have dwelt too little. Others complain, that the critical papers I have published were written in a style and manner too abstruse and technical for the bulk of my readers, and desire me to remember, that in a performance addressed to the world, only the language of the world should be used.

I was last night in a company where a piece of conversation-criticism took place, which, as the speakers were well-bred persons of both sexes, was necessarily of the familiar kind. As an endeavour, therefore, to please both the above-mentioned Correspondents, I shall set down, as nearly as I can recollect, the discourse of the company. It turned on the tragedy of Zara, at the representation of which all of them had been present a few evenings ago.

་

It is remarkable,' said Mr. —

what an æra

of improvement in the French drama may be mark⚫ed from the writings of M. de Voltaire. The cold ⚫ and tedious declamation of the former French tragedians he had taste enough to see was not the language of passion, and genius enough to execute his pieces in a different manner. He retained the

eloquence of Corneille, and the tenderness of Racine; but he never suffered the first to swell into bombast, nor the other to sink into languor. He accompanied them with the force and energy of our Shakespeare, whom he had the boldness to follow;' • —and the meanness to decry,' said the lady of the house. He has been unjust to Shakespeare, I confess,' replied Sir H- (who had been a considerable time abroad, and has brought somewhat more than the language and dress of our neighbours); yet I think I have observed our partiality for that exalted poet carry us as unreasonable lengths on the other side. When we ascribe to Shakespeare ⚫ innumerable beauties, we do him but justice; but, when we will not allow that he has faults, we

give him a degree of praise to which no writer is entitled, and which he, of all men, expected ⚫ the least. It was impossible that, writing in the situation he did, he should have escaped inac'curacies; suffice it to say, they always arose from the exuberance of fancy, not the sterility of dull'ness,'

There is much truth in what you say,' answered Mr. ; but Voltaire was unjust when, not ⚫ satisfied with pointing out blemishes in Shakespeare, •he censured a whole nation as barbarous for admiring his works. He must, himself, have felt the excellence of a poet, whom, in this very tragedy of • Zara, he has not disdained to imitate, and to imitate very closely too. The speech of Orasmane (or • Osman, as the English translation calls him), begin⚫ning,

J'aurois d'un oeil serene, d'un front inalterable,

is almost a literal copy of the complaint of • Othello:

-Had it rain'd

All sorts of curses on me, &c.

which is, perhaps, the reason why our translator has omitted it. I do not pretend to justify • Voltaire,' returned Sir H—; yet it must be C remembered, in alleviation, that the French have formed a sort of national taste in their theatre, correct, perhaps, almost to coldness. In Britain, I am afraid we are apt to err on the other side; to mistake rhapsody for fire, and to applaud a forced metaphor for a bold one. I do not cite Dryden, Lee, or the other poets of their age; for that might be thought unfair; but, even in the

idea

present state of the English stage, is not my warranted by the practice of poets, and the applause of the audience? A poet of this country, who, in other passages, has often touched the tender feelings with a masterly hand, gives to the hero of one of his latest tragedies, the following speech:

• That a man, in the fervour and hurry of composi ⚫tion, should set down such an idea, is nothing; that it should be pardoned by the audience, is little; but that it should always produce a clap, is strange • indeed!'

And is there nothing like this in French trage'dies?' said the Lady of the house; for there is, • I think, abundance of it in some of our late imita⚫tions of them.'- - Nay, in the translation of Zayre, • Madam,' returned the Baronet, Hill has sometimes departed from the original, to substitute a swelling • and elaborate diction. He forgets the plain sol. dierly character of the Sultan's favourite Orasmin, • when he makes him say,

-Silent and dark

Th' unbreathing world is hush'd, as if it heard
And listen'd to your sorrows.

The original is simple description;

Tout dart, tout est tranquille, et l'ombre de la nuit

And when the slave, in the 4th act, brings the fatal letter to the Sultan, and mentions the circumstances of its interception, the translator makes • Osman stay to utter a sentiment, which is always

⚫ applauded on the English stage, but is certainly, however noble in itself, very ill-placed here:

-Approach me like a subject

That serves the Prince, yet not forgets the man.

• Osman had no breath for words: Voltaire gives him • but five hurried ones:

Donne qui la portait ?—donne.

said

I am quite of your opinion, Sir H Mr. ; and I may add, that even Voltaire seems to me too profuse of sentiments in Zara, • which, beautiful as they are, and though expressed ' with infinite delicacy, are yet somewhat foreign to ⚫ that native language which feeling dictates, and by which it is moved. I weep at a few simple words expressive of distress; I pause to admire a sentiment, and my pity is forgotten. The single line • uttered by Lusignan, at the close of his description ⚫ of the massacre of his wife and children,

Helas! et j'etais père, et je ne pas mourir,

• moves me more than a thousand sentiments how just or eloquent soever.'

If we think of the noblest use of tragedy,' said Mrs. 'we shall perhaps, Sir, not be quite of your opinion. I, who am a mother, wish my chil⚫dren to learn some other virtues, beside compassion, at a play; it is certainly of greater consequence to improve the mind than to melt it.'' I am sure, Mamma,' said a young lady, her daughter, the sentiments of tragedy affect me as much as the most piteous description. When I hear an exalted sentiment, I feel my heart, as it were, swell

in my bosom, and it is always followed by a gush of tears from my eyes.'-' You tell us the effects of your feelings, child; but you don't distinguish the feelings themselves.-I would have, Gentle' men,' continued she, a play to be virtuous in its 'sentiments, and also natural in its events. The • want of the latter quality, as well as of the former, has a bad effect on young persons; it leads them to suppose, that such a conduct is natural and allowable in common life, and encourages that romantic deception which is too apt to grow up in minds of sensibility. Don't you think, that the • sudden conversion of Zara to Christianity, unsupported by argument, or conviction of its truth, is highly unnatural, and may have such a tendency as • I have mentioned?' I confess,' said Mr. 'that has always appeared to me an exceptionable passage.'I do not believe, Mamma,' said the young lady, that she was really converted in opinion; but I dont wonder at her crying out she was a Christian, after such a speech as that of 'her father Lusignan. I know my heart was so wrung ⚫ with the scene, that I could, at that moment, have ' almost become Mahometan, to have comforted the ' good old man.'-Her mother smiled; for this was exactly a confirmation of her remark.

Voltaire,' said Sir H

has, like many

⚫ other authors, introduced a dark scene into the last ' act of this tragedy; yet it appears to me, that such a scene goes beyond the power of stage-deception, ⚫ and always hurts the piece. We cannot possibly suppose, that two persons walking upon the same board do not see each other, while we, sitting in a' ⚫ distant part of the house, see both perfectly well."

I do recollect,' said the young lady, at first, wondering how Zara could fail to see Osman; but I soon forgot it.'- -Thus it always is,' replied Mr.