that this inimitable writer had as good food for ridicule at home, in the affairs of the stage, as he had found in the French metropolis. "Our authors," says the Spectator, "in translating the Italian operas, would often make words of their own, which were entirely foreign to the meaning of the passages they pretended to translate; their chief care being to make the numbers of the English verse answer to those of the Italian, that both of them might go to the same tune. Thus the famous song in Camilla:

Barbara, si t'intendo, &c.

"Barbarous woman, yes, I know your meaning,"-which expresses the resentment of an angry lover, was translated into that English lamentation:

Frail are a lover's hopes, &c.

And it was pleasant enough to see the most refined persons of the British nation, dying away, and languishing to notes that were full of rage and indignation."

"The next step to our refinement, was the introduction of Italian actors into our opera, who sung their parts in their own language, at the same time that our countrymen performed theirs in our native tongue. The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian, and his slaves answered him in English. The lover frequently made his court and gained the heart of his princess, in a language which she did not understand. One would have thought it very difficult to have carried on dialogues after this manner, without an interpreter between the persons who conversed together, but this was the state of the English stage for about three years."

LETTER IX.

AMONG the dramatic performances of the French metropolis, those of the "Theatre Français" are highest in the esteem and favour of its inhabitants,-the wonders of the opera always excepted. Upon this theatre, which is exclusively reserved for tragedy, and genteel comedy, they plume themselves not a little, and, in my opinion, with great justice. No other of the kind wheresoever, is so well constituted:-none altogether capable of affording so rational, refined, and elegant an entertainment. Every stranger of good taste acquainted with the French language, and versed in the principles of sound criticism, must find in the "Theatre Français," a source of exalted delight, and matter for warm and discriminating admiration. If any theatre whatever be a school of morals, it is this, while at the same time it is one of the true bon ton in manners and language;—a ton of which the real life of France presents at present but few examples. It surpasses all others of the world, in the delicacy, and general elevation of the dialogue; in the purity of the diction, and pronunciation, in the classical propriety of the dresses, and decorations. As the mind is oftener recreated with classical images, and carried back to antiquity in Paris, than in any other metropolis, with the exception of Rome, so is it likewise in the theatre of which I am speaking, more frequently, than in any similar establishment whatever.

You perceive that the commendation which I have here pronounced on the "theatre Français," looks not merely to its mechanical details, and the capacity of the actors, but to the constitution of the French drama itself. I do not, however, mean to discuss the question of the comparative merits of this drama and that of England; a question upon which criticism may be said to have nearly exhausted all its resources, and which is nevertheless far from being settled to the conviction, either of the parties immediately concerned, or of the rest of the world. On this point I would refer you to Dryden's Essay on dramatic poetry, in whose opinions I partly concur; and to many very solid ideas to the same purport, scattered throughout the "Elements of Criticism" by lord Kames. I shall merely indulge myself in making a few general incidental observations on the subject, and in stating the in

fluence exerted over my own feelings by the drama of each nation, as it is acted in London and Paris.

During my residence in the latter city, the performances at the "Theatre Français," consisted generally, of the best tragedies and comedies, of the good school of the ancien régime. Corneille, Racine, and Moliere had preserved their empire, amid the ruin of every other legitimate authority. Their chosen temple now and then presented a novelty, such for instance as the " Henri Quatre" of Légouvé, or the "Omasis" of Baour de Lormian, but the effect of the change was rather a fresh illustration of their merits by the force of contrast, and a consequent corroboration of their sway. In truth, the whole tribe of revolutionary and post-revolutionary dramatic writers, whether a Collin-d'Harleville, a Picard, a François de Neufchâteau, a Ducis, a Chenier, a Legouvé or a Lemercier, make but a sorry figure by the side of the Molieres, Pirons, Regnards, Destouches, Racines, Crebillons, Corneilles and Voltaires, their illustrious predecessors. The disparity in this case, is even greater than that which obtains, between our cotemporaries of the same profession in England, and those who flourished under the Tudors and Stuarts.

It would, indeed, be doing an injustice to such a maker of tragedies as "Monk Lewis," for instance, to say, that his "Castle Spectre," was as far removed from the "Hamlet" of Shakspeare, as the "Henri Quatre" of Legouvé from the "Cid" of Corneille, or the "Macbeth" of Ducis from his English original. This last, together with the similar productions of the same author, which can neither be called metaphrase nor paraphrase, and which certainly were not intended as caricatures, exhibits our old bard in a guise, under which, were he not previously announced in the gazettes, no one of his compatriot acquaintance would ever recognize him. Although he has been dealt with, as Corneille, and particularly Racine, have been accused of treating the heroes of antiquity, pared down to the French standard of humanity, the Parisians have not welcomed him with much cordiality,owing perhaps to the circumstance of his having fallen into very different hands from the poets just mentioned, and to his not being even as yet sufficiently cured of his fondness for slaughter, against which the French critics of every class, exclaim loudly, and with greater reason perhaps than we are willing to allow. Voltaire, in his imitations and plagiarisms, has introduced Shakspeare to his countrymen with better success, and more advantageously for the latter: And yet how great an inequality of general excellence, between "La Mort de Brutus" and "Julius Cæsar!" VOL. III. 2 D

In frequenting the "Theatre Français," I adopted a practice, which I would recommend to every foreigner who resorts to it, as every foreigner should do, with indefatigable assi duity. It was that of carrying with me in print, the piece to be performed, and reading it as the actor declaimed, losing at the same time as little of his gesticulation as possible. For an English foreigner, this is so much the more necessary, as, however well he may comprehend the language, when spoken in common life, he will find it almost impossible to understand the dramatic dialogue, until his ear is attuned to the peculiar cadence of the stage. Every expedient which serves to engage the attention of a stranger, the more entirely, in the performance, is rendered particularly useful by the circumstance, that the declamation of this theatre, is the traditional one of the best age of the French language, both as to tone and pronunciation; and the reading of the authors little less punctiliously correct in all respects, than when taught by them. selves. Were an actor to commit even a small mistake in grammar or orthoepy, or deviate from the traditionary prelection and elocution, he would be immediately corrected aloud by some one of his auditors; and there are never wanting among them persons well qualified for the purpose. You meet with men in the pit, who have been present, at every performance, which has taken place at this theatre, for twenty or thirty years past, without omitting a single night; who have by rote almost every line, and have conned almost every syllable, of its stock plays; who recollect distinctly how Le Kain, and Clairon, looked, gesticulated, and recited in each hemistich. This may appear extraordinary to you, but it is what has fallen under my own observation, and may be readily explained, by a reference to the passion, which the French cherish for theatrical amusements, the importance they attach to them, and the habit which they contract of relying upon them as a part of their diurnal enjoyment; topics on which I have already touched in the preceding letter.

With such censors, the performer is compelled to be scrupu lously exact, and to make himself thoroughly master of the correct declamation of his part. He knows that nothing slovenly or illiterate will be endured. He has, besides, several peculiar incentives to exertion and accuracy. Among the number may be mentioned, the usage which prevails with the audience, to summon before them, at the termination of the play, the actor who has acquitted himself to their satisfaction, and to bestow upon him, as he approaches the edge of the stage, the tribute of their applause. Another and still stronger stimulus is the minute and unsparing criticism, to which his performance is, the next day,

subjected from innumerable pens, in the gazettes and journals of the metropolis, whose strictures generally circulate, by republication, throughout all parts of the empire. The tribunal erected over theatrical concerns of every description, in the Journal de L'Empire, and administered by Geoffroi, one of the most acute, vigilant, erudite, and merciless of censors, is alone sufficient to preserve immaculate the purity of stage declamation, and at the same time, were it not for the interference of a higher authority in favour of several courtly poets, to purge the manager's book of all its dross.

The declamation of the French stage is, at first, rather unpleasant to the ear, of an English or American stranger. It is characterized by a gesticulation much more vehement, and by stronger and more rapid inflections of the voice, than would be tolerated in our own theatre. There seems to be in both, a deviation from nature;-something too artificial and studied. In fact, the recitative of the opera, is scarcely more remote, from the elocution of real life, than the cadence of the actor at the Theatre Français. But whatever may be first impressions, not much time is required to reconcile to it entirely, both the ear and the judgment. You are soon convinced by your own experience, that so far from weakening, it rather heightens the illusion of the scene, while it administers a pleasure peculiar to itself. No one who has become familiar with, the declamation of which I am speaking, will feel his sensibility to the subject matter, diminished by it, or wish to hear pronounced otherwise than in this "cantus obscurior," such verses as the following for instance:

Destructeurs des tyrans, vous, qui n'avez pour rois,
Que les dieux de Numa, vos vertus, et nos lois,
Enfin votre ennemi commence à vous connoître.
Ce superbe toscan qui nous parloit en maître,
Porsenna, de Tarquin ce formidable appui,
Ce tyran protecteur d'un tyran comme lui,
Qui couvroit de son camp les rivages du Tibre,
Respecte le sénat, et craint un peuple libre, &c.

We know that among the ancients, an elaborate and formal modulation of the voice, was held to be indispensable, for the production of the astonishing effects which frequently accompanied the harangues of their orators, and the declamation of their tragedians. It was thought to be instrumental, in elevating the mind of the auditor, to the pitch of lofty dramatic sentiment, generally so much above the standard of ordinary feeling, and thus rendering his imagination, as it were, more ductile and inflammable in the hands of the poet. The experience of antiquity fully justifies this opinion, while it shows, that the