.ove of mere excitement was too keen to per- death have deprived it of its terrors. In Shaksmit them to enjoy it. They had "supped full peare, the passionate is always steeped in the of horrors." Familiar with the thoughts of beautiful. Sometimes he diverts sorrow with real slaughter, they could not endure the philo- tender conceits, which, like little fantastic sophic and poetic view of distress in which it rocks, break its streams into sparkling casis softened and made sacred. Their imagina- cades and circling eddies. And when it must tions were too practical for a genuine poet to flow on, deep and still, he bends over it affect. Hence, in the plays which bear the branching foliage and graceful flowers-whose name of Seneca, horrors are heaped on hor-leaves are seen in its dark bosom, all of one rors the most unpleasing of the Greek fictions (as that of Medea) are re-written and made ghastly-and every touch that might redeem is carefully effaced by the poet. Still, the grandeur of old tragedy is there-still "the gorgeous pall comes sweeping by"-still the dignity survives, though the beauty has faded.

sober and harmonious hue-but in their clearest form and most delicate proportions.

The other dramatists of Shakspeare's age, deprived, like him, of classical resources, and far inferior to him in imagination and wisdom, strove to excite a deep interest by the wildness of their plots, and the strangeness of the incidents with which their scenes were crowded. Their bloody tragedies are, however, often relieved by passages of exquisite sweetness. Their terrors, not humanized like those of Shakspeare, are yet far removed from the vulgar or disgusting. Sometimes, amidst the gloom of continued crimes, which often follow each other in stern and awful succession, are fair pictures of more than earthly virtue, tinted with the dews of heaven, and encircled with celestial glories. The scene in The Broken Heart, where Calantha, amidst the festal crowd, receives the news of the successive deaths of those dearest to her in the world, yet dances on-and that in which she composedly settles all the affairs of her empire, and then dies smiling by the body of her contracted lord are in the loftiest spirit of tragedy. They combine the dignity and majestic suffering of the ancient drama, with the intenseness of the modern. The last scene unites beauty, tenderness, and grandeur, in one harmonious and stately picture-as sublime as any single scene in the tragedies of Eschylus or Shakspeare.

In the productions of Shakspeare, doubtless, tragedy was divested of something of its external grandeur. The mythology of the ancient world had lost its living charm. Its heroic forms remained, indeed, unimpaired in beauty or grace, in the distant regions of the imagination, but they could no longer occupy the foreground of poetry. Men required forms of flesh and blood, animated by human passion, and awakening human sympathy. Shakspeare, therefore, sought for his materials nearer to common humanity than the elder bards. He took also, in each play, a far wider range than they had dared to occupy. He does not, therefore, convey so completely as they did one grand harmonious feeling, by each of his works. But who shall affirm, that the tragedy of Shakspeare has not an elevation of its own, or that it produces pleasure only by exhibiting spectacles of varied anguish? The reconciling power of his imagination, and the genial influences of his philosophy are ever softening and consecrating sorrow. He scatters the rainbow hues of fancy over objects in themselves repulsive. He nicely developes the "soul of good- Of the succeeding tragedians of England, ness in things evil," to console and delight us. the frigid imitators of the French Drama, it is He blends all the most glorious imagery of na- necessary to say but little. The elevation of ture with the passionate expressions of afflic- their plays is only on the stilts of declamatory tion. He sometimes, in a single image, ex-language. The proportions and symmetry of presses an intense sentiment in all its depth, yet identifies it with the widest and the grandest objects of creation. Thus he makes Timon, in the bitterness of his soul, set up his tomb on the beached shore, that the wave of the ocean may once a day cover him with its embossed foam-expanding an individual feeling into the extent of the vast and eternal sea; yet making us feel it as more intense, from the very sublimity of the image. The mind can always rest without anguish on his catastrophies, however mournful. Sad as the story of Romeo and Juliet is, it does not lacerate or tear the heart, but relieves it of its weight by awakening sweet tears. We shrink not at their tomb, which we feel has set a seal on their loves and virtues, but almost long with them there "to set up our everlasting rest." We do not feel unmingled agony at the death of Lear; when his aged heart, which has been beaten so fearfully, is at rest—and his withered frame, late o'er-informed with terrific energy, reposes with his pious child. We are not shocked and harrowed even when Hamlet falls; The old English feeling of tender beauty has for we feel that he is unfit for the bustle of this at last begun to revive. Lamb's John Woodvil world, and his own gentle contemplations on I despised by the critics, and for a while neg

their plots are but an accordance with arbitrary rules. Yet was there no reason to fear that the sensibilities of their audience should be too strongly excited, without the alleviations of fancy or of grandeur, because their sorrows are unreal, turgid, and fantastic. Cato is a classical petrifaction. Its tenderest expression is, "Be sure you place his urn near mine," which comes over us like a sentiment frozen in the utterance. Congreve's Mourning Bride has a greater air of magnificence than most tragedies of his or of the succeeding time; but its declamations fatigue, and its labyrinthine plot perplexes. Venice Preserved is cast in the mould of dignity and of grandeur; but the characters want nobleness, the poetry coherence, and the sentiments truth.

The plays of Hill, Hughes, Philips, Murphy, and Rowe, are dialogues, sometimes ill and sometimes well written-occasionally stately in numbers, but never touching the soul. It would be unjust to mention Young and Thom son as the writers of tragedies.

ected by the people, awakened those gentle pulses of deep joy which had long forgotten to beat. Here first, after a long interval, instead of the pompous swelling of inane declamation, the music of humanity was heard in its sweetest tones. The air of freshness breathed over its forest scenes, the delicate grace of its images, its nice disclosure of consolations and venerablenesses in the nature of man, and the exquisite beauty of its catastrophe, where the stony remorse of the hero is melted into child-like tears, as he kneels on the little hassock where he had often kneeled in infancy, are truly Shakspearean. Yet this piece, with all its delicacies in the reading, wants that striking scenic effect, without which a tragedy cannot succeed on the stage. The Remorse of Coleridge is a noble poem; but its metaphysical clouds, though fringed with golden imaginations, brood too heavily over it. In the detached

scenes of Barry Cornwall, passages of the daintiest beauty abound-the passion is every where breathed tenderly forth, in strains which are "silver sweet"—and the sorrow is relieved by tenderness the most endearing. Here may be enjoyed "a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, where no crude surfeit reigns."-In these-and in the works of Shiel, and even of Maturin-are the elements whence a tragedy more noble and complete might be moulded, than any which has astonished the world since Macbeth and Lear. We long to see a stately subject for tragedy chosen by some living aspirantthe sublime struggle of high passions for the mastery displayed-the sufferings relieved by glorious imaginations, yet brought home to our souls, and the whole conveying one grand and harmonious impression to the general heart. Let us hope that this triumph will not long be wanting, to complete the intellectual glories of our age.

REVIEW OF CIBBER'S APOLOGY FOR HIS LIFE.

[RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW, No. 2.]

THERE are, perhaps, few individuals, of in- determination not to repress it, because it is tense personal conciseness, whose lives, writ- part of himself, and therefore will only increase ten by themselves, would be destitute of interest the resemblance of the picture. Rousseau did or of value. Works of this description enlarge not more clearly lay open to the world the the number of our intimacies without inconve- depths and inmost recesses of his soul, than nience; awaken, with a peculiar vividness, Cibber his little foibles and minikin weakpleasant recollections of our own past career; nesses. The philosopher dwelt not more inand excite that sympathy with the little sor- tensely on the lone enthusiasm of his spirit, rows, cares, hopes, and enjoyments of others, on the alleviations of his throbbing soul, on which infuses new tenderness into all the the long draughts of rapture which he eagerly pulses of individual joy. The qualification drank in from the loveliness of the universe, which is most indispensable to the writer of than the player on his early aspirings for scenic such auto-biographies, is vanity. If he does applause, and all the petty triumphs and mornot dwell with gusto on his own theme, he will tifications of his passion for the favour of the communicate no gratification to his reader. He town. How real and speaking is the descripmust not, indeed, fancy himself too outrage- tion which he gives of his fond desires for the ously what he is not, but should have the bright course of an actor-of his light-hearted highest sense of what he is, the happiest relish pleasure, when, in the little part of the Chapfor his own peculiarities, and the most confi- lain, in The Orphan, he received his first apdent assurance that they are matters of great plause-and of his highest transport, when, interest to the world. He who feels thus, will the next day, Goodman, a retired actor of note, not chill us by cold generalities, but trace with clapping him on the shoulder at a rehearsal, an exquisite minuteness all the felicities of his exclaimed, with an oath, that he must make a life, all the well remembered moments of grati- good actor, which almost took away his breath, fied vanity, from the first beatings of hope and and fairly drew tears into his eyes! The spirit first taste of delight, to the time when age is of gladness, which gave such exquisite keengladdened by the reflected tints of young enter-ness to his youthful appetite for praise, susprise and victory. Thus it was with Colley Cibber; and, therefore, his Apology for his own life is one of the most amusing books that have ever been written. He was not, indeed, a very wise or lofty character-nor did he affect great virtue or wisdom-but openly derided gravity, bade defiance to the serious pursuits of life, and honestly preferred his own lightness of heart and of head, to knowledge the most extensive or thought the most profound. He was vain even of his vanity. At the very commencement of his work, he avows his

tained him through all the changes of his fortune, enabling him to make a jest of penury, assisting him to gather fresh courage from every slight, adding zest to every success, until he arrived at the high dignity of "Patentee of/ the Theatre Royal." When "he no revenue had but his good spirits to feed and clothe him," these were ample. His vanity was to him a kingdom. The airiest of town butter. flies, he sipped of the sweets of pleasure wherever its stray gifts were found; sometimes in the tavern among the wits, but chiefly in the

golden sphere of the theatre,—that magic circle | "made of one blood,” and equal in the sancti whose majesties do not perish with the chances of the world. In reading his life, we become possessed of his own feathery lightness, and seem to follow the course of the gayest and the emptiest of all the bubbles, that, in his age of happy trifling, floated along the shallow but glittering stream of existence.

ties of their being. Surely the art that produces an effect like this-which separates, as by a divine alchemy, the artificial from the real in humanity-which supplies to the artisan in the capital, the place of those woods and free airs, and mountain streams, which insensibly harmonize the peasant's character-which gives the poorest to feel the old grandeur of tragedy, sweeping by with sceptred pall—which makes the heart of the child leap with strange joy, and enables the old man to fancy himself again a child-is worthy of no mean place among the arts which refine our manners, by exalting our conceptions!

The Life of Cibber is peculiarly a favourite with us, not only by reason of the superlative coxcombry which it exhibits, but of the due veneration which it yields to an art too frequently under-rated, even among those to whose gratification it ministers. If the degree of enjoyment and of benefit produced by an art be any test of its excellence, there are few, indeed, It has sometimes been objected to the theawhich will yield to that of the actor. His ex-trical artist, that he merely repeats the lanertions do not, indeed, often excite emotions so guage and imbodies the conceptions of the deep or so pure as those which the noblest poet. But the allegation, though specious, is poetry inspires, but their genial influences are unfounded. It has been completely established, far more widely extended. The beauties of by a great and genial critic of our own time, the most gifted of bards, find in the bosoms of that the deeper beauties of poetry cannot be a very small number an answering sympathy. shaped forth by the actor, and it is equally Even of those who talk familiarly of Spenser true, that the poet has little share in the highand Milton, there are few who have fairly read, est triumphs of the performer. It may, at first, and still fewer who truly feel, their divinest appear a paradox, but is, nevertheless, proved effusions. It is only in the theatre, that any by experience, that the fanciful cast of the lanimage of the real grandeur of humanity-any guage has very little to do with the effect of picture of generous heroism and noble self- an acted tragedy. Mrs. Siddons would not sacrifice-is poured on the imaginations, and have been less than she is, though Shakspeare sent warm to the hearts of the vast body of had never written. She displayed genius as the people. There, are eyes, familiar through exalted in the characters drawn by Moore, months and years only with mechanic toil, Southern, Otway, and Rowe, as in those of the suffused with natural tears. There, are the first of human bards. Certain great situations deep fountains of hearts, long encrusted by are all the performer needs, and the grandest narrow cares, burst open, and a holy light is emotions of the soul all that he can imbody. sent in on the long sunken forms of the imagi- He can derive little aid from the noblest imagination, which shone fair and goodly in boy-nations or the richest fantasies of the author. hood by their own light, but have since been sealed and forgotten in their "sunless treasuries." There, do the lowest and most ignorant catch their only glimpse of that poetic radiance which sheds its glory around our being. While they gaze, they forget the petty concerns of their own individual let, and recognise and rejoice in their kindred with a nature capable of high emprise, of meek suffering, and of defiance to the powers of agony and the grave. They are elevated and softened into men. They are carried beyond the ignorant present time; feel the past and the future on the instant, and kindle as they gaze on the massive realities of human virtue, or on those fairy visions which are the gleaming foreshadows of golden years, which hereafter shall bless the world. Their horizon is suddenly extended from the narrow circle of low anxieties and selfish joys, to the farthest boundaries of our moral horizon; and they perceive, in clear vision, the rocks of defence for their nature, which their fellow men have been privileged to raise. While they feel that "which gives an awe of things above them," their souls are expanded in the heartiest sympathy with the vast body of their fellows. A thousand hearts are swayed at once by the same emotion, as the high grass of the meadow yields, as a single blade, to the breeze which sweeps over it. Distinctions of fortune, rank, talent, age, all give way to the warm tide of emotion, and every class feel only as partakers in one primal sympathy,

He may, indeed, by his own genius, like the matchless artist to whom we have just alluded, consecrate sorrow, dignify emotion, and kindle the imagination as well as awaken the sympathies. But this will be accomplished, not by the texture of the words spoken, but by the living magic of the eye, of the tone, of the action; by all those means which belong exclusively to the actor. When Mrs. Siddons cast that unforgotten gaze of blank horror on the corpse of Beverley, was she indebted to the playwright for the conception? When, as Arpasia, in Tamerlane, she gave that look of inexpressible anguish, in which the breaking of the heart might be seen, and the cold and rapid advances of death traced-and fell without a word, as if struck by the sudden blow of destiny-in that moment of unearthly power, when she astonished and terrified even her oldest admirers, and after which, she lay herself really senseless from the intensity of her own emotion-where was the marvellous stage direction, the pregnant hint in the frigid decla matory text, from which she wrought this amazing picture, too perilous to be often repeated? Do the words "I'm satisfied," in Cato, convey the slightest image of that high struggle-that contest between nature long re

* See Mr. Lamb's Essay on the Tragedies of Shaks peare, as adapted to representation on the stage-a piece which combines more of profound thought, with more c deep feeling and exquisite beauty, than any criticism with which we are acquainted.

pressed and stoic pride-which Mr. Kemble in | ration of their works. Shakspeare seems to an instant imbodied to the senses, and impressed on the soul for ever? Or, to descend into the present time and the lowlier drama, does the perusal of The School of Reform convey any vestige of that rough sublimity which breathes in the Tyke of Emery? Are Mr. Liston's looks out of book, gotten by heart, invented for him by writers of farces? Is there any fancy of invention in its happiest mood-any tracings of mortal hand in books-like to the marvellous creations which Munden multiplies at will? These are not to be "constrained by mastery" of the pen, and defy not only the power of an author to conceive, but to describe them. The best actors, indeed, in their happiest efforts, are little more indebted to the poet, than he is to the graces of nature which he seizes, than the sculptor to living forms, or the grandest painters to history.

have thought little in his lifetime of those honours which through all ages will accumulate on his memory. The best benefactors of their race have left the world nothing but their names, and their remembrances in grateful souls. The true poet, perhaps, feels most holily when he thinks only of sharing in the immortality of nature, and "owes no allegiance but the elements." Some feeling not unallied to this, may solace the actor for the short-lived remembrance of his exertions. The images which he vivifies are not traced in paper, nor diffused through the press, nor extant in marble; but are engraven on the fleshly tables of the heart, and last till "life's idle business" ceases. To thousands of the young has he given their "first mild touch of sympathy and thought," their first sense of communion with their kind. As time advances, and the ranks Still less weight is there in the objection, that of his living admirers grow thin, the old tell part of the qualities of an actor, as his form of his feats with a tenderer rapture, and give and voice, are the gifts of nature, which imply such vivid hints of his excellence as enable no merit in their possessor. They are no more their hearers richly to fancy forth some image independent of will, than the sensibility and of grandeur or delight, which, in their minds imagination of the bard. Our admiration is at least, is like him. The sweet lustre of his not determined by merit, but by beauty; we memory thus grows more sacred as it ap contemplate angelic purity of soul with as proaches its close, and tenderly vanishes. His tender a love as virtue, which has been reared name lives still-ever pronounced with hapwith intense labour among clouds and storms, piest feelings and in the happiest hours-and and follow with as delighted a wonder the excites us to stretch our thoughts backward quick glances of intuition as the longest and into the gladnesses of another age. The gravemost difficult researches. The actor exhibits maker's work, according to the clown, in Hamas high a perception of natural grace, as fine let, outlasts all others, even "till doomsday," an acquaintance with the picturesque in atti- and the actor's fades away before most others, tude, as the sculptor. If the forms of his because it is the very reverse of his gloomy imagination do not stand for ages in marble, and durable creations. The theatrical picture they live and breathe before us while they last does not endure because it is the warmest, the change, with all the variations of passion-and most living of the works of art; it is short as "discourse most eloquent music." They some- human life, because it is as genial. Those are times, as in the case of Mr. Kemble's Roman the intensest enjoyments which soonest wither. characters, supply the noblest illustrations of | The fairest graces of nature-those touches history. The story of Coriolanus is to us no of the ethereal scattered over the universedead letter; the nobleness of Cato is an ab-pass away while they ravish us. Could we stract idea no longer. We seem to behold succeed in giving permanence to the rainbow, even now the calm approaches of the mighty to the delicate shadow, or to the moonbeam on stoic to his end-to look on him, maintaining the forms of Roman liberty to the last, as though he would grasp its trembling relics in his dying hands-and to listen to those solemn tones, now the expiring accents of liberty passing away, and anon the tremulous breathings of uncertain hope for the future. The reality with which these things have been presented to our youthful eyes is a possession for everquickening our sympathy with the most august instances of human virtue, and enriching our souls with palpable images of the majesty of old.

the waters, their light and unearthly charm would be lost for ever. The tender hues of youth would ill exchange their evanescent bloom for an enamel which ages would not destroy. And if "these our actors" must "melt into air, thin air," leaving but soft tracings in the hearts of living admirers-if their images of beauty must fade into the atmosphere of town gayety, until they only lend some delicate graces to those airy clouds which gleam in its distance, and which are not recognised as theirs, they can scarcely complain of the transitoriness which is necessarily connected with the living grace which belongs to no other order of artists.

It may be said, that if a great actor carries us into times that are past, he rears up no monument which will last in those which are The work before us, however, may afford to come. But there are many circumstances better consolation than we can render to actors; to counterbalance and alleviate the shortness for it redeems not the names, but the vivid of his fame. The anxiety for posthumous re-images of some of the greatest artists of a cennown, though there is something noble in it as tury ago, from oblivion. Here they are not abstracted from mere personal desires, is embalmed, but kept alive-and breathe, in all scarcely the loftiest of human emotions. The the glory of their meridian powers, before us. Homeric poets, who breathed forth their strains Here Betterton's tones seem yet to melt on the to untutored ears, and left no visible traces of entranced hearer-Nokes yet convulses the heir genius, could scarcely anticipate the du- full house with laughter on his first appear

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