The pieces acted by this class of actors were called Commedia dell' arte, and were congenial to the taste of the Italians, with whom gesticulation and buffoonery are natural attributes. Their Drama was of the most simple kind. Each of the actors was already possessed of his dramatic character, which was as inalienable as his dress, was master of the dialect he was to use, and had his imagination and memory stored with all the characteristic jests, or lazzi as they were termed, peculiar to the personage he represented. All that the author had to do was to invent the skeleton of a plot, which should bring his characters into dramatic situation with respect to each other. The dialogue suited to the occasion was invented by the players, just as ours invest their parts with the proper gestures and actions. This skeleton had the name of scenario, and the precise action as well as the dialogue was filled up by the performers, either impromptu, or in consequence of previous arrangement and premeditation. This species of comedy was extremely popular, especially among the lower class of spectators. It was often adopted as an amusement in good society, and by men of genius; and Flamineo de la Scala has left about fifty such scenarios adapted for representation. The fashion even found its way into England, and probably the part of Master Punch, who first appeared in the character of the Vice of the English morality, was trusted to the improvisatory talents of the actor. Mr. D'Israeli, a curious as well as elegant investigator of ancient literature, has shown, that at least one scheme of a Commedia dell' arte has been preserved to us. It is published in the Variorum edition of Shakespeare, but remains unexplained by the commentators. Such comedies, it is evident, could require no higher merit in the composer than the imagining and sketching a few comic situations; the dialogue and diction was all intrusted to the players.

The Italians, however, became early possessed of a regular comedy, which engrossed the admiration of the more cultivated classes of society. Bibbiena's comedy, entitled La Calandra, is composed in imitation of the Dramas of Terence and Plautus. It was first acted in 1490. La Calandra is remarkable not only for being the first Italian comedy, but also for the perfection of scenic decoration with which it was accompanied in the representation. It was followed by the productions of Ariosto and Trissino, and other authors in the same line. But it appears from the efforts used to support this style of Drama, that it did not take kindly root in the soil, and lacked that popularity which alone can nurse it freely. Various societies were formed under the whimsical titles of Gli Intronati, Gli Insensati, and so forth, for the express purpose of bringing forward the regular Drama; exertions which would certainly have been unnecessary, had it received that support and encouragement which arises from general popularity.

Goldoni, in a later age, at once indulged his own fanciful genius and

his natural indolence, by renouncing the classical rules, and endeavouring to throw into the old and native Italian Mascherata the variety and attributes of the proper comedy. He adopted Harlequin and the rest of his merry troop in the characters which they held, and endeavoured to enlist them in the more regular service of the Drama; just as free corps and partisans are sometimes new-modelled into battalions of the line. This ingenious and lively writer retained all the license of the Commedia dell' arte, and all the immunities which it claimed from regular and classical rules; but instead of trusting to the extempore jests and grotesque wit of the persons whom he introduced, he engaged them in dialogues, as well as plots, of his own invention, which often display much humour and even pathos. It required, however, the richness of a fancy like Goldoni's to extract novelty and interest from a dramatic system in which so many of the actors held a fixed and prescriptive character, hardly admitting of being varied. Accordingly, we do not find that the Italian stage is at present in a more flourishing condition than that of other modern nations.

The revival of the regular Drama in France was attended with important consequences, owing to the nature of her government, the general use of her language throughout Europe, and the influence which, from her situation, she must necessarily hold over other nations, It is the boast of Paris that the regular classical Drama, banished from every other stage, found a safe and honourable refuge on her own. Yet France has reluctantly confessed that she also had her hour of barbarism. Her earlier Drama was borrowed, like that of other countries, from Spain, who, during the whole of the sixteenth and great part of the seventeenth century, held such a formidable predominance in the European republic. While the classical stage was reviving in Italy, and the historical and romantic Drama was flourishing in Spain, France was torn to pieces by civil discord. The first French tragedy composed upon a regular plan was that of Mairet, imitated from the Sophonisba of Trissino; and Riccoboni boasts with justice, that whoever shall compare the Italian tragedy of the sixteenth century with that of the French of the same period, will find the latter extravagant and irregular, and the former already possessed of gravity, dignity, and regularity. The French, like the English, date the excellence of their stage from one great author; and the illustrious name of Pierre Corneille affords to their dramatic history the mighty landmark which Shakspeare gives to our own.

Cardinal Richelieu, who had succeeded in establishing upon a broad basis the absolute power of the French monarch, was not insensible to the graces and ornaments which the throne derived from being surrounded by the Muses. He was himself fond of poetry, and even a competitor for the honours of the buskin. He placed himself at the

head of five dramatic writers. to whom, on that account, the public gave the title of Les Cinq Auteurs. All these are deservedly forgotten excepting Corneille, of whose successful talent the cardinal had the meanness to evince no ordinary degree of jealousy. The malevolence of the minister was carried so far, that he employed the French Academy, whose complaisance must be recorded to their shame, to criticize severely the Cid, the first, and perhaps the finest of Corneille's tragedies. Scuderie, a favourite of the Cardinal, buoyed by Richelieu's favour, was able for some time to balance Corneille in the opinion of the public; but his name is now scarcely known by any other circumstance than his imprudent and audacious rivalry. This great man was not only surrounded by the worst possible models, but unfortunately the authors of these models were also favourites of the public, and of the all-powerful Cardinal; yet Corneille vanquished the taste of his age, the competition of his rivals, and the envy of Richelieu.

Corneille, like his predecessors, and like Routrou in particular, borrowed liberally from the Spanish theatre; but his own taste, regulated probably upon his situation, dictated an adherence to the classical model. The French stage arose, it must be remembered, under the protection of an absolute monarch, for whose amusement the poet laboured, and in whose presence the Drama was performed. It followed as a natural consequence, that a more strict etiquette was exacted upon the scene than had hitherto been supposed applicable to a merely popular amusement. A departure from regularity in tragedy was no longer a bold flight. A violation of decorum in comedy was no longer a broad jest. When the audience was dignified by the presence of the monarch, the former became an impertinence, and the latter a gross and indecent insult. The muse of comedy was therefore bound over for her good behaviour; and even her grave sister was laid under such rules and restrictions as should ensure the decorum and dignity of her scene.

It was at this period that those classical fetters which are framed on the three unities were fashioned into form, and imposed on the French Drama. These are acknowledged by Corneille, in his Essay upon Dramatic Poetry, in the following short but emphatic sentence :—“ Il faut observer les unités d'action, de lieu, et de jour: personne n'en doute." The rule, as thus emphatically admitted by the fiery Corneille, was equally binding upon the elegant Racine, and has fettered the French stage until the present day. "La Motte," says Voltaire," a man of wit and talent, but attached to paradoxes, has written in our time against the doctrine of the Unities, but that literary heresy had no success."

Upon these rules, adopted by the very first writer of eminence for the French stage, and subscribed to by all succeeding dramatists, depends the principal and long-disputed diffe ence betwixt the Drama of

France, and those countries in which her laws of taste had been received; and the stages of Spain, England, and modern Germany, where those critical maxims have been controverted. In other words, the unities proper to the Classical Drama have been found inapplicable to plays of a historical or romantic plan. It is, therefore, necessary to examine with accuracy the essence and effect of those laws so often disputed with more obstinacy than liberality.

The arbitrary forms to which the French thus subjected their theatre are, in their general purport, founded on good and sound rules of the critical art. But, considered literally, the interpretation put upon those unities by the French critics must necessarily lay the dramatic author under restraints equally severe and unnecessary, without affording any corresponding addition to the value of his work. The pedantry by which they are enforced, reminds one of the extreme, minute, rigorous, and punctilious discipline, to which some regiments have been subjected by a pedantic commanding officer, which seldom fails to lower the spirit, and destroy the temper of the soldier, without being of the slightest service to him in the moment of danger or the day of battle.

The first dramatic unity is that of Action; and, rightly understood, it is by far the most important. A whole, says Aristotle, is that which has a beginning, middle, and end. In short, one strong concentrated interest, upon which all subordinate incidents depend, and to which they contribute, must pervade the piece. It must open with the commencement of the play, evolve itself, and be progressive with its progress, must be perpetually in sight and never stationary, until at length it arrives at a catastrophe, by which it is ended and extinguished. In this rule, abstractedly considered, there is nothing but what is consistent with good sense and sound criticism. The period allowed for dramatic representation is not long, and will not admit of the episodical ornaments which may be happily introduced into epic poetry. And as the restlessness or impatience of a theatrical audience is always one of its marked characteristics, it has been observed, that neither the most animated description, nor the most beautiful poetry, can ever reconcile the spectators to those inartificial scenes in which the plot or action of the piece stands still, that the performers may say fine things. The introduction of an interest, separate and distinct from the main action of the play, has a still worse effect; it diminishes the effect of the whole, and divides the attention of the audience; as a pack of hounds, when in full pursuit, are impeded and puzzled by starting a fresh object of chase.

Yet even this rule must be liberally considered, if we would allow dramatic authors that fair room and exercise for their genius, which gives rise to the noblest display of genius in the art. Modern dramatists are no longer, it must be remembered, limited to the simple and surer uniformity of the ancient Drama, which fixed on one single

event as its object,-made it the subject of the moral reflections of the Chorus,-managed it by the intervention of three, or at most five persons, and consequently presented a picture so limited in size and subject, that there was no difficulty in avoiding the intermixture of a foreign interest. The modern taste has opened the stage to a wider range of topics, which are, at the same time, more complicated in detail, depending on the agency of a variety of performers, and on the result of a succession of events. Such Dramas have indeed a unity of action peculiar to themselves, which should predominate over and absorb every other. But although, like the oak, it should predominate over all the neighbouring underwood, its dignity is not injured by the presence and vicinity of that which it overshadows. On the contrary, a succession of events tending to the same end, if they do not divert the attention from the principal interest, cannot fail, by their variety and succession, to keep it fixed upon the business of the scene.

To take an example. In the tragedy of Macbeth, a chain of varied and important events is introduced, any one link of which might be hammered out into a Drama, on the severe and simple model of the Drama of ancient Greece. There is the murder of Duncan,-that of Banquo, and the dethronement and death of the tyrant; all which are events complete of themselves, independent of each other, and yet included within one tragedy of five acts. But, nevertheless, this is never felt as a deficiency in the performance. It is to the character of Macbeth, to his ambition, guilt, remorse, and final punishment, that the mind attaches itself during the whole play; and thus the succession of various incidents, unconnected excepting by the relation they bear to the principal personage, far from distracting the attention of the audience, continues to sharpen and irritate curiosity till the curtain drops over the fallen tyrant. This is not, indeed, a unity of action according to the rule of Aristotle, or the observance of the French theatre; but, in a higher point of view, it has all the advantage which could possibly be derived from the severest adherence to the precept of Aristotle, with this additional merit, that the interest never stagnates in declamation, or is suspended by unnecessary dialogue.

It would in fact be easy to show, that the unity of action, in its strict sense, may frequently be an unnatural as well as a cumbrous restraint on the genius of the poet. In the course of nature, an insulated action seldom exists, of a nature proper to transfer to the stage. If, indeed, the play is founded on some single mythological fable, or if the scene is laid in some early stage of society, when man as yet remained separated from his kind, and connected only with his petty tribe or family, the subject of a plot may be chosen where the agency of a very few persons, and these naturally connected together, may, without foreign or extraneous assistance, afford matter for a tragedy. But, in the actual course of the peopled world, men are so crowded together, and