courtly tone of Racine, and his systematic adaptation of Greek manners to the tone of French society, appear in the most ludicrous caricature, unredeemed by his real tenderness, and the exquisite polish and beauty of his versification. The romance writers of the school of Scudery and Calprenede, whose aim it was "peindre Caton galant et Brutus dameret," found a not unworthy dramatic rival in Chancel; whose Orestes, Meleager, Arsaces, and Alceste, form as extraordinary a travestie of antiquity as can well be imagined. Crebillon certainly rises considerably above these feeble imitators of Racine; for, coarse as his tastes were, he was a man who thought for himself at least within the limits which the existing rules of the drama permitted; for these rules, as laid down by the precept or practice of Corneille or Racine, he adopted to the letter. He is, indeed, the very reverse of an innovator, so far as regards the established dramatic creed of his time; but, endowed with a sombre, fantastic, and vigorous turn of mind, approaching to the savage, he has occasionally thrown a force and vivacity, derived from his own character, into those mythological terrors which he borrowed from antiquity, of which, at first sight, such subjects would hardly have appeared susceptible. "Corneille," he used to say, "has laid hold of heaven, Racine of earth; nothing was left to me but hell, and I have thrown myself into it, heart and soul." "Unfortunately," as Villemain dryly observes, "he is not always quite so infernal as he seems to think." Placed side by side with love intrigues and dialogues, in which the argument, however agitating, is maintained with a politeness worthy of the school of Chesterfield, his scenes of bloodshed, incest, and crime, very often wear an almost ludierous air, though we admit the forcible effect of some scenes or passages, like that of the famous line borrowed from the Thyestes of Seneca,* when Thy. estes addresses his brother, after the hideous banquet, with the words and embody, with a sort of stoical pomp of thought and laconic condensation of expression, somewhat in the style of Seneca (with whom he has many points of resemblance), scenes of atrocity and gloom, he is in general completely deficient in the delineation of all feeling or character of a more level, natural, or tender kind. We say in general, because we willingly exempt from this charge his tragedy of Rhadamiste, which appeared in 1711, the solitary dramatic work between the time of Racine and Voltaire, which even approaches to the character of genius; and to which we are glad to see that justice is done by Villemain. He blames the first act as "ill-written, because without passion"-of which we are scarcely disposed to demand much in a first act-but admits that the rest is eloquent and tragic, and realizes all that could be effected within the narrow limits then allowed to French tragedy. With one remark of Crebillon we suppose most readers will be disposed entirely to concur: when asked which of his works he preferred, his answer was, "It is difficult to say which is the best; but this," pointing to his scapegrace son, the novelist," is certainly the worst." La Motte, a contemporary of Crebillon, did endeavour to effect what Crebillon seems to have in no respect aimed at viz. an innovation in the recognised dramatic code. His great principle, besides an attack on the unities, was this, that the drama gained nothing by being written in verse; and he illustrated his proposition by the production of an Edipus in prose and an Edipus in verse, which certainly left the reader in a pleasing uncertainty which was most intolerable. And yet, in his speculations as to the unities, though apparently igno rant even of the existence of Shakspeare, and certainly entirely unacquainted with his works, it is interesting to observe how much his notion of a Roman tragedy, conducted upon the principles which he was disposed to recognise as just, seems to correspond with the manner in which such subjects But though Crebillon could conceive had been actually treated by Shak "Reconnais tu ce sang? Je reconnais mon frère." * "Natos et quidem noscis tuos?-Agnosco fratrem." speare. Take, for instance, his remarks as to the plan on which a tragedy, founded on the subject of Coriolanus, might be conceived and theatrically embodied. "I should not be surprised if a people, intelligent though less attached to rules, should reconcile itself to the idea of witnessing the history of Coriolanus divided into several acts. In the first, that patrician, accused by the tribunes, defended by the consul and the people whom he has saved, and then condemned by the people to perpetual exile: in the second, the despair of his family, and the gloomy grief with which he separates from them: in the third, the magnanimous boldness with which he presents himself to the Volscian general, whom he has so often vanquished; ready to sacrifice his life if he can but associate him in his vengeance in the fourth, the hero at the gates of Rome, the deputations of the consuls and priests, the prayers and tears of a mother obtaining favour for Rome." La Motte does not pursue the subject down to the assassination of Coriolanus in Antium; but so far as he goes, there is a strong, though apparently unconscious, resemblance between his sketch and the outline traced by Shakspeare. The views of Voltaire (the third member of the French Dramatic Triumvirate) as to the drama, changed greatly after his compulsory residence in England. His first play, the Edipus, produced at the age of twenty-three, was in all respects a play of the school of Corneille and Racine. But the acquaintance he had acquired with English literature, superficial in many respects as it was, had impressed him with the conviction of the powerful effects which the irregular drama of the northern nations was capable of producing; and without in the least degree meaning to call in question the laws which had been laid down by his predecessors, except perhaps as to the employment of the passion of love as an indispensable dramatic agent, he seems to have conceived that a great deal of the spirit of the romantic drama might be thrown into the classical form; that the natural eloquence of Antony, the jealousy of the Moor, or the philosophic or sceptical musings and melancholy of Hamlet, or perhaps the impression of supernatural terror which the ghost scenes of Shakspeare produce, might, with certain modifications to suit the expression to the taste of a Parisian public, be made effective upon the French stage. He aimed, in short, at the difficult, and, there is reason to think, incompatible task, of amalgamating two dramatic systems, the principles of which are not only unharmonious, but in many respects contradictory. It is well known that, in the opinion of certain French critics of no mean note, Voltaire has succeeded in his attempt. La Harpe seems to think that he had perfected what Corneille had begun and Racine improved, by adding to the dignified or graceful sentiments of his predecessors, more life, energy, and natural movement in the dialogue. He has been described as :-" Vainqueur de deux rivaux qui regnaient sur la scène." Time, however, has pronounced a different judgment. Villemain remarks that the plays of Corneille, and the chefs d'œuvre of Racine, when revived about twenty years ago, were received with the same enthusiasm as at first, while those of Voltaire fell cold and dull upon the public ear. Though nearer in date to his audience, he was less felt, less understood: his theatrical effects and philosophic maxims were found hackneyed; his sonorous eloquence did not touch the feelings like the bursts of genius of Corneille or the passionate refinement of Racine. The want of a genuine enthusiasm for high poetry of any kind was too palpable in Voltaire; while the faith which animated his dramatic rivals, and the seriousness with which they vewed the high aim of tragedy, had, on the contrary, imparted to their compositions a perennial freshness and enduring life. "Voltaire," says Villemain, "wished to give boldness and animation to the scene-to multiply theatrical effects. He has frequently succeeded: but in the grandeur and novelty of character, which is the very life of the drama, has he approached his models? Has he produced any thing that can be compared with such original and novel creations as Don Diego, Pauline, Severa, Burrhus, Acomat, or Joad? Is his diction, dramatic as it is in point of movement and warmth, equally so in point of truth? Does it equal the poetry of Racine and Corneille, when he is Corneille? And is not the perfection of poetry a necessary part of our severe and regular theatre ? Setting out with the principle that good poetry was only good prose, with the addition of measure and rhyme, he was frequently prosaic and negligent in his verses. He had few of those bold forms of expression, those original turns, and those bold images, which form the accent of poetry. He was not less rigorously faithful to the etiquette of our theatre. He even exaggerated its habitual pomp, and its periphrases of politeness, without correcting them by those naive turns which Corneille found in the language of his day, and which Racine dexterously mingled with that of the court. Thus he was at once less poetical, less simple, and less true, than his great predecessors," It is impossible, we think, to claim for Voltaire even an equality with Cor. neille and Racine. Compare the impressions left on the mind by the peusal of the works of the three great dramatists, and the inferiority of the third is at once perceptible, "Corneille," says St Beuve," "with his great qualities and defects, produces on me the effect of one of those great trees, naked, rugged, sombre in the trunk, and adorned with branches and a dusky verdure only towards the summit. They are strong, gigantic, scantily leaved; an abundant sap circulates through them, but we are not to expect from them shade, shelter, or flowers. They bud late, begin to shed their foliage early, and live a long time half shorn of their leaves. Even after their bare heads have surrendered their leaves to the autumnal wind, the vivacity of their nature still throws out here and there scattered branches and suckers; and when they fall, they resemble, in their crash and groans, that trunk covered with armour to which Lucan has compared the fall of Pompey." This fanciful comparison which St Beuve has applied to the old age of the great Corneille, is applicable to his poetical character generally, only in so far as it expresses not inaptly the idea of irregular grandeur, which is the characteristic of Corneille's mind; for, amidst the conventional limitations of the French stage, the genius of the poet obviously drew its nourishment from an imagination naturally highly poetical-still further excited by the romantic and occasionally extravagant tone of the Spanish drama, which had been his favourite study. That union of the spirit of the romantic dra ma with the classical, which Voltaire vainly laboured to effect, because in truth he felt not the inspiration of either, is attained so far as such a union was practicable (for we have already said, that in its full extent it is impos. sible) in the plays of Corneille. His dramas remind us of some ancient Roman monument, like the tomb of Ce cilia Metella-some "stern round tower of ancient days"-converted, during the middle ages, into a place of defence; exhibiting feudal outworks and barbaric ornaments embossed upon a classic fabric, but so harmonized and blended with the original structure, by the softening touch of time and the growth of vegetation, that the whole possesses a sombre and stately unity of effect. The effect of Racine's dr mas, again, very much resembles that of the architecture of Palladio; it exhibits a purely classic framework, internally and with some difficulty accommodated to modern usages, but yet so graceful in its outward proportions, so finished and polished within, that the limited accommodation of the edifice is forgotten in the compactness and proportion and elegance of the apartments. But Voltaire, without any real feeling for the classic drama, as his contemptuous style of treating Sophocles in the preface to the Edipus shows, and equally incapable of appreciating any thing of the spirit of the romantic stage, or of borrowing from it any thing but a few hints for theatrical effect and a more lively dialogue-has merely put together incoherent fragments from antiquity and feudalism-" To make a third he joined the other two," but without real blending of parts or unity of spirit. His compositions might be appropriately compared to an artificial ruin, in which the modern aspect of the materials is in contradiction to the form and architecture of the edifice. Of his great works, Brutus, the Orphan of China, Zaire, and the Death of Casar-the two latter owed their very existence, and almost their whole dramatic merit, to the inspiration of Shak * Critiques et Portraits Litéraires. Première Série Corneille. speare. With a warm admiration for Zaire, Villemain candidly admits, that in all which evinces deep and profound insight into the heart, or the power of artfully indicating and preparing remote future effects, in which perhaps, more than any thing else, dramatic skill is evinced, Shakspeare in his Othello has infinitely the ad. vantage over Voltaire. Nay, even in regard to mere art of narration or exposition, the very point on which Voltaire and the French dramatists have piqued themselves most, he seems inclined to give the preference to Othello's speech to the Venetian Senate over the corresponding explanation of Orosmane, in which he communicates his position and designs to Zaire. He concludes, however, by observing, with a natural wish to do justice to a very talented imitation, which in some respects almost borders on genius, "If in the subject itself, which is borrowed from Shakspeare, that of jealousy and murder, Voltaire is inferior in pathos and even in art-if he is less energetic, less natural, less probable he has, notwithstanding, infused into Zaire an unequalled (?) charm and interest. What he has created makes amends for what he has feebly imitated; and although Voltaire was probably in jest when he compared this piece to Polyeucte, it is the Christian episode-it is Lusignan and the Crusade-which constitute the immortal beauty of Zaire." In Zaire, Voltaire had conformed to his original, and, on the French stage, prescriptive plan of making love the moving power of the piece. In his Death of Caesar, all the best points of which plainly were suggested by the Julius Cæsar of Shakspeare, he reverted to an idea he had long entertained of a tragedy constructed on a more austere and patriotic principle. He determined to compose a tragedy, as he says, in the English taste, banishing not merely love intrigues, but almost all interference on the part of women; though, where he found the authority for this novel kind of unity the unity of sex-we are at a loss to imagine. Not in Shakspeare certainly; for in Julius Cæsar, Portia, slightly as she is brought into view, is felt to be, and not undeservedly, a personage of strong interest and influence. Still less in the Cato of his friend Addison, where, if we remember rightly, "the noble Martia towers above her sex," and no less than three separate love stories are interwoven with the "fate of Cato and of Rome." If the remarks of Villemain contain little that is absolutely new so far as regards the peculiar excellencies of Shakspeare's play, they have at least a species of novelty in the mouth of a French critic, from their candour and impartiality, unmixed with extravagance; for, to confess the truth, we would in most cases rather put up with the sneers of Voltaire, or the cold and niggard approbation of La Harpe, than the rhapsodical and indiscriminating admiration of many modern French critics, bestowed as it is without reason or intelligible principle, and prac tically exemplified and illustrated by extravagant and revolting caricatures of the peculiarities of Shakspeare's age, without the least approach to the redeeming qualities of his genius. Shakspeare has taken the Roman history as he found it; he has invented nothing-he has retrenched little. In the costume and the language he may have erred occasionally, from ignorance of classical minutiæ; but in the numerous and contrasted characters of the piece, particularly in that of the philosophical Brutus uniting the firmness and unshaken dignity of the Stoic with the gentlest affections, Shakspeare shows his usual mastery. When the spirit of human nature is to be divined, such as it exists in all ages and countries among ambitious nobles, interested demagogues, and an idle, heartless, and vacillating populace, Shakspeare is never mistaken. Voltaire, on the contrary, has chosen to step beyond history, and his invention marks the real want of dramatic refinement which is observable in his plays, disguised as they are in a drapery of pompous morality. The vague suspicion founded on some tale of scandal, that Brutus was the son of Cæsar, becomes with him the nodus, and constitutes the main interest of the piece. Patriotism, it would seem, according to French ideas, is presented in its most imposing form when accompanied by parricide. The conjugal scenes between Brutus and Portia, which, by their homefelt beauty, so finely relieve the republican hardness of the political interest, Voltaire has entirely banished; and we are left without a glimpse into domestic life, or one tranquil conversation in which the Stoic and the politician relaxes into the man. The famous scene, in which the rival leaders pronounce their orations over the dead body of Cæsar, has been in many passages translated by Voltaire. In others he has attempted to improve upon it, with what success a few specimens will enable the reader to judge. The speech of Brutus, written with laconic brevity, and in prose, probably in order to raise it out of the ordinary level of the verse, and thus to give it more the appearance of a formal oration, Voltaire has placed less appropriately in the mouth of Cassius, and his version, we admit, is fairly executed. But how absurd the unanimous reply which he puts into the mouth of the multitude: 1st Plebeian. Bring him with triumph home unto his house. 2d Pleb. Give him a statue with his ancestors. 3d Pleb. Let him be Cæsar." "Let him be Cæsar!" Such is the notion of a republic entertained by the mob of Rome. Their gratitude has no other form of homage but servitude. Antony mounts the chair-at first stormfully received--bespeaking indulgence for Brutus' sake; then opening in a subdued and humbled tone, feeling his way, if deprecating the idea that he came to praise Cæsar or to complain of his fate. Compare the respective commencements of Shakspeare and Voltaire : as "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him; 66 .. Oui, je l'aimais, Romains; Oui, j'aurais de mes jours prolongé ses destins. Hélas! vous avez tous pensé comme moimême, El lorsque de son front otant le diadème, Ce heros à vos lois s'immolait aujourd'hui, Qui de vous, en effet, n'eut expiré pour Jui ?" This is much too rapid, too unprepared an apostrophe. The prejudices of the people had not been soothed, by reminding them, not only how deeply Cæsar had suffered for his fault, if he were ambitious, but also how much certain parts of his conduct contradicted the supposition of his ambition. Before introducing the declinature of the crown his audience how often the ransom of upon the Lupercal, Antony reminds Cæsar's captives had gone into the general coffers, and how," when the poor had cried, Cæsar had wept." "Ambition should be made of sterner stuff!" Only when the way is thus prepared, he reminds them of the refusal of the crown, and asks, was this ambitious? Then first he recalls to their recollection their own love for Cæsar, which Voltaire so inartificially thrusts almost into the opening lines of his oration : "You all did love him once, not without cause What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason! Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar, And I must pause till it come back to me." The contrast is still more remark. able, in the way in which Brutus is spoken of by Shakspeare and by Vol taire. In the Mort de Cæsar, Antony bursts out against him in a torrent of abuse : "Chers amis, je succombe, et mes sens sont interdits: Brutus, son assassin! ce monstre était son fils, Brutus où suis je? O ceil! O crime! O barbarie !" Would the Romans have allowed language like this to be used as to Brutus? Shakspeare, who knew better, makes Antony's tone as to Brutus complimentary throughout. He is an honourable man; so are they all. Even when speaking of the assassina |