52 MORE NATURAL CONDUCT OF THE DIALOGUE, logue. On the modern stage, every scene is visibly studied and digested beforehand, and every thing from beginning to end, whether it be description, or argument, or vituperation, is very obviously and ostentatiously set forth in the most advantageous light, and with all the decorations of the most elaborate rhetoric. Now, for mere rhetoric, and fine composition, this is very right; but, for an imitation of nature, it is not quite so well: And however we may admire the skill of the artist, we are not very likely to be moved with any very lively sympathy in the emotions of those very rhetorical interlocutors. When we come to any important part of the play, on the Continental or modern stage, we are sure to have a most complete, formal, and exhausting discussion of it, in long flourishing orations; — argument after argument propounded and answered with infinite ingenuity, and topic after topic brought forward in well-digested method, without any deviation that the most industrious and practised pleader would not approve of,till nothing more remains to be said, and a new scene introduces us to a new set of gladiators, as expert and persevering as the former./It is exactly the same when a story is to be told,— a tyrant to be bullied, -or a princess to be wooed. On the old English stage, however, the proceedings were by no means so regular. There the discussions always appear to be casual, and the argument quite artless and disorderly. The persons of the drama, in short, are made to speak like men and women who meet without preparation, in real life. Their reasonings are perpetually broken by passion, or left imperfect for want of skill. They constantly wander from the point in hand, in the most unbusiness-like manner in the world; and after hitting upon a topic that would afford a judicious playwright room for a magnificent seesaw of pompous declamation, they have generally the awdwardness to let it slip, as if perfectly unconscious of its value; and uniformly leave the scene without exhausting the controversy, or stating half the plausible things for themselves that any ordinary advisers might have suggested after a few weeks' reflection. As specimens AND GREATER DRAMATIC EFFECT. 53 of eloquent argumentation, we must admit the signal inferiority of our native favourites; but as true copies of nature, as vehicles of passion, and representations of character, we confess we are tempted to give them the preference. When a dramatist brings his chief characters on the stage, we readily admit that he must give them something to say,-and that this something must be interesting and characteristic;-but he should recollect also, that they are supposed to come there without having anticipated all they were to hear, or meditated on all they were to deliver; and that it cannot be characteristic, therefore, because it must be glaringly unnatural, that they should proceed regularly through every possible view of the subject, and exhaust, in set order, the whole magazine of reflections that can be brought to bear upon their situation. It would not be fair, however, to leave this view of the matter, without observing, that this unsteadiness and irregularity of dialogue, which gives such an air of nature to our older plays, and keeps the curiosity and attention so perpetually awake, is frequently carried to a most blameable excess; and that, independent of their passion for verbal quibbles, there is an inequality and a capricious uncertainty in the taste and judgment of these good old writers, which excites at once our amazement and our compassion. If it be true, that no other man has ever written so finely as Shakespeare has done in his happier passages, it is no less true that there is not a scribbler now alive who could possibly write worse than he has sometimes written,--who could, on occasion, devise more contemptible ideas, or misplace them so abominably, by the side of such incomparable excellence. That there were no critics, and no critical readers in those days, appears to us but an imperfect solution of the difficulty. He who could write so admirably, must have been a critic to himself. Children, indeed, may play with the most precious gems, and the most worthless pebbles, without being aware of any difference in their value; but the very powers which are necessary to the production of intellectual excellence, must enable 54 PECULIAR STYLE OF OUR OLD DRAMATISTS. the possessor to recognise it as excellence; and he who knows when he succeeds, can scarcely be unconscious of his failures. Unaccountable, however, as it is, the fact is certain, that almost all the dramatic writers of this age appear to be alternately inspired, and bereft of understanding; and pass, apparently without being conscious of the change, from the most beautiful displays of genius to the most melancholy exemplifications of stupidity. There is only one other peculiarity which we shall notice in those ancient dramas; and that is, the singular, though very beautiful style, in which the greater part of them are composed,-a style which we think must be felt as peculiar by all who peruse them, though it is by no means easy to describe in what its peculiarity consists. It is not, for the most part, a lofty or sonorous style, nor can it be said generally to be finical or affected,—or strained, quaint, or pedantic:—But it is, at the same time, a style full of turn and contrivance, -with some little degree of constraint and involution, -very often characterised by a studied briefness and simplicity of diction, yet relieved by a certain indirect and figurative cast of expression,- and almost always coloured with a modest tinge of ingenuity, and fashioned, rather too visibly, upon a particular model of elegance and purity. In scenes of powerful passion, this sort of artificial prettiness is commonly shaken off; and, in Shakespeare, it disappears under all his forms of animation: But it sticks closer to most of his contemporaries. In Massinger (who has no passion), it is almost always discernible; and, in the author before us, it gives a peculiar tone to almost all the estimable parts of his productions. It is now time, however, and more than time, that we should turn to this author. His biography will not detain us long; for very little is known about him. He was born in Devonshire, in 1586; and entered as a student in the Middle Temple; where he began to publish poetry, and probably to write plays, soon after his twenty-first year. He did not publish any of his dramatic works, however, till 1629; and FORD'S DRAMAS-THEIR GENERAL CHARACTER. 55 though he is supposed to have written fourteen or fifteen pieces for the theatres, only nine appear to have been printed, or to have found their way down to the present times. He is known to have written in conjunction with Rowley and Dekkar, and is supposed to have died about 1640;-and this is the whole that the industry of Mr. Weber, assisted by the researches of Steevens and Malone, has been able to discover of his author. It would be useless, and worse than useless, to give our readers an abstract of the fable and management of each of the nine plays contained in the volumes before us. A very few brief remarks upon their general character, will form a sufficient introduction to the extracts, by which we propose to let our readers judge for themselves of the merits of their execution. The comic parts are all utterly bad. With none of the richness of Shakespeare's humour, the extravagant merriment of Beaumont and Fletcher, or the strong colouring of Ben Jonson, they are as heavy and as indecent as those of Massinger, and not more witty, though a little more varied, than the buffooneries of Wycherley or Dryden. Fortunately, however, the author's merry vein is not displayed in very many parts of his performances. His plots are not very cunningly digested; nor developed, for the most part, by a train of probable incidents. characters are drawn rather with occasional felicity, than with general sagacity and judgment. Like those of Massinger, they are very apt to startle the reader with sudden and unexpected transformations, and to turn out, in the latter half of the play, very differently from what they promised to do in the beginning. This kind of surprise has been represented by some as a master-stroke of art in the author, and a great merit in the performance. We have no doubt at all, however, that it is to be ascribed merely to the writer's carelessness, or change of purpose; and have never failed to feel it a great blemish in every serious piece where it occurs. His The author has not much of the oratorical stateliness and imposing flow of Massinger; nor a great deal of the smooth and flexible diction, the wandering fancy, and 56 FORD-HIS FAULTS AND MERITS. romantic sweetness of Beaumont and Fletcher; and yet he comes nearer to these qualities than to any of the distinguishing characteristics of Jonson or Shakespeare. He excels most in representing the pride and gallantry, and high-toned honour of youth, and the enchanting softness, or the mild and graceful magnanimity of female character. There is a certain melancholy air about his most striking representations; and, in the tender and afflicting pathetic, he appears to us occasionally to be second only to him who has never yet had an equal. The greater part of every play, however, is bad; and there is not one which does not contain faults sufficient to justify the derision even of those who are incapable of comprehending its contrasted beauties. The diction we think for the most part beautiful, and worthy of the inspired age which produced it. That we may not be suspected of misleading our readers by partial and selected quotations, we shall lay before them the very first sentence of the play which stands first in this collection. The subject is somewhat revolting; though managed with great spirit, and, in the more dangerous parts, with considerable dignity. A brother and sister fall mutually in love with each other; and abandon themselves, with a sort of splendid and perverted devotedness, to their incestuous passion. The sister is afterwards married, and their criminal intercourse detected by her husband,-when the brother, perceiving their destruction inevitable, first kills her, and then throws himself upon the sword of her injured husband. The play opens with his attempting to justify his passion to a holy friar, his tutor-who thus addresses him, "Friar. Dispute no more in this; for know, young man, These are no school points; Nice philosophy May tolerate unlikely arguments. But heaven admits no jest. Wits that presum'd |