measured theatrical cadence is founded in nature, and efficaciously auxiliary to the spirit of the drama. Much controversy has arisen upon the question,-which does not yet seem to be decided,-whether the declamation of the ancients resembled that of our common theatres, or was of the same character as the recitative of the modern opera. Cicero speaks of a scenic modulation, "modulatio scenica," as quite distinct from the cadence of the tribune. The latter indeed must have been much more strongly, as it was more studiously marked, than the one tolerated, even on our stage. It is not improbable that we should be much shocked in the beginning, at the real prosody of the ancients, if it were submitted to our ears. We can have at present no distinct conception of it, although we know thus far, that the pronunciation of the Greeks must have been in the nature of song from the manner in which their language was accented and measured, and from the testimony borne on the subject by Denys of Halicarnassus and other ancient authorities.

The purport of these remarks is merely to show, that our English critics and travellers, are not altogether correct, in condemning without qualification, the cadence of the French and Italian theatres. The French may find and feel real beauties in the tones of their actors; beauties which heighten the illusion of the scene, and to which we are insensible or strongly averse, solely from want of habit; for upon habit, in great part, depends the pleasure or disgust excited by impressions on our organs. The identity of the elocution of our stage, with that of common life, may be an imperfection, and I am inclined to think it is, for reasons which must be already apparent.

The two most conspicuous performers in the tragedy of the Theatre Français, are Talma and Lafond. The last is a young man, who fills with great ability, such parts as those of Achilles in the Iphigénie of Racine, and Orosmane in the Zaire of Vol. taire. He is full of fire and motion; has a good person, and a sonorous voice, is well versed in the canons of his art, and emulous to excel. His countenance is somewhat deficient in expression; but still he never fails to awaken, by the contagious vivacity of his manner, and the sensibility of his accents, very eager attention and lively emotions in the minds of his audience. Arrogance, disappointment, disdain, alternate rage and sorrow, are the feelings which it generally falls to his lot to depict; and although he may not execute his task with such admirable effect as Le Kain, he is by no means unworthy of treading in the footsteps of this "his immortal predecessor." He is not, in all probability, destined to enjoy, at any time, the same measure of fame.

Talma, however, of whom you have often heard me speak, is the great master of tragic declamation, and the most consummate actor, whom it has been my good fortune, ever to witness on the stage. He has, I think, no rival in existence but Mrs. Siddons, to whom, indeed, the palm of the art seems unquestionably to be due. With respect to person, nature has not been kind to Talma. His shape is awkward, and his stature somewhat low for a hero of the buskin; but she has indemnified him for this deficiency, by every other gift conducive to excellence in his line. His voice, countenance, and forehead, are admirably fitted, for the strongest possible expression, of the vehement passions. The faculties of his mind possess the same aptitude, and his studies have been of a nature to improve them to the utmost. He appears to be animated by an enthusiastic fondness for his profession, is guided by a thorough knowledge of its principles, and habitually engaged in the investigation and exertion of its resources. Talma has followed the example of Le Kain, by consulting on all occasions, the best models of antiquity, in painting and sculpture, and the works of the ancient poets, for aids in the mechanical details of acting, such as dress, attitude, &c. The defects of his person are, in fact, either concealed by the skill with which he adjusts his costume,or lost in the dignified grace of his movements. There is a simplicity and temperance in his action, which has induced the Parisians, accustomed almost uniformly to the reverse, to accuse him of copying the English manner. Nothing, however, can be more noble than his declamation, more impetuous than his vehemence, more intense than his expression, in situations which call for great tragic movements, or much elevation of style. He resembles altogether what Baron is described to have been, in the French theatrical annals. The "caput artis decere" a maxim generally overlooked by public speakers of every description in France, seems to be constantly in the view of Talma, as it was in that of Baron.*

The characters in which Talma is seen to most ad

*This celebrated actor whom the French extol as the prodigy of his art, seems to have forgotten the maxim mentioned in the text, in the latter part of his life. Even at the age of seventy five, he undertook to personate the youthful heroes of the drama. He is said to have raised a hearty laugh in his audience, when in performing at this advanced period, the part of Rodrigue in the Cid of Corneille, he came to the following verses,

Je suis jeune, il est vrai; mais aux ames bien nées
La valeur n'attend pas le nombre des années.

The mirth of the spectators was heightened, by the circumstance of seeing him, in the course of the same performance, unable to rise, after having thrown himself with great gallantry at the feet of the princess Chimene, without the assistance of two laquais in waiting.

vantage, are those of Orestes, of Manlius in the tragedy of that name by La Fosse, of the Cinna of Corneille, &c. As Orestes, when tormented by the Furies, he strikes terror into the spectator, and fills the mind with admiration. The fierce and sombre glance of his eye in the part of a conspirator, the depth and gravity of his tones, the mysteriousness of his whole demeanor, the skill with which the real passions and workings of his soul are at the same time shadowed out, make up altogether the most perfect personation, and the most complete illusion that can be imagined. If I except the condition in which I found myself, on seeing Mrs. Siddons, as Jane Shore mad with the cravings of hunger, I never was, under any circumstances, so strongly moved, so powerfully electrified, as when I heard Talma as Manlius, venting his indignant reproaches, against the treacherous ac complice, who betrays his conspiracy to the Roman senate. The disdain, disappointment, rage and despair breathed in every look, word, and attitude, stamped in the wreathings of his brow, expressed in the tremor of his lips, the alternate con traction, and dilatation of his muscles, the wild disorder of his features, were such as I cannot attempt to describe. You may form a just idea of them, however, by recalling what you have occasionally witnessed, of the same modes of delineating similar emotions, from Cooke, the English tragedian, who, in fact, at particular moments, is, I doubt not, equal in this respect, to any actor that has ever been known, although inferior to Talma, in point of general merit and uniformity of excel lence. Kemble enjoys over Cooke the like advantage; that of being more equable, as well as more chaste and dignified in his performance: but he has less of genius than either his countryman or Talma, and is incapable of reaching the heights, to which the former sometimes attains.

The French Roscius, it would seem, engaged zealously in the republican cause, at the commencement of the revolution, and signalized himself on various occasions, by the violence of his opinions. I have been much amused in the pit of the Theatre Français, in listening, between the acts, to the anec dotes kindly and gratuitously related to me by my neighbours, of the early political feuds of the corps dramatique. Talma occasioned, by his revolutionary doctrines, a schism in the company to which he belonged, and seceded to a different theatre, with one half of their number. Those who remained behind were afterwards imprisoned by the jacobin leaders, and as it was said,-unjustly however, at the instigation of Talma. It happened at times, that he and his colleagues,particularly Dugazon and Naudet,-interrupted the regular

performance of the stage, to accuse each other of aristocracy before their audience. The appeal seldom failed to occasion violent tumults in the house, and to end in the precipitate retreat of the party, against whom the majority pronounced judg ment by something more, in general, than mere acclamation. On one occasion, Talma was called upon,-in order to repel a charge of the kind,-to recite some passages of a republican tenor, from the play of Voltaire, called "La Mort de Brutus." This he did with so much fire and so keen a zest, that his innocence of the crime of aristocracy became self-evident, and his judges acquitted him, with the most cordial unanimity.

The tragedies of Racine and Voltaire are most frequently played on the Parisian stage; those of Crebillon but seldom. Nevertheless, admirable as are the former under many points of view, I must confess, that I relish the productions of the latter, even more than the master-pieces of Corneille. That which renders him unpalatable to his countrymen,-the deep gloom of his plots and the comparative ruggedness of his verse, is precisely what, in my estimation distinguishes him advantageously from the poets just mentioned. His colouring is always sombre, but often sublime; his imagination daring and elevated; and his versification, although inferior in harmony to that of Racine and Voltaire, certainly more rapid, nervous, and concise. He aimed principally at what the English lyrist, Collins, calls "the thunders of the scene," to which his genius was best adapted. Crebillon has caught more of the spirit of Eschylus, whose breast was truly "the sacred seat of terror"-than any other of the continental favourites of Melpomene. I have found much of this in the Spanish Shakspeare Calderon, and eminently in Alfieri, in whom, and in Goldoni, their chief comic poet, the Italians possess wherewithal to be justly proud of their drama. But there are, I think, no productions of any southern nation, which have so much of the excellence peculiar to the Greek tragedies, or leave so profound an impression on the mind of the reader; as the "Rhadamiste et Zenobie," the "Atrée et Thyeste," and the "Catalina" of Crebillon. Of the German theatre I know nothing, but through the medium of translations. I have been told in France, that the preference I give to Crebillon, is but a consequence of the barbarous taste for gloomy pictures and sanguinary catastrophes, which we so naturally imbibe from the "gentis incunabula nostra." Be it so. But this taste happens to be that which prevailed among the Greeks in the most flourishing periods of their drama; which is calculated to produce, and which has produced, in the works of Sophocles and Shakspeare, the most sublime

1

effusions, and the most magnificent inventions of the human mind.

It is curious, in illustration of the French character, to contrast the proceedings in the theatre of Paris, during the revolution, with those which take place at the present day. What an immense difference between the political tone of all parties! At the "Theatre Français," where interludes are now, we might say, consecrated to the worship of an Emperor, three successive representations of the republican tragedy of "La Mort de Brutus" took place in the course of one night, in the year 1793, exacted by the insatiable appetite of the French public, for every thing that savoured in the least, of republicanism. Three several times was the theatre emptied and filled with a different audience; and Talma, who is now at intervals, graciously summoned to play for the amusement of their Imperial majesties at their private theatre of St. Cloud, was compelled, as many times in succession, to go through the part of Brutus;—a task in the execution of which he was sustained, by his own burning zeal for liberty and equality! The "imperial academy of music" which is now in the nature of a temple, where the apotheosis of the “grand Napoleon" is nightly rehearsed, then resounded incessantly with ça ira, and the Marseilles hymn; and such was the sympathetic enthusiasm of the singers and the public, that on one occasion, five hundred young men enlisted for the frontiers, immediately after hearing the hymn just mentioned, chaunted from the stage by Lais, brandishing a poignard in one hand and waving the cap of liberty in the other. This great "vocal academician," who now supports the musical honours of the new piece called "the Triumphs of Trajan," in other words-the triumphs of Napoleon-was at one time an infuriate propagandist of jacobinism; journeyed through France on a mission from the society at Paris, presented inflammatory addresses to the public authorities, &c.-And,-what is not the least remarkable, the Parisians themselves seem to contemplate their own inconsistency, without a feeling of mortification or self reproach. I was once present at the performance, by Picard's company, in the theatre de l'Imperatrice, of an extravagant little piece intitled Le Reveil de Sept Ans,* which afforded a striking exemplification of what I have here stated. The fable of it is this;-a gentleman of fortune, a royalist at heart, is supposed to have fallen into a deep sleep during the republican era, and to have continued in that state until

The meaning of this title is, a waking from a sleep of seven years