kind of poetry, which founds its spirit and success on fanning the flame of political sentiments, as a proof of the want of poetical spirit, at least of the true. And M. De La Vigne never quits the region of politics, that his poetry does not fall straight to common-place. La Martine depends on no such helps; he is the lady's, the lover's, the sentimentalist's poet; religious in principle, though impartial in party matters. Although considered the ultra poet, he can admire Napoleon; and M. Cousins, and his independent fortune, enables him to follow his own ideas with impunity and without bias. The French critics declare, that the new Meditationsare not so well written; that is, not so good French as the first; that they are growing terribly puerile in style; and they have scarce a writer of any talent whom they do not accuse of being ignorant of their native tongue. Bayle (De Hendhall) is said to write bad French, and M. Simond infamous: it is the fashion everywhere, indeed, to write bad French: (where can there be worse than in Quentin Durward? every French word or sentence in the preface is wrong, qu'on appellent, assiette for plat, &c.) They may answer with De Staël, to whom some one said, the French don't own your language for theirs: Tant pis pour eux, was the reply. In the "Nouvelles Meditations Poetiques," the adieu to the sea is pretty; and" Le Poete Mourant" contains many beautiful passages; but the piece most interesting to our readers, is his Ode to Buonaparte. That witty amateur, impious writer, and wretched critic, M. De Hendhall, in his Life of Rossini, lately published, compares this ode of La Martine's with Byron's English, and Manzoni's Italian, on the same subject: he prefers Manzoni's— about the most wretched, flat, commonplace ode that even Italy ever produced; unworthy, indeed, of Manzoni, the author of Carmagnolla." We give the better part of Martine's: "Sur un écueil battu par la vague plaintive On distingue . . . un sceptre brisé ! ... "Ici gît... point de nom! .... demandez à la terre Ce nom ? il est inscrit en sanglant caractère, Des bords du Tanaïs au sommet du Cédar, Sur le bronze et le marbre, et sur le sein des braves, Et jusque dans le cœur de ces troupeaux d'esclaves, Qu'il fouloit tremblants sous son char. Depuis ces deux grands noms qu'un siècle au siècle annonce, Jamais nom qu'ici bas toute langue prononce Sur l'aile de la foudre aussi loin ne vola, Jamais d'aucun mortel le pied qu'un souffle efface, N' imprima sur la terre une plus forte trace, Et ce pied s'est arrêté la ! "Il est la ! ... sous trois pas un enfant le mesure! D'une vague contre un écueil ! "Ne crains pas, cependant, ombre encor inquiète, "Ta tombe et ton berceau sont couverts d'un nuage, Tu foudroyas le monde avant d'avoir un nom! "Les dieux étoient tombés, les trônes étoient vides, D'un peuple de Brutus la gloire te fit roi ! Ce siécle dont l'écume entraînoit dans sa course Les mœurs, les rois, les dieux... refoulé vers sa source, Tu combattis l'erreur sans regarder le nombre; "Gloire! honneur ! liberté ! ces mots que l'homme adore Et le mâle accord du clairon ! "Tu n'aimois que le bruit du fer, le cri d'alarmes ! "Tu grandis sans plaisir, tu tombas sans murmure! Et des serres pour l'embrasser !!. The other poem of La Martine's, on the Death of Socrates, is a fall indeed, being but a wretched paraphrase of the Phædo of Plato, to which he seems to have been unfortunately tempted by Cousine's translation of the Greek philosopher, just published. DELAVIGNE'S NEW COMEDY AND MESSENIENNES.* I SAW Talma and Mademoiselle Mars, last night, in Casimir Delavigne's new comedy, at which my fair friends wept abundantly. It was the work of a month to engage a place, and of an hour to get in, and the piece has altogether made such a noise, that it is well worth yours and your reader's whiles hearing about it. The "Ecole des Vieillards," or the school for old men, as it is entitled, is founded on the very trite subject of an old gentleman with a young wife, who goes through the usual routine in such cases of expense, flirtation, &c. A certain duke, who, à la Française, Le Duc. Le Duc. Danville. Le Duc, lets lodgings to the new-married couple, gives some cause of jealousy to the husband, which, as the piece is a comedy, is of course cleared up. The three first acts of the play, and indeed the fifth, are remarkably stupid, but the fourth contains one or two scenes of passion, superior to anything of the kind, I have witnessed, even in French tragedy. I'll give you one short specimen ;-the duke is hidden in a closet, and the husband, as soon as his wife disappears, calls him forth, gives vent to his passions, and challenges him. "Cette lutte entre nous ne saurait être égale, Le ridicule cesse où commence le crime, Et vous le commetrez; c'est votre châtiment. Ah! vous croyez, messieurs, qu'on peut impunément, Talma is greatly admired by the French in the character of Danville I cannot agree with them. Not but that he acts it well, and represents no doubt to the life, a modern French gentleman, through the different emotions of rage, love, &c. which occur in the comedy. But thinking, as an Englishman must, the very original Frenchman monstrous ridiculous, when under the influence of their passions, the actor who imitates him must appear much more so. There is such a want of dignity and manhood in a Frenchman moved, that to sympathize with him is impossible. The wriggling and twisting, for it does not amount to agitation, of his head, legs, and arms, by which he endeavours to express his emotion, resembles far more the action of a monkey than a man. He is on wires-his rage is expressed by trembling, and his feeling by the fidgets. The awful calm of suppressed passion, or its momentous and passing burst, when it overpowers all check, are quite unknown to him. Such is the nation, and an actor cannot go elsewhere for a model, than to his countrymen, the L'Ecole des Vieillards, Comedie par M. Casimir Delavigne, Paris, 1823. living types of nature, according to their acceptation and taste. And here is the great cause why the French have no national drama, none founded on modern manners and feelings; they feel and are convinced, that any representation of modern life, in fact, of Frenchmen as they are, could never by the best of comedians be made heroic, sublime, or anything but ridiculous; and hence it is, that their dramatic ideal is that of antiquity, of Greece and Rome. On those stilts a tragedian must give up the wrigglings, the tremblings, and the wiry action, on which he, being a Frenchman, forms his natural action-as Cæsar, or Achilles, he cannot condescend to the petty habits even of a French hero. This is the great excellence of Talma in tragedy that he has little or none of the monkeyishness of his country. True, he has some, such as bringing his hand to the level of his face, and shaking it there like a dredging-box; his other great peculiarity, that of flinging his two united hands over his left shoulder, which seems so very odd to us, is not little, but rather a bold and free action. However, the great merit of Talma is, that of all French actors, he is the least a Frenchman on the stage. The same merit had Kemble (and Kean has not) in Roman character, of not being English; the actor of a classic character should be abstract in his manner, but nevertheless, this excellence is so far from being a beauty to us, that, as classic characters cannot be well played without it, so much do we dislike it, that we had rather never behold one of them upon the stage. For the above reasons, both the French drama and comedians are abominable, when off their stilts-their ideal of poetry and acting is reduced to that of modern France. So that it is difficult to decide which is more stupid and ridiculous-a serious French comedy, or Talma in one. There is a pleasure, to be sure, to be derived from hearing sound ethics and liberal principles well declaimed from the stage. "Mais c'est là," observes the author of Racine et Shakespeare, 66 un plaisir épique, et non pas dramatique. Il n'y jamais ce degré d'illusion necessaire à une émotion profonde." The same author proceeds to state the reasons, which we have quo ted in the preceding article, (p. 259,) why the French public crowd to hear and to admire plays, which, in any other part of the world, would set an audience asleep. So much for this new comedy, in which, by the by, the acting of Mademoiselle Mars struck me much more than that of Talma. They never, I believe, acted before together. The conclusion, from seeing them so in this, is, that the comedian possesses far greater tragic powers than the tragedian does comic. Mr Delavigne has, since the appearance of his comedy, published another volume of "Messeniennes"-more last words. And these last are the dullest of the three. The first of this new Number is very poor, and is an address from Tyrteus to the Greeks. The second is the voyage of a young Greek, who traverses Europe in search of Liberty :— The third is to Buonaparte. This has been a fair subject for emulation among the poets of Europe. You have before given an account of Mr La Martine's ode. Mr De Hendhall, in the rigmarol, impious, but witty life, which he has lately given of Rossini, compares Byron's Ode, that of La Martine, and an Italian one by Manzoni, the author of “ Carmagnola," together, and gives the palm to Manzoni. M. De Hendhall is a blockhead in criticism, and Manzoni's ode about the dullest that ever Italy, that land of wretched versifiers, ever produced. Let me give you some extracts from Delavigne's. After an introduction, spirited enough, Buonaparte is represented, like Manfred, visited by three sister spirits, who are, it seems, his destinies at the three different periods of his life. They succeed one another, each addressing him: "Pauvre et sans ornemens, belle de ses hauts faits, Le front ceint d'un rameau de chêne, Trois couleurs rayonnaient sur ses lambeaux sacrés "Je t'ai connu soldat; salut: te voilà roi. "Je te guidais au premier rang; Qu'elle te respecta sous les foudres d'Arcole. "Tu changeas mon drapeau contre un sceptre d'airain: La force est sans appui, du jour qu'elle est sans frein. The second spirit, "unissait aux palmes des déserts Les dépouilles d'Alexandrie.' "La dernière-ô pitie, des fers chargeaint ses bras !" &c. Et l'appareil des drapeaux prisonniers ! Mais des cyprès, beaux comme des lauriers, De leur sombre couronne environnaient sa tête." Such are his visions! But asks and answers the poet, " Où s'est-il réveillé ?” "Seul et sur un rocher d'où sa vie importune This, in any language, is fine poetry, nor can the poem of Byron himself, on the same subject, excel it. |