It was not thus in other countries, or in former times. Homer was the first, and still is one of the greatest, of dramatic poets; the Iliad is a tragedy arranged in the garb of an epic poem. Æschylus borrowed, Prometheus-like, the divine fire, and embodied the energy of Dante and the soul of Milton in his sublime tragedies. Sophocles and Euripides were contemporary with Pericles and Phidias; the same age witnessed the Clouds of Aristophanes, the death of Socrates, and the history of Thucydides. The warlike and savage genius of the Romans made them prefer the excitement of the amphitheatre to the entrancement of the theatre; but the comedies of Plautus and Terence remain durable monuments, that the genius of dramatic poetry among them advanced abreast of the epic or lyric muse. The names of Alfieri, Metastasio, and Goldoni, demonstrate that modern Italy has successfully cultivated the dramatic as well as the epic muse; the tragedies of the first are worthy the country of Tasso, the operas of the second rival the charms of Petrarch. In the Spanish peninsula, Lope de Vega and Calderon have astonished the world by the variety and prodigality of their conceptions;[J] and fully vindicated the title of the Castilians to place their dramatic writers on a level with their great epic poets.
Need it be told that France stands pre-eminent in dramatic excellence; that Corneille, Racine, and Molière, were contemporaries of Bossuet, Massillon, and Boileau; that the tragedies of Voltaire were the highest effort of his vast and varied genius? Germany, albeit the last-born in the literary family of Europe, has already vindicated its title to a foremost place in this noble branch of composition; for Lessing has few modern rivals in the perception of dramatic excellence, and Schiller none in the magnificent historic mirror which he has placed on the stage of the Fatherland. How, then, has it happened, that when, in all other nations which have risen to greatness in the world, the genius of dramatic poetry has kept pace with its eminence in all other respects, in England alone the case is the reverse; and the nation which has surpassed all others in the highest branches of poetry, eloquence, and history, is still obliged to recur to the patriarch of a comparatively barbarous age for a parallel to the great dramatic writers of other states?
The worshippers of Shakspeare tell us, that this has been owing to his very greatness; that he was so much above other men as to defy competition and extinguish rivalry; and that genius, in despair of ever equalling his vast and varied conceptions, has turned aside into other channels where the avenue to the highest distinction was not blocked up by the giant of former days. But a little reflection must be sufficient to convince every candid inquirer, that this consideration not only does not explain the difficulty but augments it. Genius is never extinguished by genius; on the contrary, it is created by it. The divine flame passes from one mind to another similarly constituted. Thence the clusters of great men who, at intervals, have appeared simultaneously and close to each other in the world, and the long intervening periods of mediocrity or imitation. Did the immortal genius of Dante destroy subsequent poetic excellence in Italy? Let Tasso, Ariosto, Metastasio, and Alfieri, answer. Homer did not extinguish Æschylus—he created him. Greek tragedy is little more than the events following the siege of Troy dramatised. The greatness of Sophocles did not crush the rising genius of Euripides—on the contrary, it called it forth; and these two great masters of the dramatic muse thrice contended with each other for the prize awarded by the Athenians to dramatic excellence.[K] The great Corneille did not annihilate rivalry in the dramatic genius of France—on the contrary, he produced it; his immortal tragedies were immediately succeeded by the tenderness of Racine, the wit of Molière, the versatility of Voltaire. Lessing in Germany was soon outstripped by the vast mind of Schiller. Michael Angelo, vast as his genius was, did not distance all competitors in Italy; he was speedily followed and excelled by Raphael; and when the boy Correggio saw Raphael's pictures, he said—"I, too, am a painter." Did the transcendent greatness of Burke close in despair the eloquent lips of Pitt and Fox; or the mighty genius of Scott quench the rising star of Byron? We repeat it—genius is never extinguished by genius; it is created by it.
But if the state of dramatic poetry in Great Britain since the time of Shakspeare affords matter of surprise, the late history and present state of the drama, as it appears on the stage, afford subject of wonder and regret. We are continually speaking of the lights of the age, of the vast spread of popular information, of the march of intellect, and the superiority of this generation in intelligence and refinement over all that have gone before it. Go into any of the theatres of London at this moment, and consider what evidence they afford of this boasted advance and superiority. Time was when the versatile powers of Garrick enchanted the audience; and exhibited alternately the perfection of the comic and the dignity of the tragic muse. Mrs Siddons, supreme in greatness, has trod those boards; Kemble, the "last of all the Romans," has, in comparatively recent times, bade them farewell. Miss O'Neil, with inferior soul, but equal physical powers; Kean, with the energy, but unhappily the weaknesses of genius, kept up the elevation of the stage. Talent, and that too of a very high class, genius of the most exalted kind, are not awanting to support the long line of British theatric greatness; the names of Charles Kean, Fanny Kemble, and Helen Faucit are sufficient to prove, that if the stage is in a state of decrepitude, the fault lies much more with the authors or the public, than with the performers.[L] But all is unavailing. Despite the most persevering and laudable efforts to restore the dignity of the theatre, and revive the sway of the legitimate drama, in which Mr Macready has so long borne so conspicuous a part, Tragedy in the metropolis is almost banished from the stage. It has been supplanted by the melodrama, dancing, and singing. It has been driven off the field by Timour the Tartar. Drury-Lane, sanctified by so many noble recollections, has become an English opera-house. Covent-Garden is devoted to concerts, and hears the tragic muse no more. Even in the minor theatres, where tragedy is sometimes attempted, it can only be relied on for transient popularity. Its restoration was attempted at the Princess's Theatre in Oxford Street, but apparently with no remarkable success; and the tragedies of Othello and Hamlet, supported by the talent of Macready, required to be eked out by Mrs Candle's Curtain Lectures. We are no strangers to the talent displayed at many of the minor theatres both by the authors and performers; and we are well aware that the varied population of every great metropolis requires several such places of amusement. What we complain of is, that they engross every thing; that tragedy and the legitimate drama are nearly banished from the stage in all but the provincial cities, where, of course, it never can rise to the highest eminence.
All the world are conscious of the reality of this change, and many different explanations have been attempted of it. It is said that modern manners are inconsistent with frequenting the theatre: that the late hours of dinners preclude the higher classes from going to it; that the ladies' dresses are soiled by the seats in the boxes, before going to balls. The austerity of principle, in the strictly religious portion of the community, is justly considered as a great bar to dramatic success; as it keeps from the theatre a large part of society, which, from the integrity and purity of its principles, would, if it frequented such places of amusement, be more likely than any other to counteract its downward tendency. The hideous mass of profligacy which in London, in the absence of the better classes of society, has seized upon the principal theatres as its natural prey, is loudly complained of by the heads of families; and the audience is, in consequence, too often turned into little more than strangers, or young men in quest of dissipation, and ladies of easy virtue in quest of gain. The spread of reading, and vast addition to the amount of talent devoted to the composition of novels and romances, is another cause generally considered as mainly instrumental in producing the neglect of the theatre. Sir Walter Scott, it is said, has brought the drama to our fireside: we draw in our easy-chairs when the winds of winter are howling around us, and cease to long for Hamlet in reading the Bride of Lammermoor. There is some reality in all these causes assigned for the decline of the legitimate drama in this country; they are the truth, but they are not the whole truth. A very little consideration will at once show, that it is not to any or all of these causes, that the decline of the higher branches of this noble art in Great Britain is to be ascribed.
Modern manners, late dinners, ball-dresses, and the Houses of Parliament, are doubtless serious obstacles to the higher classes of the nobility and gentry frequently attending the theatre; but the example of the Opera-house, which is crowded night after night with the élite of that very class, is sufficient to demonstrate, that all these difficulties can be got over, when people of fashion make up their minds to go to a place of amusement, even where not one in ten understand the language in which the piece is composed. The strictness of principle—mistaken, as we deem it, and hurtful in its effects—which keeps away a large and important portion of the middle and most respectable portion of the community, at all times, and in all places, from the theatre, is without doubt a very serious impediment to dramatic success, and in nothing so much so, as in throwing the patronage and direction of its performance into the hands of a less scrupulous part of society. But these strict principles, ever since the Great Rebellion, have pervaded a considerable portion of British society; and yet how nobly was the stage supported during the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth century, in the days of Garrick, Siddons, and Kemble! The great number of theatres which are nightly open in the metropolis, and rapidly increasing in all the principal cities of the kingdom, demonstrates, that the play-going portion of the community is sufficiently numerous to support the stage, generally in respectability, at times in splendour. Without doubt, the licentiousness of the saloons of the great theatres in London is a most serious evil, and it well deserves the consideration of Government, whether some means should not be taken for its correction; but is the Opera-house so very pure in its purlieus? and are the habitual admirers of the ballet likely to be corrupted by occasionally seeing Othello and Juliet? The prevailing, and in fact universal, passion for reading novels at home, unquestionably affords an inexhaustible fund of domestic amusement; but does experience prove that the imagination once kindled, the heart once touched, are willing to stop short in the quest of excitement—to be satisfied with imperfect gratification? Novel-reading is as common on the Continent as in this country; but still the legitimate drama exhibits no such appearances of decrepitude in its Capitals. The masterpieces of Corneille and Racine are still constantly performed to crowded houses at Paris; the theatres of Italy resound with the melody of Metastasio, the dignity of Alfieri; and singing and the melodrama have nowhere banished Schiller's tragedies from the boards of Vienna and Berlin.
We have said, that while we appreciate the motives, and respect the principles, which prevent so large a portion of the middle class of society from frequenting the theatre, we lament their determination, and regard it as an evil even greater to the morality than it is to the genius of the nation. In truth, it is founded on a mistaken view of the principles which influence human nature; and it would be well if moralists, and the friends of mankind, would reconsider the subject, before, in this country at least, it is too late. The love of the drama is founded on the deepest, the most universal, the noblest principles of our nature. It exists, and ever will exist. For good or for evil, its influence is immovable. We cannot extirpate, or even tangibly abridge its sway; the art of Æschylus and Shakspeare, of Sophocles and Racine, of Euripides and Schiller, is not to be extinguished by the reputable but contracted ideas of a limited portion of society. God has not made it sweeter to weep with those who weep, than to rejoice with those who rejoice, for no purpose. Look at the Arabs, as they cluster round the story-teller who charms the groups of Yemen, or the knots of delighted faces which surround the Polchinello of Naples, and you will see how universal is the passions in mankind for theatrical representations. But though we cannot eradicate the desire for this gratification, we may degrade its tendency, and corrupt its effects. We may substitute stimulants to the senses for elevation to the principle, or softening of the heart. By abandoning its direction to the most volatile and licentious of the community, we may render it an instrument of evil instead of good, and pervert the powers of genius, the magic of art, the fascinations of beauty, to the destruction instead of the elevation of the human soul.
It is for this reason that we lament, as a serious social and national evil, the long interregnum in dramatic excellence in our writers, and the woful degradation in the direction of dramatic representations at our metropolitan theatres. Immense is the influence of lofty and ennobling dramatic pieces when supported by able and impassioned actors. As deleterious is the sway of questionable or immoral pieces when decked out in the meretricious garb of fancy, or aided by the transient attractions of beauty. Who can tell how much the heart-stirring appeals of Shakspeare have done to string to lofty purposes the British heart; how powerfully the dignified sentiments of Corneille have contributed to sustain the heroic portions of the French character? "C'est l'imagination," said Napoleon, "qui domine le monde." The drama has one immense advantage over the pulpit or the professor's chair: it fascinates while it instructs—it allures while it elevates. It thus extends its influence over a wide and important circle, upon whom didactic precepts will never have any influence. Without doubt, the strong and deep foundations of public morality must be laid in religious and moral instruction; if they are wanting, the social edifice, how fair soever to appearance, is built on a bed of sand. But fully admitting this—devoutly looking to our national Establishment for the formation of public principle—to our schools and colleges for the training of the national intellect—the experienced observer, aware of the sway of active principles over the human soul, will not neglect the subordinate but still powerful aid to be derived, in the great work of elevating and ennobling society, from the emotions which may be awakened at the theatre—the enthusiasm so often excited by tragic excellence. The thing to be dreaded with the great bulk of the spectators—that is, by far the largest portion of mankind—is not their avowed infidelity and their open wickedness; it is the sway of the degrading or selfish passions which is chiefly dangerous. The thing to be feared is, not that they will say there is no God, but that they will live altogether without God in the world. How important, then, that genius should be called in here to the aid of virtue, and the fascinations of the highest species of excellence employed to elevate, where so many causes exist to degrade the soul!
"Cosi all egro fanciul' porgiamo aspersi,
Di soave licor gli orli del Vaso;
Succhi amari, ingannato intanto ei beve,
Et dall' inganno suo vita riceve."
The elevating influence of the noble sentiments with which the higher dramatic works abound, is more loudly called for in this than it has been in any former period of British history. We are no longer in the age of enthusiasm. The days of chivalry have gone by—and gone by, it is feared, never to return. We are in the age of commerce and the mechanical arts. Material appliances, creature comforts,—stimulants to the senses—now form the great moving power of society. Gain is every where sought after with the utmost avidity; but it is sought not for any lofty object, but on account of the substantial physical comforts with which the possession of riches is attended. Sensuality, disguised under the veil of elegance, refinement, and accomplishment, is making rapid strides amongst us. It does so in all old, wealthy, and long-established communities; it is the well-known and oft-described premonitory symptom of national decline. We can scarce venture to hope, we should find in the British empire at this period the enthusiasm which manned the ramparts of Sarragossa, the patriotism which fired the torches of Moscow. We should find united, too generally it is to be feared, at least in a considerable portion, the timidity and selfishness which signed the capitulation of Venice. How important, then, to gain possession of so mighty a lever for moving the general mind, and counteracting the selfishness which is degrading society, as the enthusiasm of the theatre affords; and instead of permitting it to fall into the hands of vice, to become the handmaid of licentiousness, to turn its vast powers to the rousing of elevated sentiments, the strengthening of virtuous resolutions, the nourishing of generous emotions! Whoever succeeds in this, whether author, actor, or actress, is a friend to the best interests of humanity, and is to be ranked with the benefactors of the human race.