pean literature, we noticed the very rude state of dramatic poetry in Europe, even so late as the end of the fifteenth century. It was not till the end of the sixteenth, that this species of composition began to furnish any thing like a rational entertainment. It was then that Lope de Vega in Spain, and Shakspeare in England, produced those incomparable pieces which, at this day, are the delight of their countrymen. The Spaniard possessed an inventive genius, equally fertile with that of the English poet; he had more learning, and went beyond him even in the rapidity of his compositions. His dramatic pieces amount to above 300, and he was often known to finish a play within four-and-twenty hours. It is not surprising that we should find numberless defects, great absurdities, and continual irregularity in the conduct of those hasty productions; but in most of them we discern the marks of a great and comprehensive genius, an inexhausted fund of imagination, and infinite knowledge of human nature.

The merits of Shakspeare have been often analyzed, and are familiar to every person of taste. He cannot be measured by the rules of criticism -he understood them not, and has totally disregarded them; but this very circumstance has given room for those beauties of unconfined nature and astonishing ebullitions of genius which delight and surprise in his productions, and which the rules of the drama would have much confined and repressed. I know not whether there is not something, even in the very absurdities of Shakspeare, which tends, by contrast, to exalt the lustre of his beauties and elevate his strokes of the sublime. It

is certain that dramatic poetry in England has not improved as it became more refined, and as our poets, in imitation of the French, became scrupulous observers of the unities. The old English drama, with all its irregularities, is incomparably superior to the modern, both in the nice delineation of character and in the natural expression of the passions. In the plays of Shakspeare, of Beaumont and Fletcher, and of Massinger, every person is a highly-finished picture. We not only see the importance of each character to conduce to the plot, but, taking any character by itself, we have pleasure in contemplating it. Like a good painting, we admire not only the composition and the whole of the group, but, if we confine our attention to a single figure, we find it beautifully drawn and highly finished. Most of the modern plays fall infinitely short in this respect. The persons taken singly are nothing-they have no strong features to distinguish them. A modern dramatic writer will paint a virtuous man or a vicious man; but he gives him nothing but the general marks of the character: you admire or you detest his actions, and you hear him speaking either good moral sentiments or purposes of villany; but examine this hero or this villain, he wants particular features; he cannot be described: he resembles those marks or vizards, which were worn by the Greek and Roman comedians, of which one was painted to express each of the passions, and the same mask was constantly worn as often as the same passion was to be represented.

In the modern plays, too, a correctness of language, a harmony of numbers, and a brilliancy of

metaphor, have come in place of that natural warmth, that unforced and passionate expression, which eminently distinguished the old dramatic compositions. The tragi-comedy (I do not mean where there are two distinct plots, which is a very unnatural species of composition, but where there is a mixture in the same plot of serious and ludicrous personages) seems now to be laid aside by our dramatic writers, deterred, as it would appear, by the censure of Addison; yet, with great deference to so judicious a critic, I cannot help thinking that his opinion would deprive us of a very rational source of pleasure. We may appeal to the example of some of the finest plays in our language, whether the introducing a comic scene had a bad effect, even when succeeding or succeeded by another of the deepest distress. Where the comic characters have their business in the tragic plot, and the whole tends to one interesting event, as there is nothing but what is consonant to nature in such mixture of characters, so there is nothing which shocks our feelings. It is not unnatural that clownish servants should jest while their master is in affliction; and a short scene of this kind, exhibited as it were in passing on to the serious parts, instead of violating our feelings, has the effect, perhaps, of heightening our pathetic emotions, by the sudden, strong, and unexpected contrast of happiness and misery. The old dramatic writers perhaps went to an extreme, and sacrificed too much to the taste of a populace delighted with ribaldry and buffoonery; but they certainly err as much on the other side, who have banished all association of the comic and the tragic in the same composition.

To those who are admirers of a strict conformity to dramatic rules, we would recommend the compositions of the French stage towards the middle of the last century. If dramatic poetry is to be considered as an exhibition of the characters of mankind, which some very good critics have defined it to be, the French drama, in this respect, at least their tragedy, must be allowed to be much inferior to the English. If considered as an artificial composition, recommending virtue by example, and exposing vice, we acknowledge the drama of the French to have better attained those important ends. In the dramatic compositions of either nation, we find there is room for the introduction both of sublime and of pathetic sentiments; but in the French drama we admire the art of the poet who describes a feeling, while in the English we sympathize with the character who expresses it.

Till the middle of the seventeenth century, dramatic poetry among the French was extremely low. Pierre Corneille is allowed to have brought it at once to the highest pitch of excellence which it has ever attained. We cannot say that Corneille has not availed himself of the compositions in other languages; for besides that the correct regularity of his pieces demonstrates a thorough acquaintance with the rules of the drama, he has borrowed some of his plots both from the Greek tragedians and some of the dramatic writers of Spain. Yet a proof that the genius of Corneille was more original than the effects of study, is that his earliest pieces, written in his youth, are better than those which were the fruit of his maturer years and more cultivated judgment. Of thirty-three pieces,

there are no more than six or seven which still keep possession of the French stage, and will probably maintain their ground for ever. The tragedy of the "Cid," "Rodogune,' ‚” “Cinna,” “Polyeucte, ," "Les Horaces," have never yet been surpassed by any dramatic writers among the French. The "Menteur" of Corneille shows that his genius could adapt itself equally to comedy and to tragedy. This great poet enjoyed already a very high reputation, when Racine appeared, to dispute with him the palm of dramatic composition. Corneille, with more of the sublime of poetry, had less acquaintance with the tender passions. It is here that the forte of Racine lay. The pathetic of "Britannicus" is superior to any thing that Corneille has attempted in the same style. "Athalie" is full of grandeur and dignity of sentiment, and the comedy of the "Plaideurs" shows that the genius of Racine was as universal as that of his great competitor.

But the palm of French comedy was reserved for Molière. It may perhaps be said of the comedies of Molière, that they are the only examples of that species of composition which have actually produced a sensible effect in reforming the manners of the age. The French physicians in his time were precisely what he represents them-illiterate, mysterious, and ignorant quacks. The women of fashion were overrun with a pedantic affectation of learning; and the French nobility affected that arrogant and supercilious demeanour which demands respect from the consideration of birth or fortune, without the possession of a single laudable or valuable quality. The keen but delicate