged and lamented 
 this. Besides, the Alexandrine with its couplets, with its hemi- 
 stichs of equal length, is a very symmetrical and monotonous 
 species of verse, and much better adapted for the expression of 
 antithetical maxims, than for the musical delineation of passion 
 with its unequal, abrupt, and erratic course. But the main cause 
 lies in a national feature, in the social endeavour never to forget 
 themselves in the presence of others, and always to exhibit them- 
 selves to the greatest possible advantage. It has been often re- 
 marked, that in French tragedy the poet is always too easily seen 
 through the discourses of the different personages, that he com- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 209 
 
 municates to them his presence of mind, his cool reflection on 
 their situation, and his desire to shine upon all occasions. When 
 we accurately examine the most of their tragical speeches, we 
 shall find that they are seldom such as would be delivered by 
 persons speaking or acting by themselves without any restraint; 
 we shall generally discover something in them which betrays a 
 reference more or less perceptible to the spectator. Before how- 
 ever our compassion can be powerfully excited, we must be fami- 
 liar with the characters; but how is this possible, if we are always 
 to see them yoked to their views and endeavours, or, what is 
 worse, to an unnatural and assumed grandeur of character? We 
 must overhear them in their unguarded moments, when they 
 imagine themselves alone, and throw aside all care and precau- 
 tion. 
 
 Eloquence may and ought to have a place in tragedy, but in so far 
 as it appears with somewhat of an artificial method and preparation, 
 it can only be in character when the speaker is sufficiently master 
 of himself; for overpowering passion, an unconscious and invo- 
 luntary eloquence is alone suitable. The truly inspired orator 
 will forget himself in the object which occupies him. We call' 
 it rhetoric when he thinks more of himself, and the art«in which 
 he flatters himself he has obtained a mastery, than of his subject. 
 Rhetoric, and rhetoric in a court dress, prevails but too much in 
 many French tragedies, especially those of Corneille, instead of 
 the suggestions of a noble, but simple and artless nature; Racine 
 and Voltaire however have approximated much nearer to the 
 true conception of a mind carried away by its sufferings. When- 
 ever the tragic hero is able to express his pain in antitheses and 
 ingenious allusions, we may safely dispense with our pity. This 
 sort of conventional dignity is, as it were, a coat of mail, to pre- 
 vent the blow from reaching the inward parts. On account of 
 their retaining this festal pomp in situations where the most com- 
 plete self-forgetful n ess would be natural, Schiller has wittily 
 enough compared the heroes in French tragedy to the kings 
 in old copper-plates, who lie in bed with mantle, crown, and 
 sceptre.- 
 
 The social cultivation prevails throughout the whole of the 
 French literature and art. Social cultivation sharpens the sense 
 for the ludicrous, and on that account, when it is carried to an 
 over refinement, it is the death of everything like enthusiasm. 
 For all enthusiasm, all poetry, has a ludicrous aspect for the un- 
 feeling. When therefore such a way of thinking has once be- 
 come universal in a nation, a certain negative criticism will also 
 arise. A thousand different things must be avoided, and in at- 
 tending to these, the highest object of all is lost sight of, that 
 
 27 
 
210 LECTURES ON 
 
 which ought properly to be performed. The dread of the ludi- 
 crous is the conscience of French poets; it has dipt their wings, 
 and impaired their flight. It is exactly in the most serious kind 
 of poetry that this dread must torment them the most; for ex- 
 tremes run into one another, and whenever pathos fails it gives 
 rise to laughter and parody. It is amusing to witness the infi- 
 nite distress of mind of Voltaire, when he was threatened with a 
 parody of his Semiramis on the Italian theatre. In a petition 
 to the Queen, this man, whose whole life had been passed in 
 turning every thing great and honourable into ridicule, endeavours 
 to avail himself of his claim, as one of the servants of the King's 
 household, to obtain a prohibition of a very allowable amuse- 
 ment of a higher description. As the French wits have indulged 
 themselves in turning everything in the world into ridicule, 
 and more especially the mental productions of other nations, they 
 will also allow us on our parts to divert ourselves, when we see that 
 their tragic writers, with all their care, have now and then been 
 unable to escape the rock of which they were most in dread. 
 Lessing has, with the most irresistible and victorious wit, pointed 
 out the ludicrous nature of the very plans of Rodogune, Semi- 
 ramis, Merope, and Zaire. But both in this respect and with 
 regard to single laughable turns, a rich gleaning might yet be 
 obtained.* But Lessing carried on a much more merciless war 
 
 * A few examples of the latter kind may be sufficient. The lines with which 
 Theseus in the (Edipus of Corneille opens his part, are deserving of one of the 
 first places. 
 
 Quelque ravage affreux qu'etale ici la peste 
 L'absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste. 
 
 The following from his Otho are equally well known: 
 
 Dis moi done, lorsqu' Othon s'est offert ä Camille, 
 A-t-il paru contraint? a-t-elle ete facile? 
 Son hommage aupres d'elle a-t-il eu plein effet? 
 Comment l'a-t-elle pris, et comment 1' a-t-il fait? 
 
 Where it is almost unconceivable, that the poet should not have seen the appli- 
 cation which might be made of this passage, especially as he allows the confi- 
 dent to answer: J'ai tout vu. That Mtila should treat the kings who were de- 
 pendent on him like good for nothing fellows: 
 
 lis ne sont pas venus, nos deux rois; qu'on leur die 
 Qu'ils se font trop attendre, et qu'Attila s'ennuie 
 Qu'alors que je les mande ils doivent se hater: 
 
 may in one view appear very serious and true, but nevertheless it appears ex- 
 ceedingly droll to us from the turn of expression, and especially from its being 
 the opening of the piece. Generally speaking, with respect to the ludicrous, 
 Corneille lived in a style of great innocence; the world since that time has become 
 a great deal more witty. Hence when we make allowances for what he can- 
 not be blamed for, as it merely arises from his language having become obso- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 211 
 
 against the French stage than we should be perhaps justified in 
 doing in the present day. At the time when he published his 
 Dramaturgie we had scarcely any but French tragedies upon 
 our stages, and the extravagant predilection for them as classical 
 models had not then been combated. At present the national 
 taste has been declared so decidedly against them, that we have 
 nothing to fear from any illusion from that quarter. 
 
 It is further said that the French dramatists have to do with 
 a public not only extremely fastidious with respect to the intro- 
 duction of anything low, and extremely susceptible of the ludi- 
 crous, but also extremely impatient. We shall allow them all 
 the credit of this self-flattery; for we can have no doubt that 
 
 lete, we shall still find an ample field remaining for our ridicule. In the nume- 
 rous pieces which are not reckoned among his master-pieces, we have only to 
 turn them up at random to light upon passages susceptible of a ludicrous appli- 
 cation. Racine, from the refinement and moderation which were natural to 
 him, was much more secure from this danger; but yet, here and there, many 
 expressions of the same description have escaped from him. We may here 
 include the whole of the speech where Theramenes exhorts his pupil Hippolytus 
 to yield himself up to love. The ludicrous can hardly be carried farther than 
 in these lines: 
 
 Craint-on de s'egarer sur les traces d'Hercule? 
 Quels courages Venus n'a-t-elle pas domtes? 
 Vous meme, oil seriez vous f vous qui la combattez. 
 Si toujours Antiope, a ses loix opposee, 
 D'une pudique ardeur n'eut brule pour Thesee? 
 
 In Berenice Antiochus receives his confident, whom he had sent to announce his 
 visit to the Queen, with the words: Arsace entrerons-nous? This humble pa- 
 tience in an ante-chamber would appear even undignified in comedy, but it ap- 
 pears too pitiful even for a second rate tragical hero. Antiochus says after- 
 wards to the queen: 
 
 Je me suis tu cinq ans 
 Madame, et vrais encore me taire plus long-terns— 
 
 And to give an immediate proof of his intention by his conduct he repeats after 
 this no less than fifty verses in a breath. 
 
 When Orosman says to Zaire, whom he pretends to love with European ten- 
 derness, 
 
 Je sais que notre loi, favorable aux plaisirs 
 Ouvre un champ sans limite a nos vastes desirs; 
 
 his language is still more indecorous than laughable. But the answer of Zaire 
 to her confident, who on this puts her in mind that she is a Christian, is highly 
 comic: 
 
 Ah! que dis-tu? pourquoi rappeler mes ennuis? 
 
 Upon the whole however Voltaire is much more upon his guard against the 
 ludicrous than his predecessors: this was perfectly natural, for in his time the 
 rage of turning everything into ridicule was most prevalent. We may boldly 
 affirm that in our days a single verse of the description of hundreds in Corneille 
 would infallibly occasion the death of a piece. 
 
218 LECTURES ON 
 
 their meaning is, that this impatience is a proof of quick appre- 
 hension and sharpness of wit. It is susceptible however of ano- 
 ther interpretation: superficial knowledge, and more especially 
 an inward emptiness of mind, always display themselves in a 
 fretful impatience. But however this may be, the disposition in 
 question has had both an advantageous and a disadvantageous in- 
 fluence on the structure of their pieces. It has been advanta- 
 geous in so far as it has compelled them to lop off everything su- 
 perfluous, to proceed to the main business without circumlocution, 
 to be perspicuous, to study compression, to endeavour to turn 
 every moment to account. All these are good theatrical proper- 
 ties, and have been the means of recommending the French tra- 
 gedies as models of perfection to those who rather examine works 
 of art by the dry test of the understanding, than listen to the 
 voice of imagination and feeling. It has been disadvantageous 
 in so far as even motion, rapidity, and stretch of expectation, 
 continued without interruption, become at length wearisome and 
 monotonous. It is like a music from which the piano should be 
 altogether excluded, and in which even the difference between 
 forte and fortissimo should not be distinguishable from the mis- 
 taken emulation of the performers. I find too few resting places 
 in their tragedies, such as we have everywhere in the ancient 
 tragedies where the lyric enters. There are moments in human 
 life which are dedicated by every religious mind to self-medita- 
 tion, and when the view is turned towards the past and the fu- 
 ture. This sacredness of the moment I do not find to be held in 
 sufficient reverence: the actors as well as the spectators are al- 
 ways equally hurried on to what follows; and we shall find very 
 few scenes indeed, where the developement of a mere condition 
 is tranquilly represented independently of the casual connexion. 
 The question with them is always what happens, and not suffi- 
 ciently how it happens. And yet this is the main thing when 
 an impression is to be made on the witnesses of human events. 
 Hence everything like silent effect is almost entirely excluded 
 from the province of their dramatic art. The only leisure which 
 remains to the actor for silent pantomime is during the delivery 
 of the long discourses addressed to him, when it more frequently 
 serves to embarrass him, than to assist him in the developement 
 of his part. They are satisfied if the weaving of the intrigue pro- 
 ceeds in its rapid measure without interruption, and if in the 
 speeches and answers the ball is diligently kept up to the conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 Generally speaking, impatience is by no means a good dispo- 
 sition for the reception of the beautiful. Even dramatic poetry, 
 the most animated production of art, has its contemplative side, 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 213 
 
 and where this is neglected, the representation then engenders, 
 from its very rapidity and animation, only a deafening noise in 
 our mind, instead of the inward music which ought to accompa- 
 ny it. 
 
 Many technical imperfections in their tragedy have been ad- 
 mitted by the French critics themselves; for instance, the confi- 
 dants. Every hero and heroine regularly drag a person along 
 with them, a gentleman in waiting or a court lady. In not a few 
 pieces, we may count three or four of these merely passive hear- 
 ers, who sometimes open their lips to tell something to their pa- 
 tron which he must have known better himself, or who are des- 
 patched on messages. The confidants in the Greek tragedies, 
 either old tutors and governesses, or servants, have always pecu- 
 liar characteristical destinations, and the ancient tragedians felt 
 so little the want of communications between a hero and his con- 
 fidant, in making us acquainted with the state of mind and views 
 of the former, that they even introduce so important a friend as 
 Pylades, whose fame has become proverbial, as a mute person- 
 age. But whatever ridicule has been cast on the confidants, and 
 however great the reproach of being reduced to make use of 
 them, down to the time of Alfieri no attempt was ever made to 
 get quit of them. 
 
 The expositions or statements of the preliminary situation of 
 things are another nuisance. They generally consist of disclo- 
 sures to the confidants, delivered in choice language, when they 
 have abundance of leisure on their hands. That very public 
 whose impatience keeps the poets and players under such strict 
 discipline, possesses patience enough, however, to listen to the 
 unfolding in wordy treatises of what ought to be developed be- 
 fore their eyes. It is allowed that an exposition is seldom unex- 
 ceptionable; that the persons in their speeches begin farther back 
 than they naturally ought, and that they tell one another what 
 they must have known before, &c. If the affair is complicated, 
 these expositions are generally extremely tedious: those of He- 
 raclius and Rodogune absolutely make the head giddy. Chau- 
 lieu says of Crebillon's Rhadamiste, " The piece would be per- 
 fectly clear were it not for the exposition." It seems to me that 
 their whole system of expositions, both in tragedy and in high 
 comedy, is exceedingly defective. Nothing can be more ill 
 judged than to begin at once to instruct us without any dramatic 
 movement. At the drawing up of the curtain the attention of 
 the spectator is almost inevitably distracted by external circum- 
 stances, his interest has not yet been excited; and this is precise- 
 ly the time chosen by the poet to exact from him an earnest and 
 undivided attention to a dry investigation, a demand which he 
 
214 LECTURES ON 
 
 can hardly be supposed willing to admit. It will perhaps be ar- 
 gued that the very same thing was done by the Greek poets. 
 But the subject was for the most part extremely simple with 
 them, and it was already known to the spectators; and their ex- 
 positions, with the exception of the unskilful prologues of Euri- 
 pides, have not the didactic and inculcatory tone of the French, 
 but display life and motion. How admirable again are the ex- 
 positions of Shakspeare and Calderon ! They lay hold of the ima- 
 gination at the very outset; and when they have once gained 
 over the spectator, they then bring forward the information ne- 
 cessary for the full understanding of the subsequent transactions. 
 This means is, it is true, denied to the French tragic poets, who 
 are very sparingly allowed the use of anything calculated to 
 make an impression on the senses, anything like corporeal action, 
 and who are obliged to reserve the little which is within their 
 power to the last acts, that they may still in some degree heighten 
 the interest of them. 
 
 To comprise what I have hitherto observed in a few words: 
 the French have endeavoured to form their tragedy according to 
 a strict idea; but instead of this they have merely hit upon an 
 abstract notion. They require tragical dignity and grandeur, 
 tragical situations, passions, and pathos, altogether naked and pure 
 without foreign appendages. From stripping them in this way of 
 their accompaniments they lose much in truth, profundity, and 
 character; and the whole composition is deprived of the living 
 charm of variety, the magic of picturesque situations, and of all 
 those overpowering effects which can only be produced by the in- 
 crease of objects under a voluntary abandonment after easy and gra- 
 dual preparation. With respect to the theory of the tragic art, they 
 are yet nearly at the point in which they were in gardening in 
 the time of Lenotre. The whole merit consists in extorting a 
 triumph from nature by means of art. They have no other idea 
 of regularity than the measured symmetry of straight alleys, dipt 
 hedges, &c. In vain should we labour to make those who lay 
 out such gardens comprehend that there can be any plan, any 
 concealed order in an English park, and demonstrate to them that 
 a succession of landscapes, which from their gradation, their al- 
 ternation, and their opposition, give effect to each other, all aim 
 at exciting in us a certain disposition of mind. 
 
 The rooted and permanent prejudices of a whole nation are 
 seldom accidental, but are connected with a general want of solid 
 knowledge, from which the distinguished minds who lead the 
 rest are not excepted. We are not therefore to consider such pre- 
 judices merely as causes; we must consider them also at the same 
 time as important effects. We allow that the narrow system of 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 215 
 
 rules, that the dissecting intellectual criticism, has shackled the 
 French tragedians; still, however, it remains doubtful whether 
 their own inclinations would have led them to make choice of 
 more comprehensive designs, and whether they could have filled 
 them up. The most distinguished among them have certainly 
 not been deficient in means and talents. In a particular examina- 
 tion of their different productions we cannot show them any fa- 
 vour; but, on a general view, they are more deserving of pity 
 than censure; and when, under such unfavourable circumstances, 
 they have still been able to produce what is excellent, they are 
 doubly entitled to our admiration, although we can by no means 
 admit the justice of the common-place observation, that the over- 
 coming of difficulty is a source of pleasure, nor find anything 
 meritorious in a work of art merely because it is artfully com- 
 posed. 
 
 1 have already briefly noticed all that it was necessary to men- 
 tion of the antiquities of the French stage. The duties of the 
 poet were gradually defined with greater strictness from a belief 
 in the authority of the ancients, and the infallibility of Aristotle. 
 The poets were from] their own inclination however led to the 
 Spanish theatres, so long as the dramatic art in France had not 
 attained its full maturity by a native education. They not only 
 imitated the Spaniards, but even borrowed directly from this mine 
 of ingenious invention. I do not merely allude to the earlier 
 time under Richelieu; this state of things continued throughout 
 the whole of the first half of the age of Louis XIV.; and Racine 
 is perhaps the oldest poet who seems to have been altogether un- 
 acquainted with the Spaniards, or at least who was in no manner 
 influenced by them. The comedies of Corneille are nearly all of 
 them taken from Spanish pieces; and of his celebrated works the 
 Cid and Don Sancho of tarragon are also Spanish. The only 
 piece of Rotrou which still keeps its place on the theatre, Wen- 
 ceslas, is from Francisco de Roxas: the unfinished Princess of 
 Elis of Moliere is from Moreto, Don Garcia of Navarre from an 
 unknown author, and the Festin de Pierre carries its origin in 
 its front :* we have only to look at the works of Thomas Cor- 
 neille to be at once convinced that with the exception of a few 
 they are all Spanish; and so are the earlier labours of Quinault, 
 namely, his comedies and tragi-comedies. The right of drawing 
 without scruple from this source was so universal, that the French 
 imitators, when they borrowed without the least disguise, did 
 
 * And betrays at the same time Mohere's ignorance of the Spanish. For if 
 he had possessed even a tolerable knowledge, how could he have translated El 
 Convidado de Piedra (the Stone Guest) into the Stone Feast, which has no mean- 
 ing- here, and could only be applicable to the Feasts of Midas? 
 
216 LECTURES ON 
 
 not even give themselves the trouble of naming the author of the 
 original, and assigningapartof the applause which they might earn 
 to the true owner. In the Cid alone the text of the Spanish poet 
 lias frequently been cited, because the claim of Corneille to ori- 
 ginality was called in question. 
 
 We should certainly derive much instruction from an inquiry 
 into the models when they are not among the more celebrated, 
 or when their titles are not known, and instituting a comparison 
 between them and the copies. We must, however, go very dif- 
 ferently to work from Voltaire in Heraclius, where Garcia de 
 la Huerta* has uncontestably proved both his great ignorance, 
 and his studied and disgusting perversions. If the most of these 
 imitations give little pleasure in France in the present day, this 
 decides nothing against the originals, which must always have 
 suffered considerably from the change. The national characters 
 of the French and Spanish are totally different; and consequently 
 the spirit of their language and poetry must be equally distinct. 
 The most empty and confined character belongs to the French; 
 the Spanish, though in the remotest west, displays an oriental vein 
 which may easily be accounted for from its history; it luxuriates 
 in a profusion of bold images and sallies of wit. When we de- 
 prive their dramas of these sumptuous ornaments, when, for the 
 glowing colours of their romances and the musical variations of 
 the rhymed strophes in which they are composed, we compel 
 them to assume the monotony of the Alexandrine with the addi- 
 tion of external regularities, w T hile the character and situations 
 are allowed to remain essentially the same, there can no longer 
 be any harmony between the subject and the manner in which it 
 is treated, and it will have forfeited that truth which may still be 
 exhibited in the dominion of fancy. 
 
 The charm of the Spanish poetry consists, generally speaking, 
 in the union of sublime and enthusiastic seriousness of feeling, 
 which peculiarly descends from the North, with the lovely breath 
 of the South, and the dazzling pomp of the East. Corneille 
 possessed an affinity to the Spanish spirit, but only in the first 
 point; we might take him for a Spaniard, educated in Normandy. 
 It is to be regretted that, instead of depending on foreign models, 
 he had not after the Cid, employed himself upon subjects where 
 he might have given himself altogether up to his feelings for 
 chivalrous honour and fidelity. But he had recourse to the Ro- 
 man history; and the severe patriotism of the older Romans, 
 with the ambitious policy of those of an after period, supplied the 
 place of chivalry, and in some measure assumed its garb. It was 
 
 * In the introduction to his Theatro Hespanol. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 217 
 
 by no means so much his object to excite our terror and com- 
 passion as our admiration for the characters, and astonishment at 
 the situations, of his heroes. He hardly ever affects us; and is 
 seldom capable of producing agitation. — Here I might indeed 
 observe, that such is his partiality for admiration, that not content- 
 ed with exacting it for the heroism of virtue, he claims it also 
 for the heroism of vice, from the boldness, strength of soul, 
 presence of mind, and elevation above all human feelings, which 
 he exhibits in his criminals of both sexes. Nay, it often hap- 
 pens that his characters express themselves in the language of 
 ostentatious pride, without our being well able to see of what 
 they have to be proud: they are merely proud of their pride. 
 We cannot often say that we take an interest in them; they either 
 appear to stand in no need of our compassion from the great 
 resources which they possess within themselves, or they are un- 
 deserving of it. He has represented the conflict of passion and 
 motives; but for the most part not immediately as such, but al- 
 ready metamorphosed into a contest of principles. He has been 
 found coldest in love; and this was because he could not prevail 
 on himself to paint it as an amiable weakness, although he every- 
 where introduced it, even where it was very unsuitable, either 
 from a condescension for the taste of the age or a private inclina- 
 tion for chivalry, w T here love always appears as the ornament of 
 valour, as the checkered favour waving at the lance, as the ele- 
 gant ribbon-knot to the sword. He seldom paints love as a power 
 which imperceptibly steals upon us, and at last gains an involun- 
 tary and irresistible dominion over us; but as an homage free- 
 ly chosen to the exclusion of duty at first, but afterwards main- 
 taining its place along with it. This is the case at least in his 
 better pieces; for in his latter works love is frequently compelled 
 to give way to ambition; and these two springs naturally weaken 
 each other. His females are generally not sufficiently feminine; 
 and the love which they inspire is with them not the last object, 
 but merely a means. They stimulate their lovers to great dan- 
 gers, and sometimes also to great crimes; and the men appear 
 often to sutler from allowing themselves to be mere instruments 
 in the hands of women, and to be despatched on heroic messages 
 as it were by the women, for the sake of winning the prize of 
 love previously held out to them. Such women as Emelia in 
 Cinna and Rodogune must be unsusceptible of love. But if 
 Corneille has departed from truth, in his principal characters by 
 exaggerating the energetical and underrating the passive part of 
 our nature, if his heroes display too much volition, and too little 
 feeling, he is still much more unnatural in his situation. He has, 
 in defiance of all probability, pointed them in such a way, that we 
 
 28 
 
218 LECTURES ON 
 
 might properly give them the appellation of tragical antitheses; 
 so that the expression of a series of epigrammatical maxims 
 may he said to be natural in them. He is fond of exhibiting the 
 most symmetrical oppositions. His eloquence is often admirable 
 from its strength and compression; but it sometimes degenerates 
 into bombast, and exhausts itself in superfluous accumulations. 
 The later Romans, Seneca the philosopher, and Lucan, were too 
 much considered by him in the light of models; and unfortu- 
 nately he also possessed a vein of Seneca the tragedian. From 
 this wearisome pomp of declamation, a few simple words here 
 and there interspersed have been often made the subject of ex- 
 travagant praise.* If they stood alone they would certainly be 
 entitled to praise; but they are immediately followed by long 
 speeches which soon destroy their effect. When the Spartan 
 mother, on delivering the shield to her son, used the well known 
 words, "This, or on this!" she certainly made no farther addi- 
 tion to them. Corneille was peculiarly well qualified for exhi- 
 biting ambition and the lust of power, a passion which stifles all 
 other human feelings, and never properly erects its throne till 
 the mind has previously become a cold and dreary wilderness. 
 His youth was passed in the last civil wars, and he still saw 
 remains of the feudal independence. I will not pretend to 
 decide how much this may have influenced him, but it is unde- 
 niable that the sense which he often showed of the great impor- 
 tance of political questions, was altogether unknown to the 
 following age, and first made its appearance again in Voltaire. 
 He paid however his tribute of flattery to Louis the Fourteenth, 
 like the rest of the poets of his time, in verses which are now 
 forgotten. 
 
 Racine, who has not yet during a whole century been decidedly 
 declared the favourite poet of the French nation, was by no means 
 f during his life, in so enviable a situation, and, notwithstanding 
 many proofs of brilliant success, could not then repose in the 
 pleasing and undisturbed possession of his fame. His merits in 
 giving the last polish to the French language, his unrivalled ex- 
 cellencies of expression and versification, were not then allowed; 
 on the stage he had rivals who partly obtained an undeserved 
 preference over him. On the one hand, the exclusive admirers 
 of Corneille, with Madame Sevigneat their head, made a formal 
 party against him; on the other hand, Pradon, who w T as a much 
 younger man than himself, endeavoured to obtain the victory over 
 him, and he actually succeeded, it would appear, not merely in 
 
 * For instance, the Qu'il mourüt of the old Horatius; the Soyons amis, Ctnna,- 
 also the Moi of Medea which, we may observe in passing-, is borrowed from 
 Seneca. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 219 
 
 gaining over the crowd, but the very court itself, notwithstanding 
 the zeal with which he was opposed by Boileau. The chagrin to 
 which this gave rise unfortunately interrupted his theatrical career 
 at the very period when his mind had attained its full maturity; 
 he was afterwards prevented by a mistaken piety from returning 
 to his theatrical employment, and it required ali the influence of 
 Madame Maintenon to induce him to employ himself upon reli- 
 gious subjects for a particular occasion. It is probable that he 
 would have still carried the art a great deal higher, for in the 
 works which we have we uniformly perceive a successive im- 
 provement. He is a poet in every respect deserving of our love: 
 he possessed a great susceptibility for all the more tender emotions, 
 and great sweetness in the manner of expressing them. His mode- 
 ration, which never allowed him to transgress the bounds of pro- 
 priety, we will not estimate too highly, for he did not possess any 
 superfluity of strength of character, nay, there are even marks of 
 weakness perceptible in him, which it is said he also exhibited in 
 his private life. He has also paid his homage to the luscious gal- 
 lantry of his age, where it merely serves as a show of love to con- 
 nect together the intrigue; but he has often also completely suc- 
 ceeded in the delineation of a more genuine love, especially in his 
 female characters; and many of his amatory scenes breathe a tender 
 voluptuousness, which, from the veil of reserve and modesty 
 thrown over it, steals only the more seductively into the soul. 
 The inconsistencies of unsuccessful passion, the wanderings of a 
 distempered mind in prey to an irresistible desire, he has por- 
 trayed with more emotion and fervour than any French poet be- 
 fore him, or even perhaps after him. Generally speaking, he was 
 more inclined to the elegiac and the idyllic, than to the heroic. I 
 will not say that he would never have elevated himself to more 
 serious and dignified conceptions as in Britanniens and Mithri- 
 dat; but here we must distinguish between what his subject sug- 
 gested to him, and what he drew with peculiar fondness, where 
 he is less to be considered as a dramatic artist than as speaking the 
 language of his own feelings. However, it ought not to be for- 
 gotten that Racine composed the most of his pieces when he was 
 very young, and that his choice may easily be supposed to have 
 been influenced by that circumstance. He seldom disgusts us 
 with the undisguised repulsiveness of unnecessary crimes, like 
 Corneille and Voltaire; he has often however concealed what in 
 reality is hard, base, and low, under forms of politeness and cour- 
 tesy. I cannot allow the designs of his pieces to be unexceptions- 
 able, as the French critics would have them; those which he 
 borrowed from the ancient mythology are, in my opinion, the 
 most liable to objection: but I believe, with the rules and obser- 
 
220 LECTURES ON 
 
 vations which he took for his guide, he could hardly in most cases 
 have extricated himself from his difficulties more cautiously and 
 properly than he has actually done. Whatever may be the de- 
 fects of his productions separately considered, when we compare 
 him with others, and view him in connexion with the French 
 literature in general, we can hardly bestow upon him too high a 
 praise. 
 
 A new epoch of French Tragedy begins with Voltaire, whose 
 first appearance on the theatre, in his early youth, followed close 
 upon the age of Louis the Fourteenth. I have already, in a ge- 
 neral way, alluded to the changes and enlargements which he 
 projected, and partly carried into execution. Corneille and Ra- 
 cine may be said to have led a true artist's life: they were dramatic 
 poets with their whole soul; their desire, as authors, was con- 
 fined to that object alone, and all their studies were directed to 
 the stage. But Voltaire wished to shine in every possible depart- 
 ment; a restless vanity would not allow him to be satisfied with 
 the attempt to attain perfection in any one walk of literature; 
 and from the variety of subjects on which his mind was employ- 
 ed, it was impossible for him to avoid shallowness and immatu- 
 rity of ideas. To form a correct idea of his relation to his two 
 predecessors in the tragic art, we must institute a comparison 
 between the characteristical features of the preceding classical 
 age and that in which he gave the tone. In the time of Louis 
 the Fourteenth, the traditionary belief respecting the most impor- 
 tant concerns of humanity remained undisturbed; and in poetry, 
 the object was not so much to enrich the mind, as to form it by 
 means of a free and noble entertainment. But the want of think- 
 ing began at length to be felt: it unfortunately happened, how- 
 ever, that bold presumption hurried far before profound inquiry, 
 and hence the increase of public immorality was followed by a 
 dangerous scepticism, from the ridicule of which no object was 
 sacred, and which shook the foundations of every conviction 
 which had a reference to religion, morals, and the preservation 
 of the social union. Voltaire was by turns philosopher, rheto- 
 rician, sophist, and buffoon. The impurity by which his views 
 were in part characterized, was irreconcilable with a complete 
 impartiality in his theatrical career. As he saw the public long- 
 ing for information, which was rather tolerated by the favour of 
 the great than authorized and formally approved of by the pub- 
 lic institutions, he did not fail to meet their wishes, and to de- 
 liver, in beautiful verses, on the stage, what no man durst yet 
 preach from the pulpit or the professor's chair. He made use of 
 poetry as a means to accomplish ends which are foreign to it; 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 221 
 
 and this has often polluted the poetical purity of his com- 
 positions. In Mahomet he wished to exhibit the dangers of fa- 
 naticism, or rather, laying aside all circumlocution, the belief in 
 any revelation whatever. For this purpose, he has most unjus- 
 tifiably disfigured a great historical character, loaded him in a re- 
 volting manner with the most shocking crimes, at the expense 
 of our tortured feelings. As he was universally known as the 
 bitter enemy of Christianity, he bethought himself of a new tri- 
 umph for his vanity, by making christian sentiments in Zaire and 
 Alzire the means of exciting our emotion: and here for once his 
 versatile heart, which was susceptible of a feeling for goodness in 
 momentary ebullitions, shamed the rooted malice of his under- 
 standing; he actually succeeded, and these affecting and religious 
 passages cry out loudly against him for the idle abuse in which 
 his petulent ignorance so often indulged. In England he ac- 
 quired a knowledge of a freer constitution, and became an en- 
 thusiastic admirer of freedom. — Corneille introduced the Roman 
 republicanism and politics in general into his works, for the sake 
 of their poetical energy; Voltaire again exhibited them under a 
 poetical form, that they might have a political effect on the pop- 
 ular opinion. As he imagined that he was better acquainted 
 with the Greeks than his predecessors, and as he had obtained a 
 slight knowledge of the English theatre and Shakspeare, which 
 were before undiscovered islands for France, he wished in like 
 manner to derive every advantage from them. — He insisted on 
 the seriousness, the severity, and simplicity of the Greeks; and 
 actually in so far approached them, that he excluded love from 
 various subjects to which it did not properly belong. He was 
 desirous of reviving the majesty of the Grecian scene; and here 
 his endeavours had this good effect, that in his theatrical works 
 the eye w T as no longer so miserably neglected. He borrowed 
 from Shakspeare, as he thought, a boldness of theatrical effect; 
 but here he was the least successful; when, in imitation of that 
 great master, he ventured in Semiramis to call up a ghost from 
 the other world, he fell into the commission of innumerable ab- 
 surdities. In a word, he was perpetually making experiments 
 in the dramatic art; and at different times he availed himself of 
 totally different means for effect. Hence his works have occa- 
 sionally remained halfway between studies and finished produc- 
 tions; we perceive something unfixed and unfinished in his whole 
 formation. Corneille and Racine are much more perfect within 
 the limits which they have prescribed to themselves; they are 
 altogether that which they are, and we have no glimpses in their 
 works of anything of a higher or different description. Vol- 
 taire's claims are much more extensive than his means. Cor- 
 
2-2-2 LECTURES ON 
 
 neille has expressed the maxims of heroism with greater sub- 
 limity, and Racine the natural emotions with greater sweetness; 
 but we must allow that Voltaire has introduced the springs of 
 morality with greater effect into the drama, and that he displays a 
 more intimate acquaintance with the original relations of the 
 mind. Hence, in some of his pieces, he is more powerfully af- 
 fecting than either of the other two. 
 
 The first and last only of these three masters of the French 
 tragic stage may be said to be fruitful; though even this they 
 cannot be accounted, when compared with the Greeks. That 
 Racine was not more prolific, was indeed partly owing to acci- 
 dental circumstances in his life. He enjoys this advantage, 
 however, that with the exception of his first youthful attempts, 
 the whole of his pieces have kept possession of the stage, and 
 the public estimation. But many of the pieces of Corneille and 
 Voltaire, which even pleased at first, have since disappeared, and 
 are now not even so much as read; on which account, selec- 
 tions from their works have been published under the title of 
 Chef-d } ceuvres. It is remarkable, that few of the numerous tragi- 
 cal attempts in France have succeeded. La Harpe reckons, that 
 about a thousand tragedies have been acted or printed since the 
 death of Racine, and that about thirty only, besides those of Vol- 
 taire have kept possession of the theatre. Notwithstanding the 
 great competition in this department, the tragical repertory of 
 the French is therefore far from ample. We will not undertake 
 to give a full account of their theatrical stores; and it is still far- 
 ther from the object of our undertaking to enter into a circum- 
 stantial and anatomical investigation of separate pieces. We can 
 only, with a rapid pen, notice the character and relative worth 
 of the most distinguished works of these three masters, and of a 
 few others deserving of favourable mention. 
 
 Corneille opened the career of his fame, in the most brilliant 
 manner, with the Cid, of which, indeed, the execution alone is 
 his own: the plan of the Spaniard appears to have been closely 
 followed by him. The Cid of Guillen de Castro has never come 
 into my hands, so that it has not been in my power to institute 
 an accurate comparison between the two works. But were we 
 to judge from the specimens produced, the Spanish piece seems 
 to have been written with much greater simplicity than the French; 
 and the subject was first adorned with rhetorical pomp by Cor- 
 neille. We are ignorant, however, of what he has left out and 
 sacrificed. All the French critics are agreed that the part of the 
 Infanta is superfluous. They do not see, with the Spanish poet, 
 that when a princess, forgetful of her elevated rank, entertains 
 an inclination for Rodrigo, and wishes to distinguish him as the 
 flower of an amiable order of knighthood, this must serve as a 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 223 
 
 stronger justification of the love of Chimene, which so many- 
 powerful motives could not overcome. It is true, the passion 
 of the Infanta ought to have been more musically developed, 
 and the deeds of Rodrigo against the Moors more epically, that is, 
 more contemplatively related, to produce that pleasure and ge- 
 neral effect for which they were intended; they probably are so 
 in the Spanish. The rapture with which this piece was univer- 
 sally received on its first appearance, a piece which betrays no 
 trace of any ignoble motives, and which is altogether founded 
 on the conflict between the purest feelings of honour, love, and 
 paternal duty, is a strong proof that the romantic spirit was not 
 yet extinguished among spectators who could give themselves up 
 to such natural impressions. This was altogether misunderstood 
 by the learned; they affirmed, with the academy at their head, 
 that this subject (one of the most beautiful which ever fell to the 
 lot of any poet) was unfit for tragedy; they censured, in their in- 
 capacity of entering historically into another age, many supposed 
 improbabilities and improprieties.* The Cid is certainly not a 
 tragedy in the sense of the ancients; and it was at first called a tra- 
 gi-comedy by the poet. Would that this had been the only occa- 
 sion in which the authority of Aristotle has been applied to sub- 
 jects which do not belong to his jurisdiction! 
 
 The Horatii has been censured for want of unity: — The mur- 
 der of the sister and the acquittal of the victorious Roman, is 
 said to be a second action, independent of the combat of the Ho- 
 ratii and Curiatii. Corneille himself was talked into a persuasion 
 of this. It appears to me, however, that it may admit of the 
 most satisfactory justification. If the murder of Camilla had not 
 made a part of the piece, the women could have had nothing to 
 do in the first acts; and without the triumph of patriotism over 
 family ties, the combat could not have been an action, but mere- 
 ly an event destitute of tragical intrigue. But it is a real defect, 
 in my opinion, in Corneille, to have represented a public act 
 which was to decide the fate of two states, as taking place alto- 
 gether intra privatos parietes, and to have stripped it of every 
 visible accompaniment. Hence we are to account for the great 
 flatness of the fifth act. — What a different impression would have 
 been produced had Horatius been solemnly condemned, in obe- 
 dience to strict law, in presence of the king and people, and af- 
 terwards saved through the tears and entreaties of his father, 
 agreeably to the description of Livy. Moreover, the poet, not 
 satisfied with representing one sister of the Horatii in love with 
 
 * Scuderi speaks even of Chimene as a monster, and calls the whole off-hand, 
 "ce mechant combat de V amour et de Vhonneur" Admirable! Here was a man 
 acquainted with the romantic. 
 
224 LECTURES ON 
 
 one of the Curiatii, as in history, thought proper to invent the 
 marriage of a sister of the Curiatii to one of the Horatii: and as 
 in the former female the love of country yields to personal incli- 
 nation, in the latter personal inclination yields to love of coun- 
 try. This occasions a great improbability: for with such a known 
 family connexion, how would men have been selected for the 
 combat who had the most powerful reasons for sparing each other? 
 Besides, the murder of the sister by the conqueror can only be 
 supportable, if we suppose him in all the boiling confidence of un- 
 governable youth. Horatius, already a husband, ought to have 
 shown more wisdom and mildness in bearing with his unfortu- 
 nate sister's language, otherwise he would have been a ferocious 
 savage. 
 
 Cinna is commonly ranked much higher than the Horatii; 
 although, in the purity of the sentiments, a great falling off from 
 the ideal sphere, in which the action of the two preceding pieces 
 moves, is here perceptible. All is complicated and diseased in a 
 variety of ways. Cinna's republicanism is merely the cloak of 
 another passion: he is a tool in the hands of Emilia, who, on her 
 part, constantly sacrifices her pretended love to her revenge. 
 The magnanimity of Augustus is ambiguous: it appears rather 
 the caution of a tyrant grown timid through age. The conspira- 
 cy is thrust into the back ground with a splendid narration: it 
 does not excite in us that gloomy apprehension which so theatri- 
 cal an object ought to do. Emilia, the soul of the piece, is called 
 by the witty Balzac, when speaking in praise of the work, " an 
 adorable fury." Yet the furies themselves could be appeased by 
 purification and punishment: but benevolence and generosity are 
 in vain shown to Emilia, whose heart remains insensible to every 
 means of mollification; the adoration of so unfeminine a creature 
 is hardly pardonable even in a lover. Hence she has no better 
 adorers than Cinna and Maximus, two great villains, whose re- 
 pentance comes too late to allow us to imagine it sincere. 
 
 Here we have the first specimens of that Machiavelian policy, 
 by which the poetry of Corneille was entirely disfigured at an 
 after period, and which is not only repulsive, but also for the 
 most part both clumsy and unsuitable. He flattered himself, 
 that in knowledge of men and the world, in an acquaintance with 
 courts and politics, he surpassed the most clear-seeing. With a 
 mind naturally alive to honour, he conceived that he had made 
 himself master " of the murderous doctrine of Machiavel;" and 
 he displays, in a broad and didactic manner, all the knowledge 
 which he had acquired of these arts. He had no suspicion that 
 an unconscientious and selfish policy goes smoothly to work, and 
 always appears under a borrowed guise. If he had been capable 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 225 
 
 of anything of this kind, he might have taken a lesson from Ri- 
 chelieu. 
 
 Of the remaining pieces in which Corneille has painted the 
 Roman freedom and love of dominion, the Death of Pompey is 
 the most prominent. It is full, however, of a grandeur which is 
 more dazzling than genuine; and, indeed, we could expect no- 
 thing else from a cento of hyperbolical antitheses from Lucan. 
 These bravura flourishes of rhetoric are strung together on the 
 thread of a clumsy plot. The intrigues of Ptolemy, and the am- 
 bitious coquetry of his sister Cleopatra, have a miserable appear- 
 ance by the side of the description of the fate of the great Pom- 
 pey, the rage-breathing sorrow of his wife, and the magnanimous 
 compassion of Caesar. — Scarcely has the conqueror performed the 
 last duty to the reluctant shade of his rival, when he pours out 
 his homage at the feet of the beautiful Queen: he is not only in 
 love, but in love with sighs and flames. Cleopatra, on her part, 
 according to the poet's own expression, is desirous, by her love- 
 ogling, of gaining possession of the sceptre of her brother. Caesar 
 certainly made love, in his own way, to a number of women: 
 but these cynical loves, if represented with anything like truth, 
 would be most unfit for the stage. Who can refrain from laugh- 
 ing, when Rome, in the speech of Caesar, implores the chaste 
 love of Cleopatra for young Caesar? 
 
 In Sertorius, a much later work, Corneille has contrived to 
 make the great Pompey appear little, and the hero ridiculous. 
 Sertorius, on one occasion, exclaims, — 
 
 Que c'est un sort cruel d' aimer par politique/ 
 
 This may be applied to the whole of the persons in the piece. 
 They are not in the least in love with one another; but they al- 
 low a pretended love to be subservient to political ends. Serto- 
 rius, a hardened and gray-haired warrior, acts the lover with the 
 Spanish Queen, Viriata: he puts forward, however, another per- 
 son, and offers himself to Aristia; as Viriata presses him to mar- 
 ry her on the spot, he begs anxiously for a short delay; Viriata, 
 along with her other elegant phrases, says roundly, that she nei- 
 ther knows love nor hatred; Aristia, the repudiated wife of Pom- 
 pey, says to him, " Take me back again, or I will marry ano- 
 ther;" Pompey beseeches her to wait only till the death of Syl- 
 la, whom he dare not offend, without mentioning anything of the 
 low scoundrel Perpenna. The disposition to this frigidity of 
 soul was perceptible in Corneille, even at an early period; but it 
 increased in an incredible degree in the works of his age. 
 
 In Polyeucte, Christian sentiments are not unworthily express- 
 
 29 
 
JJt» LECTURES Otf 
 
 ed; yet we find in it more superstitious reverence, than fervent 
 enthusiasm for religion: the wonders of grace are rather affirmed, 
 than conceived with mysterious illumination. Both the tone and 
 the situations, in the first acts, incline very much to comedy, as 
 has already been observed by Voltaire. A female, who has mar- 
 ried against her inclinations from obedience to her father, who 
 declares both to her lover, who returns when too late, and to her 
 husband, that she still entertains a tenderness for the former, but 
 that she will keep within the bounds of virtue; a vulgar and sel- 
 fish father, who is sorry that the first suitor, who has now be- 
 come the favourite of the Emperor, was not preferred by him as 
 his son-in-law ;— all this promises no very high tragical determi- 
 nations. The divided heart of Paulina is in nature, and conse- 
 quently does not detract from the interest of the piece. It is ge- 
 nerally agreed, that her situation, and the character of Severus, 
 constitute the principal charm of this drama. But the practical 
 magnanimity of this Roman, who has to conquer his passion, 
 throws the renunciation of Polyeucte, which appears to cost him 
 nothing, very much into the shade. A conclusion has been at- 
 tempted to be drawn from this, that martyrdom is, in general, an 
 unfavourable subject for tragedy. But nothing can be more un- 
 just. The gladness with which martyrs embraced pain and death 
 did not proceed from want of feeling, but from the heroism of 
 the highest love: they must previously, in struggles painful be- 
 yond expression, have obtained the victory over every earthly 
 tie; and by the exhibition of these struggles, of these sufferings 
 of our mortal nature, while the seraph takes its flight to heaven, 
 the poet may awaken in us the most fervent emotion. The means 
 by which the catastrophe is brought about in Polyeucte, namely, 
 the dull and low artifice of Felix, by which the endeavours of 
 Severus to save his rival contribute to his destruction, are con- 
 temptible beyond expression. 
 
 How much Corneille delighted in the symmetrical play of an- 
 titheses in his intrigues, we may easily see, from his declaring 
 Rodogune his favourite work. I shall content myself with re- 
 ferring to Lessing, who has pleasantly enough exhibited the ri- 
 diculous appearance which the two distressed princes cut, with a 
 mother who says, " He who murders his mistress I shall name 
 heir to the throne," and a mistress who says, "He who mur- 
 ders his mother shall be chosen by me for a husband." The best 
 and shortest way of going to work would have been to have 
 locked up the two furies together. Voltaire returns always to 
 the mention of the fifth act, which he declares to be one of the 
 most noble productions of the French stage. This singular way 
 of judging works of art, by which the parts are praised in oppo- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 227 
 
 sition to the whole, without which it is impossible for them to 
 exist, is altogether foreign to our way of thinking. 
 
 With respect to Heraclius, Voltaire gives himself the unne- 
 cessary labour to show that Calderon did not imitate Corneille; 
 and, on the other hand, he labours, with little success, to deny 
 that the latter had the Spanish author before him, and availed 
 himself of his labours. Corneille, it is true, gives the whole out 
 as his own invention; but we must recollect, that it was only 
 when hard pressed that he acknowledged what he owed to the 
 author of the Spanish Cid. The chief circumstance of the plot, 
 namely, the uncertainty of the tyrant Phocas which of the two 
 youths is his own son, or the son of his murdered predecessor, 
 bears great resemblance to that of a drama of Calderon, and no- 
 thing of the kind is to be found in history; in other respects the 
 plot is, it is true, altogether different. However this may be, in 
 Calderon the ingenious boldness of extravagant invention corres- 
 ponds always with the heightening of the tragical colouring of 
 poetry; whereas in Corneille, after our head has become giddy 
 in endeavouring to disentangle a complicated and ill-contrived 
 intrigue, we are only recompensed by a succession of tragical 
 epigrams, without the least enjoyment for the fancy. 
 
 Nicomedes is a political comedy, the dryness of which is 
 hardly in any degree compensated for by the ironical tone which 
 runs throughout the speeches of the hero. 
 
 This is nearly all that now appears of Corneille on the stage. 
 His later works are, throughout, merely treatises in a pompous 
 dialogical form, on reasons of state in certain difficult conjunc- 
 tures. — We might represent a party at chess, as well as a tragedy. 
 
 Those who have the patience to labour through the forgotten 
 pieces of Corneille will perceive with astonishment, that they are 
 constructed on the same principles, and, with the exception of 
 negligences of style, executed with the same expense of what he 
 considered art, as his admired productions. For example, Attila, 
 in the plot, bears a striking resemblance to Rodogune. In his 
 own decisions, it is impossible not to be struck with the very 
 unessential things on which he puts a stress, and that he should 
 never once consider the laying open the depths of the minds and 
 destinies of men, certainly the highest object of tragical compo- 
 sition, as a matter of the slightest concern. In the unfavourable 
 reception which he has frequently to recount, he always finds 
 some excuse for his self-love, some subsidiary circumstance to 
 which the fate of his piece was to be attributed. 
 
 In the two first youthful attempts of Racine, nothing deserves 
 to be remarked, but the flexibility with which he accommodated 
 himself to the limits fixed by Corneille to the career then opened 
 
828 LECTURES ON 
 
 to him. In the Andromache he broke loose from them, and 
 first became himself. He expressed the inward struggles and 
 inconsistencies of passion, with a truth and energy which had 
 never before been heard on the French stage. The fidelity of 
 Andromache to the memory of her husband, and her maternal 
 tenderness are beautifully affecting; even the proud Hermione 
 carries us along with her in her wild aberrations. Her aversion 
 to Orestes, after he had become the instrument of her revenge, 
 and her awaking from her blind fury to utter helplessness and 
 despair, may almost be called tragically grand. The male parts, 
 as is generally the case with Racine, are not so advantageously 
 drawn. The continual threatenings of Pyrrhus to deliver up 
 Astyanax, if Andromache should not listen to him, with his gal- 
 lant asseverations, resembles the art of an executioner, who ap- 
 plies the torture to his victim with the most courtly phrases. 
 We have difficulty in conceiving Orestes, after his horrible deed, 
 as following in the train of a proud beauty. Not the least men- 
 tion is made of the murder of his mother; he appears to have 
 completely forgotten it throughout the whole piece: why then 
 do the furies come all at once towards the end? This is a sin- 
 gular contradiction. The connecting together of the whole bears 
 too great a resemblance to certain sports of children, where one 
 always runs before and tries to surprise the other. 
 
 In Britanniens, I have already praised the historical fidelity 
 of the picture. Nero, Agrippina, Narcissus, and Burrhus, are 
 so accurately drawn, and finished with such light allusions and 
 such a delicate mixture of colouring, that, in respect to character, 
 it yields, perhaps, to no French tragedy whatever. Racine has 
 here possessed the art of giving us to understand much that is 
 left unsaid, and enabling us to look forward into futurity. I will 
 only censure one inconsistency which has escaped the poet. He 
 paints to us the cruel voluptuary, whom education has only 
 in appearance tamed, when he first breaks loose from the re- 
 straints of discipline and virtue. Yet Narcissus, at the close of 
 the fourth act, speaks as if he had even then exhibited himself 
 as a player and a charioteer before the people. He first sunk to 
 this ignominy after being hardened by the commission of grave 
 crimes. To represent the complete Nero, that is, the flattering 
 and cowardly tyrant, in the same person, with the vain and fan- 
 tastical being who, as poet, singer, player, and almost as juggler, 
 was desirous of admiration, and recited even Homeric verses in 
 the agony of death, could alone be compatible w T ith a mixed 
 drama, in which tragical dignity is not required throughout the 
 whole piece. 
 
 To Berenice, composed in honour of a virtuous princess, the 
 French critics seem to me, in general, extremely unjust. It is 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 229 
 
 an idyllic tragedy, no doubt; but it is full of tenderness of mind. 
 No person was more skilled than Racine in throwing a certain 
 veil of dignity over female weakness. — Who can doubt that 
 Berenice has long before given every proof of her tenderness to 
 Titus, though this is carefully veiled over? She is like a Magda- 
 lena of Guido, who languishingly repents her renunciation. The 
 chief error of the piece is the tiresome part of Antiochus. 
 
 On the first representation of Bajazet, Corneille, it seems, was 
 heard to say, these Turks are very much Frenchified. The cen- 
 sure, as is well known, principally attaches to the parts of Bajazet 
 and Atalide. The old Grand Vizier is certainly Turkish enough; 
 and were a Sultana ever to become the Sultan, she would per- 
 haps throw the handkerchief in the same Sultanic manner as the 
 disgusting Roxane. I have already observed that Turkey, in its 
 naked rudeness, could hardly bear representation before a culti- 
 vated public. Racine felt this, and merely refined the forms with- 
 not changing the main incidents. The mutes and the strangling 
 are motives which could hardly be suspected in the Seraglio; and 
 so he gives, on several occasions, very elegant circumlocutory 
 descriptions of strangling. This is, however, inconsistent; when 
 people are so familiar with the idea of a thing, they call it also by 
 its true name. 
 
 The intrigue of Mithridate, as Voltaire has remarked, bears 
 great resemblance to that of the Miser of Moliere. Two bro- 
 thers are rivals for the bride of their father, who cunningly ex- 
 torts from her the name of her favoured lover, by feigning a wish 
 to renounce in his favour. The confusion of both sons, when 
 they learn that their father, whom they believed dead, is still 
 alive, and will speedily make his appearance, is in reality exceed- 
 ingly comic. — The one calls out: Qu'avons noiisfait? This is 
 the fear of school-boys, when conscious of some impropriety, on 
 the unexpected entrance of their master. The political scene, 
 where Mithridates consults his sons respecting his grand project 
 of conquering Rome, and in which Racine successfully vies with 
 Corneille, is logically interwoven in the plan; but still it is un- 
 suitable to the tone of the whole, and the impression which it is 
 intended to produce. All the interest is centered in Monime: 
 she is one of the amiable creations of Racine, and excites in us a 
 tender commiseration. 
 
 On no work of this poet will the sentence of German readers 
 differ more from that of the French critics and their whole pub- 
 lic, than Iphigenie. — Voltaire declares it the tragedy of all ti,mes 
 and all nations, which approaches as near to perfection as is con- 
 sistent with human endeavours; and in this opinion he is univer- 
 sally followed by his countrymen. But we see in it only a 
 
230 LECTURES ON 
 
 modernized Greek tragedy, of which the manners are inconsis- 
 tent with the mythological traditions, of which the simplicity is 
 destroyed hy the intriguing Eriphile, and in which the amorous 
 Achilles, however contumacious his behaviour, is altogether in- 
 supportable. La Harpe affirms that the Achilles of Racine is 
 even more Homeric than that of Euripides. What shall we say to 
 this? Before acquiescing in the sentence of such critics, we must 
 forget the Greeks. 
 
 Respecting Phedre I may express myself with the greater 
 brevity, as I have already dedicated a separate treatise to that 
 tragedy. However much Racine may have borrowed from Eu- 
 ripides and Seneca, and however much he may have spoiled the 
 former and not improved the latter, yet still it was a great step 
 from the affected mannerism of his age to a more genuine tragic 
 style. When we compare it with the Phsedra of Pradon, which 
 was so well received by his contemporaries for no other reason 
 than because no trace whatever of the ancients was discernible in 
 it, but everything reduced to the scale of a fashionable miniature 
 portrait for a toilette, we must entertain the higher admiration of 
 the poet who had such a strong feeling for the ancient poets, who 
 had the courage to connect himself with them, and who dared to 
 display so much purity and unaffected simplicity, in an age of 
 which the prevailing taste was every way vitiated and unnatural. 
 If Racine actually said, that the only difference between his Phse- 
 dra and that of Pradon was, that he knew how to write, he did 
 himself the most crying injustice, and must have allowed himself 
 to be blinded by the miserable doctrine of his friend Boileau, 
 which made the essence of poetry to consist in diction and versi- 
 fication, instead of the display of imagination and fancy. 
 
 The two last pieces of Racine belong, as is well known, to a 
 very different epoch of his life: they were both written at the in- 
 stigation of the same person; but they are extremely dissimilar to 
 each other. Esther scarcely merits the name of a tragedy; writ- 
 ten for the entertainment of well-bred young women in a pious 
 seminary, it does not rise much beyond its destination. It had 
 however a most astonishing success. The invitation to the repre- 
 sentations in St. Cyr was looked upon as a court favour; flattery 
 and scandal delighted to discover allusions throughout the piece; 
 Ahasuerus was said to represent Louis the Fourteenth; Esther, 
 Madame de Maintenon; the proud Vasti, who is only incidentally 
 alluded to, Madame de Montespan; and Haman, the minister 
 Louvois. This is certainly rather a profane application of the 
 sacred history, if we can suppose the poet to have had any such 
 object in view. In *dthalie, however, he exhibited himself for 
 the last time, before taking leave of poetry and the world, in his 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 231 
 
 whole strength. It is not only his most finished work, but I have 
 no hesitation in declaring it, of all the French tragedies, to be the 
 only one which, free from all mannerism, approaches the most to 
 the grand style of the Greeks. The chorus is fully in the sense 
 of the ancients, though introduced in a different manner for the 
 sake of suiting our music, and the different arrangement of our 
 theatre. The scene has all the majesty of a public action. Ex- 
 pectation, emotion, and keen agitation succeed each other, and 
 always rise with the progress of the drama: in the severe absti- 
 nence from everything foreign, there is a display of the richest 
 variety; sometimes of sweetness, but more frequently of majesty 
 and grandeur. The inspiration of the prophet elevates the fancy 
 to flights of more than usual boldness. The signification is that 
 which a religious drama ought to have: on earth, the struggle 
 between good and evil; and in heaven, the wakeful eye of pro- 
 vidence darting down rays of decision from unapproachable glory. 
 All is animated by one breath; by the pious inspiration of the 
 poet; of the genuineness of which, neither his life nor his work 
 w T ill allow us to entertain a doubt. This is the very thing in which 
 so many pretended works of art of the French are deficient: the 
 authors have not been inspired by a fervent love for the subject, 
 but the desire of external effect; and hence the vanity of the artist 
 everywhere breaks forth, and throws a damp over our feelings. 
 
 The unfortunate fate of this piece is well known. Scruples of 
 conscience respecting the impropriety of all theatrical representa- 
 tions (which appear to be exclusively entertained by the Gallacan 
 church, for both in Italy and Spain men of religion and piety have 
 thought very differently on this subject) prevented the represen- 
 tation in St. Cyr; it appeared in print, and was universally abused 
 and reprobated; and this state of things continued long even after 
 the death of Racine. So incapable of everything serious was the 
 puerile state of that age. 
 
 Among the poets of the period in question, the younger Cor- 
 neille deserves to be mentioned, who sought less to excite aston- 
 ishment by heroism, like his brother, than to gain over the favour 
 of the spectators by " those tendernesses which give so much 
 pleasure," in the words of Pradon. Of his numerous tragedies, 
 two only, the Comte oV Essex and J2? % iadne, keep possession of 
 the stage; the rest are consigned to oblivion. The latter, com- 
 posed after the model of Berenice, is a tragedy of which the 
 catastrophe may, properly speaking, be said to consist in a swoon. 
 The situation of the resigned and enamoured Ariadne, who, after 
 all her sacrifices, sees herself abandoned by Theseus and betray- 
 ed by her own sister, is expressed with great truth of feeling. 
 Whenever an actress, with a prepossessing figure and sweet voice, 
 
232 LECTURES ON 
 
 appears in this character, she is sure to excite our interest. The 
 other parts, the cold and deceitful Theseus, the intriguing Phaedra, 
 who continues her deceptions towards her confiding sister to the 
 last, the procuring Pirithous, and King (Enarus, who incessantly 
 offers himself to supply the place of the faithless lover, are all too 
 pitiful, and frequently even laughable. Moreover, the desert 
 rocks of Naxos are here smoothed down to modern drawing- 
 rooms; and the princes who people them seek, in a polished man- 
 ner, to out-wit each other, and to whisper their soft things to the 
 unfortunate princess, who alone has anything like pretensions to 
 nature. 
 
 Crebillon, in point of time, comes between Racine and Voltaire, 
 though he was also the rival of the latter. A numerous party 
 wished to oppose him, when far advanced in years, to Voltaire, 
 and even to give him a much higher place. Nothing, however, 
 but the utmost rancour of party, or the utmost depravity of taste, 
 or, what is most probable, the two together, could lead them to 
 such signal injustice. Far from having contributed to the puri- 
 fication of the tragic art, he evidently attached himself, not to the 
 better, but the affected authors of the age of Louis the Fourteenth. 
 In his total ignorance of the ancients, he has the arrogance to rank 
 himself above them. His favourite books were the antiquated 
 romances of a Calprenede, and others of a similar stamp: from 
 these he derived his extravagant and ill connected plots. One of 
 the means to which he everywhere has recourse, is the unconscious 
 or intentional disguise of the principal characters under the names 
 of others; the first example of which was given in Heraclius. — 
 Thus, Orestes in his Electra first becomes known to himself to- 
 wards the middle of the piece. The brother and sister, and a 
 son and daughter of .ZEgisthus are nearly exclusively occupied 
 with their double amours, which neither contribute to, nor injure, 
 the main action; and Clytemnestra is killed by a wound from 
 Orestes, who does not know her, inflicted against his will. He 
 abounds in extravagances of every kind; of which the impudence 
 of Semiramis in persisting in her love, after she learns that the 
 object of it is her own son, may be mentioned as one instance. 
 A few empty ravings and common-place displays of terror, have 
 gained for Crebillon the appellation of the terrible, which may 
 afford us a standard for the barbarous and affected taste of the age, 
 and the infinite distance from nature and truth to which they had 
 then fallen. It is as if, in painting we should give to Coypel the 
 appellation of the majestic. 
 
 To Voltaire, from his first entrance on his dramatic career, we 
 must allow both the conviction that higher and more extensive 
 efforts remained to be made, and the zeal to execute what was yet 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 233 
 
 undone. How far he was successful, and how much he was him- 
 self blinded by the national prejudices against which he contend- 
 ed, is another question. For the more easy review of his works, 
 it will be useful to rank together the pieces in which he handled 
 mythological materials, and those which he derived from the 
 Roman history. 
 
 His earliest tragedy, CEdipe, is a mixture of approximation to 
 the Greeks* (with the exception, as may be supposed, of doing 
 better), and of compliance with the prevailing manner. The best 
 traits Voltaire owed to Sophocles, whom he slanders in his pre- 
 face; and in comparison with whose catastrophe his own is flat 
 in the extreme. Not a little, however, was transferred by him 
 from the frigid (Edipus of Corneille into his own; and more es- 
 pecially the love of Philoctetus to Jocaste, which may be said to 
 correspond nearly with that of Theseus and Dirce in Corneille. 
 Voltaire alleged in his defence the tyranny of the players, from 
 which a young and unknown writer cannot withdraw himself. 
 We may remark the frequent allusions to priests, superstition, 
 &c. which even at that early period betray the future direction of 
 his mind. 
 
 In Merope, a work of his ripest years, he intended to give us 
 a perfect example of the revival of the Greek tragedy, an under- 
 taking of so great difficulty, and so long announced with every 
 kind of preparation. Its real merit is the exclusion of the tra- 
 ditional love scenes (of which, however, Racine had already 
 given an example in the tdthalie); for in other respects, we 
 hardly need to put German readers in mind how much of it is 
 not conceived in the true Grecian spirit. The confidants are 
 also entirely after the old cut. The other defects of the piece 
 have been circumstantially, and, I might almost say, much too 
 severely, censured by Lessing. The tragedy of Merope can 
 hardly fail of a certain degree of favour, if well represented. 
 This is owing to the nature of the subject. The passionate love 
 of a mother, in dread lest she should lose her only good, threat- 
 ened with oppression, supporting her trials with heroic con- 
 stancy, and at last triumphant, is altogether a picture of such 
 truth and beauty, that the compassion becomes beneficent, and 
 remains free from every painful ingredient. Still we must not 
 
 * His admiration of them seems to have been more derived from foreign in- 
 fluence than from individual study. He relates in his letter to the Duchess of 
 Maine, prefixed to Oreste, that in his early youth he had access to a princely 
 house where they used to read Sophocles, and make extemporary translations 
 from him, and where there were men who acknowledged the superiority of the 
 Greek Theatre over the French. We should in vain seek for such men in France 
 in the present day, among people of any distinction, from the universal depre- 
 ciation of the study of the classics. 
 
 30 
 
234 LECTURES ON 
 
 forget that the piece belongs only in a very limited manner to 
 Voltaire. How much he has borrowed, and not always changed 
 for the better, from Maffei, has been also shown by Lessing. 
 
 Among the transformations of Greek tragedies, Oreste, the 
 latest, appears to me the most remote from the antique simplicity 
 and severity, although it is free from an)f mixture of love, and 
 mere confidants are avoided. That Orestes should undertake to 
 destroy iEgisthus is nowise singular, and merited no such strong 
 delineation in the tragical annals of the world. It is the case 
 which Aristotle lays down as the most indifferent, where one 
 enemy knowingly attacks the other. And here neither Orestes 
 nor Electra have anything farther in view: Clytemnestra is to be 
 spared; no oracle consigns to her own son the execution of the 
 punishment due to her guilt. 13ut even the deed in question is 
 hardly executed by Orestes himself: he goes to iEgisthus, falls, 
 we may well'say, simply enough into the net, and is only saved 
 by an insurrection of the people. According to the ancients, he 
 was commanded by the oracle to attack the criminals with cun- 
 ning, as they had so attacked Agamemnon. This was just reta- 
 liation: to fall in open conflict would have been too honourable a 
 death for iEgisthus. Voltaire has added, of his own invention, 
 that he was also prohibited by the oracle from revealing himself 
 to his sister; and, as carried away by fraternal love, he breaks 
 this injunction, he is blinded by the furies, and involuntarily 
 perpetrates the maternal murder. These are certainly wonder- 
 ful ideas to assign to the gods, and a most unexampled punish- 
 ment for a slight, nay, even a noble crime. The incidental and 
 unintentional stabbing of Clytemnestra was borrowed by Vol- 
 taire from Crebillon. A French writer will hardly ever venture 
 to represent this subject with mythological truth; namely, the 
 murder as intentional, and executed at the command of the gods. 
 Should Clytemnestra be described not as rejoicing in the success 
 of her crime, but repentant and softened by her maternal love, 
 her death, it is true, could no longer be supportable. But how 
 does this apply to a crime perpetrated with so much premedita- 
 tion? By such a transition to what is little, the whole significa- 
 tion of the dreadful example is lost. 
 
 As the French are in general better acquainted with the Ro- 
 mans than the Greeks, we might expect the Roman pieces of 
 Voltaire to be more consistent, in a political point of view, with 
 historical truth, than his Greek pieces are with the symbolical 
 nature of mythology. ' This is only the case however in Brutus, 
 the earliest of them, and the only one which can be said to be 
 sensibly planned. Voltaire sketched this tragedy in England; 
 he had learned from Julius Cassar the effect which the publicity 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 235 
 
 of republican transactions is capable of producing on the stage, 
 and he wished therefore to hold, in some degree, a middle course 
 between Corneille and Shakspeare. The first act opens majesti- 
 cally; the catastrophe is brief but striking, and the principles of 
 genuine freedom are uniformly pronounced with a flowing elo- 
 quence, Brutus himself, his son Titus, the ambassador of the 
 king, and the chief of the conspirators, are admirably depicted. 
 I am by no means disposed to censure the introduction of love 
 into this play. The passion of Titus for a daughter of Tarquin, 
 which constitutes the knot, is not improbable, and in its tone 
 harmonizes with the manners which are depicted. Still less am 
 I disposed to agree with La Harpe, when he says that Tullia 
 ought to display proud and heroic sentiments, like Emilia in 
 Cinna, to serve as a counterpoise to the republican virtues. By 
 what means can a noble youth be more easily seduced than by 
 female tenderness and modesty? It is not, generally speaking, 
 natural that a being like Emilia should give rise to love. 
 
 The Mort de Cesar is a mutilated tragedy: it ends with the 
 speech of Antony over the dead body of Caesar, borrowed from 
 Shakspeare; that is, it has no conclusion. What a patched and 
 bungling appearance it exhibits in all its parts! What a coarse- 
 spun, hurried, and lame conspiracy! How stupid Caesar must 
 have been, had he allowed the conspirators to brave him before 
 his face without suspecting anything of their design! That Bru- 
 tus, although he knew Caesar to be his father, nay, immediately 
 after this came to his knowledge, should join in his assassination, 
 is cruel, and, at the same time, highly unlike a Roman. History 
 affords us many examples of fathers in Rome who condemned 
 their own sons to death for crimes of state; the law gave fathers 
 an unlimited power of life and death over their children in their 
 own houses. But the murder of a father, though undertaken for 
 the recovery of freedom, would have stamped the perpetrator, in 
 the eyes of the Romans, as an unnatural monster. The inconsis- 
 tencies which are here produced by the attempt to observe the 
 unity of place, are obvious to the least discerning eye. The 
 scene is said to be in the Capitol; here the conspiracy is formed 
 in clear daylight, and Caesar goes out and in during the time. 
 But the people do not appear to know rightly themselves where 
 they are; for Caesar on one occasion exclaims, Courons au Ca- 
 pitolel 
 
 The same improprieties are repeated in Catiline, which is but 
 a very little better than the preceding piece. From Voltaire's 
 sentiments respecting the dramatic exhibition of a conspiracy, 
 which I quoted in the foregoing Lecture, we might well con- 
 clude that, even if it were not evident that with the French sys- 
 
838 LECTURES ON 
 
 tern a genuine representation of such a transaction is hardly pos- 
 sible, he was altogether unacquainted with its true nature; not 
 only from the observance of the rules of place and time, but also 
 on account of the dignity of poetical expression insisted on, 
 which is incompatible with the accurate mention of particular 
 circumstances, on which, however, the whole depends. The 
 machinations of a conspiracy, and the endeavours to frustrate 
 them, are like works under ground, in which the besiegers and 
 besieged endeavour to blow one another up. — Something must 
 be done to enable the spectators to comprehend the art of the 
 miners. If Cataline and his adherents had employed no more 
 art and dissimulation, and Cicero no more determined wisdom 
 than Voltaire has given them, the one could not have endangered 
 Rome, and the other could not have saved it. The piece turns 
 always round on the same point; they all exclaim against one 
 another, but no one acts; and at the conclusion the affair is de- 
 cided as if by accident, by the blind chance of war. When we 
 read the simple relation of Sallust, it has the appearance of the ge- 
 nuine poetry of the object, and Voltaire's work by the side of it 
 looks like a piece of school rhetoric. Ben Jonson has treated the 
 subject with a very different insight into the true connexion of 
 human affairs; and Voltaire might have learned a great deal from 
 the man whom he employed falsehoods in traducing. 
 
 The Triumvirat belongs to the attempts of his age which are 
 generally allowed to have been unsuccessful. It consists of end- 
 less declamations on the subject of proscription, poorly supported 
 by a mere show of action. Here we find the triumvirs quietly 
 sitting in their tents on an island in the small river Rhenus, dur- 
 ing the raging of storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes; and Julia 
 and the young Pompeius are shown as if shipwrecked on the 
 strand, although they are travelling on terra firma; besides a num- 
 ber of other puerilities. Voltaire, probably by way of apology 
 for the poor success which the piece had on its representation, 
 says, (i This piece is perhaps in the English taste." — Heaven for- 
 bid! 
 
 We return to the earlier tragedies of Voltaire, in which he 
 brought on the stage subjects never before attempted, and on 
 which his fame as a dramatic poet principally rests: Zaire, Jll- 
 zire, Mahomet, Semiramis, and Tancred. 
 
 Zaire is considered in France as the triumph of tragic poetry 
 in the representation of love and jealousy. We will not assert 
 with Lessing, that Voltaire was acquainted only with the legal 
 style of love. He often expresses feeling with a fiery strength, 
 if not with that familiar truth and naivete in which an unreserved 
 heart lays itself open. But I see no trace of the oriental colouring 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 237 
 
 in the mode of feeling of Zaire: educated in the seraglio, she should 
 cling to the object of her passion with all the fervour of a maiden of 
 a glowing imagination, rioting, as it were, in the fragrant perfumes 
 of the East. Her fanciless love dwells solely in the heart; and 
 how can we reconcile that with such an object? Orosman, on 
 his part, lays claim indeed to European tenderness of feeling; 
 but the Tartar is merely varnished over in him, and he has fre- 
 quent relapses into his ungovernable fury and despotic habits. 
 The poet ought at least to have given a credibility to the magna- 
 nimity which he ascribes to him, by investing him with a cele- 
 brated historical name, such as that of the Saracen monarch Sala- 
 din, well known for his nobleness and liberality of sentiment. 
 But all our favour inclines to the oppressed Christian and chival- 
 rous side, and the glorious name which it exhibits. What can 
 be more affecting than the royal martyr Lusignan, the upright and 
 pious Nerestan, who, in the fire of youth, confines his endeavours 
 to the redemption of the associates of his belief? The scenes in 
 which they appear are uniformly excellent, and more particularly 
 the whole of the second act. The idea of connecting the disco- 
 very of a daughter with her conversion can never be sufficiently 
 praised. But the great effect of this act is, in my opinion, inju- 
 rious to the rest of the piece. Does any person seriously wish the 
 union of Zaire with Orosman, except spectatresses who are flatter- 
 ed with the homage which is here paid to her beauty, or spectators 
 who are still entangled in the follies of youth? Can the feeling 
 of others go along with the poet, when Zaire's love, so ill justifi- 
 ed by the act of the Sultan, balances in her soul the voice of 
 blood, and the most sacred claims of filial duty, honour, and 
 religion? 
 
 It was a meritorious daring (such singular prejudices then pre- 
 vailed in France) to exhibit French heroes in Zaire. In Alzire 
 Voltaire went still farther, and treated a subject in modern his- 
 tory never yet touched by his countrymen. In the former piece 
 he contrasted the chivalrous and Saracenic way of thinking; in 
 this we have Spaniards opposed to Peruvians. The difference 
 between the old and new world has given rise to descriptions of 
 a true poetical nature. However the action may be invented, I 
 find in this piece more historical and more of what we may call 
 symbolical truth, than in most French tragedies. Zamor is a 
 representation of the savage in his free, and Montese in his sub- 
 dued state; Guzman, of the arrogance of the conqueror; and 
 Alvarez, of the mild influence of Christianity. Alzire remains 
 between these conflicting elements in an affecting struggle be- 
 twixt attachment to her country, its manners, and the first choice 
 of her heart, on the one part, and new bands of honour and duty 
 
238 LECTURES ON 
 
 on the other. All human motives speak in favour of the love of 
 Alzire, and against that of Zaire. The last scene, where the 
 dying Guzman is dragged in, is beneficently overpowering. 
 The noble lines on the diversity of religions, with which Zamor 
 is converted by Guzman, are borrowed from an event in history: 
 they are the words of the Duke of Guise to a protestant who 
 wished to kill him; but the honour of the poet is not the less in 
 applying them as he has done. In short, notwithstanding the 
 improbabilities in the plot, which are easily discovered, and have 
 often been censured, Jilzire appears to me the most fortunate 
 attempt, the most finished of all the compositions of Voltaire. 
 
 In Mahomet, the impurity of purpose has been dreadfully re- 
 venged on the artist. He may affirm as much as he pleases that 
 his intentions were solely directed against fanaticism; there can 
 be no doubt that he wished to destroy the belief in any revelation, 
 and that he considered every means allowable for that object. 
 We have thus a work which is productive of effect; but an alarm- 
 ingly painful effect, equally repugnant to humanity, philosophy, 
 and religious feeling. The Mahomet of Voltaire makes two in- 
 nocent young persons, a brother and a sister, who childishly adore 
 him as a messenger from God, unconsciously murder their own 
 father, and this from the motives of an incestuous love in which 
 they had also become unknowingly entangled by his consent; 
 the brother after he has blindly executed his horrible mission, he 
 rewards with poison, and the sister he reserves for the gratifica- 
 tion of his nauseous lust. This web of atrocities, this cold-blood- 
 ed delight in wickedness, exceeds perhaps the measure of human 
 nature; but, at all events, it exceeds the bounds of poetic exhibi- 
 tion, even though such a monster should ever have appeared in 
 the course of ages. But, overlooking this, what a disfiguration, 
 nay, even distortion, of history! He has stripped her of her 
 wonderful charms; not a trace of oriental colouring is to be found. 
 Mahomet was a false prophet, but most certainly an enthusiastic 
 and inspired one, otherwise he would never have revolutionized 
 the half of the world. What an absurdity to make him merely a 
 cool deceiver! One alone of the many sublime maxims of the 
 Koran would be sufficient to annihilate the whole of these incon- 
 gruous inventions. 
 
 Semiramis is a motley patchwork of the French manner and 
 mistaken imitation. It has something of Hamlet, and something 
 of Clytemnestra and Orestes; but nothing of any of them as it 
 ought to be. The love to an unknown son is borrowed from the 
 Semiramis of Crebillon. The appearance of Ninus is a mixture 
 of the Ghost in Hamlet, and the shadow of Darius in JEschylus. 
 That it is superfluous has been admitted by the French critics 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 239 
 
 themselves. Lessing, with his raillery, has scared away the 
 Ghost. With a great deal of abuse against the behaviour of 
 ordinary ghosts, it has this peculiar to itself, that its speeches are 
 dreadfully bombastic. Notwithstanding the great zeal displayed 
 by Voltaire against subordinate love intrigues in tragedy, he has, 
 however, contrived to exhibit two pairs of lovers, the partie 
 carree as it is called, in this play, which was to be the foundation 
 of an entirely new species. 
 
 Since the Cid no French tragedy had appeared, of which the 
 plot was founded on such pure motives of honour and love with- 
 out any ignoble intermixtures, and so completely consecrated to 
 the exhibition of chivalrous sentiments, as Tancred. Amenaide, 
 though honour and life are at stake, disdains to exculpate herself 
 by a declaration which would endanger her lover; and Tancred, 
 though justified in esteeming her faithless, defends her in single 
 combat, and seeks in despair the death of a hero, when the 
 unfortunate error clears up. So far the piece is irreproachable, 
 and deserving of the greatest praise. But it is weakened by 
 other imperfections. It is of great detriment to its perspicuity, 
 that we cannot at the very first hear the letter without super- 
 scription, which occasions all the embarrassment, and that it is not 
 sent off before our eyes. The political disquisitions in the first 
 act are tedious; Tancred appears in the third act for the first time, 
 and he is impatiently expected to give animation to the scene. 
 The furious imprecations of Amenaide at the conclusion are not 
 in harmony with the deep but soft emotion with which we are 
 overpowered by the re-union of two lovers, who have mistaken 
 each other, in the moment of their separation by death. 
 
 It might be considered allowable in Voltaire in the earlier 
 piece of the Orphelin de la Chine to represent the great Dschin- 
 gis-kan in love. This drama ought to be called the Conquest of 
 China, with the conversion of the cruel Khan of Tartary, &c. 
 The whole of the interest is concentrated in two children whom we 
 never once see. The Chinese are represented as the most virtuous 
 and wise of all mankind, and overflow with philosophical max- 
 ims. As Corneille in his old age made one and all his characters 
 politicians, Voltaire in like manner furnished out his with philo- 
 sophy, and availed himself of them to preach up his favourite 
 opinions. He was not deterred by the example of Corneille, 
 when the power of representing the passions was extinguished, 
 from bringing to light a number of weak and faulty productions. 
 
 Since the time of Voltaire the constitution of the French stage 
 has remained nearly the same. No talent has yet arisen suffi- 
 ciently powerful to advance the art a step farther, and to refute, 
 by a victorious result their superannuated prejudices. Many at- 
 
240 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 tempts have been made, but they generally follow in the track of 
 what has already been done, without surpassing it. The endea- 
 vour to introduce more historical extent into dramatic composi- 
 tion is frustrated by the traditional limitations and restraints. Of 
 the attacks both theoretical and practical which have been made 
 in France itself on the prevailing system of rules, it will be the 
 most suitable time to deliver a few observations when we review 
 the present condition of the French stage, after considering their 
 comedy and the other secondary kind of dramatic works; as at- 
 tempts have, either been made to found new species, or, in an ar- 
 bitrary manner, to overturn the divisions which have hitherto 
 been established between them, 
 
( 241 ) 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 French Comedy. — Moliere. — Criticism of his works. — Scarron, Boursault, Reg- 
 nard; Comedies in the time of the Regency; Marivaux and Destouches; Pi- 
 ron and Gresset. — Later attempts. — The heroic opera: Quinault. — Operettes 
 and Vaudevilles.--Diderot's attempted change of the theatre.—The weeping 
 drama.— Beaumarchais. — Melo-dramas. — Merits and defects of the histrionic 
 art, 
 
 The same system of rules and proprieties, which I have en- 
 deavoured to show must inevitably have a narrowing influence 
 on tragedy, has been applied to comedy in France much more 
 advantageously. For this mixed composition has, as we have 
 already seen, an unpoetical side; and some degree of artificial 
 constraint, if not altogether essential to the new comedy, is cer- 
 tainly beneficial to it; for if it is treated with too negligent a lati- 
 tude, it runs a risk in respect of general structure, shapelessness, 
 and representation of individual peculiarities, of fallingi nto every- 
 day common-place. In the French as well as the Grecian lan- 
 guage, it happens that the same syllabic measure is used in tra- 
 gedy and comedy, which on a first view may appear singular. 
 But if the Alexandrine did not appear to us peculiarly adapted 
 to the free imitative expression of pathos, on the other hand it 
 must be owned, that a comical effect is produced by the applica- 
 tion of so symmetrical a measure to the familiar turns of dia- 
 logue. The narrowing grammatical conscientiousness of the 
 French poetry is fully suited to comedy, where the versification 
 is not purchased at the expense of resemblance to the language 
 of conversation, where it is not intended to elevate the dialogue 
 by sublimity and dignity above real life, but merely to commu- 
 nicate to it a more elegant ease and lightness. Hence the opin- 
 ion of the French, who hold a comedy in verse in much higher 
 estimation than a comedy in prose, seems to me to admit of a 
 good justification. 
 
 I endeavoured to show that the unities of place and time are 
 inconsistent with the essence of many tragical subjects, because 
 a comprehensive action is frequently carried on in distant places 
 at the same time, and because great determinations can only be 
 slowly prepared. This is not the case in comedy: here the 
 intrigue ought to prevail, the activity of which quickly ad- 
 vances towards its object; and hence the unity of time comes to 
 be almost naturally observed. The domestic and social circles in 
 which the new comedy moves are usually assembled in one place, 
 
 31 
 
242 LECTURES ON 
 
 and consequently the poet is not under the necessity of sending 
 our imagination abroad: only it might have been as well, perhaps, 
 not to interpret the unity of place so very strictly as not to allow 
 the transition from one room to another, or to different houses of 
 the same town. The choice of the scene on the street, a prac- 
 tice in which the Latin comic writers were frequently followed 
 in the earlier times of modern comedy, is very irreconcilable 
 with our way of living, and the more deserving of censure, as in 
 the case of the ancients it was an inconvenience which arose from 
 the construction of their theatre. 
 
 According to the French critics, and the opinion which has 
 become prevalent through them, Moliere alone of all their comic 
 writers, is classical; and all that has been done since his time, is 
 merely estimated as a more or less perfect approximation to this 
 supposed pattern of an excellence which can never be surpassed, 
 nor even equalled. Hence we shall first proceed to characterize 
 this founder of the French comedy, and then give a short sketch 
 of its progress after his time. 
 
 Moliere has produced works in so many departments, and of 
 such various worth, that we should hardly be enabled to recog- 
 nize the same founder in all of them; and yet it is usual, when 
 speaking of his peculiarities and merits, and the advance made 
 by him in his art, to throw the whole of his labours into one mass. 
 
 Born and educated in an inferior rank, he enjoyed the advan- 
 tage of becoming acquainted with the modes of living of the in- 
 dustrious part of the community* from his own experience, and 
 of acquiring the talent of imitating low modes of expression. — 
 At an after period, when Louis XIV. took him into his service, 
 he had opportunities, although from a subordinate station, of nar- 
 rowly observing the court. He was an actor, and it would ap- 
 pear of peculiar strength in overcharged and farcical comic parts; 
 so little was he prepossessed with prejudices of personal dignity, 
 that he renounced all the conditions by which it was accompanied, 
 and was ever ready to deal out or to receive the blows which 
 were then so frequent on the stage. Nay, his mimetic zeal went 
 so far, that he actually drew his last breath in representing his 
 imaginary patient, and became, in the truest sense, a martyr to 
 the laughter of others. His business was to invent all manner of 
 pleasant entertainments for the court, and by way of relaxation 
 from his state affairs or warlike undertakings, to provoke "the 
 greatest king of the world" to laughter. One would think, on 
 
 * Bürgerliche Leben (bourgeois). — I have translated this by a circumlocu- 
 tion: we have no privileged casts in «this country, and consequently our lan- 
 guage has no single expression equivalent to bourgeois, which includes, it is be- 
 lieved, all the unprivileged classes in cities and towns. — Trans. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 243 
 
 the triumphant return from a glorious campaign, this might have 
 been accomplished in a more refined manner than by the repre- 
 sentation of the nauseous condition of an imaginary patient; but 
 Louis XIV. was not so fastidious: he was very well contented 
 with the buffoon whom he protected, and even exhibited his own 
 elevated person occasionally in dances in his ballets. This ex- 
 ternal situation of Moliere was the cause that many of his labours 
 had their origin as mere occasional pieces in the commands of 
 the court; and they bear accordingly the stamp of that origin. 
 Without travelling out of France, he had opportunities of becom- 
 ing acquainted with the lazzis of the Italian comic masks on the 
 Italian theatre at Paris, where improvisatory dialogues were in- 
 termixed with scenes written in French: in the Spanish comedies 
 he studied the ingenious complications of intrigue: Plautus and 
 Terence taught him the salt of the Attic wit, the genuine tone of 
 comic maxims, and nice delineations of character. All this he 
 employed with more or less success in the exigency of the mo- 
 ment, and made use also of all manner of means foreign to his 
 art, to dress out his drama in a sprightly and diversified manner: 
 the allegorical acts of the opera prologues, musical intermezzos, in 
 which he even introduced Italian and Spanish, national music, with 
 texts in their own language; at one time sumptuous, and at another 
 grotesque ballets, and even sometimes mere vaulting. He knew 
 how to draw advantage from everything: the censure passed upon 
 his pieces, the defective manners of rival actors imitated to decep- 
 tion by himself and his company, and even the embarrassment in 
 not being able to produce a theatrical entertainment so quickly as 
 it was demanded by the king, all became for him a matter of amuse- 
 ment. His pieces borrowed from the Spanish, his pastorals and tra- 
 gi-comedies merely calculated to please the eye, and three or four 
 comedies besides of his earlier days, which are even versified, and 
 consequently carefully laboured, the critics give up without more 
 ado. But even in the farces with^or without ballets and inter- 
 mezzos, in which the overcharged, and frequently the self-con- 
 scious and arbitrary comic of buffoonery prevails, Moliere has 
 exhibited an inexhaustible store of good humour, scattered excel- 
 lent jokes with a lavish hand, and drawn the most amusing carica- 
 tures with a bold and vigorous hand; all this, however, has 
 been often done before his time, and I cannot see how in this de- 
 partment he can stand alone as a creative and altogether original 
 artist. For example; is the braggadocio officer of Plautus less 
 meritorious in grotesque characterization than the bourgeois gen- 
 tilhomme? We shall immediately examine, in a brief manner, 
 whether Moliere has actually improved the pieces which he bor- 
 rowed in whole or in part from Plautus and Terence. When 
 
244 LECTURES ON 
 
 we bear in mind that in these Latin authors we have only a faint 
 and faded copy of the new Attic comedy, we shall then be en- 
 abled to judge whether he would have been able to surpass its 
 masters in case they had come down to us. Many of his in- 
 ventions I am induced to suspect as borrowed, and I am con- 
 vinced that we should discover the source were we to search in- 
 to the antiquities of farcical literature.* Others are so obvious, 
 and have so often been both used and abused, that they may in 
 some measure be considered as the common good of comedy. — '■ 
 Such is the scene in the Malade Imaginaire, where the love of 
 the wife is put to the test by the supposed death of the hus- 
 band, an old joke which our Hans Sachs has handled drolly 
 enough.! We have a declaration of Moliere, from which it 
 would appear that he entertained no very conscientious sentiments 
 respecting plagiarism. In the undignified relations in which he 
 lived, and in which everything was so much calculated for daz- 
 zling show, that his name did not even legally belong to him, we 
 are the less to wonder at this. 
 
 When Moliere in his farcical pieces did not lean on foreign 
 invention, he however appropriated to himself the comic manner 
 of other countries, and more particularly that of the Italian buf- 
 foonery. He wished to introduce a sort of masked characters 
 without masks, who should recur with the same name. They 
 have never however been able to become properly domiciliated 
 in France; because the flexible national character of the French, 
 which imitates every mode that is prevalent for the time, is in- 
 compatible with that odd originality of exterior to which humor- 
 some and singular individuals give themselves carelessly up in 
 other nations, where all are not modelled by the social tone after 
 the same manner. As the Sganarelles, Mascarilles, Scapins, 
 and Crispins, have been allowed to retain their uniform, that 
 everything like consistency may not be lost, they are now com- 
 pletely obsolete on the stage. The French taste is, generally 
 speaking, very little inclined to the self-conscious, drolly-ex- 
 aggerating, and arbitrary comic; because these descriptions of the 
 comic speak more to the fancy than to the understanding. We 
 
 * The learned Tiraboschi (Storia della Letteratura Italiana, Lib. III. § 25.) 
 attests this in very strong- expressions: — "Moliere," says he, "has made so much 
 use of the Italian comic writers, that were we to take from him all that he has 
 taken from others, the volumes of his comedies would be very much reduced 
 in bulk." 
 
 f I know not whether it has been already remarked that the idea which con- 
 stitutes the foundation of the Marriage Force is borrowed from Rabelais-, in 
 whom Panurge enters upon the very same consultation respecting his future 
 marriage, and receives from Pantagruel just such a sceptical answer as Sgan- 
 arelle does from the second philosopher. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 245 
 
 do not mean to censure this, nor to quarrel about the respective 
 merits of the different species. The low estimation in which 
 the former are held may perhaps contribute the more to the suc- 
 cess of the comic of observation. And in fact the French comic 
 writers have here displayed a great deal of refinement and inge- 
 nuity: in this consists the great merit of Moliere, and it is cer- 
 tainly very distinguished. We may only ask, whether it is of 
 such a description as to justify the French critics, on account of 
 half a dozen of regular comedies as they are called of Moliere, 
 in holding the whole of the stores of other nations in refined and 
 characteristic delineation in such infinite contempt as they do, 
 and in setting up him as the comic genius who has never been 
 equalled. 
 
 If the praise bestowed by the French on their tragic writers 
 be, from national vanity and ignorance of the mental productions 
 of other nations, exceedingly extravagant, in their praise of 
 Moliere they express themselves also in a manner out of all pro- 
 portion with the object. Voltaire calls him the father of genu- 
 ine comedy; and this may be true enough with respect to France. 
 According to La Harpe, comedy and Moliere are synonymous 
 terms; he is the first of all moral philosophers, his works are the 
 school of the world. Chamfort calls him the most amiable 
 teacher of humanity since Socrates; and is of opinion that Julius 
 Caesar who called Terence a half Menander, would have called 
 Menander a half Moliere. — I doubt this. 
 
 The kind of moral which we may in general expect from com- 
 edy I have already shown: it is morality in action, the art of 
 life. In this respect the higher comedies of Moliere contain 
 many admirable observations happily expressed, which are still 
 applicable; others are tainted with the narrowness of his own pri- 
 vate opinions, or the opinions which were prevalent in his age. 
 In this sense Menander was also a philosophical comic writer; 
 and we may boldly place the moral maxims which remain of him 
 by the side of those of Moliere at the very least. But no com- 
 edy is constructed of mere sentences. The poet must be a mor- 
 alist, but his personages cannot always be moralizing. And here 
 Moliere appears to me to have exceeded the bounds of propriety: 
 he gives us in lengthened disquisitions the pro and con of the 
 character exhibited by him; nay, he allows this to consist, in part, 
 in principles for which the persons themselves combat against 
 the attacks of others. This leaves us nothing to conjecture; and 
 the highest refinement and delicacy of the comic of observation 
 consists in this, that the characters disclose themselves uncon- 
 sciously by traits T\hich unvoluntarily escape from them. To this 
 kind of comic the manner in which Oronte introduces his sonnet, 
 
246 LECTURES ON 
 
 Orgon listens to the accounts respecting Tartuffe and his wife, and 
 Vadius and Trissotin fall by the ears, undoubtedly belongs; but 
 the endless disquisitions of Alceste and Philinte respecting the 
 way in which we ought to view the falsity and corruption of the 
 world do not in the slightest respect belong to it. They are se- 
 rious, but still they cannot satisfy us as exhausting the subject ; 
 and as they are dialogues in which the characters are precisely 
 at the same point at the end as when they began, they are defec- 
 tive in the necessary dramatic movement. Such argumentative 
 disquisitions which lead to nothing are frequent in all the most 
 admired pieces of Moliere; and nowhere more than in the Mis- 
 anthrop. Hence the action, which is also poorly invented, is 
 found to drag so very much; for, with the exception of a few 
 scenes of a more sprightly description, it consists altogether 
 of discourses formally introduced and supported, of which the 
 stagnation can only be concealed by the art employed on the 
 details of versification and expression. In a word, these pieces 
 are too didactic, too expressly instructive; whereas the spectator 
 should only be instructed incidentally, and, as it were, without 
 its appearing to have been intended. 
 
 Before we proceed to consider more particularly the produc- 
 tions which properly belong to the poet himself, and are acknow- 
 ledged as master-pieces, we shall offer a few observations on his 
 imitations of the Latin comic writers. 
 
 The most celebrated is the Jlvare. — The manuscripts of the 
 Aulularia of Plautus are unfortunately mutilated towards the 
 end; but yet we find enough in them to excite our admiration. 
 Moliere has merely borrowed a kw scenes and jokes from this 
 play; for his plot is altogether different. In Plautus it is ex- 
 tremely simple: his Miser has found a treasure, which he anx- 
 iously watches and conceals. The suit of a rich bachelor for his 
 daughter excites a suspicion in him that his wealth is known. 
 The preparations for the wedding bring strange servants and 
 cooks into his house; he considers his gold pot no longer secure, 
 and conceals it out of doors, which gives an opportunity to a 
 slave of her lover, sent out with the knowledge of the daughter, 
 to steal it. Without doubt the thief must afterwards have been 
 obliged to make restitution, otherwise the piece would end in too 
 melancholy a manner with the lamentations and imprecations of 
 the old man. The knot of the love intrigue is easily untied: the 
 young man, who had too soon assumed the rights of the marriage 
 state, is the nephew of the bridegroom, who willingly renoun- 
 ces in his favour. All the events serve merely to lead the 
 miser, by a series of agitations and alarms gradually heightened, 
 to the situation in which his miserable passion is unfolded. Mo- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 247 
 
 liere again, without attaining this object, puts a complicated ma- 
 chine in motion. Here we have a lover of the daughter, who, 
 disguised as a servant, flatters the avarice of the old man; a prodi- 
 gal son who courts the bride of his father; intriguing servants; 
 an usurer; and after all a discovery at the end. The love in- 
 trigue is spun out in a very clumsy and everyday manner; and 
 it has the effect of making us at different times lose sight altoge- 
 ther of Harpagon. Several scenes of a good comic description 
 are merely subordinate, and do not necessarily arise out of the 
 thing itself in the true manner of an artist. Moliere has accu- 
 mulated as it were all kinds of avarice in one person; and yet 
 the miser who buries his treasures and he who lends on pledge 
 can hardly be the same. Harpagon starves his coach horses: but 
 why has he any? This applies only to a man who, with a dis- 
 proportionately small income, wishes to keep up the appearance 
 of a certain rank. Comic characterization would soon be at an 
 end were there really only one character of the miser. The 
 most important deviation of Moliere from Plautus is, that the 
 one merely paints a person who watches over his treasure, and 
 the other makes his miser in love. The love of an old man is 
 in itself an object of ridicule; the anxiety of a miser is no less so. 
 We may easily see that when we unite with avarice, which sepa- 
 rates a man from others and withdraws him within himself, the 
 sympathetic and liberal passion of love, the union must give rise 
 to the most harsh contrasts. Avarice, however, is usually a very 
 good preservative against falling in love. Where then is the 
 more refined characterization; and as such a wonderful noise is 
 made about it, where shall we find the most valuable moral in- 
 struction? Whether in Plautus or in Moliere? A miser and a 
 superannuated lover may both be present at the representation of 
 Harpagon, and both return from the theatre satisfied with them- 
 selves, while the miser says to himself, " I am at least not in 
 love;" and the lover, * Well, at all events I am not a miser." 
 High comedy represents those follies, however striking they may 
 be, which are reconcilable with the ordinary course of things; 
 whatever forms a singular exception, and can only be conceiv- 
 able in an utter perversion of ideas, belongs to the arbitrary exag- 
 geration of farce. Hence since the time of Moliere (and the 
 same thing was undoubtedly the case long before him), the ena- 
 moured and avaricious old man has been the peculiar common- 
 place of the Italian masked comedy and opera buffa, to which 
 in truth it certainly belongs. Moliere has treated the main inci- 
 dent, the theft of the chest of gold, with an uncommon degree of 
 unskilfulness. At the very beginning Harpagon, in a scene bor- 
 rowed from Plautus, is suspicious lest a servant may not have 
 
248 LECTURES ON 
 
 discovered his treasure. After this he forgets it; for four whole 
 acts there is not a word about it, and the spectator drops as it 
 were from the clouds when the servant all at once brings in the 
 stolen coffer; for we have no information as to the manner in 
 which he fell upon the treasure which was so carefully concealed. 
 Here Plautus has shown a great deal of ingenuity: the excessive 
 anxiety of the old man for his pot of gold, and all that he does to 
 save it, are the very cause of its loss. The subterraneous treasure 
 is always invisibly present; it is as it were the evil spirit which 
 drives its keeper to madness. In all this we have a moral which 
 is calculated to produce a very different impression. In the mo- 
 nologue of Harpagon after the theft, the modern poet has intro- 
 duced the most incredible exaggerations. The calling out to the 
 pit to discover the theft, which when well acted produces so great 
 an effect, is a trait of the old comedy of Aristophanes, and may 
 serve to give us some idea of its powers of entertainment. 
 
 The Jlmphitryon are hardly anything more than a free imita- 
 tion of the Latin original. The whole plan and order of the 
 scenes are retained. The waiting-woman, or wife of Sosia, is the 
 invention of Moliere. The parody of the marriage history of 
 the master in that of the servant is ingenious, and gives rise to 
 the most amusing investigations on the part of Sosia to find out 
 whether, during his absence, such a domestic blessing as that of 
 Amphitryon may not have also been conferred on him. The 
 revolting coarseness of the old mythological story is refined as 
 much as can possibly be done without injury to its spirit and 
 boldness, and the execution is in general extremely elegant. 
 The uncertainty of the persons respecting their own identity and 
 duplication is founded on a sort of comic metaphysics: the con- 
 siderations of Sosia respecting his two I, which have cudgelled 
 each other, may in reality furnish materials for thinking to our 
 philosophers of the present day. 
 
 The most unsuccessful of Moliere's imitations of the ancients 
 is that of Phormio in the Fourberies de Scapin. The whole 
 plot is borrowed from Terence, and, with the addition of another 
 discovery to that which he found, weli or ill adapted, or rather 
 tortured, to a consistency with modern manners. The poet has 
 indeed gone very hurriedly to work with this plot, which he has 
 patched together in a most negligent manner. The tricks of 
 Scapin, for the sake of which he has spoiled the plot, occupy the 
 first place: but we may well ask whether they deserve it. The 
 Grecian Phormio, a man who, for the sake of feasting with young 
 companions, lends himself to all sorts of hazardous tricks, is an 
 interesting and modest knave; Scapin directly the reverse. He 
 had no cause to boast so much of his tricks; they are so stupidly 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 249 
 
 planned, that in justice they ought not to have succeeded. Even 
 supposing the two old men to be obtuse and brainless in the ex- 
 treme, we can hardly conceive how they could so easily fall into 
 such an obvious and clumsy snare. It is also disgustingly im- 
 probable that Zerbinette, who as a gipsey ought to have known 
 how to conceal knavish tricks, should run out into the street 
 and tell the first unknown person whom she meets, who happens 
 to be Geronte himself, the deceit practised upon him by Scapin. 
 The farce of the sack into which Scapin makes Geronte to crawl, 
 then bears him off, and cudgels him as if by the hand of strangers, 
 is altogether a most unsuitable excrescence. Boileau was there- 
 fore well warranted in reproaching Moliere with having shame- 
 lessly allied Terence to Taburin, (the merry-andrew of a mounte- 
 bank.) In reality, Moliere has here for once borrowed, not from 
 the Italian masks, which was frequently the case with him, but 
 from the Pagliasses of the rope-dancers and vaulters. We must 
 not forget that the Cheats of Scapin is one of the latest works of 
 the poet. This and several others of the same period, as Mon- 
 sieur de Pourceaugnac, La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, and even 
 his last, the Malade Imaginaire, sufficiently prove that the ma- 
 turity of his mind as an artist did not increase with the progress 
 of years, otherwise he would have been disgusted with such loose 
 productions, and that frequently he brought forth pieces with 
 great levity and haste when he had full leisure to think of pos- 
 terity. If he occasionally subjected himself to stricter rules, we 
 owe it more to his ambition and his desire to be numbered among 
 the classical writers of the golden age than to any internal and 
 growing aspiration after the highest excellence. 
 
 The high claims of the French critics for the favourite, which 
 we have already mentioned, are principally founded on the Ecole 
 des Femmes, Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope, and Les Femmes &a- 
 vantes; pieces which are finished with great diligence. We 
 must expressly state in the outset, that we leave the separate beau- 
 ties of language and versification altogether to the decision of na- 
 tive critics. These merits can only be subordinate requisites; 
 and the undue stress which is laid in France on the manner in 
 which a piece is written and versified has, in our opinion, been 
 both in tragedy and comedy injurious to the developement of other 
 more essential requisites of the dramatic art. We shall confine 
 our observations entirely to the general spirit and plan of these 
 comedies. 
 
 The earliest of these, V Ecole des Femmes, seems to me also 
 the most excellent; it is the one in which there is the greatest 
 display of vivacious humour, rapidity, and comic strength. A 
 man arrived at an age unsuitable for wedlock, who purposely 
 
 32 
 
250 LECTURES ON 
 
 educates a young girl in ignorance and simplicity, that he may 
 preserve her faithful to him, while everything turns out the re- 
 verse of his expectations, was not a new invention: a short while 
 before Moliere it had been related by Scarron, who derived it 
 from a Spanish novel. Still however it was a lucky thought to 
 labour this subject for the stage, and the execution is most mas- 
 terly. Here we have a real and very interesting plot; no creeping 
 investigations; all the matter is of one piece, without foreign le- 
 vers and accidental intermixtures, with the exception of the catas- 
 trophe, which is brought about, by means of a discovery, in a 
 manner somewhat arbitrarily. The naive confessions and inno- 
 cent devices of Agnes are full of sweetness; they form, with the 
 unguarded confidence reposed by the young lover in his unknown 
 rival, and the stifled rage of the old man against both, a series of 
 comic scenes of the most amusing, and at the same time of the 
 most refined description. 
 
 As an example how little the violation of certain probabilities 
 diminish our pleasure, we may remark that Moliere, with respect 
 to the choice of scene, has here indulged in very great liberties. 
 We will not inquire how Arnolph frequently happens to converse 
 with Agnes in the street or in an open place, while he keeps her 
 at the same time so carefully locked up. But when Horace does 
 not know Arnolph as the intended husband of his mistress, and 
 betrays everything to him, this can only be admissible from Ar- 
 nolph's passing with her by another name. Horace ought there- 
 fore to inquire for Arnolph in his own house in a remote quarter, 
 and not before the door of his mistress where he always finds 
 him, without entertaining any suspicion from that circumstance. 
 Why do the French critics set such a high value on similar pro- 
 babilities in the dramatic art, when they must.be compelled to 
 admit that their best masters have not always observed them? 
 
 Tartuffe is an exact picture of pious hypocrisy held up for a 
 warning to every man; it is an excellent serious satire, but with 
 the exception of separate scenes it is not a comedy. It is gene- 
 rally admitted that the catastrophe is bad, as it is brought about 
 by a foreign lever. It is bad, too, because the danger which 
 Orgon runs of being driven from his house and cast into prison 
 is by no means such an embarrassment as his blind confidence 
 actually merited. Here the serious purpose of the work is openly 
 disclosed, and the praise of the king is a dedication by which the 
 poet, even in the piece itself, humbly recommends himself to the 
 protection of his majesty from the persecutions which he dreaded. 
 
 In the Femmes Savanles raillery has also the upper hand of 
 mirth; the action is insignificant and not in the least attractive; 
 and the catastrophe, after the manner of Moliere, is introduced in 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 251 
 
 a foreign and arbitrary manner. Yet these technical imperfec- 
 tions we might well excuse for the sake of satirical merit. But 
 in this respect the composition, from the limited nature of its views, 
 is extremely partial. We are not to expect from the comic poet 
 that he should always, along with the exhibition of a folly, give 
 us a representation of the opposite reasonable way of thinking; in 
 this way he would announce his object of instructing us in too 
 methodical a manner. Two opposite follies may be exhibited 
 together in an equally ludicrous manner. Moliere has here ridi- 
 culed the affectation of a false taste, and the vain-gloriousness 
 of empty knowledge. Proud in their own ignorance and con- 
 tempt for all higher cultivation, they certainly deserve the ridi- 
 cule bestowed on them; but that which in this comedy is por- 
 trayed as the correct way of thinking falls very nearly into the 
 same error. All the reasonable persons of the piece, the father 
 and his brother, the lover and the daughter, nay, even the un- 
 grammatical maid, are all proud of what they neither are, nor 
 have, nor know, nor seek to be, to have, or to know. The limit- 
 ed view which Chrysale takes of the female destination, the opin- 
 ion of Clitander on the inutility of learning, and in other places 
 the sentiments respecting the measure of cultivation and know- 
 ledge which is suitable to a man of rank, were all intended to 
 convey to us the opinions of Moliere himself on these subjects. 
 We may here trace a vein of a certain valet-de-chambre morality, 
 which also makes its appearance in him on many other points. 
 We can easily conceive how his education and situation should 
 lead him to entertain such ideas; but they are hardly such as en- 
 title him to read lectures on human society. That Trissotin at 
 the end should be ignominiously made to commit an act of low 
 selfishness is odious; for we know that a learned man then alive 
 was satirized under this character, and that his name was very 
 slightly disguised. The vanity of an author is rather a preserva- 
 tive against this weakness: there are much more lucrative careers 
 than that of authorship for selfishness without a feeling of honour. 
 The Misanthrope, which, as is well known, was at first coldly 
 received, is still less amusing than the two preceding pieces: the 
 action is less rapid, or rather there is none at all; and the meagre 
 incidents which give only an apparent life to the dramatic move- 
 ment; the quarrel with Oronte respecting the sonnet, and its ad- 
 justment; the decision of the law-suit which is always brought 
 forward; the unmasking of Celimene through the vanity of the 
 two Marquisses and the jealousy of Arsinöe; these incidents have 
 no connexion with one another. Besides all this, the general 
 plot is not even probable. It is framed with a view to exhibit 
 the thorough delineation of a character; but a character discloses 
 
839 LECTURES ON 
 
 itself much more in its relations with others than immediately. 
 How comes Alceste to have chosen Philinte for a friend, a man 
 whose principles were directly the reverse of his own? How 
 comes he also to be enamoured of a coquette, who has nothing 
 amiable in her character, and who entertains us merely by her 
 scandal? We might well say, without exaggeration, that there 
 is not one good point in the whole composition of this Celimene. 
 In a character like that of Alceste, love is not a fleeting sensual 
 impulse, but a serious feeling arising out of a want of a sincere men- 
 tal union. His dislike of flattering falsehood and malicious scandal, 
 which always characterize the conversation of Celimene, breaks 
 forth so incessantly, that the first moment he ever heard her open 
 her lips ought to have banished him from her for ever. Finally, the 
 subject is ambiguous,and that is its greatest fault. The limits within 
 which Alceste is in the right and beyond which he is in the wrong, 
 it would be no easy matter to fix, and I am afraid the poet did not 
 here see very clearly himself. He everywhere however paints Phi- 
 linte, with his illusory justifications of the way of the world, and 
 his phlegmatic resignation, as the intelligent and amiable man. 
 Alceste is most decidedly in the right in the case of the elegant 
 Celimene, and only in the wrong in the inconceivable weakness 
 of his conduct towards her: he is in the right in his complaints 
 of the corruption of the social constitution ; the facts at least which 
 he adduces are disputed by nobody. He is in the wrong in de- 
 livering his sentiments with so much violence, and at an unreason- 
 able time; but as he cannot prevail on himself to assume the dis- 
 simulation which is necessary to be well received in the world, 
 he is perfectly in the right in preferring solitude to society. 
 Rousseau has already censured the ambiguity of the piece, by 
 which what is deserving of approbation seems to be turned into 
 ridicule. His opinion was not altogether unprejudiced; for his 
 own character, and his behaviour towards the world, had a strik- 
 ing similarity to that of Alceste; besides, he mistakes the essence 
 of dramatic composition, and founds his condemnation on exam- 
 ples of an accidentally false direction. 
 
 So far with respect to the famed moral philosophy of Moliere 
 in his pretended master-piece. From what has been stated, I 
 consider myself warranted to pronounce, in opposition to the pre- 
 vailing opinion, that Moliere succeeded best with the coarse and 
 homely comic, and that both his talent and his inclination would 
 have altogether determined him to the composition of farces such 
 as he continued to write even to the very end of his life. He 
 seems always to have whipped himself up as it were to his more 
 serious pieces in verse: we discover something of constraint in 
 both plot and execution. His friend Boileau probably communi- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 253 
 
 cated to him his view of a correct mirth, of a grave and decorous 
 laughter; and so Moliere determined, after the carnival of his 
 farces, to accommodate himself occasionally to the spare diet of 
 the regular taste, and to unite what in their own nature are ir- 
 reconcilable, namely, dignity and drollery. However, we find 
 even in his prosaical pieces traces ofthat didactical and satirical 
 vein which is peculiarly foreign to comedy; for example, in his 
 constant attacks on physicians and lawyers, in his disquisitions 
 respecting the true tone of society, &c, the intention of which is 
 actually to censure, to refute, to instruct, and not merely to afford 
 entertainment. 
 
 The classical reputation of Moliere preserves his pieces on the 
 stage, * although in tone and manners they are altogether obso- 
 lete. This is a danger to which the comic poet is inevitably ex- 
 posed from the side on which his composition does not rest on a 
 poetical foundation, but is determined by the prose of external 
 reality. The originals of the individual portraits of Moliere 
 have long since disappeared. The comic poet who lays claim to 
 immortality must, in the delineation of character and the dispo- 
 \ sition of his plan, rest principally on those motives which are 
 always intelligible, as they are not taken from the manners of any 
 particular age, but from human nature itself. 
 
 In addition to Moliere we have to notice but a few older con- 
 temporary comedies. — Of Corneille, who acquired a name from 
 the imitation of Spanish comedies before he was known as a tra- 
 gic author, only one piece keeps possession of the stage, Le Men- 
 teur, from Lope de Vega; and even this betrays, in our opinion, 
 no comic talent. The poet accustomed to stilts, moves awkwardly 
 in a species of the drama, the first requisites of which are sweet- 
 ness and ease. Scarron, who only understood burlesque, has 
 displayed this talent or knack in several comedies taken from the 
 Spanish, of which two, Jodelle, or the Servant turned Master, 
 and Don Japhet of Armenia, have till within these few years 
 been occasionally acted at carnival farces, and have always been 
 
 * If they were not in possession of the stage, the indecency of a number of 
 the scenes would cause many of them to be rejected, as the public of the pre- 
 sent day, though probably not less corrupted than that of those times, is passion- 
 ately fund of throwing- over everything- a cloak of morality. When a piece of 
 Moliere is acted, the head theatre of Paris is generally a downright solitude, if 
 no particular circumstance brings the spectators together. Since these Lectures 
 were held, George Dandin has been hissed at Paris, to the great grief of the 
 critical watchmen of Zion. This was probably not on account of mere inde- 
 cency. Whatever may be said in defence of the morality of the piece, the 
 prerogatives of the higher classes are favoured in a very revolting manner in it; 
 and it concludes with the shameless triumph of arrogance and depravity over 
 plain honesty. 
 
254 LECTURES ON 
 
 very successful. The plot of Jodelle, which belongs to Don 
 Francisco de Roxas, is excellent; the style and the additions of 
 Scarron have not been altogether able to disfigure it. All that is 
 coarse, nauseous, and repugnant to taste, belongs to the French 
 writer of the age of Louis XIV., who in his day was not without 
 celebrity ; for the Spanish work is throughout characterized by a 
 spirit of tenderness. The burlesque tone, which in many lan- 
 guages may be tolerated, has been properly rejected by the French, 
 * for whenever it is not guided by judgment and taste, it sinks to 
 disgusting vulgarity. Don Japhet represents in a still ruder man- 
 ner the mystification of a coarse fool. The original belongs to the 
 kind which the Spaniards call comedias de figuron: it has un- 
 doubtedly been also spoiled by Scarron. The worst of the matter 
 is, that his exaggerations are trifling without being amusing. 
 
 Racine fell upon a very different plan of imitation from that 
 which was then followed, in his Plaideurs, the idea of which he 
 derived from Aristophanes. The piece in this respect stands 
 alone. The action is merely a light piece of legerdemain; but 
 the follies which he portrays belong to a circle, and, with the 
 imitations of the officers of court and advocates, form a complete 
 whole. Many lines are at once witty sallies and characteristical 
 traits; and some of the jokes have that apparently aimless drol- 
 lery, which genuine comic inspiration can alone inspire. Racine 
 would have become a dangerous rival of Moliere, if he had con- 
 tinued to exercise the talent which he has here displayed. 
 
 Some of the comedies of a younger contemporary, and oppo- 
 nent of Moliere, Boursault, have still kept possession of the 
 stage; they are all of a secondary description, which the French 
 call pieces a tiroir, and of which Moliere gave the first example 
 in his Facheux. This kind, from the accidental nature of the 
 scenes, which are strung together on one common occasion, bear 
 in so far a resemblance to the mimi of the ancients; they ought 
 also to have it in the accurate imitation of individual peculiarities. 
 These subjects are particularly favourable for the display of the 
 mimic art in the more limited signification of the word, as the 
 same player always appears in a different disguise, and assumes 
 a new character. It is advisable not to extend such pieces beyond 
 one act, as the want of dramatic movement, and the uniformity 
 of the cause throughout all the different changes, are very apt to 
 excite impatience. Boursault's pieces, which are not without 
 their merit, are tediously spun out to five acts. The idea of ex- 
 hibiting iEsop, a sage born a slave and deformed in person, as in 
 possession of court favour, was original and happy. But in the 
 two pieces, JEsop in the City, and JEsop at Court, the fables 
 which are tacked to every important scene are drowned in diffuse 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 255 
 
 morals; they are altogether distinct from the dialogue, instead of 
 being interwoven with it like the fable of Menenius Agrippa in 
 Shakspeare; and modern manners do not suit with this childish 
 mode of instruction. In the Mercure Galant all sorts of out 
 of the way beings bring their petitions to the writer of a weekly- 
 paper. This thought and many of the most entertaining details 
 have, if I am not mistaken, been borrowed by a favourite German 
 author without acknowledgment. 
 
 A considerable time elapsed after the death of Moliere before 
 the appearance of Regnard, to whom the second place in comedy 
 is usually assigned. He was a sort of adventurer who, after 
 roaming a long time up and down the world, fell to the trade of 
 a dramatic writer, and divided himself betwixt the Italian theatre 
 which still continued to flourish under Gherardi, and for which 
 he sketched the French scenes, and the composition of regular 
 comedies in verse. The Joueur, his first play, is justly prefer- 
 red to the others. The author was acquainted with this passion, 
 and the way of living of gamesters, from his own experience: it 
 is a picture after nature, with strongly drawn features, executed 
 without exaggeration; and the plot and accessary circumstances 
 are all appropriate and in character, with the exception of a pair 
 of caricatures which might have been dispensed with. The Dis- 
 trait possesses not only the faults of the methodical pieces of 
 character which 1 have already censured, but it is no peculiar 
 character; the mistakes occasioned by the unfortunate habit of 
 being absent in thought are all alike, and admit of no heightening: 
 they might therefore have filled up an afterpiece, but certainly 
 did not merit the distinction of being spun out into a comedy of 
 five acts. Regnard has done little more than dramatize a series 
 of anecdotes which La Bruyere had assembled together under the 
 name of a certain character. The execution of the Legataire 
 Universel shows more comic talent; but from the error of the 
 general plan, arising out of a want of moral feeling, this talent is 
 completely thrown away. La Harpe declares this piece the 
 chef-d' ceuvre of comic pleasantry. It is, in fact, such a subject 
 for pleasantry as would move a stone to pity; as enlivening as 
 the grin of a death's head. What a subject for mirth? A feeble 
 old man in the jaws of death, who is teased by young profligates 
 for his property, and who has a false will imposed on him while 
 he is lying insensible, as is believed, on his death-bed. If it 
 is true that these scenes have always given rise to much laughter 
 on the French stage, it only proves the spectators to possess the 
 same unfeeling levity which disgust us in the author. We have 
 elsewhere shown that, with an apparent indifference, a moral re- 
 spect is essential to the comic poet, as the impressions which he 
 
256 LECTURES ON 
 
 wishes to produce are inevitably destroyed whenever disgust or 
 compassion is excited. 
 
 Legrand the actor, a contemporary of Regnard, was one of 
 the first comic poets who acquired celebrity in afterpieces in 
 verse, a species in which the French have since produced a num- 
 ber of elegant trifles. He has not however risen to anything like 
 the same posthumous fame as Regnard; La Harpe dismisses him 
 with very little ceremony. Yet we should be disposed to rank him 
 very high as an artist had he composed nothing else than the King 
 of Lubberlyland (Le Roi de Cocagne), a sprightly farce in the 
 wonderful style, overflowing with what is very rare in France, 
 a native fanciful wit, animated by the most lively mirth, which, 
 although carried the length of the most frolicsome giddiness, 
 sports on and about all subjects with the utmost harmlessness. 
 We might call it an elegant and ingenious piece of madness; an ex- 
 ample of the manner in which the drama of Aristophanes, or rather 
 that of Eupolis,* who had also dramatized the tale of Lubberlyland, 
 might be brought on our stage without exciting disgust, and with- 
 out personal satire. And yet Legrand was certainly unacquaint- 
 ed with the old comedy, and his own genius (we make no 
 scruple of using this expression) led him to the invention. The 
 execution is as careful as in a regular comedy; but to this title 
 in the French opinion it can have no pretensions from the won- 
 derful world which is represented to us, from several of the de- 
 corations, and from the music here and there introduced. The 
 French critics show themselves in general indifferent or unjust 
 towards every suggestion of genuine fancy. Before they can 
 entertain respect for a work it must bear a certain appearance of 
 labour and effort. Among a giddy and light-minded people they 
 have appropriated to themselves the post of honour of pedantry: 
 they confound the levity of jocularity, which is quite compatible 
 with profundity in art, with the levity arising from shallowness, 
 which, as a natural gift or natural defect, is so frequent among 
 their countrymen. 
 
 The eighteenth century has produced a number of comic wri- 
 ters in France of the second and third rank, but no distinguished 
 genius capable of advancing the art a step farther, by which means 
 the belief in the unapproachable excellence of Moliere has be- 
 come still more firmly riveted. As we have not room at present 
 to go through all the separate productions, we shall premise a few 
 observations respecting the general spirit of French comedy be- 
 fore entering on the consideration of the writers whom we have 
 not yet mentioned. 
 
 * See p. 125. 
 
bRAMATIC LITERATURE. 257 
 
 The want of easy progress, and lengthened disquisitions in 
 stationary dialogue, have characterized more or less every writer 
 since the time of Mol i ere, on whose regular pieces the conven- 
 tional rules applicable to tragedy have had an indisputable influ- 
 ence. French comedy in verse has its tirades as -.veil as tragedy; 
 and this circumstance contributed to the introduction of a certain 
 degree of stiff etiquette. The comedy of other nations has gene- 
 rally descended, from motives which we can be at no loss in un- 
 derstanding, into the circle of the inferior classes; but the French 
 comedy is usually confined to the upper classes of society. Here 
 also we trace the influence of the court as the central point of the 
 whole national vanity. Those spectators, who in reality had no 
 access to the great world, were flattered by being surrounded on 
 the stage with Marquisses and Chevaliers, and while the poet 
 satirized the fashionable follies, he endeavoured to snatch some- 
 thing of that privileged tone which was so much the object of 
 envy. Society rubs off the salient angles of character; its pecu- 
 liar entertainment consists in the detection of the ridiculous, and 
 hence we acquire the faculty of being upon our guard against the 
 observations of others. The natural, cordial, and jovial comic of 
 the inferior classes is laid aside, and another description, the fruit 
 of polished society, and bearing the stamp of the insipidity of such 
 an aimless way of living, comes to be substituted in its stead. The 
 object of these comedies is no longer life but society, that perpetual 
 negotiation between conflicting vanities which never ends in a 
 sincere treaty of peace: the embroidered dress, the hat under the 
 arm, and the sword by the side, essentially belong to them, and 
 the wmole of the characterization is limited to the folly of the 
 men and the coquetry of the women. The insipid uniformity of 
 these pictures was unfortunately too often seasoned by the cor- 
 ruption of moral principles which, more especially after the age 
 of Louis XIV. till beyond the middle of the century, under the 
 regency and the government of Louis XV., it became the fashion 
 openly to avow. In this period the favourite of the women, the 
 komme ä bonnes fortunes, who in the tone of satiety boasts of 
 the multitude of conquests too easily accomplished by him, w r as 
 not a character invented by the comic writers, but a portrait ac- 
 curately taken from real life, as is proved by many memoirs of 
 the foregoing century, even down to those of a Besenval. We 
 are disgusted with the unveiled sensuality of the love intrigues of 
 the Grecian comedy; but the Greeks would have found the love 
 intrigues with married women in the French comedy, entered into 
 merely from giddy vanity, much more disgusting. Limits have 
 been fixed by nature herself to sensual excess; but when vanity 
 assumes the part of a sensuality already deadened and enervated, 
 
 33 
 
258 LECTURES ON 
 
 it gives birth to the most hollow corruption. If in the constant 
 ridicule of marriage by the petit-maitres, and in their moral scep- 
 ticism especially with regard to women, it was the intention of 
 the poets to censure a prevailing depravity, the picture is not on 
 that account the less dangerous. The great or fashionable world, 
 which in point of numbers is the small, but which considers itself 
 as alone of any importance, can hardly be improved by it; and 
 the example is but too seductive for the other classes from the 
 brilliancy with which the characters are surrounded. But in so 
 far as comedy is concerned this deadening corruption is by no 
 means entertaining; and in many pieces, in which fools of quality 
 give the tone, for example in the Chevalier a la mode of Dan- 
 court, the picture of complete moral dissoluteness which, although 
 true, is both Unpoetical and unnatural, is not merely productive 
 of ennui but of the most decided repugnance and disgust. 
 
 From the number of writers to whom this charge chiefly ap- 
 plies, Destouches and Marivaux, fruitful or at least diligent 
 comic poets, the former in verse, and the latter in prose, deserve 
 to be excepted. They acquired considerable distinction among 
 their contemporaries in the first half of the eighteenth century, 
 but few of their works survived either of them on the stage. 
 Destouches was a moderate, tame, and well-meaning author, who 
 applied himself with all his powers to the composition of regular 
 comedies, which were always drawn out to the length of five acts, 
 and in which, with the exception of vivacity displayed by Li- 
 sette and her lover, Frontin, or Pasquin, in virtue of their situa- 
 tion, there is nothing of a laughable description. He was not in 
 any danger, from an access of frolicsome petulance, of falling 
 from the dignified tone of the supposed high comic into the fami- 
 liarity of farce, which the French hold in such contempt. With 
 moderate talents, without humour, almost without vivacity, 
 neither ingenious in invention, nor possessed of a deep insight 
 into the human mind and human affairs, he has in some of his 
 productions, Le Glorieux, Le Philosophi Marie, and especially 
 £>' Indecis, with great credit to himself, given an example of what 
 true and unpretending diligence is capable of effecting. Other 
 pieces, for instance, Ulngrat and ISHomme Singulier, are 
 complete failures, in which we may see that a poet who considers 
 Tartuffe and the Misanthrope as the highest objects of imitation, 
 and this was evidently the case with Destouches, has only another 
 step to take to lose sight of the comic art altogether. These two 
 works of Moliere have not been friendly lights to his followers, 
 but real impediments in their way. Whenever a comic poet in 
 his preface worships the Misanthrope as a model, I can imme- 
 diately tell the result of his labours. For the dull and conditional 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 259 
 
 seriousness of prosaic life, and for prosaical applications stamped 
 with the respectful name of moral, he will have sacrificed every- 
 thing like frolicsome inspiration, and all true poetical entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 That Marivaux is a mannerist is so universally acknowledged 
 in France, that the peculiar term of marivaudage has been inr 
 vented for his manner. But this manner is at least his own, and 
 at first sight by no means unpleasing. Delicacy of mind cannot 
 be denied to Marivaux, only it is coupled with a certain littleness. 
 We have stated it to be the most refined kind of the comic of ob- 
 servation, when a peculiarity of property appears most conspicu- 
 ous at the very time its possessor has the least suspicion of it, or 
 is most studious to conceal it. Marivaux has applied this to the 
 passions; and naivete in the involuntary disclosure .of emotions 
 certainly belongs to the comic sphere. But then this naivete is 
 prepared by him in too artful a manner, appears too solicitous for 
 our favour, and we may almost say seems too well pleased with 
 itself. It is the game of hide and seek of children, who cannot 
 keep quiet in their corner, but will always be popping out their 
 heads, when they are not immediately discovered; nay some- 
 times, which is still worse, it is like the squinting through a fan 
 held up from affected modesty. In Marivaux we always see his 
 aim from the very beginning, and the whole of our attention is 
 directed to the way by which he is to lead us to it. This would 
 be a skilful mode of composing, if it did not degenerate into the 
 unimportant and the superficial. Petty inclinations are strengths 
 ened by petty motives, exposed to petty probations, and brought 
 by petty steps nearer and nearer to the conclusion. The whole 
 generally turns on a declaration of love, and all sorts of clandes^ 
 tine means are tried to elicit it, or every kind of slight allusion 
 is hazarded to hasten it. Marivaux has neither painted characters, 
 nor contrived intrigues. The whole plot is generally an unpro- 
 nounced word, which is always at the tongue's end, and which is 
 frequently kept back in a pretty arbitrary manner. He is so uni- 
 form in his motives, that when we have read one of his pieces 
 with a tolerable degree of attention we know all of them. Still 
 however we must rank him above the herd of stiff imitators; 
 something is even to be learned from him, as he possessed a pe- 
 culiar though a very limited manner of viewing the essence of 
 comedy. 
 
 Two other separate works are named as master-pieces in regu- 
 lar comedy in verse, belonging to two writers who here perhaps 
 have taken more pains, but who have given a freer scope to 
 their natural talent in other departments: the Metromanie of 
 Piron and the Mechant of Gresset. The Metromanie is not 
 
260 LECTURES ON 
 
 without humorous inspiration. In the young man possessed with 
 a rage for poetry, Piron was desirous in some measure of paint- 
 ing himself: but as we always go tenderly to work in the ridicule 
 of ourselves, along with the amiable weakness in question, he 
 exhibits in his hero talents, magnanimity, and good heartedness. 
 But this tender regard is not peculiarly favourable for comic 
 strength. The Mediant is one of those gloomy comedies which 
 might rapturously be hailed by a Timon as serving to confirm 
 him in his aversion to human society, but which on social and 
 cheerful minds can only be productive of the most painful effects. 
 Why paint a dark and odious disposition, which, destitute of all 
 human feelings, feeds its vanity in a cold contempt and derision 
 of everything, and which is solely occupied in aimless detrac- 
 tion? Why. exhibit such a moral deformity, which could hardly 
 be tolerated even in tragedy, for the mere purpose of producing 
 domestic discontent and petty embarrassments? 
 
 Yet, according to the decision of the French critics, these three 
 comedies, the Glorieux, the Metromanie, and the Mediant, 
 are all that the eighteenth century can oppose to Moliere. We 
 should be disposed to rank the Old Bachelor of the late Collin 
 d' Harleville much higher; but for this true picture of manners 
 there is no scale in the works of Moliere, and it can only be 
 compared with those of Terence. We have here the most hap- 
 py union of the utmost refinement and accuracy in character, 
 with the interest which we derive from an ably contrived plot; 
 and a certain mildness of sentiment is diffused over the whole. 
 
 After a few observations on the secondary species of the opera, 
 the operette and the vaudeville, we shall conclude with a view 
 of the present condition of the French stage with reference to 
 the histrionic art. 
 
 In the serious, heroic, or rather the ideal opera, if we may so 
 express ourselves, we can only mention one poet of the age of 
 Louis XIV. Quinault, who is now little read, but who is de- 
 serving of high praise. Boileau at an early period satirized him 
 as a tragic poet; but he was afterwards highly successful in an- 
 other species, that of the musical drama. Mazarin had introduced 
 into France the taste for the Italian opera; Louis was also desirous 
 of rivalling or surpassing foreign countries in the external magnifi- 
 cence of the drama, in decoration, machinery, music, and dan- 
 cing; they were to be employed in the celebration of the court 
 festivals; and hence Moliere was employed to write gay operas, 
 and Quinault serious operas, for the music of Lulli. I am not 
 sufficiently travelled in the earlier literature of the Italian opera 
 to be able to speak with accuracy, but I suspect that here also 
 Quinault laboured more after Spanish than Italian models; and 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 261 
 
 more particularly, that he derived from the festal dramas of Cal- 
 deron the general form of his operas, and the allegorical allusions 
 which are often to be found in them. It is true, poetical orna- 
 ment is much more sparingly dealt out, as the whole is necessa- 
 rily shortened for the sake of the music, and the very nature of 
 the French language and versification is incompatible with the 
 splendid magnificence, the luxurious fulness, displayed by Calde- 
 ron. But the operas of Quinault are in their easy progress, truly 
 fanciful; and the serious operas, in my opinion, cannot be strip- 
 ped of the charm of the wonderful without becoming at length 
 wearisome. In so far as the definition of his department is 
 concerned, Quinault appears to me to have taken a much better 
 road than that which Metastasio travelled long after him. The lat- 
 ter has admirably provided for the wants of a melodious music 
 solely expressive of feeling; but where does he furnish the least 
 food for the imagination? I am not so sure whether Quinault is 
 justly entitled to praise for sacrificing, in compliance with the 
 taste of his countrymen, everything like comic intermixture. 
 He has been censured for a play on language in the expression 
 of feeling. But is it just to exact the severity of the tragical 
 cothurnus in light works of this description? Why should not 
 Poetry be also allowed her arabesque? No person can be more 
 an enemy to mannerism than 1 am; but we ought first to under- 
 stand the degree of nature and truth which we have a right to 
 expect from each species, and which is alone compatible with it. 
 The verses of Quinault have no other naivete and simplicity 
 than those of the madrigal; and though they occasionally fall 
 into the luscious, at other times they express a languishing ten- 
 derness with sweetness and the softest melody. The opera 
 ought to resemble the enchanted gardens of Armida, of which 
 Quinault says, 
 
 Dans ces lieux enchanUs la volupte" preside. 
 
 We ought only to be awaked out of the voluptuous dreams of 
 feeling to enjoy the magical illusions of fancy. When we once, 
 instead of real men, imagine beings whose only language is song, 
 the gradation is very short to represent to ourselves creatures 
 whose only employment is love; that feeling which hovers be- 
 tween the sensible and intellectual world; and the first invention 
 is rendered natural by means of the second. 
 
 Quinault has had no successors. How far the French operas 
 of the present day are below his both in point of invention and 
 execution! The heroic and tragic have been insisted on in a de- 
 partment where they cannot produce their proper effect. In- 
 stead of handling mythological materials or subjects taken from 
 
262 LECTURES ON 
 
 chivalrous or pastoral romances with fanciful freedom, they have 
 chained themselves down to history in the manner of tragedy, 
 and by means of their heavy seriousness, and the pedantry of 
 their rules, they have so managed matters, that Dulness with 
 leaden sceptre presides over the opera. The deficiences of their 
 music, the unfitness of the French language for composition in a 
 style anything higher than that of the most simple national me- 
 lodies, the unaccented and arbitrary nature of their recitative, 
 the bawling bravura of the singers, we leave to the animadver- 
 sions of musical critics. 
 
 With pretensions a great deal lower the comic opera or Ope- 
 rette approaches much more nearly to perfection. With respect 
 to the composition, it may and indeed ought to assume only a 
 national tone. The transition from song to speech, without any 
 musical accompaniment or heightening, which was censured by 
 Rousseau as an unsuitable mixture of two modes of composition, 
 may be displeasing to the ear; but it has unquestionably pro- 
 duced an advantageous effect on the structure of the pieces. In 
 the recitatives, which are generally not half understood, seldom 
 listened to with any degree of attention, a plot which is even 
 moderately complicated cannot be developed with due clearness. 
 Hence in the Italian opera buffa, the action is altogether ne- 
 glected; and along with its grotesque caricatures, it is distin- 
 guished for uniformity of situation, for want of dramatic progress. 
 But the comic opera of the French, although from the space 
 occupied by the music it is unsusceptible of any solid dramatic 
 developement, is still calculated to produce a considerable stage 
 effect, and speaks in a pleasing manner to the imagination. The 
 poets have not here been prevented by the constraint of rules 
 from following out their theatrical views. Hence these fleeting 
 productions are in no wise deficient in the rapidity, life, and 
 amusement, which are frequently wanting in the more correct 
 dramatic works of the French. The distinguished favour which 
 the operettes of a Favart, a Sedaine and later poets, some of 
 whom are still alive, always meet with in Germany, where for- 
 eign literature has long lost its commanding influence, and where 
 the national taste is decisively declared against French tragedy, 
 is by no means to be placed to the account of the music; it is in 
 reality owing to their poetical merit. To cite only one example 
 out of many, I do not hesitate to declare the whole series of 
 scenes in Raoul Sire de Crequy, where the children of the 
 drunken turnkey set the prisoner at liberty, a master-piece of 
 theatrical painting. How much it were to be wished that the 
 tragedy of the French, and even their comedy in court-dress, 
 had but a little of this truth of circumstance, life, and power of 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 263 
 
 arresting the attention. In several operettes, for instance in a 
 Richard Coeur de Lion and a Nina, the traces of the roman- 
 tic are not to be mistaken. 
 
 The vaudeville is but a variation of the comic opera. The 
 essential difference is that it dispenses with composition, by which 
 the comic opera forms a musical whole, as the songs are set to 
 well-known popular airs. The incessant skipping from the song 
 to the dialogue, often after merely a few scrapes on the violin 
 and a few words, with the accumulation of airs mostly common, 
 but frequently also in a style altogether different from the poetry, 
 drives an ear accustomed to Italian music to despair. If we can 
 once get over this, we shall not unfrequently be richly recom- 
 pensed in comic drollery; even in the choice of a melody, and 
 the allusion to the common text, there is often a display of wit. 
 In earlier times writers of higher pretensions, a Le Sage and a 
 Piron have laboured in the department of the vaudeville, and 
 even for marionnetes. The wits who now dedicate themselves 
 to this species are little known out of Paris, but this gives them 
 no great concern. It not unfrequently happens that several of 
 them join together, that the fruit of their common talents may be 
 brought to light with greater speed. The parody of new theatri- 
 cal pieces, the anecdotes of the day, forming the common subject 
 of talk among all the idlers of the capital, must furnish them with 
 a subject in the enjoyment of which little delay can be brooked. 
 These vaudevilles are like the gnats that buz about in a sum- 
 mer evening; they often sting, but they fly merrily about so 
 long as the sun of opportunity shines upon them. A piece 
 like the Despair of Jocrisse, which, after a lapse of years, 
 may be still given out, passes justly among these ephemeral 
 productions, for a classical work that has gained the crow T n of 
 immortality. We must, however, see it acted by Brunet, whose 
 face is almost a mask, and who is as nearly inexhaustible in the 
 part of the simpleton as Puncinello in his. 
 
 From a consideration of the sportive secondary species, or 
 the mixture of the comic and the affecting, in which authors and 
 spectators give themselves up without reserve to their natural in- 
 clinations, it appears to me evident, that as the foundation of 
 comic wit, with the Italians consists of grotesque mimicry or 
 buffoonery, and with the English of humour, with the French it 
 consists of good natured gaiety. This property is everywhere 
 visible, among the lower orders especially, where it has not been 
 supplanted by the artifice of corruption. 
 
 With respect to the present condition of the dramatic art in 
 France, everything depends on the endeavours to introduce the 
 theatrical liberties of other countries, or species of a mixed de* 
 
264 LECTURES ON 
 
 scription. The hopes of producing anything truly new in the 
 two species which are alone admitted to be regular, of excelling 
 the works already produced, of filling up the old frames in a 
 richer manner, becomes more and more distant every day. A 
 new work seldom obtains a decided approbation; and, even at 
 best, this approbation is only continued till it has been found out 
 that the work is only a new preparation of their old classical pro- 
 ductions. 
 
 We have passed over several things relating to these endeav- 
 ours, that we may at once deliver all the observations which we 
 have to make on the subject. The attacks hitherto made against 
 the French forms of art, first by De la Motte, and afterwards by 
 Diderot and Mercier, have been like voices in the wilderness. 
 It could not be otherwise, as the principles on which these wri- 
 ters proceeded were in reality destructive, not merely of the con- 
 ventional forms, but of all poetical forms whatever, and as none 
 of them showed themselves capable of supporting their doctrine 
 in a suitable manner by their own example. Even when they 
 were in the right they contrived nevertheless, by a false applica- 
 tion, to be in the wrong. 
 
 The most remarkable among them is Diderot, whom Lessing 
 calls the best critic of the French. I should be disposed to affirm, 
 in opposition to this opinion, that he was no critic at all. I will 
 not lay any stress on his mistaking the object of poetry and the 
 fine arts, which he considered to be merely moral: a man may 
 be a critic without being a theorist. But a man cannot be a critic 
 without being thoroughly acquainted with the conditions, means, 
 and styles of an art; and here the nature of the studies and acqui- 
 sitions of Diderot renders him extremely suspicious. This inge- 
 nious sophist deals out his blows with such boisterous haste in the 
 province of criticism, that the half of them are thrown away. 
 The true and the false, the known and the new, the essential 
 and the unimportant, are so mixed up together, that the highest 
 praise we can bestow upon him is, that he was worthy of the 
 task of disentangling them. What he vvished to accomplish had 
 either been already accomplished, though not in France, or did 
 not deserve to be accomplished, or was altogether impracticable. 
 His attack of the dramatic probabilities, of the excessive symme- 
 try of the French versification, declamation, and mode of acting, 
 was just; but he objected at the same time to all theatrical eleva- 
 tion, and refused to allow to the characters anything like a per- 
 fect mode of communication of what was passing within them. 
 He nowhere assigns the reason why he held versification as not 
 suitable, or prose as more suitable, to familiar tragedy; this has 
 been extended by others, and by Lessing, unfortunately, among 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 265 
 
 the rest, to every species of the drama; but the ground for 
 it evidently rests on nothing but the mistaken principles of 
 illusion and nature, to which we have more than once ad- 
 verted.* And when he gives an undue preference to the senti- 
 mental drama and the familiar tragedy, species valuable in them- 
 selves, and susceptible of being treated in a truly poetical man- 
 ner; was not this on account of the application? The main thing, 
 according to him, is not character and situations, but rank of life 
 and family relations, that spectators in similar ranks and relations 
 may lay the example to heart. But this would put an end to 
 everything like true enjoyment in art. Diderot recommended 
 that the composition should have this direction, with the very 
 view which met with the displeasure of the Athenians when 
 Phrynichus, who exhibited a historical tragedy founded on the 
 events of their own times, was subjected on that account to pun- 
 ishment.! The view of a fire by night, from the wonderful 
 effect produced by the combination of flames and darkness, may 
 fill the unconcerned beholder with delight; but when our neigh- 
 bour's house is burning, — -jam proximus ardet Ucalegon — we 
 shall hardly be disposed to consider the affair in such a picturesque 
 light. 
 
 We see clearly that Diderot was induced to take in his sail in 
 the same proportion that he himself made dramatic attempts. 
 He displayed the greatest boldness in an offensive publication of 
 his youth, in which he wished to overturn the whole dramatic 
 system of the French; he was less daring in the dialogues which 
 accompany the Fils Naturel; and he showed the greatest mo- 
 deration in the treatise appended to the Pere de Familie. He 
 carries his hostility a great deal too far with respect to the forms 
 and the object of the dramatic art. But in other respects he has 
 not gone far enough: in his view of the unities of place and time, 
 and the mixture of seriousness and mirth, he has shown himself 
 infected with the prejudices of his nation. 
 
 The two pieces above mentioned, which obtained an unmerit- 
 ed reputation on their first appearance, have long since been pro- 
 perly appreciated. Lessing has already pronounced a severe 
 sentence on the Fils Naturel, without, however, censuring the 
 scandalous plagiarism from Goldoni. But he calls the Pere de 
 Familie an excellent piece, forgetting however to assign any 
 grounds for his opinion. Its defective plot and want of connec- 
 tion have been well exposed by La Harpe. The execution in 
 both pieces displays the utmost mannerism: the characters, who 
 
 * I have stated and refuted them in a treatise on the Relation of the Fine Arts 
 to Nature in the fifth number of the periodical work Prometheus, published by 
 Leo Von Seckendorf. 
 
 f See p. 46. 
 
 34 
 
266 LECTURES ON 
 
 are everything but natural, from their frigid prating about virtue 
 in the most hypocritical style, and the tears which they are per- 
 petually shedding, are altogether intolerable. We Germans may 
 justly say, Hinc illselacrimsel hence the unnecessary tears with 
 which our stage has ever since been overflowed. The custom 
 which has grown up of giving long and circumstantial directions 
 respecting the action, and which we owe also to Diderot, has been 
 of the greatest detriment to dramatic eloquence. In this way the 
 poet gives, as it were, an order on the player, instead of paying out 
 of his own purse.* All good dramatists have uniformly had the ac- 
 tion in some degree present to their minds; but if the actor re- 
 quires instruction on the subject, he will hardly possess the talent of 
 following it up in a suitable manner. The speeches should be so 
 framed that an intelligent actor could hardly fail to give them the 
 proper action. 
 
 It will be admitted, that long before Diderot there were serious 
 family pictures, affecting dramas, and familiar tragedies, much 
 better than any which he was capable of executing. Voltaire, 
 who could never rightly succeed in comedy, gave in his Enfant 
 Prodigue and Nanine a mixture of comic scenes and affecting 
 situations, the latter of which are deserving of high praise. The 
 affecting drama had been before exhibited in France by La 
 Chaussee. All this was in verse: and why not? Of the fami- 
 liar tragedy, with the very same moral direction for which Di- 
 derot contended, there had been several examples in England; 
 and one of them, Beverley, or the Gamester, is translated into 
 French. The period of sentimentality was of some use to the 
 affecting or sentimental drama; but the familiar tragedy was 
 never very successful in France, where they were too much at- 
 tached to brilliancy and pomp. The Melanie of La Harpe (to 
 whom the stage of the present day owes Philoctete, the most 
 faithful imitation of a Grecian piece) abounds with those painful 
 impressions which are the rock that this species may be said to 
 split upon. The piece may be very well adapted to enlighten 
 the conscience of a father who has determined to force his daugh- 
 ter to enter a cloister; but to other spectators it can only be 
 painful. 
 
 Notwithstanding the opposition which Diderot experienced, 
 he has however been the founder of a sort of school of which the 
 most distinguished names are Beaumarchais and Mercier. The 
 former wrote only two pieces in the spirit of his predecessor, 
 Eugenie, and the Criminal Mother; and they display the very 
 
 * I remember to have heard the following direction in a German drama, 
 which is not worse than many others: — "He flashes lightning at him with his 
 eyes {Er blitzt ihn mit den äugen an) and goes off." ' 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 267 
 
 same faults. His acquaintance with Spain and the Spanish thea- 
 tre led him to bring something new on the stage in the way of 
 the piece of intrigue, a species which had long been neglected. 
 These works were more distinguished by witty sallies than by 
 humour of character; but their greatest attraction consisted in the 
 allusions to his own career as an author. The plot of the Bar- 
 ber of Seville is rather trite; the Marriage of Figaro is planned 
 with much more art, but the manners which it portrays are loose; 
 and it is also censurable in a poetical point of view, on account of 
 the number of foreign excrescences with which it abounds. In 
 both of them French characters are exhibited under the disguise 
 of a Spanish costume which is very ill observed.* The extraor- 
 dinary applause which these pieces met with would lead to the 
 conclusion, that the French public do not hold the comedy of 
 Intrigue in such low estimation as is done by the critics: but the 
 means by which Beaumarchais pleased were certainly, in part at 
 least, foreign to art. 
 
 The attempt of Ducis to make his countrymen acquainted with 
 Shakspeare by modelling a few of his tragedies according to the 
 French rules, cannot be accounted an enlargement of their thea- 
 tre. We perceive here and there indeed, the "torn members of 
 the poet;" but the whole is so constrained, disfigured, and, from 
 the simple fulness of the original, tortured and twisted into such 
 miserable intricacy, that even when the language is retained 
 word for word it ceases to convey its genuine meaning. The con- 
 course which these tragedies attract, especially from their afford- 
 ing an unusual room to the inimitable Talma for the display of 
 his art, must be looked upon as no inconsiderable symptom of the 
 dissatisfaction of the people with their old works, and the want 
 of being more powerfully agitated. 
 
 As the Parisian theatres are at present tied down to certain 
 kinds, and as their poetry has here a point of contact with the 
 Government, the numerous mixed and new attempts are for the 
 most part banished to the subordinate theatres. Of these new at- 
 tempts the Melo-dramas constitute a great part. A statistical 
 writer of the theatre informs us, that for a number of years back the 
 new productions in tragedy and regular comedy have been fewest, 
 and that the melo-dramas in number have exceeded all the others 
 put together. They do not mean by melo-drama, as we do, a 
 drama in which the pauses are filled up by monologue with in- 
 strumental music, but where actions in anywise wonderful, adven- 
 
 * The numerous sins of Beaumarchais against the Spanish manners and ob- 
 servances, are pointed out by De la Huerta in the introduction to his Teatra 
 Hispanol- 
 
268 LECTURES ON 
 
 turous, or even sensual, are exhibited in emphatic prose with 
 suitable decorations and dresses. Advantage might be taken of 
 this inclination to furnish a better description of entertainment; 
 for the most of the melo-dramas are unfortunately rude even to 
 insipidity, and resemble abortive attempts at the romantic. 
 
 In the sphere of dramatic literature the labours of a Le Mer- 
 rier are undoubtedly deserving of the critic's attention. This able 
 man endeavours to break through the prescribed limits in every 
 possible way, and is so passionately fond of his art that nothing 
 can deter him from it; although almost every new attempt which 
 he makes converts the pit into a true field of battle.* 
 
 From all this we may infer, that the inclinations of the French 
 public, when they forget the duties imbibed by them from Boi- 
 leau's Art of Poetry, are not altogether so hostile to the dramatic 
 liberties of other nations as might be supposed, and that the old 
 and narrow system is chiefly upheld by a superstitious attachment 
 to traditional opinions. 
 
 The histrionic art, particularly in high comedy and tragedy, 
 has been long carried in France to a great degree of perfection. 
 In external dignity, quickness, correctness of memory, and, in a 
 wonderful degree, of propriety and elegance in the delivery of 
 verse, the best French actors can hardly be surpassed. Their ef- 
 forts to please are incredible; of every moment which they pass 
 on the stage they endeavour to avail themselves as a valuable 
 
 * Since these Lectures were held, such a tumult arose in the theatre at Paris 
 on the representation of his Christopher Columbus, that several of the champions 
 of Boileau came off with bruised and broken shins. They were in the right to 
 fight like desperadoes; for if this piece had succeeded it would have been all 
 over with the consecrated unities and good taste in the separation of the heroic 
 and the low. The first act takes place in the house of Columbus, the second at 
 the court of Isabella, the third and last on shipboard near the new world. The 
 object of the poet was to show, that the man in whom any grand idea originates 
 is everywhere opposed and thwarted by the limited and common-place views 
 of other men; but that the strength of his enthusiasm enables him to overcome 
 all obstacles. In his own house and among his acquaintances Columbus is con- 
 sidered as insane; at court he obtains with difficulty a lukewarm support; in 
 his own vessel a mutiny is on the point of breaking out when the wished for 
 land is discovered, and the piece ends with the exclamation of" Land, land!"— 
 All this is conceived and planned in a very skilful manner; but in the execution 
 there are still many deficiencies. In another piece not yet acted or printed, 
 called La Jcurne'e des Dupes, which I heard the author read, he has painted 
 with historical truth, both in regard to circumstances and the spirit of the age, 
 a well known court cabal against Cardinal Richelieu, which was unsuccessful. 
 It is a political comedy, in which the Rag-gatherer as well as the King express 
 themselves in language suitable to their stations. The poet has, with the greatest 
 ingenuity, shown the manner in which trivial causes assist or impede the execu- 
 tion of a great political design, the dissimulation practised by the persons of the 
 drama towards others, and even towards themselves, and the different tones 
 which they assume according to circumstances; in a word, he has exhibited the 
 whole inward aspect of the political game. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 269 
 
 opportunity. The highly fastidious taste of a Paris pit, and the 
 wholesome severity of the journalists, reduce them, it is true, to 
 the necessity of incessant competition; and the circumstance of 
 such a number of classical works, which for generations have been 
 in the possession of the stage, contributes also greatly to their 
 excellence in their art. As the spectators have these works nearly 
 by heart, their whole attention may be directed to the acting, and 
 every faulty syllable meets in this way with censure. 
 
 In high comedy the social refinement of the nation gives great 
 advantage to their actors. But with respect to tragical composi- 
 tion, the art of the actor should also accommodate itself to the 
 spirit of the poetry. I am inclined to doubt, however, whether 
 this is the case with the French actors, and whether the authors 
 of the tragedies, especially those of the age of Louis XIV. would 
 altogether recognize themselves in the mode in which these com- 
 positions are at present represented. 
 
 The tragical imitation and recitation of the French oscillate be- 
 tween two opposite extremes, the first of which is occasioned by 
 the prevailing tone of the piece, while the second seems rather to 
 be at variance with it, — between measured formality and extra- 
 vagant boisterousness. The first might formerly preponderate, 
 but the balance is now on the other side. 
 
 Let us hear the description of Voltaire of the manner in which 
 Augustus delivered his discourse to Cinna and Maximus in the 
 time of Louis XIV. Augustus entered with the step of a brag- 
 gadocio, his head covered with a four-cornered peruque which 
 hung down to his girdle; the peruque was stuck full of laurel 
 leaves, and above this he wore a large hat with a double row of 
 red feathers. He seated himself on a huge easy chair with two 
 steps, Cinna and Maximus on two small chairs; and the pompous 
 declamation fully corresponded to the ostentatious manner in 
 which he made his appearance. As at that time, and even 
 long afterwards, tragedies were acted in the newest fashioned 
 court dress, with large cravats, swords, and hats, no other move- 
 ments were practicable but such as were allowable in an ante- 
 chamber, or, at most, a slight waving of the hand; and it was 
 even considered a bold theatrical attempt, when, in the last scene 
 of Potyeucte, Severus entered with his hat on his head for the 
 purpose of accusing Felix of treachery, and the latter listened to 
 him with his hat under his arm. 
 
 However, there were even early examples of an extravagance 
 of an opposite description. In the Mariamne of Mairet, an 
 older poet than Corneille, the player who acted Herod roared 
 himself to death. This may indeed be called " out-heroding 
 Herod!" When Voltaire was instructing an actress in some 
 
270 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 tragic part, she said to him, "Were I to play in this manner, Sir, 
 they would say the devil was in me." — " Very right," answered 
 Voltaire, "an actress ought to have the devil in her." This ex- 
 pression proves, at least, no very keen sense for that dignity and 
 sweetness which in an ideal composition, such as the French tra- 
 gedy pretends to be, ought never to be lost sight of even in the 
 wildest whirlwind of passion. 
 
 I found occasionally, even in the action of the very best players 
 of the present day, sudden leaps from the measured solemnity in 
 recitation and gesticulation which the general tone of the com- 
 position required, to a boisterousness of passion absolutely con- 
 vulsive, without any due preparation or softening by interven- 
 ing gradations. They are led to this by a sort of obscure 
 feeling, that the conventional forms of poetry generally impede 
 the movements of nature; when the poet anywhere leaves them 
 at liberty they then indemnify themselves for the former con- 
 straint, and load, as it were, this rare moment of abandonment 
 with the whole amount of life and animation which had been kept 
 back, and which ought to have been equally diffused over the 
 whole. Hence their convulsive and obstreperous violence. In 
 bravura they take care not to be deficient; but they frequently 
 lose sight of the true spirit of the composition. In general, they 
 consider their parts as a sort of mosaic work of brilliant passages 
 (with the single exception of the powerful Talma), and they en- 
 deavour to make the most of each separate passage, independently 
 of the rest, than to go back to the invisible central point of the 
 character, and to consider the whole of the expressions as so many 
 emanations from that point. They are always afraid of under- 
 doing their parts; and hence they are worst qualified for reserved 
 action, for eloquent silence, where, under an appearance of out- 
 ward tranquillity, the most hidden emotions of the mind are be- 
 trayed. However, this is a part which is seldom imposed on 
 them by their poets; and if the cause of the above excessive 
 violence in the expression of passion is not to be found in their 
 works, they at all events occasion the actor to lay greater stress 
 on superficial brilliancy than on a profound knowledge of cha- 
 racter.* 
 
 • See a treatise of M. Von Humboldt the elder, in Goethe's Propyläen on the 
 French acting, equally distinguished for a refined and solid spirit of observa- 
 tion. 
 
( 271 ) 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 Comparison of the English and Spanish theatres — Spirit of the romantic drama 
 —Shakspeare — His age and the circumstances of his life — How far costume 
 is necessary, or may be dispensed with — Shakspeare the greatest drawer of 
 characters — Vindication of the genuineness of his pathos — Play on words — 
 Moral delicacy — Irony — Mixture of the tragic and comic — The part of the 
 fool or clown — Shakspeare's language and versification — Account of his seve- 
 ral works: comedies, tragedies, and historical dramas— Appendix on the 
 pieces of Shakspeare said to be spurious. 
 
 In conformity with the plan which we at first laid down, we 
 shall now proceed to treat of the English and Spanish theatres. — 
 We were compelled in passing to allude cursorily, on various oc- 
 casions, sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other, partly 
 for the sake of placing, by means of contrast, many ideas in a 
 clearer light, and partly on account of the influence which these 
 stages have had on the theatres of other countries. Both the 
 English and Spaniards possess a very rich dramatic literature; 
 both have had a number of fruitful dramatic poets of great talents, 
 among whom even the least admired and celebrated, considered 
 as a whole, display uncommon aptitude for dramatic animation 
 and insight into the essence of theatrical effect. The history of 
 their theatres has no connexion with that of the Italians and 
 French; for it developed itself wholly from the fulness of its own 
 strength without any foreign influence: the attempts to bring it 
 back to an imitation of the ancients, or even of the French, have 
 either been attended with no success, or not been made till a late 
 period in the decay of the drama. The formation of these two 
 stages is equally independent of each other; the Spanish poets 
 were altogether unacquainted with the English; and in the older 
 and most important period of the English theatre I could discover 
 no trace of any knowledge of Spanish plays, (though their novels 
 and romances were certainly known); and it was not till the time 
 of Charles II. that translations from Calderon made their ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 So many things among men have been handed down from 
 century to century and from nation to nation, and the human 
 mind has in general displayed such tardiness of invention, that 
 originality in any department of mental exertion is everywhere 
 a rare phenomenon. We are desirous of seeing the result of the 
 efforts of enterprising heads when they proceed straight forward 
 in invention, without concerning themselves with what has else- 
 
272 LECTURES ON 
 
 where been carried to a high degree of perfection; when they 
 lay the foundation of the new edifice on uncovered ground, and 
 derive all the preparations, all the building materials, from their 
 own means. We participate, in some measure, in the joy of suc- 
 cess, when we see them advance rapidly from their first helpless- 
 ness and necessity to a finished mastery in their art. The history 
 of the Grecian theatre would afford us this cheering prospect could 
 we witness its rudest beginnings, which were not preserved, for 
 they were not even committed to writing; but it is easy, when 
 we compare together iEschylus and Sophocles, to form some idea 
 of the preceding period. The Greeks neither inherited nor bor- 
 rowed their dramatic art from any other people; it was original 
 and native, and for that very reason it could produce a living and 
 powerful effect. But it ended with the period when Greeks 
 imitated Greeks; namely, when the Alexandrian poets began 
 learnedly and critically to compose dramas after the model of the 
 great tragic writers. The reverse of this was the case with the 
 Romans: they received the form and substance of their dramas 
 from the Greeks; they never attempted to act according to their 
 own discretion, and to express their own way of thinking; and 
 hence they occupy so insignificant a place in the history of dra- 
 matic art. Among the nations of modern Europe, the English 
 and Spanish alone, as yet (for the German stage is but forming), 
 possess a theatre entirely original and national, which, in its own 
 peculiar shape, has arrived at maturity. 
 
 Those critics who consider the authority of the ancients as 
 models to be such, that in poetry, as in all the other arts, there 
 can be no salvation beyond the pale of imitation, affirm, that as 
 the nations in question have not followed this course, they have 
 brought nothing but irregular works on the stage, which, though 
 they may possess occasional passages of splendour and beauty, as 
 a whole, must ever be reprobated for barbarousness and want of 
 form. We have already, in the introductory part of these Lec- 
 tures, stated our sentiments in a general manner respecting this 
 way of thinking; but we must now examine the subject somewhat 
 more closely. 
 
 If the assertion were founded, all that distinguishes the works 
 of the greatest English and Spanish dramalists, a Shakspeare and 
 a Calderon, ought to rank them beneath the ancients; they would 
 in no manner be of any importance for the theory, and could at 
 most appear remarkable, on the assumption that the obstinacy of 
 these nations, in refusing to comply with the rules, might have 
 afforded more ample scope to the poets to display their native 
 originality, though at the expense of art. But even this assump- 
 tion will, on a more narrow examination, appear extremely doubt- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 273 
 
 ful. The poetic spirit requires to be limited, that it may move 
 within its range with a becoming liberty, as has been felt by all 
 nations on the first invention of metre; it must act according to 
 laws derivable from its own essence, otherwise its strength will 
 be evaporated in boundless vacuity. 
 
 The works of genius cannot therefore be allowed to be without 
 form; but of this there is no danger. That we may answer this 
 objection of want of form, we must first come to an understand- 
 ing respecting the meaning of form, which most critics, and more 
 especially those who insist on a stiff regularity, understand merely 
 in a mechanical, and not in an organical sense. Form is mechan- 
 ical when, through external influence, it is communicated to any 
 material merely as an accidental addition without reference to its 
 quality; as, for example, when we give a particular shape to a 
 soft mass that it may retain the same after its induration. Or- 
 ganical form, again, is innate; it unfolds itself from within, and 
 acquires its determination along with the complete developement 
 of the germ. We everywhere discover such forms in nature 
 throughout the whole range of living powers, from the crystalli- 
 zation of salts and minerals to plants and flowers, and from them 
 to the human figure. In the fine arts, as well as in the province 
 of nature, the highest artist, all genuine forms are organical, that 
 is, determined by the quality of the work. In a word, the form 
 is nothing but a significant exterior, the speaking physiognomy 
 of each thing, disfigured by no destructive accidents, which gives 
 a true evidence of its hidden essence. 
 
 Hence it is evident that the spirit of poetry, which, though 
 imperishable, wanders as it were through different bodies, so 
 often as it is newly born in the human race, must, from the nu- 
 trimental substance of an altered age, be fashioned into a body 
 of a different conformation. The forms vary with the direction 
 of the poetical sense; and when we give to the new kinds of po- 
 etry the old names, and judge of them according to the ideas 
 conveyed by these names, the application of the authority of 
 classical antiquity which we make is altogether unjustifiable. 
 No one should be tried before a tribunal to which he does not 
 belong. We may safely admit, that the most of the dramatic 
 works of the . English and Spaniards are neither tragedies nor 
 comedies in the sense of the ancients: they are romantic dramas. 
 That the stage of a people who, in its foundation and forma- 
 tion, neither knew nor wished to know anything of foreign 
 models will possess many peculiarities, and not only deviate from, 
 but even exhibit a striking contrast to, the theatres of other nations 
 who had a common model for imitation before their eyes, may 
 be very easily supposed, and we should only be astonished were 
 
 35 
 
274 LECTURES ON 
 
 it otherwise. But when in two nations differing, in a physical, 
 moral, political, and religious respect, so widely as the English 
 and Spanish, the stages which arose at the same time without 
 being known to each other possess, along with external and in- 
 ternal diversities, the most striking features of affinity, the atten- 
 tion of the most thoughtless must be turned to this phenomenon; 
 and the conjecture will naturally occur to him, that the same, or, 
 at least, a kindred principle must have prevailed in the develope- 
 ment of both. This comparison, however, of the English and 
 Spanish theatre, in their common contrast with all the dramatic 
 literature which has grown up from imitation of the ancients, 
 has, so far as we know, never yet been attempted. Could we 
 raise from the dead a countryman contemporary and intelligent 
 admirer of Shakspeare, and another of Calderon, and introduce 
 to their acquaintance the works of the poet to which they were 
 strangers, they would both, without doubt, considering the sub- 
 ject rather from a national than a general point of view, enter 
 with difficulty into the above idea, and have many objections to 
 urge against it. But here, a reconciling criticism* must step in; 
 and this perhaps may be best exercised by a German, w T ho is free 
 from the nationalitiest of either the English or Spaniards, yet 
 friendly from inclination to both, and prevented by no jealousy 
 from acknowledging the greatness which has been exhibited in 
 other countries earlier than his own. 
 
 The similarity of the English and Spanish theatres does not 
 merely consist in the bold neglect of the unities of place and time, 
 and in the mixture of comic and tragic ingredients: that they 
 were unwilling or unable to comply with the rules and with rea- 
 son (which, in the meaning of certain critics, are words of equal 
 signification) may be considered as an evidence of properties of 
 merely a negative description; it lies much deeper, in the inmost 
 substance of the fables, and in the essential relations, through 
 which every deviating form becomes a true requisite that has its 
 signification along with its validity. What they have in common 
 with each other is the spirit of the romantic poetry dramatically 
 pronounced. However, to explain ourselves with due limita- 
 
 * This appropriate expression was, if we mistake not, first used by M. Adam 
 Müller in his Lectures on German Science and Literature. If, however, he gives 
 himself out for the inventor of the thing itself, he is, to use the softest word, in 
 an error. Long before him other Germans had endeavoured to reconcile the 
 contrarieties of taste of different ages and nations, and to pay due homage to 
 all genuine poetry and art. Between good and bad, it is true, no reconcilia- 
 tion is possible. 
 
 j- This word is hardly English ; but were nationalitat to be translated nation- 
 al prejudice, it would be putting stronger language in the author's mouth than 
 he has actually used. — Trajts. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 275 
 
 tion, the Spanish theatre, in our opinion, down to its decline and 
 fall since the commencement of the eighteenth century, is almost 
 altogether romantic; the English is only completely so in Shak- 
 speare, its founder and greatest master: in later poets the roman- 
 tic principle appears more or less degenerated, or is no longer 
 perceivable, although the force introduced by it into the march 
 of dramatic composition has been outwardly pretty well retain- 
 ed. The manner in which the different ways of thinking of 
 two nations, a northern and a southern, have been expressed; 
 the former endowed with a gloomy, the latter with a glowing 
 imagination; the one nation possessed of a scrutinizing seriousness 
 disposed to draw within themselves, the other impelled outwardly 
 by the violence of passion ; this we shall be enabled to explain 
 in the most satisfactory manner at the close of this section, 
 when we come to institute a parallel between Shakspeare and 
 Calderon,.the only two poets who are entitled to be called great. 
 
 Of the origin and essence of the romantic I treated in the first 
 Lecture, and I shall here, therefore, merely mention the subject 
 in a brief manner. The antique art and poetry separate, in a 
 strict manner, things which are dissimilar; the romantic delights 
 in indissoluble mixtures; all contrarieties: nature and art, poetry 
 and prose, seriousness and mirth, recollection and anticipation, 
 spirituality and sensuality, terrestrial and celestial, life and death, 
 are blended together by them in the most intimate manner. As 
 the oldest lawgivers delivered their mandatory instructions and 
 prescriptions in measured melodies; as this is in a fabulous man- 
 ner attributed to Orpheus, the first softener of the yet untamed 
 race of mortals: in like manner the whole of the ancient poetry 
 and art is as it were a rhythmical nomos (law) an harmonious 
 promulgation of the permanently established legislation of a 
 world submitted to a beautiful order, and reflecting in itself the 
 eternal images of things. The romantic poetry again is the ex- 
 pression of the secret attraction to a chaos which is concealed be- 
 neath the regulated creation even in its very bosom, and which is 
 perpetually striving after new and wonderful births; the animat- 
 ing spirit of original love hovers here anew above the waters. 
 The former is more simple, clear, and like to nature in the self- 
 existent perfection of her separate works; the latter, notwith- 
 standing its fragment-like appearance, approaches more to the 
 secret of the universe. For the conception can only circumscribe 
 each thing separately, but nothing can ever in truth exist sepa- 
 rately; feeling perceives all in all at one and the same time. 
 
 Respecting the poetical species with which we are here occupied, 
 we compared the antique tragedy to a group in sculpture: the 
 figures correspond to the characters, their grouping to the action, 
 
276 LECTURES ON 
 
 and to these the consideration in both productions of art as exclu- 
 sively directed as the only object exhibited. But the romantic 
 drama must be viewed as a large picture, where not merely figure 
 and motion are exhibited in richer groups, but where even what 
 surrounds the persons is also portrayed; where we see not merely 
 the nearest objects, but are allowed the prospect of a considerable 
 distance, and all this under a magical light, which assists in giv- 
 ing to the impression that particular determination which may be 
 wanted. 
 
 Such a picture must be bounded in a less perfect manner than 
 the group; for it is like a fragment cut out of the optic scene 
 of the world. However the painter, by enclosing his foreground, 
 by throwing the whole of his light and other means of giving 
 due stability to the view towards the middle, will know that he 
 must neither wander beyond the composition, nor omit anything 
 within it. 
 
 In the representation of the figure, painting cannot compete 
 with sculpture, while the former only exhibits it by a deception 
 and from a single point of view; but, on the other hand, it com- 
 municates more life to its imitations, by colours which are made 
 to express the finest gradations of mental expression in the coun- 
 tenance. The look which can be given only in a very imper- 
 fect manner by sculpture enables us in painting to read much 
 deeper in the mind, and to perceive its lightest movements. Its 
 peculiar charm, in short, consists in this, that it enables us to 
 see in bodily objects what is least corporeal, namely, light and 
 air. 
 
 The very same description of beauties are peculiar to the ro- 
 mantic drama. It does not, like the old tragedy, separate seri- 
 ousness and the action in a rigid manner from among the ingre- 
 dients of life; it embraces at once the whole of the checkered 
 drama with all its circumstances; and while it seems only to re- 
 present subjects brought accidentally together, it satisfies the in- 
 definite demands of fancy, buries us in reflections on the inex- 
 pressible signification of the objects which we view blended by 
 distribution, proximity and distance, light and colouring, into 
 one harmonious whole; and thus lends, as it were, a soul to the 
 prospect before us. 
 
 The alteration of times and places, supposing its influence on 
 the mind to be included in the picture, and that it comes to the 
 aid of the theatrical perspective with reference to what is indi- 
 cated in the distance or half-concealed by the objects under which 
 it is covered; the contrast of mirth and seriousness, supposing 
 that in degree and kind they bear a relation to each other; 
 finally, the mixture of dialogical and lyrical ingredients, by which 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 277 
 
 the poet is enabled to transform, in a greater or less degree, his 
 characters into poetical natures: these, in my opinion, are not 
 mere licenses but true beauties in the romantic drama. In all 
 these points, and in many others besides, we shall find the English 
 and Spanish works, which are particularly deserving of that 
 name, fully alike to each other, however different they may be 
 in other respects. 
 
 We proceed first to the English theatre, as it more early arriv- 
 ed at maturity than the Spanish. In both we must occupy our- 
 selves more particularly with Shakspeare and Calderon, but in an 
 inverted order. Shakspeare may be considered as the first of the 
 English; any remarks on the earlier or contemporary antiquities 
 of the English stage may be made in a review of its history. But 
 Calderon had many predecessors; he is at once the summit and 
 almost the conclusion of the dramatic art among the Spaniards. 
 
 While I wish to speak with that brevity which the nature of 
 my subject requires of a poet in the study of whom I have em- 
 ployed many years of my life, I find myself in no small de- 
 gree of embarrassment. I know not where to begin; fori should 
 never be able to end, were I to say all that I have felt and 
 thought on the perusal of his works. A more than ordinary in- 
 timacy with a poet prevents us, perhaps, from placing ourselves 
 in the situation of those who sit down to him for the first time: 
 we are too familiar with his most striking peculiarities, to be able 
 to pronounce upon the first impression which they are calculated 
 to make on others. On the other hand we ought to possess, and 
 to have the power of communicating, more correct ideas of his 
 mode of procedure, of his concealed or less obvious views, and of 
 the meaning and import of his united efforts, than others whose 
 acquaintance with him is more limited. 
 
 Shakspeare is the pride of his nation. A late poet has, with 
 propriety, called him the genius of the British isles. He was the 
 idol of his contemporaries; and after the interval of puritanical 
 fanaticism, which commenced in a succeeding age, and put an end 
 to everything like liberal knowledge ; after the reign of Charles the 
 Second, during which his works were either not acted, or very 
 much disfigured, his fame began to revive with more than its 
 original brightness towards the beginning of the last century; and 
 since that period it has increased with the progress of time; and for 
 centuries to come, I speak with the greatest confidence, it will 
 continue to gather strength, like an Alpine avalanche, at every 
 period of its descent. As an important earnest of the future ex- 
 tension of his fame, we may allude to the enthusiasm with which 
 he was naturalized in Germany, the moment that he was known. 
 The language, and the impossibility of translating him with fidel- 
 
278 LECTURES ON 
 
 ity, will be for ever, perhaps, an invincible obstacle to his gene- 
 ral diffusion in the South of Europe.* In England, the greatest 
 actors vie with each other in the characters of Shakspeare; the 
 printers in splendid editions of his works; and the painters in 
 transferring his scenes to the canvass. Like Dante, Shakspeare 
 has received the indispensable but cumbersome honour of being 
 treated like a classical author of antiquity. The oldest editions 
 have been carefully collated, and where the readings seem cor- 
 rupted many improvements have been attempted; and the whole 
 literature of his age has been drawn forth from the oblivion to 
 which it had been consigned, for the sake of explaining the phrases, 
 and illustrating the allusions, of Shakspeare. Commentators 
 have succeeded one another in such numbers, that their labours, 
 with the critical controversies to which they have given rise, con- 
 stitute of themselves a library of no inconsiderable magnitude. 
 These labours are deserving of our praise and gratitude ; and more 
 especially the historical inquiries into the sources from which 
 Shakspeare drew his materials, and into the former state of the 
 English stage. But with respect to the criticisms which are 
 merely of a philological nature, I am frequently compelled to differ 
 from the commentators; and where they consider him merely as 
 a poet, endeavour to pronounce upon his merits, and to enter into 
 his views, I must separate myself from them entirely. I have 
 hardly ever found either truth or profundity in their observations; 
 and these critics seem to be but stammering interpreters of the 
 general and almost idolatrous admiration of his countrymen. 
 There may be people in England, who entertain the same views 
 with themselves; and we know that a satirical poet has repre- 
 sented Shakspeare, with reference to his commentators, as Actaeon 
 devoured by his own dogs ; and, following up the story of Ovid, 
 exhibited a female that had written on the great poet under the 
 figure of the snarling Lycisca. 
 
 We shall endeavour, in the first place, to remove some of the 
 false views which have been adopted, that we may clear the way 
 for our pure admiration, and be enabled to offer it without any 
 hesitation or reserve. 
 
 From all the accounts which have come down to us, we learn 
 that the contemporaries of Shakspeare knew well what they pos- 
 sessed in him; and that they felt and understood him better than 
 they did the most of those who succeeded him. In those days a 
 work was generally ushered into the world with recommendatory 
 
 * This impossibility extends also to France; for it must not be supposed that 
 a literal translation can ever be a faithful one. Mrs. Montague has sufficiently- 
 shown how wretchedly Voltaire translated some passages of Hamlet, and the 
 first acts of Julius Cxsar, into rhymeless Alexandrines. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 279 
 
 verses; and one of the productions of this nature, in an early edi- 
 tion of Shakspeare, by an unknown author, contains some of the 
 most beautiful and happy lines that ever were applied to any 
 poet.* An idea, however, soon became prevalent that Shak- 
 speare was a rude and wild genius, who poured forth at random 
 and without aim or object his unconnected compositions. Ben 
 Jonson, a younger contemporary and rival of Shakspeare, who 
 laboured in the sweat of his brow, but with no great success, to 
 form the English stage on the model of the ancients, was of opi- 
 nion that he did not blot enough, and because he did not pos- 
 sess much school-learning, that he owed more to nature than to 
 art. The learned, and sometimes rather pedantic, Milton was also 
 of this opinion, when he says, 
 
 Our sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child, 
 Warbles his native wood-notes wild. 
 
 Yet it is highly honourable to Milton, that the sweetness of 
 Shakspeare, the quality which of all others'has been least allowed, 
 was felt and acknowledged by him. The modern editors, both 
 in their prefaces, which may be considered as so many rhetorical 
 exercises in praise of the poet, and in their separate observations, 
 go still a great deal farther. They not only admit the irregularity 
 of his pieces, according to principles which are not applicable to 
 them, but they accuse him of bombast, of a confused, ungrammati- 
 cal, and conceited mode of writing, and even of the most contempti- 
 ble buffoonery. Pope asserts, that he wrote both better and 
 worse than any other man. All the scenes and passages which 
 did not suit the littleness of his taste he wished to place to the 
 account of interpolating players; and he was in the right road, 
 had his opinion been taken, of mangling Shakspeare in a most 
 disgraceful manner. We are not therefore to be astonished if 
 foreigners, with the exception of Germans of latter times, have, 
 from ignorance, improved upon these opinions. t Theyjfspeak 
 of Shakspeare's plays as monstrous productions, which could only 
 have been given to the world by a disordered imagination in a 
 barbarous age; and Voltaire crowns the whole with more than 
 usual assurance, when he observes that Hamlet, the profound 
 
 * It begins with the words: A mind reflecting ages past, and is subscribed, 
 I. M. S. 
 
 f Lessing was the first to speak of Shakspeare in a becoming 1 tone; but he 
 said unfortunately a great deal too little of him, as in the time when he wrote 
 the Dramaturgie this poet had not yet appeared on our age. Since that time 
 he has been more particularly noticed by Herder in the Blattern von deutscher 
 Art und Kunst; Goethe, in Wilhelm Meister,- and Tieck, in Letters on Shak- 
 speare {Poetisches Journal, 1800), which break off, however, almost at the 
 commencement. 
 
280 LECTURES ON 
 
 master-piece of the philosophical poet, " appears the work of a 
 drunken savage." That foreigners, and Frenchmen in particular, 
 who frequently speak in the most strange language of antiquity 
 and the middle ages, as if cannibalism had first been put an end 
 to in Europe by Louis XIV. should entertain this opinion ol 
 Shakspeare, might be pardonable; but that Englishmen should 
 adopt such calumniation of that glorious epoch of their history, 
 in which the foundation of their greatness was laid,* is to me in- 
 comprehensible. Shakspeare flourished and wrote in the last 
 half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the first half of that of 
 James I.; and consequently under monarchs who were learned 
 themselves, and held literature in honour. The policy of mo- 
 dern Europe, by which the relations of its different states have 
 been so variously interwoven, commenced a century before. 
 The cause of the protestants was decided by the accession of 
 Elizabeth to the throne; and the attachment to the ancient belief 
 cannot therefore be urged as a proof of the prevailing darkness. 
 Such was the zeal for the study of the ancients, that even court 
 ladies, and the Queen herself, were intimately acquainted with 
 Latin and Greek, and could speak the former with fluency; a 
 degree of knowledge which we should in vain seek for in the 
 European courts of the present day. The trade and navigation 
 of the English, which they carried on with all the four quarters 
 of the world, made them acquainted with the customs and men- 
 tal productions of other nations; and it would appear that they 
 were then more indulgent to foreign manners than they are in 
 the present day. Italy had already produced nearly all for which 
 her literature is distinguished; and translations were diligently, 
 and even successfully, executed in verse from the Italians. They 
 were not unacquainted with the Spanish literature, for it is certain 
 that Bon Quixote was read in England soon after its first ap- 
 pearance. Bacon, the founder of modern experimental philoso- 
 phy, and of whom it may be said, that he carried in his pocket 
 all that merits the name of philosophy in the eighteenth century, 
 was a contemporary of Shakspeare. His fame, as a writer, did 
 
 • The English work with which foreigners of every country are perhaps best 
 acquainted is Hume's History; and there we have a most unjustifiable account 
 both of Shakspeare and his age. " Born in a rude age, and educated in the low- 
 est manner, without any instruction either from the world or from books." How 
 could a man of Hume's acuteness suppose for a moment that a poet, whose 
 characters display such an intimate acquaintance with life, who, as an actor and 
 manager of a theatre, must have come in contact with all descriptions of indi- 
 viduals, had no instruction from the world? But this is not the worst; he goes 
 even so far as to say, "a reasonable propriety of thought he cannot for 
 any time uphold." This is nearly as offensive as Voltaire's ** drunken sa- 
 vage." — Trans. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 281 
 
 not indeed burst forth till after his death; but what a number of 
 ideas must have been in circulation before such an author could 
 arise! Many branches of human knowledge have, since that 
 time, been cultivated to a greater extent, but merely those 
 branches which are totally unproductive to poetry: chemistry, 
 mechanics, manufactures, and rural and political economy, will 
 never enable a man to become a poet. I have elsewhere* exam- 
 ined into the pretensions of modern cultivation, as it is called, 
 which looks down with such contempt on all preceding ages; I 
 have shown that it is all little, superficial, and unsubstantial at 
 bottom. The pride of what has been called the present maturi- 
 ty of human reason has come to a miserable end; and the struc- 
 tures erected by those pedagogues of the human race have fallen 
 to pieces like the baby-houses of children. 
 
 The tone of society at present compels us to remark, that there 
 is a wide difference between cultivation and what is called polish. 
 That artificial polish which puts an end to everything like origi- 
 nal communication, and subjects all intercourse to the insipid uni- 
 formity of certain rules, was undoubtedly unknown in the age of 
 Shakspeare, as it is still in a great measure in England in the 
 present day. They possessed the consciousness of healthful en- 
 ergy, which always expressed itself boldly, though often petu- 
 lantly. The spirit of chivalry was not yet extinguished; and a 
 Queen who required the observance of much more regard for her 
 sex than for her dignity, and who, from her determination, wis- 
 dom, and magnanimity, was, in fact, well qualified to infuse an 
 ardent enthusiasm into the minds of her subjects, inflamed that 
 spirit, to the most noble love of glory and renown. Remains of 
 the feudal independence were also still in existence; the nobility 
 vied with each other in splendour of dress and number of retinue, 
 and every great lord had a sort of small court of his own. The dis- 
 tinction of ranks was yet strongly marked; and this is what is most 
 to be wished for by the dramatic poet. In discourse they were de- 
 lighted with quick and unexpected answers; and the witty sally 
 passed rapidly like a ball from mouth to mouth, till it could no 
 longer be kept up. This, and the excessive extent to which a 
 play on words was carried (for which king James himself had 
 a great fondness, so that we need not wonder at the uni- 
 versality of the mode), may be considered in the light of bad 
 taste; but to take it for a symptom of rudeness and barbarity, is 
 not less absurd than to infer the poverty of a people from their 
 luxurious extravagance. These strained repartees frequently 
 occur in Shakspeare, with the view of painting the actual tone of 
 
 * In my Lectures on the Spirit of the Age. 
 36 
 
282 LECTURES ON 
 
 the society of his day; it does not follow, however, that they 
 met with his approbation, but, on the contrary, it appears that he 
 held them in derision. Hamlet says, in the scene with the Grave- 
 digger, "By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken 
 note of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the pea- 
 sant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe." 
 And Lorenzo, in the Merchant of Venice, alluding to Launce- 
 lot:— 
 
 O dear discretion, how his words are suited! 
 The fool hath planted in his memory 
 An army of good words: and I do know 
 A many fools, that stand in better place, 
 Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word 
 Defy the matter. 
 
 Besides, Shakspeare, in a thousand places, lays an uncommonly 
 great stress on the correct and refined tone of good company, 
 and warns against every deviation from it either through boor- 
 ishness or affected foppery; he not only gives the most admira- 
 ble lectures on the subject, but he represents it in all its gradations 
 in every rank, age, and sex. — What foundation is there, then, 
 for the alleged barbarity of that age? Its indecency? But if 
 this is to be admitted as a test, then the age of Pericles and Au- 
 gustus must also be described as rude and uncultivated; for 
 Aristophanes and Horace, who both were considered as models 
 of urbanity, display at times the coarsest indelicacy. The diver- 
 sity in the moral feeling of nations on this subject depends on 
 other causes. It is true that Shakspeare sometimes introduces 
 us to improper company; at other times he suffers ambiguous 
 expressions to be used in the presence of women and even by 
 women themselves. This species of petulance was probably not 
 then unusual. He certainly did not do so to please the multitude, 
 for in many of his pieces there is not the slightest trace of any- 
 thing of this sort to be found; and what virgin tenderness does 
 he not preserve throughout many of his female characters ! When 
 we see the liberties taken by other dramatic poets in England in 
 his time, and even much later, we must account him compara- 
 tively chaste and moral. Neither must we overlook certain cir- 
 cumstances in the then state of the theatre. The female parts 
 were not acted by women, but by boys; and no person of the 
 fair sex appeared in the theatre without a mask. Under such a 
 carnival disguise, much might, be heard by them, and much might 
 be ventured to be said in their presence, which, in other circum- 
 stances, would have been quite unsuitable. It is certainly to be 
 wished that decency should be observed on all public occasions, 
 and consequently also on the stage; but even in this it is possible 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 283 
 
 to go too far. That censorious spirit, which scents out impurity 
 in every sally of a bold and vivacious description, is at best but 
 an ambiguous criterion of purity of morals; and there is frequent- 
 ly concealed under this hypocrisy the consciousness of an impure 
 imagination. The determination to tolerate nothing which has 
 the least reference to the sensual relation between the two sexes 
 may be carried to a pitch extremely oppressive to a dramatic poet, 
 and injurious to the boldness and freedom of his composition. If 
 considerations of such a nature were to be attended to, many of 
 the happiest parts of the plays of Shakspeare, for example, in 
 Measure for Measure, and AWs Well that Ends Well, which 
 are handled with a due regard to decency, must be set aside for 
 their impropriety. 
 
 Had no other monument of the age of Elizabeth come down to 
 us than the works of Shakspeare, I should, from them alone, have 
 formed the most advantageous idea of its state of social cultiva- 
 tion. Those who look through such strange spectacles as to find 
 nothing in them but rudeness and barbarity, when they cannot 
 deny what I have just now advanced, have no other resource for 
 themselves but to say, " What has Shakspeare to do with the cul- 
 tivation of his age? He had no share in it. Born in a low situa- 
 tion, ignorant and uneducated, he passed his life in low society, 
 and laboured for bread to please a vulgar audience, without ever 
 dreaming of fame or posterity." 
 
 In all this there is not a single word of truth, though it has 
 been repeated a thousand times. We know, it is true, very little 
 of the life of the poet; and what we do know, for the most part, 
 consists of raked up anecdotes of a very suspicious nature, nearly 
 of such a description as those which are told at inns to inquisitive 
 strangers, who wish to know something of a celebrated man in 
 the place where he lives. The first actual document which ena- 
 bled us to have a peep into his family concerns was the discovery 
 of his will. It betrayed an extraordinary deficiency of critical 
 acumen in the commentators of Shakspeare, that none of them, 
 as far as we know, have ever thought of availing themselves of 
 his sonnets for tracing the circumstances of his life. These son- 
 nets paint most unequivocally the actual situation and sentiments 
 of the poet; they enable us to become acquainted with the passions 
 of the man; they even contain the most remarkable confessions 
 of his youthful errors. Shakspeare's father was a man of property, 
 whose ancestors had held the office of magistrate in Stratford, and 
 in a diploma from the Herald's Office, for the renewal or con- 
 firmation of his coat of arms, he is styled Gentleman. Our poet, 
 the oldest of four children, could not, it is true, receive an aca- 
 demical education, as he married when hardly eighteen, probably 
 
284 LECTURES ON 
 
 in consequence of family arrangements. In this private way of 
 life he continued but a very few years; and he was either enticed 
 to London from the wearisomeness of his situation, or banished 
 from home, as it is said, in consequence of his irregularities. He 
 there resorted to the situation of player, which he considered at 
 first as a degradation, principally because he was seduced by the 
 example of his comrades to participate in their wild and irregular 
 manner of life.* It is extremely probable, that by the poetical 
 fame which he acquired in the progress of his career, he was the 
 principal means of ennobling the stage, and bringing the situation 
 of a player into better repute. Even at a very early age he en- 
 deavoured to distinguish himself as a poet in other walks than 
 those of the stage, as is proved by his juvenile poems of Jldonis 
 and Lucrece. He afterwards obtained the situation of joint pro- 
 prietor and manager of the theatre for which he laboured. That 
 he was not admitted to the society of persons of distinction is 
 altogether incredible; besides many others, he found in the Earl 
 of Southampton, the friend of the unfortunate Essex, a most liberal 
 and kind patron. His pieces were not merely the delight of the 
 million, but in great favour at court: the two monarchs under 
 whose reigns he wrote were, according to the testimony of a con- 
 temporary, altogether taken with him.t They were acted at 
 court; and Elizabeth appears herself to have given occasion to 
 the writing of more than one of them for the celebration of her 
 court festivals. It is known that King James honoured Shak- 
 speare so far as to write to him with his own hand. All this looks 
 very unlike either contempt or banishment into the obscurity of a 
 low circle. Shakspeare acquired by his activity as a poet, player, 
 and stage-manager, a considerable property, which he enjoyed in 
 his native spot, in retirement and in the society of a beloved 
 daughter, in the last years of his too short life. Immediately after 
 his death a monument was erected over his grave, which may be 
 considered sumptuous for those times. 
 
 * In one of his sonnets he says: — 
 
 O, for my sake do you with fortune chide, 
 
 The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds, 
 That did not better for my life provide, 
 
 Than public means which public manners breeds- 
 
 And in the following: — 
 
 Your love and pity doth the impression fill, ' 
 Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow. 
 
 f Ben Jonson: — 
 
 And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, 
 That so did take Eliza and our James! 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 285 
 
 Amidst such brilliant success, and with such distinguished proofs 
 of respect and honour from his contemporaries, it would be sin- 
 gular indeed, if Shakspeare, notwithstanding the modesty of a 
 great mind, which he certainly possessed in a peculiar degree, 
 should never have dreamed of posthumous fame. As a profound 
 thinker he had pretty accurately taken the measure of the circle 
 of human capabilities, and he could say to himself with confidence, 
 that many of his productions would not easily be surpassed. 
 What foundation then is there for the contrary assertion, which 
 would degrade the immortal artist to the situation of a daily la- 
 bourer for a rude multitude? Merely this, that he himself pub- 
 lished no edition of his whole works. We do not reflect, that a 
 poet, always accustomed to labour immediately for the stage, who 
 has often enjoyed the triumph of overpowering assembled crowds 
 of spectators, and drawing from them the most tumultuous ap- 
 plause, who is not dependent on the caprice of vitiated stage di- 
 rectors, but left to his own discretion in the selection of a proper 
 mode of theatrical composition, cares naturally much less for the 
 closet of the solitary reader. In the first formation of a national 
 stage, more especially, we find frequent examples of such ne- 
 gligence. Of the almost innumerable pieces of Lope de Vega, 
 many undoubtedly never were printed, and are thereby lost; and 
 Cervantes did not print his earlier dramas, though he certainly 
 boasts of them as meritorious works. As Shakspeare, on his re- 
 tiring from the'theatre, left his manuscripts behind with his fellow 
 managers, he might rely on theatrical tradition for handing them 
 down to posterity, which w r ould indeed have been sufficient for 
 that purpose, if the closing of the theatres, under the oppression 
 of the puritans, had not interrupted the natural order of things. 
 We know, besides, that the poets used then to sell the exclusive 
 possession of their pieces to a theatre:* it is therefore not impro- 
 bable that the right of property in his unprinted pieces was no 
 longer vested in Shakspeare, or had not at least yet reverted to 
 him. His fellow managers entered on the publication seven 
 years after his death (which probably surprised him in the in- 
 tention) as it would appear on their own account, and for their 
 own advantage. 
 
 The ignorance or learning of our poet has been the subject of 
 endless controversy, and yet it is a matter of the easiest determi- 
 nation. Shakspeare was poor in dead learning but he possessed 
 a fulness of living and applicable knowledge. He knew Latin, 
 and even something of Greek, though not, probably, enough to read 
 
 * This is still perhaps not uncommon in some countries. The Venetian 
 Director Medebach, for whose company many of Goldoni's comedies were com- 
 posed, claimed an exclusive right to their property. — Traxs. 
 
286 LECTURES ON 
 
 the writers with ease in the original language. Of the modern 
 languages, the French and Italian, he had also but a superficial 
 acquaintance. The general direction of his inclination was not 
 towards the collection of words but of facts. He had a very ex- 
 tensive acquaintance with English books, original and translated: 
 we may safely affirm, that he had read all that his language then 
 contained which could be of any use to him in any of his poetical 
 objects. He was sufficiently intimate with mythology to em- 
 ploy it in the only manner he wished, as a symbolical orna- 
 ment. He had formed the most correct notions of the spirit 
 of ancient history and more particuliarly ofthat of the Romans; 
 and the history of his own country was familiar to him even in 
 detail. Fortunately for him it had not yet been treated in a 
 diplomatic and pragmatical, but merely in the chronicle style; 
 that is, it had not yet assumed the appearance of dry investigations 
 respecting the developement of political relations, diplomatical 
 transactions, finances, &c. but exhibited a visible image of the 
 living and moving of an age full of distinguished deeds. Shak- 
 speare was an attentive observer of nature; he knew the technical 
 language of mechanics and artisans; he seems to have been well 
 travelled in the interior of England, and to have been a diligent 
 inquirer of navigators respecting other countries; and he was 
 most accurately acquainted with all the popular usages, opinions, 
 and traditions which could be of use in poetry. 
 
 The proofs of his ignorance, on which the greatest stress is 
 laid, are a few geographical blunders and anachronisms. Because 
 in a comedy founded on a tale, he makes ships land in Bohemia, 
 he has been the subject of laughter. But I conceive we should 
 be very unjust towards him, were we to conclude that he did 
 not, as well as ourselves, possess the valuable but by no means 
 difficult knowledge that Bohemia is no where bounded by the 
 sea. He could never, in that case, have looked into a map of 
 Germany, whereas he describes the maps of both Indies with the 
 discoveries of the latest navigators.* In such matters Shakspeare 
 is only faithful in the historical subjects of his own country. In 
 the novels on which he worked, he avoided disturbing his audience 
 to whom they were known, by the correction of errors in secon- 
 dary things. The more wonderful the story, the more it ranged 
 in a purely poetical region, which he transfers at will to an indefi- 
 nite distance. These plays, whatever names they bear, took 
 (place in the true land of romance and in the century of wonderful 
 love stories. He knew well that in the forest of Ardennes, there 
 were neither the lions and serpents of the torrid zone, nor the 
 
 * Twelfth Night, or What You Will— Act. iü. Sc. ii. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 287 
 
 shepherdesses of Arcadia: but he transferred both to it,* because 
 the design and import of his picture required them. Here he 
 considered himself entitled to the greatest liberties. He had not 
 to do with a petty hypercritical age like ours, which is always 
 seeking in poetry for something else than poetry; his audience 
 entered the theatre, not to learn true chronology, geography, na- 
 tural history, but to witness a vivid exhibition. I undertake to 
 prove that Shakspeare's anachronisms are, for the most part, com- 
 mitted purposely, and after great consideration. It was fre- 
 quently of importance to him to bring the subject exhibited, from 
 the back ground of time, quite near to us. Hence in Hamlet, 
 though avowedly an old northern story, there prevails the tone 
 of modish society, and in every respect the costume of the most 
 recent period. Without those circumstantialities it would not 
 have been allowable to make a philosophical inquirer of Hamlet, 
 on which however the sense of the whole is made to rest. On 
 that account he mentions his education at a university, though in 
 the age of the historical Hamlet there was not yet any university. 
 He makes him study at Wittenberg, and no selection could be 
 more suitable. The name was very popular: from the story of 
 Dr. Faustus, of Wittenberg it was wonderfully well known ; it was 
 of particular celebrity in protestant England, as Luther had taught 
 and written there shortly before, and the very name must have 
 immediately suggested the idea of freedom in thinking. I can- 
 not even consider it an anachronism that Richard the Third 
 should speak of Macchiavel. The word is here used altogether 
 proverbially: the contents of the book of the prince have been 
 in existence even since the existence of tyrants; Macchiavel was 
 merely the first to commit them to writing. 
 
 That Shakspeare has accurately hit the essential costume, name- 
 ly, the spirit of ages and nations, is at least generally acknow- 
 ledged by the English critics; but many sins against the external 
 costume may be easity remarked. Here we must bear in mind 
 that the Roman pieces were acted upon the stage of that day in 
 the European dress. This was, it is true, still beautiful and 
 noble, not so silly and tasteless as it became towards the end of 
 the seventeenth century. Brutus and Cassius appeared in the 
 Spanish cloak; they wore, quite contrary to the Roman custom, 
 the sword by their side in time of peace, and drew it, according 
 to the testimony of an eye-witnesst in the dialogue where Brutus 
 stimulates Cassius to the conspiracy, as if involuntarily, half out 
 
 * As You Like It. 
 
 f In one of the commendatory poems in the first folio edition: 
 
 And on the stage at half sword parley were 
 
 Brutus and Cassius. 
 
288 LECTURES ON 
 
 of the sheath. This will in no wise answer our way of think- 
 ing: we are not contented without the Toga. The present may 
 not be an unsuitable place for delivering a general observation 
 respecting costume, considered with reference to art. It has 
 never been more accurately observed than in the present day; 
 art has become a pedantic antiquity slop-shop. This is because 
 we live in a learned and critical, but by no means poetical age. 
 The ancients used to represent the religions of other nations, 
 which deviated very much from their own, according to the Greek 
 mythology. In sculpture the same dress, namely, the Phrygian, 
 was adopted, once for all, for every barbaric tribe. Not that they 
 did not know that there were as many different dresses as nations; 
 but in art they merely wished to acknowledge the great contrast be- 
 tween barbarian and cultivated: and this appeared to them to be 
 rendered most advantageously visible in the Phrygian clothing. 
 The more early Christian painters represent the Saviour, the 
 Virgin Mary, the Patriarchs, and Apostles in an ideal dress; but 
 the subordinate actors or spectators of the action, in the dresses of 
 their own nation and age. Here they were guided by a correct 
 feeling: the mysteriously sacred ought to be kept in an awe-in- 
 spiring distance, but the human can only be properly understood 
 when seen with the usual accompaniments. In the middle ages 
 all heroical stories of antiquity, from Theseus and Achilles down 
 to Alexander, were metamorphosed into true books of chivalry. 
 What was related to themselves alone spoke an intelligible lan- 
 guage to them; of differences and distinctions they did not wish 
 to know. In an old manuscript of the Trojan war, I saw a 
 miniature picture representing the funeral procession of Hector, 
 where the coffin, hung with noble coats of arms, is carried into a 
 Gothic church. It is easy to make ourselves merry with this 
 piece of simplicity, but a reflecting mind will view the subject 
 in a very different light. A powerful consciousness of the 
 universal prevalency and the solid consistency of their manner 
 of being, an undoubted conviction that it has always so been and 
 will continue so to be in the world: these feelings of our ances- 
 tors were symptoms of the fresh fulness of life; they were the 
 marrow of action in real life as well as in poetry. Their plain 
 and affectionate attachment to everything around them, handed 
 down from their fathers, is by no means to be confounded with 
 the obstreperous vanity of ages of mannerism, which vainly in- 
 troduce the fleeting modes and fashion of the day into art, because 
 everything like a noble simplicity, seems to them boorish and 
 rude. This last impropriety is now abolished: our poets and 
 artists must, like servants, wear the livery of distant centuries 
 and foreign nations if they would hope for our approbation. We 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 289 
 
 are everywhere at home, except at home. We do ourselves the 
 justice to allow that the present mode of dressing, forms of polite- 
 ness, &c. are altogether unpoetical, and art is therefore obliged to 
 beg, as an alms, a poetical costume from the antiquaries. To 
 that simple way of thinking, which is merely attentive to the 
 inward truth of the composition without stumbling at anachron- 
 isms, or other external inconsistencies, we cannot, alas! now re- 
 turn; but we must envy the poets to whom they occurred; they 
 allowed them a great breadth and freedom in the handling of their 
 subjects. 
 
 Many things in Shakspeare must be judged of according to 
 the above principles, respecting the essential and the merely 
 learned costume; and they will also admit of an application to 
 Calderon. 
 
 So much with respect to the spirit of the age in which Shak- 
 speare lived, and his peculiar cultivation and knowledge. To me 
 he appears a profound artist, and not a blind and wildly luxuriant 
 genius. I consider, generally speaking, all that has been said on 
 this subject as a mere fabulous story, a blind and extravagant er- 
 ror. In other arts the assertion refutes itself; for in them ac- 
 quired knowledge is an indispensable condition before anything 
 can be performed. But even in such poets, as are usually given 
 out for careless pupils of nature, without any art or school disci- 
 pline, I have always found, on a nearer consideration, when they 
 have really produced works of excellence, a distinguished culti- 
 vation of the mental powers, practice in art, and views worthy in 
 themselves and maturely considered. This applies to Homer as 
 well as Dante. The activity of genius is, it is true, natural to it, 
 and in a certain sense unconscious; and consequently the person 
 who possesses it is not always at the moment able to render an 
 account of the course which he may have pursued; but it by no 
 means follows that the thinking power had not a great share in it. 
 It is from the very rapidity and certainty of the mental process, from 
 the utmost clearness of understanding, that thinking in a poet is 
 not perceived as something abstracted, does not wear the appear- 
 ance of meditation* (after thought). That idea of poetical in- 
 spiration, which many lyrical poets have brought into circulation, 
 as if they were not in their senses, and like Pythia, when pos- 
 sessed by the divinity, delivered oracles unintelligible to them- 
 
 * The word in the original is equivalent to meditation; nachdenken is com- 
 posed of two words, nach after, and denken to think, and literally means after- 
 thinking. The analogy does not hold in our language. Meditate is derived 
 from meditor, and that from the Greek /uuKirdu (curam gero). The farthest 
 back we can go is /u.s\u. The word reflection however, in Latin, means pri- 
 marily to bend, or turn back. — Trans. 
 
 37 
 
290 LECTURES ON 
 
 selves (a mere lyrical invention), is least of all applicable to dra- 
 matic composition, one of the productions of the human mind 
 which requires the greatest exercise of thought. It is admitted 
 that Shakspeare has reflected, and deeply reflected, on character 
 and passion, on the progress of events and human destinies, on 
 the human constitution, on all the things and relations of the 
 world; this is an admission which must be made, for one alone of 
 thousands of his maxims would be a sufficient refutation of who- 
 ever should attempt to deny it. So that it was only then respect- 
 ing the structure of his own pieces that he had no thought to 
 spare? This he left to the dominion of chance, which blew to- 
 gether the atoms of Epicurus? But supposing that he had, with- 
 out the higher ambition of acquiring the approbation of judicious 
 critics and posterity, without the love of art which endeavours at 
 self-satisfaction in a perfect work, merely laboured to please the 
 unlettered crowd; this very object alone and the theatrical effect, 
 would have led him to bestow attention to the conduct of his 
 pieces. For does not the impression of a drama depend in an 
 especial manner on the relation of the parts to each other? And 
 however beautiful a scene may be in itself, will it not be at once 
 reprobated by spectators merely possessed of plain sense who give 
 themselves up to nature, whenever it is at variance w T ith what 
 they are led to expect at that particular place, and destroys the 
 interest which they have already begun to take? The comic 
 intermixtures may be considered as a sort of interlude, for the 
 purpose of refreshing the spectators after the straining of their 
 minds in following the more serious parts, if no better purpose 
 can be found for them; but in the progress of the main action, in 
 the concatenation of the events, the poet must, if possible, display 
 even more superiority of understanding than in the composition 
 of individual character and situations, otherwise he would be 
 like the conductor of a puppet-show who has confused the wires, 
 so that the puppets, from their mechanism, undergo quite different 
 movements from those which he actually intended. 
 
 The English critics are unanimous in their praise of the truth 
 and uniform consistency of his characters, of his heart-rending 
 pathos, and his comic wit. Moreover, they extol the beauty and 
 sublimity of his separate descriptions, images, and expressions. 
 This last is the most superficial and cheap mode of criticising 
 works of art. Johnson compares him, who should endeavour to 
 recommend this poet by passages unconnectedly torn from his 
 works, to the pedant in Hierocles, who exhibited a brick as a 
 sample of his house. And yet he himself speaks so little, and so 
 very unsatisfactorily, of the pieces considered as a whole! Let 
 any man, for instance, bring together the short characters which 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 291 
 
 he gives at the close of each play, and see if the aggregate will 
 amount to that sum of admiration which he himself, at his outset, 
 has stated as the correct standard for the appreciation of the poet. 
 It was, generally speaking, the prevailing tendency of the time 
 which preceded our own; a tendency displayed also in physical 
 science, to consider what is possessed of life as a mere accumula- 
 tion of dead parts, to separate what exists only in connexion and 
 cannot otherwise be conceived, instead of penetrating to the cen- 
 tral point and viewing all the parts as so many irradiations from 
 it. Hence nothing is so rare as a critic who can elevate himself 
 to the contemplation of an extensive work of art. Shakspeare's 
 compositions, from the very depth of purpose displayed in them, 
 have been exposed to the misfortune of being misunderstood. 
 Besides, this prosaical species of criticism applies always the 
 poetical form to the details of execution; but in so far as the plan 
 of the piece is concerned, it never looks for more than the logical 
 connexion of causes and effects, or some partial and trivial moral 
 by way of application; and all that cannot be reconciled to this 
 is declared a superfluous, or even a detrimental, addition. On 
 these principles we must equally strike out the most of the choral 
 songs of the Greek tragedies, which also contribute nothing to 
 the developement of the action, but are merely an harmonious 
 echo of the impressions aimed at by the poet. In this they alto- 
 gether mistake the rights of poetry and the nature of the roman- 
 tic drama, which, for the very reason that it is and ought to be 
 picturesque, requires richer accompaniments and contrasts for its 
 main groupes. In all art and poetry, but more especially in the 
 romantic, the fancy lays claims to be considered as an indepen- 
 dent mental power governed according to its own laws. 
 
 In an essay on Romeo and Juliet * written a number of years 
 ago, I went through the whole of the scenes in their order, and 
 demonstrated the inward necessity of each with reference to the 
 whole; I showed why such a particular circle of characters and 
 relations was placed around the two lovers; I explained the sig- 
 nification of the mirth here and there scattered, and justified the 
 use of the occasional heightening given to the poetical colours. 
 From all this it seemed to follow unquestionably, that with the 
 exception of a few plays of wit now become unintelligible or for- 
 eign to the present taste, (imitations of the tone of society of that 
 day) nothing could be taken away, nothing added, nothing other- 
 wise arranged, without mutilating and disfiguring the perfect work. 
 I should be ready to undertake the same thing in all the pieces of 
 
 * In the first volume of Charakteristiken und Kritiken, published by my bro- 
 ther and myself. 
 
292 LECTURES ON 
 
 Shakspcarc produced in his maturer years, but this would require 
 a separate book. Here I am reduced to confine my observations 
 to the tracing his great designs with a rapid pencil; but still I 
 must previously be allowed to deliver my sentiments in a general 
 manner on the subject of his most distinguishing properties. 
 
 Shakspeare's knowledge of mankind has become proverbial: 
 in this his superiority is so great, that he has justly been called 
 the master of the human heart. A readiness in remarking even 
 the nicer involuntary demonstrations of the mind, and the ex- 
 pressing with certainty the meaning of these signs acquired from 
 experience and reflection, constitutes the observer of men; acute- 
 ness in drawing still farther conclusions from them, and in arrang- 
 ing the separate observations according to grounds of probability 
 in a connected manner, may be said to be knowing men. The 
 distinguishing property of the dramatic poet who is great in cha- 
 racterization is something altogether different from this, which 
 either, take it which way we will, includes in it this readiness, 
 and this acuteness, or dispenses with both. It is the capability 
 of transporting himself so completely into every situation, even 
 the most unusual, that he is enabled, as plenipotentiary of the 
 whole human race, without particular instructions for each sepa- 
 rate case, to act and speak in the name of every individual. It is 
 the power of endowing the creatures of his imagination with such 
 self-existent energy, that they afterwards act in each conjuncture 
 according to general laws of nature: the poet, in his dreams, in- 
 stitutes as it were experiments which are received with as much 
 authority as if they had been made on real objects. The incon- 
 ceivable in this, and what never can be learned, is, that the cha- ' 
 racters appear neither to do nor to say anything on account of the 
 spectator; and yet that the poet, by means of the exhibition itself 
 without any subsidiary explanation, communicates the gift of 
 looking into the inmost recesses of their minds. Hence Goethe 
 has ingeniously compared Shakspeare's characters to watches with 
 crystalline plates and cases, which, while they point out the hours 
 as correctly as other watches, enable us at the same time to per- 
 ceive the inward springs whereby all this is accomplished. 
 
 Nothing, however, is more foreign to Shakspeare, than a cer- 
 tain dissecting mode of composition, which laboriously enumer- 
 ates to us all the motives by which a man is determined to act in 
 this or that particular manner. This way of accounting for mo- 
 tives, the rage of many of the modern historians, might be car- 
 ried at length to an extent which would abolish everything like 
 individuality, and resolve all character into nothing but the effect 
 of foreign or external influences, while we know that it frequently 
 announces itself in the most decided manner in the earliest infancy. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 293 
 
 After all, a man acts so because he is so. And how each man is 
 constituted, Shakspeare reveals to us in the most immediate 
 manner: he demands and obtains our belief, even for what' is sin- 
 gular, and deviates from the ordinary course of nature. Never per- 
 haps was there so comprehensive a talent for characterization as 
 Shakspeare, It not only grasps the diversities of rank, sex, and age, 
 down to the dawning of infancy; not only do the king and the beg- 
 gar, the hero and the pickpocket, the sage and the idiot, speak and 
 act with equal truth; not only does he transport himself to distant 
 ages and foreign nations, and portray in the most accurate man- 
 ner, with only a few apparent violations of costume, the spirit of 
 the ancient Romans, of the French in their wars with the Eng- 
 lish, of the English themselves during a great part of their history, 
 of the Southern Europeans (in the serious part of many comedies), 
 the cultivated society of that time, and the former rude and bar- 
 barous state of the North; his human characters have not only 
 such depth and precision that they cannot be arranged under 
 classes, and are inexhaustible even in conception: no, this Pro- 
 metheus not merely forms men, he opens the gates of the magical 
 world of spirits, calls up the midnight ghosts, exhibits before us 
 his witches amidst their unhallowed mysteries, peoples the air 
 with sportive fairies and sylphs; and these beings existing only 
 in imagination possess such truth and consistency, that even 
 when deformed monsters like Caliban, he extorts the assenting 
 conviction, if there should be such beings they would so conduct 
 themselves. In a word, as he carries with him the most fruitful 
 and daring fancy into the kingdom of nature, on the other hand, 
 he carries nature into the regions of fancy, lying beyond the 
 confines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at seeing the 
 extraordinary, the wonderful, and the unheard of, in such inti- 
 mate nearness. 
 
 Pope and Johnson appear to contradict each other in a singular 
 manner, when the first says, all thecharacters of Shakspeare are 
 individuals, and the second, they are species. And yet perhaps 
 these opinions may admit of reconciliation. Pope's expression 
 is unquestionably the more correct. A character which should 
 merely be a personification of a naked general idea could neither 
 exhibit any great depth nor any great variety. The names of 
 genera and species are well known to be merely auxiliaries for 
 the understanding, that we may embrace the infinite variety of 
 nature in a certain order. The characters which Shakspeare has 
 thoroughly delineated possess undoubtedly a number of individ- 
 ual peculiarities, but at the same time a signification which is not 
 applicable to them alone: they generally supply materials for a 
 profound theory of their distinguishing property. But even with 
 
294 LECTURES ON 
 
 the above correction, this opinion must still have its limitation. 
 Characterization is merely one ingredient of the dramatic art, 
 and not dramatic poetry itself. It would be improper in the 
 extreme, if the poet were to draw our attention to superfluous 
 traits of character, when he ought to endeavour to produce other 
 impressions. Whenever the musical or the fanciful preponder- 
 ate, the characteristical is necessarily thrown into the back ground. 
 Hence many of the figures of Shakspeare, exhibit merely exter- 
 nal designations, determined by the place which they ocupy in 
 the whole : they are like secondary persons in a public procession, 
 to whose physiognomy we seldom pay much attention ; their 
 only importance is derived from the solemnity of their dress and 
 the object in which they are engaged. Shakspeare's messengers, 
 for instance, are for the most part merely messengers, yet not 
 common, but poetical messengers: the messages which they 
 have to bring is the soul which suggests to them their language. 
 Other voices too are merely raised as melodious lamentations or 
 rejoicings, or reflections on what has taken place; and in a se- 
 rious drama without chorus this must always be more or less the 
 case if we would not have it prosaical. 
 
 If Shakspeare deserves our admiration for his characters, he is 
 equally deserving of it for his exhibition of passion, taking this 
 word in its widest signification, as including every mental 
 condition, every tone from indifference or familiar mirth to the 
 wildest rage and despair. He gives us the history of minds; he 
 lays open to us, in a single word, a whole series of preceding 
 conditions. His passions do not at first stand displayed to us in 
 all their height, as is the case with so many tragic poets who, in 
 the language of Lessing, are thorough masters of the legal style 
 of love. He paints, in a most inimitable manner, the gradual pro- 
 gress from the first origin; "he gives," as Lessing says, "a living 
 picture of all the most minute and secret artifices by which a feeling 
 steals into our souls, of all the imperceptible advantages which it 
 there gains, of all the stratagems by which every other passion is 
 made subservient to it, till it becomes the sole tyrant of our desires 
 and our aversions." Of all poets, perhaps, he alone has portrayed 
 the mental diseases, melancholy, delirium, lunacy, with such inex- 
 pressible and, in every respect, definite truth, that the physician 
 may enrich his observations from them in the same manner as 
 from real cases. 
 
 And yet Johnson has objected to Shakspeare that his pathos is 
 not always natural and free from affectation. There are, it is true, 
 passages, though comparatively speaking very few, whe re his 
 poetry exceeds the bounds of true dialogue, where a too soaring 
 imagination, a too luxuriant wit, rendered the complete dramatic 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 295 
 
 forgetfulness of himself impossible. With this exception, the 
 censure originates only in a fanciless way of thinking, to which 
 everything appears unnatural that does not suit its tame insipidity. 
 Hence an idea has been formed of simple and natural pathos, 
 whieh consists in exclamations destitute of imagery and nowise 
 elevated above everyday life. But energetical passions electrify 
 the whole of the mental powers, and will consequently, in highly 
 favoured natures, express themselves in an ingenious and figura- 
 tive manner. It has often been remarked that indignation gives 
 wit; and as despair occasionally breaks out into laughter, it may 
 sometimes also give vent to itself in antithetical comparisons. 
 
 Besides, the rights of the poetical form have not been duly 
 weighed. Shakspeare, who was always sure of his object, to move 
 in a sufficiently powerful manner when he wished to do so, has 
 occasionally, by indulging in a freer play, purposely moderated 
 the impressions when too painful, and immediately introduced a 
 musical alleviation of our sympathy.* He had not those rude 
 ideas of his art which many moderns seem to have, as if the poet, 
 like the clown in the proverb, must strike twice on the same 
 place. An ancient rhetorician delivered a caution against dwell- 
 ing too long on the excitation of pity; for nothing, he said, dries 
 so soon as tears; and Shakspeare acted conformably to this ingeni- 
 ous maxim without knowing it. The paradoxical assertion of John- 
 son that Shakspeare had a greater talent for comedy than tragedy, 
 and that in the latter he has frequently displayed an affected tone, 
 does not even deserve to be so far noticed that we should adduce, 
 by way of refutation, the great tragical compositions of the poet 
 which, for overpowering effect, leave almost everything which 
 the stage has yet seen far behind them; a few of the much less 
 celebrated scenes would be quite sufficient. What might to 
 many readers lend an appearance of truth to this opinion are the 
 plays on words, which, not unfrequently in Shakspeare, are 
 introduced into serious and sublime passages, and into those also 
 of a peculiarly pathetic nature. I have already stated the point 
 of view in which we ought to consider the sportive plays on words. 
 I shall here, therefore, merely deliver a few observations respect- 
 ing a play on words in general, and its poetical use. — A thorough 
 investigation would lead us too far from our subject, and too deep- 
 ly into considerations on the essence of language, and its relation 
 to poetry or rhyme, &c. There is in the human mind a desire that 
 
 * A contemporary of the poet, the author of the poem before alluded to, 
 tenderly felt this while he says: — 
 
 Yet so to temper passion, that our ears 
 Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears 
 Both smile and weep. 
 
296 LECTURES ON 
 
 language should exhibit the object which it denotes in a sensible 
 manner by sound, which may be traced even as far back as the origin 
 of poetry. As, in the shape in which language comes down to us, 
 this is seldom the case in a perceptible degree, an imagination 
 which has been powerfully excited is fond of laying hold of 
 the congruity in sound which may accidentally offer itself, that 
 by such means he may, in a single case, restore the lost resem- 
 blance between the word and the thing. For example, it was 
 common to seek in the name of a person, though often accident- 
 ally bestowed, a reference to his qualities and fortune, — it was 
 purposely converted into an expressive name. Those who cry 
 out against plays on words as an unnatural and affected invention 
 only betray their own ignorance. With children as well as 
 nations of the most simple manners, a great inclination to them is 
 often displayed, as correct ideas respecting the derivation and 
 affinity of words have not been developed among them, and do 
 not consequently stand in the way of this caprice. In Homer 
 we find several examples; the Books of Moses, the oldest written 
 memorial of the primitive world, are, as is well known, full of 
 them. On the other hand, poets of a very cultivated taste, or orators 
 like Cicero, have delighted in them. Whoever, in Richard the 
 Second, is disgusted with the affecting play of words of the dying 
 John of Gaunt on his own name, let him remember that the same 
 thing occurs in the Jijax of Sophocles. We do not mean to say- 
 that all plays on words are on all occasions to be justified. This 
 must depend on the disposition of mind, whether it will admit 
 of such a play of fancy, and whether the sallies, comparisons, and 
 allusions, which lie at the bottom of them, possess internal solid- 
 ity. Yet we must not proceed upon the principle of trying how 
 the thought appears after it is deprived of the resemblance in 
 sound, any more than we are to endeavour to feel the charm of 
 rhymed versification after being deprived of rhyme. The laws 
 of good taste on this subject must also vary with the quality of 
 the languages. In those which possess a great number of homo- 
 nymes, that is, words possessing the same, or nearly the same 
 sound, though quite different in their derivation and signification, 
 it is almost more difficult to avoid than to fall on plays of words. 
 It has also been dreaded lest a door might be opened to puerile 
 witticism, if they were not proscribed in the most severe manner. 
 I cannot find, however, that Shakspeare had such an invincible 
 and immoderate passion for plays on words. It is true he often 
 makes a most lavish use of this figure; in other pieces he has in- 
 troduced it very sparingly; and in some of them, for example in 
 Macbeth, I do not believe that the least vestige of it is to be found. 
 Hence, in respect to the use or the rejection of plays on words, 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 2.97 
 
 he must have been guided by the measure of the objects, and the 
 different style in which they required to be treated, and have 
 followed probably, as in everything else, principles which would 
 bear a strict examination. 
 
 The objection that Shakspeare wounds our feelings by the open 
 display of the most disgusting moral odiousness, harrows up the 
 mind unmercifully, and tortures even our eyes by the exhibition 
 of the most insupportable and hateful spectacles, is one of much 
 greater importance. He has never, in fact, varnished over wild 
 and blood-thirsty passions with a pleasing exterior, never clothed 
 crime and want of principle with a false show of greatness of soul, 
 and in that respect he is every waj^ deserving of praise. Twice 
 he has portrayed downright villains, and the masterly way in 
 which he has contrived to elude impressions of too painful a na- 
 ture may be seen in Iago and Richard the Third. I allow that 
 the reading, and still more the sight, of some of his pieces are 
 not advisable to weak nerves, any more than the Eumenides of 
 .TEschylus; but is the poet, who can only reach an important 
 object by bold and hazardous means, to allow himself to be influ- 
 enced by considerations for persons of this description? If the 
 effeminacy of the present day is to serve as a general standard of 
 what tragical composition may exhibit to human nature, we shall 
 be forced to set very narrow limits to art, and everything like a 
 powerful effect must at once be renounced. Jf we wish to have 
 a grand purpose, we must also wish to have the means, and our 
 nerves should in some measure accommodate themselves to pain- 
 ful impressions when, by way of requital, our mind is thereby 
 elevated and strengthened. — The constant reference to a petty 
 and puny race must cripple the boldness of the poet. Fortunately 
 for his art, Shakspeare lived in an age extremely susceptible of 
 noble and tender impressions, but which had still enough of the 
 firmness inherited from a vigorous olden time, not to shrink back 
 with dismay from every strong and violent picture. We have 
 lived to see tragedies of which the catastrophe consists of the 
 swoon of an enamoured princess: if Shakspeare falls occasionally 
 into the opposite extreme, it is a noble error originating in the 
 fulness of a gigantic strength. And this tragical Titan, who 
 storms the heavens and threatens to tear the world from off its 
 hinges, who, more fruitful than iEschylus, makes our hair stand 
 on end, and congeals our blood with horror, possessed at the 
 same time the insinuating loveliness of the sweetest poetry; he 
 plays with love like a child, and his songs are breathed out like 
 melting sighs. He unites in his existence the utmost elevation 
 and the utmost depth; and the most foreign, and even apparently 
 irreconcilable properties subsist in him peaceably together. The 
 
 38 
 
298 LECTURES ON 
 
 world of spirits and nature have laid all their treasures at his feet: 
 in strength a demi-god, in profundity of view a prophet, in all- 
 seeing wisdom a protecting spirit of the higher order, he lowers 
 himself to mortals as if unconscious of his superiority, and is as 
 open and unassuming as a child. 
 
 If the delineation of all his characters, separately considered, is 
 inimitably firm and correct, he surpasses even himself in so com- 
 bining and contrasting them, that they serve to bring out each 
 other. — This is the very summit of dramatic characterization: for 
 we can never estimate a man altogether abstractedly by himself 
 according to his true worth; we must see him in his relations 
 with others; and it is here that most dramatic poets are deficient. 
 Shakspeare makes each of his principal characters the glass in 
 which the others are reflected, and in which we are enabled to 
 discover what could not be immediately revealed to us. What 
 in others is most profound, lies in him at the surface. We should 
 be very ill advised were we always to take the declarations of 
 the characters respecting themselves and others for sterling gold. 
 Ambiguity of intention, very properly in him, overflows with 
 the most praiseworthy principles; and sage maxims are not un- 
 frequently put in the mouth of imbecility, to show how easily 
 such common place truisms may be acquired. Nobody ever 
 painted as he has done the facility of self-deception, the half self- 
 conscious hypocrisy towards ourselves, with which even noble 
 minds attempt to disguise the almost inevitable influence of selfish 
 motives in human nature. This secret irony of the characteriza- 
 tion is deserving of admiration as a storehouse of acuteness and 
 sagacity; but it is the grave of enthusiasm. But this is the con- 
 clusion at which we arrive when we had the misfortune to see 
 human nature through and through; and besides the melancholy 
 truth that no virtue and greatness are altogether pure and genuine, 
 and the dangerous error that the highest perfection is attainable, 
 we have no remaining choice. Here we may perceive, notwith- 
 standing his power in exciting the most fervent emotions, a cer- 
 tain cool indifference in the poet himself, but still the indifference 
 of a superior mind, which has run through the circle of human 
 existence and survived feeling. 
 
 The irony in Shakspeare has not merely a reference to the 
 separate characters, but frequently to the whole of the action. 
 Most poets who portray human events in a narrative or dramatic 
 form take themselves a part, and exact from their readers a blind 
 approbation or condemnation of whatever side they choose to 
 support or oppose. The more zealous this rhetoric is, the more 
 easily it fails of its effect. In every case we perceive that the 
 subject does not come immediately before us, but that we view it 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 299 
 
 through the medium of a different way of thinking. When, how- 
 ever, the poet, by a dexterous manoeuvre, occasionally allows us 
 a glance of the less brilliant reverse of the picture, he then places 
 himself in a sort of secret understanding with the select circle of 
 the intelligent among his readers or spectators; he shows them 
 that he previously saw and admitted the validity of their objec- 
 tions; that he himself is not tied down by the subject represented, 
 but soars freely above it; and that, if he chose, he could unrelent- 
 ingly annihilate the beautiful and irresistibly attractive scenes 
 which his magic pen has produced. Wherever the proper tragic 
 enters, it is true, everything like irony immediately ceases; but 
 from the avowed raillery of comedy, to the point where the sub- 
 jection of mortal beings to an inevitable destiny demands the 
 highest degree of seriousness, there are a multitude of human re- 
 lations which unquestionably may be considered in an ironical 
 view, without confounding the eternal line of separation between 
 good and evil. This purpose is answered by the comic characters 
 and scenes which are interwoven in the most of Shakspeare's 
 pieces where romantic fables or historical events are made the 
 subject of a noble and elevating exhibition. A determinate parody 
 of the serious part is frequently not to be mistaken in them; at 
 other times the connexion is more loose and arbitrary, and the 
 more wonderful the invention of the whole, the more easily it 
 becomes merely a light delusion of the fancy. The comic inter- 
 ruptions everywhere serve to prevent the play from being con- 
 verted into an employment, to preserve the mind in the posses- 
 sion of its hilarity, and to keep off that gloomy and inert serious- 
 ness which so easily steals into the sentimental, but not tragical, 
 drama. Most assuredly Shakspeare did not wish in this to com- 
 ply with the taste of the multitude contrary to his own better 
 judgment: for in various pieces, and in considerable parts of 
 others, especially when the catastrophe approaches, and the minds 
 are consequently more on the stretch and no longer susceptible of 
 any entertainment serving to divert their attention, he has ab- 
 stained from all comic intermixtures. It was also an object with 
 him, that the clowns or buffoons should not occupy a more im- 
 portant place than that which he had assigned them: he expressly 
 condemns the extemporizing with which they loved to enlarge 
 their parts.* Johnson founds the justification of their species of 
 drama in which seriousness and mirth are mixed, on this, that in 
 real life the vulgar is found close to the sublime, that the merry 
 and the sad usually accompany and succeed one another. But it 
 does not follow that because both are found together, they must 
 
 * In Hamlet's directions to the players, 
 
300 LECTURES ON 
 
 not therefore be separated in the compositions of art. The ob- 
 servation is in no respect just, and this circumstance invests the 
 poet with a power to proceed in that manner, because everything 
 in the drama must be regulated by the conditions of theatrical 
 probability; but the mixture of such dissimilar, and apparently 
 contradictory, ingredients, in the same works, can only be justi- 
 fiable on principles reconcilable with the views of art, which I 
 have already described. In the dramas of Shakspeare the comic 
 scenes are the antechamber of the poetry, where the servants re- 
 main; these prosaical associates must not give such an extension 
 of their voice as to deafen the speakers in the hall itself; however, 
 in those intervals when the ideal society has retired they deserve 
 to be listened to; the boldness of their raillery, the pretension of 
 their imitations, may afford us many a conclusion respecting the 
 relations of their masters. 
 
 Shakspeare's comic talent is equally wonderful with that which 
 he has shown in the pathetic and tragic: it stands on an equal ele- 
 vation, and possesses equal extent and profundity; all that I be- 
 fore wished was, not to admit that the former preponderated. He 
 is highly inventive in comic situations and motives: it will be 
 hardly possible to show whence he has taken any of them; whereas 
 in the serious part of his dramas he has generally laid hold of 
 something already known. His comic characterization is equally 
 true, various, and profound, with his serious. So little is he dis- 
 posed to caricature, that we may rather say many of his traits are 
 almost too nice and delicate for the stage, that they can only be 
 properly siezed by a great actor, and fully understood by a very 
 acute audience. Not only has he delineated many kinds of folly, 
 he has also contrived to exhibit mere stupidity in a most divert- 
 ing and entertaining manner. There is also a peculiar species of 
 the farcical to be found in his pieces, which seems to us to be in- 
 troduced in a more arbitrary manner, but which, however, is 
 founded in imitation of an actual custom. This is the introduction 
 of the buffoon; the fool with his cap and motley dress, called in 
 English, Clown, who appears in several comedies though not in 
 all, but in Lear alone of the tragedies, and who generally exer- 
 cises his wit merely in conversation with the principal persons, 
 though he is also sometimes incorporated with the action. In 
 those times it was not only usual for princes to keep court-fools, 
 but in many distinguished families they retained, along with other 
 servants, such an exhilarating house-mate as a good antidote 
 against the insipidity and wearisomeness of ordinary life, as a 
 welcome interruption of established formalities. Great men, and 
 even churchmen, did not consider it beneath their dignity to re- 
 cruit and solace themselves after important concerns with the 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 301 
 
 conversation of their fools; the celebrated Sir Thomas More had 
 his fool painted along with himself by Holbein. Shakspeare ap- 
 pears to have lived immediately before the time when the custom 
 began to be abolished ; in the English comic authors who succeed- 
 ed him the clown is no longer to be found. The dismissal of the 
 fool has been extolled as a proof of refinement; and our honest 
 forefathers have been pitied for taking delight in such a coarse and 
 farcical entertainment. I am much rather however disposed to 
 believe, that the practice was dropped from the difficulty in find- 
 ing fools able to do full justice to their parts:* on the other hand, 
 reason, with all its conceit of itself, has become too timid to tole- 
 rate such bold irony; it is alwa} r s careful lest the mantle of its 
 gravity should be disturbed in any of its folds; and rather than 
 allow a privileged place to folly beside itself, it has unconsciously 
 assumed the part of the ridiculous; but, alas! a heavy and cheer- 
 less ridicule. t It would be easy to make a collection of the ex- 
 cellent sallies and biting sarcasms which have been preserved of 
 celebrated court-fools. It is well known that they frequently told 
 such truths to princes as are never now told to them.J Shak- 
 speare's fools, along with somewhat of an overstraining for wit, 
 which cannot altogether be avoided when wit becomes a separate 
 profession, have for the most part an incomparable humour, and 
 
 * See Hamlet's praise of Yorick — In The Twelfth Night, Viola says: — 
 
 This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; 
 
 And to do that well craves a kind of wit; 
 
 He must observe their mood on whom he jests 
 
 The quality of the persons, and the time; 
 
 And like the haggard, check at every feather 
 
 That comes before his eye. This is a practice 
 
 As full of labour as a wise man's art: 
 
 For folly that he wisely shows is fit, 
 
 But wise men's folly fall'n quite taints their wit. Author. 
 
 The passages from Shakspeare, in the original work, are given from the author's 
 masterly translation. We may be allowed however to observe, that the last 
 line, 
 
 "Doch wozu ist des Weisen Thorheit nutz?" 
 
 literally, Of what use is the folly of the wise? does not convey the exact meaning 
 of Shakspeare. — Trans. 
 
 j- " Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that 
 wise men have makes a greater show." — As you Like it, Act i. Scene 2. 
 
 % Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, is known to have frequently boasted that 
 he wished to rival Hannibal as the greatest general of all ages. After his de- 
 feat at Granson his fool accompanied him in his hurried flight, and exclaimed, 
 ** Ah, your Grace, they have for once Hanniballed us!" If the Duke had given 
 an ear to this warning raillery, he would not so soon afterwards have come to 
 
302 LECTURES ON 
 
 an infinite abundance of intellect, enough to supply a whole host 
 of ordinary wise men. 
 
 I have still a few observations to make on the diction and 
 versification of our poet. The language is here and there some- 
 what obsolete, but on the wjiole much less so than the most of 
 the writers of that day, a sufficient proof of the goodness of his 
 choice. Prose had yet been but little cultivated, as the learned 
 generally wrote in Latin: a favourable circumstance for the dra- 
 matic poet; for what has he to do with the scientific language of 
 books? He had not only read, but studied the earlier English 
 poets; but he drew his language immediately from life, and he 
 possessed a masterly skill in blending the dialogicai element with 
 the highest poetical elevation. 1 know not what certain critics 
 mean, when they say that Shakspeare isrequently ungrammatical. 
 To make out this affirmation, they must prove that similar con- 
 structions never occur in his contemporaries, the direct contrary 
 of which can be established. In no language is every thing de- 
 termined on principle, much is always left to the caprice of cus- 
 tom; and because this has since changed, do they wish to make 
 the poet answerable for it? The English language had not then 
 attained that correct insipidity which has been introduced into 
 the more recent literature of the country, to the prejudice, per- 
 haps, of its originality. As a field when first brought under the 
 plough produces, along with the fertile shoots, many luxuriant 
 weeds, we shall also find that the poetical diction of that day run 
 occasionally out into extravagance, but an extravagance, origina- 
 ting in the fulness of its strength. We may still perceive traces 
 of a want of assistance, but nowhere of a laborious and spiritless 
 display of art. • In general Shakspeare's style yet remains the 
 very best model, both in the vigorous and sublime, and the pleas- 
 ing and tender. In his sphere he has exhausted all the means 
 of language. On all, the stamp of his mighty spirit is impressed. 
 His images and figures, in their unsought for, nay, unarbitrary 
 singularity, have often a sweetness altogether peculiar. He be- 
 comes occasionally obscure from too great fondness for the most 
 compressed brevity; but the poring over Shakspeare's lines af- 
 fords us an ample requital for our labour. 
 
 The verse of all his plays is generally the rhymeless iambic 
 of ten or eleven syllables, occasionally only intermixed with 
 rhymes, but more frequently alternating with prose. No one 
 piece is wholly written in prose; for even in those which ap- 
 proach the most to the pure comedy, there is always something 
 added which elevates them to a higher rank than belongs to this 
 species. Many scenes are wholly prosaical, in others discourses 
 in verse and prose succeed each other alternately. This can on- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 303 
 
 ]y appear an impropriety in the eyes of those who are accustom- 
 ed to consider the lines of a drama like so many soldiers drawn 
 up rank and file on a parade, with the same uniform, arms, and 
 accoutrements, so that when we see one or two we may repre- 
 sent to ourselves thousands as being every way like them. 
 
 In the use of verse and prose Shakspeare observes very nice 
 distinctions according to the ranks of the speakers, but still 
 more according to their characters and disposition of mind. A 
 noble language, elevated above the usual tone, is only suitable to 
 a certain decorum of manners, which is thrown over both vices 
 and virtues, and which does not even wholly disappear amidst 
 the violence of passion. If this is not exclusively possessed by 
 the higher ranks, it still however belongs naturally more to them 
 than to the lower; and therefore in Shakspeare dignity and fami- 
 liarity of language, poetry, and prose, are in this manner dis- 
 tributed among the characters. Hence his tradesmen, peasants, 
 soldiers, sailors, servants, but more especially his fools and clowns, 
 speak almost without exception, in the tone of their actual 
 life. However, inward dignity of sentiment, wherever it is 
 possessed, does not stand in need of the artificial elegancies of 
 education and custom to display itself in a noble manner; it is a 
 universal right of mankind, of the highest as well as the lowest; 
 and hence also in Shakspeare, the nobility of nature and morality 
 is elevated above that of society. He not unfrequently also 
 makes the very same persons express themselves at times in the 
 most sublime language, and at others in the lowest; and this 
 inequality is in like manner founded in truth. Extraordinary 
 situations, which intensely occupy the head and throw mighty 
 passions, into play, give elevation and tension to the soul: it 
 collects together all its powers, and exhibits an unusual en- 
 ergy, both in its operations and its communications by lan- 
 guage. On the other hand, even the greatest men have their 
 moments of remissness, when to a certain degree they forget 
 the dignity of their character in the most unreserved careless- 
 ness. This very tone of mind is necessary to admit of their 
 receiving amusement from the jokes of others, or passing jokes 
 themselves, which surely cannot reflect dishonour even on a hero. 
 Let any person, for example, go carefully through the part of 
 Hamlet. How bold and powerful the language of his poetry 
 when he conjures the ghost of his father, when he spurs himself 
 on to the bloody deed, when he thunders into the soul of his 
 mother! How he lowers his tone down to that of common life, 
 when he has to do with persons whose station demands from him 
 such a line of conduct; when he makes game of Polonius and the 
 courtiers, instructs the player, and even enters into the jokes of 
 
304 LECTURES ON 
 
 the grave-digger. Of all the principal characters of the poet of a 
 serious description there is no one so rich in wit and Humour as 
 Hamlet; hence, of all of them he makes the greatest use of the 
 familiar style. Others do not fall into it; either because they are 
 constantly surrounded by the pomp of rank, or because a uni- 
 form seriousness is natural to them; or, in short, because they 
 are throughout the whole piece under the dominion of a passion 
 calculated to excite and not depress the mind like the sorrow 
 of Hamlet. The choice of the one form or the other is every- 
 where so suitable, and so much founded in the nature of the thing, 
 that I will venture to assert, even where the poet in the very 
 same speech makes the speaker leave prose for poetry, or the 
 converse, this could not be altered without the danger of injuring 
 or destroying something or other. The blank verse has this ad- 
 vantage, that its tone may be elevated or lowered; it admits of 
 approximation to the familiar style of conversation, and never 
 forms such an abrupt contrast as that, for example, between plain 
 prose and rhymed Alexandrines. 
 
 Shakspeare's iambics are sometimes highly harmonious and 
 full sounding: always varied and suited to the subject, at one 
 time they are distinguished for ease and rapidity, at another they 
 move along with ponderous energy. They never fall out of the 
 dialogical character, which may always be traced even in the 
 continued discourses of individuals, excepting when they run 
 into the lyrical. They are a complete model of the dramatic use 
 of this species of verse, which, in English, since Milton, has been 
 also used in epic poetry; but in the latter it has assumed a 
 quite different turn. Even the irregularities of Shakspeare's 
 versification are expressive; a broken off verse, or a sudden 
 change of rhythmus, is in unison with the pause in the pro- 
 gress of the thought, or the entrance of another disposition of 
 mind. As a proof that he purposely violated the mechanical 
 rules, in the conviction that too symmetrical a versification does 
 not suit with the drama, and has in the long run a tendency on 
 the stage to lull the spectators asleep, we may observe that his 
 earlier pieces are those which he has most diligently versified, 
 and that in the works of a later period, when through practice he 
 must have acquired a greater facility, we find the strongest devia- 
 tions from the regulated progress of the verse. He was merely 
 enabled by the verse to render the poetical elevation audible, but 
 he claimed it in the utmost possible freedom. 
 
 The views or suggestions of feeling by which he was guided 
 in the use of rhyme may be traced with almost equal certainty. 
 Not unfrequently scenes, or even single speeches, close with a few 
 rhymed lines, for the purpose of more strongly marking the di- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 305 
 
 vision and of giving it more rounding. This was imitated in an 
 injudicious manner by the English tragic poets of a later period; 
 they suddenly elevated the tone in the rhymed lines, as if the 
 person began all at once to speak in another language. The 
 practice was hailed by the actors from its serving as a signal for 
 clapping when they made their exit. In Shakspeare again the 
 transitions are more easy: all changes of forms are introduced 
 imperceptibly, and as if of themselves. Moreover, he generally 
 loves to elevate a series of ingenious and antithetical, sayings by 
 the use of rhyme. We find other passages in continued rhyme, 
 where solemnity and theatrical pomp were suitable, as in the 
 mask,* as it is called, in the Tempest, and in the play introduced 
 into Hamlet. In other pieces, for instance the Midsummer 
 Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet, the rhyme constitutes a 
 considerable part; because he wished to give them a glowing co- 
 lour; or because the characters utter in a musical tone their love 
 complaints or love suits. Here he has even introduced rhymed 
 strophes, which approach to the form of the sonnet then usual in 
 England. The assertion of Malone that Shakspeare in his youth 
 was fond of rhyme, but that he afterwards rejected it, is sufficient- 
 ly refuted by his own chronology of the poet's works. In some 
 of the earliest, for instance in the Second and Third part of 
 Henry the Sixth, there are hardly any rhymes; in what is stated 
 to be his last piece, The Twelfth Night, or what You loill, and 
 in Macbeth, which is proved to have been composed under the 
 reign of King James, we find them in no inconsiderable number. 
 Even in the secondary matters of form Shakspeare was not guided 
 by humour and accident, but. acted like a genuine artist on solid 
 grounds. This might also be shown in the kinds of verse which 
 he least often used ; for instance, in the rhymed verses of seven 
 and eight syllables, were we not afraid of dwelling too long on 
 merely technical peculiarities. 
 
 The manner of handling rhymed verse, and the opinion re- 
 specting its harmony and elegance have undergone a much 
 greater change in England in the course of two centuries than 
 has been the case in the rhymeless iambic or blank verse. In 
 the former, Dryden and Pope have become models; these writers 
 have communicated the utmost smoothing to rhyme, but they 
 have also tied it down to a harmonious uniformity. A foreigner, 
 to whom antiquated and new are the same, may perhaps feel with 
 greater freedom the advantages of the more ancient manner. Cer- 
 tain it is, the rhyme of the present day, from the too great con- 
 
 * I shall take the opportunity of saying- a few words respecting 1 this species 
 of drama when I come to speak of Ben Johnson. 
 
 39 
 
306 LECTURES ON 
 
 finement of the couplet, is unfit for the drama. We must not 
 estimate the rhyme of Shakspeare by the mode of subsequent 
 times, but by a comparison with his contemporaries or with Spen- 
 ser. The comparison will without doubt turn out to his advan- 
 tage. Spenser is often diffuse; Shakspeare, though sometimes 
 hard, is always brief and vigorous. He has much more fre- 
 quently been induced by the rhyme to leave out something ne- 
 cessary than to insert anything superfluous. Many of his rhymes 
 however are yet faultless: ingenious with attractive ease, and 
 rich without false brilliancy. The songs interspersed (namely, 
 those of the poet himself) are generally sweetly playful and alto- 
 gether musical; we hear in imagination their melody while we 
 merely read them. 
 
 The whole of Shakspeare's productions bear the certain stamp 
 of his original genius, but yet no writer was ever farther removed 
 from everything like a manner acquired from habit and personal 
 peculiarities. He is rather, from the diversity of tone and colour, 
 which he assumes according to the qualities of objects, a true 
 Proteus. Each of his compositions is like a world of itself, which 
 moves in its own sphere. They are w 7 orks of art, finished in the 
 most consummate style, in which the freedom and judicious choice 
 of their author are revealed. If the thorough formation of a 
 work, even in its minutest parts, according to a leading idea; if 
 the dominion of the animating spirit over all the means of execu- 
 tion deserves the name of correctness (and this, excepting in mat- 
 ters of grammar, is the only proper sense of the word); we shall 
 then, after allowing to Shakspeare all the higher qualities which 
 demand our admiration, be also compelled, in most cases, to al- 
 low him the name of a correct poet. 
 
 It would be instructive in the highest degree, could we follow, 
 step by step in his career, an author who at once founded and 
 carried his art to perfection, and to go through his works in the 
 order of time. But, with the exception of a few fixed points, 
 which at length have been obtained, we are here in want of the 
 necessary materials. The diligent Malone has indeed made an 
 attempt to arrange the plays of Shakspeare in chronological order; 
 but he himself only gives it out for hypothetical, and it could not 
 possibly be attended with complete success, as he excludes from 
 his research a considerable number of pieces which have been as- 
 cribed to the poet, though rejected as spurious by all the editors 
 since Rowe, but which, in my opinion, must, if not wholly, at 
 least in a great measure be attributed to him.* 
 
 • "Were this book destined immediately for an English public, I should not 
 have hazarded an opinion like this at variance with that which is generally re- 
 ceived, without supporting it by proofs. The investigation however is too ex- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 307 
 
 The best and easiest mode therefore of reviewing the dramas 
 will be to arrange them in classes. This, it must be owned, is 
 merely a last shift: several critics have declared* that all Shak- 
 speare's pieces substantially belong to the same species, although 
 sometimes one ingredient, sometimes another, the musical or the 
 characteristical, the invention of the wonderful or the imitation of 
 the real, the pathetic or the comic, seriousness or irony, may pre- 
 ponderate in the mixture. Shakspeare himself, it would appear, 
 only laughed at the petty endeavours of many critics to find out 
 divisions and subdivisions of species, and to hedge in what had 
 been so separated with the most anxious care; the pedantic Polo- 
 nius in Hamlet recommends the players, for their knowledge of 
 "tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical- 
 pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical, historical-pastoral, 
 scene-undividable, or poem-unlimited." On another occasion he 
 ridicules the limitation of tragedy to an unfortunate catastrophe: 
 
 "And tragical, my noble lord, it is; 
 For Pyramus therein doth kill himself." 
 
 However, the division into comedies, tragedies, and historical 
 dramas, according to the usual practice, may in some measure be 
 adopted, if we do not lose sight of the transitions and affinities. 
 The subjects of the comedies are generally taken from novels: 
 they are romantic love tales; none are altogether confined to the 
 sphere of common or domestic relations: all of them possess 
 poetical ornament, some of them run into the wonderful or the pa- 
 thetic. To these two of his most distinguished tragedies are imme- 
 diately linked, Romeo and Juliet and Othello; both true novels, 
 and composed on the same principles. In many of the historical 
 plays a considerable space is occupied by the comic characters and 
 scenes; others are serious throughout, and leave behind the tragi- 
 cal impression. The essential circumstance by which they are 
 distinguished is, that the plot bears a reference to a poetical and 
 national interest. This is not so much the case in Hamlet, Lear, 
 and Macbeth; and hence we do not include these tragedies among 
 the historical pieces, though the first is founded on an old north- 
 ern, the second on a national tradition; and the third comes even 
 within the epoch of the Scottish history, after it ceased to be 
 fabulous. 
 
 tensive, and I have therefore reserved it for a separate treatise. Besides at the 
 present moment, while I am putting the last hand to my lectures, no collection 
 of English books but my own is accessible to me. I should have completed it 
 to answer this object, if the interruption of intercourse with England did not 
 render it impossible to procure any other than the most common English books. 
 On this point therefore I must request indulgence. In anfappendix to this lec- 
 ture I shall merely state a few observations in a cursory manner. 
 
308 LECTURES ON 
 
 Among the comedies, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The 
 Taming of the Shrew, and The Comedy of Errors, bear many 
 traces of an early origin. The Two Gentlemen of Verona 
 paints the irresolution of love, and its infidelity towards friend- 
 ship, in a pleasant, but in some degree superficial manner, we 
 might almost say with the levity of mind which a passion sud- 
 denly entertained, and as suddenly given up, presupposes. The 
 faithless lover is at last forgiven without much difficulty by his 
 first mistress, on account of his ambiguous repentance ; for the most 
 serious part, the premeditated flight of the daughter of a Prince, 
 the captivity of her father along with herself by a band of rob- 
 bers, of which one of the two gentlemen, the faithless and ban- 
 ished friend, has been compulsively elected captain: for all this a 
 peaceful solution is soon found. It is as if the course of the world 
 was obliged to accommodate itself to a transient youthful caprice, 
 called love. Julia, who accompanies her faithless lover in the 
 disguise of a page, is, as it were, a light sketch of the tender fe- 
 male figures of a Viola and an Imogen, who, in the latter pieces 
 of Shakspeare, leave their home in similar disguises on love ad- 
 ventures, and to whom a peculiar charm is communicated by the 
 exhibition of the most virgin modesty in their hazardous and 
 problematical situation. 
 
 The Comedy of Errors is the subject of the Menechmse of 
 Plautus, entirely recast and enriched with new developements: 
 of all the works of Shakspeare this is the only example of imita- 
 tion of, or borrowing from, the ancients. To the two twin bro- 
 thers of the same name are added two slaves, also twins, impos- 
 sible to be distinguished from each other, and of the same name. 
 The improbability is by this means double: but when once we 
 have lent ourselves to the first, which certainly borders on the 
 incredible, we shall not probably be disposed to cavil about the 
 second; and if the spectator is to be entertained by mere perplex- 
 ities they cannot be too much varied. In such pieces we must al- 
 ways pre-suppose, to give an appearance of truth to the senses at 
 least, that the parts by which the misunderstandings are occasion- 
 ed are played with masks, and this the poet no doubt observed. 
 I cannot acquiesce in the censure that the discovery is too long 
 deferred: so long as novelty and interest are possessed by the 
 perplexing incidents we need not be in dread of wearisomeness. 
 And this is here really the case: matters are carried so far that 
 one of the two brothers is first arrested for debt, then confined as 
 a lunatic, and the other is forced to take refuge in a sanctuary to 
 save his life. In a subject of this description it is impossible to 
 steer clear of all sorts of low circumstances, abusive language, 
 and blows; Shakspeare has however endeavoured to ennoble it 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 309 
 
 in every possible way. A couple of scenes, dedicated to jealousy 
 and love, interrupt the course of perplexities which are merely 
 occasioned by the external sense. A greater solemnity is given 
 to the discovery, from the prince presiding, and from the re-union 
 of the long separated parents of the twins who are still in life. 
 The exposition, by which the spectator must be previously in- 
 structed while the characters in the play are still involved in 
 ignorance, and which Plautus artlessly conveys in a prologue, is 
 here masterly introduced in an affecting relation of the father. 
 In short, this is perhaps the best of all written or possible Me- 
 nechmse; and if the piece is inferior in worth to other pieces of 
 Shakspeare, it is merely because nothing more could be made of 
 the materials. 
 
 The Taming of the Shrew has the air of an Italian comedy; 
 and indeed the love intrigue, which constitutes the main part of 
 it, is derived mediately or immediately from a piece of Ariosto. 
 The characters and passions are lightly sketched; the intrigue 
 is introduced without much preparation, and in its rapid progress 
 impeded by no sort of difficulties; however, in the manner in 
 which Petruchio, though previously cautioned respecting Catha- 
 rine, still runs the risk of marrying her, and contrives to tame 
 her, the character and peculiar humour of the English are visible. 
 The colours are laid somewhat coarsely on, but the ground is 
 good. That the obstinacy of a young and untamed girl, possessed 
 of none of the attractions of her sex, and neither supported by 
 bodily nor mental strength, must soon yield to the still rougher 
 and more capricious but assumed self-will of man: such a lesson can 
 only be taught on the stage with all the perspicuity of a proverb. 
 
 The prelude is still more remarkable than the play itself: the 
 drunken tinker removed in his sleep to a palace, where he is 
 deceived into the belief of being a nobleman. The invention, 
 however, is not Shakspeare's. Holberg has handled the same 
 subject in a masterly manner, and with inimitable truth; but he 
 has spun it out to five acts, for which the matter is hardly suffi 
 cient. He probably did not borrow from the English dramatist, 
 but like him took the hint from a popular story. There are 
 several comie motives of this description, which go back to a 
 very remote age, without ever becoming antiquated. — Shakspeare 
 proves himself here, as well as everywhere else, a great poet: the 
 whole is merely a light sketch, but in elegance and nice propriety 
 it will hardly ever be excelled. Neither has he overlooked the 
 irony which the subject naturally suggested to him, that the 
 great lord who is driven by idleness and ennui to deceive a poor 
 drunkard, can make no better use of his situation than the latter, who 
 every moment relapses into his vulgar habits. The last half of this 
 
310 LECTURES ON 
 
 prelude, that in which the tinker in his new state again drinks him- 
 self out of his senses, and is transformed in his sleep into his former 
 condition, from some accident or other is lost. It ought to have 
 followed at the end of the larger piece. The occasional observa- 
 tions of the tinker, during the course of the representation of the 
 comedy? might have been improvisatory; but it is hardly credi- 
 ble that Shakspeare should have trusted to the momentary sug- 
 gestions of the players, which he did not hold in high estimation, 
 the conclusion of a work, however short, which he had so care- 
 fully commenced. Moreover, the only circumstance which con- 
 nects the prelude with the play is, that it belongs to the new life 
 of the supposed nobleman to have plays acted in his castle by 
 strolling actors. This invention of introducing spectators on the 
 stage, who contribute to the entertainment, has been very wittily 
 used by later English poets. ■ 
 
 Love's Labour Lost is also numbered among the pieces of his 
 youth. It is a humoursome display of frolic; a whole cornucopia 
 of the most vivacious jokes is poured out into it. Youth is cer- 
 tainly perceivable in the lavish superfluity displayed in the execu- 
 tion: the uninterrupted succession of plays on words, and sallies 
 of every description, hardly leave the spectator time to breathe; 
 the sparks of wit fly about in such profusion, that they form com- 
 plete fireworks, and the dialogue, for the most part, resembles the 
 hurried manner in which the passing masks at a carnival attempt 
 to banter each other. A young king of Navarre with three of 
 his courtiers, has made a vow to pass three years in rigid retire- 
 ment, employed in the study of wisdom; for that purpose he has 
 banished all female society from court, and imposed a penalty on 
 the intercourse with women. But scarcely has he announced 
 this determination in a pompous discourse worthy of the most 
 heroic achievements, when the daughter of the King of France 
 appears at his court, in the name of her old and bed-ridden father, 
 to demand back a province which he held in pledge. He is 
 compelled to give her audience, falls immediately in love with 
 her; and things do not succeed better with his companions, who 
 on their parts renew their old acquaintance with the attendants 
 of the princess. Each is already in his heart disposed to violate 
 his vow, without knowing the wishes of his associates; they over- 
 hear one another, as they in turn confide their pains in a poem to 
 the solitary forest; every one jeers and confounds the one who 
 follows him. Biron, who from the beginning was the most sati- 
 rical among them, at last steps forth, and rallies the king and the 
 two others, till the discovery of a love-letter reduces even him to 
 hang down his head. He extricates himself and his companions 
 from their dilemma, by ridiculing the folly of the vow which 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 311 
 
 they have broken, and after a noble eulogy on women, by invit- 
 ing them to swear allegiance to the colours of love. This scene 
 is incomparably well planned, and the summit of the whole. The 
 manner in which they afterwards prosecute their love suits in dis- 
 guise, and in which they are tricked, and laughed at by the ladies, 
 who also assume disguises, is spun out perhaps to too great a 
 length. It may be thought too that the poet, when he suddenly 
 announces the death of the King of France, and makes the Princess 
 postpone the answer to the serious advances of theyoung Prince till 
 the expiration of the period of her mourning, and impose besides a 
 penance on him for his levity, falls out of the proper comic tone. 
 But from the raillery which prevails throughout the whole piece, 
 it was hardly possible to bring about a more satisfactory conclu- 
 sion: the characters could only return to sobriety after their ex- 
 travagance, by means of some foreign influence. The grotesque 
 figures which between hands contribute to the entertainment, a 
 pompous fantastical Spaniard, Don Armado, a couple of pedants, 
 and a clown, are creatures of a whimsical imagination, well adapt- 
 ed as foils for the wit of a vivacious society. 
 
 MVs Well that Ends Well, Much Ado About Nothing, 
 Measure for Measure, and The Merchant of Venice, bear in 
 so far a resemblance to each other, that along with the main plot, 
 which turns on important relations decisive of the happiness or 
 misery of life, and which is calculated to make a powerful im- 
 pression on the moral feeling, the poet has with artful dexterity 
 contrived to introduce a number of admixtures of an exhilarating 
 description. It is not as if the poet was unwilling'to allow full scope 
 to the serious impressions: he merely adds a due counterpoise to 
 them in the entertainment which he supplies for the imagination 
 and the understanding. He furnishes the story with all the separate 
 features which give to it the appearance of a real, though extra- 
 ordinary, event. But he never falls into the lachrymose tone of 
 the sentimental drama, nor into the bitterness of those dramas 
 which have a moral direction, and which are really nothing but 
 moral invectives, and pasquinades, in the shape of dialogue. 
 Compassion, anxiety, and discontent, become too oppressive when 
 they are too long dwelt on, and when the whole of a work is ex- 
 clusively limited to them. Shakspeare always transports us from 
 the confinement of social institutions, or pretensions by which 
 men intercept light and air from each other, into open space, be- 
 fore we ourselves even become conscious of our want. 
 
 AWs Well that Ends Well is the old story of a young maiden 
 whose love soared much beyond her station. She obtains her 
 lover in marriage from the hand of the King as a reward for 
 curing him, by means of a hereditary arcanum of her father, a 
 
312 LECTURES ON 
 
 celebrated physician, from a hopeless and lingering disease. The 
 young man treats her modesty and beauty with indignity; con- 
 summates the marriage only in appearance, and seeks security in 
 the dangers of war, from a domestic happiness which wounds his 
 pride. By faithful perseverance and innocence of behaviour, she 
 fulfils the apparently impossible conditions on which the Count 
 promised to acknowledge her as his wife. Love appears here in 
 humble guise: it strives on the female side to overcome the pre- 
 judices of birth without being strengthened by the support of 
 mutual inclination. But as soon as Helena is connected with the 
 Count by a sacred bond, though by him considered as an oppres- 
 sive chain; her error becomes her virtue. She affects us by her 
 patient suffering: the moment in which she appears to most ad- 
 vantage is when she accuses herself as the persecutor of her in- 
 flexible husband, and, under the pretext of a pilgrimage to atone 
 for her error, privately leaves the house of her mother-in-law. 
 Johnson expresses a cordial aversion to Count Bertram, and re- 
 grets that he should be allowed to come off at last with no other 
 punishment than a temporary shame, nay, even be rewarded with 
 the unmerited possession of a virtuous wife. But did Shakspeare 
 ever attempt to mitigate the impression of his unfeeling pride 
 and giddy dissipation? He intended merely to give us a military 
 portrait And does not the poet paint the true way of the world, 
 according to which the injustice of men towards women is not con- 
 sidered in a very serious light, if they can only maintain what is 
 called the honour of their family? Bertram's sole justification is, 
 that the King, in a matter of such delicacy and private right as 
 the choice of a wife, thought proper to constrain him by the ex- 
 ercise of arbitrary power. Besides, this story, as well as that of 
 Griseldi and many of a similar description, is intended to prove 
 that female truth'and resignation will at last overcome the violence 
 of men; other novels and fabliaux again are true satires on the 
 inconstancy and cunning of women. In this piece age is exhibited 
 to singular advantage: the plain honesty of the King, the good- 
 natured impetuosity of old Lafeu, the maternal indulgence of the 
 Countess to Helena's love of her son, seem all as it were to vie 
 with each other in endeavours to conquer the arrogance of the 
 young Count. The style of the whole is more conspicuous for 
 sententiousness than imagery: the glowing colours of fancy could 
 not with propriety have been introduced into such a subject. In 
 the passages where the humiliating abandonment of the poor 
 Helena becomes most painful, the cowardly Parolles steps in to 
 the relief of the spectator. The stratagems by which his pre- 
 tended valour and his impudent defamation are unmasked are 
 among the most comic scenes which ever were invented: they 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 313 
 
 contain matter enough for an excellent comedy, if Shakspeare 
 were not always rich even to profusion. Falstaff has thrown 
 Parolles into the shade, otherwise he would have been more cele- 
 brated among the comic characters of the poet. 
 
 The main plot in Much Jido about Nothing is the same story 
 of Jiriodante and Ginevra in Ariosto; the secondary circum- 
 stances and developement are no doubt very different. The man- 
 ner in which the innocent Hero when before the altar at the mo- 
 ment of her marriage, in the presence of her family and many 
 witnesses, is brought to shame by accusations of the most con- 
 tumelious nature, yet clothed with a great appearance of truth, is 
 a grand piece of theatrical effect in the genuine and justifiable 
 sense. The impression would have been too tragical if Shak- 
 speare had not purposely softened it with the view of preparing 
 a fortunate catastrophe. The discovery of the plot against Hero 
 has been already partly made, though not by the persons interest- 
 ed; and the poet has contrived to convert the arrest and examina- 
 tion of the guilty individuals into scenes of the most entertaining 
 description, by means of the blundering simplicity of a couple of 
 constables and watchmen. There is a second piece of theatrical 
 effect not inferior to the first, where Claudio, misled by his error, 
 in the intention of giving his hand to a relation of his bride, whom 
 he supposes to be dead, on unveiling her discovers Hero herself. 
 The uncommon success of this play in Shakspeare's own time, 
 and even since in England, is more particularly to be attributed 
 however to the parts of Benedict and Beatrice, two humorsome 
 beings, who incessantly attack each other with all the resources 
 of raillery. Declared rebels to love, they are both entangled in 
 its net by a plot of their friends to make them believe that they 
 are the object of the secret passion of each other. Some one, 
 without any great share of penetration, objected to the making 
 twice use of the -same artifice in entrapping them; the drollery, 
 however, lies in the very symmetry of the deception. Their 
 friends attribute the whole effect to themselves; but the exclu- 
 sive direction of their raillery against each other is in itself a 
 proof of a glowing inclination. Their witty vivacity does not 
 even abandon them during the declaration of love; and their be- 
 haviour only assumes a serious appearance for the purpose of de- 
 fending the slandered Hero. This is exceedingly well imagined; 
 the lovers of jesting must fix a point beyond which they are not 
 to indulge in their propensity, if they would not be mistaken for 
 buffoons by trade. 
 
 In Measure for Measure Shakspeare was compelled, by the 
 nature of the subject, to make his poetry more familiar with 
 criminal justice than is usual with him. All kinds of proceedings 
 
 40 
 
314 LECTURES ON 
 
 connected with the subject, all sorts of active or passive persons, 
 pass in review before us: the hypocritical Lord Deputy, the 
 compassionate Provost, and the hard-hearted Hangman; a young 
 man of quality who is to suffer for the seduction of his mistress 
 before marriage, loose wretches brought in by the police, nay, 
 even a hardened criminal whom the preparations for his execu- 
 tion cannot awake out of his callousness. But yet, notwithstand- 
 ing this convincing truth, how tenderly and mildly the whole is 
 treated ! / The piece takes improperly its name from the punish- 
 ment: the sense of the whole is properly the triumph of mercy 
 over strict justice; no man being himself so secure from errors as 
 to be entitled to deal it out among his equals. The most beauti- 
 ful ornament of the composition is the character of Isabella, who, 
 in the intention of taking the veil, allows herself to be prevailed 
 on by pious love again to tread the perplexing ways of the world, 
 while the heavenly purity of her mind is not even stained with 
 one unholy thought by the general corruption: in the humble 
 robes of the novice of a nunnery she is a true angel of light. When 
 the cold and hitherto unsullied Angelo, whom the Duke has 
 commissioned to restrain the excesses of dissolute immorality by 
 a rigid administration of the laws during his pretended absence, 
 is even himself tempted by the virgin charms of Isabella as she 
 supplicates for her brother Claudio, doomed to death for a youth- 
 ful error; when he first insinuates in timid and obscure language, 
 but at last impudently declares his readiness to grant the life of 
 Claudio for the sacrifice of her honour; when Isabella repulses 
 him with a noble contempt; when she relates what has happened 
 to her brother, and the latter at first applauds her, but at length, 
 overpowered by the dread of death, wishes to persuade her to 
 consent to her dishonour: — in these masterly scenes Shakspeare 
 has sounded the depth of the human heart. The interest here 
 reposes altogether on the action, curiosity constitutes no part of 
 our delight; for the Duke, in the disguise of a Monk, is always 
 present to w T atch over his dangerous representatives, and to avert 
 every evil which could possibly be apprehended: we look here 
 with confidence to the solemn decision. The Duke acts the part 
 of the Monk naturally even to deception; he unites in his person 
 the wisdom of the priest and the prince. His wisdom is merely 
 too fond of round-about ways; his vanity is flattered with acting 
 invisibly like an earthly providence; he is more entertained with 
 overhearing his subjects than governing them in the customary 
 manner. As he at last extends pardon to all the guilty, we do 
 not see how his original purpose of restoring the strictness of the 
 laws by committing the execution of them to other hands has 
 been in anywise accomplished. The poet might have had this 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 315 
 
 irony in view, that of the numberless slanders of the Duke, told 
 him by the petulant Lucio without knowing the person to whom 
 he spoke, what regarded his singularities and whims was not 
 wholly without foundation. It is deserving of remark that Shak- 
 speare amidst the rancour of religious parties, takes a delight in 
 painting the condition of a monk, and always represents influence as 
 beneficial. We find in him none of the black and knavish monks, 
 which an enthusiasm for the protestant religion, rather than poeti- 
 cal inspiration, has suggested to some of our modern poets. Shak- 
 speare merely gives his monks an inclination to busy themselves 
 in the affairs of others, after renouncing the world for themselves; 
 with respect however to pious frauds he does not represent them 
 as very conscientious. Such are the parts acted by the monk in 
 Romeo and Juliet, and another in Much Jldo about Nothing, 
 and even by the Duke, whom, contrary to the well known pro- 
 verb, the cowl seems really to make a monk. 
 
 The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakspeare's most perfect 
 works: popular to an extraordinary degree, and calculated to pro- 
 duce the most powerful effect on the stage, and at the same time 
 a wonder of ingenuity and art for the reflecting critic. Shylock, 
 the Jew, is one of the inconceivable master pieces of characteri- 
 zation of which Shakspeare alone furnishes us with examples. 
 It is easy for the poet and the player to exhibit a caricature of 
 national sentiments, modes of speaking, and gestures. Shylock 
 however is everything but a common Jew: he possesses a very 
 determinate and original individuality, and yet we perceive a 
 light touch of Judaism in everything which he says or does. 
 We imagine we hear a sprinkling of the Jewish pronunciation 
 in the mere written words, as we sometimes still find it in the 
 higher classes, notwithstanding their social refinement. In tran- 
 quil situations, what is foreign to the European blood and Chris- 
 tian sentiments is less perceivable, but in passion the national 
 stamp appears more strongly marked. All these inimitable 
 niceties the finished art of a great actor can alone properly express. 
 Shylock is a man of information, even a thinker in his own way; 
 he has only not discovered the region where human feelings 
 dwell: his morality is founded on the disbelief in goodness and 
 magnanimity. The desire of revenging the oppressions and hu- 
 miliations suffered by his nation is, after avarice, his principal 
 spring of action. His hate is naturally directed chiefly against 
 those Christians who possess truly Christian sentiments: the ex- 
 ample of disinterested love of our neighbour seems to him the 
 most unrelenting persecution of the Jews. The letter of the law 
 is his idol; he refuses to lend an ear to the voice of mercy, which 
 speaks to him from the mouth of Portia with heavenly eloquence: 
 
316 LECTURES ON 
 
 he insists on severe and inflexible justice, and it at last recoils 
 on his own head. Here he becomes a symbol of the general 
 history of his unfortunate nation. The melancholy and self- 
 neglectful magnanimity of Antonio is affectingly sublime. Like 
 a royal merchant, he is surrounded with a whole train of noble 
 friends. The contrast which this forms to the selfish cruelty of 
 the usurer Shylock, was necessary to redeem the honour of human 
 nature. The danger which hangs over Antonio till towards the 
 conclusion of the fourth act, and which the imagination is almost 
 afraid to approach, would fill us with too painful an anxiety, if 
 the poet did not also provide for our entertainment and dissipation. 
 This is particularly effected by the scenes at the country-seat of 
 Portia, which transport the spectator into quite another sphere. 
 And yet they are closely connected, by the concatenation of 
 causes and effects, with the main business: the preparations of 
 Bassanio for his courtship are the cause of Antonio's subscribing 
 the dangerous bond; and Portia again, by means of the advice of 
 her uncle, a celebrated counsel, effects the safety of the friend of 
 her lover. But the relations of the dramatic composition are 
 still here admirably observed in another manner. The trial be- 
 tween Shylock and Antonio, though it proceeds like a real event, 
 still remains an unheard of and particular case. Shakspeare has 
 consequently associated with it a love intrigue not less extraordi- 
 nary: the one becomes natural and probable by means of the 
 other. A rich, beautiful, and clever heiress, who can only be 
 won by the solving of a riddle; the locked caskets; the foreign 
 princes, who come to try the adventure: with all this wonderful 
 splendour the imagination is powerfully excited. The two scenes 
 in which the Prince of Morocco, in the language of Eastern hy- 
 perbole, and the self-conceited Prince of Arragon, make their 
 choice among the caskets, merely raise our curiosity, and give 
 employment to our wits; in the third, where the two lovers 
 stand trembling before the inevitable choice, which in one mo- 
 ment must unite or separate them for ever; Shakspeare has la- 
 vished all the seductions of feeling, all the magic of poetry. We 
 share in the rapture of Portia and Bassanio at the fortunate choice: 
 we easily conceive why they are fond of each other, for they are 
 both most deserving of love. The judgment scene, with which 
 the fourth act is occupied, is alone a perfect drama, concentrating 
 in itself the interest of the whole. The knot is now untied, and 
 according to the common ideas of theatrical satisfaction, the 
 curtain might drop. But the poet was unwilling to dismiss his 
 audience with the gloomy impressions which the delivery of 
 Antonio, accomplished with so much difficulty, contrary to all 
 expectation, and the punishment of Shylock, were calculated to 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 317 
 
 leave behind: he has therefore added the fifth act by way of a 
 musical afterpiece in the piece itself. The episode of Jessica, 
 the fugitive daughter of the Jew, in whom Shakspeare has 
 contrived to throw a disguise of sweetness over the national fea- 
 tures, and the artifice by which Portia and her companion are 
 enabled to rally their newly married husbands, supply him with 
 the materials. The scene opens with the playful prattling of 
 two lovers in a summer evening; it is followed by soft music 
 and a rapturous eulogy on this powerful disposer of the human 
 mind and the world; the principal characters then make their 
 appearance, and after an assumed dissension, which is elegantly 
 carried on, the whole ends with the most exhilarating mirth. 
 
 Jis You Like It is a piece of an entire different description. 
 It would be difficult to bring the contents within the compass of 
 an ordinary relation: nothing takes place, or rather what does 
 take place is not so essential as what is said; even what may be 
 called the denouement is brought about in a pretty arbitrary 
 manner. Whoever perceives nothing but what is capable of 
 demonstration will hardly be disposed to allow that it has any 
 plan at all. Banishment and flight have assembled together, 
 in the forest of Arden, a singular society: a Duke dethroned by 
 his brother, and, with his faithful companions in misfortune, living 
 in the wilds on the produce of the chase; two distinguished prin- 
 cesses, who love each other with a sisterly affection, a witty court 
 fool; lastly, the native inhabitants of the forest, ideal and natural 
 shepherds and shepherdesses. These lightly sketched figures 
 pass along in the most diversified succession; we see always the 
 shady dark-green landscape in the back ground, and breathe in 
 imagination the fresh air of the forest. The hours are here 
 measured by no clocks, no regulated recurrences of duty or toil: 
 they flow on unnumbered in voluntary occupation or fanciful 
 idleness, to which every one addicts himself according to his 
 humour or disposition, and this unlimited freedom compensates 
 all of them for the lost conveniences of life. One throws himself 
 down solitarily under a tree, and indulges in melancholy reflec- 
 tions on the changes of fortune, the falsehood of the world, and 
 the self-created torments of social life; others make the woods 
 resound with social and festive songs, to the accompaniment of 
 their horns. Selfishness, envy, and ambition, have been left in 
 the city behind them; of all the human passions love alone has 
 found an entrance into this wilderness, where it dictates the 
 same language to the simple shepherd and the chivalrous youth, 
 who hangs his love-ditty to a tree. A prudish shepherdess falls 
 instantaneously in love with Rosalind, disguised in men's apparel; 
 the latter sharply reproaches her with her severity to her poor 
 
318 LECTURES ON 
 
 lover, and the pain of refusal, which she at length feels from her 
 own experience, disposes her to compassion and requital. The 
 fool carries his philosophical contempt of external show, and his 
 raillery of the illusion of love, so far, that he purposely seeks out 
 the ugliest and simplest country wench for a mistress. Through- 
 out the whole picture, it seems to have been the intention of the 
 poet to show, that nothing is wanted to call forth the poetry which 
 has its dwelling in nature and the human mind but to throw off 
 all artificial constraint, and restore both to their native liberty. 
 In the progress of the piece itself, the visionary carelessness of 
 such an existence is expressed: it has even been alluded to by 
 Shakspeare in the title. Whoever affects to be displeased, that 
 in this romantic forest the ceremonial of dramatic art is not duly ob- 
 served, ought in justice to be delivered over to the wise fool, for 
 the purpose of being kindly conducted out of it to some prosaical 
 region. 
 
 The Twelfth Night, or What You Will, unites the entertain- 
 ment of an intrigue, contrived with great ingenuity, to the richest 
 fund of comic characters and situations, and the beauteous colours 
 of an ethereal poetry. In most of his plays, Shakspeare treats 
 love more as an affair of the imagination than the heart; but here 
 we are particularly reminded by him that, in his language, the 
 same word, fancy, signified both fancy and love. The love of 
 the music-enraptured Duke to Olivia is not merely a fancy, but 
 an imagination; Viola appears at first to fall arbitrarily in love 
 with the Duke, whom she serves as a page, although she after- 
 wards touches the tenderest strings of feeling; the proud Olivia 
 is entangled by the modest and insinuating messenger of the 
 Duke, in whom she is far from suspecting a disguised rival, and 
 at last, by a second deception, takes the brother for the sister. 
 To these, which I might call ideal follies, a contrast is formed by 
 the naked absurdities to which the entertaining tricks of the ludi- 
 crous persons of the piece give rise, in like manner under the 
 pretence of love: the awkward courtship of a silly and profli- 
 gate Knight to Olivia, and her declaration to Viola; the imagi- 
 nation of the pedantical steward Malvolio, that his mistress is 
 secretly in love with him, which carries him so far that he is at 
 last shut up as a lunatic, and visited by the clown in the dress of 
 a priest. These scenes are as admirably conceived and signifi- 
 cant, as they are laughable. If this was really the last work of 
 Shakspeare, as is affirmed, he must have enjoyed to the last the 
 same youthfulness of mind, and have carried with him to the 
 grave the whole fulness of his talents. 
 
 The Merry Wives of Winsdor, though properly a comedy in 
 the usual acceptation of the word, we shall pass over at present, 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 319 
 
 till we come to speak of Henry IV., that we may give our 
 opinion of the character of Falstaffin connexion. 
 
 The Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Tempest, may- 
 be in so far compared together, that in both the influence of a won- 
 derful world of spirits is interwoven with the turmoil of human 
 passions and with the farcical adventures of folly. The Mid- 
 summer NighVs Dream is certainly an earlier production; but 
 The Tempest, according to all appearance, was written in Shak- 
 speare's later days: hence most critics, on the supposition that 
 the poet must have continued to improve with increasing matu- 
 rity of mind, have given the last piece a great preference over 
 the former. I cannot, however, altogether agree with them in 
 this: the internal w T orth of these two works, in my opinion, are 
 pretty equally balanced, and a predilection for the one or the 
 other can only be governed by personal taste. The superiority 
 of The Tempest, in regard to profound and original characteriza- 
 tion, is obvious; as a whole we must always admire the master- 
 ly skill which he has here displayed in the economy of his means, 
 and the dexterity with which he has disguised his preparations, 
 the scaffoldings for the wonderful aerial structure. In The 
 Midsummer Night's Dream again there flows a luxuriant vein 
 of the boldest and most fantastical invention; the most extraor- 
 dinary combination of the most dissimilar ingredients seems to 
 have arisen without effort by some ingenious and lucky accident, 
 and the colours are of such clear transparency that we think the 
 whole of the variegated fabric may be blown away with a breath. 
 The fairy world here described resembles those elegant pieces of 
 Arabesque, where little Genii, with butterfly wings, rise half 
 embodied above the flower cups. Twilight, moonshine, dew, 
 and spring-perfumes, are the element of these tender spirits; 
 they assist nature in embroidering her carpet with green leaves, 
 many-coloured flowers, and dazzling insects; in the human world 
 they merely sport in a childish and wayward manner with their 
 beneficent or noxious, influences. Their most violent rage dis- 
 solves in good-natured raillery; their passions, stripped of all 
 earthly matter, are merely an ideal dream. To correspond 
 with this, the loves of mortals are painted as a poetical enchant- 
 ment, which, by a contrary enchantment, may be immediately 
 suspended, and then renewed again. The different parts of the 
 plot; the wedding of Theseus, the disagreement of Oberon and 
 Titania, the flight of the two pair of lovers, and the theatrical 
 operations of the mechanics, are so lightly and happily interwo- 
 ven, that they seem necessary to each other for the formation of 
 a whole. Oberon is desirous of relieving the lovers from their 
 perplexities, and greatly adds to them through the misapprehen- 
 
320 LECTURES ON 
 
 sion of his servant, till he at last comes to the aid of their 
 fruitless amorous pain, their inconstancy and jealousy, and 
 restores fidelity to its old rights. The extremes of fanciful 
 and vulgar are united when the enchanted Titania awakes and 
 falls in love with a coarse mechanic with an ass's head, who re- 
 presents, or rather disfigures, the part of a tragical lover. The 
 droll wonder of the transmutation of Bottom is merely the trans- 
 lation of a metaphor in its literal sense; but in his behaviour dur- 
 ing the tender homage of the Fairy Queen, we have a most 
 amusing proof how much the consciousness of such a head-dress 
 heightens the effect of his usual folly. Theseus and Hippolyta 
 are, as it were, a splendid frame for the picture; they take no 
 part in the action, but appear with a stately pomp. The dis- 
 course of the hero and his Amazon, as they course through the 
 forest with their noisy hunting train, works upon the imagination 
 like the fresh breath of morning, before which the shades of night 
 disappear. Pyramus and Thisbe is not unmeaningly chosen as the 
 grotesque play within the play: it is exactly like the pathetic 
 part of the piece, a secret meeting of two lovers in the forest, 
 and their dispersion by an unfortunate accident, and closes the 
 whole with the most amusing parody. 
 
 The Tempest has little action and progressive movement: the 
 union of Ferdinand and Miranda is fixed at their first meeting, 
 and Prospero merely throws apparent obstacles in their way; the 
 shipwrecked band go leisurely about the island; the attempts of 
 Sebastian and Antonio on the life of the King of Naples, and of 
 Caliban and the drunken sailors against Prospero, are nothing but 
 a feint, as we foresee that they will be completely frustrated by 
 the magical skill of the latter; nothing remains therefore but the 
 punishment of the guilty by dreadful sights which harrow up 
 their consciences, the discovery and final reconciliation. Yet 
 this want is so admirably concealed by the most varied display 
 of the fascinations of poetry, and the exhilaration of mirth, the 
 details of the execution are so very attractive, that it requires no 
 small degree of attention to perceive that the denouement is, 
 in some degree, already contained in the exposition. The history 
 of the love of Ferdinand and Miranda, developed in a few short 
 scenes, is enchantingly beautiful: *an affecting union of chivalrous 
 magnanimity on the one part, and on the other of the virgin 
 openness of a heart which, brought up far from the world on an 
 uninhabited island, has never learned to disguise its innocent 
 movements. The wisdom of the princely hermit Prospero has 
 a magical and mysterious air; the impression of the black false- 
 hood of the two usurpers is mitigated by the honest gossiping of 
 the old and faithful Gonzalo; Trinculo and Stephano, two good- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 321 
 
 for-nothing drunkards, find a worthy associate in Caliban; and 
 Ariel hovers sweetly over the whole as the personified genius of 
 the wonderful fable. 
 
 Caliban has become a by -word as the strange creation of a po- 
 etical imagination. A mixture of the gnome and the savage, 
 half da2mon : half brute, in his behaviour we perceive at once the 
 traces of his native disposition, and the influence of Prospero's 
 education. The latter could only unfold his understanding, 
 without, in the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity: 
 it is as if the use of reason and human speech should be commu- 
 nicated to a stupid ape. Caliban is malicious, cowardly, false, 
 and base in his inclinations; and yet he is essentially different 
 from the vulgar knaves of a civilized world, as they are occasion- 
 ally portrayed by Shakspeare. He is rude, but not vulgar; he 
 never falls into the prosaical and low familiarity of his drunken 
 associates, for he is a poetical being in his way; he always too 
 speaks in verse. He has picked up everything dissonant and 
 thorny in language, out of which he has composed his vocabulary, 
 and of the whole variety of nature the hateful, repulsive, and 
 pettily deformed, have alone been impressed on his imagination. 
 The magical world of spirits, which the staff of Prospero has 
 assembled on the island, casts merely a faint reflection into his 
 mind, as a ray of light which falls into a dark cave, incapable of 
 communicating to it either heat or illumination, merely serves 
 to put in motion the poisonous vapours. The whole delineation 
 of this monster is inconceivably consistent and profound, and, not- 
 withstanding its hatefulness, by no means hurtful to our feelings, 
 as the honour of human nature is left untouched. 
 
 In the zephyr-like Ariel the image of air is not to be mis- 
 taken, his name even bears an allusion to it; as, on the other 
 hand, Caliban signifies the heavy element of the earth. Yet they 
 are neither of them allegorical personifications, but beings indi- 
 vidually determined. In general we find, in The Midsummer 
 Night's Dream, in The Tempest, in the magical part of Mac- 
 beth, and wherever Shakspeare avails himself of the popular 
 belief in the invisible presence of spirits, and the possibility of 
 coming in contact with them, a profound view of the inward life 
 of nature and her mysterious springs, which, it is true, ought 
 never to be altogether unknown to the genuine poet, as poetry is 
 altogether incompatible with mechanical physics, but which few 
 have possessed in an equal degree with Dante and himself. 
 
 The Printer's Tale is as appropriately named as The Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream. It is one of those tales which are 
 peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary leisure of a long win- 
 ter evening, which are even attractive and intelligible to child- 
 
 41 
 
322 LECTURES ON 
 
 hood, and which, animated by fervent truth in the delineation of 
 character and passion, invested with the decoration of a poetry 
 lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of the subject, trans- 
 port even manhood back to the golden age of imagination. 
 The calculation of probabilities has nothing to do with such won- 
 derful and fleeting adventures, ending at last in general joy; and 
 accordingly Shakspeare has here taken the greatest liberties with 
 anachronisms and geographical errors: he opens a free navigation 
 between Sicily and Bohemia, makes Giulio Romano the contem- 
 porary of the Delphic oracle, not to mention other incongruities. 
 The piece divides itself in some degree into two plays. Leontes 
 becomes suddenly jealous of his royal bosom friend Polyxenes, 
 who has visited him, makes an attempt on his life, and Polyxenes 
 saves himself by a clandestine flight; Hermione, suspected of 
 infidelity, is thrown into prison, and the daughter which she 
 brings into the world is exposed on a remote coast; the accused 
 Queen declared innocent by the oracle, on learning that her in- 
 fant son has pined to death on her account, falls down senseless, 
 and is mourned as dead by her husband who becomes sensible 
 when too late of his error: this makes the subject of the three 
 first acts. The last two are separated from these by a chasm of 
 sixteen years: but the above tragical catastrophe was only appa- 
 rent, and 'this serves to connect the two parts. The Princess, 
 who has been exposed on the coast of the kingdom of Polyxenes, 
 grows up among low shepherds; but her tender beauty, her 
 noble manners, and elevation of sentiment, bespeak her descent; 
 the Crown Prince Florizel, in the course of his hawking falls in 
 with her, becomes enamoured, and courts her in the disguise of 
 a shepherd; at a rural entertainment Polyxenes discovers their 
 intention, and breaks out into a violent rage; the two lovers seek 
 refuge from his persecution at the court of Leontes in Sicily, 
 when the discovery and general reconciliation take place. When 
 Leontes at last beholds, as he imagines, the statue of his lost 
 spouse, she descends to him from her niche: it is she herself, the 
 still living Hermione, who has kept herself so long concealed; 
 and the piece ends with universal rejoicing. The jealousy of 
 Leontes is not, like that of Othello, developed with all the causes, 
 symptoms, and gradations; it is brought forward at once, and is 
 portrayed as a distempered frenzy. It is a passion with whose 
 effects the spectator is more concerned than with its origin, and 
 which does not produce the catastrophe, but merely ties the knot of 
 the piece. In fact, the poet might perhaps have wished to indicate 
 slightly that Hermione, though virtuous, was too active in her 
 efforts to please Polyxenes; and it appears as if this germ of an 
 inclination first attained its proper maturity in their children. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 323 
 
 Nothing can be more fresh and youthful, nothing at once so 
 ideally pastoral and princely as the love of Florizel and Perdita; 
 of the Prince, whom love converts into a voluntary shepherd; 
 and the Princess, who betrays her exalted origin without know- 
 ing it, and in whose hands the nosegays become crowns. Shak- 
 speare has never hesitated to place ideal poetry close by the side 
 of the most vulgar prose; and this is also generally the case in 
 the world of reality. Perdita's foster-father and his son are both 
 made simple boors, that we may the more distinctly see whatever 
 ennobles her belongs to herself. The merry pedlar and pick- 
 pocket Autolycus, so inimitably portrayed, is necessary to com- 
 plete the rustic feast, which Perdita on her part seems to render 
 fit for an assemblage of deities in disguise. 
 
 Cymbeline is also one of Shakspeare's most wonderful compo- 
 sitions. He has here connected a novel of Boccacio with tradi- 
 tionary tales of the ancient Britons reaching back to the times of 
 the first Roman Emperors, and he has contrived, by the most 
 gentle transitions, to blend together into one harmonious whole 
 the social manners of the latest times with heroic deeds, and even 
 with appearances of the gods. In the character of Imogen not a 
 feature of female excellence is forgotten: her chaste tenderness, 
 her softness, and her virgin pride, her boundless resignation, and 
 her magnanimity towards her mistaken husband by whom she is 
 unjustly persecuted, her adventures in disguise, her apparent 
 death, and her recovery, form altogether a picture equally tender 
 and affecting. The two Princes Guiderius and Arviragus, both 
 educated in the wilds, form a noble contrast to Miranda and 
 Perdita. Shakspeare is fond of showing the superiority of the 
 innate over the acquired. Over the art which enriches nature he 
 somewhere says, there is always a higher art created by nature 
 herself.* As Miranda's unconscious and unstudied sweetness is 
 
 * The passage in Shakspeare here quoted, taken with the context, will not 
 bear the construction of the author. The whole runs thus: — 
 
 Yet nature is made better by no mean, 
 
 But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art 
 
 Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
 
 That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 
 
 A gentler scion to the wildest stock; 
 
 And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
 
 By bud of nobler race: this is an art 
 
 Which does mend nature, change it rather; but 
 
 The art itself is nature. 
 
 Winter's Tale, Act iv. Scene 3. 
 
 Shakspeare does not here mean to institute a comparison between the relative 
 excellency of that which is innate and that which we owe to instruction; but 
 merely says, that the instruction or art is itself a part of nature. The speech is 
 
324 LECTURES ON 
 
 more pleasing than those charms which endeavour to captivate 
 us by the brilliant decoration of the most refined cultivation, so 
 in these two young men, to whom the chase has given vigour 
 and hardihood, but who are unacquainted with their high desti- 
 nation, and have been always kept far from human society, we 
 are equally enchanted by a naive heroism which leads them to 
 anticipate and to dream of deeds of valour, till an occasion is offered 
 which they are irresistibly impelled to embrace. When Imo- 
 gen comes in disguise to their cave; when Guiderius and Arvi- 
 ragus form an impassioned friendship with all the innocence of 
 childhood for the tender boy, in whom they neither suspect a 
 female nor their own sister; when on returning from the chase 
 they find her dead, "sing her to the ground," and cover the 
 grave with flowers: — these scenes may give new life for poetry 
 to the most deadened imagination. If a tragical event is only 
 apparent, whether the spectators are already aware of this or 
 ought merely to suspect it, Shakspeare always knows how to 
 mitigate the impression without weakening it: he makes the 
 mourning musical, that it may gain in solemnity what it loses in 
 seriousness. With respect to the other parts, the wise and vigo- 
 rous Belarius, who after living long as a hermit again becomes a 
 hero, is a venerable figure; the dexterous dissimulation and quick 
 presence of mind of the Italian Iachimo is quite suitable to the 
 bold treachery which he plays; Cymbeline, the father of Imogen, 
 and even her husband Posthumus, during the first half of the 
 piece, are somewhat sacrificed, but this could not be otherwise; 
 the false and wicked Queen is merely an instrument of the plot; 
 she and her stupid son Cloton (the only comic part in the piece) 
 whose rude arrogance is portrayed with much humour, are got 
 rid of by merited punishment before the conclusion. For the 
 heroical part of the fable, the war between the Romans and 
 Britons which brings on the conclusion, the poet in the extent of 
 his plan had so little room to spare, that he merely endeavours to 
 represent it as a mute procession. But to the last scene, where 
 all the numerous threads of the knot are untied, he has again 
 given its full developement, that he might collect the impressions 
 of the whole into one focus. This example and many others are 
 a sufficient refutation of Johnson's assertion that Shakspeare usu- 
 ally hurries over the conclusion of his pieces. He rather intro- 
 duces a great deal which, for the understanding of the denoue- 
 
 addressed by Polyxenes to Perdita, to persuade her that the changes effected 
 in the appearance of flowers by the art of the gardener arc not to be accounted 
 unnatural; and the expression of making conceive a bark of baser kind by bud of 
 nobler race (i. e. engrafting), would rather lead to the inference, that tne mind 
 derived its chief value from the influence of culture.— Trans. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 325 
 
 ment, might in a strict sense be spared, from a desire to satisfy 
 the feeling; our modern spectators are much more impatient 
 than those of his day to see the curtain drop when there is no- 
 thing more to be determined. 
 
 Borneo and Juliet , and Othello, differ from the most of the 
 pieces which we have hitherto gone through neither in the ingre- 
 dients of the composition, nor in the manner of treating them: 
 it is merely the direction of the whole which gives them the 
 stamp of tragedies. Romeo and Juliet is a picture of love and 
 its pitiable fate, in a world whose atmosphere is too rough for 
 this tenderest blossom of human life. Two beings created for 
 each other feel mutual love at a first glance; every consideration 
 disappears before the irresistible influeuce of living in one an- 
 other; they join themselves secretly under circumstances hostile 
 in the highest degree to their union, relying merely on the pro- 
 tection of an invisible power. By unfriend^ events following 
 blow upon blow their heroic constancy is exposed to all manner 
 of trials, till, forcibly separated from each other, by a voluntary 
 death they are united in the grave to meet again in another 
 world. All this is to be found in the beautiful story which 
 Shakspeare has not invented, and which, however simply told, 
 will always excite a tender sympathy: but it was reserved for 
 Shakspeare to unite purity of heart and the glow of the imagina- 
 tion, sweetness and dignity of manners and passionate violence, 
 in one ideal picture. By the manner in which he has handled 
 it, it has become a glorious song of praise on that inexpressible 
 feeling which ennobles the soul and gives to it its highest subli- 
 mity, and which elevates even the senses themselves into soul, 
 and at the same time is a melancholy elegy on its frailty from 
 its own nature and external circumstances; at once the deification 
 and the burial of love. It appears here like a heavenly spark 
 that, descending to the earth, is converted into a flash of light- 
 ning, by which mortal creatures are almost in the same moment 
 set on fire and consumed. Whatever is most intoxicating in the 
 odour of a southern spring, languishing in the song of the night- 
 ingale, or voluptuous on the first opening of the rose, is breathed 
 into this poem. But even more rapidly than the earliest blos- 
 soms of youth and beauty decay, it hurries on from the first 
 timidly-bold declaration of love and modest return to the most 
 unlimited passion, to an irrevocable union; then, amidst alter- 
 nating storms of rapture and despair, to the death of the two 
 lovers, who still appear enviable as their love survives them, and 
 as by their death they have obtained a triumph over every 
 separating power. The sweetest and the bitterest, love and 
 hatred, festivity and dark forebodings, tender embraces and 
 
326 LECTURES ON 
 
 sepulchres, the fulness of life and self-annihilation, are all here 
 brought close to each other; and all these contrasts are so blended 
 in the harmonious and wonderful work into a unity of impres- 
 sion, that the echo which the whole leaves behind in the mind 
 resembles a single but endless sigh. 
 
 The excellent dramatic arrangement, the signification of each 
 character in its place, the judicious selection of all the circum- 
 stances even the most minute, I have unfolded in detail in a trea- 
 tise already cited, and I will not therefore here repeat myself. 
 I shall only request attention to one trait which I there omitted, 
 and which may serve for an example of the distance from which 
 Shakspeare begins his preparations. The most striking and per- 
 haps incredible circumstance in the whole story is the liquor 
 given by the Monk to Juliet, by which she for a number of hours 
 not merely sleeps but fully resembles a corpse, without thereby 
 receiving any injury. How does the poet dispose us to believe 
 that Father Lorenzo possesses such a secret? — He exhibits him 
 to us at his first entrance in a garden, where he is collecting 
 herbs and descanting on their wonderful virtues. The discourse 
 of the pious old man is full of deep meaning: he sees everywhere in 
 nature symbols of the moral world; the same wisdom with which 
 he looks through her has made him master of the human heart. 
 In this manner a circumstance of an obstinate, or at least an un- 
 grateful appearance, has become the source of a great beauty. 
 
 If Romeo and Juliet shines with the colours of the dawn of 
 morning, but a dawn whose purple clouds already announce the 
 thunder of a sultry day, Othello is, on the other hand, a strongly 
 shaded picture: we might call it a tragical Rembrandt. — What a 
 fortunate mistake that the Moor, under which name a baptized 
 Saracen of the Northern coast of Africa was unquestionably 
 meant in the novel, has been made by Shakspeare in every 
 respect a negro! We recognize in Othello the wild nature of 
 that glowing zone which generates the most raging beasts of prey 
 and the most deadly poisons, tamed only in appearance by the de- 
 sire of fame, by foreign laws of honour, and by nobler and milder 
 manners. His jealousy is not the jealousy of the heart, which is 
 compatible with thetenderest feeling and adoration of the beloved 
 object; it is ofthat sensual kind which, in burning climes, has given 
 birth to the disgraceful confinement of women and many other un- 
 natural usages. A drop of this poison flows in his veins, and sets 
 his whole blood in the most disorderly fermentation. The Moor 
 seems noble, frank, confiding, grateful for the love shown him; 
 and he is all this, and moreover, a hero, who spurns at danger, 
 a worthy leader of an army, a faithful servant of the state; but 
 the mere physical force of passion puts to flight in one moment 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 327 
 
 all his acquired and accustomed virtues, and gives the upper hand 
 to the savage in him over the moral man. This tyranny of the 
 blood over the will betrays itself even in the expression of his 
 desire of revenge against Cassio. In his repentance when lie 
 views the evidence of the deed, a genuine tenderness for his 
 murdered wife and the painful feelings of his annihilated honour, 
 at last bursts forth; and he every now and then assails himself 
 with the rage which a despot betrays in punishing a runaway 
 slave. He suffers as a double man; at once in the higher and 
 lower sphere into which his being was divided. — While the 
 Moor bears nc^, only the nightly colour of suspicion and deceit 
 on his visage, Iago is black within. He pursues Othello like 
 his evil spirit, and with his light, and therefore the more danger- 
 ous, insinuations: he leaves him no rest; it is as if by means of 
 an unfortunate affinity, founded however in nature, this influence 
 was by necessity more powerful over him than the voice of his 
 good angel Desdemona. A more artful villain than this Iago 
 was never pourtrayed: he spreads his nets with a skill which 
 nothing can escape. The repugnance inspired by his aims be- 
 comes v i^supportable from the attention of the spectators being 
 directed to his means: they furnish infinite employment to the 
 understanding. Cool, discontented, and morose, arrogant where 
 he dare be so, but humble and insinuating when it suits his pur- 
 poses, he is a complete master in the art of dissimulation; accessi- 
 ble only to selfish emotions, he is thoroughly skilled in rousing 
 the passions of others, and of availing himself of every opening 
 which they give hirn: he is as excellent an observer of men as 
 any one can be who is unacquainted with higher motives of ac- 
 tion from his own experience; there is always some truth in his 
 malicious observations on them. He does not merely pretend 
 an obdurate incredulity as to the virtue of women, he actually 
 entertains it; and this, too, falls in with his whole way of think- 
 ing, and makes him the more fit for the execution of bis purpose. 
 As in everything he sees merely the hateful side, he dissolves in 
 the rudest manner the charm which the imagination casts over 
 the relation between the two sexes: he does so for the purpose 
 of throwing into commotion the senses of Othello, whom his 
 heart might have easily convinced of Desdemona's innocence. 
 This must serve as an excuse for the numerous expressions in 
 the speeches of Iago from which modesty shrinks back. If 
 Shakspeare had written in our days he would not perhaps have 
 dared to hazard them; but this must certainly have very much 
 injured the truth of his picture. Desdemona is an offering with- 
 out blemish. She is not, it is true, a high ideal representation 
 of sweetness and enthusiastic passion like Juliet; full of simpli- 
 
328 LECTURES ON 
 
 city, softness, and humility, and so innocent, that she can hard- 
 ly form to herself an idea of the possibility of infidelity, she 
 seems calculated to make the most yielding and tender wife. 
 The female propensity wholly to follow a foreign destiny has 
 led her into the only error she ever committed, that of marrying 
 without the consent of her father. Her choice seems wrong; 
 and yet she has been gained over to Othello by that which in- 
 duces the female to honour in man her protector and guide, — 
 admiration of his determined heroism, and compassion for the 
 sufferings which he had undergone. With great art it is so con- 
 trived, that from the very circumstance that the possibility of a 
 suspicion of herself never once enters her mind, she is the less 
 reserved in her solicitation for Cassio, by which she more and 
 more heightens the jealousy of the Moor. To give still greater 
 effect to the angelic purity of Desdemona, Shakspeare has in 
 Emilia associated with her a companion of doubtful virtue. 
 From the sinful levity of this woman it is also conceivable, that 
 she should not confess the abstraction of the handkerchief when 
 Othello violently demands it back: this would otherwise be the 
 circumstance in the whole piece the most difficult to justify. 
 Cassio is portrayed exactly as he ought to be to excite suspicion 
 without actual guilt, — amiable and nobly disposed, but easily se- 
 duced. The public events of the first two acts show us Othello 
 in his most glorious aspect, as the support of Venice and the terror 
 of the Turks: they serve to withdraw the story from the mere 
 domestic circle, which is done in Romeo and Juliet by the dis- 
 sensions between the houses of Montague and Capulet. No elo- 
 quence is capable of painting the overwhelming force of the catas- 
 trophe in Othello, the pressure of feelings which measure out in 
 a moment the abysses of eternity. 
 
 Hamlet is single in its kind: a tragedy of thought inspired by 
 continual and never satisfied meditation on human destiny and 
 the dark perplexity of the events of this world, and calculated to 
 call forth the very same meditation in the minds of the spectators. 
 This enigmatical work resembles those irrational equations in 
 which a fraction of unknown magnitude always remains, that 
 will in no manner admit of solution. Much has been said, much 
 written on this piece, and yet no thinking head who anew ex- 
 presses himself on it will, in his view of the connection and the 
 signification of all the parts, entirely coincide with his predeces- 
 sors. It must astonish us the most, that with such hidden pur- 
 poses, with a foundation laid in such unfathomable depth, the 
 whole should, at a first view, exhibit an extremely proper ap- 
 pearance. The dread appearance of the Ghost takes possession 
 of the mind and the imagination at the commencement; then the 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 329 
 
 play within the play, in which we see reflected as in a glass the 
 crime, the fruitlessly attempted punishment of which constitutes 
 the subject of the piece; the alarm with which it fills the King; 
 Hamlet's pretended and Ophelia's real madness; her death and 
 burial; the meeting of Hamlet and Laertes at her grave; their 
 combat, and the grand determination; lastly, the appearance of 
 the young hero Fortinbras who with warlike pomp, pays the 
 last honours to an extinguished Royal Family; the comic charac- 
 teristic scenes with Polonius, the Courtiers, and the Grave-Dig- 
 gers interspersed, which have all of them their signification, — 
 all this fills the stage with the most animated and varied move- 
 ments. The only circumstance from which this piece might 
 be found less theatrical than other tragedies of Shakspeare is, that 
 in the last scene the main action either stands still or appears to 
 retrograde. This however was inevitable, and lies in the nature 
 of the thing. The whole is intended to show that a considera- 
 tion which would exhaust all the relations and possible conse- 
 quences of a deed to the very limits of human foresight, cripples 
 the power of acting; as Hamlet himself expresses it: — 
 
 And thus the native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought; 
 And enterprises of great pith and moment, 
 With this regard, their current turns awry, 
 And lose the name of action. 
 
 Respecting Hamlet's character, I cannot, according to the 
 views of the poet as I understand them, pronounce altogether so 
 favourable a sentence as Goethe's. He is, it is true, a mind of 
 high cultivation, a prince of royal manners, endowed with the 
 finest sense of propriety, susceptible of a noble ambition, and 
 open in the highest degree to enthusiasm for the foreign excellence 
 in which he is deficient. He acts the part of madness with in- 
 imitable superiority; while he convinces the persons who are 
 sent to examine him of his loss of reason, merely because he tells 
 them unwelcome truths, and rallies them with the most caustic 
 wit. But in the resolutions which he so often embraces and 
 always leaves unexecuted, the weakness of his volition is evident: 
 he does himself only justice when he says there is no greater dis- 
 similarity, than between himself and Hercules. He is not solely 
 impelled by necessity to artifice and dissimulation, he has a na- 
 tural inclination to go crooked ways; he is a hypoerite towards 
 himself: his far-fetched scruples are often mere pretexts to cover 
 his want of determination; thoughts, as he says on a different oc- 
 casion, which have 
 
 but one part wisdom 
 
 And ever three parts coward. 
 
 42 
 
330 LECTURES ON 
 
 He has been chiefly condemned for his harshness in repulsing 
 the love of Ophelia, to which he himself gave rise, and for his 
 u n feel ingn ess at her death. But he is too much overwhelmed 
 with his own sorrow to have any compassion to spare for others: 
 his indifference gives us by no means the measure of his internal 
 perturbation. On the other hand, we evidently perceive in him 
 a malicious joy, when he has succeeded more through necessity 
 and accident, which are alone able to impel him to quick and de- 
 cisive measures, than from the merit of his courage in getting 
 rid of his enemies; for so he expresses himself after the murder of 
 Polonius, and respecting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet 
 has no firm belief either in himself or in anything else: from ex- 
 pressions of religious confidence he passes over to sceptical doubts; 
 he believes in the Ghost of his father when he sees it, and as soon 
 as it has disappeared, it appears to him almost in the light of a 
 deception.* He has even got so far as to say, "there is nothing 
 either good or bad, but thinking makes it so;" the poet loses him- 
 self with him in the labyrinth of thought, in which we neither find 
 end nor beginning. The stars themselves, from the course of 
 events, afford no answer to the questions so urgently proposed 
 to them. A voice, commissioned as it would appear by heaven 
 from another world, demands vengeance for a monstrous enor- 
 mity, and the demand remains without effect; the criminals are 
 at last punished, but, as it were, by an accidental blow r , and not 
 in a manner requisite to announce with solemnity a warning ex- 
 ample of justice to the world; irresolute foresight, cunning trea- 
 chery, and impetuous rage, are hurried on to the same destruc- 
 tion; the less guilty or the innocent are equally involved in the 
 general destruction. The destiny of humanity is there exhibited 
 as a gigantic sphinx, which threatens to precipitate whoever is 
 unable to solve her dreadful enigma into the abyss of scepticism. 
 As one example of the many niceties of Shakspeare which 
 have never been understood, 1 may allude to the style in which 
 the speech of the player respecting Hecuba is conceived. It has 
 been the subject of much controversy among the commentators, 
 whether this was borrowed from Shakspeare himself or from 
 others, and whether, in the praise of the piece of which it is 
 
 * It has been censured as a contradiction, that Hamlet in the soliloquy on 
 self-murder should say 
 
 The undiscover'd country from whose bourne 
 No traveller returns 
 
 For was not the Ghost a returned traveller? Shakspeare however purposely 
 wished to show, that Hamlet could not fix himself in any conviction of any kind 
 whatever. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 331 
 
 supposed to be a part, he was speaking seriously, or merely 
 meant to ridicule the tragical bombast of his contemporaries. It 
 never occurred to them that this speech must not be judged of by 
 itself, but in connection with the place where it is introduced. 
 To distinguish it as dramatic poetry in the play itself, it was 
 necessary that it should rise above its dignified poetry in the 
 same proportion that the theatrical elevation does above simple 
 nature. — Hence Shakspeare has composed the play in Hamlet 
 altogether in sententious rhymes full of antitheses. But this 
 solemn and measured tone did not suit a speech in which violent 
 emotion ought to prevail, and the poet had no other expedient 
 than the one of which he made choice: overcharging the pathos. 
 The language of the speech in question is certainly falsely em- 
 phatical; but yet this fault is so mixed up with true grandeur, 
 that a player practised in calling forth in himself artificially the 
 imitated emotions may certainly be carried away by it. Besides, 
 it will hardly be believed that Shakspeare knew so little of his 
 art, as not to be aware that a tragedy in which iEneas had to 
 make a lengthened epic relation of a transaction that happened so 
 long before as the destruction of Troy, could neither be drama- 
 tical nor theatrical. 
 
 Of Macbeth I have already spoken once in passing, and who 
 could exhaust the praise of this sublime work? Since The Furies 
 of iEschylus, nothing so grand and terrible has ever been compos- 
 ed. The Witches are not, it is true, divine Eumenides, and are not 
 intended to be so: they are ignoble and vulgar instruments of 
 hell. A German poet therefore very ill understood their mean- 
 ing, when he transformed them into mongrel beings a mixture 
 of fates, furies, and enchantresses, and clothed them with tragi- 
 cal dignity. Let no man lay hand on Shakspeare's works to 
 change anything essential in them; he will be sure to punish 
 himself. The bad is rascally odious, and to endeavour in any 
 manner to ennoble it is to violate the laws of propriety. Hence, 
 in my opinion, Dante, and even Tasso, have been much more 
 successful in their portraiture of Daemons than Milton. Whether 
 the age of Shakspeare still believed in witchcraft and ghosts is a 
 matter of perfect indifference for the justification of the use which 
 in Hamlet and Macbeth he has made of pre-existing traditions. 
 No superstition can ever be prevalent and widely diffused through 
 ages and nations without having a foundation in human nature: 
 on this foundation the poet builds: he calls up from their hidden 
 abysses that dread of the unknown, that presage of a dark side 
 of nature, and a world of spirits, which philosophy now imagines 
 it has altogether exploded. In this manner he is in some de- 
 gree both the portrayer and the philosopher of a superstition, 
 
332 LECTURES ON 
 
 that is, not the philosopher who denies and turns into ridicule, 
 but, which is still more difficult, who distinctly exhibits its ori- 
 gin to us in apparently irrational and yet natural opinions. But 
 when he ventures to make arbitrary changes in these popular 
 traditions, he altogether forfeits his right to them, and merely 
 holds up his own peculiarities to our ridicule. Shakspeare's 
 picture of the witches is truly magical: in the short scenes where 
 they enter, he has created for them a peculiar language, which, 
 although composed of the usual elements, still seems to be a col- 
 lection of formulae of incantation. The sound of the words, the 
 accumulation of rhymes, and the rhythmus of the verse, form 
 as it were the hollow music of a dreary dance of witches. He 
 has been abused for introducing the names of disgusting objects: 
 but he who supposes that the kettle of the witches can be made 
 effective with agreeable aromatics, has no better understanding 
 of the subject, than those who are desirous that hell should sin- 
 cerely and honourably give good advice. These repulsive things, 
 from which the imagination shrinks back, are here a symbol of the 
 hostile powers which operate in nature, and the mental horror 
 outweighs the repugnance of our senses. The witches discourse 
 with one another like women of the very lowest class, for this 
 was the class to which witches are supposed to belong; when 
 however they address Macbeth their tone assumes more eleva- 
 tion: their predictions, which they either themselves pronounce, 
 or allow their apparitions to deliver, have all the obscure brevity, 
 the majestic solemnity, by which oracles have in all times con- 
 trived to inspire mortals with reverential awe. We here see 
 that the witches are merely instruments; they are governed by 
 an invisible spirit, or the operation of such great and dreadful 
 events would be above their sphere. To what intent did Shak- 
 speare assign the same place to them in his play, which they oc- 
 cupy in the history of Macbeth as related in the old chronicles? 
 A monstrous crime is committed: Duncan, a venerable old man, 
 and the best of kings, is murdered by his subject, whom he has 
 loaded with honours and rewards, in defenceless sleep, under the 
 hospitable roof. Natural motives alone seem inadequate, or he 
 must have portrayed the perpetrator as a most hardened villain. 
 Shakspeare wished to exhibit a more sublime picture to us: an 
 ambitious but noble hero, who yields to a deep-laid hellish tempta- 
 tion; and all the crimes to which he is impelled by necessity, to 
 secure the fruits of his first crime, cannot altogether eradicate in 
 him the stamp of native heroism. He has therefore given a 
 threefold division to the guilt of that crime. The first idea comes 
 from that being whose whole activity is guided by a lust of 
 wickedness. The weird sisters surprise Macbeth in the moment 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 333 
 
 of intoxication after his victory, when his love of glory has been 
 gratified; they cheat his eyes by exhibiting to him as the work 
 of fate what can only in reality be accomplished by his own deed 
 and gain credence for their words by the immediate fulfilment 
 of the first prediction. The opportunity for murdering the king 
 immediately offers itself; the wife of Macbeth conjures him not 
 to let it slip: she urges him on with a fiery eloquence, which has 
 all those sophisms at command that serve to throw a false gran- 
 deur over crime. Little more than the mere execution falls to the 
 share of Macbeth; he is driven to it as it were in a state of com- 
 motion in which his mind is bewildered. Repentance imme- 
 diately follows, nay, even precedes the deed, and the stings of 
 his conscience leave him no rest either night or day. But he is 
 now fairly entangled in the snares of hell; it is truly frightful to be- 
 hold that Macbeth, who once as a warrior could spurn at death, 
 now that he dreads the prospect of the life to come,* clinging 
 with growing anxiety to his earthly existence, the more miser- 
 able it becomes, and pitilessly removing out of his way whatever 
 to his dark and suspicious mind seems to threaten danger. How- 
 ever much we may abhor his actions, we cannot altogether re- 
 fuse to sympathize with the state of his mind; we lament the 
 ruin of so many noble qualities, and even in his last defence we 
 are compelled to admire in him the struggle of a brave will with 
 a cowardly conscience. We might believe that we witness in 
 this tragedy the over-ruling destiny of the ancients entirely ac- 
 cording to their ideas: the whole originates in a supernatural in- 
 fluence, to which the subsequent events seem inevitably linked. 
 We even find again here the same ambiguous oracles which, by 
 their literal fulfilment, deceive those who confide in them. Yet 
 it may be shown that the poet has displayed more enlightened 
 views in his work. He wishes to show that the conflict of good 
 and evil in this world can only take place by the permission of 
 Providence, which converts the curse that individual mortals 
 draw down on their heads into a blessing to others. An accu- 
 rate scale is followed in the retaliation. Lady Macbeth, who of 
 all the human beings is the most guilty participator in the mur- 
 der of the king, falls through the horrors of her conscience into 
 a state of incurable bodily and mental disease; she dies, unla- 
 mented by her husband, with all the symptoms of reprobation. 
 Macbeth is still found worthy of dying the death of a hero on 
 the field of battle. The noble Macduff is allowed the satisfaction 
 of saving his country by punishing with his own hand the tyrant 
 who destroyed his wife and his children. Banquo atones for the 
 
 * We'd jump the life to come. 
 
334 LECTURES ON 
 
 ambitious curiosity which prompted him to wish to know his 
 glorious descendants by an early death, as he thereby rouses 
 JMacbeth's jealousy; but he preserved his mind pure from the 
 bubbles of the witches: his name is blessed in his race, destined 
 to enjoy for a long succession of ages that royal dignity which 
 Macbeth could only hold during his own life. In the progress 
 of the action, this piece is altogether the reverse of Hamlet: it 
 strides forward with amazing rapidity, from the first catastrophe 
 (for Duncan's murder may be called a catastrophe) to the last. 
 u Thought, and done!" is the general motto; for as Macbeth 
 says, 
 
 The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, 
 Unless the deed go with it. 
 
 In every feature we see a vigorous heroic age in the hardy 
 North which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the 
 action cannot be ascertained, — years perhaps according to the 
 story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded 
 time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly conceive 
 how so very much can be compressed into so narrow a space; not 
 merely external events, — the very innermost recesses of the 
 minds of the persons of the drama are laid open to us. It is as if 
 the drags were taken from the wheels of time, and they rolled 
 along without interruption in their descent. Nothing can equal 
 the power of this picture in the excitation of horror. We need 
 only allude to the circumstances attending the murder of Duncan, 
 the dagger that hovers before the eyes of Macbeth, the vision 
 of Banquo at the feast, the Madness of Lady Macbeth; what can 
 we possibly say on the subject that will not rather weaken the 
 impression? Such scenes stand alone, and are to be found only 
 in this poet; otherwise the tragic muse might exchange her mask 
 for the head of Medusa. 
 
 I wish merely to point out as a secondary circumstance the 
 prudent dexterity of Shakspeare, who knew how to flatter a 
 king by a work of which the poetical views are evident in every 
 part of the plan. James the First derived his lineage from Ban- 
 quo; he was the first who united the threefold sceptre of En- 
 gland, Scotland, and Ireland: this is shown in the magical vision, 
 when a long series of glorious successors is promised to him. 
 Even the power of the English kings to heal certain maladies by 
 the touch, which James pretended to have inherited from Edward 
 the Confessor, and on which he set a great value, is mentioned 
 in a natural manner.'* — With such occasional pieces we may well 
 
 * The naming of Edward the Confessor gives us at the same time the epoch 
 in which these historically accredited transactions are made to take place. The 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 335 
 
 allow ourselves to be pleased without fearing any danger of 
 poetry: by similar allusions vEschylus endeavoured to recom- 
 mend the Areopagus, to his fellow-citizens, and Sophocles to cele- 
 brate the glory of Athens. 
 
 As terror in Macbeth reaches its utmost height, in King Lear 
 the science of compassion is exhausted. The principal characters 
 here are not those who act, but those who suffer. We have not 
 in this, as in most tragedies, the picture of a calamity in which 
 the sudden blows of fate seem still to honour the head whom 
 they strike, in which the loss is always accompanied by some 
 flattering consolation in the memory of the former possession; 
 but a fall from the highest elevation into the deepest abyss of 
 misery, where humanity is stripped of all external and internal 
 advantages, and given up a prey to naked helplessness. The 
 threefold dignity of a king, an old man, and a father, is dishon- 
 oured by the cruel ingratitude of his unnatural daughters; the 
 old Lear, who out of a foolish tenderness has given away every- 
 thing, is driven out to the world a wandering beggar; the 
 childish imbecility to which he was fast advancing changes into 
 the wildest insanity, and when he is saved from the disgraceful 
 destitution to which he was abandoned it is too late: the kind con- 
 solations of filial care and attention and true friendship are now 
 lost on him; his bodily and mental powers are destroyed beyond 
 all hope of recovery, and all that now remains to him of life is 
 the capability of loving and suffering beyond measure. What a 
 picture we have in the meeting of Lear and Edgar in a tempes- 
 tuous night and in a wretched hovel! Edgar, a youth, by the 
 wicked arts of his brother and his father's blindness, has fallen so 
 low from the rank to which his birth entitled him as Lear; and 
 he is reduced to assume the disguise of a beggar tormented by 
 evil spirits as the only means of escaping pursuit. The King's 
 fool, notwithstanding the voluntary degradation which is impli- 
 ed in his situation, is, after Kent, Lear's most faithful associate, 
 his wisest counsellor. This good-hearted fool clothes reason 
 with the livery of his motley garb; the high-born beggar acts the 
 part of insanity; and both, were they even in reality what they 
 seem, would still be enviable in comparison with the King, 
 who feels that the violence of his grief threatens to overpower 
 his reason. The meeting of Edgar with the blinded Gloster is 
 equally heart-rending; nothing can be more affecting than to see 
 the ejected son become the father's guide, and the good angel, 
 
 ruins ofMacbeth's palace are yet standing" at Inverness; the present Earls of 
 Fife are the descendants of the valiant Macduff, and down to the union of Scot- 
 land with England they were in the enjoyment of peculiar privileges for their 
 merits towards the crown. 
 
336 LECTURES ON 
 
 who under the disguise of insanity, by an ingenious and pious 
 fraud, saves him from the horror and despair of self-murder. 
 But who can possibly enumerate all the different combinations and 
 situations by which our minds are stormed by the poet? I will 
 only make one observation respecting the structure of the whole. 
 The story of Lear and his daughters was left by Shakspeare exactly 
 as he found it in a fabulous tradition, with all the features characteris- 
 tical of the simplicity of old times. But in that tradition there is not 
 the slightest trace of the story of Gloster and his sons, which was 
 derived by Shakspeare from another source. The incorporation 
 of the two stories has been censured as destructive of the unity 
 of action. But whatever contributes to the intrigue or the de- 
 nouement must always possess unity. And with what ingenuity 
 and skill the two main parts of the composition are dovetailed 
 into one another! The pity felt by Gloster for the fate of Lear 
 becomes the means which enables his son Edmund to effect his 
 complete destruction, and affords the outcast Edgar an oppor- 
 tunity of being the saviour of his father. On the other hand, 
 Edmund is active in the cause of Regan and Gonerill; and the 
 criminal passion which they both entertain for him induces them 
 to execute justice on each other and on themselves. The laws 
 of the drama have therefore been sufficiently complied with; but 
 that is the least: it is the very combination which constitutes the 
 sublime beauty of the work. The two cases resemble each other 
 in the main: an infatuated father is blind towards his well dispos- 
 ed child, and the unnatural offspring, to whom he gives the pre- 
 ference, requite him by the destruction of his entire happiness. 
 But all the circumstances are so different that these stories, while 
 they make an equal impression on the heart, form a complete con- 
 trast for the imagination. Were Learalone to suffer from his daugh- 
 ters, the impression would be limited to the powerful compassion 
 felt by us for his private misfortune. But two such unheard of ex- 
 amples taking place at the same time have the appearance of a great 
 commotion in the moral world: the picture becomes gigantic, 
 and fills us with such alarm as we should entertain at the idea 
 that the heavenly bodies might one day fall out of their regular 
 orbits. To save in some degree the honour of human nature, 
 Shakspeare never wishes that his spectators should forget that the 
 story takes place in a dreary and barbarous age: he lays particu- 
 lar stress on the circumstance that the Britons of that day were 
 still heathens, although he has not made all the remaining circum- 
 stances to coincide learnedly with the time which he has chosen. 
 From this point of view we must judge of many coarsenesses in ex- 
 pression and manners; for instance,the immodest manner in which 
 Gloster acknowledges his bastard, Kent's quarrel with the Stew- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 337 
 
 ard, and more especially the cruelty personally exercised on 
 Gloster by the Duke of Cornwall. Even the virtue of the honest 
 Kent bears the stamp of an iron age, in which the good and the 
 bad display the same ungovernable strength. Great qualities 
 have not been superfluously assigned to the King; the poet could 
 command our sympathy for his situation without concealing what 
 he had done to bring himself into it. Lear is choleric, overbear- 
 ing, and almost childish from age, when he drives out his young- 
 est daughter because she will not join in the hypocritical exag- 
 geration of her sisters. But he has a warm and affectionate heart, 
 which is susceptible of the most fervent gratitude; and even rays 
 of a high and kingly disposition burst forth from the eclipse of his 
 understanding. Of the heavenly beauty of soul of Cordelia, pro- 
 nounced in so few words, I will not venture to speak; she can 
 only be named along with Antigone. Her death has been thought 
 too cruel; and in England the piece is so far altered in acting 
 that she remains victorious and happy. I must own, I cannot 
 conceive what ideas of art and dramatic connection those persons 
 have who suppose that we can at pleasure tack a double conclu- 
 sion to a tragedy; a melancholy one for hard-hearted spectators, 
 and a merry one for souls of a softer mould. After surviving 
 so many sufferings, Lear can only die in a tragical manner from 
 his grief for the death of Cordelia; and if he is also to be saved 
 and to pass the remainder of his days in happiness, the whole 
 loses its signification. According to Shakspeare's plan the guilty, 
 it is true, are all punished, for wickedness destroys itself; but 
 the auxiliator)^ virtues are everywhere too late, or overmatched 
 by the cunning activity of malice. The persons of this drama 
 have only such a faint belief in Providence as heathens may be 
 supposed to have; and the poet here wishes to show us that this 
 belief acquires a wider range than the dark pilgrimage on earth to 
 be established in its utmost extent. 
 
 These five tragedies of which I have just spoken are deservedly 
 the most celebrated of the works of Shakspeare. In the three 
 last more especially, we have a display of an elevation of genius 
 which may almost be said to exceed the powers of human nature: 
 the mind is as much lost in the contemplation of all the heights 
 and depths of these works as our feelings are overpowered by 
 the first impression which they produce. However, of his his- 
 torical plays some possess a high degree of tragical perfection, and 
 all are distinguished by peculiar excellencies. 
 
 In the three Roman pieces, Coriolanus, Julius Cxsar, and 
 •dntony and Cleopatra, the moderation with which Shakspeare 
 excludes foreign appendages and arbitrary suppositions, and yet 
 fully satisfies the wants of the stage, is particularly deserving of 
 
 43 
 
33S LECTURES ON 
 
 our admiration. These plays are the very thing itself; and 
 under the apparent artlessness of adhering closely to history as 
 he found it, an uncommon degree of art is concealed. Of every 
 historical transaction Shakspeare knows how to seize the true 
 poetical point of view, and to give unity and rounding to a series of 
 events detached from the immeasurable extent of history without 
 in any degree changing them. The public life of ancient Rome 
 is called up from its grave, and exhibited before our eyes with 
 the utmost grandeur and freedom of the dramatic form, and the 
 heroes of Plutarch are ennobled by the most eloquent poetry. 
 
 In Coriolanus we have more comic intermixtures than in the 
 others, as the many-headed multitude plays here a considerable 
 part; and when Shakspeare portrays the blind movements of the 
 people in a mass, he almost always gives himself up to his merry 
 humour. To the plebeians, whose folly is certainly sufficiently 
 conspicuous already, the original old satirist Menenius is added 
 by way of abundance. This gives rise to droll scenes of a de- 
 scription altogether peculiar, and which are alone compatible 
 with such a political drama; for instance, when Coriolanus, to 
 obtain the consulate, must solicit the lower order of citizens 
 whom he holds in contempt for their cowardice in war, but can- 
 not so far master his haughty disposition as to assume the cus- 
 tomary humility, and yet extorts from them their votes. 
 
 I have already shown* that the piece of Julius Caesar, to 
 complete the action, must be continued to the fall of Brutus 
 and Cassius. Caesar is not the hero of the piece, but Brutus. 
 The amiable beauty of this character, his feeling and patriotic 
 heroism, are portrayed with peculiar care. Yet the poet has 
 pointed out with great nicety the superiority of Cassius over 
 Brutus in independent volition and discernment in judging of 
 human affairs; that the latter from the purity of his mind and his 
 conscientious love of justice, is unfit to be the head of a party in 
 a state entirely corrupted; and that these very faults give an un- 
 fortunate turn to the cause of the conspirators. Several ostenta- 
 tious speeches in the part of Caesar have been censured as unsuit- 
 able. But as he never appears in action, we have no other mea- 
 sure of his greatness than the impression which he makes upon 
 the rest of the characters, and his peculiar confidence in himself. 
 In this Csesar was by no means deficient, as we learn from his- 
 tory and his own writings; but he displayed it more in the easy 
 ridicule of his enemies than in pompous discourses. The thea- 
 trical effect of this play is injured by the falling off in some de- 
 gree of the last two acts compared with the preceding in external 
 
 * See page 186. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 339 
 
 splendour and rapidity. The first appearance of Csesar in a 
 festal dress, when the music stops and all are silent whenever he 
 opens his mouth, and the few words which he utters are received 
 as oracles, is truly magnificent; the conspiracy is a true con- 
 spiracy, that in stolen interviews and in the dead of night pre- 
 pares the blow which is to be struck in open day, and which is 
 to change the constitution of the world; the confused thronging 
 before the murder of Caesar, the general agitation even of the 
 perpetrators after the deed, are portrayed in a most masterly 
 manner; with the funeral procession and the speech of Antony 
 the effect reaches its utmost height. Caesar's shade is the more 
 powerful in avenging his fall than he himself was in guarding 
 against it. After the overthrow of the external splendour and 
 greatness of the conqueror and ruler of the world, the internal 
 grandeur of character of Brutus and Cassius are all that remain to 
 fill the stage and occupy the minds of the spectators: they stand 
 there in some degree alone, suitably to their name, as the last of 
 the Romans; and the forming a great and hazardous determina- 
 tion is more powerfully calculated to excite our expectation, 
 than the supporting the consequences of the deed with heroic 
 firmness. 
 
 Jintony and Cleopatra may, in some measure, be considered 
 as a continuation of Julius Cassar: the two principal characters 
 of Jintony and Augustus are equally sustained in both pieces. 
 Jintony and Cleopatra is a play of great extent; the progress 
 is less simple than in Julius Csesar. The fulness and variety 
 of political and warlike events, to which the union of the three 
 divisions of the Roman world under one master necessarily gave 
 rise, were perhaps too great to admit of being clearly exhibited 
 in one dramatic picture. In this consists the great difficulty of 
 the historical drama: — it must be a crowded extract, and a living 
 developement of history: — the difficulty however has generally 
 been successfully overcome by Shakspeare. But here many 
 things, which are transacted in the back ground, are merely al- 
 luded to, in a manner which supposes an intimate acquaintance 
 with the history; and a work of art should contain everything 
 necessary for fully understanding it within itself. Many persons 
 of historical importance are merely introduced in passing; the 
 preparatory and concurring circumstances are not sufficiently 
 collected into masses to avoid distracting our attention. The 
 principal personages, however, are most emphatically distinguish- 
 ed by lineament and colouring, and powerfully arrest the imagi- 
 nation. In Antony we observe a mixture of great qualities, 
 weaknesses, and vices; violent ambition and ebullitions of mag- 
 nanimity: we see him sunk in luxurious enjoyments and nobly 
 
340 LECTURES ON 
 
 ashamed of his own aberrations, — manning himself to resolutions 
 not unworthy of himself, which are always shipwrecked against the 
 seductions of an artful woman. It is Hercules in the chains of 
 Ornphale, drawn from the fabulous heroic ages into history, and 
 invested with the Roman costume. The seductive arts of Cleo- 
 patra are in no respect veiled over; she is an ambiguous being 
 made up of royal pride, female vanity, luxury, inconstancy, and 
 true attachment. Although the mutual passion of herself and 
 Antony is without moral dignity, it still excites our sympathy 
 as an insurmountable fascination: — they seem formed for each 
 other, and Cleopatra is as remarkable for her seductive charms as 
 Antony for, the splendour of his deeds. As they die for each 
 other, we forgive them for having lived for each other. The 
 open and lavish character of Antony is admirably contrasted 
 with the heartless littleness of Octavius Caesar, whom Shakspeare 
 seems to have completely seen through without allowing himself 
 to be led astray by the fortune and fame of Augustus. 
 
 Timon ofJithens, and Troilns and Cressida, are not histori- 
 cal plays; but we cannot properly call them either tragedies or 
 comedies. By the selection of the materials from antiquity they 
 have some affinity to the Roman pieces, and hence I have hitherto 
 abstained from mentioning them. 
 
 Timon of Athens, of all the works of Shakspeare, possesses 
 most the character of satire: — a laughing satire in the picture of 
 the parasites and flatterers, and a Juvenalian in the bitterness 
 and the imprecations of Timon against the ingratitude of a false 
 world. The story is treated in a very simple manner, and is 
 definitely divided into large masses: — in the first act the joyous 
 life of Timon, his noble and hospitable extravagance, and the 
 throng of every description of suitors to him; in the second and 
 third acts his embarrassment, and the trial which he is thereby 
 reduced to make of his supposed friends, who all desert him in the 
 hour of need; — in the fourth and fifth acts, Timon's flight to the 
 woods; his misanthropical melancholy, and his death. The 
 only thing which may be called an episode is the banishment of 
 Alcibiades, and his return by force of arms. However they are 
 both examples of ingratitude, — the one of a state towards its de- 
 fender, and the other of private friends to their benefactor. As 
 the merits of the general towards his fellow-citizens suppose 
 more strength of character than those of the generous prodigal, 
 their respective behaviours are not less different: Timon frets 
 himself to death, Alcibiades regains his lost dignity by violence. 
 If the poet very properly sides with Timon against the common 
 practice of the world, he is, on the other hand, by no means dis- 
 posed to spare Timon. Timon was a fool in his generosity; he 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 341 
 
 is a madman in his discontent: he is everywhere wanting in the 
 wisdom which enables a man in all things to observe the due 
 measure. Although the truth of his extravagant feelings is proved 
 by his death, and though when he digs up a treasure he spurns 
 at the wealth which seems again to solicit him, we yet see dis- 
 tinctly enough that the vanity of wishing to be singular, in both 
 the parts that he plays, had some share in his liberal self-forget- 
 fulness, as well as his anchoritical seclusion. This is particularly 
 evident in the incomparable scene where the cynic Apemantus 
 visits Timon in the wilderness. They have a sort of competition 
 with each other in their trade of misanthropy: the Cynic re- 
 proaches the impoverished Timon with having been merely 
 driven by necessity to take to the way of living which he had 
 long been following of his free choice, and Timon cannot bear 
 the thought of being merely an imitator of the Cynic. As in 
 this subject the effect could only be produced by an accumulation 
 of similar features, in the variety of the shades an amazing degree 
 of understanding has been displayed by Shakspeare. What a 
 powerfully diversified concert of flatteries and empty testimonies 
 of devotedness! It is highly amusing to see the suitors, whom 
 the ruined circumstances of their patron had dispersed, immedi- 
 ately flock to him again when they learn that he has been revisit- 
 ed by fortune. In the speeches of Timon, after he is undeceived, 
 all the hostile figures of language are exhausted, — it is a diction- 
 ary of eloquent imprecations. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida is the only play of Shakspeare which 
 he has allowed to be printed without being previously represented. 
 It seems as if he here for once wished, without caring for thea- 
 trical effect, to satisfy the nicety of his peculiar wit, and the 
 inclination to a certain guile, if I may say so, in the characteriza- 
 tion. The whole is one continued irony of the crown of all 
 heroic tales, the tale of Troy. The contemptible nature of the 
 origin of the Trojan war, the laziness and discord with which it 
 was carried on, so that the siege was made to last ten years, by 
 the noble descriptions, the sage and ingenious maxims with 
 which the work overflows, and the high ideas which the heroes 
 entertain of themselves and each other, are only placed in the 
 clearer light. The stately behaviour of Agamemnon, the irrita- 
 tion of Menelaus, the experience of Nestor, the cunning of Ulys- 
 ses, are all productive of no effect; when they have at last arranged 
 a combat between the coarse braggart Ajax and Hector, the lat- 
 ter will not fight in good earnest as Ajax is his cousin. Achilles 
 is treated worst: after having long stretched himself out in arro- 
 gant idleness, and passed his time in the company of Thersites the 
 buffoon, he falls upon Hector at a moment when he is defenceless, 
 
342 LECTURES ON 
 
 and kills him by means of his myrmidons. In all this let no 
 man conceive that any indignity was intended to the venerable 
 Homer. Shakspeare had not the Iliad before him, but the chi- 
 valrous romances of the Trojan war derived from Dares Phrygius. 
 From this source also he took the love-intrigue of Troilus and 
 Cressida, a story at one time so popular in England that the 
 name of Troilus had become proverbial for faithful and ill requited 
 love, and Cressida for female falsehood. The name of the agent 
 between them, Pandarus, has even been adopted into the English 
 language to signify those personages (panders) who dedicate 
 themselves to similar services for unexperienced persons of both 
 sexes. The endless contrivances of the courteous Pandarus to 
 bring the two lovers together, who do not stand in need of him, 
 as Cressida requires no seduction, are comic in the extreme. 
 The manner in which this treacherous beauty excites while she 
 refuses, and converts the virgin modesty, which she pretends, 
 into a means of seductive allurement, is portrayed in colours ex- 
 tremely elegant, though certainly somewhat voluptuous. Troilus, 
 the pattern of lovers, looks patiently on, while his mistress enters 
 into an intrigue with Diomed. He no doubt swears that he will 
 be revenged; but notwithstanding his violence in the fight next 
 day, he does no harm to any one, and ends with only high-sound- 
 ing threats. In a word, Shakspeare did not wish, in this heroic 
 comedy, where everything from traditional fame and the pomp 
 of poetry, seems to lay claim to admiration, that any room should 
 be left for esteem and sympathy, if we except, perhaps, the 
 character of Hector; but in this double meaning of the picture, 
 he has afforded us the most choice entertainment. 
 
 The dramas derived from the English history are ten in num- 
 ber: one of the most valuable works of Shakspeare, and partly 
 the fruit of his maturest age. I say advisedly, one of his works; 
 for the poet has evidently intended them as parts of a great whole. 
 It is, as it were, a historical heroic poem in the dramatic form, 
 of which the separate plays constitute the rhapsodies. The prin- 
 cipal features of the events are exhibited with such fidelity; their 
 causes, and even their secret springs, are placed in such a clear 
 light, that we may attain from them a knowledge of history in all 
 its truth, while the living picture makes an impression on the im- 
 agination which can never be effaced. But this series of dramas 
 is intended as the vehicle of a much higher and much more gen- 
 eral instruction; it affords examples of the political course of the 
 world, applicable to all times. This mirror of kings should be 
 the manual of young princes: they may learn from it the inward 
 dignity of their hereditary vocation, but they will also learn the 
 difficulties of their situation, the dangers of usurpation, the in- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 343 
 
 evitable fall of tyranny, which buries itself under its attempts 
 to obtain a firmer foundation; lastly, the ruinous consequences 
 of the weaknesses, errors, and crimes of kings, for whole nations 
 and many subsequent generations. Eight of these plays, from 
 Richard the Second to Richard the Third, are linked together 
 in an uninterrupted succession, and embrace a most eventful pe- 
 riod of nearly a century of English history. The events por- 
 trayed in them not only follow one another, but they are linked 
 together in the closest and most exact manner; and the circle of re- 
 volts, parties, civil and foreign wars, which began with the depo- 
 sition of Richard the Second, first ends with the accession of Henry 
 the Seventh to the throne. The negligent government of the 
 first of these monarchs, and his injudicious behaviour towards 
 his own relations, drew upon him the rebellion of Bolingbroke; 
 his dethronement was however altogether unjust in point of form, 
 and in no case could Bolingbroke be considered the true heir of 
 the crown. This shrewd founder of the house of Lancaster 
 never enjoyed, as Henry the Fourth, the fruits of his usurpation 
 in peace: his turbulent barons, the same who aided him in as- 
 cending the throne, never afterwards allowed him a moment's 
 repose. On the other hand, he was jealous of the brilliant quali- 
 ties of his son, and this distrust, more than any real inclination, 
 induced the Prince to give himself up to dissolute society, that 
 he might avoid every appearance of ambition. These two circum- 
 stances form the subject of the two divisions of Henry the 
 Fourth; the enterprises of the discontented in the serious, and 
 the wild youthful frolics of the heir apparent in the comic scenes. 
 When this warlike Prince ascended the throne under the name 
 of Henry the Fifth, he was determined to assert his ambiguous 
 title; he considered foreign conquests as the best means of guard- 
 ing against internal disturbances, and this gave rise to the glori- 
 ous, but more ruinous than profitable, war with France, which 
 Shakspeare has celebrated in the drama of Henry the Fifth. 
 The early death of this king, the long minority of Henry the 
 Sixth, and his continual minority in the art of government, 
 brought the greatest misfortunes on England. The dissensions 
 among the Regents, and the wretched administration which was 
 the consequence, occasioned the loss of the French conquests ; 
 this brought forward a bold candidate for the crown, whose title 
 was undisputed, if the prescription of three governments is not 
 to be assumed as conferring validity on a usurpation. Such was 
 the origin of the wars between the nouses of York and Lancaster, 
 which desolated the kingdom for a number of years, and ended 
 with the victory of the house of York. All this Shakspeare has 
 represented in the three parts of Henry the Sixth. Edward 
 
344 LECTURES ON 
 
 the Fourth shortened his life by excesses, and did not long enjoy 
 the throne purchased at the expense of so many cruel deeds. 
 His brother Richard, who had had a great share in the elevation 
 of the house of York, was not contented with the regency, and 
 his ambition paved a way for him to the throne by treachery and 
 violence; but his gloomy tyranny made him the object of the 
 people's hatred and, at length, drew on him the destruction 
 which he merited. He was conquered by a descendant of the 
 royal house who was unstained by the civil wars, and what 
 might seem defective in his title was atoned for by the merit of 
 freeing his country from a monster. With the accession of Hen- 
 ry the Seventh to the throne, a new epoch of English history 
 begins: the curse seemed at length to be expiated, and the series 
 of usurpations, revolts, and civil wars, all occasioned by the levity 
 with which Richard the Second sported away the crown, was 
 now brought to a termination. 
 
 Such is the evident connexion of these eight plays with each 
 other, but they were not however composed in chronological order. 
 According to all appearance, the four last were first written; 
 this is certain, indeed with respect to the three parts of Henry 
 the Sixth-, and Richard the Third is not only from its subject 
 a continuation of these, but is also composed in the same style. 
 Shakspeare went then back to Richard the Second, and with the 
 most careful art connected the second series with the first. The 
 trilogies of the ancients have already given us an example of the 
 possibility of forming a perfect dramatic whole, which shall yet 
 contain allusions to something which goes before, and follows it. 
 In like manner the most of these plays end with a very definite 
 division in the history: Richard the Second, with the murder of 
 that King; the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, with the as- 
 cension to the throne; Henry the Fifth, with the conclusion of 
 peace with France; the First Part of Henry the Sixth, also, 
 with a treaty of peace; the third, with the murder of Henry, 
 and Edward's elevation to the throne ; Richard the Third, 
 with his overthrow and death. The First Part of Henry the 
 Fourth, and the Second Part of Henry the Sixth, are rounded 
 off in a less satisfactory manner. The revolt of the nobles was 
 only half quelled by the overthrow of Percy, and it is therefore 
 continued through the following part of the piece. The victory 
 of York at St. Alban's could as little be considered a decisive 
 event, in the war of the two houses. Shakspeare has falleu into 
 this dramatic imperfection, if we may so call it, for the sake of 
 advantages of much more importance. The picture of the civil 
 war was too great and too rich in dreadful events for a single 
 drama, and yet the uninterrupted series of events offered no more 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 345 
 
 convenient resting-place. The government of Henry the Fourth 
 might certainlv have been comprehended in one piece, bat it 
 possesses too little tragical interest, and too little historical splen- 
 dour, to be attractive, if handled in a serious manner throughout: 
 hence Shakspeare has given to the comic characters belonging 
 to the retinue of Prince Henry, the freest developement, and the 
 half of the space is occupied by this constant interlude between 
 the political events. 
 
 The two other historical plays taken from the English history 
 are chronologically separated from this series: King John reign- 
 ed nearly two centuries before Richard the Second, and between 
 Richard the Third and Henry the Eighth comes the long reign 
 of Henry the Seventh, which Shakspeare justly passed over as 
 susceptible of no dramatic interest. However, these two plays 
 may in some measure be considered as the Prologue and the 
 Epilogue to the other eight. In King Joh?i, all the political 
 and national motives which play so great a part in the following 
 pieces are already indicated: wars and treaties with France; a 
 usurpation and the tyrannical actions which it draws after it; the 
 influence of the clergy, the factions of the nobles. Henry the 
 Eighth again shows us the transition to another age; the policy 
 of modern Europe, a refined court life under a voluptuous mon- 
 arch, the dangerous situation of favourites who are themselves 
 precipitated after they have assisted in effecting the fall of others; 
 in a word, despotism under milder forms, but not less unjust and 
 cruel. By the prophecies on the birth of Elizabeth, Shakspeare 
 has in some degree brought his great poem on the English history 
 down to his own time, at least as far as such recent events could 
 be yet handled with security. With this view probably, he com- 
 posed the two plays of King John* and Henry the Eighth at a 
 later period, as an addition to the others. 
 
 In King John the political and warlike events are dressed out 
 with solemn pomp, for the very reason that they possess but little 
 true grandeur. The falsehood and selfishness of the monarch are 
 evident in the style of the Manifesto. Conventional dignity is 
 most indispensable where personal dignity is wanting. The bas- 
 tard Faulconbridge is the witty interpreter of this language; he 
 ridicules the secret springs of politics without disapproving of 
 them, for he owns to himself that he is endeavouring to make his 
 fortune by similar means, and wishes rather to belong to the de- 
 ceivers than the deceived, as in his view of the world there is no 
 
 * I mean the piece with this title in the collection of his works. There is an 
 older King John, in two parts, of which the former is a re-cast: — perhaps a ju- 
 venile work of Shakspeare, though not hitherto acknowledged as such by the 
 English critics. See the disquisitions appended to this Lecture. 
 
 44 
 
346 LECTURES ON 
 
 other choice. His litigation with his brother respecting the suc- 
 cession of his pretended father, by which he effects his acknow- 
 ledgement at court as natural son of the most chivalrous King of 
 England, Richard Cceur de Lion, forms a very entertaining and 
 original prelude in the play itself. Amidst so many disguises 
 of real sentiments and so much insincerity of expression, when 
 the poet shows us human nature without a veil, and allows us to 
 take deep views of the innermost recesses of the mind, the im- 
 pression produced is so much the more deep and powerful. 
 The shore scene in which John calls on Hubert to remove out 
 of the way Arthur, his young rival, for the possession of the 
 throne, is superlatively masterly; the cautious criminal hardiy 
 ventures to say to himself what he wishes the other to do. The 
 tender and amiable Prince Arthur becomes a sacrifice of unprin- 
 cipled ambition; his fate excites the warmest sympathy. When 
 Hubert threatens to put out his eyes by a hot iron, and is soften- 
 ed by his prayers, our compassion would almost be too powerful 
 for us were it not sweetened by the pleasing innocence of the 
 childish speeches of Arthur. Constantia's maternal despair on 
 the imprisonment of her son is also of the highest beauty; and 
 even the last moments of John, an unjust and feeble prince 
 whom we can neither respect nor admire, are portrayed in such 
 a manner, that they extinguish our discontent against him, and 
 fill us with serious considerations on the arbitrary deeds and the 
 inevitable fate of mortals. 
 
 In Richard the Second, Shakspeare exhibits to us a noble 
 kingly nature, at first obscured by levity and the errors of an 
 unbridled youth, and afterwards purified by misfortune and ren- 
 dered more highly and splendidly illustrious. When he has lost 
 the love and reverence of his subjects, and is on the point of los- 
 ing also his throne, he then feels with painful inspiration the ele- 
 vated vocation of the kingly dignity and its prerogative over 
 personal merit and changeable institutions. When the earthly 
 crown has fallen from off his head, he first appears as a king whose 
 innate nobility no humiliation can annihilate. This is felt by a 
 poor groom: he is shocked that his master's favourite horse 
 should have carried the proud Bolingbroke at his coronation; 
 he visits the captive king in the prison, and shames the desertion 
 of the great. The political history of the deposition is represent- 
 ed with extraordinary knowledge of the world; — the ebb of for- 
 tune on the one hand, and the swelling tide on the other, which 
 carries everything along with it; while Bolingbroke acts as a 
 king, and his adherents behave to him as if he really were so, he 
 still continues to give out that he comes with his armed band 
 merely for the sake of demanding his birthright and the removal 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 347 
 
 of abuses. The usurpation has been long completed before the 
 word is pronounced, and the thing publicly avowed. The old 
 John of Gaunt is a model of chivalrous truth; — he stands there 
 like a pillar of the olden time which he has outlived. His son, 
 Henry the Fourth, was altogether unlike him: his character is 
 admirably supported throughout the three pieces in which he ap- 
 pears. We see in it that mixture of hardness, moderation, and pru- 
 dence which in fact enabled him to secure himself on the throne 
 that he had violently usurped; but without openness, without true 
 cordiality, and incapable of noble ebullitions, he was so little 
 able to render his government beloved, that the deposed Richard 
 was even wished back again. 
 
 The first part of Henry the Fourth is particularly brilliant in 
 the serious scenes, from the contrast between two young heroes, 
 Prince Henry and Percy with the characteristical name of Hot- 
 spur. All the amiability and attractiveness is certainly on the 
 side of the Prince; however familiar he makes himself with bad 
 company, we can never mistake him for one of them; the ignoble 
 touches but does not contaminate him, and his wildest freaks 
 appear merely as witty tricks by which his restless mind sought 
 to burst through the inactivity to which he was constrained; for 
 on the first occasion which awakes him out of this unruly levity, 
 he distinguishes himself without effort in the most chivalrous 
 manner. Percy's boisterous valour is not without a mixture of 
 rude manners, arrogance, and boyish obstinacy; but these errors, 
 which prepare for him an early death, cannot disfigure the ma- 
 jestic image of his noble youth: we are carried along by his fire 
 at the very moment we are censuring him. Why so formidable 
 a revolt against an unpopular and properly an illegitimate prince 
 was not attended with success, has been admirably shown by 
 Shakspeare: the superstitious imaginations of Glendower respect- 
 ing himself, the effeminacy of young Mortimer, the ungovern- 
 able disposition of Percy who will listen to no prudent counsel, 
 the want of determination of his older friends, the want of unity 
 of motive and plan, are all characterized by traits of the most 
 delicate description, which yet however it is impossible to mis- 
 take. After Percy has left the scene, the splendour of the enter- 
 prise is, it is true, at an end,- there remain only subordinate par- 
 ticipators who are reduced to subjection by Henry the Fourth, 
 more by policy than warlike achievements. To overcome this 
 sterility of subject, Shakspeare was obliged to employ great art in 
 the second part of the play, as he never allowed himself to adorn 
 history in an arbitrary manner, more than the dramatic form 
 rendered indispensably requisite. The piece is opened by con- 
 fused accounts from the field of battle; the powerful impression 
 
34S LECTURES ON 
 
 of Percy's fall, the name and fame of whom was peculiarly adapt- 
 ed to be the watchword of a bold enterprise, make him in some 
 degree an acting personage after his death. In the last acts we 
 are occupied by the gnawings of conscience of the dying King, 
 his uneasiness from the behaviour of the Prince, and the clearing 
 up of the misunderstanding between father and son, which give 
 rise, to several affecting scenes. All this, however, would be in- 
 sufficient to fill the stage, if the serious events were not inter- 
 rupted by a comedy which runs through both parts of the play, 
 which is enriched from time to time with new figures, and which 
 first. comes to its catastrophe at the conclusion of the wdiole, 
 namely, when Henry the Fifth, immediately after ascending the 
 throne, banishes to a due distance the companions of his youthful 
 extravagance, who had promised to themselves the highest favour 
 from him. 
 
 Falstaff is the summit of Shakspeare's comic invention. He 
 has continued this character throughout three plays, and exhibited 
 him in every variety of situation without exhausting himself; 
 the figure is drawn so definitely and individually, that to the 
 mere reader it affords the complete impression of a personal 
 qacuaintance. Falstaff is the most agreeable and entertaining 
 knave that ever was portrayed. His contemptible qualities are 
 not disguised: old, lecherous, and dissolute; corpulent beyond 
 measure, and always attentive to cherish his body by eating and 
 sleeping; constantly in debt, and everything but conscientious in 
 the choice of the means by which money is to be procured; a 
 cowardly soldier, and a lying braggart; a flatterer to the face, 
 and a satirist behind the backs of his friends, and yet we are 
 never disgusted with him. We see that his tender care of him- 
 self is without any mixture of malice towards others; he will 
 only not be disturbed in the pleasing repose of his sensuality, 
 and this he obtains through the activity of his understanding. 
 Always on the alert and good-humoured, ever ready to crack 
 jokes on others, and to enter into those of which he is himself 
 the subject, so that he justly boasts he is not only witty himself, 
 but the cause of wit in others, he is an admirable companion for 
 youthful idleness and levity. Under a helpless exterior, he con- 
 ceals an extremely acute mind; he has always some dexterous 
 turn at command whenever any of his free jokes begin to give 
 displeasure; he is shrewd in his distinctions, between those 
 from whom he has favours to solicit, and those over whom he 
 may assume a familiar ascendancy. He is so convinced that 
 the part which he plays can only pass under the cloak of wit, 
 that even when alone, he is never altogether serious, but gives 
 the drollest colouring to his love intrigues, his relations with 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 349 
 
 others, and his sensual philosophy. Witness his inimitable 
 soliloquies on honour, on the influence of wine on bravery, his 
 descriptions of the beggarly vagabonds whom he enlisted, of 
 Justice Shallow, &c. Falstaff has a whole court of amusing cari- 
 catures about him, who make their appearance by turns, without 
 ever throwing him into the shade. The adventure in which the 
 Prince, under the disguise of a robber, compels him to give up 
 the spoil which he had just taken, the scene where the two act 
 the part of the King and Prince; FalstafFs behaviour in the field, 
 his mode of raising recruits, his patronage of Justice Shallow, 
 which afterwards takes such an unfortunate turn: — all this forms 
 a series of characteristical scenes of the most original description, 
 full of pleasantry, and full of nice and ingenious observation, 
 scenes such as could only find a place in a historical play like 
 the present. 
 
 Several of the comic parts of Henry the Fourth are continued 
 in The Merry Wives of Windsor. This piece is said to have 
 been composed by Shakspeare, in compliance with the request 
 of Queen Elizabeth* who admired the character of Falstaff, and 
 wished to see him exhibited once more, and in love. In love, 
 properly speaking, Falstaff could not be; but he could pretend 
 that he was for other purposes, and at all events imagine that he 
 was the object of love. He pays his court here, as a favoured 
 Knight, to two married ladies, who lay their heads together to 
 listen in appearance to his addresses, for the sake of making him 
 the subject of their just mirth. The whole plan of the intrigue 
 is therefore derived from the ordinary circle of comedy, but yet 
 interwoven in a very rich and artificial manner with another love 
 affair. The circumstance which has been so much admired in 
 Moliere's school of women, that a jealous individual should be 
 made the constant confidant of the progress of his rival, had 
 already been introduced into this play, and certainly with much 
 more probability. Yet I would not be understood to maintain 
 that this was invented by Shakspeare: it is one of those circum 
 stances which must almost be considered as the common good of 
 comedy, and everything depends on the delicacy and humour 
 with which they are executed. That Falstaff should fall so re- 
 peatedly into the snare gives us a less advantageous opinion of 
 his understanding than we had from the foregoing pieces; but it 
 
 • We know with certainty, that it was acted before the Queen. Many local 
 descriptions of Windsor and its neighbourhood, and an allusion in which the 
 Order of the Garter is very poetically celebrated, make it credible that the play 
 was destined to be first represented at the palace of Windsor, where the Knights 
 of the Garter have their hall of meeting on the occasion of some festival of the 
 Order. 
 
350 LECTURES ON 
 
 will not be considered improbable, wben once we admit of the 
 first infatuation on which the whole piece is founded, namely, 
 that he believes himself qualified to inspire a passion. This leads 
 him, notwithstanding his age, his corpulency, and his dislike of 
 personal inconveniences and dangers, to venture on an undertak- 
 ing which requires the boldness and activity of youth; and the 
 situations occasioned by this infatuation are droll beyond all de- 
 scription. Of all the pieces of Shakspeare, this approaches the 
 most to the species of pure comedy: it is altogether confined to 
 the English manners of that day, and to domestic relations; the 
 characters are almost all comic, and the dialogue, with the excep- 
 tion of a couple of short love scenes, is written in prose. But 
 we see that it was a principle of Shakspeare to make none of his 
 compositions a mere imitation of the prosaic world, and to strip 
 them of all poetical decoration: he has elevated the conclusion of 
 the comedy by a wonderful intermixture, which suited the place 
 where it was probably first represented. A popular superstition 
 is made the means of a fanciful mystification* of Falstaff; dis- 
 guised as the Ghost of a Hunter who, with ragged horns, wanders 
 about in the woods of Windsor, he is to wait for his frolicsome 
 mistress; in this plight he is surprised by a chorus of boys and 
 girls disguised like fairies, who agreeably to the popular belief, 
 are holding their midnight dances, and who pinch and torture him 
 during their elegant songs. This is the last affront put upon 
 Falstaff; and with this contrivance the conclusion of the second 
 love affair is made in a most ingenious manner to depend. 
 
 King Henry the Fifth is visibly the favourite hero of Shak- 
 speare in the English history: he portrays him endowed with 
 every chivalrous and kingly virtue; open, sincere, affable, yet 
 still disposed to innocent raillery as a sort of reminiscence of his 
 youth, in the intervals between his dangerous and renowned 
 achievements. To bring his life after his ascent to the crown 
 on the stage was, however, attended with great difficulty. The 
 conquests in France were the only distinguished event of his 
 reign; and war is much more an epic than a dramatic object. 
 For wherever men act in masses against each other, the appear- 
 ance of chance can never wholly be avoided; and it is the busi- 
 ness of the drama to exhibit to us determinations which proceed 
 with certain necessity from the reciprocal relations of the differ- 
 ent individuals, their characters and passions. In several of the 
 Grecian tragedies, it is true, combats and battles are exhibited, 
 that is, the'preparations for them and their results; and in histori- 
 cal plays war, as the ultima ratio regum, cannot altogether be 
 
 * This word is French; but it has lately been adopted by some English 
 writers. — Trans. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 351 
 
 excluded. Still, however, if we would have dramatic interest, 
 it must only be the means by which something else is accom- 
 plished, and not the last aim and substance of the whole. For 
 instance, in Macbeth, the battles which are announced at the 
 very beginning merely serve to heighten the renown of Macbeth 
 and to fire his ambition; and the combats which take place 
 towards the conclusion, before the eyes of the spectator, bring 
 on the destruction of the tyrant. It is the very same in the Ro- 
 man pieces, in the most of those taken from English history, and 
 wherever Shakspeare has introduced war in a dramatic concate- 
 nation. With great insight into the essence of his art he never 
 paints the fortune of war as a blind deity who sometimes favours 
 the one and sometimes the other; without going into the details 
 of the art of war, though he sometimes however ventures on this, 
 he allows us to anticipate the result from the qualities of the ge- 
 neral, and their influence on the minds of the soldiers; sometimes 
 he exhibits the issue in the light of a higher will without laying 
 claim to our belief in miracles: the consciousness of a just cause 
 and reliance on the protection of Heaven give courage to the one 
 party, while the presage of a curse hanging over their under- 
 taking weighs down the other.* In Henry the Fifth no oppor- 
 tunity was afforded Shakspeare of adopting the last mentioned 
 course, namely, rendering the issue of the war dramatic; but he 
 has availed himself of the first with peculiar care. — Before the 
 battle of Agincourt he paints in the most lively colours the light- 
 minded impatience of the French leaders for the moment of bat- 
 tle, which to them seemed infallibly the moment of victory; on 
 the other hand, he paints the uneasiness of the English King and 
 his army from their desperate situation, coupled with the firm 
 determination, if they are to fall, at least to fall with honour. He 
 applies this as a general contrast between the French and English 
 national characters; a contrast which betrays a partiality for his 
 own nation, excusable in a poet, especially when he is backed 
 with such a glorious document as that of the memorable battle in 
 question. He has surrounded the general events of the war with 
 a fulness of individual, characteristic, and even sometimes comic 
 features. A heavy Scotchman, a hot Irishman, a well-meaning, 
 honourable, but pedantic Welchman, all speaking in their pecu- 
 liar dialects, are intended to show us that the warlike genius of 
 
 * iEschylus with equal wisdom, in the uniformly warlike tragedy of the Seven 
 before Thebes, has given to the Theban chiefs foresight, determination, and pre- 
 sence of mind; to their adversaries, arrogant audacity. Hence all the combats, 
 excepting that between Eteocles and Polynices, turn out in favour of the former. 
 The paternal curse, and the blindness to which it gives rise, carry headlong 
 the two brothers to the unnatural strife in which they both fall by the hands of 
 each other. — See page 62. 
 
352 LECTURES ON 
 
 Henry did not merely carry the English with him, but also the 
 other natives of the two islands, who were either not yet fully 
 united or in no degree subject to him. Several good-for-nothing 
 associates of FalstafF among the dregs of the army either afford 
 an opportunity for proving the strict discipline under Henry, or 
 are sent home in disgrace. But all this variety still seemed to 
 the poet insufficient to animate a play of which the object was a 
 conquest, and nothing but a conquest. He has therefore tacked 
 a prologue (in the technical language ofthat day a chorus) to the 
 beginning of each act. These prologues, which unite epic pomp 
 and solemnity with lyrical sublimity, and among which the de- 
 scription of the two camps before the battle of Agincourt forms 
 a most admirable night-piece, are intended to keep the spectators 
 constantly in mind that the peculiar grandeur of the actions there 
 described cannot be developed on a narrow stage, and that they 
 must supply the deficiencies of the representation from their own 
 imaginations. As the subject was not properly dramatic, in the 
 form also Shakspeare chose rather to wander beyond the bounds 
 of the species, and to sing, as a poetical herald, what he could 
 not represent to the eye, than to cripple the progress of the 
 action by putting long descriptions in the mouths of the persons 
 of the drama. The confession of the poet that "four or five most 
 vile and ragged foils, right ill disposed, can only disgrace the 
 name of Agincourt" (a scruple which he has overlooked in 
 the occasion of many other great battles, and among others of 
 that of Philippi) brings us here naturally to the question how far, 
 generally speaking, it may be suitable and advisable to represent 
 wars and battles on the stage. The Greeks have uniformly re- 
 nounced them: as in the whole of their theatrical system they 
 proceeded on ideas of grandeur and dignity, a feeble and petty 
 imitation of the unattainable would have appeared insupportable 
 in their eyes. All fighting with them was consequently merely 
 recounted. The principle of the romantic dramatic poets was 
 altogether different: their wonderful pictures were infinitely 
 larger than their theatrical means of visible execution; they were 
 everywhere obliged to count on the willing imagination of the 
 spectators, and consequently they also relied on them in this 
 point. It is certainly laughable enough that a handful of awkward 
 warriors in mock armour, by means of two or three swords, 
 with which we clearly see they take especial care not to do the 
 slightest injury to one another, should decide the fate of mighty 
 kingdoms. But the opposite extreme is still much worse. If 
 we in reality succeeed in exhibiting the tumult of a great battle, 
 the storming of a fort, and the like, in a manner any way calcu- 
 lated to deceive the eye, the power of these sensible impressions 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 353 
 
 is so great that they render the spectator incapable of bestowing 
 that attention which a poetical work of art demands; and thus the 
 essential is sacrificed to the accessory. We have learned from ex- 
 perience, that whenever cavalry combats are introduced the men 
 soon became secondary personages beside the four-footed players.* 
 Fortunately in Shakspeare's time, the art of converting the yield- 
 ing boards of the theatre into a riding course had not yet been 
 invented. He tells the spectators in the first prologue in Henry 
 the Fifth:— 
 
 Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them 
 Printing their proud hoofs in the receiving earth. 
 
 When Richard the Third utters the famous exclamation, — 
 
 Ahorse! ahorse! my kingdom for a horse ! 
 
 it is no doubt inconsistent to see him both before and afterwards 
 constantly fighting on foot. It is, however, better, perhaps, that the 
 poet and player should by overpowering impressions dispose us to 
 forget this, than by literal exactness to expose themselves to exter- 
 nal interruptions. W T ith all the disadvantages which I have men- 
 tioned, Shakspeare and several Spanish poets have contrived to de- 
 rive such great beauties from the immediate representation of war 
 that I cannot bring myself to wish they had abstained from it. 
 A theatrical manager of the present day will have a middle 
 course to follow: his art must, in an especial manner, be directed 
 to make what he shows us appear only as separate groups of 
 a picture which cannot be overlooked; he must convince the 
 spectators that the main action takes place behind the stage; 
 and for this purpose he has easy means at his command in 
 the nearer or more remote sound of warlike music and the din 
 of arms. 
 
 However much Shakspeare celebrates the French conquest of 
 Henry, still he has not omitted to hint to us, after his way, the 
 secret springs of this undertaking. Henry, was in want of 
 foreign war to secure himself on the throne; the clergy also wish- 
 ed to keep him employed abroad, and made an offer of rich con- 
 tributions to prevent the passing of a law which would have de- 
 prived them of the half of their revenues. His learned bishops 
 are consequently as ready to prove to him his undisputed right to 
 the crown of France as he is to allow his conscience to be tran- 
 quillized by them. They prove that the Salic law is not, and 
 
 • The Greeks, it is true, brought horses on the tragic stage, but only in so- 
 lemn processions, not in the wild disorder of a fight. Agamemnon and Pallas, 
 in JEschylus, make their appearance drawn in a chariot with four horses. But 
 their theatres were built on a scale very different from ours. 
 
 45 
 
354 LECTURES ON 
 
 never was, applicable to France; and the matter is treated in a 
 more succinct and convincing manner than such subjects usually 
 are in manifestoes. After his renowned battles Henry wished to 
 secure his conquests by marriage with a French princess; all that 
 has reference to this is intended for irony in the play. The fruit 
 of this union, from which two nations promised to themselves 
 such happiness in future, was that very feeble Henry the Sixth, 
 under whom everything was so miserably lost. It must not 
 therefore be imagined that it was without the knowledge and will 
 of the poet that a heroic drama turns out a comedy in his hands, 
 and ends in the manner of a comedy with a marriage of conve- 
 nience. 
 
 The three parts of Henry the Sixth, as I have already re- 
 marked, were much earlier composed than the preceding pieces. 
 Shakspeare's choice fell first on this period of English history 
 so full of misery and horrors of every kind, because the pathetic 
 is naturally more suitable to a young poetical mind than the char- 
 acteristic. We do not yet find here the whole maturity of his 
 genius; but we certainly find its whole strength. Careless re- 
 specting the apparent unconnectedness of contemporary events, 
 he bestows small attention on preparation and developement: all 
 the figures follow in rapid succession, and announce themselves 
 emphatically for what we ought to take them; from scenes of 
 which the effect is sufficiently agitating to form the catastrophe 
 of a less extensive plan, the poet hurries us perpetually on to 
 still more dreadful catastrophes. The First Part contains only 
 the beginning of the parties of the White and Red Rose, under 
 which blooming colours such bloody deeds were afterwards per- 
 formed; the varying results of the war in France principally fill 
 the stage. The wonderful saviour of her country, Joan of Arc, 
 is portrayed by Shakspeare with the partiality of an Englishman: 
 yet he at first leaves it doubtful whether she has not in reality a 
 heavenly mission; she appears in the pure glory of virgin hero- 
 ism; she wins over, and this circumstance is of the poet's in- 
 vention, the Duke of Burgundy to the French cause by her super- 
 natural eloquence; afterwards corrupted by vanity and luxury 
 she has recourse to hellish fiends, and comes to a miserable end. 
 To her is opposed Talbot, a rough iron warrior, who moves us the 
 more powerfully, as in the moment when he is threatened with 
 inevitable death we see all his care tenderly directed to save 
 his son, who performs his first deeds of arms under his eye. 
 After Talbot has in vain sacrificed himself, and the Maid of 
 Orleans has fallen into the hands of the English, the French pro- 
 vinces are completely lost by an impolitic marriage; and with 
 this the piece ends. The conversation between the aged Mor- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 355 
 
 timer in prison and Richard Plantagenet, afterwards Duke of 
 York, contains an exposition of the claims of the latter to the 
 throne: considered by itself it is a beautiful tragic elegy. 
 
 In the Second Part, the events more particularly prominent 
 are the murder of the honest protector Gloster and its con- 
 sequences; the death of Cardinal Beaufort; the parting of the 
 Queen from her favourite Suffolk, and his death by the hands of 
 savage pirates; then the insurrection of Jack Cade under an as- 
 sumed name, and at the instigation of the Duke of York. The 
 short scene where cardinal Beaufort, who is tormented by his 
 conscience on account of the murder of Gloster, is visited on his 
 death-bed by Henry the Sixth is sublime beyond all praise. 
 Can any other poet be named who has drawn aside the curtain of 
 eternity at the close of this life in such an overpowering and aw- 
 ful manner? And yet it is not mere horror with which we are 
 filled, but solemn emotion; we have an exemplification of a bless- 
 ing and curse in close proximity; the pious King is an image of 
 the heavenly mercy which even in his last moments labours to 
 enter into the soul of the sinner. The adulterous passion of 
 Queen Margaret and Suffolk has been invested with tragical dig- 
 nity by Shakspeare, and carefully removed from all ignoble ideas 
 of a secondary nature. Without attempting to gloss over the 
 .crime of which both are guilty, without seeking to remove our 
 disapprobation of this criminal love, he still, by the magic force 
 of expression, contrives to excite in us a sympathy with their 
 pain. In the insurrection of Cade he has portrayed the behaviour 
 of a popular demagogue, the dreadful ludicrousness of the anar- 
 chical tumult of the people, with such convincing truth, that one 
 would believe he was an eye-witness of many of the events of our 
 age which, from ignorance of history, have been considered as 
 without example. 
 
 The civil war begins only in the Second part; in the Third he 
 unfolds its whole destructive fury. The picture becomes gloom- 
 ier and gloomier; and appears at last to be painted rather with 
 blood than with colours. We see with horror that fury gives 
 birth to fury, vengeance to vengeance; and that when all the 
 bonds of human society are torn asunder, even noble nations be- 
 come hardened to cruelty. The most bitter contempt falls to the 
 lot of the unfortunate; no one affords that compassion to his enemy 
 of which he will shortly himself stand in need. Their party is 
 to all of them, family, country, and religion; their only springs 
 of action. As York, whose ambition is coupled with noble quali- 
 ties, prematurely perishes, the object of the whole contest is now 
 either to support an imbecile King, or lo place on the throne a 
 luxurious monarch, who shortens the dear bought possession by 
 
356 LECTURES ON 
 
 the gratification of an insatiable voluptuousness. For this the 
 celebrated and magnanimous Warwick spends his chivalrous life; 
 Clifford revenges the death of his father with blood-thirsty filial 
 love; and Richard, for the elevation of his brother, practises those 
 dark deeds by which he is soon after to pave the way to his own 
 greatness. In the midst of the general ruin, of which he has 
 been the innocent cause, King Henry appears like the powerless 
 image of a saint, in whose efficacy no man any longer believes: 
 he can only sigh and weep over the enormities which he witnesses. 
 In his simplicity, however, the gift of prophecy is lent to this 
 pious King: in the moment of his death, at the close of this great 
 tragedy, he prophesies a still more dreadful tragedy with which 
 futurity is pregnant, as distinguished for the poisonous wiles of 
 cold-blooded wickedness as the former for deeds of savage fury. 
 The part of Richard the Third has become highly celebrated 
 in England from its having been filled by excellent performers, 
 and this has naturally had an influence on the admiration of the 
 piece itself: for many readers of Shakspeare stand in want of 
 good interpreters of the poet to understand him properly. This 
 admiration is certainly, in every respect, well founded, though I 
 cannot help thinking there is an injustice in considering the three 
 parts of Henry the Sixth as of small value compared with Bichard 
 the Third. These four plays were undoubtedly composed in 
 succession, as is proved by the style and the spirit in the manner 
 of handling the subject; the last is definitely announced in the one 
 which precedes it, and is also full of references to it: the same 
 views run through the series; in a word, the whole make together 
 only one single work. Even the deep characterization of Richard 
 is by no means an exclusive advantage of the piece which bears 
 his name: his character is very distinctly drawn in the two last 
 parts of Henry the Sixth; nay even his first speeches lead us 
 already to form the most unfavourable prognostications respecting 
 him. He lowers obliquely like a dark thunder-cloud on the 
 horizon, which gradually approaches nearer and nearer, and first 
 pours out the elements of devastation with which it is charged 
 when it hangs over the heads of mortals. Two of the most sig- 
 nificant monologues of Richard, and which enable us to draw the 
 most important conclusions respecting his constitution of mind, 
 are to be found in The Last Part of Henry the Sixth. Re- 
 specting the value and the justice of actions those who are im- 
 pelled to them by passions may be blind, but wickedness cannot 
 mistake its own essence: Richard as well as Iago, is a villain with 
 full consciousness. That they should say this in so many words, 
 is not perhaps in human nature: but the poet has the right in 
 soliloquies to lend a voice to the most hidden thoughts, otherwise 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 357 
 
 the form of the monologue would, generally speaking, be censur- 
 able.* Richard's deformity is the expression of his internal 
 malice, and perhaps in part the effect of it: for where is the 
 ugliness that would not be softened by benevolence and open- 
 ness? He however considers it as an iniquitous neglect of nature, 
 which justifies him in taking his revenge on that human society 
 from which it is the means of excluding him. Hence these sub- 
 lime lines: 
 
 And this word love, which greybeards call desire, 
 Be resident in men like one another, 
 And not in me. I am myself alone. 
 
 Wickedness is nothing but an egotism designedly unconscientious; 
 however it can never do altogether without the form of morality, 
 as this is the law of all thinking beings, — it must seek to found 
 its depraved way of acting on something like principles. Although 
 Richard is thoroughly acquainted with the blackness of his mind 
 and his hellish mission, he yet endeavours to justify this to him- 
 self by a sophism: the happiness of being beloved is denied to 
 him; what then remains to him but the happiness of ruling? All 
 that stands in the way of this must be removed. This envy of 
 the enjoyment of love is so much the more natural in Richard, as 
 his brother Edward, who besides preceded him in the possession 
 of the crown, distinguished for the nobleness and beauty of his 
 figure, was an almost irresistible conqueror of female hearts. 
 Notwithstanding his pretended remuneration Richard places his 
 chief vanity in being able to please and win over the women, 
 if not by his figure at least by his insinuating discourse. Shak- 
 speare here shows us, with his accustomed acuteness of observa- 
 tion, that human nature, even when it is altogether decided in 
 goodness or wickedness, is still subject to petty infirmities. 
 Richard's most favourite entertainment is to ridicule others, and 
 he possesses satirical wit in an eminent degree. He entertains 
 at bottom a contempt for all mankind, as he is confident of his 
 ability to deceive them whether they may be his instruments or 
 adversaries. In hypocrisy he is particularly fond of using reli- 
 gious forms, as if actuated by a desire of profaning in the ser- 
 vice of hell the religion of which he had inwardly abjured the 
 blessings. 
 
 So much for the main features of Richard's character. The 
 play named after him embraces also the latter half of the reign of 
 
 * What happens however in so many tragedies, where a person is made to 
 declare himself a villain to his confidants, is most decidedly unnatural. He will 
 announce his way of thinking, not however under damning names, but as some- 
 thing that is understood of itself, and is equally approved of by others. 
 
35S LECTURES ON 
 
 Edward IV., in the whole a period of eight years. It exhibits all 
 the machinations by which Richard obtained the throne, and the 
 deeds which he perpetrated to secure himself in its possession, 
 which lasted however only two years. Shakspeare intended that 
 terror rather than compassion should prevail throughout this trage- 
 dy: he has rather gone out of the way of the pathetic scenes which 
 he had at command, than sought after them. Of all the sacrifices 
 to Richard's lust of power, Clarence alone is put to death on the 
 stage: his dream excites a deep horror, and proves the omnipo- 
 tence of the poet's fancy: his conversation with the murderers is 
 powerfully agitating; but the earlier crimes of Clarence merited 
 death, although not from his brother. The most innocent and 
 unspotted sacrifices are the two Princes: we see but little of them, 
 and their murder is merely related. Anne disappears without 
 our learning anything farther respecting her: she has shown a 
 weakness almost incredible in marrying the murderer of her hus- 
 band. The parts of Lord Rivers, and other friends of the Queen, 
 are of too secondary a nature to excite a powerful sympathy; 
 Hastings, from his triumph at the fall of his friend, forfeits all 
 title to compassion; Buckingham is the satellite of the tyrant, 
 who is afterwards consigned by him to the axe of the execution- 
 er. In the back-ground the widowed Queen Margaret appears, 
 as the fury of the past who calls forth the curse on the future: 
 every calamity which her enemies draw down on each other is 
 a cordial to her revengeful heart. Other female voices join, from 
 time to time, in the lamentations and imprecations. But Richard 
 is the soul or rather the daemon, of the whole tragedy. He ful- 
 fils the promise which he formerly made of leading the murder- 
 ous Macchiavel to school. Besides the uniform aversion with 
 which he inspires us, he occupies us in the greatest variety of 
 ways by his profound skill in dissimulation, his wit, his pru- 
 dence, his presence of mind, his quick activity, and his valour. 
 He fights at last against Richmond like a desperado, and dies 
 the honourable death of a hero on the field of battle. Shak- 
 speare could not change this historical issue, and yet it is by no 
 means satisfactory to our moral feelings, as Lessing, when speak- 
 ing of a German play on the same subject, has very judiciously 
 remarked. How has Shakspeare solved this difficulty? By a 
 wonderful invention he opens a prospect into the other world, 
 and shows us Richard in his last moments already branded with 
 the stamp of reprobation. We see Richard and Richmond in the 
 night before the battle sleeping in their tents; the spirits of those 
 murdered by the tyrant ascend in succession, and pour out their 
 curses against him, and their blessings on his adversaries. These 
 apparitions, are properly merely the dreams of the two generals 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 359 
 
 rendered visible. It is no doubt contrary to sensible probability 
 that their tents should only be separated, by such a small space; 
 but Shakspeare could reckon on poetical spectators, who were 
 ready to take the breadth of the stage for the distance between 
 two camps, if by such a favour they were to be recompensed by 
 beauties of so sublime a nature as this series of spectres and the 
 soliloquy of Richard on awaking. The catastrophe of Richard 
 the Third, is in respect of external events, very like that of 
 Macbeth: we have only to compare the complete difference of 
 the manner of treatment to be convinced that Shakspeare has ob- 
 served in the most accurate manner, poetical justice in the genu- 
 ine sense of the word, namely, where it signifies the revelation 
 of the invisible blessing or curse which hangs over human senti- 
 ments and actions. 
 
 Although the four last pieces of the historical series paint later 
 events, yet the plays of Henry the Fourth and Fifth have in 
 costume and tone, a much more modern appearance. This is 
 partly owing to the number of comic scenes; for the comic must 
 always not only be founded in national, but in contemporary 
 manners. Shakspeare however seems also to have had the same 
 design in the serious part. Bloody revolutions and devastations 
 of civil war appear to posterity as a relapse into an earlier and 
 more uncultivated condition of society, or they are in reality ac- 
 companied by such a relapse into unbridled savageness. If there- 
 fore the propensity of a young poetical mind to remove its object 
 to a wonderful distance has had an influence on the style in which 
 Henry the Sixth and Richard the Third are conceived, Shak- 
 speare has been rightly guided by his instinct. As it is pecu- 
 liar to the epic poem to paint the races of men in times past as 
 colossal in strength of body and resolution, so in these plays, in 
 the voices of a Talbot, a Warwick, a Clifford, and others, we im- 
 agine we hear the trumpet of foreign or civil war. The contest 
 of the houses of York and Lancaster was the last raging of feudal 
 independence: for it was the cause of the great, and not of the 
 people, who were only dragged by the former along with them 
 into the divisions. Afterwards the separate was swallowed up 
 in the whole, and no one could any longer, like a Warwick, be 
 a maker of kings. Shakspeare was as profound a historian as a 
 poet; when we compare his Henry the Eighth with the preced- 
 ing pieces, we see distinctly that the English nation during the 
 long peaceable and economical reign of Henry the Seventh, 
 whether from the exhaustion which was the fruit of the civil 
 w r ars, or from more general European influences, had made a 
 sudden transition from the powerful confusion of the middle age, 
 to the regular tameness of modern times. Henry the Eighth has 
 
360 LECTURES ON 
 
 therefore somewhat of a prosaieal appearance; for Shakspeare as 
 an artist, subjected himself always to the quality of his materials. 
 Jf others of his works, in elevation of fancy, in energy of pathos 
 and character, tower far above this, we have here on the other 
 hand an opportunity of admiring his nice powers of discrimina- 
 tion, and his perfect knowledge of courts and the world. What 
 management was. requisite to represent before the eyes of the 
 queen* subjects of such a delicate nature, and in which she was 
 personally so nearly concerned, without however approaching 
 too near to the truth ! He has unmasked the tyrannical king, and 
 exhibited him to the intelligent as he actually was: haugh- 
 ty and obstinate, voluptuous and without feeling, extravagant 
 in conferring favours, and revengeful under the pretence of 
 justice; and yet the picture is so dexterously handled that a 
 daughter might take it for favourable. The legitimacy of 
 Elizabeth's birth depended on the invalidity of the first mar- 
 riage of Henry, and Shakspeare has placed the proceedings 
 respecting his separation from Catharine of Arragon in a very 
 doubtful light. We see clearly that Henry's scruples of con- 
 science are no other than the beauty of Anne Boleyn. Catha- 
 rine is, properly speaking, the heroine of the piece; she ex- 
 cites the warmest sympathy from her virtue, her defenceless 
 misery, her soft but firm opposition, and her dignified resigna- 
 tion. After her, the fall of Cardinal Woolsey constitutes the prin- 
 cipal part of the business. Henry's whole reign was not adapted 
 for dramatic poetry. It would have merely been a repetition of 
 the same scenes: the repudiation, or the execution of his wives, 
 and the fall of his most estimable servants into disfavour, which 
 was usually soon followed by death. Of all for which Henry's 
 life was distinguished, Shakspeare has given us sufficient speci- 
 mens. But as there is, properly speaking, no division in the his- 
 tory where he breaks off, we must excuse him for giving us a flat- 
 tery towards the great Elizabeth for a fortunate catastrophe. The 
 piece ends with the general joy at the birth of that Princess, 
 and with prophecies of the felicity which she was afterwards 
 to enjoy or to diffuse. It was only by such a turn that the 
 hazardous liberty of the remainder of the composition could 
 have passed with impunity: Shakspeare was not certainly him- 
 self deceived respecting this theatrical delusion. The true con- 
 
 * It is quite clear that Henry the Eighth was written while Elizabeth was 
 still in life. We know that Ben Jonson, in the reign of King James, brought 
 the piece with additional pomp again on the stage, and took the liberty of mak- 
 ing several changes and additions. Without doubt, the prophecy respecting 
 James the First is due to Ben Jonson: it would only have displeased Elizabeth, 
 and is so ill introduced that we at once recognize in it a foreign interpolation. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 361 
 
 elusion is the death of Catharine, which he has also therefore 
 placed earlier than was conformable to history. 
 
 Thus I have now gone through all the unquestionably genu- 
 ine works of Shakspeare. I have carefully abstained from all 
 indefinite eulogies, which merely serve to prove a disproportion 
 betwixt the feeling and the capability of expressing it. To 
 many the above observations will appear too diffuse for the ob- 
 ject and plan of these lectures; to others they will perhaps seem 
 unsatisfactory. I shall be satisfied if they place those readers 
 who are not yet familiar with the poet in the right point of view, 
 and pave the way for a solid knowledge, and if they recall to the 
 minds of intelligent critics some of those thoughts which have 
 occurred to themselves. 
 
 46 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 RESPECTING THE PIECES SAID TO BE FALSELY ATTRIBUTED TO 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 The commentators of Shakspeare, in their attempts to deprive 
 him of parts of his works, or even of whole pieces, have for the 
 most part displayed very little of the true critical spirit. Pope, 
 as is well known, was strongly disposed to declare whole scenes 
 for interpolations of the players; but his opinions were not much 
 listened to. However, Steevens still accedes to the opinion of 
 Pope, respecting the apparition of the ghosts and of Jupiter in 
 Cymbeline, while Posthumus is sleeping in the dungeon. But 
 Posthumus finds on waking, a tablet on his breast, with a pro- 
 phecy on which the denouement of the piece depends. Is it to 
 be imagined that Shakspeare would require of his spectators the 
 belief in a wonder without a visible cause? Is Posthumus to 
 dream this tablet with the prophecy? But the gentlemen do not 
 descend to this objection. The verses which the apparitions de- 
 liver do not appear to them to be good enough to be Shakspeare's. 
 I imagine I can discover why the poet has not given them more 
 of the splendour of diction. They are the aged parents and bro- 
 thers of Posthumus, who, from concern for his fate, return from 
 the world below: they ought consequently to speak the language 
 of a more simple olden time, and their voices ought also to ap- 
 pear as a feeble sound of wailing, when contrasted with the thun- 
 dering oracular language of Jupiter. For this reason Shakspeare 
 chose a syllabic measure which was very common before his time, 
 but which was then getting out of fashion, though it still conti- 
 nued to be frequently used especially in translations of classical 
 poets. In some such manner might the shades express themselves 
 in the then existing translations of Homer and Virgil. The speech 
 of Jupiter is on the other hand majestic, and in form and style 
 bears a complete resemblance to the sonnets of Shakspeare. No- 
 thing but the incapacity of appreciating the views of the poet, 
 and the perspective observed by him, could lead them to stumble 
 at this passage. 
 
 Pope would willingly have declared the Winter's Tale spu- 
 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 363 
 
 rious, one of the noblest creations of the equally bold and lovely 
 fancy of Shakspeare. Why? I should suppose on account of the 
 ship landing in Bohemia, and the chasm of sixteen years between 
 the third and fourth acts, which Time as a prologue entreats us to 
 overleap. 
 
 The Three Parts of Henry the Sixth are now at length ad- 
 mitted to be Shakspeare's. Theobald, Warburton, and lastly 
 Farmer, affirmed that they were not Shakspeare's. In this case, 
 we might well ask them to point out the other works of the un- 
 known author, who|was capable of inventing the noble death- 
 scenes of Talbot, Suffolk, Beaufort, and York, and so many other 
 scenes. The assertion is so ridiculous, that in this case Richard 
 the Third might also not be Shakspeare's, as it is linked in the 
 most immediate manner to the three other pieces, both by the 
 subject, and the spirit and manner of handling. 
 
 All the editors, with the exception of Capell, are unanimous in 
 rejecting Titus Jindronicus as unworthy of Shakspeare, though 
 they always allow it to be printed with the other pieces, as the 
 scape-goat, as it were, of their abusive criticism. The correct 
 method in such an investigation is first to examine into the ex- 
 ternal grounds, evidences, &c, and to weigh their w T orth; and 
 then to adduce the internal reasons derived from the quality of 
 the work. The critics of Shakspeare follow a course directly the 
 reverse of this; they set out with a preconceived opinion against 
 a piece, and seek, in justification of this opinion, to render the 
 historical grounds suspicious, and to set them aside. Titus Jin- 
 dronicus, is to be found in the first folio edition of Shakspeare's 
 works, which it is known w T as conducted by Heming and Condell, 
 for many years his friends and fellow-managers of the same thea- 
 tre. Is it possible to persuade ourselves that they would not have 
 known if a piece in their repertory did or did not actually be- 
 long to Shakspeare? And are we to lay to the charge of these 
 honourable men a designed fraud in this single case, when we 
 know that they did not show themselves so very desirous of 
 scraping everything together which went by the name of Shak- 
 speare, but, as it appears, merely gave those plays of which they 
 had manuscripts in hand? Yet the following circumstance is still 
 stronger. George Meres, a contemporary and admirer of Shak- 
 speare, mentions Titus jindronicus in an enumeration of his 
 works, in the year 1598. '"Meres was personally acquainted with 
 the poet, and so very intimately, that the latter read over to him 
 his sonnets before they were printed. I cannot conceive that all 
 the critical scepticism in the world would be sufficient to get over 
 such a testimony. 
 This tragedy, it is true, is framed according to a false idea of 
 
364 LECTURES ON 
 
 the tragic, which by an accumulation of cruelties and enormities, 
 degenerates into the horrible and yet leaves no deep impression 
 behind: the story of Tereus and Philomela is heightened and 
 overcharged under other names, and mixed up with the repast of 
 Atreus and Thyeste, and many other incidents. In detail there 
 is no want of beautiful lines, bold images, nay, even features 
 which betray the peculiar conception of Shakspeare. Among 
 these we may reckon the joy of the treacherous Moor at the 
 blackness and ugliness of his child begot in adultery; and in the 
 compassion of Titas Jlndronicus, grown childish through grief, 
 for a fly which had been struck dead, and his rage afterwards 
 when he imagines he discovers in it his black enemy, we recog- 
 nize the future poet of Lear. Are the critics afraid that Shak- 
 speare's fame would be injured, were it established that in his 
 early youth he ushered into the world a feeble and immature 
 work? Was Rome the less the conqueror of the world, because 
 Remus could leap over its first walls? Let any one place him- 
 self in Shakspeare's situation at the commencement of his career. 
 He found only a few indifferent models, and yet these met with 
 the most favourable reception, because men are never difficult to 
 please in the novelty of an art before their taste has become fas- 
 tidious from choice and abundance. Must not this situation have 
 had its influence on him before he learned to make higher de- 
 mands on himself, and by digging deeper in his own mind, dis- 
 covered the richest veins of a noble metal? It is even highly pro- 
 bable that he must have made several failures before getting into 
 the right path. Genius is in a certain sense infallible, and has 
 nothing to learn; but art is to be learned, and must be acquired 
 by practice and experience. In Shakspeare's acknowledged 
 works we find hardly any traces of his apprenticeship, and yet an 
 apprenticeship he certainly had. This every artist must have, 
 and especially in a period where he has not before him the ex- 
 ample of a school already formed. I consider it as extremely 
 probable, that Shakspeare began to write for the theatre at a much 
 earlier period than the one which is generally stated, namely, not 
 till after the year 1 590. It appears that, as early as the year 1 584, 
 when only 20 years of age, he had left his paternal home and re- 
 paired to London. Can we imagine that such an active head 
 would remain idle for six whole years» without making any at- 
 tempt to emerge by his talents from an uncongenial situation? 
 That in the dedication of the poem of Venus and Adonis he calls 
 it "the first heir of his invention," proves nothing against the 
 supposition. It was the first which he printed; he might have 
 composed it at an early period; perhaps, also, he did not include 
 theatrical labours, as they then possessed but little literary dig- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 365 
 
 nity. The earlier Shakspeare began to compose for the theatre, 
 the less are we enabled to consider the immaturity and imperfec- 
 tion of a work as a proof of its spuriousness in opposition to his- 
 torical evidence, if we only find in it prominent features of his 
 mind. Several of the works rejected as spurious, may still have 
 been produced in the period betwixt Titus Jindronicus, and the 
 earliest of the acknowledged pieces. 
 
 At last, Steevens published seven pieces ascribed to Shakspeare 
 in two supplementary volumes. It is to be remarked, that they 
 all appeared in print in Shakspeare's life-time, with his name 
 prefixed at full length. They are the following: — 
 
 1. Locrine. The proofs of the genuineness of this piece are 
 not altogether unambiguous; the grounds for doubt, on the other 
 hand, are entitled to attention. However, this question is im- 
 mediately connected with that respecting Titus Jlndronicus, 
 and must be at the same time resolved in the affirmative or nega- 
 tive. 
 
 2. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. This piece was acknowledged 
 by Dryden, but as a youthful work of Shakspeare. It is most 
 undoubtedly his, and it has been admitted into several of the late 
 editions. The supposed imperfections originate in the circum- 
 stance, that Shakspeare here handled a childish and extravagant 
 romance of the old poet Gower, and was unwilling to drag the 
 subject out of its proper sphere. Hence he even introduces Gower 
 himself, and makes him deliver a prologue entirely in his anti- 
 quated language and versification. This power of assuming so 
 foreign a manner is at least no proof of helplessness. 
 
 3. The London Prodigal. If we are not mistaken, Lessing 
 pronounced this piece to be Shakspeare's, and wished to bring it 
 on the German stage. 
 
 4. The Puritan, or the Widow of Wat ling-street. One of 
 my literary friends, intimately acquainted with Shakspeare, was 
 of opinion that the poet must have wished to write a play for once 
 in the style of Ben Jonson, and that in this way we must ac- 
 count for the difference between the present piece and his usual 
 manner. To follow out this idea however would lead to a very 
 nice critical investigation. 
 
 5. Thomas Lord Cromwell. 
 
 6. Sir John Oldcastle — First Part. 
 
 7. t/2 Yorkshire Tragedy. 
 
 The three last pieces are not only unquestionably Shakspeare's, 
 but in my opinion they deserve to be classed among his best 
 and maturest works. — Steevens admits at last, in some degree, 
 that they are Shakspeare's as well as the others, excepting Lo- 
 crine, but he speaks of all of them with great contempt, as quite 
 
366 LECTURES ON 
 
 worthless productions. His condemnatory sentence is not how- 
 ever in the slightest degree convincing, nor is it supported by- 
 critical acumen. I should like to see how such a critic would, 
 of his own natural suggestion, have decided on Shakspeare's 
 acknowledged master-pieces, and what he would have thought 
 of praising in them, had the public opinion not imposed on him 
 the duty of admiration. Thomas Lord Cromwell and Sir John 
 Oldcastle are biographical dramas, and models in this species: 
 the first is linked, from its subject, to Henry the Eighth and 
 the second to Henry the Fifth. The second part of Oldcastle 
 is wanting; I know not whether a copy of the old edition has 
 been discovered in England, or whether it is lost. The York- 
 shire Tragedy is a tragedy in one act, a dramatized tale of mur- 
 der: the tragical effect is overpowering, and it is extremely im- 
 portant to see how poetically Shakspeare could handle such a 
 subject. 
 
 There have been still farther ascribed to him: 1st. The Merry 
 Devil of Edmonton, a comedy in one act, printed in Dodsley's 
 old plays. This has certainly some appearances in its favour. 
 It contains a merry landlord, who bears a great similarity to the 
 one in the Merry Wives of Windsor. However, at all events, 
 though an ingenious, it is but a hasty sketch. 2d. The accusa- 
 tion of Paris. 3d. The Birth of Merlin. 4th. Edward the 
 Third. 5th. The Fair Emma. 6th. Mucedorus. 7th. Jir- 
 den of Feversham. I have never seen any of these, and cannot 
 therefore say anything respecting them. From the passages 
 cited, I am led to conjecture that the subject of Mucedorus is 
 the popular story of Valentine and Orson: a beautiful subject 
 which Lope de Vega has also taken for a play. Arden of Fever- 
 sham is said to be a tragedy on the story of a man, from whom 
 the poet descended by the mother's side. If the quality of the 
 piece is not too directly at variance with this claim, the circum- 
 stance would afford an additional probability in its favour. For 
 such motives were not foreign to Shakspeare: he treated Henry 
 the Seventh, who bestowed lands on his forefathers for services 
 performed by them, with a visible partiality. 
 
 Of Shakspeare's share in The two Noble Cousins it will be 
 the time to speak when I come to mention Fletcher's works. 
 
 It would be very instructive, if it could be proved that several 
 earlier attempts of works, afterwards re-written, proceeded from 
 himself, and not from an unknown author. We should thus be 
 best enabled to trace his developement as an artist. Of the older 
 King John, in two parts (printed by Steevens among six old 
 plays), this might probably be made out. That he sometimes 
 came back to the same is certain. We know with respect to 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 367 
 
 Hamlet, for instance, that it was very gradually formed by him 
 to its present perfect state. 
 
 Whoever takes from Shakspeare a play earlier ascribed to him, 
 and confessedly belonging to his time, is unquestionably bound 
 to answer, with some degree of probability, this question: who 
 has then written it? Shakspeare's competitors in the dramatic 
 walk are pretty well known, and if those of them who have even 
 acquired a considerable name, a Lilly, a Marlow, a Heywood, 
 are still so very far below him, we can hardly imagine that the 
 author of a work, which rises so high beyond theirs, would have 
 remained unknown. 
 
( 3G8 ) 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Two periods of the English theatre; — the first the most important. — The first 
 conformation of the stage, and its advantages. — State of the histrionic art 
 in Shakspeare's time. — Antiquities of dramatic literature. — Lilly, Mario vv, 
 Heywood. — Ben Jonson. — Criticism of his works. — Masks. — Beaumont and 
 Fletcher. — General characterization of these poets, and remarks on some of 
 their pieces. — Massinger and other contemporaries of Charles the First. — 
 Closing of the stage by the Puritans. — Revival of the stage under Charles 
 the Second. — Depravity of taste and morals. — Dryden, Otway, and others. — 
 Characterization of the comic poets from Wycherley and Congreve to the 
 middle of the eighteenth century. — Tragedies of the same period. — Rowe. — 
 Addison's Cato. — Later pieces. — Familiar tragedy: Lillo. — Garrick. — Latest 
 state. 
 
 The great master of whom we have spoken in the preceding 
 Lecture forms such a singular exception to the whole history of art, 
 that we are compelled to assign a particular place to him. He 
 owed hardly anything to his predecessors, and he has had the 
 greatest influence on his successors: but no man has yet learned 
 from him his secret. For two whole centuries, during w T hich his 
 countrymen have diligently employed themselves in the cultiva- 
 tion of every branch of science and art, by their own confession, 
 he has not only never yet been surpassed, but he has left every 
 dramatic poet at a greater distance behind him. 
 
 In a sketch of the history of the English theatre which I am 
 now to give, I shall be frequently obliged to return to Shakspeare. 
 The dramatic literature of the English is very rich; they can 
 boast of a considerable number of dramatic poets, who possessed 
 in a distinguished degree the talent of original characterization, 
 and the means of theatrical effect. Their hands were not shackled 
 by prejudices, by arbitrary rules, and by the anxious observance 
 of conveniences. There has never been in England an academi- 
 cal court of taste; in art as in life, every man decides for what 
 pleases him best, or what is most suitable to his nature. Not- 
 withstanding this liberty, their writers have not however been 
 able to escape the influence of varying modes, and of the spirit of 
 different ages. 
 
 We remain true to our principle of merely dwelling at length 
 on what we consider as the highest efforts of poetry, and of 
 taking brief views of all that merely occupies the second or third 
 place. 
 
 The antiquities of the English theatre have been sufficiently 
 cleared up by the English writers, and especially by Malone. 
 
LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 369 
 
 The earliest dramatic attempts were here as well as elsewhere 
 mysteries and moralities. Still however it would seem that the 
 English distinguished themselves at an earlier period in these 
 productions than other nations. It has been recorded in the 
 History of the Council of Constance, that the English prelates, 
 in one of the intervals between the sittings, entertained their 
 other brethren with a spiritual play in Latin, such as the latter 
 were either entirely unacquainted with, or at least not in such 
 perfection, (according to the simple ideas of art of those times). 
 The beginning of a theatre, properly so called, cannot however be 
 placed farther back than the reign of Elizabeth. John Heywood, 
 the buffoon of Henry the Eighth, is considered as the oldest 
 comic writer: the single Interlude under his name, published in 
 Dodsley's collection, is in fact merely a dialogue and not a drama. 
 But Gammer Gurton's Needle, which was first acted about the 
 year 1560, certainly deserves the name of a comedy. However 
 antiquated in language and versification, it possesses unequivocal 
 merit in the low comic. The whole plot turns on a lost needle, 
 the finding of which is pursued with the utmost assiduity: the 
 poverty of the persons of the drama, which this supposes, and 
 the whole of their domestic condition, is very amusingly portray- 
 ed, and the part of a cunning beggar especially is drawn with 
 much humour. The coarse comic of this piece bears a resem- 
 blance to that of the Avocat Patelin; yet the English play has 
 not, like the French, been honoured with a revival on the stage 
 in a new shape. 
 
 The history of the English theatre divides itself naturally into 
 two periods. The first begins nearly about the time of the ascen- 
 sion of Elizabeth, and extends to about the end of the reign of 
 Charles the First, when the Puritans gained the ascendancy, and 
 effected the prohibition of all plays of whatsoever description. 
 The shutting up of the theatres lasted thirteen years; and they 
 were not again opened till the restoration of Charles the Second. 
 This interruption, the change which had taken place in the mean 
 time on the general way of thinking and in manners, and lastly, 
 the influence of the French literature which was then flourishing, 
 gave quite a different character to the plays written afterwards. 
 The works of the older school were indeed in part sought out, 
 but the school itself was extinguished. I call the dramatical poets 
 of the first epoch a school, in the sense in which it is taken in art, 
 as with all their personal diversities we may still perceive on the 
 whole a common direction in their productions. Independently 
 also of the language or contemporary allusion«, we should never 
 be disposed to take a play of that school, though ignorant of its 
 author, and the time when it was produced, for a production of 
 
 47 
 
370 LECTURES ON 
 
 the more modern period. The latter is susceptible of many sub- 
 divisions, but these may also be dispensed with. The talents of 
 the authors, and the taste of the public, have fluctuated in all 
 manner of directions, sometimes the most opposite, foreign influ- 
 ence has gained more and more the ascendency, and, to express 
 myself without circumlocution, the English theatre has in its 
 progress become more and more destitute of character and inde- 
 pendence. For a critic who seeks everywhere for originality, 
 and who troubles himself much less about what has arisen from 
 imitation, or the avoiding of imitation, the dramatic poets of the 
 first period are by far the most important, although with the ex- 
 ception of Shakspeare they may be reproached with great defects 
 and extravagances, and although many of the moderns are dis- 
 tinguished for a more careful polish. 
 
 There are periods when the human mind makes all at once 
 gigantic strides in an art previously almost unknown, as if during 
 its long sleep it had been collecting strength for such an effort. 
 The age of Elizabeth was in England such an epoch for dramatic 
 poetry. This Queen, during her long reign witnessed the first 
 infantine attempts of the English theatre, and its most masterly 
 productions. Shakspeare had a lively feeling of this general and 
 rapid developement of qualities, not before called into exercise; 
 in one of his sonnets he calls his age, these time bettering days. 
 The predilections for the theatre prevailed to such a degree, that 
 in a period of sixty years, under this and the following reign, 
 seventeen play houses were built or fitted up in London, whereas 
 the capital of the present day with twice the population* is satisfied 
 with two. No doubt they did not act every day, and several of 
 these theatres were very small, and probably not much better fit- 
 ted up than Marionette booths. Still however they served to call 
 forth the fertility of those writers who possessed or supposed that 
 they possessed, dramatic talents; for every theatre must have had 
 its peculiar repertory, as the pieces were either not printed at all, 
 or at least not till long after their composition, and as a single 
 theatrical company was in the exclusive possession of the manu- 
 script. However many feeble and lame productions might have, 
 in this manner, been called forth, it was however impossible that 
 such an extensive competition should not have been advantageous. 
 Of all the different species of poetry the dramatic is the only one 
 in which experience is necessary: and the failure of others is, for 
 the man of talents, an experiment at their expense. Moreover, 
 the exercise of this art requires vigorous determination, to which 
 the great artist is often the least inclined, as in the execution he 
 
 * The author might almost have said six times. — Trans. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 371 
 
 finds the greatest difficulty in satisfying himself; while, on the 
 other hand, hisgre atest enjoyment consists in embodying in his 
 mind the beloved creation of his imagination. It is therefore 
 fortunate for him when the importunity of those who, with trifling 
 means, venture on this difficult career stimulates him to put fresh 
 hand to the work. It is of importance to the dramatic poet tobe 
 connected immediately with the stage, that he may either himself 
 guide it, or learn to accommodate himself to its wants; and the 
 dramatic poets of that day were, for the most part, also players. 
 The theatre still made small claims to literature, and it thus 
 escaped the pedantry of scholastic learning. There were as yet no 
 periodical writings which, as the instrument of cabal, could mis- 
 lead opinion. Of jealousy and bickerings among the authors there 
 was no want; this however was more a source of amusement than 
 of displeasure to the public, who decided without prejudice or 
 partiality according to the mass of its entertainment. The poets 
 and players, as well as the spectators, possessed in general the 
 most essential requisite of success: a true love for the business. 
 This was the more unquestionable, as the theatrical art was not 
 then surrounded with all those foreign ornaments and inventions 
 of luxury, which serve to distract the attention and corrupt the 
 sense, but made its appearance in the most modest, and we may 
 well say in the most humble shape. For the admirers of Shak- 
 speare it must be an object of curiosity to know what was the ap- 
 pearance of the theatre in which his works were first performed. 
 We have an engraving of the play-house of which he was manager, 
 and which, from the symbol of a Hercules supplying the place of 
 Atlas, was called the globe: it is a massive structure destitute of 
 architectural ornaments, and almost without windows in the out- 
 ward walls. The pit was open to the sky, and they acted by 
 daylight; the scene had no other decoration than wrought tapes- 
 try, which hung at some distance from the walls, and left room 
 for several entrances. In the back-ground there was a stage raised 
 above the first, a sort of balcony, which served for various pur- 
 poses, and was obliged to signify all manner of things according 
 to circumstances. The players appeared, excepting on a few rare 
 occasions, in the dress of their time, or at most distinguished by 
 higher feathers on their hats and roses on their shoes. The chief 
 means of disguise were false hair and beards, and occasionally 
 even masks. The female parts were played by boys so long as 
 their voice allowed them. Two companies of actors in London 
 consisted even entirely of boys, namely the choir of the Queen's 
 Chapel, and of St. Paul's. Betwixt the acts it was not customary 
 to have music, but in the pieces themselves marches, dances, solo 
 
372 LECTURES ON 
 
 songs, and the like, were introduced on proper occasions, and 
 trumpet nourishes at the entrance of great personages. In the 
 more early time it was usual to represent the action before it was 
 spoken, in silent pantomime (dumb show) between each act alle- 
 gorically or even without any disguise, to give a definite direction 
 to the expectation. Shakspeare has still observed this practice 
 in the play of Hamlet. 
 
 From the outlay in all theatrical accessaries: — the architecture 
 of the theatre, lighting, music, the illusion of decorations change- 
 ing in a moment as if by enchantment, machinery and costume; 
 we are now so completely spoiled that this meager and confined 
 mode of stage decoration will in no manner satisfy us. Many 
 things however might perhaps be urged in favour of such a con- 
 stitution of the theatre. Where they are not enticed by any 
 splendid accessaries, the spectators will be the more difficult to 
 please in the main thing, namely, the excellence of the dramatic 
 composition, and its vivification by delivery and action. When 
 perfection is not attainable in external decoration, the critic will 
 rather altogether overlook it than allow himself to be disturbed 
 by its defectiveness and want of taste. And how seldom has 
 perfection been here attained! It is about a century and a half 
 since attention began to be paid to the observation of costume on 
 the European theatres; what has been performed in this way has 
 always appeared excellent to the multitude, and yet from the en- 
 gravings which sometimes accompany the printed plays, and from 
 every evidence, we may easily convince ourselves that it was 
 always characterized by puerility and mannerism, and that in all 
 the endeavours to assume a foreign or antique appearance, they 
 never could shake themselves free of the fashions of their own 
 time. A sort of hoop was long considered as an indispensable 
 appendage of a hero; the long peruques and fontanges, or top- 
 knots, kept their ground in heroical tragedy as long as in real 
 life; afterwards it would have been considered as barbarous to 
 appear without powdered and frizzled hair; on this was placed a 
 helmet with variegated feathers; a taffeta scarf fluttered over the 
 gilt paper coat of mail; and the Achilles or Alexander was then 
 completely mounted. We have now at last returned to a purer 
 taste, and in some great theatres the costume is actually observed 
 in a learned and severe style. We owe this principally to the 
 antiquarian reform in the plastic arts, and the approximation of 
 the female dress to the Grecian; for the actresses were always 
 the most inveterate in retaining on the stage those fashions by 
 which they turned their charms to account in society. However, 
 even yet there are very few players who know how to wear a 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 373 
 
 Grecian purple mantle, or a toga, in a natural and becoming man- 
 ner; and who, in moments of passion, do not seem to be unduly 
 occupied with holding and tossing about their drapery. 
 
 Our system of decoration was properly invented for the opera, 
 to which k is also in reality best adapted. It has several inevi- 
 table defects; others which certainly may be avoided, but which 
 seldom are avoided. Among the inevitable defects I reckon the 
 breaking of the lines in the side scenes from every point of view 
 except one, the disproportion between the size of the player when 
 he appears in the back-ground and the objects as diminished in 
 the perspective; the unfavourable lighting from below and behind; 
 the contrast between the painted and the actual lights and shades; 
 the impossibility of narrowing the stage at pleasure so that the 
 inside of a palace and a hut have the same length and breadth, 
 &c. The errors which may be avoided are, want of simplicity 
 and of great and reposing masses; overloading the scenery with 
 superfluous and distracting objects, either from the painter being 
 desirous of showing his strength in perspective, or not knowing 
 how to fill up the space otherwise; an architecture full of man- 
 nerism often altogether unconcerted, nay, even at variance with 
 possibility, coloured in a motley manner which resembles no 
 species of stone in the world. The most of the scene-painters 
 owe their success entirely to the ignorance of the spectators in the 
 plastic arts: I have often seen a whole pit enchanted with a de- 
 coration from which every intelligent eye must have turned away 
 with disgust, and in place of which a plain green wall would have 
 been infinitely better. From the vitiated taste in respect to the 
 splendour of decorations and magnificence of the dresses, the 
 arrangement of the theatre has become a complicated and expen- 
 sive business, whence it frequently happens that the main requi- 
 sites, good pieces and good players, are considered as secondary 
 matters; but this is an inconvenience which it is here unnecessary 
 to mention. 
 
 Although the earlier English stage had properly no decorations, 
 we must allow however that it was not altogether destitute of 
 machinery: without it, it is almost impossible to conceive how 
 several pieces, for instance, Macbeth, The Tempest, and others, 
 could ever be represented. The celebrated architect Inigo Jones, 
 who lived in the reign of James the First, put in motion, very 
 complicated and artificial machines for the decoration of the masks 
 of Ben Jonson which were acted at court. 
 
 In the Spanish theatre at the time of its formation, as well as in 
 the English, the same circumstance took place, namely, that when 
 the stage remained a moment empty, and other persons came in 
 by another entrance, a change of scene was supposed though none 
 
374 LECTURES ON 
 
 was visible; and this circumstance had the most favourable influ- 
 ence on the form of the dramas. The poet was not obliged to 
 consult the scene-painter to know what could or what could not 
 be represented; not to calculate whether the store of decorations 
 on hand were sufficient, or new ones would be requisite. He 
 imposed no constraint on the action with respect to change of 
 times and places, but represented it entirely as it would have 
 naturally taken place:* he left to the imagination to fill up the 
 intervals agreeably to the speeches, and to conceive all the sur- 
 rounding circumstances. — This call on the fancy to supply the 
 deficiencies supposes, indeed, not merely benevolent, but also in- 
 telligent spectators in a poetical tone of mind. That is the true 
 illusion, when the spectators are so completely carried away by 
 the impressions of the poetry and the acting, that they overlook 
 the secondary matters, and forget the whole of the remaining ob- 
 jects around them. The lying censoriously on the watch to dis- 
 cover whether any circumstance may not violate an apparent 
 reality which, strictly speaking, never can be attained, is a proof 
 of inertness of imagination and an incapacity to be deceived. This 
 prosaical incredulity may be carried so far as to render it utterly 
 impossible for the theatrical artists, who in every constitution of 
 the theatre require many indulgences, to amuse the spectators 
 by their productions; and in this manner they are, in the end, 
 the enemies of their own enjoyment. 
 
 We now complain, and with justice, that in Shakspeare's pieces 
 the too frequent change of scenes occasions an interruption. But 
 the poet is here perfectly blameless. It ought to be known that 
 the English plays of that time, as well as the Spanish, were print- 
 ed without any mention of the scene and its changes. In Shak- 
 speare the modern editors have inserted the scenical directions; 
 and in doing so they have proceeded with the most pedantic ac- 
 curacy. Whoever has the management of the representation of 
 a piece of Shakspeare's may, without any hesitation, at once strike 
 out all the changes of scene of the following description: — "An- 
 other room in the palace, another street, another part of the field 
 of battle," &c. — By these means alone, in most cases, the change 
 of decorations will be reduced to a very moderate number. 
 
 Of the art of the actors on a theatre which possessed so little 
 external splendour as the old English, those who are in the habit 
 
 * Capell, an intelligent commentator on Shakspeare, unjustly under-rated by 
 the others, has placed the advantage in this respect in the clearest light, in an 
 observation on Antony and Cleopatra. It emboldened the poet, when the truth 
 of the action required it, to plan scenes which the most skilful mechanist and 
 scene-painter could scarcely exhibit to the eye 5 as for instance^ in a Spanish play 
 where sea-fights occur. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 375 
 
 of judging of the man from his dress will not be inclined to en- 
 tertain a very favourable idea. I am induced, however, from this 
 very circumstance, to draw quite a contrary conclusion: the want 
 of attractions of an accessary nature renders it the more necessary 
 to be careful in essentials. Several Englishmen* have given it as 
 their opinion, that the players of the first epoch were in all like- 
 lihood greatly superior to those of the second, at least with the 
 exception of Garrick; and if we had no other proofs, the quality 
 of the pieces of Shakspeare renders this extremely probable. That 
 most of his principal characters require a great player is self-evi- 
 dent; the elevated and compressed style of his poetry cannot be 
 understood without the most energetic and flexible delivery; he 
 often supposes between the speeches a mute action of great diffi- 
 culty, for which he gives no directions. A poet who labours 
 only and immediately for the stage will not rely for his main effect 
 on traits which he must beforehand know will be lost in the re- 
 presentation from the unskilfulness of his interpreters. Shakspeare 
 must have therefore purposely lowered the tone of his dramatic 
 art, if he had not possessed excellent theatrical assistants. The 
 name and fame of some of them have descended even to our times. 
 As we are not fond of allowing any one man to possess two great 
 talents in an equal degree, it has been assumed on very question- 
 able grounds/that Shakspeare was himself but an indifferent actor.t 
 The instructions of Hamlet to the players prove at least that he 
 was an excellent judge of acting. We know that correctness of 
 conception and judgment are not always coupled with the means 
 of execution; Shakspeare, however, possessed a very important 
 and too frequently neglected requisite for serious acting, a beau- 
 tiful and noble countenance. Neither is it probable that he could 
 
 * See a Dialogue prefixed to the 11th volume of Dodsley's Old Plays. 
 
 f No certain account has yet been obtained of any principal part played by 
 Shakspeare in his own pieces. In Hamlet he played the Ghost: certainly a very 
 important part, if we consider that from the failure in it the whole piece runs a 
 risk of appearing ridiculous. A writer of his time says in a satirical pamphlet, 
 that the Ghost whined in a pitiful manner; and it has been concluded from this 
 that Shakspeare was a bad player. What logic! On the restoration of the 
 theatre under Charles the Second, they were desirous of collecting traditions 
 and information respecting the former period. Lowin, the original Hamlet, 
 instructed Betterton as to the proper conception of the character. There was 
 still alive a brother of Shakspeare, a decrepid old man, who had never had any 
 literary cultivation, and whose memory was impaired by age. From him they 
 could extract nothing, but that he had sometimes visited his brother in town, 
 and once saw him play an old man with grey hair and beard. From the above 
 description, it was concluded, that this must have been the faithful servant Adam 
 in Jis You Like It; also a second-rate part. In most of Shakspeare's pieces we 
 have not the slightest knowledge of the manner in which the parts were distri- 
 buted. In two of Ben Jonson's pieces we see Shakspeare's name among the 
 principal actors. 
 
376 LECTURES ON 
 
 have been manager of the most respectable theatre, had he not 
 himself possessed the talent of acting and guiding the action of 
 others. Ben Jonson, though a meritorious poet, could not even 
 obtain the situation of a player, as he did not possess the requisite 
 qualifications. From the passage cited in Hamlet, from the 
 burlesque tragedy of the mechanics in the Midsummer Nighfs 
 Dream, and many other passages, it is evident that there was then 
 an inundation of bad players, who fell into all the aberrations from 
 propriety with which at the present day we are offended; but 
 the public, it would appear, knew well how to distinguish, and 
 could not be easily satisfied.* 
 
 A thorough critical knowledge of the antiquities of the English 
 theatre can only be obtained in England: the old editions of the 
 pieces which belong to the earlier period are even there extremely 
 rare, and in foreign libraries they are never to be met with; the 
 modern collectors have merely been able to give a few specimens, 
 and not the whole store. It would be highly important to see 
 together all the plays which were undoubtedly in existence before 
 Shakspeare entered on his career, that we might be able to decide 
 with certainty how much of the dramatic art it was possible for 
 him to have learned from others. The year of the appearance 
 of a piece on the stage is generally, however, difficult to ascertain, 
 as it was often not printed till long afterwards. If in the labours 
 of the contemporaries of Shakspeare, even the older who con- 
 tinued to write at the same time with himself, we can discover 
 the resemblance of his style and traces of his art, still it will always 
 remain doubtful whether we are to consider these as the feeble 
 model, or the imperfect imitation. Shakspeare appears to have 
 had all the flexibility of mind, and all the modesty, of Raphael, 
 who, also, without ever being an imitator and becoming unfaithful 
 to his sublime and tranquil genius, applied all the advances of his 
 competitors to his own advantage. 
 
 A few feeble attempts to introduce the form of the antique 
 tragedy with chorusses, &c. were made at an early period, and 
 praised without producing any effect. They show, like most of the 
 attempts of the moderns in this way, the singular spectacles through 
 which the old poets were viewed; for it is hardly to be conceived 
 how unlike they are to the Greek tragedies, not merely in worth, 
 
 * In this respect, the following simile in Richard the Third is deserving 1 of 
 attention:— 
 
 As in a theatre the eyes of men, 
 After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, 
 Are idly bent on him that enters next, 
 Thinking his prattle to be tedious, &c. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 377 
 
 for that we may easily suppose, but even in those external cir- 
 cumstances which may be the most easily laid hold of. Ferrex 
 and Porrex, or the tragedy of Gorboduc, is most frequently 
 cited, which was the production of a lord, in the first part of the 
 reign of Elizabeth. Pope bestows high praise on this piece, on 
 account of its regularity, and laments that the contemporary poets 
 did not follow in the same track; for thus he thought a classical 
 theatre would have been formed in England. This opinion only 
 proves that Pope, who however passes for a perfect judge of poetry, 
 had not even an idea of the first elements of the dramatic art. 
 Nothing can be more spiritless and inanimate, nor more drawling 
 and monotonous in the tone of the language and in the versifica- 
 tion, than this Ferrex and Porrex; and although the unities of 
 place and time are in no manner observed, and a number of events 
 are crowded into it, yet the scene is wholly destitute of move- 
 ment: all that happens is previously announced in endless con- 
 sultations, and afterwards stated in equally endless narratives. 
 Mustapha, another unsuccessful work of a kindred description, 
 and also by a great lord, is a tedious web of all sorts of political 
 subtleties; the chorusses in particular are true treatises. How- 
 ever, of the innumerable maxims in rhyme, there are many which 
 might well have a place in the later pieces of Corneille. Kyd, 
 one of the predecessors of Ben Jonson, and named by him in 
 terms of praise, handled the Cornelia of Garnier. This may be 
 called receiving an imitation of the ancients from the third or 
 fourth hand. 
 
 The first serious piece calculated for popular effect is the Span- 
 ish Tragedy, so called from the scene of the story, and not from 
 its being borrowed from a Spanish writer. It kept possession of 
 the stage for a tolerable length of time, though it was often the 
 subject of the ridicule and the parodies of the succeeding poets. 
 It usually happens that the public do not easily return from a 
 predilection entertained by them in their first warm suscepti- 
 bility for the impressions of an art yet unknown to them, even 
 after they have long been acquainted with better, nay, with ex- 
 cellent works. This piece is certainly full of puerilities; the 
 author has ventured on the picture of violent situations and 
 passions without suspecting his own inability; the catastrophe 
 more especially, which in horror is intended to outstrip every- 
 thing conceivable, is introduced in a silly manner, and produces 
 merely a ludicrous effect. The whole is like the drawings of 
 children, without any observation of proportions, and without 
 steadiness of hand. With a great deal 7 of bombast, the tone of 
 the dialogue, however, has something natural, nay, even familiar, 
 and in the change of scenes we perceive a light movement, 
 
 48 
 
378 LECTURES ON 
 
 which in some degree will account for the general applause re- 
 ceived by this immature production. 
 
 Lilly and Marlow deserve to be noticed among the predeces- 
 sors of Shakspeare. Lilly was a scholar, and laboured to intro- 
 duce a stilted elegance in English prose, and in the tone of 
 dialogue, with such success, that for a period he was the fashion- 
 able writer, and the court ladies even formed their conversation 
 after the model of his book Euphue. His comedy in prose, 
 Campaspe, is a warning example of the impossibility of ever 
 constructing, from anecdotes and epigrammatic sallies, anything 
 like a dramatic whole. The author was a learned witling, but 
 in no respect a poet. 
 
 Marlow possessed more real talent, and was in a better way. 
 He has handled the history of Edward the Second in a very 
 artless manner it is true, but with a certain truth and simplicity, 
 so that many scenes do not fail to produce a pathetic effect. His 
 verses are flowing, but without energy; how Ben Jonson could 
 come to use the expression, Marlow } s mighty line, is more than 
 I can conceive. Shakspeare could neither learn nor derive any- 
 thing from the luscious manner of Lilly; but in Marlow's Edward 
 the Second, I certainly imagine that I can discover the feebler 
 model of the earliest historical pieces of Shakspeare. 
 
 Of the old comedies in Dodsley's collection, the Pinner 
 of Wakefielde, and Grim, the Collier of Croydon, seem alone 
 to belong to a period before Shakspeare. Both are not without 
 merit, in the manner of Marionette pieces: in the first, a popular 
 tradition; and in the second, a merry legend is handled with 
 hearty joviality. 
 
 I have dwelt longer on the beginnings of the English theatre, 
 than from their internal worth they deserve, because it has been 
 affirmed recently in England, that Shakspeare shows more affinity 
 to the works of his contemporaries now sunk in oblivion, than 
 people have hitherto been usually disposed to believe. We are 
 as little to wonder at certain outward resemblances, as at the 
 similarity of the dresses in portraits of the same period. In a 
 more limited sense, however, we apply the word resemblance 
 only to the relation of those features which express the spirit and 
 the mind. Moreover, plays can only be admitted as a satisfactory 
 proof of such an affirmation, which are ascertained to have been 
 written before the commencement of Shakspeare's career; for in 
 the works of his younger contemporaries, a Decker, Marston, 
 Webster, and others, something of a resemblance may be very 
 naturally accounted for; the traces of the imitation of Shakspeare 
 are sufficiently distinct. Their imitation was, however, merely 
 confined to external appearance and separate peculiarities; these 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 379 
 
 writers, without the virtues of their model, possess in reality- 
 all the faults which senseless critics have falsely censured in 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 A sentence somewhat more favourable is merited by Chapman, 
 the Translator of Homer, and Thomas Heywood, judging; of them 
 from the single specimens in Dodsley's collection. Chapman 
 has handled the well known story of the Ephesian Matron, under 
 the title of the Widow's Tears, not without comic talent. Hey- 
 wood's Woman killed with Kindness is a familiar tragedy: so 
 early may we find examples of this species, which has been given 
 out for new. It is the story of a wife tenderly beloved by her 
 husband, and seduced by a man whom he had loaded with bene- 
 fits; her error is discovered, and the severest determination which 
 her husband can bring himself to form is, to remove her from 
 him without proclaiming her dishonour: she grieves herself to 
 death from repentance. A due gradation is not observed in the 
 seduction, but the last scenes are truly agitating. A distinct 
 pronunciation of a moral aim is, perhaps, essential to the familiar 
 tragedy; or rather, by means of such an aim, a picture of human 
 destinies, whether relating -to kings or private families, is drawn 
 down from the ideal sphere into the prosaic world. But when 
 once we admit the title of this subordinate species, we shall find 
 that the demands of morality and the dramatic art coincide, and 
 that the utmost severity of moral principles leads again to poetical 
 elevation. The aspect of that false repentance which merely seeks 
 exemption from punishment is painful; repentance, as the pain 
 arising from the irreparable forfeiture of innocence, is susceptible 
 of a truly tragic portraiture. Let there be given to the above 
 piece a happy conclusion, such a one as in the present day, not- 
 withstanding this painful feeling, has obtained such general ap- 
 plause in a well known play:* namely, the reconciliation of the 
 husband and wife, not on the death-bed of the repentant sinner, 
 but in sound mind and body, and the renewal of the marriage; 
 and it will then be found that it has not merely lost its moral, 
 but also its poetical impression. 
 
 In other respects, this piece of Heywood is very inartificial 
 and carelessly finished: instead of duly developing the main 
 action, the author distracts our attention by a second intrigue, 
 which can hardly be said to have the slightest connexion with 
 the other. At this we need hardly be astonished, for Heywood 
 was both player and an excessively prolific author. Two hun- 
 dred and twenty pieces were, he says, written entirely or for the 
 
 * The author alludes to Kotzebue's play of Menschenhass und Reue (The 
 Stranger).— Trans. 
 
380 LECTURES ON 
 
 greatest part, by himself; and he was so careless respecting these 
 productions, which were probably completed by him without any 
 great labour, that he had lost the manuscripts of the most of them, 
 and only twenty-five remained for publication by means of the press. 
 
 All the above authors, and many others besides, whatever 
 applause they obtained in their life-time, have been unsuccessful 
 in transmitting a living memorial of their works to posterity. 
 Of Shakspeare's younger contemporaries and competitors, few 
 have attained this distinction; chiefly Ben Jonson, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, and Massinger. 
 
 Ben Jonson found in Shakspeare a ready encourager of his 
 talents. His first piece, imperfect in many respects, Every Man 
 in his Humour, was by Shakspeare's intervention brought on the 
 stage; Sejanus was even touched by him, and in both he under- 
 took a principal character. This hospitable reception on the 
 part of that great man, who was far above everything like jealousy 
 and petty rivalry, met with a very ungrateful return. Jonson 
 assumed a superiority over Shakspeare on account of his school 
 learning, the only point in which he really had the advantage; 
 he introduced all sorts of biting allusions in his pieces and pro- 
 logues, and reprobated more especially those magical flights of 
 fancy, the peculiar heritage of Shakspeare, as contrary to genuine 
 taste. In justification of him we must remark, that he was not 
 born under a happy star: his pieces were either altogether unsuc- 
 cessful, or they obtained but a small share of applause compared 
 with the astonishing popularity of Shakspeare; moreover, he was 
 incessantly attacked by his rivals with all manner of satires, on 
 the theatre and elsewhere, as a disagreeable pedant, who pretend- 
 ed to know everything better than themselves: — all this rendered 
 him atrabilarious in the extreme. He possessed in reality a very 
 solid understanding; he was conscious that in the exercise of his 
 art he displayed zeal and seriousness: that nature had denied him 
 grace, a property which no effort can give, he could not indeed 
 suspect. He thought every man may boast of his assiduity, as 
 Lessing says on a similar occasion. After several failures on the 
 stage, he formed the resolution of declaring in the outset of 
 his pieces that they were good, and that if they should not please, 
 this could only proceed from the senselessness of the multitude. 
 The epigraph of one of his unfortunate pieces which he committed 
 to the press is highly amusing: "As it was never acted, but most 
 negligently played by some, the King's servants, and more 
 squeamishly beheld and censured by others, the King's subjects." 
 
 Jonson was a critical poet in the good and bad sense of the 
 word. He endeavoured to form an exact estimate of what he 
 had on every occasion to perform; hence he succeeded best in 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 381 
 
 that species where the understanding comes in for the greatest 
 share, and imagination and feeling are merely subordinate, — the 
 comedy of character. He introduced nothing into his works 
 which critical dissection could not again extract, as his confidence 
 was such in it, that he conceived it exhausted everything which 
 pleases and charms us in poetry. He was not aware that, in the 
 chemical retort of the critic, what is most valuable, the fugacious 
 living spirit of a poem, evaporates. His pieces are in general 
 deficient in soul, in that nameless something which always con- 
 tinues to attract and enchant us, for the very reason that it can- 
 not be defined. In the lyrical pieces of his masks, we feel the 
 want of a certain mental music of imagery and intonation, which 
 cannot be produced by the accurate observation of a difficult 
 measure. He is everywhere deficient in those excellencies which 
 flow unsolicited from the pen of the poet; and which no artist, 
 who purposely hunts after them, can ever hope to obtain. We 
 must not quarrel with him, however, for the high opinion which he 
 entertained of his works; for the merit they have he owed alto- 
 gether to himself, like acquired moral properties. The produc- 
 tion of them was attended with labour, and unfortunately it is 
 also a labour to read them. They resemble solid and regular 
 edifices, before which however the clumsy scaffolding has remain- 
 ed, to interrupt and prevent us from viewing the architecture with 
 ease, and receiving from it a harmonious impression. 
 
 We have two tragical attempts of Jonson, and a considerable 
 number of comedies and masks. 
 
 He could have risen to the dignity of the tragic tone, but he 
 had not the smallest turn for the pathetic. As he incessantly 
 preaches up the imitation of the ancients, and w r e cannot deny 
 him a learned acquaintance with their works, it is astonishing to 
 observe how much his two tragedies differ, both in substance and 
 form from the Greek tragedy. From this example we may see 
 the influence which the prevailing tone of an age, and the course 
 already pursued in an art, must necessarily have upon even the 
 most independent minds. In the historical extent given by 
 Jonson to his Sejantts and Cataline, unity of time and place 
 were entirely out of the question; and both pieces are crowded 
 with a multitude of secondary persons, such as we never find in 
 any Greek tragedy. In Cataline, the prologue is spoken by 
 the spirit of Scylla, and it bears a good deal of resemblance to 
 that of Tantalus, in the Atreus and Thyestes of Seneca; to the 
 end of each act an instructive moralizing chorus is appended, 
 without being duly introduced or connected with the whole. 
 This is the extent of the resemblance to the ancients; in other 
 respects, the form of Shakspeare's historical dramas is adhered to 
 
382 LECTURES ON 
 
 but without their romantic charm. We cannot with certainty- 
 say, whether or not Jonson had the Roman pieces of Shakspeare 
 before him: it is probable that he had in Cataline at least; but, 
 at all events, he has not learned from him the art of remaining 
 true to history, and yet satisfying the demands of poetry. In 
 Jonson's hands, the subject continues history without becoming 
 poetry; the political events which he has described have more 
 the appearance of business than action. Cataline and Sejanus 
 are solid dramatic studies after Sailust and Cicero, after Tacitus, 
 Suetonius, Juvenal, and others; and that is the best we can say of 
 them. In Cataline, which upon the whole is preferable to 
 Sejanus, he is also censurable for not having blended the dissi- 
 milarity of the masses. The first act possesses most elevation, 
 though it disgusts us from its want of moderation: we see a secret 
 assembly of conspirators, and nature appears to answer the furious 
 inspiration of wickedness by dreadful signs. The second act 
 paints the intrigues and loves of depraved women, by which the 
 conspiracy was brought to light, and treads closely on comedy; 
 the last three acts contain a history in dialogue, developed with 
 much good sense, but little poetical elevation. It is to be lament- 
 ed that Jonson gave only his own text of Sejanus without com- 
 municating the alterations of Shakspeare. We should have been 
 curious to know the means by which he might have attempted 
 to give animation to the uniformity of the piece without change- 
 ing its plan, and how far his genius could accommodate itself to 
 foreign purposes. 
 
 After these attempts Jonson took his leave of the tragic muse, 
 and in reality his talents were altogether adapted to comedy, and 
 that too merely the comedy of character. His characterization 
 however is better suited to serious satire than playful ridicule; 
 the later Roman satirists, rather than the comic authors, were his 
 models. Nature had denied him that light and easy raillery 
 which plays harmlessly round everything, and which seems to be 
 the mere effusion of gaiety, but which is so much the more philo- 
 sophic, as it is not the vehicle of any definite doctrine, but merely 
 contains a general irony. — There is more of a spirit of observa- 
 tion than of fancy in the comic inventions of Jonson. Hence 
 his pieces are defective also in point of intrigue. He was a 
 strong advocate for the purity of the species, was unwilling to 
 make use of any romantic motives, and he never had recourse to 
 a novel. But his means of entangling and disentangling his plot 
 are often improbable and constrained, without gaining over the 
 imagination by their attractive boldness. Even where he has 
 contrived a happy plot, he required so much room for the deli- 
 neation of the characters, that we often lose sight of the intrigue 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 383 
 
 altogether, and the action moves on with the most heavy pace. 
 He sometimes resembles those too accurate portrait painters, who 
 for the sake of a likeness imagine they must include in the imita- 
 tion every mark of the small pox, every carbuncle or freckle. 
 He has been frequently suspected of having had real persons in his 
 eye in the delineation of particular characters; he has been at the 
 same time reproached with making his characters merely a per- 
 sonification of general ideas, and although these reproaches seem 
 at variance with each other, they are neither of them however with- 
 out some foundation. He possessed a methodical head; conse- 
 quently where he had once conceived a character in its leading idea, 
 he followed it out with the utmost strictness; what merely served to 
 give individual animation, without reference to this leading idea, 
 would have appeared to him in the light of a digression. Hence 
 his names are, for the most part, expressive even to an unplea- 
 sant degree of distinctness; and, to add to our satiety, he not 
 unfrequently tacks explanatory descriptions to the dramatis per- 
 sonam. On the other hand he acted upon this principle — that the 
 comic writer must exhibit to us real life, with a minute and petty 
 diligence. He generally seized the manners of his own nation 
 and age: this was deserving of praise; but he attached himself 
 too much to external peculiarities, to the singularities and affec- 
 tations of the modish tone which were then called humours, and 
 which from their nature are as transient as dresses. Hence a 
 great part of his comic very soon became obsolete, and as early 
 as the re-opening of the theatre under Charles the Second, no 
 actors cou\d be found who were capable of doing justice to such 
 caricatures. Local colours like these can only be preserved from 
 fading by the most complete seasoning with wit. This is what 
 Shakspeare has effected. Compare, for instance, his Ostrick, in 
 Hamlet with Fastidius Brisk in Jonson's Every Man out of 
 his Humour: both are portraitures of the insipid affectation of a 
 courtier of that day; but Ostrick, although he speaks his own 
 peculiar language, will remain to the end of time an exact and 
 intelligible image of foppish folly, whereas Fastidius is merely a 
 portrait in a dress no longer, in fashion, and nothing more. 
 However, Jonson has not always fallen into this error; his Cap- 
 tain Bobadill, for example, in Every Man, in his Humour, a 
 beggarly and cowardly adventurer, who passes himself off with 
 young and simple people for a Hector, is, it is true, far from being 
 as amusing and original as Pistol, but he remains also a model 
 in his way, notwithstanding the change of manners, and he has 
 been imitated by English comic writers of aftertimes. 
 
 In the piece which I have just named, the first work of Jonson, 
 the action is extremely feeble and insignificant. In the follow- 
 
384 LECTURES ON 
 
 ing, Every Man out of his Humour, he has gone still farther 
 astray, in seeking the comic effect merely in caricatured traits, 
 without any interest of situation: it is a rhapsody of ludicrous 
 scenes without connexion and progress. The Bartholomew 
 Fair is also merely a coarse Bambocciate, in which we do not 
 remark more connexion than in the hubbub, the noise, the quar- 
 reling and thefts, which usually take place on the occasion of 
 such an amusement of the populace. Vulgar delight is too natu- 
 rally portrayed; the part of the Puritan however is deserving of 
 destinction: his casuistical consultation, whether he ought to eat a 
 sucking pig according to the custom of the fair, and his lecture 
 afterwards against puppet-shows as a heathen idolatry are inim- 
 itable, and full of the most powerful comic salt. Ben Jonson did 
 not then foresee that the Puritans, before the lapse of one genera- 
 tion, would be sufficiently powerful to take a very severe revenge 
 on his art, on account of similar railleries. 
 
 In so far as the plot is concerned, the greatest praise is merited 
 by Volpone, The Alchemist, and Epicasne, or the Silent Wo- 
 man. In Volpone Jonson for once has entered into Italian man- 
 ners, but not taken an ideal view of them. The leading idea is ad- 
 mirable, and for the most part executed in a masterly manner: 
 towards the end however the whole turns too much on swindling 
 and villany, which necessarily calls for the interference of criminal 
 justice, and the piece, from the punishment of the guilty, has 
 everything but a merry conclusion. In The Alchemist both the 
 deceivers and deceived afford us a fund of entertainment, only the 
 author enters too deeply into alchemistical learning. Of an unin- 
 telligible jargon very short specimens ought only to be given in 
 comedy, and it is best that they should have a secondary significa- 
 tion, of which the person who uses the n^sterious language is not 
 himself aware ; when carried to too great a length, it occasions 
 wearisomeness as well as the writings themselves, which served 
 as a model. In The Devil's an Ass, the poet has failed to draw 
 due advantage from a fanciful invention with which he begins, 
 but which indeed was not his own ; and our expectation, after 
 being so deceived, remains dissatisfied with other scenes of a 
 good comic description. 
 
 Of all the pieces of Jonson, there is hardly one, as it stands, 
 which would please on a theatre in the present day, as the most 
 of them indeed did not please in his own time; but extracts from 
 them could hardly fail to be successful. In general, much might 
 be borrowed from him, and much might be learned both from his 
 merits and defects. His characters are for the most part solidly 
 and judiciously drawn; he merely fails in the art of setting them 
 off by the contrast of situation. He has seldom in this respect 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 385 
 
 planned his scenes so successfully as in Every Man in his Hu- 
 mour, where the jealous merchant is called off to an important 
 business, when his wife is in expectation of a visit of which he is 
 suspicious, and where he is anxious to station his servant as a 
 sentinel without however confiding his secret to him, because 
 above all things he dreads lest his jealousy should be remarked. 
 This scene is a master-piece, and if Jonson had always so com- 
 posed, we must have been obliged to rank him among the first 
 comic writers. 
 
 We merely mention the masks, lest we should be charged with 
 an omission: allegorical occasional pieces, chiefly destined for 
 court festivals, and decorated with machinery, masked dresses, 
 dancing, and singing. This secondary species died again nearly 
 with Jonson; the only production of any fame in this way, at an 
 after period, is the Comns of Milton. When allegory is con- 
 fined to mere personification, it must infallibly turn out very frigid 
 in a play; the action itself must be allegorical, and in this respect 
 there are many ingenious inventions, but the Spanish poets have 
 almost alone furnished us with successful examples. The pecu- 
 liarity of Jonson's masks most deserving of remark seems to me 
 to be the anti-masks, as they are called, which the poet himself 
 sometimes attaches to his invention, and generally allows to pre- 
 cede the serious act. As the ideal flatteries, for which the gods 
 have been brought down from Olympus, are but too apt to become 
 luscious, this antidote on such occasions is certainly deserving of 
 commendation. 
 
 Ben Jonson, who in all his pieces took a mechanical view of 
 art, bore a farther resemblance to the master of a handicraft in 
 taking an apprentice. He had a servant of the name of Broome, 
 who formed himself as a theatrical writer from the conversation 
 and instructions of his master, and brought comedies on the stage 
 with applause. 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher are always named together, as if they 
 were two inseparable poets, whose works were all planned and 
 executed in common. This idea, however, is not altogether cor- 
 rect. We know, indeed, but little of the circumstances of their 
 lives: this much however is known, that Beaumont died very 
 young; and that Fletcher survived his younger friend ten years, 
 and continued so unremittingly active in his career as a dramatic 
 poet, that several of his plays were first brought on the stage after 
 his death, and some which he left unfinished were completed by 
 another hand. The pieces collected under both names amount 
 to upwards of fifty; and it is probable that of this number the 
 half must be considered as the work of Fletcher alone. Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher's works first made their appearance a short 
 
 49 
 
386 LECTURES ON 
 
 time after their death; the publishers have not given themselves 
 the trouble to distinguish critically the share which belonged to 
 each, and still less to afford us any information respecting the di- 
 versity of their talents. Some of their contemporaries have at- 
 tributed boldness of imagination to Fletcher, and a mature judg- 
 ment to his friend: the former, according to their opinion, was 
 the inventive genius; the latter the directing and moderating critic. 
 But this account rests on no foundation. It is now impossible to 
 distinguish with certainty the hand of each; nor would the know- 
 ledge repay the labour. All the pieces ascribed to them, whether 
 they proceed from one alone or from both, are composed in the 
 same spirit and in the same manner. Hence it is probable that 
 it was not so much the want of supplying the deficiencies of each 
 other, as the great resemblance of their way of thinking, which 
 induced them to continue so long and so inseparably united. 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher began their career in the life-time of 
 Shakspeare: Beaumont even died before him, and Fletcher only 
 survived him nine years. From some allusions in the way of 
 parody, we may conclude that they entertained no very extrava- 
 gant admiration of their great predecessor; from whom however 
 they learned so much, and unquestionably borrowed many of 
 their thoughts. They followed his example in the whole form 
 of their plays, regardless of the different principles of Ben Jonson 
 and the imitation of the ancients. They drew, like him, from 
 novels and romances; they mixed up pathetic and burlesque scenes 
 with each other, and endeavoured, by the concatenation of the 
 incidents, to excite the impression of the extraordinary and the 
 wonderful. Their intention of surpassing Shakspeare in this 
 species is often sufficiently evident; their contemporary eulogists 
 indeed have no hesitation in ranking Shakspeare far below them, 
 and assert that theEnglish stage was first brought by Beaumont and 
 Fletcher to perfection. The fame of Shakspeare was in reality in 
 some degree eclipsed by them in the generation which immediate- 
 ly succeeded him, and in the time of Charles the Second they still 
 possessed a greater popularity: the progress of time has, however, 
 restored all the three to their due place. As on the theatre the 
 highest excellence wears out by frequent repetition, and novelty 
 must always possess a great charm, the dramatic art is consequent- 
 ly very much under the influence of fashion; it is more exposed 
 than other branches of literature and the fine arts to the danger of 
 passing rapidly from a grand and simple style to dazzling and 
 superficial mannerism. 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher were in fact men of the most distin- 
 guished talents; they hardly wanted anything but a more pro- 
 found seriousness of mind, and that sagacity in art which observes 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 387 
 
 a due measure in everything, to deserve a place beside the greatest 
 dramatic poets of all nations. They possessed an. uncommon 
 fecundity and flexibility of mind, and a felicitous ease which too 
 often however degenerated into levity. The highest perfection 
 they have hardly ever attained; and I should have little hesita- 
 tion in affirming, that they had not even an idea of it: however, 
 on several occasions they have approached quite close to it. And 
 why was it denied them to take this last step? Poetry was not 
 for them an inward devotion of the feeling and imagination, but 
 a means to obtain brilliant results. Their first object was effect, 
 which the great artist can hardly fail of attaining if he is deter- 
 mined above all things to satisfy himself. They were not players* 
 like the most of their predecessors; but they lived in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the theatre, were in constant intercourse with it, and 
 possessed a perfect understanding of theatrical matters. They 
 were also thoroughly acquainted with their contemporaries; but 
 they found it more convenient to lower themselves to the taste of 
 the public than to follow the example of Shakspeare, who ele- 
 vated the public to himself. They lived in a vigorous age, which 
 more willingly pardoned extravagancies of every description than 
 feebleness and frigidity. They never therefore allowed themselves 
 to be restrained by poetical or moral considerations; and in this 
 confidence they found their account: they resemble in some 
 measure somnambulists, who with their eyes shut tread in dan- 
 gerous ways without falling. Even when they undertake what 
 is most depraved they enter on it with a certain felicity. In the 
 commencement of a degeneracy in the dramatic art, the specta- 
 tors first lose the capability of judging of a play as a whole; hence 
 Beaumont and Fletcher bestow the least attention on the harmony 
 of the composition and the due proportion between all the dif- 
 ferent parts. They not unfrequently lose sight of a happily 
 framed plot, and appear almost to forget it; they bring something 
 else forward equally capable of affording pleasure and entertain- 
 ment, but which does not belong to that place, and which has no 
 preparation. They always excite curiosity, frequently compas- 
 sion — they hurry us along with them; they succeed better how- 
 ever in exciting our expectation than in gratifying it. So long 
 as we read them we feel ourselves keenly interested; but they 
 leave very few imperishable impressions behind. They are least 
 successful in their tragic attempts, because their feeling is not suf- 
 ficiently drawn from the depths of human nature, and because 
 
 * In the privilege granted by James the First to the royal players, Laurence 
 Fletcher is named along with Shakspeare as manager of the company. The 
 poet's name was John Fletcher. Perhaps the former might be his brother or 
 near relation. 
 
38S LECTURES ON 
 
 the} T bestowed too little attention on the general consideration of 
 human destinies: they succeed much better in comedy, and in 
 those serious and pathetic pictures which occupy a middle place 
 betwixt comedy and tragedy. The characters are often drawn in 
 rather an arbitrary manner, and become untrue to themselves 
 when it suits the momentary wants of the poet; in external mat- 
 ters they are sufficiently in keeping. Beaumont and Fletcher 
 employ the whole strength of their talent in pictures of passion; 
 but they enter little on the secret history of the heart; they pass 
 over the first emotions and the gradual heightening of a feeling; 
 they seize it as it were in its highest gradations, and then deve- 
 lope its symptoms with the most overpowering illusion, though 
 with an exaggerated strength and fulness. But though its expres- 
 sion does not always possess the strictest truth, it still however 
 appears natural ; everything has free motion; nothing is labori- 
 ously constrained or far-fetched, however striking it may some- 
 times appear. They completely unite in their dialogue the fami- 
 liar tone of real conversation and the appearance of momentary 
 suggestion with poetical elevation. They even run into that 
 favourite affectation of the natural which has been the means of 
 obtaining such great success to some dramatic poets of our own 
 time; but the latter sought it in the absence of all elevation of 
 fancy; and hence, from necessity, they could not help falling into 
 insipidity. Beaumont and Fletcher generally couple homeliness* 
 with fancy ; and they succeed in giving an extraordinary appear- 
 ance to what is common, and thus preserve a certain fallacious 
 image of the ideal. The morality of these writers is ambiguous. 
 Not that they failed in strong colours to contrast greatness of soul 
 and goodness with baseness and wickedness, or did not usually 
 conclude with the disgrace and punishment of the latter; but an 
 ostentatious generosity is often exhibited in lieu of duty and jus- 
 tice. Everything good and excellent arises in their pictures, more 
 from transient ebullition than fixed principle; they seem to place 
 the virtues in the blood; and impulses of merely a selfish and 
 instinct-like nature hold up their heads quite close to them as if 
 they were of nobler origin. There is an incurable vulgar side of 
 human nature which the poet should never approach but with a 
 certain bashfulness, when he cannot avoid allowing it to be per- 
 ceived; but instead of this Beaumont and Fletcher throw no veil 
 whatever over nature. They express everything bluntly in words; 
 they make the spectator the unwilling confidant of all that more 
 noble minds endeavour even to hide from themselves. The in- 
 decencies in which these poets allowed themselves to indulge ex- 
 
 * Natürlichkeit ^lievaWy , naturalness — Tiiass. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 389 
 
 ceed all conception. The licentiousness of the language is the 
 least evil; many scenes, nay, even whole plots, are so contrived 
 that the very idea of them, not to mention the sight, is a gross 
 insult to modesty. Aristophanes is a bold interpreter of sensual- 
 ity; but like the Grecian statuaries in the figures of satyrs, &c. he 
 banishes them into the animal kingdom to which they wholly be- 
 long; and judging of him according to the morality of his times 
 he is much less offensive. But Beaumont and Fletcher exhibit 
 the impure and nauseous colouring of vice to our view in quite a 
 different sphere; their compositions resemble the sheet full of 
 pure and impure animals in the vision of the Apostle. This was 
 the universal inclination of the dramatic poets under James and 
 Charles the First. They seem as if they purposely wished to 
 justify the Puritans, who affirmed the theatres were so many 
 schools of seduction and chapels of the Devil. 
 
 To those who merely read for amusement and general cultiva- 
 tion we can only recommend the works of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher with some limitation.* For the practical artist, how- 
 ever, and the critical judge of dramatic poetry, an infinite deal 
 may be learned from them; as well from their merits as their 
 extravagancies. A minute dissection of one of their works, for 
 which we have not here the necessary room, would serve to 
 place this in the clearest light. These pieces had this conve- 
 nience in representation in their time, that such great actors were 
 not necessary to fill the principal characters as in Shakspeare's 
 plays. To bring them on the stage in our days, it would be 
 necessary to recast the most of them; with some of them we might 
 succeed by omitting, moderating, and purging various passages.! 
 The Two Noble Kinsmen is deserving of more particular 
 mention, as it is the joint production of Shakspeare and Fletcher. 
 I see no ground for calling this in question; the piece, it is true, 
 did not make its appearance till after the death of both; but 
 what could be the motive with the editor or printer for any de- 
 ception, as Fletcher's name was then, at least, in as great, if not 
 more, celebrity than Shakspeare's? Were it the sole production 
 of Fletcher, it would undoubtedly have to be ranked as the best 
 of his serious and heroic pieces. However, it would be unfair 
 to a writer of talent to take from him a work for the mere reason 
 
 * Hence I cannot approve of the undertaking-, which has been recently com- 
 menced, of translating- them into German. They are not at all adapted for our 
 great public, and whoever makes a particular study of dramatic poetry will have 
 little difficulty in finding- his way to the originals. 
 
 | So far as I know only one play has yet been brought on the German theatre, 
 namely, Rule a Wife and have a Wife, re-written by°Schroder under the title of 
 Stille Walser sind Tief (Still Waters run Deep) which, when well acted, has 
 always been uncommonly well received. 
 
390 LECTURES ON 
 
 that it is too good for him. Might not Fletcher, who in his 
 thoughts and images not unfrequently shows an affinity to Shak- 
 speare, have for once had the good fortune to approach closer to 
 him than usual? It would be still more dangerous to rest on the 
 similarity of separate passages to others in Shakspeare. This 
 might rather arise from imitation. I rely therefore entirely on 
 the historical statement, which, probably, originated in a tradition 
 of the players. There are connoisseurs, who, in the pictures of 
 Raphael, which, as is well known, w T ere not always wholly ex- 
 ecuted by himself, take upon them to determine what parts have 
 been painted by Francesco Penni, or Giulio Romano, or some 
 other scholar. I wish them success with the nicety of their 
 discrimination; they are at least secure from contradiction, as 
 we have no certain information on the subject. I would only 
 put these connoisseurs in mind, that Giulio Romano allowed him- 
 self to be deceived by a copy of Andrea del Sarto from Raphael, 
 and that, too, with regard to a figure which he had himself 
 assisted in painting. The case in point is, however, a much 
 more complicated problem in criticism. The design of Raphael's 
 figures was at least his own, and the execution only was distri- 
 buted in part among his scholars. But to find out how much of 
 The Tiuo Noble Kinsmen may belong to Shakspeare, we must 
 not only be able to tell the difference of hands in the execution, 
 but also to determine the influence of Shakspeare on the plan of 
 the whole. When however he once joined another poet in the 
 production of a work, he must also have accommodated himself, 
 in a certain degree, to his views, and renounced the prerogative 
 of unfolding his inmost peculiarity. Amidst so many grounds 
 for doubting, if I might be allowed to hazard an opinion, I should 
 say, that I think I c#n perceive the mind of Shakspeare in a cer- 
 tain ideal purity, which distinguishes this piece above all the 
 others of Fletcher, and in the conscientious fidelity with which 
 the story adheres to that of Chaucer's Palanwn and Jircite. 
 In the style Shakspeare's hand is at first discoverable in a brevity 
 and fulness of thought bordering on obscurity; in the colour of 
 the expression, almost all the poets ofthat time bear a strong re- 
 semblance to each other. The first acts are most carefully labour- 
 ed; afterwards the piece is drawn out in an epic manner to too 
 great a length; the dramatic law of quickening the action, to- 
 wards the conclusion, is not sufficiently observed. The part of 
 the daughter of the jailor, whose insanity is artlessly conducted 
 in pure monologues, is certainly not Shakspeare's; for, in that 
 case, we must suppose him to have had an intention of arrogant- 
 ly imitating his own Ophelia. 
 
 Moreover, it was then a very general custom for two or even 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 391 
 
 three poets to join together in the production of one play. Besides 
 the constant example of Beaumont and Fletcher we have many 
 others. The consultations, respecting the plan, were generally 
 held at merry meetings in taverns, where it happened upon a 
 time, that one of such a party calling out in a poetical intoxica- 
 tion: "I will undertake to kill the King!" he was taken into 
 custody as a traitor, till the misunderstanding was cleared up. 
 This mode of composition may answer very well for the lighter 
 species, which must he animated by social wit. With regard to 
 theatrical effect, four eyes may, in general, see better than two, 
 and mutual objections may be of use in finding out the most 
 suitable means. But the highest poetical inspiration is much 
 more eremitical than communicative; for it always seeks the 
 expression for something which sets language at defiance, which 
 can only be weakened and dissipated by detached words, and 
 which can only be attained by the united impression of the com- 
 plete work, the idea which hovers before it. 
 
 The Knight of the Burning Pestle, of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, is an incomparable and singular work in its kind. It 
 is a parody of the chivalry romances; the thought is borrowed 
 from Don Quixote, but the imitation is handled with freedom, 
 and so particularly applied to Spenser's Fairy Queen, that it 
 may pass for a second invention. But the peculiarly ingenious 
 novelty of the piece consists in the combination of the irony of a 
 chimerical abuse of poetry with another irony exactly the con- 
 trary, of the incapacity to comprehend any fable, and the drama- 
 tic form more particularly. A grocer and his wife come as 
 spectators to the theatre: they are discontented with the piece 
 which has just been announced; they demand a play in honour 
 of the corporation, and Ralph, their apprentice is to act a prin- 
 cipal part in it. They are well received; but still they are not 
 satisfied, make their observations on everything, and incessantly 
 address themselves to the players. Ben Jonson had already ex- 
 hibited imaginary spectators, but they were either benevolent 
 expounders or awkward censurers of the views of the poet: con- 
 sequently, they always conducted his, the poet's, own cause. 
 But the grocer and his wife represent a whole genus, namely, 
 those unpoetical spectators, who are destitute of every feeling 
 for art. The illusion with them becomes a passive error; the 
 subject represented has all the effects of reality on them, they 
 therefore resign themselves to the impression of each moment, 
 and take part for or against the persons of the drama. On the 
 other hand, they show themselves insensible to all genuine illu- 
 sion, that is, of entering vividly into the spirit of the fable: Ralph, 
 however heroically and chivalrously he may conduct himself, is 
 
392 LECTURES ON 
 
 always for them Ralph their apprentice; and they take upon 
 them, in the whim of the moment, to demand scenes which are 
 quite inconsistent with the plan of the piece that has been com- 
 menced. In short, the views and demands with which poets are 
 often oppressed by a prosaical public are personified in the most 
 ingenious and amusing manner in these caricatures of spectators. 
 
 The faithful Shepherdess, a pastoral, is highly extolled by 
 some English critics, as it is without doubt finished, with great 
 diligence, in rhymed and, partly, in lyrical verses. Fletcher 
 wished also to be classical for once, and did violence to his na- 
 tural talent. Perhaps he had the intention of surpassing Shak- 
 speare's Midsummer Night's Dream; but the composition 
 which he has ushered into the world is as heavy as that of the 
 other was easy and aerial. The piece is overcharged with my- 
 thology and rural paintings, is untheatrical, and so far from the 
 genuine ideality of a pastoral world, that it even contains the 
 greatest vulgarities. We might rather call it an immodest eulogy 
 of chastity. 1 am willing to hope that Fletcher was unacquaint- 
 ed with the Pastor Fido of Guarini, for otherwise his failure 
 would admit of less justification. 
 
 We are here in want of room to speak in detail of the remain- 
 ing works of Beaumont and Fletcher, although they might be 
 made the subject of many instructive observations. On the whole, 
 we may say of these writers that they have built a splendid palace, 
 but merely in the suburbs of poetry, while Shakspeare has his 
 royal residence in the central point of the capital. 
 
 The fame of Massinger has lately been revived by an edition 
 of his works. Some literary men wish to rank him above Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher, as if he had approached more closely to the 
 excellence of Shakspeare. I cannot find this. He appears to 
 me to have the greatest resemblance to Beaumont and Fletcher 
 in the plan of the pieces, in the tone of manners, and even in the 
 language and negligences of versification. I would not undertake 
 to decide, from internal symptoms, whether a play belonged to 
 Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher. This applies also to the 
 other contemporaries; for instance, to Shirley, of whom a couple 
 of pieces are stated to have crept into the works ascribed to the 
 two last named poets. There was then, as has already been said, 
 a school of dramatic art in England, a school of which Shakspeare 
 was the invisible and too often unacknowledged head; for Ben 
 Jonson remained almost without successors. It is a peculiarity 
 of manner to efface the features of personal originality, and to 
 make the productions of various artists bear a resemblance to each 
 other; and from manner no dramtic poet of this age, who suc- 
 ceeded Shakspeare, can be pronounced altogether free. When 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 393 
 
 however we compare their works with those of the succeed- 
 ing age, we shall perceive between them nearl)* the same relation 
 as between the paintings of the school of Michael Angelo and 
 those of the last half of the seventeenth and the first half of the 
 eighteenth century. Both are tainted with manner; but the 
 manner of the former bears the trace of a sublime origin in the 
 first ages; in the latter, all is little, affected, empty, and superfi- 
 cial. I repeat it: in a general history of the dramatic art, the 
 first period of the English theatre is the only one of importance. 
 
 The plays of the least known writers of that time, (I venture 
 to affirm this, though I am far from being acquainted with all of 
 them) are more instructive for theory, and more remarkable, 
 than the most celebrated of all the succeeding times. 
 
 In this condition-nearly the theatre remained under the reign 
 of Charles I. down to the year 1647, when the inveighings of 
 the Puritans, who had long murmured at the theatre, and at last 
 thundered loudly against it, were changed into laws. To act, or 
 even behold, plays was prohibited under a severe penalty. A 
 civil war followed, and the extraordinary circumstance here hap- 
 pened, that the players, who, in general, do not concern them- 
 selves much about forms of government, and whose whole care 
 is usually devoted to the peaceable entertainment of their fellow 
 citizens, compelled by want, joined that political party the inter- 
 ests of which were intimately connected with their own existence. 
 Almost all of them entered the army of the king, many perished 
 for the good cause, the survivors returned to London and conti- 
 nued to exercise their art in secret. Out of the ruins of all the 
 former companies of actors, one alone was formed, which occa- 
 sionally, though with great circumspection, gave representations 
 at the country-seats of the great, in the vicinity of London. For 
 among the other singularities to which the violence of those times 
 gave rise, it was considered a proof of attachment to the old con- 
 stitution to be fond of plays, and to reward and harbour those 
 who acted them in private nouses. 
 
 Fortunately the Puritans did not so well understand the im- 
 portance of a censureship as the governments of our day, or the 
 yet unprinted dramatic productions of the preceding age could 
 not have issued from the press, by which means many of them 
 would have been irrecoverably lost. These gloomy fanatics 
 were such enemies of all that was beautiful, that they not only 
 persecuted every liberal mental entertainment, calculated in any 
 manner to adorn life, and more especially the drama as a public 
 worship of Baal, but they even shut their ears to church music, 
 as a demoniacal howling. If their ascendency had maintained 
 itself much longer, England must infallibly have been plunged 
 
 50 
 
394 LECTURES ON 
 
 in an irremediable barbarousness. The oppression of the theatre 
 continued down to the year 1660, when the free exercise of all 
 arts returned with Charles the Second. 
 
 The influence which the government of this monarch had on 
 the manners and spirit of the time, and the natural re-action 
 against the party before dominant, are sufficiently well known. 
 As the Puritans had brought, republican principles and religious 
 zeal into universal odium, this light-minded Monarch seemed 
 expressly born to sport away all respect for the kingly dignity. 
 England was inundated with the foreign follies and vices in his 
 train. The court set the fashion of the most undisguised immo- 
 rality, and this example was the more extensively contagious, as 
 people imagined that they showed their zeal for the new order 
 of things by an extravagant way of thinking and living. The 
 fanaticism of the republicans had been accompanied with true 
 strictness of manners, and hence nothing appeared more conve- 
 nient than to obtain the character of royalists, by the extravagant 
 inclination for all lawful and unlawful pleasures. The age of 
 Louis the Fourteenth was nowhere imitated with greater depra- 
 vity. The prevailing gallantry at the court of France was not 
 without reserve and without a tenderness of feeling; they sinned, 
 if I may so speak, with some degree of dignity, and no man 
 ventured to attack what was honourable, though his own actions 
 might not exactly coincide with it. The English played a part 
 which was altogether unnatural to them: they gave themselves 
 heavily up to levity; they everywhere confounded the coarsest 
 licentiousness with free mental vivacit) 7- , and did not perceive 
 that the sort of grace which is still compatible with depravity, 
 disappears with the last veil which it throws off. 
 
 We may easily suppose the turn which the new formation of 
 taste must have taken under such auspices. They possessed no 
 real knowledge of the fine arts, and these were merely favoured 
 like other foreign fashions and inventions of luxury. They 
 neither felt a true want of poetry, nor had any relish for it: they 
 merely wished to be entertained in a brilliant and light manner. 
 The theatre, which in its former simplicity had attracted the 
 spectators solely by the excellence of the dramatic works and the 
 actors, was now furnished out with all the appendages with which 
 we are at this day familiar; but what it gained in external deco- 
 ration, it lost in internal worth. 
 
 To Sir William Davenant the English theatre, on its 
 revival after the interruption which we have so often mentioned, 
 owes the new institution, if this term may be here used. He 
 introduced the Italian system of decoration, the costume, as well 
 or ill as it was then understood, the opera music, and in general the 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 395 
 
 use of the orchestra. For this undertaking Charles the Second 
 had furnished him with extensive privileges. Davenant was a 
 sort of adventurer and wit, and in every manner worthy of the 
 royal favour, to enjoy which dignity of character was never con- 
 sidered as a necessary requisite. He set himself to work in 
 every way which the want of a rich theatrical repertory may 
 render necessary; he made alterations of old pieces, wrote him- 
 self plays, operas, prologues, &c. But of all his writings nothing 
 has escaped a merited oblivion. 
 
 Dryden soon became the hero of the stage, and remained so 
 during a considerable time. This man, from his influence in 
 fixing versification and diction, especially in rhyme, has acquired 
 a reputation altogether disproportionate to his true merit. We 
 shall not here inquire whether his translations of the Latin poets 
 are not manneristical paraphrases, whether his political allegories, 
 now that party interest is dead, can be read without the greatest 
 w r earisomeness; but his plays are, considered with reference to 
 his great reputation, incredibly bad. Dryden had a flowing and 
 easy versification, the knowledge which he possessed was rather 
 considerable, but undigested, and all this was coupled with the 
 talent of giving a certain appearance of novelty to what he bor- 
 rowed from every quarter: his serviceable muse was the resource 
 of an irregular life. He had besides an immeasureable vanity; 
 he frequently disguises it under humble prologues, on other 
 occasions he speaks out boldly and confidently, declaring that he 
 is of opinion he has done better than Shakspeare, Fletcher, and 
 Jonson (whom he places nearly on the same level); the merit 
 of this however he was willing to ascribe to the refinement and 
 advances of the age. The age indeed! as if that of Elizabeth 
 compared with the one in which Dryden lived, were not in every 
 respect " Hyperion to a Satyr!" Dryden played also the part 
 of the critic: he furnished his pieces richly with prefaces and 
 treatises on dramatic poetry, in which he chatters in a confused 
 manner about the genius of Shakspeare and Fletcher, and the 
 entirely opposite example of Corneille, of the original boldness 
 of the British stage, and the rules of Aristotle and Horace. He 
 imagined that he had invented a new species, namely, the heroic 
 drama; as if tragedy from its nature had not been always heroi- 
 cal! If we are however to seek for a heroic drama which is 
 not peculiarly tragic, we shall find that it had long been possess- 
 ed by the Spaniards in the greatest perfection. From the uncom- 
 mon facility of rhyming which Dryden possessed, it cost him 
 but little labour to compose the most of his serious pieces entirely 
 in rhyme. The rhymed verse of ten syllables supplies nearly, 
 
396 LECTURES ON 
 
 with the English, the place of the Alexandrine; it has more 
 freedom in the pauses, but on the other hand it wants the alterna- 
 tion of male and female rhymes; it proceeds in pairs exactly like 
 the French Alexandrine, and in point of syllabic measure it is 
 still more uniformly symmetrical. It communicates therefore 
 inevitably a great stiffness to the dialogue. The manner of 
 the older English poets, who generally used blank verse, and 
 only introduced occasional rhymes, was infinitely preferable. 
 Since that time however rhyme has come to be too exclusively 
 rejected. 
 
 Dryden's plans are improbable even to silliness; the incidents 
 are all thrown out without thought; the most wonderful theatrical 
 strokes fall incessantly from the clouds. He cannot be said to 
 have drawn a single character; for there is not a spark of nature 
 in his persons. Passions, criminal and magnanimous sentiments, 
 flow with indifferent levity from their lips without ever having 
 dwelt in the heart: their chief delight is in heroical boasting. The 
 tone of expression is by turns flat and madly bombastical, and 
 frequently both at the same time: this poet resembles a man who 
 walks upon stilts in a morass. — His wit is displayed in far-fetched 
 sophistries; his imagination in long-spun similes awkwardly in- 
 troduced. All these faults have been ridiculed by the Duke of 
 Buckingham in his comedy of the Rehearsal. Dryden was 
 meant under the name of Bayes, though some features are taken 
 from Davenant and other contemporary writers. The vehicle of 
 this critical satire might have been more artificial and diversified; 
 the substance however is admirable, and theseparate parodies are 
 very amusing and ingenious. The taste for this depraved man- 
 ner was, however, too prevailing to be restrained by the efforts 
 of so witty a critic, who was at the same time a grandee of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Otway and Lee were younger competitors of Dryden in tra- 
 gedy. Otway lived in poverty, and died young; under more 
 favourable circumstances greater things would have been done by 
 him. His first pieces in rhyme are imitations of the manner of 
 Dryden ; he also imitated Berenice of Racine. Two of his pieces 
 in blank verse have kept possession of the stage; The Orphan, 
 and Venice Preserved. These tragedies are far from being good; 
 but there is matter in them, especially in the last; and amidst 
 much empty declamation there are some truly pathetic passages. 
 How little Otway understood the true rules of composition may 
 be inferred from this, that he has taken the half of the scenes of 
 his Caius Marius verbally, or with disfiguring changes, from the 
 Romeo and Juliet of Shakspeare. Nothing more incongruous 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 397 
 
 can well be conceived than such an episode in Roman manners 
 and in a historical drama. This impudent plagiarism is in no 
 manner justified by his confessing it. 
 
 Dry den altered pieces of Shakspeare; for then, and even long 
 afterwards, every person thought himself qualified for this task. 
 He also wrote comedies; but Wycherley and Congreve were the 
 first to acquire a name in this species. The mixed romantic 
 drama was now laid entirely aside; all was either tragedy or com- 
 edy. The history of each of these species will therefore admit 
 of being separately handled; if that, where we can perceive no 
 progressive developement, but mere standing still, or even retro- 
 grading and an inconstant fluctuation in all manner of directions, 
 can be said to have a history. However, the English under 
 Charles the Second and Queen Anne, and down to the middle of 
 the eighteenth century, had a series of comic writers, who may 
 be all considered as belonging to one common class; for the most 
 important diversity among them proceeds merely from an external 
 circumstance, the varying tone of manners. 
 
 I have elsewhere in these Lectures shown that elegance of form 
 is of the greatest importance in comedy; as from the wantof care 
 in this respect it is apt to degenerate into a mere prosaical imita- 
 tion of reality, by which it forfeits its pretensions to either poetry 
 or art. It is exactly however in the form that the English come- 
 dies are extremely negligent. In the first place, they are written 
 wholly in prose. It has been well remarked by an English critic, 
 that the banishment of verse from comedy had even a prejudicial 
 influence on versification in tragedy. The older dramatists could 
 elevate or lower the tone of the Iambics at pleasure; from the ex- 
 clusion of this verse from familiar dialogue it has become more 
 pompous and inflexible. Shakspeare's comic scenes, it is true, 
 are also written for the most part in prose; but in the mixed 
 comedy, which has a serious, wonderful, or pathetic side, the 
 prose with the elevated language of verse serves to mark the con- 
 trast between vulgar and ideal sentiments; it is a positive means 
 of exhibition. Continued prose in comedy is nothing but the 
 natural language, on which the poet has employed none of his 
 skill in refining and smoothing down the apparently accurate imi- 
 tation: it is that prose which Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhom- 
 me has been speaking his whole life-time without suspecting it. 
 
 Moreover, the English comic poets tie themselves too little 
 down to the unity of place. I have on various occasions declared, 
 that I consider change of scene even a requisite, whenever a drama 
 is to possess historical extent, or the magic of romance. But in 
 the comedy of common life it is something altogether different. 
 I am convinced that it would almost always have had an ädvan- 
 
398 LECTURES ON 
 
 tageous influence on the conduct of the action in the English plays 
 if their authors had, in this respect, subjected themselves to stricter 
 laws. 
 
 The lively trickery of the Italian masks has always found a 
 more unfavourable reception in England than in France. The 
 fool or clown in Shakspeare's comedies is much rather an ironical 
 humorist than a mimical buffoon. Intrigue in real life is foreign 
 to the Northern nations both from their virtues and their defects: 
 they have too much openness of character, and too little acuteness 
 and nicety of understanding. It is remarkable that the Southern 
 nations, with greater violence of passion, possess however the 
 talent of dissembling in a much higher degree. In the North, 
 life is wholly founded on mutual confidence. Hence, in the 
 drama, the spectators, from being less practised in intrigue, are 
 less inclined to be delighted with concealment of views and their 
 success by bold artifice, and with the presence of mind which ex- 
 tricates from embarrassment in unexpected events of an untoward 
 nature. However, there may be an intrigue in comedy, in the 
 dramatic sense, though none of the persons carry on what is 
 properly called intrigue. In entangling and disentangling their 
 plots, however, the English comic writers are least deserving of 
 praise. Their plans are defective in unity. 1 conceive that I 
 have sufficiently exculpated Shakspeare from this reproach, which 
 is rather merited by many of the pieces of Fletcher. If, how- 
 ever, the imagination has any share in a composition, it is far from 
 being so necessary that all should be accurately connected together 
 by cause and effect, as when the whole is merely held together by 
 the understanding. The double or triple intrigue in many modern 
 English comedies has been even acknowledged by English critics 
 themselves.* The inventions to which they have had recourse 
 are often everything but probable, without charming us by their 
 happy novelty; they are chiefly deficient however in perspicuity 
 and easy developement. The most of the English comedies are 
 much too long. The authors overload their composition with 
 characters; and we can see no reason why they have not divided 
 them into several pieces. It is as if we were to compel to travel 
 in the same stage-coach a greater number of persons, all strangers 
 to each other, than there is properly room for: the journey be- 
 comes more inconvenient, and the entertainment not a whit more 
 lively. 
 
 * Among- others, the anonymous author of an ingenious letter to Garrick, 
 prefixed to Coxeter's edition of Massinger's Works, says: — "What with their 
 plots, and double plots, and counter-plots, and under-plots, the mind is as much 
 perplexed to piece out the story as to put together the disjointed parts of an 
 ancient drama." 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 399 
 
 The greatest merit of the English comic poets of this period 
 consists in the drawing of character; yet though many of them 
 have certainly shown much talent in this respect, I cannot ascribe 
 to any of them a peculiar genius for character. Even in this de- 
 partment the older poets (not only Shakspeare, forthat may easily 
 be supposed, but even Fletcher and Jonson) are superior to them. 
 The moderns seldom possess the faculty of seizing the most hidden 
 and involuntary emotions, and giving a comic expression to them; 
 they generally draw merely the natural or assumed surface of 
 men. The same circumstance which was attended with such a 
 prejudicial effect in France after Moliere's time came also here 
 into play. The comic muse, instead of becoming familiar with 
 the way of living of the middle and lower ranks, her proper 
 sphere, assumed an air of distinction: she squeezed herself into 
 courts, and endeavoured to snatch a resemblance of the beau- 
 monde. It was now no longer an English national, but a Lon- 
 don comedy. The whole nearly turns on fashionable love-suits 
 and fashionable raillery; the love affairs are either disgusting or 
 insipid, and the raillery is always puerile and destitute of wit. 
 These comic writers may have accurately hit the tone of their time ; 
 in this they did their duty; but they have reared a lamentable 
 memorial of their age. In few periods has taste in the fine arts 
 been at such a low ebb as about the close of the seventeenth and 
 during the first half of the eighteenth century. The political ma- 
 chine kept its course: wars, negotiations, and changes of states, 
 give to this age a certain historical splendour; but the comic poets 
 and portrait-painters have revealed to us the secret of its pitiful- 
 ness; the former in their copies of the dresses, and the latter in the 
 imitation of the social tone. I am convinced that if w r e could 
 listen to the conversation of the beau-monde of that day in the 
 present, it would appear to us as prettily affected and full of taste- 
 less pretension, as the hoops, the towering head-dresses, and high- 
 heeled shoes of the women, and the huge peruques, cravats, wide 
 sleeves, and ribbon-knots of the men.* 
 
 * When I give out good or bad taste in dress for an infallible criterion of 
 social cultivation or deformity, this must be limited to the age in which a fashion 
 comes up; for it may sometimes be very difficult to overturn a wretched fashion 
 even when a better taste has long prevailed in other things. The dresses of the 
 ancients were more simple, and consequently less subject to change of fashion; 
 and the male dress, in particular, was almost unchangeable. However, even 
 from the dresses alone, as we see them in the remains of antiquity, we may 
 form a pretty accurate judgment of the character of the Egyptians, the Greeks, 
 and the Romans. In'-the female portrait-busts of the time of the later Roman 
 Emperors we often find the head-dresses extremely tasteless; nay, even busts 
 with peruques which may be taken off, probably for the purpose of changing 
 them, as the originals themselves did. 
 
400 LECTURES ON 
 
 The last, and not the least, defect of the English comedies is 
 their offensiveness. I may sum up the whole in one word by 
 saying, that after all we know of the licentiousness of manners 
 under Charles the Second, we are still lost in astonishment at the 
 audacious ribaldry of Wycherley and Congreve. — Decency is not 
 merely violated in the grossest manner in single speeches, and fre- 
 quently in the whole plot, but in the character of the rake, the 
 fashionable debauchee, a moral scepticism is directly preached up, 
 and marriage is the constant subject of their ridicule. Beaumont 
 and Fletcher portrayed an irregularbut vigorous nature: nothing 
 however can be more repulsive than rude depravity coupled with 
 claims to higher refinement. Under Queen Anne manners be- 
 came again more decorous; and this may easily be traced in the 
 comedies: in the series of English comic poets, Wycherley, Con- 
 greve, Farquhar, Vanbrugh, Steele, Cibber, &c, we may per- 
 ceive something like a gradation from the most unblushing in- 
 decency to a tolerable degree of modesty. However, the exam- 
 ple of the predecessors has had more than a due influence on the 
 successors. From prescriptive fame pieces keep possession of the 
 stage, such as no man in the present day durst venture to bring 
 out. It is a remarkable phenomenon, the causes of which are de- 
 serving of mention, that the English nation in the last half of the 
 eighteenth century passed all at once from the most opposite way 
 of thinking to an almost over-scrupulous strictness of manners in 
 social conversation, in romances and plays, and in the plastic 
 arts. 
 
 Some writers have said of Congreve that he had too much wit 
 for a comic poet. These people must have rather a singular con- 
 ception of wit. The truth is, that Congreve and the other writers 
 above-mentioned possess in general much less comic than epigram- 
 matic w 7 it. The latter often degenerates into a laborious strain- 
 ing for wit. Steel's dialogue, for example, puts us too much in 
 mind of the letters in the Spectator. Farquhar's plot seems to 
 me to be of all of them the most ingenious. 
 
 The latest period of English comedy begins nearly with Col- 
 man. Since that time the morals have been irreproachable, and 
 much has been done in refined and original characterization; the 
 form, however, has on the whole remained the same, and in that 
 respect, I do not think the English comedies at all models. 
 
 Tragedy has been often attempted in England in the eigh- 
 teenth century, but a genius of the first rank has never made his 
 appearance. They laid aside the manner of Dryden, however, 
 and that was certainly an improvement. Rowe was an honest 
 admirer of Shakspeare, and his modest reverence for this supe- 
 rior genius was rewarded bv a return to nature and truth. The 
 

 DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 401 
 
 traces of imitation are not to be mistaken: the parts of Gloster in 
 Jane Shore is even directly borrowed from Richard the Third. 
 Rowe did not possess boldness and vigour, but sweetness and 
 feeling; he could excite the softer emotions, and hence, in his 
 Fair Penitent, Jane Shore, and Lady Jane Gray, he has suc- 
 cessfully chosen female heroines and their weaknesses for his 
 subject. 
 
 .Addison possesses an elegant mind, but he was by no means 
 a poet. He undertook to purify the English tragedy, by a com- 
 pliance with the supposed rules of good taste. We might have 
 expected from a judge of the ancients, that he would have en- 
 deavoured to approach the Greek models. Whether he had any 
 such intention I know not, but certain it is, that he has pro- 
 duced nothing but a tragedy after the French cut. Cato is a 
 feeble and frigid piece, almost destitute of action, without one 
 truly overpowering moment. Addison has so narrowed a great 
 and heroic picture by his timid manner of treating it, that he 
 could not even fill up the frame without foreign intermixtures. 
 Hence, he had recourse to the traditional love intrigues; if we 
 count well, we shall find no fewer than six persons in love in 
 this piece: Cato's two sons, Marciaand Lucia, Juba and Sempro- 
 nius. The good Cato cannot therefore avoid as a provident father 
 of a family to arrange two marriages at the conclusion. With the 
 exception of Sempronius, the villain of. the piece, the lovers are 
 one and all somewhat silly. Cato, who ought to be the soul of 
 the whole, is hardly ever shown to us in action; nothing remains 
 for him to do, but to admire himself and die. It might be thought 
 that the stoical determination of suicide, without struggle and 
 without passion, is not a fortunate subject; but correctly speak- 
 ing, no subjects are unfortunate, everything depends on the seizing 
 each in the correct manner. Addison has been induced, by the 
 wretched unity of place, to leave out -Caesar, the only worthy 
 contrast to Cato; and, in this respect, even Metastasio has man- 
 aged matters better. The language is pure and simple, but with- 
 out vigour; the rhymeless Iambic gives more freedom to the 
 dialogue, and an air somewhat less conventional than it has in 
 the French tragedies; but 'in vigorous eloquence, Cato remains 
 far behind them. 
 
 Addison took his measures well; he brought all the great and 
 small critics, with Pope at their head, the whole militia of good 
 taste under arms, that he might excite a high expectation of the 
 piece which he had produced with so much labour. Cato was 
 universally praised, as a work without an equal. And on» what 
 foundation do these boundless claims rest? On regularity of form ? 
 This had been already observed by the French poets for nearly 
 
 51 
 
402 LECTURES ON * 
 
 a century, and notwithstanding the constraint, they had often 
 attained a much stronger pathetic effect. Or on the political 
 sentiments? But in a single dialogue between Brutus and Cas- 
 sius, in Shakspeare, there is more of a Roman way of thinking, 
 and republican energy, than in all Cato. 
 
 I doubt whether this . piece could ever have produced a 
 powerful impression, but its reputation has certainly had a pre- 
 judicial influence on tragedy in England. The example of Cato, 
 and the translations of French tragedies, which became every 
 day more and more frequent, could not, it is true, render univer- 
 sal the belief in the infallibility of the rules; but they were held 
 in sufficient consideration to disturb the conscience of the drama- 
 tic poets, and they therefore availed themselves of the preroga- 
 tives inherited by them from Shakspeare, with an extreme degree 
 of timidity. On the other hand, these prerogatives were at the 
 same time problems; it requires an extraordinary degree of skill 
 to manage such great masses as Shakspeare used to bring together, 
 with simplicity and perspicuity: more drawing and perspective 
 are required for an extensive fresco painting, than for a small oil 
 picture. In renouncing the intermixture of comic scenes w T hen 
 they no longer understood their ironical aim, they did perfectly 
 right: Southern still attempted them in his Oroonoko, but they 
 exhibit a wretched appearance in his hands. With the general 
 knowledge and admiration of the ancients in England, we might 
 have expected some attempt at a true imitation of the Greek 
 tragedy; no such imitation has however made its appearance; in 
 the choice and handling of their materials, they show an un- 
 doubted affinity to the French. Some poets of celebrity in other 
 departments of- poetry, Young, Thomson, Glover, have written 
 tragedies, but no one of them has displayed any true tragical 
 talent. 
 
 They have now and then had recourse to familiar tragedy to 
 assist the barrenness of imagination; but the moral aim, which 
 must exclusively prevail in this species, is a true extinguisher of 
 genuine poetical inspiration. They have therefore been satisfied 
 with a few attempts. The Merchant of London, and The Game- 
 ster, are the only plays in this way which have attained any con- 
 siderable reputation. The Merchant of London is remarkable 
 from having been praised by Diderot and Lessing, as a model de- 
 serving of imitation. This error could only have escaped from 
 Lessing, in the keenness of his hostility to the French conven- 
 tional tone. For in reality, we must perpetually bear in mind 
 the honest views of Lillo, to prevent us from finding The Mer- 
 chant of London as laughable as it is certainly trivial. Who- 
 ever possesses so little knowledge of the world and of men ought 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 403 
 
 not to set up for a public lecturer on morals. We might draw a 
 very different conclusion from this piece, from that which the 
 author had in view, namely, that we ought to make young peo- 
 ple early acquainted with prostitutes, to prevent them from en- 
 tertaining a violent passion, and being at last led to steal and mur- 
 der, for the first wretch who spreads her snares for them, (which 
 they cannot possibly avoid). Besides, I cannot approve of mak- 
 ing the gallows first visible in the last scene; such a piece ought 
 always to be acted with a place of execution in the back ground. 
 With respect to the edification to be drawn from a drama of this 
 kind, I should prefer the histories of malefactors, which are usu- 
 ally printed in England at .executions; they contain, at least, real 
 facts, instead of awkward fictions. 
 
 Garrick's appearance forms an epoch in the history of the 
 English theatre, as he chiefly dedicated his talents to the great 
 characters of Shakspeare, and built his own fame on the growing 
 admiration for this poet. Before his time, Shakspeare had only 
 been brought on the stage in mutilated and disfigured alterations. 
 Garrick returned on the whole to the true originals, though he 
 still allowed himself to make some very unfortunate changes. 
 It appears to me, that the only alteration of Shakspeare which is 
 excusable is, the leaving out a few things in conformity to the 
 taste of the time. Garrick was undoubtedly a great actor. 
 Whether he always conceived the parts of Shakspeare in the 
 sense of the poet I should be inclined to doubt, from the very 
 circumstances stated in the eulogies on his acting. He excited, 
 however, a noble emulation to represent in a worthy manner the 
 favourite poet of the nation; this has ever since been the highest 
 object of the actors, and even at present they can boast of men 
 whose histrionic talents are deservedly celebrated. 
 
 But why has this revival of the admiration of Shakspeare re- 
 mained unproductive for dramatic poetry? Because he has been 
 too much the subject of astonishment, as an unapproachable genius 
 who owed everything to nature and nothing to art. His success, 
 they think is without example, and can never be repeated; nay, 
 it is even forbidden to venture into* the same region. Had they 
 considered him more from the point of view which an artist ought 
 to take, they would have endeavoured to understand the princi- 
 ples which he followed in his practice, and tried to become mas- 
 ters of them. A meteor appears, disappears, and leaves no trace 
 behind; the course of a heavenly body, however, may be deli- 
 neated by the astronomer, for the sake of investigating more ac- 
 curately the laws of general mechanics. 
 
 I am not sufficiently acquainted with the latest dramatic pro- 
 ductions of the English, to enter into a minute account of them. 
 
404 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 That the dramatic art and the taste of the public are, however, 
 in a wretched decline, I think I may safely infer, from the fol- 
 lowing phenomenon. Some years ago, several German plays 
 found their way to the English stage; plays, which it is true, 
 are with us the favourites of the multitude, but which are not 
 considered by the intelligent as forming a part of our literature, 
 and in which distinguished actors are almost ashamed of earning 
 applause. These pieces have met with extraordinary favour in 
 England; they have properly speaking as the Italians say, fatto 
 furore, though the critics did not fail to declaim against their 
 immorality, veiled over by sentimental hypocrisy. From the 
 poverty of our dramatic literature, the admission of such abor- 
 tions into Germany may be easily comprehended; but what can 
 be alleged in favour of this depravity of taste in a nation like the 
 English, which possesses such treasures, and which must there- 
 fore descend from such an elevation? Certain writers are no- 
 thing in themselves; they are merely symptoms of the disease 
 of their age; and were we to judge from them, there is but too 
 much reason to fear that, in England, an effeminate sentimental- 
 ity in private life is more frequent, than from the astonishing 
 political greatness and energy of the nation we should be led to 
 suppose. 
 
 May the romantic drama and the grand historical drama, these 
 truly native species, be again speedily revived, and may Shak- 
 speare find such worthy imitators as some of those whom Germany 
 has to produce! 
 
( 405 ) 
 
 LECTURE XIY. 
 
 Spanish Theatre.— Its three periods; Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon. — 
 Spirit of the Spanish poetry in general.— -Influence of the national history on 
 it. — Form, and various species of the Spanish drama. — Decline since the 
 beginning" of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The riches of the Spanish stage have become proverbial, and 
 it has been more or less the custom of the Italian, French, and 
 English dramatists, to draw from this source, and generally with- 
 out acknowledgment. I have often had occasion to remark this 
 in the preceding lectures; it was incompatible, however, with 
 my* purpose to give an enumeration of what has been so borrow- 
 ed, which would indeed have assumed rather a bulky appearance, 
 and which could not have been rendered complete without great 
 labour. What has been taken from the most celebrated Spanish 
 poets may be easily pointed out; but the writers of the second 
 and third rank have been equally laid under contribution, and their 
 works are not easily met with out of Spain. Ingenuous boldness, 
 joined to easy clearness of intrigue, is so exclusively peculiar to 
 the Spanish dramatists, that I consider myself justified, whenever 
 I find these in a work, to suspect a Spanish origin, even though 
 the circumstance may have been unknown to the author himself, 
 who drew his plagiarism from a nearer source.* 
 
 From the political preponderance of Spain in the sixteenth 
 century, the knowledge of the Spanish language became widely 
 diffused throughout Europe. Even in the first half of the seven- 
 teenth century we find many traces of an acquaintance with the 
 Spanish literature in France, Italy, England, and Germany; 
 since that time, however, the study of it has become everywhere 
 more and more neglected, till of late some zeal has again been 
 excited for it in Germany. In France they have no other idea 
 of the Spanish theatre, than that which they may form from 
 the translations of Linguet. These have been again translated 
 into German, and their number has been increased by others, in 
 no respect better, derived immediately from the originals. The 
 translators have, however, confined themselves almost exclusive- 
 ly to the department of comedies of intrigue, and though all the 
 
 * Thus for example, The Servant of two Masters, of Goldoni, a piece highly 
 distinguished above his others for the most amusing intrigue, passes for an ori- 
 ginal. A learned Spaniard has assured me, that he knows it to be a Spanish 
 invention. Perhaps, Goldoni had here merely an older Italian imitation before 
 him. 
 
406 . LECTURES ON 
 
 Spanish plays are versified, with the exception of a few Entreme- 
 ses, Saynetes, and those of the latest period, they have reduced 
 the whole to prose, and even considered themselves entitled to 
 praise for having carefully removed everything which may be 
 called poetical ornament. In such a mode of proceeding nothing 
 but the material scaffolding of the original work could remain; 
 the beautiful colouring must have disappeared with the forms of 
 the execution. That translators who could show such a total 
 want of judgment in poetical excellencies would not choose the 
 best pieces in the whole store, may be easily supposed. The 
 species in question, though the invention of innumerable in- 
 trigues, of a description of which we find but few examples in the 
 theatrical literature of other countries, certainly shows an aston- 
 ishing acuteness. is yet by no means the most valuable part of 
 the Spanish theatre, which displays a much greater brilliancy 
 in the handling of wonderful, mythological, or historical subjects. 
 
 The selection published by De la Huerta in sixteen small vol- 
 umes, under the title of Teatro Hespanol, with introductions 
 giving an account of the authors of the pieces and the different 
 species, can afford no very extensive acquaintance with the 
 Spanish theatre, even to a person possessed of the language; for 
 his collection is almost exclusively limited to the department 
 of comedies in modern manners, and he has admitted no pieces 
 of the earlier period, composed by Lope de Vega or his prede- 
 cessors. Blankenburg and Bouterweck* among us have laboured 
 to throw light on the earlier history of the Spanish theatre, before 
 it acquired its proper shape and attained literary dignity, a sub- 
 ject involved in a good deal of obscurity. But even at an after 
 period, an amazing deal was w r ritten for the stage which never 
 appeared in print, and which is either now lost or only exists in 
 manuscript; while, on the other hand, there is hardly an instance 
 of a piece being printed without having first been brought on the 
 stage. A correct and perfect history of the Spanish theatre can 
 only therefore be executed in Spain. The notices of the above- 
 mentioned German writers are however of use, though not free 
 from errors; their opinions respecting the poetical merit of the 
 pieces, and the general view which they have taken, appear to 
 me exceedingly objectionable. 
 
 The first advances of the dramatic art in Spain were made in 
 the last half öf the sixteenth century; and it ceased to flourish 
 with the end of the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth, 
 since the war of the succession, which seems to have had a very 
 
 * The former in his annotations on Sulzers Theorie der schönen Künste, the 
 latter in his Geschichte aer Spanischen Poesie. • 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 407 
 
 prejudicial influence on the Spanish literature in general, very 
 little can be mentioned which does not display wild incoherency, 
 retrogression, retention of the old observances without meaning, 
 or tame imitations of foreign productions. The Spanish literati 
 of the last generation frequently boast of their old national poets, 
 the people entertain a strong attachment to them, and in Mexico, 
 as well as Madrid, their pieces are always represented with im- 
 passioned applause. 
 
 The various epochs of formation of the Spanish theatre may be 
 designated from the names of three celebrated writers, Cervantes, 
 Lope de Vega, and Calderon. 
 
 The oldest information and opinions on this subject of anjr im- 
 portance are to be found in the writings of Cervantes; chiefly 
 in Don Quixote, in the dialogue with the Canon, in the preface 
 to his later plays, in the journey to Parnassus. He has also 
 thrown out detached observations on the subject in various other 
 places. He had witnessed in his youth the commencement of 
 the dramatic art in Spain; the poetical poverty of which, as well 
 as the low state of the theatrical decorations, are very humor- 
 ously described by him. He was justified i-n looking upon him- 
 self as one of the founders of this art; for before he gained im- 
 mortal fame by his Don Quixote he had diligently laboured for 
 the stage, and from twenty to thirty pieces composed by him, so 
 negligently does he speak of them, had been acted with applause. 
 He made no higher claims on that account, nor after they had 
 served their momentary destination did he allow any of them to 
 be printed; and it was only lately that two of those earlier 
 labours were for the first time published. — One of these plays, 
 probably the first of Cervantes, The Way of Living in Algiers, 
 (El Trato de Argel), still bears traces of the infancy of the art 
 in the preponderance of narrative, in the general meagreness, and 
 in the want of prominency in the figures and situations. The 
 other however, The Destruction of Numantia, stands alto- 
 gether on the elevation of the tragical cothurnus; and, from the 
 unconscious and unsought-for approximation to antique grandeur 
 and purity, forms a remarkable phenomenon in the history of 
 modern poetry. The idea of destiny prevails in it throughout; 
 the allegorical figures which enter between the acts supplj*, 
 though in 'another way, nearly the place of the chorus in the 
 Greek tragedies; they guide our consideration and propitiate our 
 feeling. A great deed of heroic determination is completed; the 
 extremity of suffering is endured with constancy; but it is the 
 deed and the suffering of a whole nation whose individual mem- 
 bers may be almost said to appear only as examples, while the 
 Roman heroes seem merely the instruments of fate. There is, 
 
408 LECTURES ON 
 
 if I may say so, a sort of Spartan pathos in this piece: every 
 separate consideration is swallowed up in the feeling for country; 
 and by a reference to the modern warlike fame of his nation, the 
 poet has contrived to connect the ancjent history with the cir- 
 cumstances immediately before him. 
 
 Lope de Vega appeared and soon became the sole monarch of 
 the stage, so that Cervantes was forced to give way to him. Yet 
 he would not altogether relinquish claims founded on earlier ap- 
 probation; and shortly before his death, in the year 1615, he 
 printed eight plays and an equal number of smaller interludes, as 
 he could not get them brought on the stage. They have gene- 
 rally been found very much inferior to his other prose and poeti- 
 cal works; their modern editor is even of opinion that they are 
 parodies and satires of the vitiated taste of the time: but we have 
 only to read them without any prepossession to find this hypo- 
 thesis ridiculous. Had Cervantes entertained such a purpose, he 
 would have contrived to attain it in quite a different way in one 
 piece, and also in a manner both highly amusing and not liable to 
 misconception. No, they were intended as pieces in the manner 
 of. Lope: Cervantes,. contrary to his conviction, endeavoured to 
 comply with the taste of his contemporaries by a display of greater 
 variety, of wonderful plots, and theatrical effect. But it would 
 appear that he considered the superficial in composition as the 
 main requisite for applause; it is at least, for the most part, ex- 
 tremely loose and dissolute, and wc have no examples in his prose 
 works of a similar degree of levity. Hence, as he partly renounced 
 his peculiar excellencies, we need not be astonished that he did 
 not succeed in surpassing Lope in his own walk. Two, however, 
 of these pieces, The Christian Slaves in Jllgiers [Los Banos de 
 •ärgel), an alteration of the piece before mentioned, and The 
 Labyrinth of Love, are deserving of great praise in their whole 
 plot ; all of them contain so many beautiful and ingenious traits, 
 that when we consider them by themselves, and without any re- 
 ference to the destruction of Numantia, we feel disposed to look 
 on the opinion pretty generally entertained by the Spanish critics 
 as a mere prejudice. But again, when we compare them with the 
 pieces of Lope, or bear in mind the higher excellencies to which 
 Calderon had accustomed his public, we shall find that this opin- 
 ion will admit of conditional justification. We may, on' the whole, 
 allow that the mind of this poet was more inclined to the epic, 
 taking the word in its more extensive signification, for the narra- 
 tive form of composition; and that the soft and unassuming man- 
 ner in which he delights to excite the mind is not well suited to 
 the making the most of every moment, and the rapid compression, 
 which are required on the theatre. But when we again view the 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 409 
 
 energetical pathos in The Destruction of Numantia, we must 
 consider it as merely accidental that Cervantes did not dedicate 
 himself wholly to this species, and find room in it for the deve- 
 lopement of all the properties of his inventive mind. 
 
 The sentence pronounced by Cervantes on the dramas of his 
 later contemporaries is one of the neglected voices which have 
 been raised from time to time in Spain, insisting on the imitation 
 of the ancient classics, while the national taste had decidedly de- 
 clared itself for the romantic drama in its boldest form. On this 
 subject Cer\*antes, from causes which we may easily comprehend, 
 was not altogether impartial. Lope de Vega had followed him 
 as a dramatic writer, and by his greater fruitfulness and brilliancy 
 of effect had driven him from the stage; a circumstance which 
 ought certainly to be taken into account in explaining the discon- 
 tent of Cervantes in his advanced age with the direction of the 
 public, taste and constitution of the theatre. It would appear, too, 
 that in his poetical mind there still remained a prosaical corner 
 from which he was induced to reject the inclination to the won- 
 derful, and the boldness of plays of fancy, as contrary to proba- 
 bility and nature. On the authority of the ancients he recom- 
 mended a purer separation of the species; whereas the romantic 
 art endeavours to blend all the elements of poetry in its produc- 
 tions, as he himself did in his romances and novels; and he 
 censured with equal severity the rapid change of times and places 
 as true offences against propriety. It is remarkable that Lope 
 himself was unacquainted with his own rights, and confessed that 
 he wrote his pieces, contrary to the rules with which he was well 
 acquainted, merely for the sake of pleasing the multitude. That 
 the multitude entered peculiarly into his consideration is certainly 
 true; still he remains one of the most extraordinary of all the 
 popular and favourite theatrical writers who ever lived, and well 
 deserves to be called in all seriousness by Cervantes, his rival and 
 adversary, a wonder of nature. 
 
 The pieces of Lope de Vega, numerous beyond all belief, have 
 partly never been printed; and the collection of those that are 
 printed is seldom to be found complete excepting in Spaip. Many 
 pieces are probably falsely attributed to him; an abuse of which 
 Calderon also complains. I know not whether Lope himself ever 
 gave any list of the pieces actually composed by him; indeed he 
 could hardly at last have remembered the whole of them. How- 
 ever, on reading a small number we shall find ourselves pretty far 
 advanced in our acquaintance with this poet; nor need we be 
 afraid of having failed to peruse the most distinguished, as in his 
 separate productions he does not surprise us by elevation of flight 
 nor by laying open the unknown depths of his mind. This pro- 
 
 52 
 
410 LECTURES ON 
 
 lific writer, at one time too much idolized, at another too much 
 depreciated, appears here undoubtedly in the most advantageous 
 light, as the theatre was the best school for the correction of his 
 three great errors, want of connexion, diffuseness, and an unne- 
 cessary parade of learning. In some of his pieces, especially the 
 historical founded on old romances and traditional tales, for in- 
 stance, King Warnba, The Youthful Tricks of Bernardo del 
 Carpio, the Battlements of Toro, &c. there prevails a certain 
 rudeness, which is not however without character, and seems to 
 have been purposely chosen for the subjects: in others, which 
 portrays the manners of his own time, as for instance, The Lively 
 Fair One of Toledo, The Fair Deformed, we may observe a 
 highly cultivated social tone. All of them contain, along with 
 truly interesting situations, a number of inimitable jokes; and 
 there are perhaps very few of them which would not, if properly 
 handled and adapted to our stages, produce a great effect in the 
 present day. Their chief defects are, a profusion of injudicious 
 invention, and negligence in the execution. They resemble the 
 groups which an ingenious sketcher scrawls on paper without any 
 preparation and without even taking the necessary time; in 
 which, notwithstanding this hasty levity, every line has its life 
 and signification. Besides the want of careful finishing, the works 
 of Lope are deficient only in depth, and in those finer relations 
 which constitute the peculiar mysteries of the art. 
 
 If the Spanish theatre had not advanced farther, if it had pos- 
 sessed only the works of Lope and the more eminent of his con- 
 temporaries, as Guillen de Castro, Montalban, Molina, Matos- 
 Fragoso, &c, we should have to praise it, much rather for gran- 
 deur of design and for promising subjects than for matured perfec- 
 tion. But Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca now made his 
 appearance, as prolific and diligent a writer as Lope, and a poet 
 of a very different kind; a poet if ever any man deserved that 
 name. The wonder of nature, the enthusiastic applause, and the 
 sovereignty of the stage were renewed in a much higher degree. 
 The years of Calderon keep equal pace with those of the seven- 
 teenth century; he was consequently sixteen when Cervantes, 
 and thirty-five when Lope died, whom he survived nearly half a 
 century. According to the account of his biographer, Calderon 
 wrote more than a hundred and twenty plays, more than a hun- 
 dred spiritual allegorical acts, a hundred merry interludes or 
 Saynetes* besides a number of poems which were not dramatical. 
 
 • This account is perhaps somewhat rhetorical. The most complete and in 
 every respect the best edition of the plays, that of Apontes, contains only a hun- 
 dred and eight pieces. At the request of a great Lord, Calderon, shortly before 
 his death, gave a list of his genuine works. He names a hundred and eleven 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 411 
 
 As from his fourteenth to his eighty-first year, that in which he 
 died, he continued to produce dramatic works, they divide them- 
 selves over a great space, and we cannot therefore suppose that 
 he wrote with the same haste as Lope; he had sufficient leisure 
 to consider his plans maturely, which he also, without doubt, 
 must have done. In the execution, he could not fail to possess 
 great readiness from his extensive practice. 
 
 In this almost incalculable abundance of works, we find no- 
 thing thrown out at random; all is finished, agreeably to the most 
 secure and well-founded principles, and with the most profound 
 views of art. This cannot be denied even if we should mistake 
 the pure and high style of the romantically-theatrical manner, 
 and consider these bold flights of poetry, on the extreme bounda- 
 ries of the conceivable, as erroneous illusions. For Calderon 
 has everywhere converted that into fresh material which passed 
 with his predecessors for form; — nothing less than the noblest 
 and most exquisite flower could satisfy him. Hence it hap- 
 pens that he repeats himself in many expressions, images, 
 comparisons, nay, even in many plays of situation; for he was 
 too rich to be under the necessity of borrowing from himself, 
 not to mention from others. The effect on the stage is the first 
 thing for Calderon; but this consideration, which is generally 
 felt as a restraint, is uniformly positive with him. I know of no 
 dramatist equally skilled in converting effect into poetry; at once 
 so sensibly vigorous and so ethereal. 
 
 His dramas divide themselves into four principal classes: com- 
 positions on sacred subjects taken from scripture and legends; 
 historical; mythological, or from other fictitious materials; finally, 
 pictures of social life in modern manners. 
 
 The pieces founded on the history of his own country are 
 historical in the more limited acceptation. The earlier periods 
 of Spanish history have often been seized by Calderon with the 
 
 plays; but among- them there are considerably more than three which are not 
 to be found in the collection of Apontes. Some of them may, indeed, be con- 
 cealed under other titles, as, for instance, the piece which Calderon himself calls, 
 El Tuzani delaAlpujarra, is named in the collection Amor despues de la muerte. 
 Others are unquestionably omitted, for instance, a Bon Quixote, which I should 
 be particularly desirous of seeing 1 . We may infer from many circumstances that 
 Calderon had a great reverence for Cervantes. The collection of the Autos 
 sacrementales contains only seventy-two, and several of them are not mentioned 
 by Calderon. And yet he lays the greatest stress on these; wholly devoted to re- 
 ligion, he had become in his age more indifferent towards the temporal plays of 
 his muse, although he did not reject them, and still continued to add to the 
 number. It might well be with him as with an excessively wealthy man, who, 
 in a general computation, is apt to forget many of the items of his capital. I 
 have never yet been able to see any of the Saynetes of Calderon; I can even 
 find no account whether or not they have been actually collected and printed. 
 
412 LECTURES ON 
 
 utmost truth; but, in general, he had too decided, I might almost 
 say, too burning a predilection for his own nation, to enter into 
 the peculiarities of another; at most he could have portrayed 
 what inclines towards the sun, the South and the East; but clas- 
 sical antiquity, as well as the North of Europe, were altogether 
 foreign to his conception. Materials of this description he has, 
 therefore taken wholly in a fanciful sense: the Greek mythology 
 became in general, a delightful tale in his hands, and the Roman 
 history a majestic hyperbole. 
 
 The sacred compositions must, however, in some degree, be 
 ranked as historical; for although surrounded with rich fiction, 
 as is always the case in Calderon, they yet generally express the 
 character of Biblical or legendary history with great fidelity. 
 They are distinguished however from the other historical pieces 
 by the frequent prominency of a significant allegory, and by the 
 religious enthusiasm with which the poet, in the spiritual acts 
 destined for the celebration of the Corpus Christi festival, exhi- 
 bits the universe, as it were, under an allegorical representation 
 in the purple flames of love. In this last class he was most ad- 
 mired by his contemporaries, and here he himself set the highest 
 value on his labours. But without having read, at least one 
 of them in a truly poetical translation, my auditors could not 
 form the slightest idea of them; the consideration of these acts 
 would demand a difficult investigation into the admissibility of 
 allegory into dramatical composition. I shall therefore confine 
 myself to those of his dramas which are not allegorical. The 
 characterization of these I shall be very far from exhausting; 
 I can merely exhibit a few of their more general features. 
 
 Of the great multitude of ingenious and acute writers, who 
 were then drawn by the dazzling brilliancy of the stage into the the- 
 atrical career, the most were merely imitators of Calderon; a few 
 deserve to be named along with him, as Don Jiugustin Moreto, 
 Don Franzisco de Roxas, Don Antonio de Solis, the acute 
 and eloquent historian of the conquest of Mexico, &c. The dra- 
 matic literature of the Spaniards can even boast of a royal poet, 
 the great patron and admirer* of Calderon, to whom several 
 anonymous pieces, with the epigraph de un ingenio de esta 
 corte, are ascribed. All the writers of that day wrote in a kin- 
 
 • This monarch seems, in reality, to have had a relish for the peculiar ex- 
 cellence of his favourite poet, whom he considered as the brightest ornament 
 of his court. He was so prepossessed in favour of the national drama, that he 
 refused to allow the introduction of the Italian opera, which was then in gene- 
 ral favour at the different European courts: an example which deserves to be 
 held up to the German Princes, who have hitherto, from indifference towards 
 everything national, and partiality for everything foreign, done all in their 
 power to discourage the German poets. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 413 
 
 dred spirit; it was a true school of art. Many of them have 
 peculiar excellencies, but Calderon in boldness, fulness, and 
 profundity, soars beyond them all; in him the romantic drama 
 of the Spaniards attained the summit of perfection. 
 
 We shall endeavour to give a feeble idea of the spirit and form 
 of these compositions, differing so widely from every other Euro- 
 pean production. For this purpose however we must enter in some 
 measure into the character of the Spanish poetry in general, 
 and those historical circumstances by which it has been deter- 
 mined. 
 
 The beginnings of the Spanish poetry are extremely simple: 
 its two fundamental forms were the romanze and the song, and 
 we everywhere imagine we hear the accompaniment of the guitar 
 in these original national-melodies. The romanze, which is 
 half Arabian in its origin, was at first a simple heroic tale; after- 
 wards it became a very artificial species, adapted to various uses, 
 but in which the picturesque ingredient always predominated, 
 and sometimes displayed the most brilliant luxuriance of colours. 
 The song again, almost destitute of imagery, expressed tender 
 feelings in ingenious turns; it extends its sportiveness to the 
 very limits where the self-meditation, which endeavours to con- 
 vert an inexpressible disposition of mind into thought, wings 
 again the thought to visionary anticipation. The forms of the 
 song were diversified by the introduction into poetry of what is 
 effected in music by variation. Still however the rich properties 
 of the Spanish language could not fully develope themselves in 
 these species of poetry, which were rather tender and infantine 
 than elevated. Hence towards the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century they adapted the more comprehensive forms of the 
 Italian poetry, Ottave, Terzine, Canzoni, Sonet ti; and the 
 Castilian language, the proudest daughter of the Latin, was then 
 first enabled to display her whole power in dignity, beautiful 
 boldness, and splendour of imageiy. The Spanish is less soft 
 than the Italian on account of the guttural sound, and the frequent 
 termination with consonants; but its tones are, if possible, more 
 full, proceed still more from the breast, and fill the ear with a 
 pure metallic resonance. It had not yet altogether lost the rough 
 strength and cordiality of the Goths, when oriental intermixtures 
 gave it a wonderful degree of sublimity, and elevated a poetry, 
 intoxicated as it were with aromatic vapours, far above all the 
 scruples of the sober west. 
 
 The stream of poetical inspiration, swelled by every proud 
 consciousness, increased with the growing fame in arms of this 
 formerly so free and heroic nation. The Spaniards act a glori- 
 ous part in the history of the middle ages, a part but too much 
 
414 LECTURES ON 
 
 forgotten by the envious ingratitude of modern times. They 
 ■were then the forlorn out-post of Europe; they lay on their Py- 
 renean peninsula as in a camp, exposed to the incessant eruptions 
 of the Arabians, always ready for renewed conflicts without 
 foreign assistance. The foundation of their Christian kingdom, 
 for centuries, from the time when the descendants of the Goths, 
 who had been driven back into the northern mountains again, 
 rushed forth from these places of refuge, down to the complete 
 expulsion of the Moors from Spain, was one single and long- 
 continued adventure; nay, the preservation of Christianity in 
 that land against such a preponderating power, seemed even to 
 be the wondrous work of more than mere mortal guidance. 
 Always accustomed to fight at the same time for his liberty 
 and his religion, the Spaniard clung to the latter with a fiery 
 zeal, as an acquisition dearly purchased by the noblest blood. 
 Every consolation of divine worship was a reward of heroic ex- 
 ertion; every church might be considered by him as a tro- 
 phy of his ancestors. True to his God and his king to the 
 last drop of his blood; adhering inviolably to his honour; proud, 
 yet humble before every thing accounted holy; serious, mo- 
 derate, and modest; such was the character of the old Casti- 
 lian: and yet we now ridicule this worthy people because they 
 could not bring themselves to lay aside the beloved sword, the 
 instrument of their high calling, even when behind the plough. 
 
 Of the love of war which so many circumstances had thus 
 served to keep alive, and thes piritof enterprise of their subjects, 
 the monarchs of Spain availed themselves at the close of the 
 fifteenth and during the sixteenth century in their attempts to 
 attain universal monarchy; and while the Spanish arms were 
 thus employed to effect the subjugation of other nations, the 
 people themselves were deprived of their own political freedom. 
 The faithless and tyrannical policy of Philip the Second has un- 
 meritedly drawn down on the nation the hatred of foreigners. 
 The Macchiavelism of the princes and popular leaders in Italy 
 was a universal character, all ranks w T ere infected with the same 
 love of artifice and fraud; but in Spain this can only be laid to 
 the charge of the government, and even the religious persecu- 
 tions seldom or never proceeded from the out-breaking of a uni- 
 versal popular fury. The Spaniard never presumed to examine 
 into the conduct of his spiritual and worldly superiors, and car- 
 ried on their wars of aggression and ambition with the same 
 fidelity and bravery which he had formerly displayed in his own 
 wars of defence. Personal fame, and a supposed zeal for reli- 
 gion, blinded him with respect to the justice of his cause. Un- 
 exampled enterprises were successfuly executed, a newly dis- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 415 
 
 covered world beyond the ocean had been subjugated by a hand- 
 ful of bold adventurers; individual instances of cruelty and 
 avarice had stained the splendour of the most determined hero- 
 ism, but the mass of the nation remained uninfected by this- 
 degeneracy. The spirit of chivalry has nowhere outlived its 
 political existence so long as in Spain. Long after the internal 
 prosperity, together with the foreign influence of the nation, had 
 experienced a deep decline in consequence of the ruinous errors 
 of Philip the Second, this spirit propagated itself down to the 
 flourishing period of their literature, and imprinted its stamp 
 upon it in a manner which cannot be mistaken. Here was re- 
 newed in a certain degree, though with much higher mental 
 cultivation, the dazzling appearance of the middle ages, when 
 princes and lords employed themselves in the composition of 
 songs of love and heroism, when the knights, with their hearts 
 full of their mistresses, and devotion to the holy sepulchre, ex- 
 posed themselves joyfully to the most dangerous adventures in 
 their pilgrimages to the promised land, when even a lion-hearted 
 king touched the tender lute to sounds of amorous lamentation. 
 The Spanish poets were not, as was usual in other European 
 countries, courtiers, scholars, or engaged in some civil employ- 
 ment; of noble birth for the most part, they led a warlike life. 
 The union of the sword and the pen, of the exercise of arms 
 and the nobler mental arts, was their watch-word. Garcilaso, 
 one of the founders of the Spanish poetry under Charles the Fifth, 
 descended from the Peruvian Yncas, accompanied by his amiable 
 muse to Africa, fell before the walls of Tunis; Camoens the 
 Portuguese, sailed as a soldier to the remotest Indies, in the track 
 of the glorious discoverer whom he celebrated; Don Alonzo de 
 Ercilla composed his Araucana during a war with revolted sa- 
 vages, in a tent at the foot of the Cordilleras, or in wildernesses yet 
 untrodden by men, or in a ship tossed about on the ocean; Cer- 
 vantes purchased the honour of having combated in the battle 
 of Lepanto as a common soldier, under the great John of Austria, 
 with the loss of an arm, and a long slavery in Algiers; Lope de 
 Vega, among other things, survived the misfortunes of the in- 
 vincible flotilla; Calderon performed campaigns in Flanders and 
 Italy, fulfilled his warlike duties as a knight of Santiago till he 
 entered into holy orders, and thus gave external evidence that 
 religion was the ruling motive of his life. 
 
 If the feeling of religion, true heroism, honour, and love, are 
 the foundation of the romantic poetry, born and grown up in 
 Spain under such auspices, it could not fail to assume the highest 
 elevation. The fancy of the Spaniards was bold like their active 
 powers, no mental adventure seemed too dangerous for it. The 
 
416 LECTURES ON 
 
 predilection of the people for the most extravagantly wonderful 
 had already been shown in the chivalry romances. They wished 
 to see the wonderful once more upon the stage; and when their 
 poets, standing on a high eminence of cultivation in art and social 
 life, gave it the requisite form, breathed into it a musical soul, 
 and wholly purified it from corporeal grossness to colour and 
 fragrance, there arises, from the very contrast of the subject and 
 the form, an irresistible fascination. Their spectators imagined 
 they perceived a refulgence of the world-conquering greatness 
 of their nation, now half lost, when all the harmony of the most 
 varied metre, all the elegance of fanciful allusion, all the splen- 
 dour of imagery and comparison which their language alone 
 could afford, were poured out into inventions always new, and 
 almost always pre-eminently distinguished for their ingenuity. — 
 The treasures of the most distant zones were procured in fancy, 
 as well as reality, for the gratification of the mother country, and 
 we may say that in the dominion of this poetry, as in that of 
 Charles the Fifth, the sun never set. 
 
 Even those plays of Calderon in modern manners, which de- 
 scend the most to the tone of common life, still fascinate us by a 
 sort of fanciful magic, and cannot be considered altogether in the 
 light of eomedies in the usual acceptation of the word. We have 
 seen that the comedies of Shakspeare are always composed of two 
 parts, foreign to each other: the comic, which is true to English 
 manners, as comic imitation requires local determination; and the 
 romantic, transported to some southern scene, as the native soil 
 was not sufficiently poetical for that purpose. In Spain again 
 the national costume of that day w ? as susceptible of being still 
 exhibited in an ideal manner. This could not indeed have been 
 possible, had Calderon introduced us into the interior of domestic 
 life, where want and habit generally reduce all things to every- 
 day narrowness. The comedies end like those of the ancients, 
 with marriages; but how different what precedes! There, for 
 the gratification of sensual passions and selfish views, the most 
 immoral means are often put in motion, human beings stand op- 
 posed to each other with their mental powers as mere physical 
 beings, and endeavour to pry into their mutual weaknesses. 
 Calderon represents to us his principal characters of both sexes in 
 the first ebullitions of youth, it is true; but the aim after which 
 they strive, and in the prosecution of which everything else kicks 
 the beam, is never confounded in their mind with any other 
 good. Honour, love, and jealousy, are uniformly the motives; 
 the plot arises out of their daring but noble collision, and is not 
 purposely instigated by knavish deception. Honour is always 
 an ideal principle; for it rests, as I have elsewhere shown, on 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 417 
 
 that high morality which consecrates principles without regard 
 to consequences. It may sink down to a mere social coincidence 
 with certain opinions or prejudices, to a mere instrument of 
 vanity, but even when so disfigured we may still recognize in it 
 the shadow of" a sublime idea. I know no apter symbol of the 
 manner in which the tender sensibility of honour is portrayed by 
 Calderon, than the fabulous story of the ermine, which sets such 
 high value on the whiteness of its skin, that rather than stain it, 
 on being pursued by the hunters, it yields itself up to destruction. 
 This feeling for honour is equally powerful in the female charac- 
 ters; it rules over love, which is only allowed a place beside it, 
 but not above it. The honour of the women consists, according 
 to the manner of thinking of the dramas of Calderon, in loving 
 only one man of pure and unspotted honour, and loving him with 
 perfect purity, in entertaining no sort of ambiguous devotion, 
 which approaches within too great nearness of the most severe 
 female dignity. Love requires inviolable secrecy till a lawful 
 union permits it to be publicly declared. This secrecy secures it 
 from the poisonous intermixture of vanity, which would boast 
 of pretensions or conceded favours; it gives it the appearance of 
 a vow, which from its mystery is the more sacredly observed. 
 In this morality, it is true, cunning and dissimulation are allowed 
 for the sake of love, and in so far honour may be said to be in- 
 fringed on; but the most delicate regards are notwithstanding 
 observed in the collision with other duties; with those of friend- 
 ship for example. The power of jealousy, always alive and often 
 breaking out in a dreadful manner, not like that of eastern coun- 
 tries, a jealousy of possession, but of the slightest emotions of the 
 heart and its most imperceptible demonstrations, serves to ennoble 
 love, as this feeling when it is not altogether exclusive sinks 
 beneath itself. The perplexity to which the collision of all these 
 mental motives gives rise frequently ends in nothing, and then 
 the catastrophe is truly comic; sometimes, however, it takes a 
 tragic turn, and then honour becomes a hostile destiny for him 
 who cannot satisfy it without either annihilating his own felicity 
 or becoming even a criminal. 
 
 This is the higher spirit of the dramas, which by foreigners are 
 called pieces of intrigue; in Spanish, they are called from the 
 dress in which they are acted, comedies of cloak and sword 
 (Comedias de capa y espada). They have commonly no other 
 burlesque part than the character of a merry servant, known by 
 the name of the Gracioso. This servant chiefly serves to parody 
 the ideal motives from which his master acts, and this he fre- 
 quently does in the most elegant and witty manner. He is sel- 
 dom used as an efficient lever to establish by his artifices the in- 
 
 53 
 
418 LECTURES ON 
 
 trigtie, in which we rather admire the wit of accident than of 
 contrivance. Other pieces are called Comedias dcfiguron; the 
 remaining figures are usually the same with those in the former 
 class, only there is always one drawn in caricature which occu- 
 pies a prominent place in the composition. We cannot refuse the 
 name of pieces of character to many of the dramas of Calderon, 
 although we must not expect the most delicate characterization 
 from the poets of a nation in which the violence of passion and 
 an exalted fancy neither leave sufficient leisure nor sufficient cold- 
 ness of blood for the designs of prying observation. 
 
 Another class of his pieces is called by Calderon himself, festal 
 dramas (fiestas). They were destined for representation at court 
 on solemn occasions; and though they require the theatrical pomp 
 of frequent change of decoration and visible wonders, and though 
 music is also often introduced into them, still we may call them 
 poetical operas, that is, dramas which, by the mere splendour of 
 poetry, perform what in the opera can only be attained by the 
 machinery, the music, and the dancing. Here the poet gives him- 
 self wholly up to the boldest flight of his fancy, and his creation 
 hardly touches the earth. 
 
 His mind, however, is most distinctly expressed in the religious 
 subjects which he handled. He paints love with general features 
 merely, he speaks her technical poetical language. Religion is 
 his peculiar love, the heart of his heart. For religion alone he 
 excites the most overpowering emotions, which penetrate into 
 the inmost recesses of the soul. It would rather appear that he 
 did not wish to enter with the same fervour into worldly events. 
 However turbid they may be in themselves, from the religious 
 medium through which he views them, they appear to him per- 
 fectly bright. This fortunate man escaped from the wild laby- 
 rinths of doubt into the citadel of belief, from whence he view- 
 ed and portrayed the storms of the world with undisturbed 
 tranquillity of soul; human life was to him no longer a dark 
 riddle. Even his tears reflect the image of heaven, like dew- 
 drops on a flower in the sun. His poetry, whatever its object 
 may apparently be, is an incessant hymn of joy on the majesty of 
 the creation: he celebrates the productions of nature and human 
 art with an astonishment always joyful and always new, as if he 
 saw them for the first time in an unworn festal splendour. It is 
 the first waking of Adam, coupled with an eloquence and skill 
 of expression, with a thorough acquaintance with the most mys- 
 terious relations of nature, such as high mental cultivation and 
 mature contemplation can alone give. When he compares the 
 most remote, the greatest and the smallest, stars and flowers, the 
 sense of all his metaphors is the mutual attraction of created 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 419 
 
 things to one another on account of their common origin, and 
 this delightful harmony and unity of the world is again with him 
 merely a refulgence of the eternal love which embraces the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Calderon still flourished at a time when a strong inclination 
 began to manifest itself in the other countries of Europe, to that 
 mannerism of taste in the arts, and those prosaic views in litera- 
 ture, which in the eighteenth century obtained such universal 
 dominion. He is consequently to be considered as the last sum- 
 mit of the romantic poetry. All its magnificence is lavished in 
 his works, as in fireworks, the most gaudy colours, the most 
 dazzling cascades and circles, are usually reserved for the last 
 explosion. 
 
 The Spanish theatre continued to be cultivated in the same 
 sense, for nearly a generation after Calderon. All, however, 
 which was produced in that time may be considered as a mere 
 echo of the preceding productions, and nothing new and truly 
 peculiar appeared, which deserves to be named after Calderon. 
 A great barrenness is afterwards perceptible. Single attempts 
 have been made to produce regular tragedies, that is to say, after 
 the French cut. Even the declamatory drama of Diderot has 
 found its imitators. I recollect having read a Spanish play, the 
 object of which was to recommend the abolition of the torture. 
 The exhilaration to be expected from such a work may be easily 
 conceived. Those Spaniards who are runaways from their old 
 national taste extol highly the prosaical and moral dramas of 
 Moratin; but we see no reason for seeking in Spain what we 
 have as good, or, more correctly speaking, equally bad at home. 
 The majority of the spectators have preserved themselves tole- 
 rably exempt from these foreign influences; when a bei esprit 
 undertook a number of years ago to reduce a justly admired piece 
 of Moreto (El par ecido en la cor te) to a conformity with the 
 three unities, the pit at Madrid were thrown into such a commo- 
 tion that the players could only appease them by announcing the 
 piece for the next day in its genuine shape. 
 
 When external circumstances, for instance, the influence of the 
 clergy, the oppression of the censure, and even the jealous vigi- 
 lance of the people for the preservation of their old manners, 
 oppose in any country the introduction of what passes in neigh 
 bouring states for a progress in mental cultivation, it frequently 
 happens that the better description of heads will entertain an 
 undue longing for the forbidden fruit, and that they first begin 
 to admire some depravity in art, when it has elsewhere ceased 
 to be fashionable. Certain mental maladies are so epidemical in 
 an age, that a nation never can be secure from infection till it has 
 
420 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 once been inoculated. However, the Spaniards it would ap- 
 pear, with respect to the passive illumination of the last genera- 
 tion, have come off with the chicken pox, while the disfiguring 
 variolous scars are but too visible in the features of other nations. 
 Living nearly in an insular situation, they have slept the eigh- 
 teenth century, and how could they in the main have applied 
 their lime better? Should the Spanish poetry again awake in 
 old Europe, or in the other hemisphere, it would certainly have 
 a step to make, from instinct to consciousness. What the Span- 
 iards have hitherto loved from native inclination, they must learn 
 to reverence on clear principles, and, unconcerned at the criticism 
 which has in the interval sprung up, proceed to fresh creations in 
 the spirit of their great poets. 
 
( 421 ) 
 
 LECTURE XT. 
 
 Origin of the German theatre. — Hans Sachs. — Gryphius. — The age of Gott- 
 sched. — Wretched imitation of the French. — Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller. 
 — Review of their works. — Their influence on chivalrous dramas, affecting 
 dramas, and family pictures — Prospects for futurity. 
 
 In its cultivated state, the German theatre is much younger 
 than any of those of which we have already spoken, and we are 
 not therefore to wonder, if the store of our literature in valuable 
 original works, in this department, is also much more scanty. 
 
 Little more than half a century ago, the German literature was 
 at the very lowest ebb in point of talent, and since that time when 
 greater exertions first began to be made, the Germans have pro- 
 ceeded with gigantic strides. If the dramatic art has not been 
 cultivated with the same success, and I may add with the same 
 zeal, as other departments, the cause must rather perhaps be at- 
 tributed to a number of unfavourable circumstances than to any 
 want of talents. 
 
 The rude beginnings of the stage with us are as old as in other 
 countries.* The oldest drama which we have in writing is the 
 production of one Hans Rosenpluet, a native of Nuremberg, about 
 the middle of the fifteenth century. He was followed by two 
 fruitful writers born in the same imperial city, Hans Sachs and 
 Ayrer. In the works of Hans Sachs we find a great multitude 
 of tragedies, comedies, spiritual and temporal histories, where 
 the prologue and epilogue are always spoken by the herald, be- 
 sides merry carnival plays. The above, it appears, were all acted, 
 not by players, but by respectable citizens, as an allowable relax- 
 ation for the mind, without any theatrical apparatus. The car- 
 nival plays are somewhat coarse, but not unfrequently extremely 
 droll, as the jokes in general are; they often run into the wildest 
 farce, and, inspired by mirth and drollery, leave the bounds of 
 the world of reality behind them. The composition in all these 
 plays is respectable, and does not contain many circumlocutions: 
 all the characters, from God the Father downwards, state at once 
 in clear terms what they have at heart, and the reasons for which 
 
 * The first mention of the mysteries or spiritual representations in Germany, 
 with which I am acquainted, is to be found in the Eulen-spiegel. We may see 
 this merry, but somewhat disgusting trick, of the celebrated buffoon, in the 
 13th History ; "How Eulen-spiegel made a play in the Easter fair, in which 
 the priest and his maid-servant fought with the boors." Eulen-spiegel is stated 
 to have lived towards the middle of the fourteenth century, but the book can- 
 not be placed farther back than the beginning of the fifteenth. 
 
422 LECTURES ON 
 
 they make their appearance; they resemble those figures in old 
 pictures who have written labels in their mouths, to assist the 
 defective expression of the attitudes. The form approaches most 
 to what was elsewhere called moralities; allegorical personages 
 frequently appear. The sketch of the dramatic art, yet in its 
 infancy, is feebly but not falsely drawn; and if we had only pro- 
 ceeded in the same path, we should have produced something 
 better and more characteristic than the fruits of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 In the first half of this century, poetry left the circle of com- 
 mon life to which it bad so long been confined, and fell into the 
 hands of the learned. Opiz, who may be considered as the founder 
 of its modern form, translated several tragedies from the ancients 
 into verse, and composed pastoral operas after the manner of the 
 Italians; but I know not whether he wrote anything expressly 
 for the stage. He was followed by Andreas Gryphius, who may 
 be styled our first dramatic writer. He possessed a certain ex- 
 tent of literary knowledge in his department, as is proved by sev- 
 eral of his imitations and translations; a piece from the French, 
 one from the Italian, a tragedy from the Flemish of Vondel; last- 
 ly, a farce called Peter Squenz, an extension of the burlesque 
 tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, in The Midsummer Night's 
 Dream of Shakspeare. The latter was then almost unknown 
 beyond his own island; the learned Morhof, who wrote in the 
 last half of the seventeenth century, confesses that he had never 
 seen Shakspeare's works, though he was very well acquainted 
 with Ben Jonson. Even about the middle of last century, a 
 writer of estimation in those days, and not without merit, has in 
 one of his treatises instituted a comparison between Shakspeare 
 and Andreas Gryphius; the whole resemblance consisted in this, 
 that Gryphius was also fond of calling up the spirits of the de- 
 parted. He seems rather to have had Vondel, the Fleming, be- 
 fore his eyes, a writer still highly celebrated by his countrymen, 
 and universally called by them, the great Vondel, while Gryphius 
 himself has been consigned to oblivion. Unfortunately the me- 
 tre in the plays of Gryphius is the Alexandrine; the form, how- 
 ever, is not so confined as that of the French at an after period; 
 the scene sometimes changes, and the interludes, partly musical, 
 partly allegorical, bear some resemblance to the English masks. 
 In other respects he possesses little theatrical skill, and I do not 
 even know if these pieces were ever actually brought on the stage. 
 The tragedies of Lohenstein, who may be styled the Marino of 
 our literature of that day, resemble those of Gryphius in their 
 cut, but without mentioning their other faults, they are of such 
 an immeasurable length as to set all representation at defiance. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 423 
 
 The pitiful condition of the theatre in Germany at the end of 
 the seventeenth and during the first third part of the eighteenth 
 century, wherever there was any other stage than that of puppet- 
 shows and mountebanks, exactly corresponded to that of the other 
 departments of our literature. We have a standard for this 
 wretchedness, when we consider that Gottsched could pass for 
 the restorer of our literature; Gottsched, whose writings resem- 
 ble a watery beverage, such as was then usually recommended to 
 patients in a state of convalescence, from an idea that they could 
 bear nothing stronger, by which means their stomach became 
 Still more enfeebled. Gottsched, among his other labours, com- 
 posed a great deal for the theatre; connected with a certain Madame 
 Neuber, who was at the head of a company of players in Leipzic, 
 he discarded Punch (Hanswurst), and they buried him solemnly 
 with great triumph. I am willing to believe that the parts of 
 Punch, of which we may even yet form a judgment from pup- 
 pet-shows, were not always ingeniously filled up extemporarily, 
 and that many flat things might occasionally be uttered by him; 
 but still Punch had undoubtedly more sense in his little finger, 
 than Gottsched in his whole body. Punch, as an allegorical per- 
 sonage, is immortal; and however strong the belief of his burial 
 may be, he yet pops unexpectedly upon us in some grave office- 
 bearer or other almost every day. 
 
 Gottsched and his school now inundated the German theatre, 
 which was hereafter to be regular by means of insipid and diffuse 
 translations from the French. Heads of a better description be- 
 gan to labour for the stage; but instead of producing real original 
 works, they brought forth only wretched imitations; and the re* 
 putation of the French theatre was so great that the most con- 
 temptible mannerism was as much laid hold of as the fruits of a 
 better taste. Thus, for example, Geliert still composed pastoral 
 plays after bad French models, in which shepherds and shepherd- 
 esses, with rose red and apple green ribands, uttered all man- 
 ner of insipid compliments to one another. 
 
 Besides the French comedies, those translated from the Danish 
 of Holberg, were acted with great applause. This writer has 
 certainly great merit. His pictures of manners possess great lo- 
 cal truth; his exhibition of depravity, folly, and stupidity, rest 
 on an extremely good foundation; in strength of comic motives 
 and situations he is not defective; he is merely not very inventive 
 in his intrigues. The execution runs too much out into breadth. 
 The Danes speak in the highest terms of the delicacy of his jokes 
 in their own language; the vulgarity of his tone is revolting to 
 our present taste, but in the low sphere in which he moves, and 
 in which there are incessant storms of cudgellings, it may be na- 
 
424 LECTURES ON 
 
 tural enough. Attempts have lately been made to revive him, 
 but seldom with any great success. As his principal merit con- 
 sists in his characterization, which is certainly somewhat carica- 
 tured, he requires good comic actors to appear with any advantage. 
 
 A few of the plays of that time, in the manners of our own 
 country, by Geliert and Elias Schlegel, are not without merit; 
 only they have this error, that in drawing folly and stupidity the 
 same wearisomeness has crept into their picture which accompa- 
 nies them in real life. 
 
 In tragedies, properly so called, after French models, the first 
 who were in any degree successful were Elias Schlegel, and af- 
 terwards Cronegk and Weisse. I know not whether their la- 
 bours, if translated into good French verse, would appear as frigid 
 to us as they do in German. It is insufferable to us to read verses 
 of an ell long, in which the style seldom rises above watery prose; 
 the truly poetical expression was first created in German at a sub- 
 sequent period. The Alexandrine, which in no language, can be 
 a good metre, is doubly stiff and heavy in ours. Goiter, long 
 after our poetry had again begun to take a higher flight, in the 
 translation of French tragedies, made the last attempt to ennoble 
 the Alexandrine and procure its re-admission into tragedy, and 
 proved, as it appears to me by his example, that we must for ever 
 renounce every such idea. It serves admirably, however, for a 
 parody of the stilted style of false tragical emphasis; its use, too, 
 is much to be recommended in comedy, especially in small after- 
 pieces. Those earlier tragedies, after the French cut, which how- 
 ever met with uncommon applause in their day, show how little 
 hope we can have of the progress of art in the way of slavish 
 imitation. Even a form, narrow in itself, when it has been es- 
 tablished under the influence of a national way of thinking, has 
 still some signification; but when it is blindly taken on trust in 
 other countries, it becomes altogether a Spanish mantle. 
 
 Thus bad translations of French comedies, with pieces from 
 Holberg, and afterwards Goldoni, and with a few German imita- 
 tions of a feeble nature, and without any peculiar spirit, consti- 
 tuted the whole repertory of our stage, till at last Lessing, Goethe, 
 and Schiller, successively appeared and redeemed the German 
 theatre from its long continued mediocrity. 
 
 Lessing, however, in his earlier dramatic labours, paid the 
 tribute due to his age. His youthful comedies are rather insig- 
 nificant; they do not yet announce the distinguished head who 
 was to form an epoch in so many departments. He sketched 
 several tragedies according to the French rules, and executed 
 several scenes in Alexandrines, but he finished none: it would 
 appear that he could not manage so difficult a verse with the re- 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 425 
 
 quisite ease. Even his Miss Sara Sampson is a familiar tragedy 
 in the lacrymose and creeping style, in which we evidently per- 
 ceive that he had the Merchant of London before his eyes as a 
 model. In the year 1767, his connexion with a company of 
 actors in Hamburg, and a periodical paper dedicated to theatrical 
 criticism, which he conducted, gave him an opportunity of enter- 
 ing more closely into the consideration of the theatre. He dis- 
 played in this paper great wit and acuteness, his bold, nay, con- 
 sidering the opinion which was then prevalent, hazardous attacks, 
 were particularly triumphant over the dominion of the French 
 taste in the tragical department, which had merely been forced 
 upon us. His labours were attended with such success, that, 
 shortly after the publication of his Dramaturgie, the translations 
 of French tragedies, and the German tragedies modelled after 
 them, disappeared from the stage. He was the first who spoke 
 with warmth of Shakspeare, and paved the way for his appear- 
 ance. But his belief in Aristotle, with the influence which Dide- 
 rot's writings had had on him, produced a singular mixture in 
 his theory of the dramatic art. He was unacquainted with the 
 rights of poetical imitation, and wished in dialogue, as well as 
 everything else, a naked copy of nature, as if this was, in gene- 
 ral, allowable or even possible in the fine arts. His attack of the 
 Alexandrine was just, but he wished to abolish all versification, 
 and in this indeed he was but too successful; for it is to him that 
 we have to impute the incredible falling off of our players in the 
 getting by heart and delivering of v.erse. Even yet they cannot 
 habituate themselves to it. He was thus mediately the cause of 
 the insipid affectation of nature of our dramatic writers, which 
 the general use of versification would, in some degree, have re- 
 strained. 
 
 Lessing, by his own confession, was no poet, and in his riper 
 years, he produced merely a few dramatic works with great la- 
 bour. Minna von Barnhelm is a true comedy of the more 
 refined description; in point of form it holds a middle place be- 
 tween the French and English manner; the spirit of the inven- 
 tion however, the social tone portrayed in it, are peculiarly Ger- 
 man. Everything is even locally determined; and the allusions 
 to the memorable circumstances of the seven years' war contri- 
 buted not a little to the extraordinary success which this comedy 
 at that time obtained. The serious part is not free from affectation 
 in the expression of feeling, and the relation of the two lovers is 
 brought forward even to a painful degree. The comic secodnary 
 figures are drawn with much drollery and humour, and bear a 
 genuine German stamp. 
 
 Emilia Galotti obtained still more admiration than Minna 
 
 54 
 
426 LECTURES ON 
 
 von Barnhc/m, but I know not whether altogether justly. The 
 former is perhaps planned with more consideration, and executed 
 with still greater diligence than the other; but Minna von Barn- 
 hehn answers better to the genuine idea of comedy than Emilia 
 Galotti to that of tragedy. Lessing's theory of the dramatic art 
 had, as we may easily conceive, a much less prejudicial influence 
 on a demi-prosaical species than upon one which inevitably sinks 
 beneath itself, when it does not take the highest flight. He was 
 now too well acquainted with the world to fall again into the draw- 
 ling lacrymose and sermonizing tone which prevails throughout 
 Miss Sara Sampson. On the other hand, his sound sense, 
 notwithstanding all his admiration of Diderot, preserved him 
 from his declamatory and emphatical style, which owes its chief 
 effect to marks of interrogation and hyphens. But as he reso- 
 lutely rejected all poetical elevation of dialogue, he could not 
 escape this manner without falling into another. He introduced 
 the cool and prying observation of the comic writer into the re- 
 gion of tragedy; the passions in Emilia Galotti are rather acutely 
 and wittily characterized than eloquently expressed. In the be- 
 lief that the drama is most powerful when it exhibits faithful 
 copies of what we know and what is near to us, Lessing has dis- 
 guised an old and celebrated deed of rough Roman virtue indeli- 
 bly entered in the history of the world, the murder of Virginia 
 by her father, under fictitious names, in modern European rela- 
 tions, and in the manners of the present times. Virginia was 
 converted into a countess Galotti, Virginius into Count Odoardo; 
 an Italian Prince took place of Appius Claudius, and a chamber- 
 lain that of the unblushing minister of his lust, &c. It is not 
 properly a familiar tragedy, but a court tragedy in the conver- 
 sational tone, to some parts of which the sword of state and the 
 hat under the arm as essentially belong as to many French trage- 
 dies. Lessing wished to transplant the inevitable violence of the 
 tyrannical Decemvir into the unrenowned circle of the principality 
 of Massa Carara; but as by taking a few steps we can extricate 
 ourselves from so petty a territory, we in like manner, after a 
 slight consideration, escape with the greatest ease from the as- 
 sumption so laboriously planned by the poet; on which, however, 
 the necessity of the catastrophe wholly rests. The visible care 
 which has been taken to assign a motive for everything invites 
 to a closer investigation, in which we are interrupted by none of 
 the magical illusions of imagination: and this is an investigation 
 which the internal unconnectedness of a drama, in the outward 
 structure of which such an uncommon degree of understanding 
 has been displayed, cannot possibly bear. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 427 
 
 It is'singular enough, that of all the dramatical works of Les- 
 sing, the last, Nathan der Weise, which he merely wrote with 
 a view, as he says, to laugh at theologists, when his zeal for the 
 improvement of the German theatre had pretty much cooled, 
 should yet be the most conform to the genuine rules of art. A 
 remarkable tale of Boccacio is wrought up with a number of in- 
 ventions which are wonderful, but yet not improbable, when we 
 consider the circumstances of the time; the fictitious persons are 
 grouped round a celebrated historical character, the great Sala- 
 din, who is drawn with historical truth; the crusades in the 
 back ground, the scene at Jerusalem, the meeting of persons 
 of various nations and religions on this oriental soil, — all this 
 gives to the work a romantic air, with which the thoughts, 
 foreign to the age in question, that the poet has allowed himself 
 to intersperse for the sake of his philosophical views, form a 
 contrast somewhat hazardous indeed, but yet exceedingly at- 
 tractive. The form is more free and comprehensive than in the 
 other pieces of Lessing ; it is nearly that of a drama of Shak- 
 speare. He has here returned to the use of versification, which 
 he had formerly rejected; not indeed the Alexandrine; for the 
 discarding of which in the serious drama we are in every respect 
 indebted to him, but the rhymeless Iambic. In Nathan the 
 versification is often hard and carelessly laboured'; but it is truly 
 dialogical, and its advantageous influence may be easily traced 
 when we compare the tone of this piece with the prose of the 
 others. Had the developement of the truths which Lessing had 
 particularly at heart not required too much repose, had there been 
 more rapidity of motion in the action, the piece would also have 
 been calculated to please on the stage. That Lessing, although 
 he possessed so independent a mind, still allowed himself in his 
 dramatical principles to be in some measure overcome by the 
 general inclination of the age, I infer from this, that the number 
 of imitators of Nathan were very few when compared with those 
 of Emilia Galolti. Among the striking imitations of the style 
 of the latter I will merely mention Julius von Tarent. 
 
 Engel must be considered as a scholar of Lessing. His small 
 afterpieces in the manner of Lessing are altogether insignificant; 
 but his treatise on imitation [Mimik) shows the point to which 
 the theory of his master leads. This book contains many useful 
 observations on the first elements of the language of gesture ; the 
 grand error of the author was, that he considered it a complete 
 system of mimicry or imitation, though it only treats of the ex- 
 pression of the passions, and does not contain a syllable on the 
 subject of exhibition of character. Moreover, in his histrionic art 
 
428 LECTURES ON 
 
 he does not allow the least place for the idea of the tragic and 
 comic ; and it may easily be supposed that he rejects ideality of 
 every kind,* and merely requires a bare copy of nature. 
 
 The more I draw near to the present times the more I wish to 
 give my observations a general direction, and to avoid entering 
 into a minute criticism of works of living writers with part of 
 whom I have been, or still am, in relations of friendship or hos- 
 tility. I may yet, however, speak of the dramatic career of 
 Goethe and Schiller, two men of whom our nation is proud, and 
 whose intimate society has frequently enabled me to correct and 
 enlarge my own ideas of art, with that frankness which is worthy 
 of their great and disinterested endeavours. The errors which 
 they occasioned at first when under the influence of erroneous 
 principles, while they always continued to advance towards 
 greater purity and brightness, are partly sunk already in obli- 
 vion, or will soon be so; their works will remain; in them we 
 have at least the foundation of a dramatic school at once peculiarly 
 German, and regulated by genuine principles of art. 
 
 Scarcely had Goethe, in Werther, given as it were a declara- 
 tion of the rights of feeling in opposition to the constraint of so- 
 cial relations, when he protested in Götz von B er licking en, by 
 the example which he there set, against all the restraints of arbi- 
 trary rules by which dramatic poetry had been narrowed. In 
 this play we do not see an imitation of Shakspeare, but the inspi- 
 ration excited in a kindred mind by a creative genius. In the 
 dialogue he practised Lessing's principles of nature, only with 
 greater boldness; for besides the versification and all heightening 
 ornaments, he also rejected the laws of written language to a de- 
 gree of which we had had no former example. He wished to 
 have no poetical circumlocution whatever; the exhibition was to 
 be the very thing itself; and he thus allowed us to hear the tone 
 of a remote age in a manner carrying with it a sufficient degree 
 of illusion, at least for those who were unacquainted with the 
 historical monuments in which our ancestors themselves speak. 
 He has expressed the old German cordiality in the most moving 
 manner: the situations which are announced in a few strokes are 
 
 * Among other things, Engel says, that as the language of Euripides, the 
 latest, and in. his opinion the most perfect Greek tragedian, has less elevation 
 than that of his predecessors, it is probable, if the Greeks had carried tragedy 
 to still higher perfection, that they would have proceeded a step farther, and 
 dismissed verse altogether. So completely ignorant was Engel of the spirit of 
 Grecian art. The approach which may certainly be traced in Euripides to the 
 tone of common life is the very indication of the decline and impending destruc- 
 tion of tragedy: but even in comedy the Greeks never could bring themselves 
 to make use of prose. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 429 
 
 irresistibly powerful; the whole has a great historical sense, for 
 it represents the conflict between a departing and a commencing 
 age; between the century of rude but powerful independence, 
 and the succeeding one of political tameness. The poet, in this 
 composition, never seems to have had the representation on the 
 stage in his eye; he rather indeed seems, in his youthful arro- 
 gance, to have set its insufficiency at defiance. 
 
 It seems, in general, to have been the grand object of Goethe 
 to express his genius in his works, and to give new poetical ani- 
 mation to his age; he was indifferent as to the form, though he 
 generally preferred the dramatic. He was at the same time a 
 warm friend of the theatre, and sometimes laboured to comply, 
 with its w r ants as determined by custom and the taste of the time; 
 as, for instance, in Clavigo, where he gave a familiar tragedy in 
 the manner of Lessing. Among the other defects of this piece, 
 the fifth act does not correspond with the others. In the four 
 first acts Goethe adhered pretty closely to the relation of Beau- 
 marchais, but he invented the catastrophe; and when w T e observe 
 that it puts us strongly in mind of the burial of Ophelia, and the 
 meeting of Hamlet and Laertes beside her grave, we have suffi- 
 ciently expressed what a strong contrast it forms to the tone and 
 colouring of the rest. In Stella Goethe took nearly the same 
 liberty with the story of Count von Gleichen which Lessing did 
 with that of Virginia, but his labours were still more unsuccess- 
 ful: the trait of the times of the crusades on which he founded 
 his play is affecting, true-hearted, and even edifying; but Stella 
 can only flatter the sentimentality of exhausted feeling. 
 
 At an after period he endeavoured to effect a reconciliation be- 
 tween his views of art and the common dramatic forms, even the 
 subordinate, almost all of which he run through* with single at- 
 tempts. In his Iphigenia he expressed the spirit of the antique 
 tragedy, according to his conceptions of it, especially with rela- 
 tion to repose, perspicuity, and ideality. With the same simpli- 
 city, flexibility, and noble elegance, he composed his Tasso, in 
 which he applied a historical anecdote to mark the general signi- 
 fication of the contrast between a court and a poetical life. His 
 Egmont again is a romantic and historical drama, the style of 
 which steers a middle course between his first manner in Götz, 
 and the form of Shakspeare. Erwin und Elmire and Claudine 
 von Villabella, if I may say so, are ideal operettes, breathed out 
 so lightly and airily that, with musical accompaniment and re- 
 presentation, they only run the risk of becoming heavy and pro- 
 saical; in this piece the noble and sustained style of the dialogue 
 of his Tasso, is varied by the most tender songs. Jery und 
 B'dtely is a charming natural picture of Swiss manners and in the 
 
430 LECTURES ON 
 
 spirit and form of the best French operettes; Scherz List und 
 Rache again is a true opera buffa, full of Italian Lazzi. Die 
 Mitschuldigen is a comedy in rhyme, in the manners of com- 
 mon life, according to the French rules. Goethe carried his con- 
 descension so far, that he even gave a continuation of an after- 
 piece of Florian; and the impartiality of his taste, so far, that he 
 translated several tragedies of Voltaire for the German stage. 
 Goethe's words and rhythm have always a golden resonance, but 
 we cannot extol these pieces as successful translations; and indeed 
 it would be matter of regret if that had succeeded which ought 
 never to have been undertaken. It is not necessary to call in the 
 aid of the Dramaturgie of Lessing to banish these unprofitable 
 productions from the German soil; Goethe's own masterly parody 
 of the French tragedy, in some scenes of Esther, will do this 
 much more amusingly and effectually. 
 
 Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit (The Triumph of Senti- 
 mentality) is a highly ingenious satire of Goethe's own imitators, 
 and inclines to the arbitrary comic, and the fancifully symbolical 
 of Aristophanes, but the modest Aristophanes in good company 
 and at court. At a much earlier period Goethe had, in some of 
 his merry tales and carnival plays, completely appropriated to 
 himself the manner of our honest Hans Sachs. 
 
 We always recognize, in the whole of these transformations, 
 the same free and powerful poetical spirit, to which we may 
 safely apply the Homeric lines respecting Proteus: 
 
 AXX' TjTOJ tfpw<n£a Xgwv yivzr' ypyivsios — ■ 
 r/vsro <T vypov vSug, xai <5sv#psov u-^itfST/jXov. 
 
 Oydss, lib. iv. 
 
 A lion now, he curls a surgy mane; 
 
 Here from our strict embrace a stream he glides, 
 
 And last, sublime his stately growth he rears, 
 
 A tree, and well dissembled foliage wears. Pope.* 
 
 To the youthful epoch belongs his Faust, a work which was 
 early planned, though it did not appear till a late period, and 
 
 * I have here quoted the translation of Pope, though nothing can well be more 
 vapid and more unlike the original, which is literally, "First he became a lion 
 with a huge mane — and then flowing water; and a tree with lofty foliage." — 
 It would not perhaps be advisable to recur to our earliest mode of classical 
 translation, line for line, and nearly word for word; but when German litera- 
 ture shall be better known in England, it will be seen from the masterly ver- 
 sions of Voss and Schlegel, that without diluting by idle epithets one line into 
 three, as in the above example, it is still possible to combine fidelity with spirit. 
 The German translation quoted by Mr. Schlegel runs, 
 
 Erstlich ward er ein Leu mit fürchterlich rollender Mähne, 
 Floss dann als Wasser dahin, und rauscht' als Baum in den Wolken. 
 
 Trans. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 431 
 
 which even in its latest shape is still a fragment, and from its very 
 nature perhaps, it must always remain a fragment. It is hard to 
 say whether we are here most lost in astonishment at the eleva- 
 tion which the poet frequently reaches, or seized with giddiness 
 at the depths which he lays open to our sight. But this is not 
 the place to express the whole of our admiration of this labyrin- 
 thical and boundless work, the peculiar creation of Goethe; we 
 have merely to consider it in a dramatic point of view. The 
 wonderful and popular story of Faustus is a subject peculiarly 
 adapted for the theatre; and the Marionette play, from which 
 Goethe, after Lessing,* took the first idea of a drama, satisfies 
 our expectations even in the mutilated scenes and meager words 
 of ignorant puppet-show men. Goethe's work, which adheres 
 in some points closely to the tradition, but which leaves it alto- 
 gether in others, runs purposely out in all directions, beyond 
 the dimensions of the theatre. Many scenes are standing deli- 
 neations in long monologues, or conversations of Faustus's internal 
 conditions, and dispositions, developements of his thoughts on the 
 insufficiency of human knowledge, and the unsatisfactory lot of 
 human nature; other scenes, though extremely ingenious and 
 significant in themselves, possess, with respect to the progress of 
 the action, an accidental appearance; many again,* though very 
 theatrically conceived, are merely slightly sketched: there are 
 rhapsodical fragments without beginning and end, in which the 
 poet allows us a surprising prospect, and then the curtain imme- 
 diately drops; whereas in a dramatic poem, which is to carry the 
 spectators along with it, the separate parts ought to be fashioned 
 after the figure of the whole, so that we may say each scene has 
 its exposition, its intrigue and winding up. Some scenes, full 
 of the highest energy and overpowering pathos, for example, the 
 murder of Valentine and Gretchen, and Faustus in the dungeon, 
 prove that the poet was a complete master of popular effect, 
 and that he merely sacrificed it for the sake of more comprehen- 
 sive views. He makes frequent calls on the imagination of his 
 readers; nay, he compels them to supply immense movable 
 pictures, and such as no theatrical art is capable of bringing be- 
 fore the eye, by way of back ground for his flying groups. To 
 represent the Faustus of Goethe, we must possess Faustus's 
 magic staff, and his formulae of conjuration. With such an in- 
 capability of external exhibition, an astonishing deal is to be 
 
 * Lessing has borrowed the only scenes of his plan which he communicates, 
 namely where Faustus summons the evil spirits to select the quickest of them 
 for his service, from the old piece which bears the showy title: Infelix Prüden- 
 tia, or Doctor Johannes Faustus. Marlow had already composed a Faustus in 
 England but unfortunately it has not been printed in Dodsley's Collection. 
 
432 LECTURES ON 
 
 learned from this wonderful work, both in respect of plan and 
 execution. In a prologue which was probably composed at a 
 late period, the poet declares why, true to his genius, he could 
 not accommodate himself to the demands of a mixed multitude of 
 spectators, and writes in some measure a farewell letter to the 
 theatre. 
 
 We are forced to allow that Goethe possesses the dramatic 
 talent in a very high degree, but not so much theatrical talent. 
 He is much more anxious to effect his object by tender develope- 
 ment than by rapid external motion; even the mild grace of his 
 harmonious mind withheld him from endeavouring after a strong 
 demagogical effect. Iphigenia auf (in) Tauris possesses, it is 
 true, more affinity to the Grecian spirit, than perhaps any other 
 work of the moderns composed before his time; but it is not so 
 much an antique tragedy as a reflected image of it, a musical 
 echo: its violent catastrophes appear here in the distance only as 
 recollections, and everything is mildly resolved in the interior 
 of the mind. The strongest and most overpowering pathos is to 
 be found in Egmont, but the conclusion of this tragedy is alto- 
 gether removed from the external world into the province of an 
 ideal music of the soul. 
 
 That Goethe, with this direction of his poetical career to the 
 purest expression of his inspiration without any other regard, and 
 on the part of art to a universality of studies, should not have had 
 that decided influence on the shape of our theatre which he might 
 have possessed, if he had actually chosen to dedicate himself 
 exclusively and immediately to it, we may very easily conceive. 
 
 In the mean time, shortly after the first appearance of Goethe, 
 the attempt to bring Shakspeare on our stage had been made. 
 The effort was extraordinarily great. Actors who are still alive 
 acquired the first wreaths of their renown in these exhibitions of 
 a kind altogether new, and Schröder attained, perhaps, in some 
 of the most celebrated tragic and comic parts, the same perfec- 
 tion for which Garrick had been idolized. The pieces, as wholes, 
 appeared however in a very imperfect shape; in cumbersome 
 prose translations, and frequently in mere extracts, with disfigur- 
 ing alterations. The separate characters and situations had been 
 to a certain degree hit, but by no means the sense of his compo- 
 sition. 
 
 Under these circumstances Schiller made his appearance, a 
 man endowed with all the qualities for producing at once a strong 
 effect on the multitude, and on minds of a nobler description. 
 He composed his earliest works while yet very young, and un- 
 acquainted with that world which he undertook to draw; and 
 although a genius independent and bold even to daringness, he 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 433 
 
 was however in various ways influenced by the models of Les- 
 sing, which we have mentioned, by the earlier labours of Goethe, 
 and Shakspeare in so far as he could understand him without an 
 acquaintance with the original. 
 
 In this way were the works of his youth produced: Die 
 JRaüber (The Robbers), Cabale und Liebe, and Fiesco. The 
 first, wild and horrible as it was, produced such a powerful effect 
 as even wholly to turn the heads of youthful enthusiasts. The 
 defective imitation of Shakspeare is not to be mistaken: Francis 
 Moor is a prosaical Richard the Third, ennobled by none of the 
 properties which in the latter unite admiration with aversion. 
 Cabale und Liebe can hardly affect us by its extravagant senti- 
 mentality, but it tortures us by the most painful impressions. 
 Fiesco is in design the most perverted, in effect the feeblest. 
 
 So noble a mind could not long persevere in such errors, 
 though they acquired him an applause which would have render- 
 ed the continuance of his blindness excusable. He had himself 
 experienced the dangers of rudeness and an ungovernable defi- 
 ance of all moderating discipline, and threw himself therefore, 
 with incredible efforts and a sort of passion, into cultivation. 
 The work which marks this new epoch is Don Carlos. In 
 parts we may observe a great depth in the delineation of charac- 
 ter; yet the old and tumid extravagance was not altogether lost, 
 but merely clothed with choicer forms. The situations have a 
 great deal of pathetic power, the plot is complicated even to epi- 
 grammatic subtlety; but his dear won thoughts on human nature 
 and social institutions were of such value in the eyes of the poet, 
 that he exhibited them with circumstantial fulness, instead of 
 expressing them by the progress of the action, and made his 
 characters philosophize more or less on the subject of themselves 
 and others, by which means his work swelled to a size altogether 
 incompatible with the prescribed limits of the theatre. 
 
 Historical and philosophical studies seemed now to have se- 
 duced the poet for a time from the poetical career for the advan- 
 tage of his art, to which he returned with a ripe mind, enriched 
 with various knowledge, and at last truly enlightened with re- 
 spect to his objects and his means. He applied himself now 
 wholly to historical tragedy, and endeavoured, by divesting him- 
 self of his personality, to rise to truly objective exhibitions. In 
 Wallenstein he had so conscientiously endeavoured to adhere to 
 historical truth, that he could not become altogether the master 
 of his materials, and an event of no great historical extent was 
 spun out into two plays, and a prologue in some degree didacti- 
 cal. In the forms he adhered very closely to Shakspeare, only 
 
 55 
 
434 
 
 LECTURES ON 
 
 he endeavoured to confine the change of place and time within 
 narrower limits, that he might not make too great a call on the 
 imagination of the spectators. He tied himself also down to a 
 more sustained tragical dignity, brought forward no persons of 
 mean condition, or at least did not allow them to speak in their 
 natural tone, and banished into the prelude the people, here the 
 army, which Shakspeare has introduced with such life and truth 
 into the course of public events. The love between Thekla and 
 Max Piccolomini is properly an episode, it is true, and bears the 
 stamp of an age quite different from that delineated in the rest of 
 the work; but it affords an opportunity for the most affecting 
 scenes, and is conceived with equal tenderness and dignity. 
 
 Maria Stuart is planned and executed with greater skill in 
 art, and also with greater solidity. All is wisely weighed; we 
 may censure separate parts as offensive, the quarrel for instance 
 between the two queens, the wild fury of Mortimer's passion, 
 &c; but we shall hardly be able to take anything out of its place 
 without involving the whole in confusion. The effect is infalli- 
 ble; the last scenes of Mary are truly worthy of a queen; reli- 
 gious impressions are introduced with due seriousness; only from 
 the care, perhaps superfluous, of exercising poetical justice on 
 Elizabeth after Mary's death, the spectator is dismissed in a state 
 of mind rather approaching to cool indifference. 
 
 With such a wonderful subject as the Maid of Orleans, Schil- 
 ler thought himself entitled to take greater liberties. The plot is 
 looser; the scene with Montgomery, an epic intermixture, is at 
 variance with the general tone; in the singular and inconceivable 
 appearance of the black knight, the object of the poet is ambigu- 
 ous; in the character of Talbot, and many other parts, Schiller 
 has entered into a competition with Shakspeare without success; 
 and I know not whether the colouring employed, which is not 
 so brilliant as might be imagined, is an equivalent for the severer 
 pathos which has thereby been lost. The history of the Maid 
 of Orleans is most accurately vouched; the high mission was be- 
 lieved by herself and generally by her contemporaries, and pro- 
 duced the most extraordinary effects. The wonder might there- 
 fore have been represented by the poet, even though the scepti- 
 cal spirit of his contemporaries should have deterred him from 
 giving it out for real; and the true ignominious martyrdom of the 
 betrayed and abandoned heroine would have agitated us more 
 deeply than the gaudy and rose-coloured one which Schiller has 
 invented for her in contradiction to history. Shakspeare's exhi- 
 bition, though partial from his national point of view, still pos- 
 sesses much more historical truth and profundity. However, 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 435 
 
 the German piece will always remain a beautiful attempt to save 
 the honour of a name dishonoured by impudent ridicule; and its 
 dazzling effect, supported by the rich ornaments of the language, 
 deservedly gained for it the most distinguished success on the 
 stage. 
 
 I am least disposed to approve of the principles which Schiller 
 followed in The Bride of Messina, and which he himself de- 
 clares in his preface. The investigation, however, would lead 
 me too far into the province of theory. It was intended for a 
 tragedy, antique in its form, but romantic in substance. A story 
 altogether fictitious is kept in a costume so indefinite and so di- 
 vested of all inward probability, that the picture is neither truly 
 ideal nor truly natural, neither mythological nor historical. The 
 romantic poetry seeks indeed to blend things the most remote 
 from each other into one, but it cannot admit of things which are 
 altogether incompatible with each other; the way of thinking of 
 the people exhibited cannot be at once Pagan and Christian. I 
 will not complain of him for borrowing openly as he has done; 
 the whble is composed of two principal ingredients, of the story 
 of Eteocles and Polynices, who, notwithstanding the mediation 
 of their mother Jocaste, contend for the sole possession of the 
 throne, and of the brothers impelled by jealousy in love to fratri- 
 cide, in the Zwillingen von Klinger, and in Julius von Tarent. 
 In the introduction of the chorusses also, though they possess 
 much lyrical sublimity and beautiful passages, the sense of the 
 ancients has been totally mistaken; as to each of the hostile bro- 
 thers a peculiar chorus is partially attached, the one contending 
 against the other, they both cease to be a true chorus; that is, a 
 voice of sympathy and contemplation elevated above every per- 
 sonal consideration. 
 
 The last of Schiller's works, Wilhelm Tell, is also in my 
 opinion the best. Here he has wholly returned to the poetry of 
 history; the manner in which he has handled his subject is true, 
 cordial, and when we consider Schiller's ignorance of Swiss na- 
 ture and manners, wonderful in point of local truth. It is true 
 he had here a noble source to draw from in the speaking pictures 
 of the immortal John Müller. In the view of Tell's chapel on 
 the banks of the lake of Lucerni, in the open air, and with the 
 Alps for a back ground, this picture of heart-elevating, old Ger- 
 man manners, piety, and true heroism, might have merited a 
 representation as a solemnization of Swiss freedom, five hundred 
 years after its foundation. 
 
 Schiller was in the most mature fulness of his mind when he 
 was carried off by an untimely death; up to the moment of which 
 
436 LECTURES ON 
 
 his health, which had long been undermined, was always made 
 to yield to his powerful will, and completely exhausted in the 
 most praiseworthy endeavours. How much might he not have 
 still performed, as he dedicated himself exclusively to the theatre, 
 and with every work attained a higher mastery of his art! He 
 was a virtuous artist in the genuine sense of the word; he wor- 
 shipped the true and the beautiful with purity of mind, and to his 
 indefatigable endeavours to reach them he offered up his own ex- 
 istence as a sacrifice, far from petty self-love, and from the jea- 
 lousy but too common even among artists of excellence. 
 
 The appearance of great original minds in Germany has always 
 been followed by a host of imitators, and hence both Goethe and 
 Schiller have been the occasion, for the most part, not from any 
 fault of their own, of bringing a number of defective and degene- 
 rate productions on our stage. 
 
 Götz Von Berlichingen was followed by 'a whole inundation 
 of chivalrous plays, in which there was nothing historical but 
 the names and other external circumstances, nothing chivalrous 
 but the helmets, bucklers, and swords, and nothing of did Ger- 
 man honesty but the supposed rudeness: the sentiments were" as 
 modern as they were vulgar. From chivalry pieces they became 
 true cavalry pieces, which certainly deserve to be acted by horses 
 rather than by men. To those also w T ho in some measure appeal 
 to the imagination by superficial allusions to former times, may 
 be applied what I said of one of the most admired of them: 
 
 Mit Harsthörnern, und Burgen, und Harnischen, pranget Johanna; 
 Traun! mir gefiele das Stück, Wären nicht Worte dabey.* 
 
 The next place in the public favour has been held by the^w- 
 ily picture and the affecting drama, two secondary species, 
 from the encouragement of which by precept and example Les- 
 sing, Goethe, and Schiller, (the two last by their earliest compo- 
 sitions Stella, Clavigo, Die Geschwister, Cabale und Liebe), 
 cannot be acquitted. I will name no one, but merely suppose 
 that two writers of some talent and theatrical knowledge had 
 dedicated themselves to these species, that they had both mista- 
 ken the essence of dramatic poetry, and laid down to themselves 
 a pretended moral aim; but that to the one morality had appear- 
 ed merely under the confined shape of economy, and to the other 
 in that of sensibility: what sort of fruits would thus be brought 
 forth, and how would the applause of the multitude finally decide 
 between these two competitors? 
 
 * Johanna makes a show with horns, castles, and armour; 
 The piece would certainly please me, were it without words. 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 437 
 
 The family picture must portray the everyday course of the 
 middle ranks of society. The extraordinary events which are pro- 
 duced by intrigues will be banished: to cover this want of motion 
 the writer will have recourse to a characterization wholly indivi- 
 dual, to which a practised player may give a certain truth, but 
 which cleaves to external peculiarities as a bad portrait painter en- 
 deavours to attain a resemblance by scarsof the small pox and warts, 
 and by the manner of dressing and tying the handkerchief: the mo- 
 tives and situations will sometimes be humorous and droll, but 
 never truly diverting, as the serious and prosaical aim which is 
 always kept in view completely prevents this. The rapid deter- 
 minations of comedy generally end before the family life begins, 
 by which all is fixed in everyday habits. To make oeconomy 
 poetical is impossible: the dramatic family painter will be able to 
 say as little of a fortunate and tranquil domestic establishment, 
 as the historian of a state in possession of external and internal 
 tranquillity. He will therefore be obliged to interest us by the 
 painful accuracy of his picture of the torments and the penury of 
 domestic life: chagrin experienced in the honest exercise of office, 
 in the education of children, interminable dissensions between 
 husband and wife, the bad conduct of servants, and, above all 
 things, the cares of subsistence. The spectators understand these 
 pictures but too well, for every man knows where the shoe 
 pinches him; it may be very salutary for them, that they should 
 each run over in thought every week, in presence of the stage, 
 the relation between their expenditure and income; but elevation 
 of mind and recreation they will hardly derive there, for they 
 find again on the stage the very same thing which they have at 
 home from morning to night. 
 
 The sentimental poet again contrives to lighten their heart. 
 His general doctrine amounts properly to this, that what is called 
 a good heart atones for all errors and extravagances, and that with 
 respect to virtue we are not to insist so strictly on principles. 
 Allow only free scope to your natural impulses, he seems to say 
 to his spectators; see how well it becomes my naive girls, when 
 they confess everything of themselves. If he only knows how 
 to corrupt by means of effeminate emotions, rather sensual than 
 moral, but at the end to make all nearly even, by the introduc- 
 tion of some generous benefactor, who showers out his liberality 
 with open hands, he then pleases the vitiated hearts of his au- 
 dience in an extraordinary degree; they feel as if they had them- 
 selves done noble actions, without however putting their hands 
 in their own pockets: all is drawn from the purse of the generous 
 poet. The affecting species can hardly therefore fail in the long 
 
438 LECTURES ON 
 
 run to gain a victory over the ceconomical; and this has actually 
 been the case in Germany. But what in these dramas is painted 
 to us not only as natural and allowable, but even as moral and 
 dignified, exceeds all imagination, and this seduction is much 
 more dangerous than that of the licentious comedy, for this very 
 reason, that it does not disgust us by external indecency, but 
 steals into unguarded minds, and selects the most sacred names 
 for a disguise. 
 
 The poetical as well as moral decline of the taste of the time 
 has been attended with this consequence, that the writers who 
 are the greatest favourites on the stage seek only for a momenta- 
 ry applause, regardless of the opinion of good judges, and of true 
 esteem; those however who have both in higher aims before their 
 eyes cannot prevail on themselves to comply with the demands 
 of the multitude, and when they do compose dramatically, are 
 wholly regardless of the stage. Hence they remain defective in 
 the theatrical part of art, which can only be attained in perfection 
 by practice and experience. 
 
 The repertory of our stage exhibits therefore, in its miserable 
 wealth, a motley assemblage of chivalrous pieces, family pictures, 
 and sentimental dramas, which are occasionally, though seldom, 
 varied by works in a grander and more cultivated style by Shak- 
 speare and Schiller. In this state of things translations and imi- 
 tations of foreign novelties, and especially of the French after- 
 pieces and operettes are indispensable. From' the worthlessness 
 of the separate works, the fleeting charm of novelty is alone 
 sought for in-theatrical entertainment, to the great injury of the 
 histrionic art, as a number of insignificant parts must be got by 
 heart in the most hurried manner, to be immediately forgotten.* 
 
 * To this must be added, by way of rendering the vulgarity of our theatre al- 
 most incurable, the radically depraved disposition of every thing having any 
 reference to the theatre. The companies of actors ought to be under the ma- 
 nagement of intelligent judges and persons practised in the dramatic art, and 
 not themselves players. Engel presided for a time over the Berlin theatre, and 
 eye-witnesses universally assert that he elevated it to an unusual height. What 
 Goethe has effected in the management of the theatre of Weimar, in a small 
 town, and with small means, is known to all good theatrical judges in Germany. 
 Rare talents he can neither create nor reward, but -he accustoms the actors to 
 order and discipline, to which they are generally altogether disinclined, and 
 thereby gives to his representations a unity and harmony, which we do not 
 witness on larger theatres, where every individual plays as his own fancy 
 prompts him. The incorrect manner in which their parts are got by heart, 
 and the imperfection of their oral delivery, I have elsewhere censured. I have 
 heard verses mutilated by a celebrated player in a manner which would at Paris 
 be considered unpardonable in a beginner. I know that in a certain theatre, 
 when they were under the melancholy necessity of representing a piece in 
 verse, they wrote out the parts as prose, that the players might not be disturbed 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 439 
 
 The efforts of the poets who do not labour immediately for the 
 theatre take every variety of direction; in this as in other depart- 
 ments may be observed the fermentation of ideas that has brought 
 on our literature, in foreign countries the reproach of a chaotic 
 anarchy, in which however the striving after a higher aim never 
 yet reached is sufficiently visible. 
 
 The more profound investigation of ^Esthetics has among the 
 
 in their darling but stupid affectation of nature, by observation of the quantity. 
 How many " periwig- pated fellows," (as Shakspeare called such people), must 
 we suffer, who imagine they are affording- the public an enjoyment when they 
 straddle along- the boards with their awkward persons, considering the words 
 which the poet has given them to repeat merely as a necessary evil. Our players 
 are less anxious to please than the French. By the creation of standing- national 
 theatres as they are called,, by which in several capitals people suppose that 
 they have done something advantageous, and likely to improve the histrionic 
 art, they have on the contrary put a complete end to all competition. They 
 bestow on the players exclusive privileges, they secure their salaries for life; 
 having now nothing to dread from more accomplished rivals, and being inde- 
 pendent of the fluctuating favour of the spectators, the only concern of the 
 actors is to enjoy their places like so many benefices in the most convenient 
 manner. Hence the national theatres have become true hospitals for languor 
 and laziness. The question of Hamlet with respect to the players, " Do they 
 grow rusty?" will never become obsolete, — it must alas! be always answered 
 in the affirmative. The actor, from the ambiguous relations in which he lives 
 (which cannot be altered, as they exist in the nature of things), must possess a 
 certain extravagant enthusiasm for his art, if he is to perform anything extraor- 
 dinary. He cannot be too passionately alive to noisy applause, reputation, and 
 every brilliant reward, derived immediately from his efforts. The present mo- 
 ment is his kingdom, time is his most dangerous enemy, as he can exhibit nothing 
 of a durable nature. Whenever he is filled with the tradesman-like anxiety of 
 securing a moderate maintenance for himself, his wife, and children, there is an 
 end of all improvement. We do not mean to say that the old age of deserving 
 artists ought not to be provided for. But to those players who from age, ill- 
 ness, or other accidents, have lost their qualifications for acting, we ought to 
 give pensions to induce them to leave off instead of continuing to play. In ge- 
 neral we ought not to put it into the heads of the players, that they are such 
 important and indispensable personages. Nothing is more rare than a truly 
 great player; but nothing is more common than the qualifications for filling 
 characters in the manner we generally see them filled: of this we may be con- 
 vinced in every private theatre, in any thing like an intelligent circle. Finally, 
 the relation which subsists with us between the managers of theatres and wri- 
 ters, is also as detrimental as possible. In France and England, the author of. 
 a piece has a determinate share of the profits of each representation; this pro- 
 cures for him a permanent income, whenever any of his pieces are so successful 
 as to keep their place on the theatre. Again, if the piece is unsuccessful, he 
 receives nothing. In Germany, the managers of theatres pay a certain sum be- 
 fore-hand, and at their own risk, for the manuscripts which they receive. They 
 may thus be very considerable losers; and on the other hand, if the piece is ex- 
 traordinarily successful, the author is not suitably rewarded. — Author. 
 
 The Author is under a mistake with respect to the reward which falls to the 
 share of the dramatic writer in. England. He has not a part of the profits of 
 each representation. If the play runs three nights, it brings him in as much 
 as if it were to run three thousand nights. — Trans. 
 
440 LECTURES ON 
 
 Germans, by nature more a speculative than a practical people, 
 led to this consequence, that works of art, and tragedies more 
 especially, have been executed on abstract theories more or less 
 misunderstood. It was natural that these tragedies should pro- 
 duce no effect on the theatre; — my, they are in general unsus- 
 ceptible of representation, and possess no inward life. 
 
 Others again have, with true feeling, appropriated the spirit of 
 the ancient tragedians, and sought the most suitable manner of 
 accommodating the simple and pure forms of art of antiquity to 
 the constitution of our scene. 
 
 Men truly distinguished for their talents have attached them- 
 selves to the romantic drama, but they have generally taken it in 
 a latitude which is only allowable in the romance, without con- 
 cerning themselves with the compression which the dramatic 
 form necessarily requires. Or they have seized only the musi- 
 cally fanciful and picturesquely sportive side of the Spanish 
 dramas, without their firm keeping, their energetical power, and 
 their theatrical effect. 
 
 What path shall we now enter? Shall we endeavour to re-ac- 
 custom ourselves to the form of the French tragedy, which we 
 have so long banished? . Repeated experience has proved that, 
 with every modification from the manner of translation and the 
 tone of representation, as some modification is indispensable, 
 even in the hands of a Goethe or a Schiller, it never can attain 
 any great success. 
 
 The genuine imitation of the Greek tragedy is more related to 
 our way of thinking; but it is beyond the comprehension of the 
 multitude, and must always remain a learned enjoyment of art 
 for a few cultivated minds, like the contemplation of ancient 
 statues. 
 
 In comedy, Lessing has already remarked the difficulty of in- 
 troducing national manners which are not provincial, as the tone 
 of social life with us is not modelled after a common central point. 
 If we wish pure comedies, I would strongly recommend the use 
 of rhyme; perhaps with the more artificial form they might also 
 gradually assume a peculiarity of substance. 
 
 It appears to me, however, that this is not the most urgent 
 want: let us first finish in a worthy manner the serious and higher 
 species of the German character. In this it appears to me that 
 our taste inclines altogether to the romantic. What most attracts 
 the multitude in our half sentimental, half humourous dramas, 
 which one moment transport us to Peru, and the next to Kam- 
 schatka, and soon after into the times of chivalry, while the sen- 
 timents are all modern and lachrymose, is always a sprinkling 
 
DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 441 
 
 of the romantic, which we even recognize in the most insipid 
 magical operas. The signification of this species has been lost 
 with us before it was properly found; the fancy has passed with 
 the inventors of such chimeras, and the views of the plays are 
 sometimes wiser than those of their authors. In a hundred play- 
 bills the name romantic is profaned by being lavished on rude 
 and monstrous abortions; let us be permitted by criticism and 
 history to elevate it again to its true signification. We have lately 
 endeavoured in many ways to revive the remains of our old 
 national poetry. These may afford the poet a foundation for the 
 wonderful festival-play; but the most dignified species of the 
 romantic is the historical. 
 
 In this field the noblest laurels may be reaped by those drama- 
 tic poets who wish to emulate Goethe and Schiller. Still, how- 
 ever, let our historical drama be in reality universally national; 
 let it not attach itself to the life and adventures of single knights 
 and petty princes, who had no influence on the whole nation. 
 Let it at the same time be truly historical, drawn from a pro- 
 found knowledge, and let us transport ourselves wholly back to 
 the great times of old. In this glass let the poet enable us to see, 
 though to our deep shame, what the Germans were in former 
 times, and what they must again be. Let him impress it 
 strongly on our hearts, that we Germans, if we do not consider 
 the lessons of history better than we have hitherto done, are in 
 danger, — we, formerly the first and most glorious people of 
 Europe, whose freely elected Prince was acknowledged without 
 opposition for the head of all Christendom — of disappearing 
 altogether from their list of independent nations. The higher 
 ranks, by their predilection for foreign manners, by their zeal 
 for the mental cultivation of other nations, which must always 
 yield a miserable fruit, transplanted from their natural climate 
 into a hot-house, have long alienated themselves from the body 
 of the people; still longer, for three centuries at least, has inter- 
 nal dissension consumed our noblest powers in civil wars, the 
 ruinous consequences of which are now first beginning to dis- 
 close themselves. May all who have an opportunity of influ- 
 encing the public mind exert themselves to extinguish at last the 
 old misunderstanding, and to rally all the well-disposed round 
 the objects of reverence which have unfortunately been abandon- 
 ed; (but by true attachment to w r hich our forefathers acquired so 
 much happiness and renown), as round a consecrated banner, 
 and to let them feel their indestructible unity as Germans! What 
 a picture is afforded by our history from the most remote times, 
 the wars with the Romans down to the fixed formation of the 
 
 56 
 
442 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 German empire! Then the chivalrously brilliant interval of the 
 house of Hohenstaufen, and lastly, what is of more political im- 
 portance, and more nearly concerns us, of the house of Haps- 
 burg, which has produced so many great princes and heroes. 
 What a field for a poet who, like Shakspeare, could discern the 
 poetical side of the great events of the world! But we, Ger- 
 mans, take always so little interest in our most important national 
 affairs, that even the mere historical exhibition of these great 
 events is still very far behind. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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