"lapse or aberration of the mind," to arraign you of forgetfulness as to action being an essential attribute of the drama, (though perhaps the knowledge of this principle rather vegetates than lives in your memories,) when I ought to have impeached you of oblivion as to perpetual action being an essential attribute of effective tragedy. Whenever the action of a scene degenerates into speechification, as it did with the wits of Queen Anne's reign, Addison, Rowe, &c. or into mere poetry, as with you, the attention of the spectator flags, his spirits sleep, his blood stagnates, the eye glazes, and the jaw drops. You will probably allege the Greek or the French drama, as your example, precedent, and defence, in penury of action and superfluity of elocution. To this I might be content with answering, that an English audience is not a Greek, nor (God be praised!) a French one: that it enjoys neither the exquisite refinement of the former (and never can, till numerically the same), nor the hollow sentimentality of the latter. But I will take better ground: Would not more action, and less talk, improve even the faultless perfection of the Greek tragedy? Would not a compound of Shaksperian hurry of incidents and sublime audacity of language with Sophoclean regularity of process and stateliness of diction, be a consummation devoutly to be wished? Is not the activity of the scene, the agitation of our bosoms? Doth not the vivacity of the stage enliven our spirits, quicken our pulse, full-breathe our lungs, trim the decaying lamps of our eyesight, and spread the blaze of intellectual ardour like wildfire through the breasts of an audience? In one word; if action be the essence of drama, is not drama most powerful when action is most predominant? is not tragedy most effective when most agitative? But why do I ask these questions? They are axioms. You do not deny their truth, you only forget their necessity. Let us now, for illustration's sake, compare the quantity of action in the last act of Othello with that in the last of the DOGE OF VENICE. First, however, let us consider that part of the action not springing from the verbal vivacity of the dialogue. Thus, there is more action in Othello's defence than in Dover Cliff, the former being personal narration, the other mere description, which is almost always inactive and heavy on the ear. There is still more action in Lear's storminvocation than in Othello's defence, the former indeed being the very essence of action, and therefore the perfection of drama. But to action, with which the language of a tragedy may thus be considered pregnant, as obliging the speaker to exert his gesticulative powers, I do not now allude. The action which I would now enlarge upon is, the mobility of the scene, the fluctuation of passing objects, the busy-ness of the stage. Well then: by what criterion is the quantity of this kind of action in a drama (or part of a drama) to be estimated? Manifestly not by the number of scenes; for an act may consist of but few scenes, yet contain a great deal of action; and two different acts may comprise the same number of scenes, yet one of them include much more action than the other. Thus, there are seven scenes in the first and last acts of Macbeth, respectively, yet the last act is infinitely more busy than the first. But I'll tell you how the quantity of action is to be graduated; by-I might say, by the number of striking incidents brought before us; but then you would tell me that this criterion is no criterion at all,-for how are you to know what I mean by striking incidents; an incident may strike me which lets another escape scot-free; ergo, &c. &c. Besides I must then confound the incidents of the story with the striking parts of the dialogue, which I would yet wish to keep separate in this investigation; ergo, &c. &c. again. So my criterion is good for nothing but to laugh at. Oh! oh! are you there with me, Gentlemen? Then I'll not meddle with the criterion at all, since you seem so well disposed to squabble about it; indeed, perhaps, it may be quite as well, instead of cramping my genius with a definition, which I must keep to, as a matter touching my honour, whether good or bad, to explain what I wish you to understand and chew upon, by that fami liar but probably not less infallible different quantities of action, necessary to explain why the Doge was damned in the threshold, whilst Othello has continued a stock-play upwards of two hundred years. But if any one believe this statement to be correct, he will be miserably deceived. The real excess of action in Othello above that in the Doge, is in every sense incalculable; the proportion of their true quantities of action is not five to one, but almost infinity to nothing; there is, however, no method, that I know of, by which we might reduce the general question to any thing like plausible computation. This will be evident to every one who considers that there are two (not to speak of more) kinds of action, viz. energetic action (such as Othello exhibits), and indolent action (such as we for the most part see exhibited in the Doge). Every line of the former play is action; almost every line of the latter is devoid of that quality of speech ;-how are we to bring this under a calculus? The language of Othello is that of passion; the language of the Doge that of passiveness. There are, to be sure, a few exceptions to this latter assertion, such as in the concluding lines of Faliero's last speech, where he bestows his imprecation upon Venice: Amidst thy many murders think of mine! Gehenna of the waters! thou sea Sodom! (Turning to the executioner.) Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse! Strike and but once!-A. 5. Sc. 4. This indeed is something like the language of effective tragedy; a few such specimens of vigour as this, and the exclamation Oh! that the Saracen were in St. Mark's! (Dashing down the ducal bonnet.) A. 1. Sc. 2. would do much to relieve the listlessness of an auditor condemned to sit out three hours and a half of " long homilies," preached by the laity of the green-room. But "like angelvisits, few and far between," our au ricles are seldom beatified with aught but the equable hum of that kind of purling fluency into which the stream of our English poetry has lately sub-sided. I beseech you, I have said above, with regard to Gentlemen, let what the different quantities of action in Othello and the Doge of Venice, engage a small part of your diurnal attention. You will find it of service, believe me. By a fair, if not very orthodox mode of investigation, we have found that the action in the first of these tragedies, is five times as great in quantity as that in the latter; and if to this we add, the perpetual recurrence of incidents, which could not be there enumerated, the hurry of circumstances, the busyness, and agitation, the changes, crosses, innumerable entrances and exits, the minor interruptions of subject, breaches of dialogue, fluctuation, variety, and quick succession of objects, which distinguish the progress of Shakspearian story, but which would " dizzy the arithmetic" of Newton to compute; if we superadd the activity of the kind of action employed; and finally subjoin the energy of the language, and the action thereto belonging-we may truly assert, if Othello be not more than a drama (i. e. a Frenziad, fit only to be performed in Bedlam), that the Doge of Venice is less, scilicet,-a pro and con poem or blank dialogue, whichever his lordship may prefer to re-christen it. To conclude: your tragedies, O ye prospective proprietors of the niches in Fame's Temple! appear to me to be deficient in the first grand leading essential attribute of the drama, viz. action. Your plots are poor, your stories meagre; they have neither bolddent: your scenes are too few, too long, ness of delineation, nor fulness of inciand too seldom themselves subdividtion of new characters (be so good ed by change of topic, or introducand see how short his scenes, geneas to turn over your Shakspeares, rally-speaking, are; and also what a number of violent transitions of subject, abrupt departures from the high-road of colloquy, entrances, exits, manoeuvres, and evolutions, divide and subdivide the line of his dialogue); your fables want interest; your matter diversity; in short, your Hath caira'to be th' awakener of a lana," action is nothing, and your poetry Should have his soul's affections all' abi every thing. sorb'd If you are not pleased with the In that majestic purpose, and press on above paragraph, perhaps you will To its fulfihnent, as a mountain-born be with this of one of your fair fellow- And mighty stream, with all its vassal-rills labourers : Sweeps proudly to the ocean, pausing not To dally with the flowers. Siege of Valencia, A. 1, Sc. 2. And bondage on their natures !--To the Permit me, ladies and gentlemen, Of God, and Spain's revenge, they bring spects, my name, to subscribe, with my humble rébut half Their energies and hopes. But he whom (“for fault of a better,") Heaven Joux. Lacy. cause POEMS FROM THE DUTCH OF GERBRAND BREDERODE. seasons. GERBRAND BREDERODE was born lope the first blossoms of genius; at Amsterdam, on the 16th March, for literary talent, like an exotic 1585. His works, during his life- plant, is of fickle growth, and the time, were held in great esteem; but dews of inspiration fall not at stated they have of late years been com He was principally celeparatively neglected by his country- brated for his comedies, into which men. Whether this arises from his he introduced the language of the occasional want of polish, or from a lower classes of Amsterdam with change in public opinion, or from great effect. It is even said that he both of these causes combined, is often attended the fish-market and now difficult to determine. Yet similar places, to collect materials for appears to us, that he has been his various pieces. This, indeed, is rather unfairly treated. Even Jero- apparent in his Moortje and his nimo de Vries, in his Proeve eener Spuanschen Brabander. His Poems Geschiedenis der Nederduitsche Dicht- were published at Amsterdam in kunde, (Specimen of a History of 1622, by Cornelis van der Plasse, Dutch Poetical Literature,) although under the titles of Het Boertigh Liedtgenerally the most lenient of critics, Boeck (Facetious Song-Book); De has, we think, barely done him jus- Groote Bron der Minnen (The Great tice. Brederode had not, it is true, Fountain of Love); and Aendachtigh the imagination, and energy, and Liedt-Boeck (Meditative Song-Book). sublimity of Hooft and Vondel, and The first edition, published at Leyothers of his contemporaries; but he den by Govert Basson, was followed possessed abundant natural feeling, by a pirated one at Amsterdam. To an almost feminine sensibility, and, the latter he thus alludes in the in most instances, an easy and har- Preface to his Boertigh Liedt-Boeck. monious flow of versification. Nor, Next appeared a spurious edition at although living in the golden age of Amsterdam, containing among other things, Dutch literature, did he ever abandon lewd and lascivious verses, which I, of his originality of thought and expres- course, gained the credit of having written; sion, and condescend to be the mere but the honour that was thus conferred imitator of even the most splendid upon me, and the gratitude that I owe to models which his country has pro these my benefactors, I shall take an opduced. It should also be borne in portunity of acknowledging in a manner mind, that he was an utter stranger pure-hearted and generous persons will now that they will remember. For truly all to the learned languages, and that pause ere they publish any work, however he died when only thirty-three years creditable to their feelings and morality, of age; a period at which some seeing that unlawfulness has risen to such minds scarcely do more than deve- a pitch, that any individual may give hi disgusting obscenities to the world under Aut rediviva suis ardentia Pergama flammis, the cloke of another's name. Quæque gravis veterum digna cothurnus habet ; Among the many verses composed Aut tristes elegi, aut satyræ mordentia verba, in honour of Brederode, we select Aut festivus amor, compositive sales. those of Hooft; as the praise of such Quid sibi non placeat Batavum caput Ama man will outweigh a thousand stelodamum common eulogies. Illa peregrinos jactat, at illa suum. In Editionem Poëmatum, nobilissimi Adde ; quod innumeri vix præstitêre Poëtæ, Batavi Poëtæ Gerbrandi Brederodii. Unus sacra jocos tristia læta dedit. Roma sibi placuit divinâ capta Poësi, Brederode died on the 230 August, Dum placet argutis Accius illecebris ; 1618. 1 1 nu dobbert mgn Liefie op de ree Groote Bron der Minnen, p. 10. 1. On the waves that in chorus are sounding, O'er whose bosom his ship is bounding. 2. Which might gaze o'er the world for ever; I would follow and leave thee never. 3. Which through air was his love's protection; With the guiding star of affection, 4. Should that voice be heard beside thee; Through the gather'd clouds that hide thee : 5. Not an adverse wind should alarm thee; That no breath might escape to harm thee. • Daedalus. |