a loud shout and clapping proceeded from the Royalists; but I fancy if hands had been shown these last would have been in a sad minority. I have often amused myself with comparing the Mérope of Voltaire with that of Maffei and am puzzled to which to give the preference. Maffei has made Polyphonte a more odious and perhaps on that account a more theatrical character, while Voltaire's Polyphonte is more in real life. In the play of Voltaire he is a rough brutal soldier, void of delicacy of feeling and not very scrupulous, but not that praeternatural deep designing villain that he is represented in the piece of Maffei. In fact Maffei's Polyphonte appears too outré; but then on the stage may not a little exaggeration be allowed, just as statues which are destined to be placed in the open air or on columns appear with greater effect when larger than the natural size? Alfleri seems to have given the preference to the Mérope of Voltaire.
I have seen Talma a second time in the part of Nero in the Britannicus of Racine; Mlle Georges played the part of Agrippina. Talma was Nero from head to foot; his very entry on the stage gave an idea of the fiery and impatient character of the tyrant, and in the scene between him and his mother Agrippina nothing could be better delineated. The forced calm of Agrippina, while reproaching her son with his ingratitude, and the impatience of Nero to get rid of such an importunate monitress, were given in a style impossible to be surpassed. Talma's dumb show during this scene was a masterpiece of the mimic art. If Talma gives such effects to his rôles in a French drama, where he is shackled by rules, how much greater would he give on the English or German stages in a tragedy of Shakespeare or Schiller!
Blank verse is certainly better adapted to tragedy than rhymed alexandrines, but then the French language does not admit of blank verse, and to write tragedies in prose, unless they be tragedies in modern life, would deprive them of all charm; but after all I find the harmonious pomp and to use a phrase of Pope's "The long majestic march and energy divine" of the French alexandrine, very pleasing to the ear. I am sure that the French poets deserve a great deal of credit for producing such masterpieces of versification from a language, which, however elegant, is the least poetical in Europe; which allows little or no inversion, scarce any poetic license, no enjambement, compels a fixed caesura; has in horror the hiatus; and in fine is subject to the most rigorous rules, which can on no account be infringed; which rejects hyperbole; which is measured by syllables, the pronunciation of which is not felt in prose; compels the alternative termination of a masculine or feminine rhyme; and with all this requires more perhaps than any other language that cacophony be sedulously avoided. Such are the difficulties a French poet has to struggle with; he must unite the most harmonious sound with the finest thought. In Italian very often the natural harmony of the language and the music of the sound conceal the poverty of the thought; besides Italian poetry has innumerable licenses which make it easy to figure in the Tuscan Parnassus, and where anyone who can string together rime or versi sciolti is dignified with the appellation of a poet; whereas from French poetry, a mediocrity is and must be of necessity banished. Neither is it sufficient for an author to have sublime ideas; these must be filed and pruned. Inspiration can make a poet of a German, an Italian or an Englishman, because he may revel in unbounded license of metre and language, but in French poetry inspiration is by no means sufficient; severe study and constant practise are as indispensable as poetic verve to constitute a French poet. The French poets are sensible of this and on this account they prefer imitating the ancients, polishing their rough marble and fitting it to the national taste, to striking out a new path.
The Abbé Delille, the best poet of our day that France has produced, has gone further; he had read and admired the best English poets such as Milton, Pope, Collins and Goldsmith, and has not disdained to imitate them; yet he has imitated them with such elegance and judgment that he has left nothing to regret on the part of those of his countrymen who are not acquainted with English, and he has rendered their beauties with such a force that a foreigner Versed in both languages who did not previously know which was the original, and which the translation, might take up passages in Pope, Thomson, Collins and Goldsmith and read parallel passages in Delille and be extremely puzzled to distinguish the original: for none of the beauties are lost in these imitations. And yet, in preferring to imitate, it must not be inferred that he was deficient in original thoughts.
To return to the theatre, I have seen Mlle Mars in the rôle of Henriette in the Femmes Savantes of Molière. Oh! how admirable she is! She realizes completely the conception of a graceful and elegant Frenchwoman of the first society. She does not act; she is at home as it were in her own salon, smiling at the silly pretensions of her sister and at the ridiculous pedantry of Trissotin; her refusing the kiss because she does not understand Greek was given with the greatest naiveté. In a word Mlle Mars reigns unrivalled as the first comic actress in Europe.
I have seen too, Les Plaideurs of Racine and Les fourberies de Scapin of Molière, both exceedingly well given; particularly the scene in the latter wherein it is announced to Géronte that his son had fallen into the hands of a Turkish corsair, and his answer "Que diable allait-il faire dans la galère?"
I have seen also Andromaque, Iphigénie and Zaïre. Mlle Volnais did the part of Andromaque; but the monotonous plaintiveness of her voice, which never changes, wearies me. In Iphigénie I was more gratified; for Mlle Georges did the part of Clytemnestre, and her sister, a young girl of seventeen, made her début in the part of Iphigénie with great effect. The two sisters supported each other wonderfully well, and Lafond did Agamemnon very respectably.
Mlle Georges the younger, having succeeded in Iphigénie, appeared in the part of Zaïre, a bold attempt, and tho' she did it well and with much grace, yet it was evidently too arduous a task for her. The whole onus of this affecting piece rests on the rôle of Zaïre. In the part where naiveté was required she succeeded perfectly and her burst: "Mais Orosmane m'aime et j'ai tout oublie" was most happy; but she was too faint and betrayed too little emotion in portraying the struggle between her love for Orosmane and the unsubdued symptoms of attachment to her father and brother and to the religion of her ancestors. In short, where much passion and pathos was required, there she proved unequal to the task; but she has evidently all the qualities and dispositions towards becoming a good actress, and with more study and practise I have no doubt that three or four years hence, she will be fully equal to the difficult task of giving effect to and portraying to life, the exquisitely touching and highly interesting rôle of Zaïre. She was not called for to appear on the stage after the termination of the performance, tho' frequently applauded during it. The actor who did the part of Orosmane, in that scene wherein he discovers he has killed Zaïre unjustly, gave a groan which had an unhappy effect; it was such an awkward one, that it made all the audience laugh; no people catch ridicule so soon as the French.
What I principally admire on the French stage is that the actors are always perfect in their parts and all the characters are well sustained; the performance never flags for a moment; and I have experienced infinitely more pleasure in beholding the dramas of Racine and Voltaire than those of Shakespeare, and for this reason that, on our stage, for one good actor you have the many who are exceedingly bad and who do not comprehend their author: you feel consequently a hiatus valde deflendus when the principal actor or actress are not on the stage. I have been delighted to see Kemble, and Mrs Siddons and Miss O'Neil, and while they were on the stage I was all eyes and ears; but the other actors were always so inferior that the contrast was too obvious and it only served to make more conspicuous the flagging of interest that pervades the tragedies of Shakespeare, Macbeth alone perhaps excepted. I speak only of Shakespeare's faults as a dramaturgus and they are rather the faults of his age than his own; for in everything else I think him the greatest litterary genius that the world ever produced, and I place him far above any poet, ancient or modern; yet in allowing all this, I do not at all wonder that his dramatic pieces do not in general please foreigners and that they are disgusted with the low buffoonery, interruption of interest and want of arrangement that ought of necessity to constitute a drama; for I feel the same objections myself when reading Shakespeare, and often lose patience; but then when I come to some sublime passage, I become wrapt up in it alone and totally forget the piece itself. In order to inspire a foreigner with admiration for Shakespeare, I would not give him his plays to read entire, but I would present him with a recueil of the most beautiful passages of that great poet; and I am sure he would be so delighted with them that he would readily join in the "All Hail" that the British nation awards him. Thus you may perceive the distinction I make between the creative genius who designs, and the artist who fills up the canvas; between the Poet and the Dramaturgus. I am probably singular in my taste as an Englishman, when I tell you that I prefer Shakespeare for the closet and Racine or Voltaire or Corneille for the stage: and with regard to English tragedies, I prefer as an acting drama Home's Douglas[46] to any of Shakespeare's, Macbeth alone excepted; and for this plain reason that the interest in Douglas never flags, nor is diverted.
In giving my mite of admiration to the French stage, I am fully aware of its faults, of the long declamation and the fade galanterie that prevailed before Voltaire made the grand reform in that particular: and on this account I prefer Voltaire as a tragedian to Racine and Corneille. The Phédre and Athalie of Racine are certainly masterpieces, and little inferior to them are Iphigénie, Andromaque and Britannicus, but in the others I think he must be pronounced inferior to Voltaire; as a proof of my argument I need only cite Zaïre, Alzire, Mahomet, Sémiramis, l'Orphelin de la Chine, Brutus. Voltaire has, I think, united in his dramatic writings the beauties of Corneille, Racine and Crébillon and has avoided their faults; this however is not, I believe, the opinion of the French in general, but I follow my own judgment in affairs of taste, and if anything pleases me I wait not to ascertain whether the "master hath said so."