'Messieurs et Mesdames, cette pièce est morale, Elle prouve aujourdhui sans faire de scandale, Que chez un amant, lorsqu'on va le soir, On peut oublier tout-excepté son mouchoir.' Although the accusation of immorality was unscrupulously brought against the chiefs of the romantic school, they were not more open to it than the classicists in regard to the choice of subjects, so long as these were taken from history. The most repulsive subject ever chosen by either of them, that of 'La Tour de Nesle' for example, was not more repulsive than that of 'Medea' or 'Edipus;' and neither Lucrece Borgia nor Marion Delorme could be put to shame by Phèdre, who sums up her ruling passion in one line:

'C'est Venus tout entière à sa proie attachée.'

A plot laid in the middle ages, in a corrupt French or Italian court, should be judged by the same rules as one laid in Thebes or Colchis. Nor should a poet or dramatist be summarily condemned for immorality, merely because he describes immoral actions, or brings immoral characters on the stage, so long as these are true to nature and correct representatives of their epoch, with its passions, its vices, and its crimes. Dramas can no more be compounded entirely of virtue, than revolutions can be made with rose-water. It was when Dumas abandoned the past for the present, forsook romance for reality, chose his heroes and heroines from modern

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life, and bade us sympathise with their per verted notions of right and wrong, their systematic defiance of all social ties, their sensuality, and their selfishness,-when, in short, he dressed up the nineteenth century in a livery of heroism, turned up with assassination and incest,' that he justly fell within the critic's ban, and gave point to the most stinging epigram levelled at his school :

Antony is a man formed after the Byronic model, gloomy and saturnine, whose birth (illegitimate) and position are a mystery. He is in love with Adèle, a young lady of family and fortune, who returns his passion, but not venturing to propose to her, he suddenly disappears, and is absent for three years; at the end of which he returns to find her the wife of Colonel d'Hervey, with a daughter.

In the first Act an opportune accident causes him to be domiciled in her house whilst her husband is away.* Explanations take place. He eloquently expatiates on his love, his heart-broken condition, his despair; and Adèle, distrusting her own powers of prolonged resistance, suddenly gives him the slip, orders post-horses, and makes the best of her way to join the Colonel at Frankfort. She is pursued by Antony, who passes her on the road, arrives first at the little inn at which she is compelled to sleep for want of post-horses, and makes arrangements as to rooms, which may be collected from the result.

'Adèle. Jamais il n'est arrivé d'accident dans

cet hotel?

L'Hotesse. Jamais... Si Madame veut, je ferai veiller quelqu'un ?

Adèle. Non, non . . . au fait, pardon ... laissez-moi... (Elle rentre dans le cabinet et ferme la porte).

Antony parait sur le balcon, derrière la l'espagnolette, entre vivement, et va mettre le fenêtre, casse un carreau, passe son bras, ouvre verrou à la porte par laquelle est sortie l'hotesse.

Adèle (sortant du cabinet). Du bruit... un homme... ah!...

Antony. Silence! . (La prenant dans ses bras et lui mettant un mouchoir sur la bouche.) C'est moi... moi, Antony... (Il Ventraine

dans le cabinet).'

fering tortures from the sarcasms and covert

* Apropos of plagiarism, this mode of bringed by Charles de Bernard in his fascinating ing the lover under the conjugal roof is employ. novel, ‘Gerfault.'

sake.

Antony. A death that would save thy reputation, that of thy child?

Adèle. I'll beg for it on my knees. (A voice from without, "Õpen, open! break open the door!")

Antony. And in thy last breath thou wilt not curse thy assassin ?

door.

before any one.

Adèle. I'll bless him—but be quick. . . that · Antony. Fear nothing! death shall be here But reflect on it well-death! Adèle. I beg it-wish it-implore it (throwing herself into his arms)—I come to seek it. Antony (kissing her). Well then, die. (He stabs her with a poniard.) Adèle (falling into a fauteuil). Ah! (At the same moment the door is forced open, Col. d'Hervey rushes on the stage.)

only shrinks from remaining under the conWhat one redeeming quality has Adèle, who jugal roof, and affecting innocence, for fear of discovery? What one redeeming quality has Antony, if we except the nerve to perpetrate crime and the courage to face the criminal court? He is hard, selfish, material, brutal throughout; and the crowning atrocity is an absurdity. There is a charming endures torture, and is ready to endure death, novel by Count de Jarnac in which the hero rather than compromise a womam. This is natural and (it is to be hoped) not very improbable. But how could Antony hope to silence a scandal, which was already the talk being would believe that he had killed his of Paris, by deepening it? What human known, almost avowed, mistress for resisting him! But the French mind, or rather the mind of the French play-going public, is so constituted that a moral paradox or sentimental extravagance fascinates them, and they will applaud impulsively whatever crefoolish in conception or in act. And that ates a sensation or excites, however false or public, when Antony' was brought out, was still fevered and disordered, still seething and surging, from the Revolution of July. The subversive spirit was in the ascendant: esta

Adèle !

Antony. Dead, yes, dead!—she resisted me,

and I assassinated her.

(He throws his dagger at the Colonel's feet.)' In point of conventional delicacy or propriety, the action of this play is not more objectionable than 'La Grand Duchesse,' and even the concluding scene of the third Act is not more hazardous than the critical one in Tartuffe,' nor than the famous scenę in 'Les Intimes,' which, after an unavailing remonstrance from our decorous and esteemed Lord Chamberlain, Mademoiselle Fargueil played not many weeks since, in her own manner, to one of the most aristocratic audiences which this metropolis could supply. But the profound immorality, the ingrained corruption and perversion of principle, the mockery of sensibility, which pervade Antony,' and struck a sympathetic chord in a highly cultivated audience (half the notabilities of Paris being present at the first representation) are positively startling. There is nothing to idealize; nothing to throw a delusive halo over vice; not a particle of ennobling passion

fate of established institutions: the legitimate drama had fallen with the legitimate monarchy; and the Academy was at a discount like the throne.

The sole place of refuge for the classic muse, the single fane at which the sacred fire was still burning by her worshippers, was the Theatre Français. Yet it only escaped profanation by a caprice. Antony' had been accepted there: an early day had been fixed for the first representation, and the company were assembled for the last rehearsal, when Dumas hurries in with excuses for being late, and the following dialogue takes place between him and Mademoiselle Mars, who was to play Adèle :—

Mars. The delay is of no consequence; you have heard what has happened? We are to have a new chandelier, and be lighted with gas!

D. So much the better.

(sixty pounds) for your piece. I have four M. Not exactly; I have laid out 1200 francs different toilettes.* I wish them to be seen; and since we are to have a new chandelier

* We beg our female readers to mark this and

"Very well; since you stick to your lion, I am here to speak what is set down for me. There is mon lion in the manuscript, so here goes, M. Firmin—

Vous êtes mon lion! Superbe et généreux.'

At the actual representation she broke faith, and substituted Monseigneur for mon lion, which (at all events from the author's point of view) was substituting prose for poetry. Nothing can be more injudicious or vain than the attempt to tone down a writer of originality or force; for the electric chain of imagination or thought may be broken by the change or omission of a word. The romantic school which delighted in hazardous effects,-in effects often resting on the thin line which separates the sublime from the ridiculous, could least of all endure this description of criticism. Dumas suffered like his friend; and their concerted secession to the Porte St. Martin was a prudent as well as inevitable step.

At this theatre Dumas was like the air, a chartered libertine; and here he brought out a succession of pieces, which, thanks to his prodigality of resource and unrivalled knowledge of stage effect, secured and permanently retained an applauding public, although many of them seemed written to try to what extent the recognised rules of art might be set aside. To take 'La Tour de Nesle,' for example, we agree with Lord Dalling, that judging by the ordinary rules of criticism, it is a melodramatic monstrosity; but if you think that to seize, to excite, to suspend, to transport the feelings of an audience, to keep them with an eye eager, an attention unflagged, from the first scene to the last-if you think that to do this is to be a dramatist, that to have done this is to have written a drama-bow down to M. Dumas or M. Gaillard, to the author of 'Tour de Nesle' whoever he be, that man is a dramatist, the piece he has written is a drama,

Go and see it! There is great art, great nature, great improbability, all massed and mingled all together in the rapid rush of terrible things, which pour upon you, press upon you, keep you fixed to your seat, breathless, motionless. And then a pause comes-the piece is over-you shake your head, you stretch your limbs, you still feel shocked, bewildered, and walk home as if awakened from a terrible nightmare. Such is the effect of the "Tour de Nesle."

Such was the effect when Mademoiselle Georges played Marguerite, and Frederic Le Maître, Buridan; and (independently of the acting) the rapid succession of surprises

tutes the distinctive merits or demerits of

the piece. We should also say, Go and see Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle; you will follow the action with wrapt and constantly growing interest; and you will listen to sparkling dialogue, exquisitely adapted to the characters.

It was as a dramatist that Dumas became famous, although his world-wide renown is owing to his romances, which he composed at headlong speed, contemporaneously with his dramas, without much adding to his reputation until 1844-45, when he published 'Les Trois Mousquetaires,' 'Vingt ans Après,' and Monte Christo,' the most popular of his works. There is hardly an inhabited district, in either hemisphere, in which Dumas, pointing to a volume of one of them, might not exclaim like Johnson pointing to a copy of the duodecimo edition of his Dictionary in a country-house :

'Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ?' They have remained the most popular, and remained moreover exclusively associated with his name, although the authorship has been confidently assigned by critics of repute to others, and the most persistent ridicule has been levelled at their conception, their composition, their materials, and their plan. Amongst the most mischievous assailants was Thackeray, in a letter addressed to M. le Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie, printed in the 'Revue Britannique' for January, 1847. We give a specimen:

'As for me, I am a decided partisan of the France. I like your romances in one-and-twennew system of which you are the inventor in ty volumes, whilst regretting all the time that there are so many blank pages between your chapters, and so small an amount of printed matter in your pages. I, moreover, like your continuations. I have not skipped a word of when, after having read eight volumes of the "Monte Christo," and it made me quite happy "Trois Mousquetaires," I saw M. Rolandi, the excellent circulating-library man, who supplies me with books, bring me ten more under the title of "Vingt Ans Après." May you make Athos, Porthos, and Aramis live a hundred years, to treat us to twelve volumes more of their adventures! May the physician (Méde cin) whose "Mémoires you have taken in hand, beginning them at the commencement of the reign of Louis XV., make the fortune of the Apothecaries of the Revolution of July by his prescriptions!'

Innumerable readers would reciprocate in earnest the wishes thus ironically expressed, and Thackeray might have remembered

that length is more a merit than an objection so long as interest is kept up. It is strange, too, that he should have hailed Dumas as the inventor of the voluminous novel, particularly after calling attention to the blank pages between his chapters and the small amount of printed matter in his pages. There is an English translation of Les Trois Mousquetaires,' in one royal octavo volume, and of Monte Christo' in three volumes octavo. The seven volumes

of Clarissa Harlow' contain more printed matter than the longest of Dumas' romances. Mademoiselle Scudery beats him hollow in length, and might be apostrophised like her

brother

'Bienheureux Scudery, dont la fertile plume, Peut tous les mois sans peine enfanter un volume.'

So does Restif de la Bretonne, one of the most popular novelists of the eighteenth century, whose 'Les Contemporaines' is in forty-two volumes.

So much for length. In point of plot, they are on a par with 'Don Quixote' and 'Gil Blas:' in point of incident, situation, character, animated narrative, and dialogue, they will rarely lose by comparison with the author of Waverley.' Compare, for example, the scene in Les Trois Mousquetaires' between Buckingham and Anne of Austria, with the strikingly analogous scene between Leicester and Elizabeth in Kenilworth.'

If Dumas occasionally spun out his romances till they grew wearisome, it was not because he was incapable of compressing them. His 'Chevalier d'Harmenthal,' which we ourselves are inclined to consider one of his best novels, is contained in three volumes. His 'Impressions de Voyage' abound in short novels and stories, which are quite incomparable in their way, like pictures by Meissonnier and Gerome. Take for dramatic effect the story told by the monk of 'La Chartreuse; or, for genuine humour, that of Pierrot, the donkey, who had such a terror of both fire and water that they were obliged to blind him before passing a forge or a bridge. The explanation is, that two young Parisians had hired him for a journey; and having recently suffered from cold, they hit upon an expedient which they carried into execution without delay. They began by putting a layer of wet turf upon his back, then a layer of snow, then another layer of turf, and lastly a bundle of firewood, which they lighted, and thus improvised a moveable fire to warm them on their walk. All went well till the turf was dried and the fire reached poor Pierrot's back, when he set off braying, kicking, and

rolling, till he rolled into an icy stream, where he lay for some hours; so as to be half frozen after being half roasted. Hence the combination of hydrophobia and pyrophobia which afflicted him.

Where Dumas erred and fell behind was in pushing to excess the failing with which Byron reproached Scott

'Let others spin their meagre brains for hire, Enough for genius if itself in spire.'

He could not resist the temptation of making hay whilst the sun shone-of using his popularity as if, like the purse of Fortunatus, it had been inexhaustible-of overtasking his powers till, like the overtasked elephant, they proved unequal to the call. There was a period, near the end of his life, when Theodore Hook, besides editing a newspaper and a magazine, was (to use his own expression) driving three novels or stories abreast-in other words, contemporaneously composing them. Dumas boasts of having engaged for five at once; and the tradesmanlike manner in which he made his bargains was remarkable. M. Véron (the proprietor of the 'Constitutionnel ') came to me and said: "We are ruined if we do not publish, within eight days, an amusing, sparkling, interesting romance." quire a volume: that is 6000 lines, that is 135 pages of my writing. Here is paper; number and mark (paraphez) 135 pages.

"You re

Sued for non-performance of contract, and pleading his own cause, he magniloquently apostrophised the Court. The Academicians are Forty. Let them contract to supply you with eighty volumes in a year: they will make you bankrupt! Alone I have done what never man did before, nor ever will do again.' We need hardly add that the stipulated work was imperfectly and unequally done—

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Sunt bona, sunt mediocria, sunt mala plura.'

Du Halde is said to have composed his Description Géographique et Historique' of China without quitting Paris, and Dumas certainly wrote 'Quinze Jours au Sinai' and 'De Paris à Astracan,' without once setting foot in Asia. But most of his 'Impressions de Voyage,' in France, Italy, Spain, &c., were the result of actual travel; and his expedition to Algeria in a Government steamer, with a literary mission from the Government, gave rise to an animated debate in the Chamber of Deputies (February 10 1847), in which he was rudely handled till M. de Salvandy (Minister of Publie Instruction) came to the rescue, and, after justifying the mission, added-The same writer had received similar missions. under