[50] This criticism reaches the French dramatic writers in general, with very few exceptions. Their tragedies are mostly, if not totally, descriptive. Corneille led the way; and later writers following his track, have accustomed the French ear to a style, formal, pompous, declamatory, which suits not with any passion. Hence it becomes an easy task to burlesk a French tragedy: it is not more difficult than to burlesk a stiff solemn fop. The facility of the operation has in Paris introduced a singular amusement, which is, to burlesk the more successful tragedies in a sort of farce, called a parody. La Motte, who himself appears to have been sorely galled by some of these burlesk compositions, acknowledges, that no more is necessary to give them a run, than barely to vary the dramatis personæ, and in place of kings and heroes, queens and princesses, to substitute tinkers and tailors, milkmaids and seamstresses. The declamatory style, so different from the genuine expression of passion, passes in some measure unobserved, when great personages are the speakers. But in the mouths of the vulgar, the impropriety, with regard to the speaker as well as to the passion represented, is so remarkable as to become ridiculous. A tragedy, where every passion is made to speak in its natural tone, is not liable to be thus burlesked. The same passion is by all men expressed nearly in the same manner: and therefore the genuine expressions of passion cannot be ridiculous in the mouth of any man, provided only he be of such a character as to be susceptible of the passion.
It is a well-known fact, that to an English ear the French actors appear to pronounce with too great rapidity; a complaint much insisted on by Cibber in particular, who had frequently heard the famous Baron upon the French stage. This may in some measure be attributed to our want of facility in the French language; as foreigners generally imagine, that every language is pronounced too quick by natives. But that it is not the sole cause, will be probable from a fact directly opposite, that the French are not a little disgusted with the languidness, as they term it, of the English pronunciation. I conjecture this difference of taste may be derived from what is observed above. The pronunciation of the genuine language of passion is necessarily directed by the nature of the passion, and by the slowness or celerity of its progress. In particular, plaintive passions, which are the most frequent in tragedy, having a slow motion, dictate a slow pronunciation. In declamation again, which is not the genuine language of any passion, the speaker warms gradually; and as he warms, he naturally accelerates his pronunciation. But as the French have formed their tone of pronunciation upon Corneille’s declamatory tragedies, and the English upon the more natural language of Shakespear, it is not surprising that custom should produce such difference of taste in the two nations.
[51] See chap. 2. part 3.
[52] See chap. 2. part 7.
[53] Titus Livius, l. 29. §17.
[54] Canto 20. stan. 124. 125. & 126.
[55] Page 316.
[56] Act 1. sc. 1.
[57] Act 2. sc. 1.
[58] Beginning of act 2.