greater contrast than between the plays of the elder English dramatists, and those of Dryden and his age. The former, even setting Shakespeare aside, are among the highest boasts of English literature. The fertility of Fletcher, the pure diction of Massinger, and innumerable beauties of some less considerable writers, have never since been excelled. These poets, as they often resembled Shakespeare in his command of language, his knowledge of nature, and expression of character, so they went far beyond. him in all his blemishes. Their plots, from a love of exciting surprise, which was borrowed perhaps from the Spanish stage, are full of capricious changes, in which the interest of the reader is lost. Even the unity of character is often sacrificed to the desire of astonishing; and we sometimes find the hero of the first act become a coward in the third; and a virtuous young gentleman turned suddenly into a ravisher or an assassin.

The troubles of the civil war, and the fanatical antipathy to stage plays, which distinguished the predominating party, silenced the muse of the buskin, and broke the continuity of writings, which had given a tone to public feeling as to the drama, from about the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign. When the theatres were reopened upon the Restoration, another generation had risen, and the scale of taste was to be adjusted anew. It is justly observed by Mr Scott, that the French theatre, which was now thought to be in perfection, guided the criticism of Charles II.'s court, and afforded the pattern of those tragedies, which continued in fashion for twenty years after the restoration, and which were called rhyming or heroic plays. He finds the origin of that unnatural and pedantic dialogue which prevailed through these performances, in the roinances of Calprenede and Scudery; and in the necessity of modifying every expression of passion and feeling, so as not to exceed the decorum prescribed by the presence of a royal spectator. It may be doubtful, however, whether the inflexible nature of French verse, and its want of a proper poetical dialect, will not principally account for these defects. They were, too, established and rendered legitimate by the authority of Corneille, whose genius, in many respects, resembled that of Dryden. It would be ridiculous (although we think Dryden, upon the whole, by far the superior) to balance his heroic plays against Cinna and Polyeucte; but the merits and defects of the two writers are much of the same class. Voltaire somewhere confesses of his countryman, that he has written no line that ever drew a tear; an avowal, by the way, which ought to have silenced him, when he affected to set the name of Corneille above that of Shakespeare. Of Dryden, the same may perhaps be said, with very little exception; but each had great knowledge of men; great power of reasoning

reasoning in forcible and compressed language; and a command of the versification of his own tongue. The following account of these heroic tragedies is lively and just.

The rage for imitating the French stage, joined to the successful efforts of our author, had now carried the heroic or rhyming tragedy to its highest pitch of popularity. The principal requisites of such a drama are summed up by Dryden in the two first lines of the "Orlando Furioso, "

"Le Donne, i cavalier, l'arme, gli amori

Le cortisie, l'audaci imprese.

The story thus partaking of the nature of a romance of chivalry, the whole interest of the play necessarily turned upon love and honour, those supreme idols of the days of knight-errantry. The love introduced was not of that ordinary sort which exists between persons of common mould: it was the love of Amadis and Oriana, of Oroondates and Statira; that love which required a sacrifice of every wish, hope, and feeling unconnected with itself, and which was expressed in the language of prayer and of adoration. It was that love which was neither to be chilled by absence, nor wasted by time, nor quenched by infidelity. No caprice in the object beloved entitled her slave to emancipate himself from her fetters; no command, however unreasonable, was to be disobeyed. If required by the fair mistress of his affections, the hero was not only to sacrifice his interest, but his friend, his honour, his word, his country, even the gratification of his love itself, to maintain the character of a submissive and faithful adorer. Much of this mystery is summed up in the following speech of Almatride to Almanzor, and his answer; from which it appears, that a lover of the true heroic vein never thought himself so happy, as when he had an opportunity of thus showing the purity and disinterestedness of his passion. Almanzor is commanded by his mistress to stay to assist his rival, the king, her husband. The lover very naturally asks,

"Almanz. What recompence attends me, if I stay?
"Almatr. You know I am from recompence debarred,
But I will grant your merit a reward;

Your flame's too noble to deserve a cheat,

And I too plain to practise a deceit.

I no return of love can ever make,

But what I ask is for my husband's sake;
He, I confess, has been ungrateful too,
But he and I are ruined if you go:

Your virtue to the hardest proof I bring ;

Unbribed, preserve a mistress and a king.

"Almanz. I'll stop at nothing that appears so brave:

I'll do't, and now I no reward will have.

You've given my honour such an ample field,
That I may die, but that shall never yield.

The most applauded scenes in these plays turned upon nice dis

cussions

cussions of metaphysical passion, such as in the days of yore were wont to be agitated in the courts and parliaments of love. Some puzzling dilemma, or metaphysical abstraction, is argued between the personages on the stage, whose dialogue, instead of presenting a scene of natural passion, exhibits a sort of pleading, or combat of logic, in which each endeavours to defend his own opinion by catching up the idea expressed by the former speaker, and returning him his illustration, or simile, at the rebound; and where the lover hopes every thing from his ingenuity, and trusts nothing to his passion.

This kind of Amabæan dialogue was early ridiculed by the ingenious author of " Hudibras. " It partakes more of the Spanish than of the French tragedy, although it does not demand that the parody shall be so very strict, as to reecho noun for noun, or verb for verb, which Lord Holland gives us as a law of the age of Lope de Vega. The English heroic poet did enough if he displayed suf ficient point in the dialogue, and alertness in adopting and retorting the image presented by the preceding speech; though, if he could twist the speaker's own words into an answer to his argument, it seems to have been held the more ingenious mode of confutation.

While the hero of a rhyming tragedy was thus unboundedly submissive in love, and dexterous in applying the metaphysical logic. of amorous jurisprudence, it was essential to his character that he should possess all the irresistible courage and fortune of a preux chevalier. Numbers, however unequal, were to be as chaff before the whirlwind of his valour; and nothing was to be so impossible, that, at the command of his mistress, he could not with ease achieve. When, in the various changes of fortune which such tragedies demand, he quarrelled with those whom he had before assisted to con

quer,

"Then to the vanquished part his fate he led,

The vanquished triumphed, and the victor fled. "

The language of such a personage, unless when engaged in argumentative dialogue with his mistress, was, in all respects, as magnificent and inflated as might beseem his irresistible prowess. Wit, ness the famous speech of Almanzor.

"Almanz. To live!

If from thy hands alone my death can be,
I am immortal, and a god to thee.

If I would kill thee now, thy fate's so low,
That I must stoop ere I can give the blow:
But mine is fixed so far above thy crown,
That all thy men,

Piled on thy back, can never call it down:
But, at my ease, thy destiny I send,
By ceasing from this hour to be thy friend.
Like heaven, I need but only to stand still,
And, not concurring to thy life, I kill.
Thou canst no title to my duty bring;

I'm

I'm not thy subject, and my soul's thy king.
Farewell. When I am gone,

There's not a star of thine dare stay with thee:
I'll whistle thy tame fortune after me;
And whirl fate with me whereso'er I fly,

As winds drive storms before them in the sky.'

It was expected by the audience, that the pomp of scenery, and bustle of action, in which such tremendous heroes were engaged, should in some degree correspond with their lofty sentiments and superhuman valour. Hence solemn feasts, processions, and battles by sea and land, filled the theatre. Hence, also, the sudden and

violent changes of fortune, by which the hero and his antagonists are agitated through the whole piece. Fortune has been often compared to the sea; but, in a heroic play, her course resembled an absolute Bay of Biscay, or Race of Portland, disturbed by an hundred contending currents and eddies, and never continuing a moment in one steady flow.

That no engine of romantic surprise might be wanting, Dryden contends, that the dramatist, as he is not confined to the probable in character, so he is not limited by the bounds of nature in the action, but may let himself loose to visionary objects, and to the representation of such things as, not depending upon sense, leave free exercise for the imagination. Indeed, if ghosts, magicians and demons, might with propriety claim a place anywhere, it must be in plays which, throughout, disclaim the common rules of nature, both in the incidents narrated, and the agents interested.

Lastly, the action of the heroic drama was to be laid, not merely in the higher, but in the very highest walk of life. No one could with decorum aspire to share the sublimities which it annexed to character, except those made of the " porcelain clay of the earth, "— dukes, princes, kings, and kaisars. The matters agitated must be of moment, proportioned to their characters and elevated station, the fate of cities and the fall of kingdoms.'

It is not an unprofitable curiofity to fearch for the principles of epidemical bad taste. Thefe, perhaps, in the inftance of rhyming tragedies, it is not hard to difcover. There is but a narrow walk between the fublime and the tumid; and a promifcuous audience is feldom quickfighted enough to distinguish the limits. A fober citizen who frequents the theatre, must have accustomed himself to make fuch large allowances, to put himself into a state of mind fo totally different from his every-day habits, that a little extraordinay deviation from nature, fo far from fhocking him, will rather fhow like a further advance towards excellence. Hotfpur and Almanzor, Richard and Aurengzebe, feem caft in the fame mould; beings who never occur in the common walks of life, but whom the tragedian has, by a tacit convention with his audience, acquired the right of feigning, like his ghofts and witches, Whether

Whether thefe unnatural reprefentations could have stood their ground in competition with a better ftyle, had Maflinger or any of that fchool been furviving, is another queftion; probably they would not have had much fuccefs; becaufe, though they intoxicated the imagination, they never came to the heart. But they were aided by greater fplendour of decoration than the ftage had heretofore poffeffed; by fuperior actors, especially Betterton; and by female performers, who had never appeared on the ftage before the Restoration. To thefe recommendations, the tragedies of Dryden added much vigour of fentiment, and much beautiful poetry; with a verfification fweet, even to lufcioufnefs.

The

Conqueft of Grenada' is, on account of its extravagance, the most celebrated of thefe plays; but we much prefer the Indian Emperor, from which it would be easy to select many paffages of perfect elegance. It is fingular, that although the rythm of dramatic verfe is commonly permitted to be the moft lax of any,, Dryden has in this play indulged himfelf in none of his wonted privileges. He regularly clofes the sense with the couplet; and falls into a fmoothness of cadence, which, though exquifitely mellifluous, is perhaps too uniform. In the Conqueft of Grenada,

the versification is rather more broken.

The rhyming plays of Dryden are so much forgotten, that we shall illustrate their harmony and elegance by an extract from the Indian Emperor.

Vasq. Corn, oil, and wine, are wanting to this ground
In which our countries fruitfully abound;

As if this infant world, yet unarrayed,
Naked and bare in Nature's lap were laid.
No useful arts have yet found footing, here,
But all untaught and savage does appear.

Cort. Wild and untaught are terms which we alone
Invent, for fashions differing from our own;
For all their customs are by Nature wrought,

But we, by art, unteach what Nature taught.

• Piz.

In Spain, our springs, like old men's children, bẹ

Decayed and withered from their infancy :

No kindly showers fall on our barren earth,
To hatch the season in a timely birth:

Our summer such a russet livery wears,

As in a garment often dyed appears.

Cort. Here Nature spreads her fruitful sweetness round,
Breathes on the air, and broods upon the ground:

Here days and nights the only seasons be;

The sun no climate does so gladly see;

:.

When forced from hence, to view our parts, he mourns;
Takes little journies, and makes quick returns.