y- 



168 ACCOUNT of the GERMAN THEATRE. 



through every fcene and every fituation in which they can be 

 found ; and in its difplay of human paflions and human for- 

 rows, is little folicitous to mitigate the atrocity of the one, or 

 the poignancy of the other. This ftrong painting will fome- 

 times difguft the delicacy of him who has been ufed to the 

 finer tints of the modern fchool ; but it gives room for that 

 fublimity and boldnefs of picture, which is often ill exchanged 

 for the flat infipid reprefentation of reftrained paffions and 

 chaftened manners. 



Baron Riesbeck, himfelf a German, who is therefore no 

 bad authority on this fubjecl, accounts for the prevalence of 

 high- wrought paffion on the German ftage, from the particular 

 mode of living in Germany. " The different claffes of people, 

 " fays he, do not mingle fo much in the German towns as they 

 " do in France. To every thing which belongs to nobility, or 

 " which has the name of nobility, or is in any way attached to 

 " the Court, the German in middle life can have no accefs. 

 " His knowledge of life, and tafte for focial pleafures, is much 

 more confined than that of our people, (the Baron writes in 

 the character of a Frenchman), nor does he, like the inhabi- 

 tants of a moderately large French town, enter into, the in- 

 " numerable incidents and accidents of common life. This 

 " want of intereft in ufual virtues and vices, this infenfibility 

 " to the little events of ordinary life, oblige the German to 

 " look for ftrong emotions and caricatures to entertain him on 

 " the ftage ; whereas the Frenchman is contented with a piece 

 " of much finer wrought plot, and willingly fees the people he 

 " lives and is acquainted with reprefented on the ftage." 



To this account of the Baron's may, I think, be added 

 fomething peculiar in the national character, which, like that 

 of the Englifh, is of an ardent, thinking, ferious caft. To 

 men of this difpofition, the lighter and more ordinary views of 

 life and manners are not interefting. They call for deeper and 

 more impreffive fcenes, fcenes of high paflion and ftrong emotion. 



The 



