was actually reversed: and not to be a middling poet was held to be an absolute affront by the "genus irritabile" of bards and aristarchs. But this taste is worn out, notwithstanding the cant about " good old schools.' an ignorance of one of the mastersecrets of dramatic illusion, which Shakspeare possessed by a sort of intuition: the design which the author had in view is thus misunderstood; and so much of the reality of life is subtracted from the scene. Another impediment to the introduction of Shakspeare, in all his native strength, on the stage of France, is the necessity of the poet being always in the view of the audience; who desire to see all the springs of his machinery, as if a conjuror were to explain the method of his playing the cups and balls, and who expect to have an epic representation before them cast into scenes, the dialogue tagged with rich rhymes, and every thing, even to the gallery which leads to a queen's bed-chamber, exprest noblement: short natural expressions, or interrupted sentences, are too much in common life: everything must "come mended from the tongue' "of the player; and the most sudden thought, or most hurried ejaculation, must evince the poet's mastery over his metre, and his skill in elevating his phrase to the decorous height of faultless tragedy. It is needless to point out how much of Shakspeare's truth of imitation must be sacrificed in this mechanical and unnatural process of accommodation. The French, however, have caught an insight into the advantage of occasionally brief and broken dialogue; and it is an auspicious circumstance, that they begin half to suspect the anti-dramatic character of their immeasurable lengths of declamation. In the Macbeth of Ducis we cordially hail this step in advance towards a more natural tragic style. A re-action has been produced on Frédegonde. Le Fréd. Nous veillons et la nuit est profonde. songe-tu m'entends Macb. Fréd. Macb. Oui. Macbeth! Macb. Fréd. Avec le jour. Jamais! say which. a It is entertaining to see how the Levant ks yeux au ciel avec la passion poor Frenchman puzzles himself d'une crainte douloureuses) about the witches; they are “ furies Dieux vengeurs ! or sorceresses ; he cannot exactly (Elle s'assied ; pose le flambeau sur une 66 Les trois furies ou ma table, remet le poignard dans son fourreau.) Sevar. (Bas.) Un forfait la poursuit. giciennes sont cacheés derrière les Ecoutons. rochers.” He is half inclined to let Fréd. (Avec joie, et un air de mystère.) them stay there. Indeed, though Ce grand coup fut caché dans la nuit. they make a rather poetical figure in La couronne est à nous. Macbeth, poura long narrative speech of Macbeth quoi la rendre ? to his wife, Ducis evidently meant (Avec le geste d'une femme qui porte pluto blink altogether their personal ap- sieurs coups de poignard dans les ténèbres.) pearance ; but his heart misgave Sur le fils à son tour him: and accordingly he brings them Sevar. Ciel! que viens-je entendre ? in by way of an optional appendix to Fréd. (En s'applaudissant, et avec la the first act: joie de l'ambition satisfaite.) “ Nota. On peut finir cet acte en y Oui, tout est consommé, mes enfans re gneront. ajoutant la scène suivante, qui servi (Avec la complaisance et le plaisir de la rait peut-être à augmenter la terreur tendresse maternelle.) du sujet :” and he accordingly lets his “furies or sorceresses” play at Que j'essaye, O mon fils! ce bandeau sur ton front. bo-peep with the spectators from be (Tachant de rappeler un souvenir vague hind the rocks. à sa mémoire.) Qui m'a donc dit ces mots ? “ Va, le ciel te La Magicienne, qui tient un poignard. fit mère."(Avec serrement de cæur.) Le charme a réussi ; S'ils éprouvaient les coups d'une main Le sang coule: on combat: resterons nous meurtrière ! (Très tendrement.) ici ? O ciel ! La Magicienne, qui tient un sceptre. (Portant sa main à son nez avec répugnuncc.) Non, je cours de ce pas éblouir ma victime. Toujours ce sang!(Très tendrement.) La Magicienne, qui tient un poignard. Je verrais leur trépas ! Et moi frapper la mienne. (Avec larmes.) Moi, leur mère ! (Avec terreur, se grattant la main.) La Première. Du sang ! Ce sang ne s'effacera pas ! La Seconde. Du sang! (Avec la plus grande douleur.) La Troisième. Du sang! O Dieux! (En se grattant la main vivement.) Disparais donc, misérable vestige! (Elles sortent toutes ensemble du milieu (Avec la plus tendre compassion.) des rochers, et ne se laissent apperçevoir Mon fils ! mon cher enfant ! gu’un moment; ou même elles peuvent (Se grattant la main plus vivement encore.) s'echapper sans etre vues du spectateur.) Disparais donc, te dis-je! (Se grattant la main avec un dépit furicur.) So, after venturing on the expe- Jamais-jamais-jamais ! riment of smuggling the Scottish (Comme si elle sentait un poignard dans witches into the French theatre, un- son sien.) der a masquerade dress, something Mon cæur est déchiré. between Lucan's Erichtho and the (Avec de longs soupirs les plus douleuEumenides of Æschylus, he thinks, reux, et tirés du plus profond de son cæur.) upon the whole, that the better way Oh! oh! oh! is not to let them be seen at all! (Son front s'eclaircit par degrés, et How Ducis has contrived to render passe insensiblement de la plus profonde Shakspeare more intelligible, will ap- doulcur à la joie et à la plus vive espérance) pear from the celebrated sleep-walk- Quel espoir dans mon sein est rentré ? ing scene; which is doubly curious, (Tout bas, comme appelant Macbeth as this French version of English pendant la nuit, et lui montrant le lit de tragedy is propped by the marginal Malcome qu'elle croit voir.) sublime of the German drama. Macbeth! Malcome est là. (Avec ardeur.) Viens. (Croyant le voir hésiter et levant les (Elle entre endormie, un poignard dans épaules de pitié.) la main droite, et un flambeau dans la main Comme il s'intimide! gauche. Elle s'approche d'un fauteuil, (Decidée à agir seule.) Allons. (Avec joie.) c'est Pope," was pronounced with Il dort. (Avec lu confiance de la certi. the usual French air of a decision tude, et dans le plus profond sommeil.) without appeal, by a Parisian gen Je veille~(Elle regarde le flam- tleman at the whist table, in refebeau d'un ail fixe: elle le prend, et se lève.) rence to a conversation that was be Et ce flambeau me guide! ing agitated behind his back, in (Elle marche vers le côté du théatre par which an Englishman took part: he lequel elle doit sortir. S'arrêtant tout à then added, after a pause of recolcoup avec l'air du desir et de l'impatience, lection, “ et vous avez aussi Thomcroyant entendre sonner l'heure.) son.” This was till almost recently Sa mort sonne. the ultima Thule of English poetical (Avec la plus grand attention, immobile, erudition at Paris. “ The range of le bras droit étendu, et marquant chaque knowledge could no farther go.” The heure avec ses doigts.) romans poetiques de Scott, rival de Une-deux Lord Byron, comme poete, et le pre(Croyant marcher droit au lit de Malcome.) mier de tous les romanciers modernes," C'est l'instant de frapper. (Elle tire son poignard et se rétire, toue of his translated works : those of now make a part of a new edition jours dormant, sous l'une des voútes.) Byron, translated by Nodier, have When it is recollected that these attained a fourth edition : and seveparenthetical indications (for which, ral of their poets have applied themÍ doubt not, Mademoiselle Georges selves to the imitation of his single would feel grateful) are suggested pieces; while others, in their laudable to the tremblingly anxious translator, zeal to reclaim him from his appaby the cunning of Shakspeare's scene, rent misanthropy, and his insinuated it must be apparent, that the French atheism, have thus announced their can no longer be reproached with familiarity with his poetry, and that insensibility to bis resistless mastery strong impression which it has left over the passions and affections. on their feelings and their imagina I have selected the Shakspeare of tion. All this is of good augury. One Ducis, as exemplifying most concise- of those who have transferred into ly and strikingly the change which their poems occasional passages from English genius is silently operating Byron's poetry, is Chênedolle. in France. The accommodation of He is the author of a poem on the Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and “Genius of Man.” Didactic poems Juliet, and Macbeth, was better fitted do not furnish the best criterion of to conciliate French prejudice, and poetic genius, nor afford the widest affords clearer evidence of the ground scope for its exercise. They show which Shakspeare has gained in more of study than inspiration. They, France, than the regular translations however, square exceedingly well of Letourneur. An improved and with the French talent for system and unmutilated version of Shakspeare, classification. The poem of Chêneon the basis of the latter, has been dollé is at all events respectable. produced by Guizot. * Further, the. There is nothing puerile, or effemiFrench begin to entertain a curiosity nale, or common-place, in its details about our living poets; and the cele- and objects. He does not descend brity which some of them have ob- to tell us how boys trundle a hoop tained among us, aided, perhaps, when they are well; take rhubarb by certain stimulating circumstances when they have over-eat themselves of literary mystery, and personal ec- in the plum-season; grow up to be centricity of character, has echoed men, marry and “have brats,” are to the saloons of Paris. Of our con- buried and epitaphed. “ There is temporary poets the French till late- no such stuff in his thoughts.” On ly were as ignorant as we of theirs. the contrary he treats of subjects Of those, indeed, who are emeriti, and which are, perhaps, a little too abwho have long taken their rank as struse for the poet's handling; the classics in our language, their heavens, earth, man, and society : knowledge was limited beyond be- though Lucretius obliges us to be lief. “Le premier de vos poetes diffident on this head, and though This includes Pericles, and the Venus and Adonis. The dramatic works of Schiller are also translated by M. de Barante, a peer of France. some of Pope's brightest passages are are usually agreeable, and occasionfound in his “ Essay on Man." Che- ally forcible. He is probably a good nedollé looks moral evil in the face, Catholic (for the French are either and untwists the knotty questions of that or philosophers); and from his materialism and philosophical liber- ode on Milton, and a passage in his ty. In his argument for the neces- “ Genius of Man,” (chap. 3,) he is sity of religion, and his justification evidently a good royalist: but he of Providence, he is not very unlike leaves an impression, that he is betPrudentius. He has published a vo- ter than either—a sincerely pious and lume of minor poems, under the title a worthy man. of Poetical Studies or Sketches. They TRANSLATIONS FROM MODERN FRENCH POETS. CHARLES DE CHÊNEDOLLÉ. Etudes Poetiques. ODE TO THE SEA. At length I look on thee again, Alone inspired by thee; Be waked beside the sea. More dear to me Fling wide thy waters—where the storms bear sway; Yet fleets, with idle daring, breast thy spray ; From storm-gulphs to the skies ; Thy reign his rage defies; His catacomb; The pomp of human things are changed and past; Time has avenged thee on their strength at last: a Rome Athens-Carthage-what are they? Thou changest not: thy waters pour States bow; Time's sceptre presses still Created thus, and still to be. Sea! of almightiness itself th' immense And glorious mirror! how thy azure face Renews the heavens in their magnificence! What awful grandeur rounds thy heaving space! Thy surge two worlds eternal-warring sweeps, And God's throne rests on thy majestic deeps. THE YOUNG MATRON AMONG THE RUINS OF ROME. Through Rome's green plains with silent tread Where rear'd the Capitol its brow, Entranced I gazed on desart glades; And saw the tangled herbage grow, And brambles crawl o'er crush'd arcades. Beneath a portal half-disclosed, By its own ruins earthward prest, A young Italian wife reposed, Mild, blooming, with her babe at breast. O'er that drear scene she breath'd a grace, And ask'd her of that lonely place, The old traditions that she knew. "Stranger!" she softly said, "I grieve Some defter tongue, some wiser head, I thought not whither I was led, And scarce the pile had caught my sight." Thus, wrapt in tenderness alone, Joy's innocence becalm'd her brow; She loved!-no other knowledge known, She lived not in the past, but now. REGRETS. Where are my days of youth? those fairy days, Breathing of life and "strangers yet to pain?" When inspiration kindled to a blaze The rapture of the heart and brain? |