ON SHAKSPEAR E.

33

fuch as it ftill appears at the moment of my writing *.

I should not have faid fo much upon Shakspeare, if from Paris to Berlin, and from Berlin to Naples, I had not heard his name profaned. The words monftrous farces and grave-diggers have been repeated to me in every town; and for a long time I could not conceive why every one uttered precisely these two words, and not a third. One day happening to open a volume of Voltaire, the mystery disappeared; the two words in queftion were found in that volume, and all the critics had learned them by heart. Voltaire is no less celebrated for the extent and variety of talents, than for his dishonesty, and for his practice of firft pillaging, and afterwards calumniating all the living and the dead. Read Zara and Othello, and judge whether what I say be not true with regard to Shakspeare. If Voltaire has much reviled this poet, he had strong reasons. The highwayman who robs has ftrong reafons afterwards to murder. Voltaire poffeffed the talents of murdering gracefully, and he well knew that a joke has more effect than twenty demonftrations. But if he has faid fome 'pretty things againft our poet, he has also faid fome in his favour. Take one which he once faid

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to me. On my obferving, That foreign nations do not relish our Shakspeare; that," replied he, “is true, "but they only know him by tranflations. Slight "faults remain, great beauties vanish, and à man "born blind cannot perfuade himself that a rofe is

* Shakspeare was never at Rome. How came he then fo well acquainted with the manners of the people? English Tranflator.

† Monftruofiés et foffoyeurs.

C

"beau

"beautiful when the thorns prick his fingers." A charming expreffion, and worthy of its author.

Foreigners, who are unacquainted with Shakspeare, are fond of comparing him to Racine. Racine wrote tragedies, and Shakspeare never wrote a tragedy. They cannot therefore be compared on that head ; but I will not compare them in any thing; for I am a fincere admirer of Racine, and I will not injure him.

It cannot be faid that I have been niggardly of my praises of the Greeks. They have invented much; but they have not invented every thing. The tele→ fcope, gun-powder, and the art of printing, are the inventions of modern times. Thefpis invented one fpecies of poetry; Æfchylus made fome progress in it; Euripides and Sophocles brought it to perfection. Racine followed thefe models at leaft paffibus æquis. But Shakspeare, impatient of the curb, and disdaining imitation, opened to himself a new road, leaped over it under the wing of genius, and created a species quite new. Jonfon, his contemporary, observed the unities; Shakspeare would not observe them; he said to Jonson, "You place your fcene at Rome; and the fpectator, who knows that he is at London, must "make an effort of imagination to believe himself at "Rome." Let him make two efforts of imagination ❝ for me. Let him fuppofe himself at Rome, when the curtain rifes in the firft act; and when it "rifes in the fifth, let him fuppose himself at Phi

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lippi. What will be the confequence of it? You "will make a tragedy full of frigid declamations, "which will contain fome difgufting improbabilities,

3

"" by

ON SHAKSPEARE.

35 "by crowding together fome events which could "never happen in twenty-four hours; and this tragedy, being deftitute of action, will be oppofite "to the fundamental idea of theatrical representation, "which ought to fhew an action (Agaμa) in dialogue. I will facrifice the unities, to which one can"not submit but at the expence of action; and to be "exact in fome points, I will not be abfurd in a thou"fand. Make then," added he, "tragedies; I will "never make a tragedy. I will compofe fome dra"matic pieces which will intereft all claffes of man"kind as long as mankind fhall exift." Such was the idea of Shakspeare, and on this idea he must be judged. But the Monftrous Farces and the Grave-diggers?· The only view of Shakspeare was to make his fortune, and for that it was neceffary to fill the play-houfe. At the fame time that he caufed a dutchefs to enter the boxes, he would cause her fervants to enter the pit. The people have always money; to make them spend it, they must be diverted ;, and Shakspeare forced his fublime genius to stoop to the grofs tafte of the populace, as Sylla jefted with his foldiers. Who is the glory and the honour of France? There is only one voice; Moliere. Let us fee whether these two authors have met exactly at the fame point, and for the fame reafon. It is a fact known to all Paris, that the mafter-piece of the French stage, the Misantrope, failed at the first representation; that, in order to raise it, and afterwards to fupport it, Moliere made the Tricks of Scapin; and that, in order to make feven or eight excellent comedies fucceed, he was obliged to compofe as many farces.

Such is literally the history of Shakspeare, with this difference, that the buffooneries which Moliere annexed to his pieces Shakspeare interwove into his. It was a happy circumftance for the French that poet, two pieces were acted on the fame day. It gave him an occasion of faying trifling things with impunity; an occafion of which Shakspeare was deprived, as in his time one piece only was exhibited. The little pieces of Moliere took up in acting an hour and a half. Those of Shakspeare in general did not last above fifteen minutes; this moft frequently was no more than two very fhort fcenes, and that Monstrous farce of the Grave-diggers is a fingle scene, written in the low manner of Moliere to divert the people; and for this finglé fcene, which takes up eight minutes in the representation, the enlightened critics of this age have condemned ten volumes of the plays* of Shakfpeare.

Artists are every where the fame. What Shakspeare did at London, and Moliere at Paris, Raphael has done at Rome, and he has done it in his masterpiece, in the master-piece of painting, his Transfiguration. The two Dominicans on their knees are as shocking a violation of good-fenfe, and of the unities of place, of time, and of action, as it is poffible to imagine. But we must not by any means fuppofe that Raphael was not more fenfible of the abfurdity than we are, His mafter would have it fo, and he was obliged to please him. Instead of faying, Raphael wanted tafte; let us fay, Raphael wanted to be a car

In the French it is "poefies."

dinal.

ON SHAKSPEARE.

37

dinal. The master of Shakspeare and Moliere was the people, a foolish and fantastic monster: to fatisfy it, these writers were obliged to lay afide their own genius, and to affume the genius of the pit. There never exifted three men who had more tafte than Raphael, Moliere, and Shakspeare. All three have erred against good taste. But let us not therefore fay, that they were unacquainted with it; let us rather say, that they facrificed it to the defire of making their for

tunes.

FINI S.