the perfection of the system.

Without dwelling on the expulsion of

the chorus (a most unnatural and inconvenient machine), the moderns, by admitting a complication of plot, have introduced a greater variety of incidents and characters. The province of invention is enlarged; new passions, or at least new forms of the same passions, are brought within the scope of dramatic poetry. Fresh sources of interest are opened, and additional powers of imagination called into activity. Can we then deny what extends its jurisdiction and enhances its interest to be an improvement, in an art whose professed object is to stir the passions by the imitation of human actions?" P. 95-98.

The Spanish dramatist had studied Aristotle, weg WOINTIUNS and Horace de arte poëticâ or rather dramaticá, yet, conversant in the ancient rules, and perhaps approving of them, he was obliged, as we learn, to quit their severity and abandon himself to a licence peculiar to modern poets:

No porque yo ignorasse los preceptos &c.

"Not but I studied all the ancient rules:

Yes, God be praised! long since, in grammar schools,
Scarce ten years old, with all the patience due,
The books that subject treat I waded through:
My case was simple. In these latter days,
The truant authors of our Spanish plays
So wide had wander'd from the narrow road
Which the strict fathers of the drama trod,
I found the stage with barbarous pieces stor'd:-
The critics censur'd; but the crowd ador'd,
Nay more, these sad corruptors of the stage
So blinded taste, and so debauched the age,
Who writes by rule must please himself alone,
Be damn'd without remorse, and die unknown.
Such force has habit-for the untaught fools,
Trusting their own, despise the ancient rules.
Yet, true it is, I too have written plays,

The wiser few, who judge with skill, might praise :
But when I see how show, and nonsense, draws
The crowd's, and, more than all, the fair's applause,
Who still are forward with indulgent rage

To sanction every monster of the stage,
I, doom'd to write, the public taste to hit,
Resume the barb'rous dress 'twas vain to quit:

I lock up ev'ry rule before I write,
Plautus and Terence drive from out my sight,

Lest rage should teach these injur'd wits to join,

And their dumb books cry shame on works like mine.
To vulgar standards then I square my play,

Writing at ease; for, since the public pay,

'Tis just, methinks, we by their compass steer,
And write the nonsense that they love to hear."

P. 103-104. A more severe satire on the taste of our times, and the play writers of the present day, it would be difficult to conceive.

Lope then proceeds to give an account of what is requisite in "the comic monsters of the stage," the comedie lumoyante of the French, or the crying-laughing pantomimes of our own times.

"In doing this," says his lordship," he contrives with great shrewdness, but apparent simplicity, to urge nearly all that can be said in their defence, at the same time that he ridicules the occasional evtravagance of himself and his contemporaries. As an apology for the mixture of comic with tragic scenes, he says:

"Lo tragico, &c."

"The tragic with the comic muse combin'd,
Grave Seneca with sprightly Terence join'd,
May seem, I grant, Pasiphaë's monstrous birth,
Where one half moves our sorrow, one our mirth.
But sweet variety must s'ill delight;

And, spight of rules, dame Nature says we're right,
Who, throughout all her works th' example gives,
And from variety her charms derives."

With regard to the unities, he asserts that an observance of them would disgust a Spanish audience :

"Who seated once, disdain to go away,

Unless in two short hours they see the play

Brought from creation down to judgment day."

P. 113---115.

This reproach scarcely needs a mutato nomine to be felt by our contemporary dramatists.

Lope de Vega does not defend all his dramas, but on the contrary confesses that they all, except six, sin grievously against the art. With respect to the six, the noble author pleasantly observes, "the Spanish critics have sought for these faultless models in vain.” P. 117.

In the course of a man's useless studies, or unrewarded pursuits, he may read, we confidently assert, at least a hundred Spanish plays, which they call comedias famosas, and not one that shall appear to him above contemptible. In some of Calderon's pieces, there is a bustle and activity which, with the help of lively action, double doors and much shifting of scenes, might make an interesting representation for once. The French think that dialogue is the essence of the drama which, vi termini, is an action. So it happens

oddly that the gayest nation has produced the gravest comedies, and, with a few exceptions, the dullest. The Spaniards, on the contrary, delight in the tricks of a harlequin. 'We would by no means insinuate that the genius of Calderon had the advantage of Lope's, although his success excluded the latter for a time from the Spanish stage, as Beaumont and Fletcher were at a certain period of our dramatic history preferred to Shakspeare-proh pudor!

After these observations, it is fit that we should make room for his lordship's comments on this subject, who, though alive to the merits of his author, is never blind to his defects:

« The truth is, that the plays of that period do not admit of the distinction of tragedies and comedies, according to the common, or at least the French acceptation of those terms. They are not comedies; for not only distressing situations and personages of high rank, but assassinations and murders are admitted into their plots: on the other hand, the sprightliness of the dialogue, the lowness of some of the characters, the familiarity of the language, and the conclusion of the piece, which is generally fortunate, deprive them of all claim to the title of tragedies. Yet even in Lope's works there is an evident difference in his conception as well as execution of two distinct species of dramatic compositions. In one, the characters and incidents are intended to excite surprise and admiration; in the other, merriment mixed occasionally with interest. Love indeed is the subject of both: but in one it is the love which distinguished the ages of chivalry; in the other, the gallantry which succeeded to it, and which the poets had only to copy from the times in which they lived. The plays of the latter description, when the distinction became more marked, acquired the name of Comedias de Capa y Espada, Comedies of the Cloak and Sword, from the dresses in which they were represented; and the former that of heroic comedies, from the character of the personages and incidents which compose them. It is true, that in scveral of Lope de Vega, which would come under the description of heroic comedies, there is an underplot, of which the characters are purely comic ; an invention which, if it is not his own, seems to have been of Spanish origin, and, as is well known, was adopted almost univer-ally on our stage from the time of Fletcher to that of Addison and Rowe. Lope was contemporary with both Shakspeare and Fletcher. In the choice of their subjects, and in the conduct of their fables, a resemblance may often be found, which is no doubt to be attributed to the taste and opinions of the times, rather than to any knowledge of each other's writings. It is indeed in this point of view that. the Spanish poet can be compared with the greatest advantage to himself, to the great founder of our theatre. It is true that his imagery may occasionally remind the English reader of Shakspere; but his sentiments, especially in tragedy, are more like Dryden and his contemporaries than their predecessors. The feelings of Shakspere's characters are the result of passions common to all men; the extravagant sentiments of Lope's, as of Dryden's heroes, are derived from an artificial state of society, from notions suggested

by chivalry and exaggerated by romance. In his delineation of character he is yet more unlike, and it is scarce necessary to add, greatly inferior ; but in the choice and conduct of his subjects, if he equals him in extravagance and improbability, he does not fall short of him in interest and variety. A rapid succession of events, and sudden changes in the situation of the personages, are the charms by which he interests us so forcibly in his plots. These are the only features of the Spanish stage which Corneille left unimproved; and to these some slight resemblance may be traced in the operas of Metastasio, whom the Spaniards represent as the admirer and imitator of their theatre. In his heroic plays there is a greater variety of plot than in his comedies; though it is not to be expected that in the many hundreds he composed he should not often repeat the same situation and events. On the whole, however, the fertility of his genius, in the contrivance of interesting plots, is as surprising as in the composition of verse. Among the many I have read, 1 have not fallen on one which does not strongly fix the attention; and though many of his plots have been transferred to the French and English stage, and rendered more correct and more probable, they have seldom or never been improved in the great article of exciting curiosity and interest. This was the spell by which he enchanted the populace, to whose taste for wonders he is accused of having sacrificed so much solid reputation. True it is that his extraordinary and embarrassing situations are often as unprepared by previous events as they are unforeseen by the audience; they come upon one by surprise, and when we know them, we are as much at a loss to account for such strange occurrences as before; they are produced, not for the purpose of exhibiting the peculiarities of character, or the workings of nature, but with a view of xstonishing the audience with strange, unexpected, unnatural, and often inconsistent conduct in some of the principal characters. Nor is this the only defect in his plots. The personages, like the author, are full of intrigue and invention; and while they lay schemes and devise plots, with as much ingenuity as Lope himself, they seem to be actuated by the same motives also; for it is difficult to discover any other than that of diverting and surprising the audience. Their efforts were generally attended with success. All contemporary au thors bear testimony to the popularity of Lope's pieces; and for many years he continued the favourite of the public. Stories are related of the audience taking so lively an interest in his plays, as totally to give way to the illusion, and to interrupt the representation. A spectator on one occasion is said to have interfered with great anxiety for the protection of an unfortunate princess"dando voces," says my author, "contra el cruel homicida que degollaba al parecer una dama inocente"-crying out against the cruel murderer, who to all appearance was slaying an innocent lady. P. 126---131.

These remarks are followed by sketch of one of Lope's most interesting plays. It is called the Estrella de Sevilla, and has lately been altered and revived at Madrid, under the name of Sancho Ortiz de las Roelas. The original being scarce, his lordship has favoured the public with an admirable detail of the plot, scene by scene, and this he has animated and adorned with some fine passages tran

slated with great skill and delicacy. The whole occupies too much space for our limits, and we have indeed at present so nearly reached the boundary, as to make it necessary to defer the conclusion of our observations on this learned, acute, and elegant work until next month.

An Inquiry into the State of the Nation at the Commencement of the present Administration. 8vo. pp. 219. 5s. Longman.

1806.

Most of the pamphlets written on this subject merit but little attention, since they are in general to be taken with no moderate granum salis. The state of the nation indeed is frequently according to the state of the writer's mind or interest-flourishing or deplorable, as his own private views are favourable or unpromising; and he, commonly, who paints most broadly in the darkest colours, like the "Puritane one," who tells his congregation that they are all damned, is sure to be listened to with profound attention, and to be thought to know much of the matter. This " Inquiry" however, is free from any of these degrading imputations, and if the prospect which it ex-. hibits be gloomy, the picture is not the production of a distempered or fearful imagination, but the labour of an honourable mind, enlightened by judgment, and devoted to truth.

"It is," says the learned and ingenious author, a very humble attempt at providing a substitute for the information respecting the state of their affairs, which the people would have received from the deliberations of their representatives, had the formation of the new ministry been so long delayed, as to have given time for an inquiry into the state of the nation." This attempt, so modestly spoken of, is conducted in a masterly manner, and added to the candour and sagacity which prevail throughout, we have the satisfaction to learn that no authorities are cited which are not official. Ρ. 49. πολεμεμεν ἵνα ειρηνην αγωμεν are the words of the Stagyrite, and this writer, thinking with him, that the object of war is peace, holds with wisdom and humanity that we have fought enough, and ought for no trifling or fanciful reason to delay the making of peace. It may be said that we have more to fear from French friends, than French enemies, but to encourage such language, is to cast away the scabbard, and to destroy the doors of the temple of Janus. A more prudent, considerate and humane conduct is proposed by this argumentative and able writer, who concludes his admirable work with the hope" that the wise men, who are now.