Page images
PDF
EPUB

which its progress has been attended. They are filled with horror and compassion at the sight of poor men spending their blood in the quarrels of princes, and brutifying their sublime capabilities in the drudgery of unremitting labour. For all sorts of vice and profligacy in the lower orders of society, they have the same virtuous horror, and the same tender compassion. While the existence of these offences overpowers them with grief and confusion, they never permit themselves to feel the smallest indignation or dislike towards the offenders. The present vicious constitution of society alone is responsible for all these enormities: the poor sinners are but the helpless victims or instruments of its disorders, and could not possibly have avoided the errors into which they have been betrayed. Though they can bear with crimes, therefore, they cannot reconcile themselves to punishments; and have an unconquerable antipathy to prisons, gibbets, and houses of correction, as engines of oppression, and instruments of atrocious injustice. While the plea of moral necessity is thus artfully brought forward to convert all the excesses of the poor into innocent misfortunes, no sort of indulgence is shown to the offences of the powerful and rich. Their oppressions, and seductions, and debaucheries, are the theme of many an angry verse; and the indignation and abhorrence of the reader is relentlessly conjured up against those perturbators of society, and scourges of mankind.

It is not easy to say, whether the fundamental absurdity of this doctrine, or the partiality of its application, be entitled to the severest reprehension. If men are driven to commit crimes, through a certain moral necessity, other men are compelled, by a similar necessity, to hate and despise them for their commission. The indignation of the sufferer is at least as natural as the guilt of him who makes him suffer; and the good order of society would probably be as well preserved, if our sympathies were sometimes called forth in behalf of the former. At all events, the same apology ought certainly to be admitted for the wealthy, as for the needy offender. They are subject alike to the overruling influence of necessity, and equally affected by the miserable condition of society. If it be natural for a poor man to murder and rob, in order to make himself comfortable, it is no less natural for a rich man to gormandise and domineer, in order to have the full use of his riches. Wealth is just as valid an excuse for the one class of vices as indigence is for the other. There are many other peculiarities of false sentiment in the productions of this class of writers, that are sufficiently deserving of commemoration. But we have already exceeded our limits in giving these general indications of their character, and must now hasten back to the consideration of the singular performance which has given occasion to all this discussion.

EXAMINATION OF MISS JOANNA BAILLIE'S PLAN OF HER PLAYS ON THE PASSIONS. No. I.*

These plays require a double criticism; first, as to the merit of the peculiar plan upon which they are composed; and, secondly, as to their own intrinsic excellence.

Miss Baillie's Plays on the Passions.-Vol. ii. p. 269. July, 1803,

ས་

To such peculiar plans, in general, we confess that we are far from being partial they necessarily exclude many beauties, and ensure nothing but constraint. The only plan of a dramatic writer should be to please and to interest as much as possible; but when, in addition to this, he resolves to write upon nothing but scriptural subjects, or to imitate the style of Shakspeare, or to have a siege, or the history of a passion, in every one of his pieces, he evidently cuts himself off from some of the means of success, puts fetters upon the freedom of his own genius, and multiplies the difficulties of a very arduous undertaking.

The writer of the pieces before us has espoused the patronage of what she has been pleased to call characteristic truth, the great charm of dramatic composition; and in order to magnify its importance, has degraded all the other requisites of a perfect drama to the rank of very weak and unprofitable auxiliaries. With a partiality not at all unusual in the advocates of a peculiar system, she admits, indeed, that a play may have qualities that give nearly as much pleasure; but maintains, that this is altogether owing to the folly of mankind, and that if we were constituted as we ought to be, we should care very little for any thing but the just representation of character in our dramatic performances. This sentiment, we think, is pretty clearly expressed in the following passage of the "Introductory Discourse," prefixed to the present volume:

"Our love of the grand, the beautiful, the novel, and, above all, of the marvellous, is very strong; and if we are richly fed with what we have a good relish for, we may be weaned to forget our native and favourite aliment; yet we can never so far forget it, but that we shall cling to, and acknowledge it again, whenever it is presented before us. In a work abounding with the marvellous and unnatural, if the author has any how stumbled upon an unsophisticated genuine stroke of nature, we shall immediately perceive and be delighted with it; though we are foolish enough at the same time to admire all the nonsense with which it is surrounded."

Now, we really cannot perceive why the admiration of novelty and grandeur should be considered as more foolish than the admiration of just sentiments, or consistent character. The same power that gave us a relish for the one, formed us to be delighted with the other; and the wisdom that guides us to the gratification of the first propensity, can scarcely condemn our indulgence in the second. Where the object is to give pleasure, nothing that pleases can be foolish; and a striking trait of character, or of nature, will only please the more, when it occurs in a performance which has already delighted us with its grandeur, its novelty, and its beauty. The skilful delineation of character is, no doubt, among the highest objects of the drama; but this has been so generally admitted, that it was the less necessary to undervalue all the rest. The true object of the drama is to interest and delight; and this it can frequently accomplish by incident as effectually as by character. There are innumerable situations that excite our sympathy in the strongest degree, though the characters of those who are placed in them be left almost entirely to be filled up from our general conceptions of human nature. Mothers bereaved of their children; lovers separated or restored to each other; the young and valiant cut off by untimely deaths; tyrants precipitated from their thrones; and many other occurrences or representations, are capable of awakening the highest interest, and the most anxious curiosity, although the character should be drawn only with those vague and undistinguishing features that fancy has associated with the situation.

But, even if we could agree with Miss Baillie, that the striking deline

ation of character was the cardinal excellence of the drama, we should find great difficulty in admitting that her plan was the most likely to ensure its attainment. The peculiarity of that plan consists in limiting the interest of the piece, in a great degree, to the developement of some one great passion in the principal character, and in exhibiting this passion in all the successive stages of its progress, from its origin to its final catastrophe. It does not appear to us that either of these observances is well calculated to increase the effect of any dramatic production.

If any thing more is meant by limiting the interest of the piece to the consequences of a single passion, than is implied in the vulgar rules for preserving unity of character and of action, we are inclined to think that something more is meant than can very easily be justified. The old maxims evidently require the predominancy of certain motives in the minds of the leading characters, and a certain consistency in the sympathies that are excited by their fortunes. To carry these restrictions still farther, and to confine the whole interest of the story to the developement of a single passion, seems to us to be altogether impracticable, and could not even be attempted, in a very imperfect degree, without violating that unity of action, by which the general effect of the piece would be very materially impaired. To confine the attention, and tie down the sympathies, to the observance of one master passion through a whole play, is plainly impossible; first, because that passion, in order to prove its strength, must have some other passion to encounter and overcome in the bosom where it is at last to reign; and, secondly, because a certain portion of our sympathy must necessarily be reserved for the fate and the feelings of those who are the objects and the victims of this ruling passion in the hero. The first partition of our sympathy is altogether unavoidable; and Miss Baillie herself has accordingly been forced to submit to it. Count Basil is distracted between love and a passion for military glory; and the interest and sympathy excited by the whole story may be referred to the one passion just as properly as to the other. De Montfort is represented as struggling between a high sense of honour and a frantic and disgraceful antipathy; nor could the latter have been made interesting in any degree, unless our sympathy had first been very powerfully engaged for the former. Ethwald, in like manner, is agitated by ambition, and gratitude, and personal attachment; and pleases us as much by his generosity and kind affections, as he terrifies us by the consequences of his thirst for power. The second division of interest that is claimed by those who inspire or oppose the domineering passion of the chief personage, is scarcely less necessary. We cannot easily sympathise with a lover, unless we take some concern in the object of his attachment; and are seldom much offended by the oppres sions of a tyrant, when we do not enter very warmly into the feelings of those whom he oppresses. The only way in which the interest we take in the story can be in any degree engrossed by the hero, is to provide him with a succession of inferior patients and observers, through whom he moves in the grand career of his passion, and who are successively forgotten for the sake of those who replace them. By this contrivance, which is but seldom practicable, it is very obvious, however, that the interest of the piece is impaired and dissipated, and the unity of the action entirely broken. Miss Baillie has had recourse to it in the tragedy that occupies so large a portion of the present volume; and every reader of Ethwald must acknowledge, that the interest of the play is exceedingly diminished by the constant introduction and renewal of the inferior characters; and that the catastrophe,

which is accomplished by persons with whom we have scarcely any previous acquaintance, is but ill calculated to produce any strong or satisfactory impression.

The peculiarity of Miss Baillie's plan, however, does not consist so much in reducing any play to the exhibition of a single passion, as in attempting to comprehend within it a complete view of the origin, growth, and consummation of this passion, under all its aspects of progress and maturity. This plan seems to us almost as unpoetical as that of the bard who began the tale of the Trojan war from the egg of Leda; and really does not appear very well calculated for a species of composition, in which the time of the action represented has usually been more circumscribed than in any other. Miss Baillie, however, is of opinion, that it will turn out to be a very valuable discovery; and insists much upon the advantage that will be gained by adhering to it, both in the developement of character, the increase of interest, and the 'promotion of moral improvement. We are afraid that these expectations are more sanguine than reasonable.

To delineate a man's character, by tracing the progress of his ruling passion, is like describing his person by the yearly admeasurement of his foot, or rather by a termly report of the increase of a wen, by which his health and his beauty are ultimately destroyed. A ruling passion distorts and deforms the character; and its growth, instead of developing that character more fully, constantly withdraws more and more of it from our view. The growth of the passion is not the growth of the mind; and its progress and symptoms are pretty conform, in whatever subject it may have originated. Amor omnibus idem, at least so says the poet; and it may fairly be admitted, that men become assimilated, by their common subjection to some master-passion, who had previously been distinguished by very opposite characters. To delineate character, therefore, by the progress of such a passion, is like following a cloud of smoke, in order to discriminate more clearly the objects that it envelopes.

These considerations are so very obvious, that though Miss Baillie has certainly talked a great deal about tracing a passion from its origin, we are persuaded that she really did not expect much assistance from this maxim in the delineation of character. She has built, in general, upon a truer ground; and seems to have perceived very clearly the method of employing a predominating passion, so as to give brilliancy and effect to characteristic representation. This method, which, however, is by no means new, consists principally in the occasional introduction of the passion, or peculiar turn of mind, in transactions of inferior moment, and in circumstances where it does not serve at all to help forward the action of the piece. By this apparently accidental disclosure of consistency, a stamp of nature and reality is given to the whole delineation; and the glimpses that are thus caught of the hero, in the course of his ordinary deportment, serve, in a manner, to confirm those impressions_that_had been excited by his more studied and imposing appearances. In private life, and on trifling occasions, the splendid drapery of the passions is usually laid aside; and if we are permitted to look in upon them, in this situation, we fancy that we recognise their genuine features with less uncertainty. If care be taken, therefore, to relieve the glare and pomp of the main action, by the insertion of a few such casual incidents, we seem to be let into the interior of the character, and attain a certain fa

miliarity with the chief personages, that renders our conception of their whole character much more lively, entire, and impressive. It is upon this principle that the effect of most of the fine strokes of nature and character which occur in the writings of the poets, will be found to depend; and it is a principle, that has been quite familiar to criticism, ever since it was illustrated by the ancient commentators of Homer.

But though Miss Baillie has not overlooked this powerful instrument for the developement of characteristic effect, there is another, of still greater importance, which appears to be, in a good measure, excluded by her doctrine of the unity of passion. The art to which we now allude is that by which an appearance of individual reality is communicated to an ideal personage, and the functions of a dramatic hero assigned to a living being, with the whole of whose capacities and dispositions we are made to feel that we are acquainted. This poetical deception, however, can never be accomplished by the display of a single passion; and cannot even take place, we should imagine, where such a display is made the chief object of our attention. It is to be effected, indeed, only by an occasional neglect and intermission of the principal action, and of the passions by which that action is forwarded; by the introduction of arbitrary and inconsiderable occurrences, and slight and transient indications of habits, sentiments, and feelings, that could not have been inferred from the conduct or emotions of the chief characters in the greater incidents of the piece. It is by these, and by these alone, that a definite object can be created for our sympathies to attach upon, and the true image of a living man be presented to our imagination. There is no man alive, of whose whole character we could judge merely from his conduct or expressions in some important transaction; and our sympathies are always but feebly excited for those with whose internal feelings we are so imperfectly acquainted. It is not enough, therefore, that the qualities bestowed upon our heroes be suitable to the conduct which is assigned them, or consistent with each other. A naked combination of the qualities necessary to account for the action, will never make up the idea of a real and entire man. There must be a delineation of those, also, that are of no use at the moment, and are not necessarily implied by the presence of the leading features. Without these, an action indeed may be represented; but the actors will be utterly unknown, and all impression of reality, along with every emotion of individual sympathy, will be utterly excluded. A play which discriminates its characters only by the great and leading passions that are essential to the parts they have to sustain, must be as deficient in interest and effect, therefore, as a picture which shows no more of the figures than is necessary to explain its subject; that displays the hand of the murderer, and the bleeding bosom of his victim, but omits all representation of the countenance and gestures of either, or of those circumstances in the surrounding scenery which may suggest aggravations or apologies for the crime. By the plan of Miss Baillie, however, these subordinate and arbitrary traits of character appear to be in a great measure excluded. Her heroes are to be mere personifications of single passions; and the growth and varied condition of one grand feature is to be incessantly held out to our observation, while an impenetrable shade is to be spread upon all the rest of the physiognomy. Among the debasements of modern tragedy, against which Miss Baillie declaims with so much animation, there is none, perhaps, so material as this, which her

« PreviousContinue »