LETTER XVII.
Paris.
Considering the natural gaiety and volatility of the French nation, I have often been surprised at their fondness for tragedy, especially as their tragedies are barren of incident, full of long dialogues, and declamatory speeches;—and modelled according to the strictest code of critical legislation.
The most sprightly and fashionable people of both sexes flock to these entertainments in preference to all others, and listen with unrelaxed gravity and attention. One would imagine that such a serious, correct and uniform amusement, would be more congenial with the phlegm, and saturnine dispositions of the English, than with the gay, volatile temper of the French.
An English audience loves show, bustle and incident, in their tragedies; and have a mortal aversion to long dialogues and speeches, however fine the sentiments, and however beautiful the language may be.
In this it would seem, that the two nations had changed characters. Perhaps it would be difficult to account for it in a satisfactory manner. I shall not attempt it. A Frenchman would cut the matter short, by saying, that the Paris audience has a more correct and just taste than that of London; that the one could be amused and delighted with poetry and sentiment, while the other could not be kept awake without bustle, guards, processions, trumpets, fighting, and murder.
For my own part, I admire the French Melpomene more in the closet than on the stage. I cannot be reconciled to the French actors of tragedy. Their pompous manner of declaiming seems to me very unnatural. The strut, and superb gestures, and what they call la manière noble, of their boasted Le Kain, appear, in my eyes, a little outrè.
The justness, the dignified simplicity, the energy of Garrick’s action, have destroyed my relish for any manner different from his. That exquisite, but concealed art, that magic power, by which he could melt, freeze, terrify the soul, and command the obedient passions as he pleased, we look for in vain, upon our own, or any other stage.
What Horace said of Nature, may be applied with equal justice to that unrivalled actor: