the different shades and gradations which lead to heroism; and you arrive at the height without perceiving any thing unnatural. The national pride of the English, that sentiment displayed in their jealous love of liberty, disposed them much less to enthusiasm for their chiefs than that spirit of chivalry which existed in the French monarchy. In England, they wish to recompense the services of a good citizen; but they have no turn for that unbounded ardour which existed in the habits, the institutions, and the character of the French. That haughty repugnance to unlimited obedience, which at all times characterised the English nation, was probably what inspired their national poet with the idea of assailing the passions of his audience by pity rather than by admiration. The tears which were given by the French to the sublime characters of their tragedies, the English author drew forth for private sufferings; for those who were forsaken; and for such a long list of the unfortunate, that we cannot entirely sympathize with Shakspeare's sufferers without acquiring also some of the bitter experience of real life. But if he excelled in exciting pity, what energy appeared in his terror! It was from the crime itself that he drew dismay and fear. It may be said of crimes painted by Shakspeare, as the Bible says of Death, that he is the KING OF TERRORS. How skilfully combined are the remorse and the super stition which increases with that remorse, in Macbeth. Witchcraft is in itself much more terrible in its theatrical effect than the most absurd dogmas of religion. That which is unknown, or created by supernatural intelligence, awakens fear and terror to the highest degree. In every religious system, terror is carried only to a certain length, and is always at least founded upon some motive. But the chaos of magic bewilders the mind. Shakspeare, in "Macbeth," admits of fatality, which was necessary in order to procure a pardon for the criminal; but he does not, on account of this fatality, dispense with the philosophical gradations of the sentiments of the mind. This piece would be still more admirable if its grand effects were produced without the aid of the marvellous, although this marvellous consists, as one may say, only of phantoms of the imagination, which are made to appear before the eyes of the spectators. They are not mythological personages bringing their fictitious laws or their uninteresting nature amongst the interests of men: they are the marvellous effects of dreams, when the passions are strongly agitated. There is always something philosophical in the supernatural employed by Shakspeare. When the . Without this intermixture, which is necessary to give a metaphysical possibility to the interference, the supernatural would degenerate into the puerile. The thrilling terror, which Shakspeare beyond all others knows how to communicate, witches announce to Macbeth that he is to wear the crown, and when they return to repeat their prediction at the very moment when he is hesitating to follow the bloody counsel of his wife, who cannot see that it is the interior struggle of ambition and virtue which the author meant to represent under those hideous forms? But he had not recourse to these means in "Richard III.," and yet he has painted him more criminal still than Macbeth; but his intention was to pourtray a character without any of those involuntary emotions, without struggles, without remorse; cruel and ferocious as the savage beasts which range the forests, and not as a man who, though at present guilty, had once been virtuous. The deep recesses of crimes were opened to the eyes of Shakspeare, and he descended into the gloomy abyss to observe their torments. In England, the troubles and civil commotions which preceded their liberty, and which were always occasioned by their spirit of independence, gave rise much oftener than in France to great crimes and great virtues. There are in the English history many more tragical situations than in that of the French; and nothing opposes their exercising their talents upon national subjects. Almost all the literature of Europe began with depends, in a great measure, upon this skilful blending of the philosophical with the superhuman. 'This can scarcely be said when we recollect the horrors of the late Revolution. affectation. The revival of letters having commenced in Italy, the countries where they were afterwards introduced naturally imitated the Italian style. The people of the North were much sooner enfranchized than the French in this studied mode of writing; the traces of which may be perceived in some of the ancient English poets, as Waller, Cowley, and others. Civil wars and a spirit of philosophy have corrected this false taste; for misfortune, the impressions of which contain but too much variety, excludes all sentiments of affectation, and reason banishes all expressions that are deficient in justness. Nevertheless, we find in Shakspeare a few of those studied turns connected even with the most energetic pictures of the passions. There are some imitations of the faults of Italian literature in "Romeo and Juliet ;" but how nobly the English poet rises from this miserable style!-how well does he know how to describe love, even in the true spirit of the North! In "Othello," love assumes a very different character from that which it bears in "Romeo and Juliet." But how grand, how energetic it appears! how beautifully Shakspeare has represented what forms the tie of the different sexes, courage and weakness! When Othello protests before the senate of Venice that the only art which he had employed to win the affection of Desdemona were the perils to which he had been exposed,* how * What charming verses are those which terminate the jus every word he utters is felt by the female sex; their hearts acknowledge it all to be true. They know that it is not flattery in which consists the powerful art of men to make themselves beloved, but the kind protection which they may afford the timid object of their choice: the glory which they may reflect upon their feeble life, is their most irresistible charm. The manners and customs of the English relating to the existence of women, were not yet settled in the time of Shakspeare; political troubles had been a great hindrance to social habits. The rank which women held in tragedy was then absolutely at the will of the author; therefore Shakspeare, in speaking of them, sometimes uses the most noble language that can be inspired by love, and at other times the lowest taste that was popular. This genius, given by passion, was inspired by it, as the priests were by their gods: they gave out oracles when they were agitated, but were no more than men when calm. Those pieces taken from the English history, such as the two upon Henry IV., that upon Henry V., and the three upon Henry VI., have an unli tification of Othello, and which La Harpe has so ably translated into truth! She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd; SHAKSPEARE. Elle aima mes malheurs, et j'aimai sa pitie. LA HARPE. |