THEATRE AT PARIS* 



peare* The behaviour of children towards their pa- 

 rents, of the mafter towards the miftrefs of the family, 

 is here, when publicly acted, juft as delicate as the be- 

 haviour of the male fex in general towards the female. 

 The nation difcovers a nice fenfibiliry to every infult it 

 meets with, and M. Ducis would have forfeited all cre- 

 dit with them for ever, if he had let his queen have' 

 ftood ftill to be told one lingle period of the horreurs 

 (the word ufed by the French for what we fhould con- 

 tent ourfelves with calling home truths ) which Shakef- 

 peare puts in the mouth of Hamlet to his royal mother. 



** He tells it her with refpect, and in covered ex- 

 preflions 5 and when he has finifhed, he leaves her. To 

 Ophelia he likewife difclofes the whole ; he names her 

 father as the caufe of all, and confeffes that he mall 

 immediately feel his revenge. A hard flruggle on the 

 part of Ophelia, between her love to her father and 

 that to the prince. The former gains the victory, and 

 ihe arTures her lover, that it is only through her breaft 

 that he can plunge a dagger in the heart of her father." 



The character of Hamlet is entirely french. He re- 

 veals the whole to the mother, the miftrefs, and a par- 

 ticular friend, whereas the gloomy britifh Hamlet tells 

 nothing of it to any one. With this, a flubborn me - 

 lancholy is one while only a mafk for concealing his 

 project, at another the real confequence of his grief 

 and his inward indignation at the horrid deed; with 

 the other it is actual frenzy, but which only fhews it- 

 felf when his father's ghoft appears to him, and the pa- 

 roxyfms whereof terminate in fatigue and dejection: 

 which is more in the nature of a french theatrical hero 

 than in that of an englifh theatrical behemoth, agamir. 



f 2, whom 



