GLOUCESTER. The midwife wonder'd, and the woman cry'd, That I fhould fnarl, and bite, and play the dog : And that word, love, which grey-beards call divine, And not in me: I am myself alone. [Henry VI. A& 5th, Scene 7th. Our author, by following minutely the chronicles of the times, has embarrassed his drama's with too great a number of perfons and events. The hurley-burley of these plays recommended them to a rude illiterate audience, who, as he fays, loved a noife of targets. His poverty, and the low condition of the stage (which at that time was not frequented by persons of rank) obliged him to this complaisance; and unfortunately he had not been tutored by any rules of art, or informed by acquaintance with just and regular drama's. Even the politer fort by reading E 4 VIRITATE. Car enfin pour remplir l'honneur de ma naiffance, Il me faudroit un roi de titre, et de puiffance; Mais comme il n'en eft plus, je pense m'en devoir, Ou le pouvoir fans nom, ou le nom fans pouvoir. And upon the effect of this prudent decifion turns the great intereft of the play. By the laws of romance the men are to be amorous, and the ladies ambitious. Poor Sertorius in his old age is in love with this lady, for whom Perpenna is alfo dying; and Sertorius, whom we had fuppofed facrificed to the ambition of his lieutenant, is the victim of his jealousy. Shakespear and Corneille are equally blamable for having complied with the bad taste of the age; and by doing so, they have both brought unmerited cenfures on their country. The French impute barbarity and cruelty, to a people that could delight in bloody fkirmishes on, the stage. The English, as unjustly, but as excufably, accufe of effeminacy and frivoloufnefs, those who who could fit to hear the following addrefs of a lover to his mistress's bodkin, with which he had just put out one of his eyes: PYMANTE. O toi, qui fecondant fon courage inhumain, Tu devais pour le moins refpecter fon image: Devait être adoré de ta pointe rebelle. Clitandre de Corneille. The whole foliloquy includes feventy lines. I heartily with for the honour of both nations, the lover and his bodkin, and the foldiers and their halberds, had always been hiffed off the stage. Our countryman was betrayed into his error by want of judgment, to difcern what part of his ftory was not fit for representation. Corneille, for want of dramatic genius, was obliged to have recourse to points, conceits, cold and unin terefting teresting declamations, to fill up his plays, and these heavily drag along his undramatical drama's to a fifth act. The ignorance of the times paffed over the defects of each author; and the bad taste then prevalent did more than endure, it even encouraged and approved what fhould have been cenfured. Mr. Voltaire has faid, that the plots of Shakespear's plays are as wild as that of the Clitandre juft quoted; and it must be allowed they are often exceptionable: but at the fame time we must observe, that though crouded too much, they are not fo perplexed as to be unintelligible, which Corneille confeffes his Clitandre might be to those who faw it but once. There is ftill another more effential difference perhaps, which is, that the wildest and most incorrect pieces of our poet contain fome incomparable fpeeches : whereas the worst plays of Corneille have not a good stanza. The The tragedy of King Lear is very far from being a regular piece: yet there are speeches in it which perhaps excel any thing that has been written by any tragedian, ancient or modern. However we will only compare one passage of it at present, with another in Clitandre; as they both happen to be on fimilar fubjects. The blinded lover, after many complaints, and wishes for revenge, hears the noise of a tempest, and thus breaks out: PYMANTE. Mes menaces déja font trembler tout le monde :' A force de pitié, veulent m'ôter les armes. King Lear, whom age renders weak and querulous, and who is now beginning to grow |