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dramas. Candide and the Princess of Babylon did more for Voltaire's ends than all his Théâtre.

If courtly patronage could have made any stage flourish preeminently, it must have done so in modern Germany; yet even there the attempt has been unsuccessful. Werter and Wilhelm Meister have had infinitely more influence on the public mind of that country than all Goethe's dramatic works put together-unless, perhaps, we must except the Faust, which is, after all, much more of a romance than a drama. The strong tendency of the time is seen in Schiller also: his Wallenstein, by far the most powerful and effective of his dramatic works, is in reality a historical romance-it is a whole history in the form of scenes—a tragedy, or rather a tragic tale, in three plays. The often satirized stage-directions of the German theatre are well worthy of consideration in the same point of view. Those minute and elaborate instructions as to the looks, attitudes, tones, and inflections of the dramatis persona-what do they attest but a systematic struggle to bring the dramatic form more nearly to the level of the novel as regards the reader? Perhaps the same thing may be said of those curious abstracts of character which Ben Jonson was fond of prefixing to his comedies; and indeed, the materials of his dramas, and the whole character of his talents, were, we think, much better adapted for the modern form of composition than for that in which he would fain have rivalled his masters of the ancient world. Had Jonson written novels, his peculiar fancy for the delineation of mere oddities might have been gratified to the utmost extent, without producing any of those unfortunate effects which it undeniably has had on him as a dramatist. We can scarcely imagine a work more likely to have taken its place among the first favourites of the world than a novel, in which the humours of the Bobadils, Tom Otters, Ursulas, &c. &c. should have been opposed, with the constructive skill of another Epicene, to the display of that profound mastery of passion which all must recognize in the principal scenes of the Catiline. The Fortunes of Nigel' may be considered as an attempt to do what it is a thousand pities that Ben Jonson should have left undone.

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Cumberland, determined to make the History of his Foundling as like Tom Jones as possible, prefixes critical chapters to the different sections of Henry, and discusses in them, in an agreeable enough style, many speculative questions connected with the lite rature of the novel-assuming throughout that it requires precisely the same talents as the drama. Sir Walter Scott, on the other hand, in writing the lives of so many novelists, is compelled to observe the extraordinary numbers of instances in which the same men have tried both departments, and, producing little or

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no effect in the one, attained, nevertheless, the very highest excellence in the other-and he draws the general conclusion that might be anticipated. Cervantes struggled hard for dramatic fame and failed: we believe none of his pieces ever engaged any considerable share of popularity except one or two mere interludes. Le Sage supported his family half his lifetime by writing comic operas for the Foire: and he tried, besides, over and over again the regular comedy-yet, who remembers that the author of Gil Blas was a dramatist? Fielding is a third example: of his numerous dramatic efforts all have perished but Tom Thumb:—and Smollett is a fourth; for he, too, tried in vain first tragedy, then opera, and lastly comedy; or rather, as might be expected from the turn of his mind, something hovering between comedy and farce.-In short, the only English exception is to be found in Goldsmith, who has certainly produced both a standard novel and a standard play: for Cumberland has not, after all, succeeded in either walk, so as to entitle him to a place among our classics. His best novels and his best comedies may be admitted to be much on the same level; but our difficulty is not to find the man who can imitate two masters cleverly, but the master himself, who can equally show himself the master in two separate walks:-And perhaps it would be too much to say, that we have found this even in Goldsmith; for a writer may be both an original and a delightful one, without meriting a place in the highest rank; and, admirable as Goldsmith's productions are, who thinks of naming him as a dramatist with Sheridan, or as a novelist with that Sterne, whom he, Dr. Goldsmith, pronounced to be a heavy fellow'?

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'Fielding,' says Sir Walter Scott, has added his name to that of Le Sage and others; who, eminent for fictitious narration, have either altogether failed in their dramatic attempts, or at least have fallen far short of that degree of excellence, which might have been previously augured of them. It is hard to fix upon any plausible reason for a failure which has occurred in too many instances to be the operation of mere chance, especially since, a priori, one would think the same talents necessary for both walks of literature. Force of character, strength of expression, felicity of contrast and situation, a well-constructed plot, in which the developement is at once natural and unexpected, and where the interest is kept uniformly alive till summed up by the catastrophe-all these are requisites as essential to the labour of the novelist, as to that of the dramatist, and, indeed, appear to comprehend the sum of the qualities necessary to success in both departments. Fielding's biographers have, in this particular instance, explained his lack of theatrical success as arising entirely from the careless haste with which he huddled up his dramatic compositions; it being no uncommon thing with him to finish an act or two in a morning, and to write out whole scenes upon the paper in which his favourite tobacco had been wrapped up. Negligence of this kind will

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no doubt give rise to great inequalities in the productions of an author so careless of his reputation; but will scarcely account for an attribute something like dullness, which pervades Fielding's plays, and which is rarely to be found in those works which a man of genius throws off" at a heat," to use Dryden's expression, in prodigal self-reliance on his internal resources. Neither are we at all disposed to believe, that an author, so careless as Fielding, took much more pains to labour his novels, than in composing his plays; and we are, therefore, compelled to seek some other and more general reason for the inferiority of the latter. This may perhaps be found in the nature of these two studies, which, intimately connected as they seem to be, are yet naturally distinct in some very essential particulars; so much so as to vindicate the general opinion, that he who applies himself with eminent success to the one, becomes in some degree unqualified for the other, like the artisan, who, by a particular turn for excellence in one mechanical department, loses the habit of dexterity necessary for acquitting himself with equal reputation in another; or as the artist who has dedicated himself to the use of watercolours, is usually less distinguished by his skill in oil-painting.

"It is the object of the novel-writer to place before the reader as full and accurate a representation of the events which he relates, as can be done by the mere force of an excited imagination, without the assistance of material objects. His sole appeal is made to the world of fancy and of ideas, and in this consists his strength and his weakness, his poverty and his wealth. He cannot, like the painter, present a visible and tangible representation of his towns and his woods, his palaces and his castles; but, by awakening the imagination of a congenial reader, he places before his mind's eye, landscapes fairer than those of Claude, and wilder than those of Salvator. He cannot, like the dramatist, present before our living eyes the heroes of former days, or the beautiful creations of his own fancy, embodied in the grace and majesty of Kemble or of Siddons; but he can teach his readers to conjure up forms even more dignified and beautiful than theirs. The same difference follows him through every branch of his art. The author of a novel, in short, has neither stage nor scene-painter, nor company of comedians, nor dresses, nor wardrobe-words, applied with the best of his skill, must supply all that these bring to the assistance of the dramatist. Action, and tone, and gesture, the smile of the lover, the frown of the tyrant, the grimace of the buffoon-all must be told, for nothing can be shown. Thus, the very dialogue becomes mixed with the narration; for he must not only tell what the characters actually said, in which his task is the same as that of the dramatic author, but must also describe the tone, the look, the gesture, with which their speech was accompanied; telling, in short, all which, in the drama, it becomes the province of the actor to express. It must, therefore, frequently happen, that the author best qualified for a province, in which all depends on the communication of his own ideas and feelings to the reader, without any intervening medium, may fall short of the skill necessary to adapt his compositions to the medium of the stage, where the very qualities most excellent in a novelist are out of place, and an impediment to success. Description and narration, which

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form the very essence of the novel, must be very sparingly introduced into dramatic composition, and scarce ever have a good effect upon the stage. Mr. Puff, in The Critic, has the good sense to leave out "all about gilding the eastern hemisphere;" and the very first thing which the players struck out of his memorable tragedy, was the description of queen Elizabeth, her palfrey, and her side saddle. The drama speaks to the eye and ear; and, when it ceases to address these bodily organs, and would exact from a theatrical audience that exercise of the imagination which is necessary to follow forth and embody circumstances neither spoken nor exhibited, there is an immediate failure, though it may be the failure of a man of genius. Hence, it follows, that though a good acting play may be made by selecting a plot and characters from a novel, yet scarce any effort of genius could render a play into a narrative romance. In the former case, the author has only to contract the events within the space necessary for representation, to chuse the most striking characters, and exhibit them in the most forcible contrast, discard from the dialogue whatever is redundant or tedious, and so dramatize the whole. But we know not any effort of genius which could successfully insert into a good play, those accessaries of description and delineation which are necessary to dilate it into a readable novel. It may thus easily be conceived that he, whose chief talent lies in addressing the imagination only, and whose style, therefore, must be expanded and circumstantial, may fail in a kind of composition where so much must be left to the efforts of the actor, with his allies and assistants, the scene-painter and property-man, and where every attempt to interfere with their province is an error unfavourable to the success of the piece. Besides, it must be farther remembered that in fictitious narrative an author carries on his manufacture alone and upon his own account; whereas, in dramatic writing, he enters into partnership with the performers, and it is by their joint efforts that the piece is to succeed. Co-partnery is called, by Civilians, the mother of discord; and how likely it is to prove so in the present instance, may be illustrated by reference to the admirable dialogue between the player and poet in Joseph Andrews, book iii. chap. 10. The poet must either be contented to fail, or to make great condescensions to the experience, and pay much attention to the peculiar qualifications, of those by whom his piece is to be represented. And he, who in a novel had only to fit sentiments, action, and character, to ideal beings, is, now compelled to assume the much more difficult task of adapting all these to real existing persons, who, unless their parts are exactly suited to their own taste, and their peculiar capacities, have, each in his line, the means, and not unfrequently the inclination, to ruin the success of the play. Such are, amongst many others, the peculiar difficulties of the dramatic art, and they seem impediments which lie peculiarly in the way of the novelist who aspires to extend his sway over the stage.'

This account of the matter, interesting and in many parts ingenious as it is, appears to us to be upon the whole rather unsatisfactory. In the first place Sir Walter accounts for the dramatic failures of his novelists by suggesting that they had lost

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in the habitual exercise of their talents for narrative, the particular turn' requisite for the attainment of excellence in the drama. But unfortunately for this theory, the fact is that Cervantes, Le Sage, Fielding, Smollett, began, one and all of them, with the drama, and after failing in that, betook themselves to the efforts by which they have earned their immortality. No one instance is presented to us of a practised and successful dramatist trying his hand unsuccessfully at the novel: and yet it seems to be throughout assumed that the frequent occurrence of such examples constitutes the principal difficulty to be solved. Another assumption, equally bold and, as it seems to us, equally unfounded, is that, though a good acting play may be made by selecting a plot and characters from a novel, yet scarcely any effort of genius could render a play into a narrative romance. in the first place the former attempt (in the sense in which Sir Walter speaks of the matter) never has been made—but onceby an author from whose talents any high degree of success might have been a priori expected. Werner is in every point of view an anomaly, and we cannot consent to draw from it any general conclusion whatever. Such borrowing both of plot and character as we can trace in regard to almost every one of Shakpeare's plays is nothing to the present purpose: for there infinitely more both of quantity and of quality was added than taken. But who can suppose that a man of genius in his senses ever will condescend to busy himself with transferring another man's complete extended plot and all its full length characters from one form of composition to another, either from drama to romance, or from romance to drama? Secondly, in point of fact, no good acting play has ever been produced in the way Sir Walter describes.. We have no good acting play from Don Quixote, or Gil Blas, or Tom Jones, or Roderick Random-or Waverley. The popular novels of the day are often, indeed, dramatised, in a certain sense of the word, and the people flock to see them. But are any

such performances entitled to be talked of as 'good acting plays'? On the contrary, the best of them that we have seen (for example Rob Roy) must be admitted to amount to an arbitrary sequence of individual scenes, which would be unintelligible to any audience that wanted the means of filling up every here and there the most lamentable and hopeless hiatus from previous and perfect knowledge of the not merely plundered, but maimed, mutilated, mangled romance; and accordingly, whenever the romance passes from its first stage of extreme popular favour the 'good acting play' is sure to follow it. Fielding and Smollett had their day of being, as the author of Waverley somewhere styles the process, Terryfied. Miss Burney shared for her hour the same distinc

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