the result of this application is, the introduction of that horrible and superfluous incident, the murder of a child by the hand of its mother. He is equally infelicitous in his Jean SansTerre, where he brings upon the stage Arthur, after his eyes are burnt out, and causes both him and Constance to be killed by the hand of John. One hardly knows what Ducis could have meant by professing, as he does in several of his prefaces, to soften the asperities of English tragedy, when we see that he has indulged in the gratuitous exhibition of additional horrors. In his other plays, Ducis has pursued the same system upon which he acted in his Macbeth; and by his restrictions of time and action, has deprived himself of those gradual developements of passion and character which were frequently essential to their truth and consistency. The jealousy of Othello is made to rise with unnatural rapidity from the first dawnings of suspicion to the full climax of its fury; and the indecision of Hamlet is not allowed to interfere with a speedy arrival at the catastrophe. The plays which Ducis appears to have imitated with most success are Lear and King John, though these have not been as popular as either his Hamlet, his Othello, or his Macbeth. Romeo et Juliette scarcely deserves to be called an imitation, it bears so little resemblance to the original. We have already spoken of Jean Sans-Terre, and, on one account, with dispraise; but, in other respects, it is not ill written,-and we will quote from it a passage which will give a more favourable impression of the powers of Ducis than the foregoing remarks could have afforded. It is his version of the scene between King John and Hubert. Le Roi. Mon ami, je le sais, je peux compter sur toi. Névil cherche à me plaire; il ferait tout pour moi, Hubert. Croyez, Sire Le Roi. Aujourdhui, Si mon front t'a paru triste et chargé d'ennui, Qui s'accroit tous les jours-qui vit dans ce lieu même, Que tu connois. Hubert. Arthur? Le Roi. C'est lui. Le rang suprême, Le jour, tant qu'il vivra, me seront odieux. Je crois le voir, l'entendre, à tout l'heure, en tous lieux. Hubert. Vous voulez, donc, sa perte, et qu'il cesse de vivre ? Le Roi. Tu sais que l'Angleterre Hubert. Achevez. Le Roi. Qu'il devienne. Vrai-vrai-Tu m'as compris, tu peux tout dans ce lieu; (Il sort.) This, we think it will be allowed, is not without force; and if Ducis had written always thus, we could have mentioned him with more respect. Such as he was, he was popular among his countrymen; and though we may hold in contempt the literar prejudices to which, with all his ambition of originality, he timidly and tenaciously clung, it may be doubted if at that ti a writer more emancipated from such restraints could have fected a greater progress towards reform. He would have on shocked and startled those whom it was his purpose to attract. Ducis was a reformer not too much advanced beyond the times he lived in. He effected his object (though a very limited one) with the slightest possible deraugement of previous opinions; and he conciliated the upholders of the old French drama, by showing them that the beauties which he wished to ingraft were not altogether incompatible with those which they had been accustomed to admire. The career of imitation thus encouraged by Ducis, was not pursued by others with much success; and it is needless to dwell on such works as the Tombeaux de Verone of Mercier, a feeble follower of the school of Diderot. But the impulse thus given, though it did not lead to direct imitation, had the very perceptible effect of infusing into the dramatic works of that period a freedom, an energy, an attention to characteristic delineation and historical propriety, which had not appeared in the writings of a preceding time. Arnault, Raynouard, and Chenier, are foremost of the writers in whom these favourable results were seen. The French Revolution, though in a less degree than might have been expected, had a beneficial influence upon the liberties of literature-liberties which, like all others, were doomed to remain in abeyance under the Imperial regime. Peace came, and with it an increased communication with England and English literature; at that time rich beyond example, and bearing in its van the names of Scott and Byron. It is to them, and many others of their countrymen, of considerable, though less renown, that France is mainly indebted for that improvement in some of the ornamental departments of her literature which we shall soon have the pleasure of observing. We must not, at the same time, forget the obligations due to Madame de Stael, who threw the weight of her great talents considerably into the scale of that party which she called Romantic, and illumined it with a portion of that reflected light which Germany had derived from England. But the good which was effected by Madame de Stael was not unmixed with harm. To her the public were unhappily indebted for those names, genre classique, and genre romantique, by which she distinguished the rival styles. By affixing these distinctions, and establishing an imaginary classification, she rather did disservice to the romantic party, whose cause she espoused, and whose strength lay mainly in the disavowal of those conventional forms, the importance of which she was too willing to acknowledge. Her fanciful distinction between the literature of the South and the literature of the North, and her still more fanciful theory that the latter owed its origin to Ossian, gained little credit: but the watchwords which she had suffered to escape were caught up, and the litterateurs of France began peremptorily to designate works of imagination as either classiques or romantiques; and they were admired or ridiculed, accordingly, much more with reference to these distinctions, than to their more intrinsic qualities. The question of the respective merits of two styles was argued with a vehemence and asperity, which, to us who are only politically factious, and consider, with reason, that subjects of art or literature are not fit vehicles for party spirit, was singular and amusing. National feeling was even brought in to give a zest to the contest; and the supporters of the genre classique thought themselves justified in taxing with want of patriotism those who upheld the excellence of foreign models. A literary dispute, carried on in such a spirit, could hardly fail to exhibit the same perversion of languagethe same substitution of words for ideas-which is often to be deplored in political controversy. It would have been little creditable to the literary character of France if such a style of criticism, so narrow and trivial, could have long prevailed; and if the advocates of the genre romantique the champions of literary emancipation, could have consented to engage in so confined an arena. But the foremost of their body have wisely rested the merits of their cause on more enlarged principles, and have disclaimed the distinctions which were sought to be established, and the watchwords by which they were to be known. Victor Hugo, in the preface to his Odes, 'répudie tous ces termes de convention que les parties se jettent reciproquement comme 'des ballons vides, signes sans signification, expressions sans 'expression, mots vagues que chacun definit au besoin de ses haines ou de ses préjugés, et qui ne servent de raisons qu'à 'ceux qui n'en ont pas. Pour lui il ignore profondement ce que c'est que le genre classique et que le genre romantique. En "littérature, comme en toute chose, il n'y a que le bon et le mauvais, le beau et le deforme, le vrai et le faux.' On entend 'tous les jours,' says the same writer in another place, à propos 'de productions littéraires, parler de la dignité de tel genre, des 'convenances de tel autre, des limites de celui-ci, des latitudes de 'celui-là: la tragédie interdit ce que le roman permet: la chanson tolére ce que l'ode defend. L'auteur de ce livre a le malheur 'de ne rien comprendre à tout cela; il y cherche des choses, et il 'n'y voit que des mots; il lui semble que ce qui est réellement beau et vrai, est beau et vrai partout; que ce qui est dramatique 'dans un roman sera dramatique sur la scene; que ce qui est lyrique dans un couplet sera lyrique dans un strophe; et 'qu'enfin et toujours la seule distinction veritable dans les œuvres de l'esprit est celle du bon et des mauvais.' The above pas 6 sages are creditable to the taste and sense of the writer; but they are not very creditable to the public to which they were addressed. To us they are truisms, and recall to our recollection the remark recorded by the Baron de Stael, as made to him by one of our most distinguished countrymen, with reference to some forcible exposition of a general principle by a French writer. C'est remarquablement spirituel; mais dans ce pays-ci 'nous tenons tout cela pour accordé.' M. de Stael quotes the emark, in illustration of his position, that we are much advancbeyond his countrymen in political knowledge. The observations of Victor Hugo tend, in like manner, to show that we are similarly advanced in enlargement of opinion on literary subjects. We hardly know at what period it might have been considered necessary to impress such principles upon the reading public of this country; unless perhaps in the Anglo-Gallic days of Charles II., or in that season of decrepitude and inertness with which our literature was afflicted during many years of the last century. Casimir Delavigne, whom we consider one of the first names in modern French literature, appears to have felt that such principles as M. Hugo has advocated ought now to be received as established data, and that little honour can be gained even by a successful disputant in the contest between the classiques and romantiques. Deux systemes,' says he, in his preface to Marino Faliero, partagent la littérature. Dans lequel des deux cet ouvrage a-t-il été composé? C'est à que je ne deciderai pas, et ce qui d'ailleurs me parait etre de peu d'importance. La raison la 'plus vulgaire veut aujourd'hui de la tolérance en tout: pourquoi nos plaisirs seraient ils seuls exclus de cette loi commune ? We will now turn to the play of Marino Faliero. We have kept M. Delavigne long in the antechamber, while we have been engaged with his predecessors; but our examination of them will only have enabled us to place his merits in a more favourable light. His performance, like those of Ducis, is an imitation of an English play-the well-known tragedy by Lord Byron-to whom he does not scruple to confess his obligations. But how great is the difference between the imitations by Ducis and by Delavigne! and how much are we rendered sensible, not only of the difference of the talents of these two writers, but also of the great assistance which the latter has derived from the more enlarged literary views, and healthier tone of criticism, which are now beginning to prevail! Instead of following timidly and at a distance, the French writer seems in some instances to have changed places with his English prototype. We find in Delavigne's play the freedom, the vivacity, the compression, the rapid march of action, and fulness of inci |