humour the most genuine, and, what is far more extraordinary, propriety of sentiment, and delicacies of conduct, where, from his low opportunities, failure had been pardonable. A fidelity to character so minute, that it seems rather the accuracy of individual history, marking the incidental deviations, and delineating the casual humours of actual life, than the invention of the poet. Shakspeare has seized every turn and flexure of the ever-varying mind of man in all its fluctuating forms; touched it in all its changeful shades, and marked it in all its nicer gradations, as well as its more abrupt varieties. He exhibits the whole internal structure of man; uniting the correctness of anatomy with the exactness of delineation, the graces of proportion, and often the highest beauty of colouring. But, with these excellencies, the works of this most unequal of all poets contain so much that is vulgar, so much that is absurd, and so much that is impure; so much indecent levity, false wit, and gross description, that he should only be read in parcels, and with the nicest selection. His more exceptionable pieces should not be read at all; and even of the best, much may be omitted. But the qualified perusal here suggested may, on account of his wonderful acquaintance with the human heart, be attended with peculiar advantages to readers of the class in question, one of whose chief studies should be that of mankind, and who, from the circumstance of station and sex, have few direct and safe means of acquiring a knowledge of the world, and an acquaintance with the various characters which compose it. To the three celebrated Greek tragedians we have already adverted, as uniting, with the loftiest powers of genius, a general prevalence of virtuous, and often even of pious sentiments. The scenes with which they abound, of meritorious, of suffering, of imprudent, of criminal, of rash, and of penitent princes; of royalty under every vicissitude of passion, of character, and circumstance, will furnish an interesting and not unprofitable entertainment. And Mr. Potter has put the English_reader in possession of these ancient bards, of Eschylus especially, in a manner highly honourable to his own taste and learning. * Most of the tragedies of Racine are admirably written, and are unexceptionable in almost all respects. They possess, though conveyed in the poor vehicle of French versification, all the dramatic requisites, and to their author we can safely ascribe one merit superior even to that of the critical exactness with which he has regulated the unities of his plays by Aristotle's clock; we mean his constant care not to offend against modesty or religion. His Athalie exhibits at once a chef d'œuvre of the dramatic art, a proof of what exquisite poetic beauties the Bible histories are susceptible; a salutary warning to princes on the miseries attendant upon treachery, impiety, and ambition; and a lively instance, of not only the private value, but the great political importance, of eminently able and pious ministers of religion. If the Italian language should form a part of the royal education, we might name Metastasiot as * It is a curious circumstance in the history of French dramatic poetry, that the measure used by their best poets in their sublimist tragedies is the anapastic, which, in our language, is not only the lightest and most undignified of all the poetic measures, but is still more degraded by being chiefly applied to burlesque subjects. It is amusing to an English ear, to hear the Brutus of Racine, the Cid of Corneille, and the Orosmane and Orestes of Voltaire, declaim, philosophize, sigh, and rave in the precise measure of A cobler there was, and he lived in a stall. † Pietro Metastasio, an Italian ecclesiastic, wrote several highly esteemed dramas for the imperial theatre at Vienna, where he died at the age of 84, in 1782.-ED. quite inoffensive in a moral view, though necessarily mixing something of the flimsy texture of the opera with the severer graces of Melpomene. His muse possesses an equable and steady pinion: if she seldom soars into sublimity, she never sinks to meanness; she is rather elegant and pleasing, than vigorous or lofty. His sacred dramas are particularly excellent, and are scarcely less interesting to the reader of taste than of piety. They are also exempt from a certain monotony, which makes his other pieces too much to resemble each other. It is with no small regret that, persuaded as we are that England is the rich native soil of dramatic genius, we are driven to the painful necessity of recommending exotics in preference to the indigenous productions of our own fruitful clime. The truth is, that though we possess in our language admirable single pieces, yet our tragic poets have afforded scarce any instances, except Milton in his exquisite Comus and Samson Agonistes, and Mason in his chaste and classic dramas, in which we can conscientiously recommend their entire, unweeded volumes, as never deviating from that correctness and purity which should be the inseparable attendant on the tragic muse.† * We shall indeed find not only that virtuous scenes, and even pious sentiments, are scattered throughout most of our popular tragedies, but that the general moral also is frequently striking and impressive. Its end, however, is often defeated by the means employed to accomplish it. In how many, for instance, of the favourite tragedies of Rowe and Otway, which are most frequently acted, The Rev. William Mason, precentor of York, wrote two dramatic poems on the Grecian model; "Caractacus" and "Elfrida."-ED. + Thomson's tragedies furnish the best exception to this remark, of any with which the author is acquainted. do we find passages, and even whole scenes, of a directly contrary tendency; passages calculated to awaken those very passions which it was the professed object of the author to counteract! First raising a combustion of desire, With some cold moral they would quench the fire. When we contrast the purity, and I had almost said the piety of the works of the tragic poets of pagan Greece, and even the more select ones of popish France, with some of the pieces of the most shining bards of protestant Britain, do they not all appear to have been in an inverse ratio with the advantages which their authors enjoyed? It may be objected that, in speaking of poetic composition, we have dwelt so long, and almost so exclusively, on the drama. It would indeed have been far more pleasant to range at large through the whole flowery fields of the muses, where we could have gathered much that is sweet, and much that is salutary. But we must not indulge in excursions which are merely pleasurable. We have, on all occasions, made it a point not to recommend books because they are pleasant, or even good, but because they are appropriate. And as it is notorious that gorgeous tragedy With sceptred pall comes sweeping by, that she prefers the splendid scenes of royal courts to the retired walks of private life; that she delights to exemplify virtue, to designate vice, or dignify calamity, by chusing her personages among kings and princes; we therefore thought it might not be altogether unuseful, in touching on this topic, to distinguish between such authors as are safe, and such as are dangerous; by mentioning those of the one class with deserved commendation, and by generally passing over the names of the others in silence. CHAPTER XXXI. Books of instruction, &c. Lord Bacon, &c. IN the "prophet of unborn science," who brought into use a logic almost entirely new, and who rejected the study of words for that of things, the royal pupil may see the way, rarely used before his time, of arguing by induction; a logic grounded upon observation, fact, and experiment. To estimate the true value of lord Bacon, we should recollect what was the state of learning when he appeared; we should remember with what a mighty hand he overthrew the despotism of that absurd system which had kept true knowledge in shackles, arrested the progress of sound philosophy, and blighted the growth of the human intellect. His first aim was to clear the ground, by rooting out the preconceived errors, and obstinate prejudices, which long prescription had established; and then to substitute what was useful, in place of that idle and fruitless speculation which had so long prevailed. He was almost the first rational investigator of the laws of nature, who made genuine truth and sound knowledge, and not a barren curiosity and an unprofitable ingenuity, the object of his pursuit. His instances are all said to be collected with as much judgment, as they are recorded with simplicity. He teaches the important art of viewing a question on all sides, and of eliciting truth from the result; and he always makes reasoning and experiment go hand in hand, mutually illustrating each other. |