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in spite of Wolf, Wood, Ilgen, Dugaz-Montbel, and the rest of them? Of all the traditions relating to the Bard of the Odyssey, I reject none save that which makes the poet a Dutchman. Genius of Greece, Genius of Homer, of Hesiod, of Æschylus, of Sophocles, of Euripides, of Sappho, of Simonides, and of Alcæus, continue to deceive us! I believe firmly in thy fictions. What thou tellest me is as true as it is that I have seen thee seated on Mount Hymettus, amidst the humming of bees, beneath the porch of a convent of Greek monks. Thou hast become christian, but hast, nevertheless, retained thy golden lyre, and thine azure wings, on which were traced the ruins of Athens !

However, if we formerly stopped too far short of the romantic, we may now be fairly accused of having gone too far beyond it. But this is a change common to French genius, which leaps from white to black, like the knight in a game of chess. The worst is, that our present enthusiasm for Shakspeare is excited less by his beauties than by his blemishes. We applaud in him what we should condemn in others.

Are Shakspeare's mistaken admirers charmed with the traits of passion in Romeo and Juliet?

No truly! Did you not hear Mercutio say, of Romeo that he is" without his roe, like a dried herring?"

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Does not Peter say to the musicians: will carry no crotchets: I'll re you, I'll fa you do you note me ?”

Such passages as these are declared to be the wondrous beauties of Shakspeare's dialogue : pure transcripts from the book of nature! What simplicity! What truth! What an accurate picture of the contrasts existing in life! What an able approximation of the various ranks, manners, and phraseologies of society !

I sometimes amuse myself by imagining Shakspeare's return to the world, and his indignation at your tasteless worshippers. How would he despise the adoration rendered to puerilities at which he would be the first to blush, though they are not his faults, but the faults of his age! ! He would regard, as incapable of appreciating his beauties, those who are enraptured with his defects, and above all those who coolly copy those defects in the midst of modern

manners.

VOLTAIRE'S OPINION OF SHAKSPEARE. OPINION OF

ENGLISH CRITICS.

VOLTAIRE was the first who made Shakspeare known in France. The first judgment he pronounced on the great English dramatist was, like most of his first judgments, marked by moderation, taste, and impartiality. In 1730 he thus wrote to Lord Bolingbroke :

"With what pleasure have I witnessed in London the performance of your tragedy of Julius Cæsar, which for a hundred and fifty years has been the admiration of your countrymen."

Again he says:—

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Shakspeare created the English drama, his genius was powerful, fertile, natural, and sublime; but he had not a spark of good taste,

or the least knowledge of rules.

I will make a bold assertion, but a true one it is, that the merit of Shakspeare has ruined the English drama. There are so many beautiful scènes, so many grand and terrible passages, scattered through his monstrous farces, called tragedies, that their performance has always been attended with great success.”

Such were the first impressions which Shakspeare produced on Voltaire. But when it was attempted to set up that great genius as a model of perfection, when his writings were unblushingly pronounced to be superior to the master-pieces of the Greek and of the French drama,—then the author of Merope felt the danger. He saw that by exhibiting the beauties of Shakspeare, he had dazzled men who could not, like himself, separate the gold from the alloy. He was induced to retract; and he assailed the idol to whom he had himself offered incense. But it was too late, and he vainly repented having opened the door to mediocrity, deified the drunken savage, and placed the monster on the altar.

Shall we go further in our infatuation than our neighbours themselves? In theory, the English are unreserved admirers of Shakspeare:

but in pratice their zeal is much more circumspect. Why do they not act the plays of their deity in a perfect form? By what presumption do they venture to abridge, mutilate, alter, and transpose the scenes of Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, the Merchant of Venice, Richard III. etc.? Why have these sacrileges been committed by the most enlightened critics of the three kingdoms? Dryden observes that Shakspeare's language is out of date, and, conjointly with Davenant, he adapted his plays for per.formance. Shaftesbury declares that the style of the old bard is coarse and barbarous, that his expressions and his wit are alike antiquated. Pope remarks that Shakspeare wrote for the populace, without seeking to please persons of more refined taste: that his writings present to the critic materials at once the most agreeable and the most revolting. Tate appropriated to himself King Lear, which was then so completely forgotten that no one detected the plagiarism. Rowe too, in his life of Shakspeare, utters many blasphemies. Sherlock has ventured to say that there is nothing middling in Shakspeare; that all he has written is either detestable or excellent; that, he never kept to or even conceived a plot, though he frequently wrote very good scenes. Lansdowne carried

VOL. I.

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