ACCOUNT of the GERMAN tHEAtRE. 163 



I NOW return to give fome general account of the dramatic 

 colledlions before us. Moft of the pieces of which they confift 

 are plays of fituation rather than of character. In the come- 

 dies, it is not the mifer, the mifanthrope, the hypocrite^ that is re- 

 prefented, btit a father offended by the mifalliance of his child, 

 a hufband hurt by the ridiculous extravagance of his wife. 

 The tragedies, in like manner, do not exhibit a perfonlfication 

 of ambition, revenge or jealoufy, but a fon outraged by his 

 father, a baron offended by his prince, a prince tyrannifed over 

 by his love. I am inclined to think the charaderiftic drama 

 the niofl pleafing, and generally the moft excellent. The cha- 

 radler of the leading perfon introduced, marks the events and 

 the fituations in which it is placed, in fuch a way as ftrongly 

 to imprefs the imagination and the memory of the reader, and 

 colours, as it were, that particular province of mind which the 

 author means to delineate, with a precifion and a force which 

 is not found in fcenes where the fituation only acfis on the ge- 

 neral feelings of our nature. This kind of drama, however, 

 is not fo commonly found in later periods of fociety, both be- 

 caufe thofe later periods do not fo frequently produce peculiar 

 and ftrongly diftinguiftied charadlers, as becaufe fuch charaders 

 have been already feized by the earlieft dramatic writers, who 

 only leave to their fucceffbrs the power of tracing them through 

 their fubdivifions and modes, of painting the nicer fhades by 

 which the fame great features of the human mind are difcri- 

 minated in different perfons. I think it may be remarked as a 

 defe(5l in the collections before us, that the dramas do not al- 

 ways place thofe features in a ftrong and fteady light. The 

 chai-aflers are not always perfectly or uniformly fupported, and 

 the perfons are fometimes exhibited ading from motives not 

 quite confiftent with the general plan of their charader, nor 

 appearing of fufEcient force to produce their adions. This 

 may perhaps be imputed to that extreme refinement of feeling, 

 which I have before remarked to be particularly predominant 



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