French Comedy—Molière—Criticism of his Works—Scarron, Boursault,
Regnard; Comedies in the Time of the Regency; Marivaux and Destouches;
Piron and Gresset—Later Attempts—The Heroic Opera: Quinault—Operettes
and Vaudevilles—Diderot's attempted Change of the Theatre—The Weeping
Drama—Beaumarchais—Melo-Dramas—Merits and Defects of the Histrionic Art.
LECTURE XXII.
Comparison of the English and Spanish Theatres—Spirit of the Romantic
Drama—Shakspeare—His Age and the Circumstances of his Life.
LECTURE XXIII.
Ignorance or Learning of Shakspeare—Costume as observed by Shakspeare, and how far necessary, or may be dispensed with, in the Drama—Shakspeare the greatest drawer of Character—Vindication of the genuineness of his pathos—Play on Words—Moral Delicacy—Irony-Mixture of the Tragic and Comic—The part of the Fool or Clown—Shakspeare's Language and Versification.
LECTURE XXIV.
Criticisms on Shakspeare's Comedies.
LECTURE XXV.
Criticisms on Shakspeare's Tragedies.