Two periods of the English theatre;-the first the most im- portant. The first conformation of the stage, and its ad- vantages.-State of the histrionic art in Shakspeare's time.- Antiquities of dramatic literature. Lilly, Marlow, Hey- wood. Ben Jonson.- Criticism of his works. - Masks.- Beaumont and Fletcher.-General characterisation 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.-Characterisation of the comic poets from Wycherley and Congreve to the middle of the eighteenth century.— Tragedies of the same period. - Rowe.-Addison's Cato. 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 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. CONTINUATION OF LECTURE X. FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE. 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 general way, alluded to the changes and enlargements which he projected, and partly carried into execution. Corneille and Racine may be said to have led a true artist's life: they were dramatic poets with their whole soul; their desire, as authors, was confined to that object alone, and all their studies were directed to the stage. But Voltaire wished to shine in every possible department; 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 employed, it was impossible for him to avoid shallowness and immaturity 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 characteristic 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 important 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 thinking began at length to be felt : it unfortunately happened, however, that bold presumption hurried far before profound enquiry, 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, rhetorician, sophist, and buffoon. The impurity by which his views were in part characterised, was irreconcileable with a complete impartiality in his theatrical career. As he saw the public longing for information, which was rather tolerated by the favour of the great than authorized and formally approved of by the public institutions, he did not fail to meet their wishes, and to deliver, 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; and this has often polluted the poetical purity of his compositions. In Mahomet he wished to exhibit the dangers of fanaticism, or rather, laying aside all circumlocution, the belief in any revelation whatever. For this purpose, he has most unjustifiably disfigured a great historical character, loaded him in a revolting 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 triumph for his vanity, by making Christian sentiments in Zaire and Alzire the means of exciting our emotion and here for once his versatile heart, feeling for goodness in which was susceptible of a momentary ebullitions, shamed the rooted malice of his understanding; he actually succeeded, and these affecting and religious passages cry out loudly against him for the idle abuse in which his petulant ignorance so often indulged. In England he acquired a knowledge of a freer constitution, and became an enthusiastic 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 popular 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 was 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 absurdities. 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 occasionally remained half way between studies and finished productions; 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 any thing of a higher or different description. Voltaire's claims are much more extensive than his means. Corneille has expressed the maxims of heroism with greater sublimity, and Racine the natural emotions with greater sweetness; but we must allow that Voltaire has introduced the springs of mora |