"Midst the placid murmurings of Love
Rolls the rough tide of Gothick force along."
His "Julia" (1787), another popular play with his usual abundance of soliloquies, tells a story of Elizabethan villany; and there were a few other Gothic attempts, as Cumberland's "Carmelite" (1784), before Lewis's "Castle Spectre" (1797) carried the town by storm. The further history of the terrific tragedies belongs to the next chapter, as does that of the German importations which culminated in the craze for Kotzebue, but it may be noted here that "Werter," acted in 1785, and "Emilia Galotti," acted in 1794, were among the earlier indications of German influence on the stage.
By 1790 the decadence of English tragedy had apparently run its course and nearly come to a full stop. The freedom and independence of Elizabethan days had degenerated by the time of Charles I into a fairly definite type. That type, maintained in the Restoration period, though with modifications and innovations, had now become conventionalized, debased, sterile. French influence had proved unprocreative. In spite of the activities of the theatres, the inspiration of Shakespeare, and the assistance of great actors and actresses, tragedy had failed to produce literature comparable to that of its rival, the novel. The drama, to be sure, had played a large part, both in tragedy and comedy, in reflecting and promoting the sentimentality and moralizing common in the literature of the century; Otway, Southerne, and Rowe had in a way fathered the sentimental novels. But in tragedy their Isabellas and Calistas had no successors to rank with Clarissa and Amelia. If tragedy through its alliance with sentiment failed of permanent advance, it was still more unsuccessful in representing the reasonableness, typicality, and austerity which the classical conception required. It was half-hearted, turning now to Shakespeare, now to Voltaire, but never producing anything not conventionalized and dull. The escapes from its dullness remained until the very end of the century only half-opened doors. Through the door opened by "Barnwell" and "The Gamester," the drama saw only the broad path that led back to sentimentality and overlooked the straight and narrow way leading to realism and truth. Over the threshold that opened to medieval castles and chambers of horrors it was still hesitating. The divorce between literature and the stage had widened, and tragedy failed to attract genius to its rescue. Crabbe did not write a tragedy of the village, and Burns did not summon poetry and passion to the stage.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ward's History of Dramatic Literature ends with the death of Queen Anne; and there is no adequate history of the English drama for the last two centuries, and no good bibliography. Genest continues to be the main source of information. Lowe's Bibliographical Account and the histories of the theatre noted in the last chapter are useful for the matter of the present. In addition, The History and Illustration of the London Theatres, by Chas. Dibdin, Jr. (1826); Victor's History of the Theatres of London and Dublin (1761); W. C. Dalton's History of the Theatres, 1771-95; and The Dramatic Censor (1770) become available for this period. A large number of memoirs of actors also supply information in regard to the drama. An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian, written by himself (1750), reviews the Restoration period as well. Others of interest are: Davies's Memoirs of Garrick (1780); Murphy's Life of Garrick (1801); Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons (1827) and Memoirs of Kemble (1825); Cumberland's Memoir (1806); Mudford's Critical Examination of the Writings of Richard Cumberland, etc. (1812); Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald (1833); Private Correspondence of David Garrick (1831-32); Holcroft's Memoirs, ed. by Hazlitt (1816); Cooke's Memoirs of Charles Macklin (2d ed., 1808).
The plays by authors of note can be found in the collected editions of their works, the more popular plays in the various collections noted in the last chapter. The majority of the tragedies, however, have never been reprinted and can be obtained only in the original editions. Dramatic criticism of the period can be studied in various essays by Addison, Steele, Gildon, Dennis, and Dr. Johnson, especially his Preface to the edition of Shakespeare and his Lives of the Poets. Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism (1762) was highly approved in its own day; and several essays on tragedy are of historical interest: William Guthrie's Essay on Tragedy (1747); Mrs. Montagu's Essay on the Genius and Writing of Shakespeare (1769); Edwin Taylor's Cursory Remarks on Tragedy (1774); William Cook's Elements of Dramatic Criticism (1775); and Hodson's Observations on Tragedy, prefixed to his tragedy Zoraida (1780).
Beljame's Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre bears on this as on the preceding chapter. Voltaire's influence on English tragedy has never been fully studied, but the following recent books bear on his relations with England: A. Ballantyne's Voltaire's Visit to England (1893); J. Churton Collins's Bolingbroke, a historical study, and Voltaire in England (1886); Lounsbury's Shakespeare and Voltaire (1902), which gives much information on the drama and criticism of the period and sufficient directory to Voltaire's comment on the English drama; and Jusserand's Shakespeare en France, which is also very valuable for this period. Miss Canfield's study of Corneille and Racine in England is also of marked service; and L. Morel's James Thomson (Paris, 1895) gives a very full study of Thomson's plays and literary relations. The Belles-Lettres Series contains editions with introductions of plays of Rowe, ed. Miss Sophie Hart; and of Lillo, ed. A. W. Ward (1906). Dr. Ward's introduction is particularly valuable for its sketch of the course of domestic tragedy and sentimental comedy on the continent. From the notes in these various studies, and from La Littérature comparée, essai bibliographique, by Louis P. Betz, Strasbourg, 1904, direction can be had to a number of monographs dealing with special phases of the relations between the dramas of England and France, and, toward the end of the century, between England and Germany.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] For comparisons of the two plays, see Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on the Drama," Cumberland's Observer, Nos. 77, 78, 79; and Gifford's introduction to his edition of Massinger.
[29] See Corneille and Racine in England. Dorothea Canfield. New York, 1904.