I 



18*2G.] Oh the Decline of tie British Drama. S^ 



is hardly to be expected in their drama. The models upon which they 

 must work, if they work at all, are, in all probability, not to be ex- 

 ceeded in their kind of excellence. The pursuits in which art pre- 

 dominates o\'er nature must always have a point, beyond which, if there 

 be any improvement, it nmst be slow and difficult ; for though nature, 

 in respect to works of invention, is unbounded, the rules of art confine 

 the exercise of talent within the track of which they are the limits, and 

 of which it is natural that the first adventurers should have occupied 

 all the most rich and floAvery portions. Those who follow are obliged 

 to substitute ingenuity for that originality which their confined sphere 

 and later birth deny them. In this state of confinement French tragedy 

 has continued since its birth, and we must admit, that it therefore 

 does not afford us conclusive arguments in disproof of the opinion we 

 are canvassing, as we find in the literature of other nations in which 

 genius is not fettered by the same rules. At the same time, we do not 

 think it too much to presume that, unless there were something in the 

 advancement of civilization, not only not favourable to originality and 

 power in dramatic poetry, but decisively adverse to them, French 

 tragedy would have long since freed herself from the unnatural bondage 

 to which her early poets, in deference to a spurious and pedantic taste, 

 were forced to reduce her. 



But when we look at home, and find the fate of the drama in other 

 nations illustrated in the history of our own ; when we contemplate the 

 splendid rise of tragedy in England — its early and wonderful elevation — 

 its sudden fall — and its nearly prostrate condition for more than a cen- 

 tury and a half, instead of believing that its materials are more rich or 

 more easily wrought as a people advance in age, we are obliged to infer 

 that they are either less tractable or less abundant. 



We believe the truth to be, that the resources of tragedy are greatest 

 in the early periods of civilization. When a people partake the con- 

 ditions both of savage and of civil life — when their rude habits and 

 fierce emotions are yet untamed by manners, and but feebly controlled 

 by laws — the characters of men are thrown into forms more vigorous, 

 more distinctly defined, and more fully developed than in any later 

 period of society. It is then that all the dark and tempestuous pas- 

 sions work without disguise. It is then, too, that the weaker and more 

 abject qualities are drawn out and exposed ; for the conflict between the 

 strong and the feeble equally displays the power of the one and the 

 weakness of the other : ambition and revenge — hatred, and envy, and 

 jealousy — the caprice of power, and the art of designing villany — must 

 wreak themselves upon some victims, and nmst shew, as they perform 

 their terrible feats, the agonies of avarice, the tremblings of cowardice, 

 the dupery of unsuspecting folly, the despair of ruined affections, 

 and the whole tribe of contemptible frailties and suffering virtues. 



In a more improved state of society, the peculiarities of men are, 

 early in their growth, checked by the dread of shame, of censure, or of 

 punishment ; and either wholly vanish, or are so softened, that they 

 appear but seldom as life advances. But when a nation is young, 

 restraints upon inclination are few, and have little power. The humours 

 of the individual are allowed full sway ; and hence characters appear in 

 real life without that uniformity which they assume, when greater civili- 

 zation reduces them under the empire of manners. The condition of 

 men, as to their moral qualities, in these early times, has been com- 



