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MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART XXV.,

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WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;
AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

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THE influence of a great national poet on the national character, is a subject which might engage the subtlest analyst, and the most philosophical historian. It is not to be forgotten that the poet himself is the product of his own times and country. But this only explains-it does not contradict, or detract from his influence. In every society, or condition of mankind, there are conflicting elements of thought; those which have entered largest into the composition of the poet are those which his genius renders predominant. He could not operate on other minds, unless they, in some measure, sympathise already with his own; he finds in each citadel a faction, at least, that wear his colours, and to them he gives over the command of the fortress.

When the national poet is also the favourite dramatist, and his verses are recited before multitudes, and with all the illusions of the theatre, this influence reaches the highest point which, in modern society, is attainable. The bard who sang his own strains, or the compositions he had learned, to a simple, passionate audience, who gave themselves up to the charm, without a single critical question, without a distraction-from the side, at least, of the reflective

faculty-exercised a power over the minds of others which, we apprehend, no modern dramatist, even with the aid of a Kean or a Talma, could rival. But, under the forms of our present civilisation, the influence of a single mind can nowhere be so great, so permanent, so extensive, as when it calls to its assistance the recitation, and the vivid representations of the stage.

If the stage has ceased, or is gradually ceasing, to be the popular amusement of civilised Europe, the vocation of the dramatist, like that of the minstrel bard of old, is gone. The book becomes the sole magician of the scene. We have a strong suspicion, when we pronounce the names of Corneille and Shakspeare, that we are speaking of men whose peculiar influence as dramatists belongs already to the past. What they possess as poets they still retain; and in the case of one of them (perhaps of both) will retain as long as books are read. Even if the drama should still continue popular amongst us-even if a taste for tragedy should revive-the stage, as a means of instructing and impressing the minds of numbers, is so completely outrivalled and overpowered by the press, that the dramatist can no longer have any very

Corneille and his Times.
Shakspeare and his Times.

VOL. LXXII.-NO. CCCCXLIV.

By M. GUIZOT. By M. Guizor.

2 D

peculiar influence on the national tone of thought or character. When a Parisian multitude not only sought its amusement, but gained a large share of its ideas of its thinkingfrom the theatre, the dramas of Corneille must have exercised a vast influence over them, and one which they can never repeat.

We think we trace that influence very distinctly in the political history of France, and of Paris; for the great

the

city and " great nation " have, in political events, been terms almost synonymous. In the midst of the French Revolution we trace theatre of Corneillé. Whence did the people obtain that fondness for classical models, so conspicuous during the scenes of the French Revolution? It must have been from the theatrenot from their scholarship. Whence, but from Corneille, did they obtain that readiness to sacrifice to some principle, some all but imaginary duty, the natural feelings and affections of humanity? But Corneille, it will be said, wrote in the very palmy days of the monarchy; some one has called his dramas "the breviary of kings," so delighted was he with magnifying the office, the rights and diguity of kings and emperors. It was not from Corneille, only occasionally republican, that they would learn the doctrines of the Revolution. Very true; but he helped to make them the sort of revolutionists they were. For good and for bad, his influence is conspicuous in their mode of thinking and their moral temperament. He taught them a heroic devotion to a general principle; he taught them, too, to sacrifice the safer guides of humane feeling, kindly sympathy, and the personal equities of life, to some stern and national duty; and he taught them, moreover, the intellectual habit of changing these general principles with surprising rapidity. His dialogues consist of a passionate logic, wielded with equal power by the most opposite antagonists. Their passion is, indeed, for the most part, displayed by some egregious paradox, or bold, fallacious reasoning. No sentiment is so common as that all is permitted for a great end; and if the mind is familiarised with this sentiment, it is quite

as well prepared to take part in the tyranny of a mob as in the tyranny of a despot. The "Old Man of the Mountain" recruits his assassins from the same moral nature that supplies fit members for a Revolutionary Tribunal. Fouquier Tinville would have made an admirable fanatic.

It is matter of common remark that you excite a Parisian mob by a logical abstraction-by the lofty enunciation of a general principle. This has been often made the subject of laudatory comment, when a comparison has been drawn between a Parisian and an English mob. This last, it has been said, can be moved but in two ways: either by vociferating some single watchword-as you would wave a banner in the air-some cry which bears concentrated in itself the prejudices which have been many years in ripening it is "No Popery!" or the Constitution!" or "Reform!" as the case may be;—or, by appealing to some deep-rooted feeling of justice and morality, or some spontaneous natural sympathy. "Fair play!" and "He has had enough!" are the oratorical expressions which often decide the controversy. Instead of being prepared to sacrifice their humanity for an abstraction, the most popular cause would be in danger of losing its popularity the moment it led to a flagrant act of cruelty. Englishmen are more ready to sympathise with men, than inflame themselves with a principle; and their sympathies extend as widely through the various classes of society, as that of any people who can be named.

This aptitude in a French populace to throw its passion into the form of general reasoning, which leads it often into the heroic mood, and which has also impressed upon it the character, above all other people, of inconstancy, (monarchical and republican principles succeeding each other in rapid alternation,) may be not unfairly traced, in some degree, to the education received from its theatre. Upon the whole, we regard it as an unfortunate education which their great dramatist provided for the French people.

Open any one of the dramas of Corneille. Each speaker is a bold and eloquent pleader for his cause,

The

abounding in all the maxims of conduct which may suit his purpose or position. Liberty, loyalty, honour, dissimulation, each for the time, is put in full possession of the whole artillery of logic and rhetoric. most unscrupulous maxims are delivered with unblushing effrontery, and in the most precise and energetic language. Passionate and argumentative at once, no style could be more fitted to engrave them on the memory, or win for them at least a transitory assent of the judgment. It is the display of strong passion, leading men not into violent action, but into violent reasoning, that we have so frequently placed before us.

From a volume of the chefsd'œuvres of Corneille which lies before us, we select the first on which the page opens.

Le choix des actions, ou mauvaises ou bonnes, Ne fait qu'anéantir la force des couronnes: Le droit des rois consiste à ne rien épargner, La timide équité détruit l'art de régner."

The poet seems to triumph in the audacity with which he can utter while, some shadow of loyalty, or the most infamous principles. MeanState, just saves the speaker from our some vague sense of a duty to the utmost execrations, or from the charge of downright madness. Achillas advises a milder course, but takes care to say,

"Non qu'en un coup d'Etat je n'approuve le crime."

Septime is a Roman. He declares that to adopt the cause of Pompey would be to rush into destruction. The king can either chase him from his dominions, or deliver him up to Cæsar, alive or dead. He counsels the last. "Take upon yourself," he says, "the crime, and leave Cæsar the benefit of it: he will be doubly grateful for an enemy destroyed, and his own reputation spared." policy to

It is Pompée. Pompey, who gives the name to the piece, never, as our readers will remember, appears upon the scene. News come of his fatal defeat, in the plains of Pharsalia, to Ptolemy, king of Egypt, and he and his council consult together what adopt; whether, from gratitude to Pompey, to protect, as far as possible, the conquered, or to appease the conqueror by the sacrifice of the fugitive. Photin, Septime, Achillas, and Ptolomée himself, give their several opinions. Photin argues that Pompey should be put to death. Fortune has declared against him; nay, there is a sort of piety in siding with

the victor.

"Rangez-vous du parti des destins et des dieux.

*

Quels que soient leurs décrets déclarez-vous pour eux,

Et, pour leur obéir, perdez le malheureux." If the standard of victory had been waving from the prow of his galleys, we would have received him with honours and festivities;-we wished it; why has he not better answered our wishes and our hopes? He comes cursed by the gods. As to the justice and the morality of the case, Photin scouts any appeal to such vulgar considerations. He throws all the energy of his language into his indignant disclaimer :

"Laissez nommer sa mort un injuste attentat, La justice n'est pas une vertu d'Etat.

Pto

lemy decides in favour of the last proposition. In that decision even Achillas acquiesces—

"Seigneur, je crois tout juste alors qu'un

roi l'ordonne."

If nothing can be crime which serves King Ptolemy, so Ptolemy, in his turn, finds that nothing can be wrong which is done in the service of one who represents the majesty of Rome. He lays claim to peculiar merit for sacrificing his honour to the interest of Cæsar.

"Mais pour servir César rien n'est illégitime!"

Quotations of this kind might be easily multiplied; but it is not necessary. Neither shall we pursue a step further the course of this drama, which does not indeed hold a place in the first rank in the theatre of Corneille. The love of Cæsar is very absurd; and his clemency is not more worthily represented. Both it, and the most magnanimous hatred of Cornelia, are precisely what we are accustomed to call melo-dramatic.

Corneille's classical heroes have been complimented as being "more

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