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and the old English tragedy. The one is the and original observation-the other of judgThe one aims at pleasing chiefly by a faithful nature, and character, and passion-the other etical and elaborate beauties. The style of ore, requires a continual elevation, and its chadignified uniformity, which are necessarily remer; while our old English drama derives no and Othello the Cts interest from the rapidity and profusion of the the multitude of the persons and images which it he fancy ;-all which are excluded from the more tificial stage of our continental neighbours. our to effect a combination of two styles so radi, must be allowed to have been rather a bold unBut it appears to us to be no less certain that has made the attempt, than that she has failed in it. object or intention was, indeed, we do not presume to but the fact we think is undeniable, that she has united and irregular tone of our old drama, with the simand the scanty allowance of incident, that are characthe Continental stage; and has given us the homely trifling adventures of the one school, without its coSand variety-and the languor and uniformity of the. without its elevation, dignity, or polish. The events. hich she is occupied, in short, are neither great nor 3 and the style in which they are represented neither nanor majestic. We do not think it uncharitable to say this is a combination of defects only. The simple plot, barrenness of incident, and the slowness of development ich characterize the French drama, would evidently be inTerably heavy if it were not redeemed by the greatness of the w events which it embraces, and by the uniform nobleness of e style, the weight and condensation of the sentiments, and he grace and elegance of the versification: while, on the other hand, the trifling incidents, the slovenly language, the vulgar characters, and the violent and incongruous images which abound in our best home-made tragedies, would be still more intolerable, perhaps, to a correct taste, if ample compensation were not made by the richness and variety produced by this very abundance by the lively and rapid succession of incidents--by the exquisite truth of the touches of character and passion, and the inimitable beauty of the occasional flights of try that are so capriciously and often so unseasonably inIt was reserved for a writer

and the state of the feelings set forth with more rhetorical amplification, and with a more anxious and copious minuteness. Notwithstanding those very important distinctions, however, we think ourselves justified in arranging the tragic drama of antient Greece, and that of the continent of modern Europe, as productions of the same school; because they will be found to agree in their main and characteristic attributes; because they both require the style and tone to be uniformly grave, lofty, and elaborate-the fable to be simple and direct and the subject represented, to be weighty and important. Neither of them, consequently, admits of those minute touches of character, which give life and individuality to such delineations; and the interest, in both, rests either on the greatness of the action, and the general propriety and congruity of the sentiments by which it is accompanied-or on the beauty and completeness of the discussion the poetical graces, the purity and elevation of the language-and the accumulation of bright thoughts and happy expressions which are brought to bear upon the same subject.

Such, we believe, is the idea of dramatic excellence that prevails over the continent of Europe, and such the chief elements which are there admitted to compose it. In this country, however, we are fortunate enough to have a drama of a different description-a drama which aims at a far more exact imitation of nature, and admits of an appeal to a far greater variety of emotions which requires less dignity or grandeur in its incidents, but deals them out with infinitely greater complication and profusion-which peoples its busy scenes with innumerable characters, and varies its style as freely as it multiplies its personswhich frequently remits the main action, and never exhausts any matter of controversy or discussion-indulges in flights of poetry too lofty for sober interlocutors, and sinks into occasional familiarities too homely for lofty representation-but, still pursuing nature and truth of character and of passion, is perpetually setting before us the express image of individuals whose reality it seems impossible to question, and the thrilling echo of emotions in which we are compelled to sympathize. In illustration of this style, it would be mere pedantry to refer to any other name than that of Shakespeare; who has undoubtedly furnished the most perfect, as well as the most popular examples of its excellence; and who will be found to owe much of his unrivalled power over the attention, the imagination, and the feelings of his readers, to the rich variety of his incidents and images, and to the inimitable truth and minuteness of his crowded characters.

Nothing then, it appears, can be more radically different than

the

the modern French and the old English tragedy. The one is the offspring of genius and original observation-the other of judgment and skill. The one aims at pleasing chiefly by a faithful representation of nature, and character, and passion-the other by a display of poetical and elaborate beauties. The style of the latter, therefore, requires a continual elevation, and its characters a certain dignified uniformity, which are necessarily rejected by the former ;-while our old English drama derives no small share of its interest from the rapidity and profusion of the incidents, and the multitude of the persons and images which it brings before the fancy ;-all which are excluded from the more solemn and artificial stage of our continental neighbours.

To endeavour to effect a combination of two styles so radically different, must be allowed to have been rather a bold undertaking. But it appears to us to be no less certain that Miss Baillie has made the attempt, than that she has failed in it. What her object or intention was, indeed, we do not presume to conjecture: but the fact we think is undeniable, that she has united the familiar and irregular tone of our old drama, with the simple plot, and the scanty allowance of incident, that are characteristic of the Continental stage; and has given us the homely style and trifling adventures of the one school, without its copiousness and variety-and the languor and uniformity of the other, without its elevation, dignity, or polish. The events with which she is occupied, in short, are neither great nor many; and the style in which they are represented neither natural nor majestic. We do not think it uncharitable to say that this is a combination of defects only. The simple, plot, the barrenness of incident, and the slowness of development which characterize the French drama, would evidently be insufferably heavy if it were not redeemed by the greatness of the few events which it embraces, and by the uniform nobleness of the style, the weight and condensation of the sentiments, and the grace and elegance of the versification: while, on the other hand, the trifling incidents, the slovenly language, the vulgar characters, and the violent and incongruous images which abound in our best home-made tragedies, would be still more intolerable, perhaps, to a correct taste, if ample compensation were not made by the richness and variety produced by this very abundance by the lively and rapid succession of incidents-by the exquisite truth of the touches of character and passion, and the inimitable beauty of the occasional fights of poetry that are so capriciously and often so unseasonably introduced. It was reserved for a writer of no ordinary talents

to give us what was objectionable in cach of these styles, without the compensations which naturally belonged to either;-and Miss Baillie, we think, has set the example of plays as poor in incident and character, and as sluggish in their pace, as any that languish on the Continental stage, without their grandeur, their elegance, or their interest; and, at the same time, as low and as irregular in their diction as our own early tragedies,—and certainly without their spirit, grace, or animation.

This then, we think, is the chief defect in the plays of Miss Baillie; and there are none of her readers, we believe, who have not been struck with the want of business in her scenes, and the extreme flatness and heaviness of all the subordinate parts of her performances. The events by which her story is developed are usually of a low and ordinary sort, and follow cach other in a tame, slow, and awkward succession; while there is nothing either of richness, lightness or vivacity in the general style, to conceal this penury in the more substantial clements of the composition. We travel through most of her performances, in short, with the same sort of feeling with which we travel through the dull stages of our own central highlands, -the feeling of getting on very slowly through scenes of uniform sterility--an impression which cannot be effaced by peeps of occasional sublimity, or reflections on the virtues of those who are said to delight in them.

This leading fault, we suppose, will be admitted by most even of Miss Baillie's admirers; but we do not reckon so securely on their acquiescence, when we add, that it appears to us that she has failed almost as signally in her delineation of character, as in the conception and conduct of her fable. The truth is, however, that she seems to us to want almost entirely the power of investing her characters with that air of individual reality, without which no very lively sympathy can ever be excited in the fortunes of the persons of the drama. She attempts to copy Shakespeare, indeed, in making her characters disclose themselves by slight incidental occurrences, and casual bursts of temper, in matters unconnected with the main story; but there is no spirit of originality either in the outline or in the touches by which it is thus sought to be animated; and the traits that are lent to it in this style of high pretension, are borrowed, for the most part, from the most obvious and common-place accompaniments of their leading qualities: and though there was some merit, as well as some boldness, in following Shakespeare so very closely, as to send her ambitious usurper, after the example of his Macbeth, to consult with

witches

witches in a cavern, we think it was any thing but ingenious or original to make a bloody tyrant swear outrageously at his servant for having mislaid his armour; or to intimate to us the playful and kindly nature of a distressed damsel, by letting us know, in heavy blank verse, that she had stopped in the lobby to pat the head of a hound that came fawning to be caressed by her. The great fault, however, of all her characters is, that they are evidently mere generalisations of a few obvious and familiar attributes-mere theoretical personages, compounded systematically out of a certain assemblage of qualities supposed to be striking or dramatic, without giving us the impression of there being any actual individual to whom they belong, and whose existence might be conceived as distinct from those qualities. This magical art, indeed, seems to have been possessed in its highest perfection by Shakespeare alone; who, when he had once conjured up, from the vasty depths of his own boundless imagination, such potent spirits as Hotspur or Hamlet, Mercutio or Falstaff, appears to have been actually haunted by their ideal presence, and so fully impressed with a sense of their reality, as not only to have seen without effort all that such persons could do or say in the business which they had been called up to perform, but actually to have been unable to confine them to that business, or to restrain them. from following out their characteristic impulses into all kinds of accidental and capricious excesses. Miss Baillie, however, is in no danger of being thus overmastered by the phantoms of her own creation; who are so far from appearing to have a being independent of her control, or an activity which she cannot repress, that it is with difficulty that they get through the work which is set before them, or that the reader can conceive of them as any thing else than the limited and necessary causes of the phenomena which they produce.

This, however, is a fault by no means peculiar to Miss Baillie; and one of which we should scarcely have thought ourselves bound to take any notice, if she had not insisted so largely upon the necessity of attending to the delineation of character, and brought forward the traits of her own in a way so obtrusive, as to show very plainly that she thought her pretensions in this department proof against any sort of scrutiny. For the same reason, we think it our duty to say, farther, that besides this want of the talent of giving individuality to her scenic personages, it appears to us that she is really disqualified from representing the higher characters of the tragic drama, by an obvious want of sympathy or admiration for such characters. Every reader of plays, and ileed of poetry, or works of imagination in general, must have observed,

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