one or two deaths are deemed sufficient to characterize a tragedy, although it may have a fortunate termination. In modern times, a play is generally confined to one department, and possesses but little variation; the exception taking place only in favor of comedy, the sentimental class of which may occasionally ap proach the solemnity of the buskin. Some future opportunity may perhaps be afforded us for discussing by what critical laws the licence of the mixed drama, usually known by the name of tragi-comedy, should be restrained: that the attraction of our ancient poets is much heightened by this diversity of interest, there is no doubt. The exuberance of poetic genius at the period alluded to, we apprehend, is susceptible of being traced to moral causes.

The benefits resulting from the revival of learning, which were first felt in Italy, after the capture of Constantinople, had extended to England. The recent emancipation from a corrupted form of religious worship was also calculated to excite inquiry; and a strong impetus still existed in the minds of men. As the classic literature of Greece and Rome was not extensively diffused in this country; and our progress in political economy, didactic reasoning, and general science, was still inconsiderable; the attention of authors was principally divided between the study of divinity and the cultivation of their native language, in which poetry was the most attractive pursuit. The literature of Italy, whence the day-star of knowledge first arose on the rest of Europe, was the model which our own writers followed, not with servile adherence, but with the esteem of congenial talent, and that assertion of their own dignity which enhanced the value of the tribute. Some perversions of taste however are met with in those metaphysical conceits, which seem to bind up, in a kind of fairy frost-work, the passion they affect to celebrate; but their acquaintance with the poets of Italy was, upon the whole, beneficial; as from these masters they were taught to write with richness, variety, wildness, and ingenuity of imagi nation, which were regulated by the passions and feelings in their own bosoms. In their portraiture of passion, we discern a freedom, and even licentiousness of language and subject, a contempt of delicacy and humanity in the equities of personal regard, which strongly reflect the character of the age. The manners of that æra displayed a singular mixture of plainness of deportment, with high-wrought elevation of principle.

1

Thierry and Theodoret; Custom of the Country; Queen of Corinth; Women Pleased; Woman's Prize.

Whenever the personages of our dramatists are stimulated by wrongs, or impelled by circumstances, the influence of the sexual passion, or any other natural appetite, is mentioned with a freedom unknown to modern times, though it may not always amount to a want of decency. This has been supposed to give the scene an air of truth and reality; and to arrest our attention on the same principle that we admire the symmetry of the naked statue-because we scan its fidelity to nature. But the personifications of a modern author must be enveloped in formal drapery, which impedes their movements, conceals their proportions, and checks the rising emotions of the soul; and thus renders it almost impossible to be at once decorous and poetical in the highest degree.

The comparative freedom of the stage, prior to exclusive patents, caused the theatres to be better fitted for hearing and seeing than the immense structures of the present day. Their want of scenic decoration was supplied by a correspondent in dulgence, or ignorance on the part of the spectators; and their number was sufficient to meet the popular demand for entertainment. The audiences of that century had probably no higher opinion of their writers, than the public is now instructed to form of contemporary genius; but the plays then acted, even with all their faults and extravagancies, were better adapted to develope and foster the activity and excursiveness of genius, than the subjects on which modern powers must be tried. With the advance of society, taste seems to have deserted our antique groves and forests, for those pursuits which adorn a mild and elegant course of domestic life, unexposed to danger, from vicissitudes or tempests. The vine and the myrtle, the willow and the cypress, may yet flourish; but we must no longer look for them in unison or in contrast with the majesty of the cedar, or the solemn and firm grandeur of the oak.

The general superiority of Shakspeare to his contemporaries is too well established to be rashly doubted. He is, on the whole, superior in moral instruction; but in the refinement of polished intercourse, the succeeding generation appears to have considered him inferior to Beaumont and Fletcher, whose circumstances of birth and connections might indeed_give them some advantage. Shakspeare may fall short of Fletcher in the tenderness and delicacy of love; and those who will com

From the year 1570 to 1629, no less than seventeen theatres were erected for the performance of the drama.

pare Rollo's courtship of Edith, in the tragedy of Rollo, with Richard's address to Lady Ann, will assign the palm to the former. It may be doubted whether Shakspeare's muscular' powers of language can be compared with the health and equable durability of his intellectual system. This is more apparent in his attempts at pathos, where the effect is produced by our intimate knowledge of the character, rather than by the efforts of the author.

Succeeding Shakspeare, and perhaps half despairing of equaling his power of moral intuition, Beaumont and Fletcher, either from the impulse of unconscious feeling, or a too scrupulous attention to humor and the poetry of character, distorted and overstrained Nature. Their characters, though consistently maintained, are often unnatural and extravagant. Their interest is too frequently dependent on the passive endurance of inhuman outrage, on the abuse of natural infirmities, or their subjection sordid and vulgar villainy.

The Rebellion (as it is commonly called) introduced an important change in the national manners, and suspended the progress of the Drama, which had found a munificent patron in Charles the First; and the Restoration brought a new system of manners and principles. The sudden contrast with the gloomy austerities of Puritanism, gave rise to a proportionate eagerness in the prevailing party. The King brought back with him a taste for French politics and French poetry; and the Italian models were soon exchanged for the critical principles, and the dramatic poetry of a rival nation. This change was very detrimental; and though the yoke has been gradually shaken off, the efforts for that purpose were greatly impeded by the restraints imposed on the Drama during that reign; the effects of which are still, in some measure, experienced. Loyalty, gallantry, and voluptuousness, freed from the restraints of religion; together with the doctrine of absolute power, which was known

We trust we shall not be accused of materialism, because we make use of a material illustration.

2

Coxcomb; Woman Hater; Nice Valor; Woman's Prize; Humorous Lieutenant; Mad Lover; Little French Lawyer, &c.

Onos, in the Queen of Corinth; Lapet, in the Nice Valor; Bessus, in King and no King.

Cibber, we think, somewhere in his Apology for his own life, relates that the Maid's Tragedy was forbidden to be acted on one occasion, lest the example of killing licentious kings should prove contagious.

to be gratifying to the King, were the order of the day. The atrical performances were ardently renewed, and made the vehicle of adulation to the monarch. In the plays of that period, both comedies and tragedies, we frequently discover a taint not only of irreligion, but of atheism, Besides the anomaly of rhyming tragedies, we may probably date, from this and the next reign, the habitual discontinuance of blank verse in the composition of comedy; which, by divesting it of one of its poetical attributes, prepared the way for a further corruption of the Drama. The writing of tragedies in prose may be defended by successful examples; but some critical regulation is still wanting, both with respect to this and domestic tragedy in ge neral; which perhaps may become the subject of our consideration on some other occasion.

In attempting to explain the cause of the alleged decline of the British Drama, we may appear to have left comedy too much apart. If the preceding reasoning be correct, the inferior interest of modern tragedies, as compared with the ancient, mayr be attributed to other causes than the inferiority of genius; but how shall we account for the deterioration of comedy since the time of Congreve, Cibber, Farquhar, and Vanbrugh; or at the Jater period of Goldsmith, Steele, and Murphy, whose works are without the adventitious stimulant of that freedom of manners and dialogue which impart a relish to the comedies written towards the close of the 17th century? To examine the nume rous authors who have written comedy, and trace the graduations and final change of national habits and manners, would require much critical skill, experience, and observation. The merit of comedy, as distinct from the mixed Drama, depends principally upon its representation of the manners of its own time; but the comedies of Congreve, in addition to the splendor of wit, display a philosophic estimate of human nature in its connexion with the affairs of life. Allowing comedy to be on the decline, do the modern votaries of Thalia pay too much attention to fleeting and evanescent peculiarities, but manifest Hittle insight into the heart? Do they consider character in its external dress, and not in its essential nature ?-We leave the matter sub judice; and should be happy to see it undertaken by a person whose experience and reflection have eminently quali fed him for the inquiry. Melpomene is more fortunate than her sister muse, in the scope and range of her exertion; for she has the command of any materials that history affords, and of which a cultivated taste may avail itself.

The perversion of genius that prevailed in the reign of Charles

II. was, however, marked by much of the vigor of other times The tragedies of Otway, Dryden, and Lee, were deeply imbued with the spirit of our elder poets, whom they had evidently studied with attention and sedulously imitated. In the license of plot, and the mixture of the manners of chivalry with real history, their tragedies in rhyme had all the lawlessness of their masters and are seldom surpassed in richness of imagination. The Edipus, which Dryden and Lee wrote in conjunction, abounds with poetical beauties; but no modern assembly would tolerate a catastrophe founded on incest. The Alcibiades and Don Carlos of Otway, also in rhyme, afforded but slight hopes of his future celebrity.

Dryden rather describes the passions than pourtrays them. He has considerable poetical eloquence, and loftiness of sentiment; but not peculiarly appropriate to the character, though well applied to the occasion. The reader feels the powerful mind of the author, and supplies his want of technical dexterity in minting his golden ingots for common currency and recognition.

Lee's uncontrolled imagination, his ebullient impotence of feeling, his want of a simultaneous and sinewy balance of selfregulation, have degraded him below his proper rank; since the plastic luxuriance of his creative powers might have qualified him for a place near the throne of genius. In his wild and heart-gushing effusions, we discern the elements of true poetry; and we read him with an interest totally distinct from the unbending abstractedness of criticism, though it should be confessed that we rate him rather by his indications than his performances. Had he not (to use his words in a dedication to one of Charles II.'s courtezans) been "crushed in hopes, and blasted in growth, by a most severe if not unjust fortune;" had he been less galled by the iron hand of necessity, which compelled him to frame his productions for the acceptance of others; a few years of confirmed judgment might have transmitted his works to us as ornaments of the British Drama. He has no sins to answer for like those of Dryden's Almanzor.

Those who may be regarded as the principal standard authors of tragedy, after the Restoration, are probably included in the names of Otway, Southerne, and Rowe: most of their works, however, are now superseded on the stage. Johnson, as a writer for the stage, may be passed over in respectful silence; and Young and Addison are more characteristic as poets than as dramatists.

There is a kind of effeminacy in the style of Rowe: though his dialogue is sometimes animated and generally correct, and