That Setting out with the principle that poetical-still further excited by the good poetry was only good prose, with romantic and occasionally extravagant the addition of measure and rhyme, he tone of the Spanish drama, which was frequently prosaic and negligent had been his favourite study. in his verse. He had few of those union of the spirit of the romantic drabold forms of expression, those origi- ma with the classical, which Voltaire nal turns, and those bold images, vainly laboured to effect, because in which form the accent of poetry. He truth he felt not the inspiration of was not less rigorously faithful to the either, is attained so far as such a union etiquette of our theatre. He even ex- was practicable (for we have already aggerated its habitual pomp, and its said, that in its full extent it is imposperiphrases of politeness, without cor- sible) in the plays of Corneille. His recting them by those naive turns which dramas remind us of some ancient RoCorneille found in the language of his man monument, like the tomb of Ceday, and which Racine dexterously cilia Metella-some "stern round mingled with that of the court. Thus tower of ancient days"-converted, he was at once less poetical, less simple, during the middle ages, into a place of and less true, than his great predeces- defence; exhibiting feudal outworks sors." and barbaric ornaments embossed upon It is impossible, we think, to claim a classic fabric, but so harmonized and for Voltaire even an equality with Cor- blended with the original structure, by neille and Racine. Compare the im- the softening touch of time and the pressions left on the mind by the pe- growth of vegetation, that the whole rusal of the works of the three great possesses a sombre and stately unity of dramatists, and the inferiority of the effect. The effect of Racine's dramas, third is at once perceptible. "Cor. again, very much resembles that of the neille," says St. Beuve," with his architecture of Palladio; it exhibits a great qualities and defects, produces on purely classic framework, internally me the effect of one of those great trees, and with some difficulty accommodanaked, rugged, sombre in the trunk, ted to modern usages, but yet so graceand adorned with branches and a ful in its outward proportions, so dusky verdure only towards the sum- finished and polished within, that the mit. They are strong, gigantic, scan- limited accommodation of the edifice is tily leaved; an abundant sap circu- forgotten in the compactness and prolates through them, but we are not to portion and elegance of the apartments. expect from them shade, shelter, or But Voltaire without any real feeling flowers. They bud late, begin to shed for the classic drama, as his contemptheir foliage early, and live a long time tuous style of treating Sophocles in the half shorn of their leaves. Even after preface to the Edipus shows, and their bare heads have surrendered their equally incapable of appreciating any leaves to the autumnal wind, the viva. thing of the spirit of the romantic stage, city of their nature still throws out or of borrowing from it any thing here and there scattered branches and but a few hints for theatrical effect suckers; and when they fall, they re- and a more lively dialogue—has meresemble, in their crash and groans, that ly put together incoherent fragments trunk covered with armour to which from antiquity and feudalism "To Lucan has compared the fall of Pom- make a third he joined the other two,” pey." but without real blending of parts or unity of spirit. His compositions might be appropriately compared to an artificial ruin, in which the modern aspect of the materials is in contradiction to the form and architecture of the edifice. This fanciful comparison which St. Beuve has applied to the old age of the great Corneille, is applicable to his poetical character generally, only in so far as it expresses not inaptly the idea of irregular grandeur, which is the characteristic of Corneille's mind; for, amidst the conventional limitations of the French stage, the genius of the poet obviously drew its nourishment from an imagination naturally highly Of his great works, Brutus, the Orphan of China, Zaire, and the Death of Casar-the two latter owed their very existence, and almost their whole dramatic merit, to the inspiration of Shak * Critiques et Portraits Littéraires. Première Série-Corneille. stories are interwoven with the "fate speare. With a warm admiration for and no less than three separate love Zaire, Villemain candidly admits, that in all which evinces deep and profound insight into the heart, or the power of artfully indicating and preparing remote future effects, in which perhaps, more than any thing else, dramatic skill is evinced, Shakspeare in his Othello has infinitely the advantage over Voltaire. Nay, even in regard to mere art of narration or exposition, the very point on which Voltaire and the French dramatists have piqued themselves most, he seems inclined to give the preference to Othello's speech to the Venetian Senate over the corresponding explanation of Orosinane, in which he communicates his position and designs to Zaire. He concludes, however, by observing, with a natural wish to do justice to a very talented imitation, which in some respects almost borders on genius, "If in the subject itself, which is borrowed from Shakspeare, that of jealousy and murder, Voltaire is inferior in pathos and even in art-if he is less energetic, less natural, less probable-he has, notwithstanding, infused into Zaire an unequalled (?) charm and interest. What he has created makes amends for what he has feebly imitated; and although Voltaire was probably in jest when he compared this piece to Polyeucte, it is the Christian episode-it is Lusignan and the Crusade-which constitute the immortal beauty of Zaire." In Zaire, Voltaire had conformed to his original, and, on the French stage, prescriptive plan of making love the moving power of the piece. In his Death of Casar, all the best points of which plainly were suggested by the Julius Cæsar of Shakspeare, he reverted to an idea he had long entertained of a tragedy constructed on a more austere and patriotic principle. He determined to compose a tragedy, as he says, in the English taste, banishing not merely love intrigues, but almost all interference on the part of women; though, where he found the authority for this novel kind of unity the unity of sex-we are at a loss to imagine. Not in Shakspeare certainly; for in Julius Cæsar, Portia, slightly as she is brought into view, is felt to be, and not undeservedly, a personage of strong interest and influence. Still less in the Cato of his friend Addison, where, if we remember rightly, "the noble Martia towers above her sex," Shakspeare has taken the Roman history as he found it; he has invented nothing he has retrenched little. In the costume and the language he may have erred occasionally, from ignorance of classical minutiæ; but in the numerous and contrasted characters of the piece, particularly in that of the philosophical Brutus uniting the firmness and unshaken dignity of the Stoic with the gentlest affections, Shakspeare shows his usual mastery. When the spirit of human nature is to be divined, such as it exists in all ages aud countries among ambitious nobles, interested demagogues, and an idle, heartless, and vacillating populace, Shakspeare is never mistaken. Voltaire, on the contrary, has chosen to step beyond history, and his invention marks the real want of dramatic refinement which is observable in his plays, disguised as they are in a drapery of pompous morality. The vague suspicion founded on some tale of scandal, that Brutus was the son of Cæsar, becomes with him the nodus, and constitutes the main interest of the piece. Patriotism, it would seem, according to French ideas, is presented in its most imposing form when accompanied by parricide. The conjugal scenes between Brutus and Portia, which, by their homefelt beauty, so finely relieve the republican hardness of the political interest, Voltaire has entirely banished; and we are left without a glimpse into domestic life, or one tranquil conversation in which the Stoic and the politician relaxes into the man. The famous scene, in which the rival leaders pronounce their orations over the dead body of Cæsar, has been in many passages translated by Voltaire. In others he has attempted to improve upon it, with what success a few specimens will enable the reader to judge. The speech of Brutus, written with laconic brevity, and in prose, probably in order to raise it out of the ordinary level of the verse, and thus to give it more the appearance of a formal oration, Voltaire has placed less appropriately in the mouth of Cassius, and his version, we admit, is fairly executed. But how absurd the unanimous reply which he puts into the mouth of the multitude: This is much too rapid, too unprepared an apostrophe. The prejudices of the people had not been soothed by reminding them, not only how deeply Cæsar had suffered for his fault, if he were am "Aux vengeurs de l'état nos cœurs sont bitious, but also how much certain parts assurés!" Live, Brutus, live! 1st Plebeian. Bring him with triumph home unto his house. 2d Pleb. Give him a statue with his ancestors. 3d Pleb. Let him be Cæsar." "Let him be Cæsar!" Such is the notion of a republic entertained by the mob of Rome. Their gratitude has no other form of homage but servitude. Antony mounts the chair-at first stormfully received-bespeaking indulgence for Brutus' sake; then opening in a subdued and humbled tone, feeling his way, as if deprecating the idea that he came to praise Cæsar or to complain of his fate. Compare the respective commencements of Shakspeare and Voltaire : Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him; of his conduct contradicted the supposition of his ambition. Before introducing the declinature of the crown upon the Lupercal, Antony reminds his audience how often the ransom of Casar's captives had gone into the general coffers, and how, "when the poor had cried, Cæsar had wept." "Ambition should be made of sterner stuff!" Only when the way is thus prepared, he reminds them of the refusal of the crown, and asks, was this ambitious? Then first he recalls to their recollection their own love for Cæsar, which Voltaire so inartificially thrusts almost into the opening lines of his oration: "You all did love him once, not without cause What cause withholds you then to mourn O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar, The contrast is still more remarkable, in the way in which Brutus is spoken of the Mort de Caesar, Antony bursts out by Shakspeare and by Voltaire. In against him in a torrent of abuse: "Chers amis, je succombe, et mes sens sont interdits: Brutus, son assassin! ce monstre était Brutus! où suis-je ? O ciel! O crime! Would the Romans have allowed language like this to be used as to Brutus? Shakspeare, who knew better, makes Antony's tone as to Brutus complimentary throughout. He is an honourable man; so are they all. Even when speaking of the assassination, there is no strong epithet of invective used: a more poignant and effective reproach is contained in the word, the "well-beloved Brutus," than in all the "monsters and "assassins " with which the attack of Antony in Voltaire's play is eked out. The superiority of Shakspeare is just as obvious in the artful delay of Antony to read the will, which he reserves to the last, as the fit climax to be addressed to such an audience, as compared with the French version, where he hastens at once to proclaim its contents; and in the pretended moderation with which, after stirring up to an ecstasy of indignation the passions of the people, he affects to control the tempest he had raised, and which he knew to be ungovernable precipitating the people into the career of vengeance, while affecting to restrain them; while in Voltaire's play, it is Antony himself who is the first to call for vengeance on Cæsar's murderers, and to urge on the crowd to rise and mutiny. If the claims of Voltaire as a drama tist cannot be considered as standing very high, it is still less possible to consider him as entitled even to the name of an epic poet. Villemain has a long parallel between the Pharsalia and the Henriade: in which he gives the preference, on the whole, to the latter poem. We grant to Voltaire the merit of better taste, for he has nothing of the tumid and somewhat bombastic diction of Lucan: but, on the other hand, where in the Henriade shall we find passages like the contrasted characters of Cæsar and Pompey? or the pregnant beauty and truth of such brief traits as those by which the rival leaders are discriminated, and in which the secret of their fortunes may be said to be embodied? 66 Solusque pudor non vincere bello," the marking trait in the character of the first: the other, Magni nominis umbra," a man who had over-lived his greatness, which had always been exaggerated. "Voltaire in the Henriade," says Villemain, "is Lucan abridged, tempered, calmed down Lucan without exaggerated figures, without declamation, but also less energetic, and less dazzling.". "The French poet, like the Roman, has his passion for controversy: Ca 66 tholicism is for him what the empire was for the other. Both occasionally flatter their enemy; bu they take pleasure in allusions which tend to discredit and degrade it. Thus the canto descriptive of the St. Bartholomew is the finest in the Henriade. But the passion of the poet is little in harmony with the constrained denouement of his piece the abjuration of Protestantism by Henry. And there is a similar contradiction between the sceptical maxims with which he has interspersed his poem, and the Christian marvels which he employs." That the political and philosophical speculations of Voltaire exercised a strong influence over his own age, and tended greatly to accelerate those attacks upon all authority which heralded the Revolution, no calm observer can reasonably doubt. It may be very true that he himself had no very clear perception of their tendency. It may even be the case that the subversion of an established government was the last thing in his thoughts. But the aristocratic insult to which he had been subjected, and which had driven him to England,* probably left on his mind no very pleasing impression in regard to hereditary rank; and the maxims of popular liberty, and the limitation of the monarchical power, which he was accustomed to hear from his Whig acquaintances in England, probably gave him as strong a leaning as he was capable of towards a popular form of government, or rather towards a government which was to be in the hands of an aristocracy of letters, over which he himself was to reign as the despotic sovereign. The sincerity of his anti-religious views, and the zeal with which he discharged the apostolate of infidelity, are matters which admit of less question. He did not merely doubt, or deny, but he detested, Christianity. He never speaks of it but with a feeling of personal hatred. "Je finis toutes mes lettres par dire, écrasons l'enflame!" He writes to D'Alembert, (25th Feb. 1768,) "Comme Caton dit, delenda est Carthago." To the Count D'Argental he writes, (3d Oct., 1761,) "Ah! chiens de Chrêtiens, que je vous deteste! que mon mépris et ma haine In revenge for an expression which Voltaire had launched against a man of rank, he received a sound drubbing, a few days after, at the gate of the Hotel Sully. pour vous augmentent continuelle- professor has led him to do rather more ment!" In his aversion to Christianity, than justice; for, granting the high therefore, he was admitted to come up tone of morality and religion which it to the true Holbachean and Helvetian was the object of Rollin to infuse into standard; but as he wavered in regard his educational system, the cold corto Atheism, and had not quite adopted rectness, the dryness, and, after all, the the creed of the Système de la Nature, defect of real learning or comprehenhe was considered a weak and timor- sive view which his Ancient History ous reformer, whose ideas were still exhibits, are surely sufficient to exclude clouded by childish fears or narrow him from the list of great historians. views, and consequently very scurvily To St. Simon, the last of the Jansenist treated by his brother apostles of what colony surviving ainidst the eighteenth was called the Holy Philosophical century, Villemain is peculiarly favourChurch. "The patriarch, poor man,' ," able. He seems almost disposed to says Baron de Grimm, who went all concede to him the praise of genius. lengths, "still sticks to his Remu- And there is no doubt that, as comnerateur-Vengeur, without whom he pared with Dangeau and the other anfancies the world would go on very ill. nalists or keepers of Court diaries, the He is resolute enough for putting down graphic spirit and caustic sketches of the God of knaves and bigots, but is St. Simon-a close observer, feeling not for parting with that of the virtu- strongly, writing from a full mind, taintous and rational. He reasons upon all ed with strong prejudices, particularly this, too, like a baby; a very smart in favour of aristocracy, and tinging baby it must be owned, but a baby every thing he wrote with the pecunotwithstanding!" liarities of his own character-are most amusing. "The dead figures of the day," says Viliemain, "are resuscitated in the pages of St. Simon; his electrical expression gives motion to all this ossuary of a Court." But enough of Voltaire, whether as a poet or a philosopher. To us he appears to far more advantage in his Contes his graceful Vers de Société, and in bis Romans, than in any of his more elaborate compositions. Whatever may be thought of the tendency of his romances, the ingenuity with which they are framed so as to bring out in comic relief the idea which he wishes to ridicule, is admirable. His Epire à Horace, and his Stances à Madame du Deffant, are more perfect in their way than the well-rounded declamation of his tragedy, or the laboured episodes of the Henriade. While Voltaire was thus carrying the spirit of mockery, of universal disbelief, and contempt for established opinion, into every department of litera. ture, for he essayed them all in turn, a remnant of the spirit of the 17th century was kept alive by the Chancellor D'Aguesseau, in the magistracy; by Rollin, in the literary and religious education of youth; and by the Duke de St. Simon, at Court. Villemain's esti. mate of D'Aguesseau is somewhat lower than that to which we have been accustomed; even as a magistrate, a lawyer, and a man of business, he seems to think him somewhat timorous and time-serving, notwithstanding the excellence of his ordonnances or the irreproachable character of his life. To Rollin, on the other hand, we think the esprit de corps in favour of a brother To the same school, in point of taste, belong the great novelists of the commencement of the eighteenth century-Le Sage, Prevôt, and Marevaux. The popularity of the two latter has, in all probability, for ever passed away; for the merits of Prevôt's Manon L'Escaut have been exaggerated, and, were they greater than they are, they would hardly make amends for the tediousness of Cleveland and the Dean of Coleraine; and, with all deference to French criticism, we cannot help regarding the Marianne and the Paysan parvenu as in the highest degree wearisome. On the other hand, the popularity of the first of these novelists, at the distance of two centuries, remains undiminished, and without experiencing even a momentary fluctuation. In truth, the whole character of Gil Blas is so essentially popular-its beauties lie so much on the surface, and are so independent of all peculiarities of opinion, or deep and subtle inquiry that we could almost as easily conceive a man tiring of the common air, or the cheerful sunlight, as of its lively, natural, and good-humoured pic. tures. Voltaire, however, and it is a great proof of his want of simple and natural tastes, seems to have formed |
