tre is disturbed, the whole system of the mental faculties must receive another direction.

And this is what has actually taken place in modern Europe through the introduction of Christianity. This sublime and beneficent religion has regenerated the ancient world from its state of exhaustion and debasement; it has become the guiding principle in the history of modern nations, and even at this day, when many suppose they have shaken off its authority, they will find themselves in all human affairs much more under its influence than they themselves are aware.

After Christianity, the character of Europe, since the commencement of the middle ages, has been chiefly influenced by the Germanic race of northern conquerors, who infused new life and vigour into a degenerated people. The stern nature of the north drives man back within himself; and what is withdrawn from the free developement of the senses, must, in noble dispositions, be added to their earnestness of mind. Hence the honest cordiality with which Christianity was received by all the Teutonic tribes, in whom it penetrated more deeply, displayed more powerful effects, and became more interwoven with all human feelings, than in the case of any other people.

From a union of the rough but honest heroism of the northern conquerors and the sentiments of Christianity, chivalry had its origin, of which the object was, by holy and respected vows, to guard those who bore arms from every rude and ungenerous abuse of strength, into which it was so easy to deviate.

With the virtues of chivalry was associated a new and purer spirit of love, an inspired homage for genuine female worth, which was now revered as the pinnacle of humanity; and, enjoined by religion itself under the image of a virgin mother, infused into all hearts a sentiment of unalloyed goodness.

As Christianity was not, like the heathen worship, satisfied with certain external acts, but claimed a dominion over the whole inward man and the most hidden movements of the heart; the feeling of moral independence was in like manner preserved alive by the laws of honour, a worldly morality, as it were, which was often a variance with the religious, yet in so far resembled it, that it never calculated consequences, but consecrated unconditionally certain principles of action, as truths elevated beyond all the investigation of casuistical reasoning.

Chivalry, love, and honour, with religion itself, are the objects of the natural poetry which poured itself out in the middle ages with incredible fulness, and preceded the more artificial formation of the romantic character. This age had also its mythology, consisting of chivalrous tales and legends; but their wonders and

their heroism were the very reverse of those of the ancient mythology.

Several inquirers, who, in other respects, entertain the same conception of the peculiarities of the moderns, and trace them to the same source that we do, have placed the essence of the northern poetry in melancholy; and to this when properly understood, we have nothing to object.

Among the Greeks human nature was in itself all-sufficient; they were conscious of no wants, and aspired at no higher perfection than that which they could actually attain by the exercise of their own faculties. We, however, are taught by superior wisdom that man, through a high offence, forfeited the place for which he was originally destined; and that the whole object of his earthly existence is to strive to regain that situation, which, if left to his own strength, he could never accomplish. The religion of the senses had only in view the possession of outward and perishable blessings; and immortality, in so far as it was believed, appeared in an obscure distance like a shadow, a faint dream of this bright and vivid futurity. The very reverse of all this is the case with the Christian: everything finite and mortal is lost in the contemplation of infinity; life has become a shadow and darkness, and the first dawning of our real existence opens in the world beyond the grave. Such a religion must waken the foreboding, which slumbers in every feeling heart, to the most thorough consciousness, that the happiness after which we strive we can never here attain; that no external object can ever entirely fill our souls; and that every mortal enjoyment is but a fleeting and momentary deception. When the soul, resting as it were under the willows of exile,* breathes out its longing for its distant home, the prevailing character of its songs must be melancholy. Hence the poetry of the ancients was the poetry of enjoyment, and ours is that of desire: the former has its foundation in the scene which is present, while the latter hovers betwixt recollection and hope. Let me not be understood to affirm that everything flows in one strain of wailing and complaint, and that the voice of melancholy must always be loudly heard. As the austerity of tragedy was not incompatible with the joyous views of the Greeks, so the romantic poetry can assume every tone, even that of the most lively gladness; but still it will always, in some shape or other, bear traces of the source from which it originated. The feeling of the moderns is, upon the whole, more intense, their fancy more incorporeal, and their thoughts more

•Trauerweiden der verbannung, literally, the weeping willows of banishment; an allusion, as every reader must know, to the 137th Psalm. Linnæus, from this Psalm, calls the weeping willow Salix Babylonica.--TRANS,

contemplative. In nature, it is true, the boundaries of objects run more into one another, and things are not so distinctly separated as we must exhibit them for the sake of producing a distinct impression.

The Grecian idea of humanity consisted in a perfect concord and proportion between all the powers,-a natural harmony. The moderns again have arrived at the consciousness of the internal discord which renders such an idea impossible; and hence the endeavour of their poetry is to reconcile these two worlds between which we find ourselves divided, and to melt them indissolubly into one another. The impressions of the senses are consecrated, as it were, from their mysterious connexion with higher feelings; and the soul, on the other hand, embodies its forebodings, or nameless visions of infinity, in the phenomena of the senses.

In the Grecian art and poetry we find an original and unconscious unity of form and subject; in the modern, so far as it has remained true to its own spirit, we observe a keen struggle to unite the two, as being naturally in opposition to each other. The Grecian executed what it proposed in the utmost perfection; but the modern can only do justice to its endeavours after what is infinite by approximation; and, from a certain appearance of imperfection, is in greater danger of not being duly appreciated.

It would lead us too far, if in the separate arts of architecture, music, and painting, (for the moderns have never had a sculpture of their own,) we should endeavour to point out the distinctions which we have here announced, to show the contrast observable in the character of the same arts among the ancients, and thoroughly to investigate and demonstrate their kindred aim.

Neither can we here enter into a more particular consideration of the different kinds and forms of the romantic poetry, but must return to our object, which is dramatic literature. Its division, as in the other departments of art, into the antique and the romantic, will point out to us the course which we have to pursue.

We shall begin with the ancients; then proceed to their imitators, genuine or supposed successors among the moderns; and lastly, we shall consider those poets of latter times, who, either disregarding the classical models, or purposely deviating from them, have proceeded in a path of their own.

Of the ancient dramatists the Greeks can alone be considered as important. The Romans were in this branch at first mere translators of the Greeks, and afterwards imitators, and not always successful imitators. Besides much less of them has been preserved. Among the modern nations an endeavour to restore the ancient stage, and, if possible, to perfect it, has been displayed in

a very conspicuous manner by the Italians and the French. In other nations, also, more or less, especially of late, attempts of the same kind have at times been made in tragedy; for in comedy, the form under which it appears in Plautus and Terence has certainly been more prevalent. Of all the studied imitations of the ancient tragedy the French is that which is the most splendid, which has acquired the greatest renown, and which, consequently, deserves the most attentive investigation. After the French come the modern Italians; viz. Metastasio and Alfieri. The native countries of the romantic drama, which strictly speaking, can neither be called tragedy nor comedy in the sense of the ancients, are England and Spain. It began to flourish at the same time in both, somewhat more than two hundred years ago, through Shakspeare and Lope de Vega.

The German stage is the last of all, and has been influenced in the greatest variety of ways by all those which preceded it. It will be proper therefore also to enter last upon its consideration. By this means we shall be better enabled to decide with respect to the directions which it has hitherto taken, and to point out the prospects which are still open to it.

When I promise to go through the history of the Greek and Roman, of the Italian and French, and of the English and Spanish Theatres, in the few hours which are dedicated to these Lectures, I wish it to be understood that I can only enter into such an account of them, as will comprehend their most essential peculiarities under general points of view. Although I confine myself to one branch of poetry, the mass of materials comprehended within that branch is too extensive to be taken in by the eye at once, and this would be the case, were I even to limit myself to one of its subordinate departments. We might read ourselves to death with farces. In the ordinary histories of literature the poets of one language, and one description, are enumerated in succession, without any discrimination, like so many Assyrian and Egyptian Kings in the ancient universal history. There are persons who have an unconquerable passion for the titles of books, and we willingly concede to them the privilege of increasing their number by books on the titles of books. It is much the same thing, however, as in the history of a war to give the name of every soldier who fought in the files of the hostile armies. We speak only of the generals, and those who performed actions of distinction. In like manner the battles of the human mind, if I may use the expression, have been won by a few intellectual heroes. The history of the developement of art and its various forms may be therefore exhibited in the characteristic

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view of a number, by no means considerable, of elevated and creative minds.

Before, however, entering upon such a history as we have now described, it will be previously necessary to consider what is meant by dramatic, theatrical, tragic and comic.

What is dramatic? To many the answer will seem very easy: where various persons are introduced conversing together, and the poet does not speak in his own person. This is, however, merely the first external foundation of the form; it is dialogue. When the characters deliver thoughts and sentiments opposed to each other, but which operate no change, and which leave the minds of both in exactly the same state in which they were at the commencement; the conversation may indeed be deserving of attention, but can be productive of no dramatic interest. I shall make this clear by alluding to a more tranquil species of dialogue, not adapted for the stage, the philosophic. When, in Plato, Socrates asks the conceited sophist Hippias, what is the meaning of the beautiful, the latter is at once ready with a superficial answer, but is afterwards compelled by the disguised attacks of Socrates to give up his former definition, and to grope about him for other ideas, till, ashamed at last and irritated at the superiority of the sage who has convicted him of his ignorance, he is reduced to quit the field; this dialogue is not merely philosophically instructive, but arrests the attention like a little drama. And therefore this animation in the progress of the thoughts, the anxiety with which we look to the result, in a word, the dramatic nature of the dialogues of Plato has always been very justly celebrated.

From this we may conceive the great charm of dramatic poetry. Action is the true enjoyment of life, nay, life itself. Mere passive enjoyments may lull us into a state of obtuse satisfaction, but even then, when possessed of internal activity, we cannot avoid being soon wearied. The great bulk of mankind are merely from their incapacity for uncommon exertions, confined within a narrow circle of insignificant operations. Their days flow on in succession according to the drowsy laws of custom, their life is imperceptible in its progress, and the bursting torrent of the first passions of youth soon settles into a stagnant marsh. From the discontent which they feel with their situation they are compelled to have recourse to all sorts of diversions, which uniformly consist in a species of occupation that may be renounced at pleasure, and though a struggle with difficulties, yet with difficulties that are easily surmounted. But of all diversions the theatre is undoubtedly the most entertaining. We see important actions when we cannot act importantly ourselves. The highest object