foreigner is acquainted with our language, the more he will be reconciled to that very rhime which startles him fo much in the beginning. It is not only neceffary to our tragedies, but it embellishes even our comedies. A happy thought is cafier remembered in verfe than in profe. Defcriptions of human life are always more ftriking when poetically expreffed; and by verfe, in French, we must always neceffarily understand rhime; in short, we have fome comedies in profe, of the celebrated Moliere, that we have been obliged to turn into verfe; and now they are never acted but in their new dress.

As I could not venture blank verfe on the french ftage, according to the custom of Italy and England, I would fain, at leaft, introduce fome other beauties on our scene from yours. You must own, the english theatre is very imperfect; I have heard you say, my lord, that you had not one good tragedy; but for recompence, you have in these monftrous compofitions, fcenes truly admirable. Almost all the tragic authors of your nation are defective

in

in that elegance, that exactness, that decency of action and ftile, and all the delicate fineles of the art which have established the reputation of the french theatre, fince the great Corneille. But your moft irregular plays have one great merit, which is that of action.

We have tragedies in France that are efteemed, which are conversations, rather than a reprefentation of facts. An italian author wrote to me in the following manner, in a letter on the theatres : "A critic on our Paftor-Fido faid that "this work was a collection of excellent "madrigals; I believe, were he now alive,

he would fay of the french tragedies, "that they are a collection of fine elegies "and fublime epithalamiums."

I am afraid this Italian is in the right. Our exceffive delicacy obliges us often, to recite what should be reprefented. We are loth to venture a new fpectacle before a people fo inclined to turn every thing into ridicule that is not customary.

The place where plays are acted, and the abuses that have crept in by degrees, B 5

are

are another caufe of that heavinefs which is found in fome of our compofitions. The benches on the stage, for the use of fpectators, ftreighten the scene and render almost every action imperfect *. This defect also hinders decorations, fo much recommended by the ancients, from being ever rightly adapted to the piece; and the actors cannot pass from one apartment to another before the fpectators, as the Greeks and Romans used to do, in order to preferve, at the fame time, unity of place and probability.

How could we dare, for example, to introduce on our theatre, the ghost of Pompey, or Brutus's genius, in the midst of

*The tranflator is informed that this great abufe was corrected in the theatre of Paris in the year 1759, thro the means and at the expence of the count de Lauragais, whom it coft about a thousand pounds fterling, for the different changes and reparations that this reformation required. This young nobleman is member of the royal academy of fciences of Paris; he is remarkable for his attachment in general to every branch of fcience and literature, but is particularly known as a chemist and as a poet.

parcel

parcel of young fellows, who never confider the moft ferious matters but as an occafion of manifefting their wit in the cracking of a joke? How could we have attempted, among fuch, upon the stage, the bloody corpfe of Marcus before his father Cato, who fays,

Welcome my fon! here lay him down my friends,
Full in my fight, that I may view at leisure

The bloody coarse, and count those glorious wounds.
How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue!
Who would not be that youth? what pity is it
That we can die but once to ferve our country!
Alas my friends!

Why mourn you thus! let not a private lofs
Afflict your hearts. "Tis Rome requires our tears.
The mistress of the world, the feat of empire,
The nurse of heroes, the delight of gods,
That humbled the proud tyrants of the earth,
And fet the nations free, Rome is no more.
Q liberty! O virtue! O my country!

This is what the late Mr. Addifon did not dread to reprefent on the english stage, and what has been translated into italian, and acted in several towns of Italy. And yet if we fhould venture fuch a spectacle at Paris, don't you think the pit

would

would be fhocked, and the ladies fhudder?

You cannot imagine how far they push this fort of delicacy? The author of our tragedy of Manlius took his fubject from Mr. Otway's Venice preserved; and each, from the history of the confpiracy of the marquefs de Bedmar, wrote by the abbe 'de St. Réal; and give me leave to add, that this piece of hiftory, equal perhaps to Salluft, is much fuperior either to your Otway or to our Manlius.

In the first place, you'll take notice of the prejudice which obliged our french poet to difguife under roman names a known fact, which the english author naturally relates under the real ones. It was. not thought ridiculous on the theatre of London, that a Spanish ambaffador fhould be called Bedmar, and that confpirators should be named Jaffier, Pierre, and Eliot. That alone in France would have been fufficient to damn the play. But Otway goes ftill farther; he is not afraid of affembling the confpirators. Renaud receives their oaths and promifes, affigns to

each