and German authors, was the first who painted moral affliction in the highest degree: the bitterness of those sufferings of which he gives us the idea, might pass for the phantoms of imagination, if nature did not recognize her own picture in them.

The ancients believed in a fatality, which came upon them with the rapidity of lightning, and destroyed them like a thunderbolt. The moderns, and more especially Shakspeare, found a much deeper source of emotion in a philosophical distress, which was often composed of irreparable misfortunes, of ineffectual exertions, and blighted hopes. But the ancients inhabited a world yet in its infancy; were in possession of but very few histories; and withal were so sanguine in respect to the future, that the scenes of distress painted by them, could never be so heart-rending as those in the English tragedies.

The terror of death was a sentiment, the effects of which, whether from religion or from stoicism, was seldom displayed by the ancients. Shakspeare has represented it in every point of view: he makes us feel that dreadful emotion which chills the blood of him, who, in the full enjoyment of life and health, learns that death awaits him. In the tragedies of Shakspeare, the criminal and the virtuous, infancy and old age, are alike condemned to die, and express every emotion natural to such a situation. What tenderness do we feel, when we hear the complaints of Arthur, a child condemned to death by the order of King John: or when the assassin Tirrel comes to relate to Richard III. the peaceful slumber of the children of Edward? When a hero is painted just going to be deprived of his existence, the grandeur of his character, and the recollection of his achievements, excite the greatest interest: but when men of weak minds, and doomed to an inglorious destiny, are represented as condemned to perish; such as Henry VI, Richard II, and King Lear; the great debates of nature between existence and non-existence absorb the whole attention of the spectators. Shakspeare knew how to paint with genius that mixture of physical emotions and moral reflections which are inspired by the approach of death, when no intoxicating passion deprives man of his intellectual faculties.

Another sentiment which Shakspeare alone knew how to render theatrical, was pity unmixed with admiration for those who suffer; pity for an insignificant being, and sometimes for a contemptible one. There must be an infinity of talent to be able to convey this sentiment from real life to the stage, and to

* The death of Catherine of Arragon, in " Henry VIII."
†The Duke of Clarence, in "Richard III."

* Cardinal Wolsey, in “Henry VIII”

preserve it in all its force: but when once it is accomplished, the effect which it produces is more nearly allied to reality than any other. It is for the man alone that we are interested, and not by sentiments which are often but a theatrical romance: it is by a sentiment so nearly approaching the impressions of life, that the illusion is still the greater.

Even when Shakspeare represents personages whose career has been illustrious, he draws the interest of the spectators towards them by sentiments purely natural. The circumstances are grand, but the men differ less from other men than those in the French tragedies. Shakspeare makes you penetrate entirely into 'the glory which he paints: in listening to him, you pass through all the different shades and gradations which lead to heroism; and you arrive at the height without perceiving any thing unnatural.

The national pride of the English, that sentiment displayed in their jealous love of liberty, disposed them much less to enthusiasm for their chiefs than that spirit of chivalry which existed in the French monarchy. In England, they wish to recompence the services of a good citizen; but they have no turn for that unbounded ardour which existed in the habits, the institutions, and the character of the French. That haughty repugnance to unlimited obedience, which at all times characterised the English nation, was probably what inspired their national poet with the idea of assailing the passions of his audience by pity rather than by admiration. The tears which were given by the French to the sublime characters of their tragedies, the English author drew forth for private sufferings: for those who were forsaken; and for such a long list of the unfortunate, that we cannot entirely sympathize with Shakspeare's sufferers without acquiring also some of the bitter experience of real life.

But if he excelled in exciting pity, what energy appeared in his terror! It was from the crime itself that he drew dismay and fear. It may be said of crimes painted by Shakspeare, as the Bible says of death, that he is the king of terrors. How skilfully combined are the remorse and the superstition which increases with that remorse in Macbeth.

Witchcraft is in itself much more terrible in its theatrical effect than the most absurd dogmas of religion. That which is unknown, or created by supernatural intelligence, awakens fear and terror to the highest degree. In every religious system, terror is carried only to a certain length, and is always at least founded upon some motive. But the chaos of magic bewilders the mind. Shakspeare, in " Macbeth," admits of fatality, which was necessary in order to procure a pardon for the criminal; but he does not on account of this fatality dispense with the philo

sophical gradations of the sentiments of the mind. This piece would be still more admirable, if its grand effects were produced without the aid of the marvellous, although this marvellous conaists, as one may say, only of phantoms of the imagination, which are made to appear before the eyes of the spectators. They are not mythological personages bringing their fictitious laws or their uninteresting nature amongst the interests of men: they are the marvellous effects of dreams, when the passions are strongly agitated. There is always something philosophical in the supernatural employed by Shakspeare. When the witches announce to Macbeth, that he is to wear the crown; and when they return to repeat the prediction, at the very moment when he is hésitating to follow the bloody counsel of his wife; who cannot see that it is the interior struggle of ambition and virtue which the author meant to represent under those hideous forms?

But he had not recourse to these means in "Richard III;" and yet he has painted him more criminal still than Macbeth: but his intention was to portray a character without any of those involuntary emotions, without struggles, without remorse, cruel and ferocious as the savage beasts which range the forests; and not as a man who, though at present guilty, had once been virtuous. The deep recesses of crimes were opened to the eyes of Shakspeare, and he descended into the gloomy abyss to observe their torments.

In England, the troubles and civil commotions which preceded their liberty, and which were always occasioned by their spi rit of independence, gave rise much oftener than in France to great crimes and great virtues. There are in the English history many more tragical situations than in that of the French; and nothing opposes their exercising their talents upon national subjects.

Almost all the literature of Europe began with affectation. The revival of letters having commenced in Italy, the countries where they were afterwards introduced, naturally imitated the Italian style. The people of the north were much sooner enfranchised than the French in this studied mode of writing; the traces of which may be perceived in some of the ancient English poets, as Waller, Cowley, and others. Civil wars and a spirit of philosophy have corrected this false taste; for misfortune, the impressions of which contain but too much variety, excludes all sentiments of affectation, and reason banishes all expressions that are deficient in justness.

Nevertheless, we find in Shakspeare a few of those studied turns connected even with the most energetic pictures of the passions. There are some imitations of the faults of Italian lite

rature in "Romeo and Juliet:" but how nobly the English poet rises from this miserable style!-how well does he know how to describe love, even in the true spirit of the north!

In "Othello," love assumes a very different character from that which it bears in "Romeo and Juliet." But how grand, how energetic it appears! how beautifully Shakspeare has represented what forms the tie of the different sexes, courage and weakness! When Othello protests before the senate of Venice, that the only art which he had employed to win the affection of Desdemona were the perils to which he had been exposed;* how every word he utters is felt by the female sex; their hearts ac knowledge it all to be true. They know that it is not flattery, in which consists the powerful art of men to make themselves beloved, but the kind protection which they may afford the timid object of their choice: the glory which they may reflect upon their feeble life, is their most irresistible charm.

The manners and customs of the English relating to the existence of women, were not yet settled in the time of Shaks peare; political troubles had been a great hindrance to social habits. The rank which women held in tragedy, was then ab. solutely at the will of the author: therefore Shakspeare, in speak. ing of them, sometimes uses the most noble language that can be inspired by love, and at other times the lowest taste that was popular. This genius, given by passion, was inspired by it, as the priests were by their gods: they gave out oracles when they were agitated; but were no more than men, when calm.

Those pieces taken from the English history, such as the two upon Henry IV, that upon Henry V, and the three upon Henry VI, have an unlimited success in England: nevertheless I believe them to be much inferior in general to his tragedies of invention, "King Lear," " Macbeth," "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," &c. The irregularities of time and place are much more remarkable. In short, Shakspeare gives up to the popular taste in these, more than in any other of his works. The discovery of the press necessarily diminished the condescension of authors to the national taste: they paid more respect to the general opinion of Europe; and though it was of the greatest importance that those pieces which were to be played should meet with success at the representation, since a means was found out of extending their fame to other nations; the writers took more

What charming verses are those which terminate the justification of Othello, and which La Harpe has so ably translated into truth!"

"She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;

And I lov'd her that she did pity them."-SHAKSPEARE, "Elle aima mes malheurs, et j'aimai sa pitie.”—La HARPE

*

pains to shun those illusions and pleasantries which could please only the people of their own nation. The English, however, were very backward in submitting to the general good taste: their liberty being founded more upon national pride than philosophical ideas, they rejected every thing that came from strangers, both in literature and politics.

Before it would be possible to judge of the effects of an English tragedy, which might be proper for the French stage, an examination remains to be made, which is, to distinguish in the pieces of Shakspeare, that which was written to please the people; the real faults which he committed; and those spirited beauties which the severe rules of the French tragedies exclude from their stage.

The crowd of spectators in England require that comic scenes should succeed tragic effects. The contrast of what is noble with that which is not, as I have observed before, always produces a disagreeable impression upon men of taste. A noble style must have shades; but a too glaring opposition is nothing more than fantasticalness. That play upon words, those licentious equivocations, popular tales, and that string of proverbs, which are handed down from generation to generation, and are, as one may say, the patrimonial ideas of the common people; all these are applauded by the multitude, and censured by reason. These have no connexion with the sublime effects which Shakspeare drew from simple words and common circumstances artfully arranged, which the French most absurdly would fear to bring upon their stage.

Shakspeare, when he wrote the parts of vulgar minds in his tragedies, sheltered himself from the judgment of taste by rendering himself the object of popular admiration: he then conducted himself like an able chief, but not like a good writer.

The people of the north existed during many centuries, in a state that was at once both social and barbarous; which left for a long time the vestiges of the rude and ferocious. Traces of this recollection are to be found in many of Shakspeare's characters, which are painted in the style that was most admired in those ages, in which they only lived for combats, physical power, and military courage.

We may also perceive in Shakspeare some of the ignorance of his century with regard to the principles of literature; his powers are superior to the Greek tragedies for the philosophy of the passions, and the knowledge of mankind:* but he was

Among the great number of philosophical traits which are remarked even in the least celebrated works of Shakspeare, there is one with which I was singularly struck. In that piece intitled Measure for Measure, Lucien, the friend of Claudius, and brother to Isabella, presses her to go and sue for his VOL. I. New Series.

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