rating the writers of French comedy I have said nothing of Moliere, whom the consent of mankind has placed at the head of the class he belongs to. His characters are those of human nature itself; but the manner of his pieces is sometimes coarse, and the denoument is frequently improbable, and very hastily made up. Of plot, indeed, there is very little in the best French comedies. Their writers were soon sensible of the absurdity of those surprising turns of fortune, those mistakes by masks and disguises, so common in the Spanish plays, which drew off the attention of the audience from the consideration of character and language, and describe a man as deceived rather by his senses than by his passions and affections. Perhaps, however, they have mistaken the reverse of wrong for right, and they may have wanted that wholesome lesson which an author in England is always exposed to receive from the more noisy and powerful part of the audience, who insist upon being amused in the way they best understand, as they do upon the habeas corpus act and the trial by jury. Their attention must be kept up by the intricacy of plot, and they must have jokes and allusions suited to their ordinary conversation and their pursuits in life. In France it was far otherwise. The dramatic author considered himself as writing for the more enlightened part of the community, and knew no more of the people as a body having certain rights than he did of the habeas corpus act, or than the government did. The public taste, however, in France, whether degenerated or not, or whether affected by the growing fermentation which preceded the revolution, seemed returning to a fondness for the ancient drama, when that great event took place, which gave a new turn to theatrical entertainments as well as to every thing else. The principal promoter of this return to the model of the Spanish drama was Beaumarchais, a man so singular, and so remarkable in various capacities, that I may well devote a few lines to him. Born in obscurity and almost in poverty, and after having exercised with a sort of distinction the trade he was apprenticed to, he very rapidly attracted the attention, and secured to himself the protection of some of the most eminent personages in the kingdom. Rendering himself useful where he had been admitted for his pleasurable talents, and as much admired for his wit and and knowledge, as for the graces of his person and the charms of his conversation on the most trifling subjects, he became immensely rich without ever having filled a lucrative employment, or pursued any object, to appearance, but his pleasure. The fact was, however, that under all the appearance of dissipation, and with the exterior habits of an idle man, he could calculate in his closet, with more than common precision, and could form the most complicated and extensive schemes of commercial speculations. Prosecutions which would forever have

VOL. IM.

blackened the name of any other person (for there are offences of which an honest man ought not to be for a moment suspected) were to him sources of celebrity and reputation; and the pleadings which he composed in his own defence are as much read by men of taste among the French, as the letters of Junius are in England and America. His comedies, with much less regard to morality than the decency of the French stage admits, are as intricate, and as full of plot and counterplot as the old English or Spanish plays, and much too long. They were, nevertheless, extremely successful at the time, and are still acted to full houses. It would have been singular that such a man, so noted, and, above all, so rich, should have escaped the cruelty and rapacity of Robespierre, and the fact is, he was imprisoned at the Abbaye, with a number of others, who were devoted to destruction in Septemtember 1793. On the evening, however, before the fatal day, which will always be still more disgraceful to Paris than the St. Barthelemi, he was privately liberated through the influence of Le Gendre, the butcher whom he had personally offended, by that very Le Gendre whose motion in the national assembly, against the person of the king, was so singularly cruel and atrocious. The fear of not being thought hearty in the cause, and the vanity of going beyond others, were, perhaps, the sources of half the atrocities of the revolution. One consequence of the revolutionary government was to diminish the morality of the stage, and to permit, that not only the distinctions of society, but all which the consent of past ages had deemed most venerable, should be held out to public ridicule, while the laws of the drama were treated with as little respect. But the return to former ideas in all matters of taste, and the well-regulated police of the present day, are perceivable at the theatre also, which is rapidly reassuming its ancient habits. Some relaxation, however is still observable, and some liberties are allowed to be taken with those religious establishments which were once deemed so sacred. The Visitandines, for instance, in which a young man gets admittance into a convent under the disguise of a nun, followed by a wicked dog of a valet de chambre, who is dressed as a friar, is still a favourite piece, and some allowance ought to be made, perhaps, for a composition which, though improper, is not, strictly speaking, immoral, accompanied as it is, with so much humour, and such good music. There are others, of the smaller pieces, which are extremely well imagined. In one of them, a young physician, who is represented as on service in Germany, mistakes one town for another, and going to an Austrian post, gives orders to prepare for the general hospital of the French army, with so much confidence, that the commandant is glad to hurry out of it and leave him in possession. This gives rise, as you may suppose, to a great deal of flattery, which is la

vished upon the emperor and upon his invincible army. Every man in the parterre sits erect upon the occasion, as if he also was a hero, and the piece, which has no great merit in itself, is received with a thunder of applause. In another, two young people of high rank, who had lived miserably together as man and wife, find themselves shut up in a place where the noise of keys and a parade of guards, consisting of servants dressed for the purpose, and the ferocious countenance of the one who passes for the turnkey, are all calculated to make them mistake the antiquated but peaceful mansion of a country gentleman, for a state prison. Their mutual friends it seems had joined in the experiment, and the young people suppose themselves immured in consequence of their complaints against each other, a circumstance which adds not a little to the bitterness of their first conversation in the common room. They soon discover, however, and with a sort of regret, after the first torrent of reproach and recrimination, that they are to be together but for a limited time, and are to be confined, during the remainder of the day, in separate apartments. Their behaviour now changes very rapidly. They soon find means to correspond. They corrupt the guards, who have been directed, as you may suppose, not to be inexorable, and, after a stolen interview, in which vows of eternal love and friendship are mutually made, they are on the point of escaping through a window, at the hazard of their lives, when the master of the house, or the governor of the castle, as they had supposed him, interferes and reveals the truth.* There is a sort of impropriety in some of their late pieces which was never before permitted, and which, though not liable to the censure of immorality, ought certainly to be discouraged. Characters of the last, and even of the present age, and who yet live in the memory of a great part of the audience, are converted into personages of the drama. Voltaire, Rousseau, Richlieu, the great king of Prussia, and even the much-lamented Malesherbes, are brought before the public, and the actors are made to look, to speak, and to dress as like as possible to the persons whose names they assume. Nothing perhaps, can more strongly express how little sensibility there is in a French audience, than its being suffered that M. de Malesherbes, whom every one affects to lament, should be brought forth in this manner, to amuse the populace by singing, by sallies of wit, and by a certain eccentricity of character which

Nothing, perhaps, could give a better idea of the difference between the French and En glish stage than the manner in which this little piece of Claire and Adolphe has been adapted to the latter. The turnkey, who is represented as an Irishman, amuses the audience by singing one of his native songs, and by a number of bulls, and makes love to the lady's maid in ra ther a free manner. In other respects it is well translated.

is said to have distinguished him. Nor does it show much respect for religion, that the story of the chaste Susanna should be converted into a ballad opera. In this last piece the whole story is acted to the life. The chaste Susanna, who is personated by the handsome madame Belmont, is even represented as having made some progress towards preparing for the bath, when the elders surprise her. The rest of the piece is such as you know the original to be, with this addition, that the prophet Daniel, represented by a mademoiselle of no very good character, sings a song, and tells the Jews how much better the great nation will treat them than their law-giver does in the Old Testament. If it surprises you, as indeed it must, that such a piece should be permitted since the reestablishment of the catholic religion, and the restoration of good order in society, you must consider, as the police probably does, that there are seventeen or eighteen theatres open every night in Paris, that the actors can only live by drawing full houses, and that they must some way or other gratify the taste of the audience, who, like the tired glutton whom Pope describes as labouring through a feast, tries all ways to stimulate an appetite,

"and calls for something sweet and something sour."

Strict orders were given, during the revolution, that nothing should be presented to the audience but such pieces as were consistent with the temper of the times, and with the principles that were then avowed; and a whole company of actors have been conducted to prison for daring to give a play in which a king, or other titled person, had appeared to advantage, or when particular passages, which might seem to allude unfavourably to the measures of government, had not been omitted. The present master, however, knows better how to manage the nation; for he is better acquainted with their character, with his own strength, and, perhaps. with human nature. Plays, containing passages which might seem to allude to him and to his usurpation, or to the propriety of cutting off tyrants, and restoring the true heir, or which might, in any way, awaken the slumbering affection of the people to the house of Bourbon, have been those he has particularly ordered. He has made one of the audience at the Death of Cæsar; and it was by his particular order that Athalie was represented. He has more than once been present at the "Partie de chasse de Henri IV," which used to draw tears from the eyes of any good Frenchman; so at least it was pretended: but the fact is, that those tears were all af, fectation. The French were never attached to any of their monarchs, but as they would claim distinction from belonging to so great a prince. They were like the livery servants of a very rich man, who are proud of being in his suite, and of calling him master. Not having been in

England for many years, I cannot compare the actors of the two nations; but the French appear to me excellent in comedy. Every character has its representative, and the valet de chambre, the prude, the coquette, and the gamester, are represented to the life. They are all perfect in their parts too, and extremely well dressed. The man of fashion of former times may still be seen in Henri; and the countenance, manners, and tone of voice of mademoiselle Mars are all innocence and amiable simplicity. Indeed she acts her part, and looks it so well, that one is almost tempted to regret that such a mein and such a face should appear upon the stage. You may see in Kotzebue's travels an account of the different theatres and principal actors. Talma appeared to me, as to him, one of the best actors in the world; but I can conceive nothing more perfect than mademoiselle Duchenois, whom he disapproves. They have generally, both in comedy and tragedy, the great defect of looking at the audience, rather than at each other; but this, I am told, arises from their little disagreements, and, besides, from their living so much together, it is very natural they should wish to see other faces. The chaste Susanna has long "quarrelled with her husband, and, being in great vogue, and very affluent circumstances, she takes the liberty of treating the poor man with great contempt. Unfortunately, however, as he is the lover of the troop, and she what is called the premiere amoureuse, for which I leave you to find an English expression, they generally act in the same piece, and are very often obliged to appear smitten with each other. He was, upon one of these occasions, so enraged with her, for having refused, that very morning, to be his security for a gaming debt, that, instead of kissing her hand, or the part required, he bit it, to the no small discomposure of the lady's smiles. The acting in general, with one or two exceptions, is better in comedy than in tragedy, where dignity is made to consist too much in a formal strut, a fierce look, and a certain violent emphatical manner of speaking. When Ulysses, in Racine's Iphigenie, in the language of the true pathetic, tells the unhappy father, that so far from blaming his tears, he is ready himself to weep, the most enlightened of the deaf and dumb, judging only from air and gesture, would suppose, that, shocked at some great offence towards the gods, he was going to immolate Agamemnon upon the spot. In another of Racine's interesting pieces, which he composed for St. Cyr, Haman answers the king's question of how he should reward a faithful servant, the saviour of the state, with so much glaring self-conceit, and such absurd pomposity, that, upon being ordered to carry his advice into execution in favour of Mordecai, the whole audience burst into a fit of laughter. Now certainly Racine, who was tremblingly alive to a sense of decorum, never meant to excite any such emotion. He intended, no doubt, that every honourable mind should