Shakspeare's Othello and Molière's Avare.

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speculum consuetudinis, or local colouring, which might throw into deeper relief the imitatio vitæ, or individuality of the jealous man. Assuredly, no pale embodiment of an abstraction is that swarthy Moor; in no wanton, fitful mood has jealousy made a victim of one whose social position has been gained by such toiling and moiling, that his susceptibilities are unusually quick, from the fear of again becoming the Pariah that he was before. Nay, the great love with which he loved Desdemona, was mainly fed by the consciousness how largely she must have sacrificed the promptings of pride, to prefer him to one of her own clime, complexion, and degree.' Thus exulting, thus loving, we are at no loss to divine how deadly will be his hate: Odium erga rem amatam majus erit, ex ratione lætitiæ quâ zelotypus ex reciproco rei amata amore solebat affici.' (Spinosa, Eth. iii. 35.) So artfully, you will observe, has Shakspeare contrived to entwine the fibres of jealousy round the whole of the man's heart; growing with his growth; a natural channel, into which the currents of the Moor's hot blood were sure sooner or later to flow.

Molière's failure in the portrait of Harpagon, and Shakspeare's triumph in that of Othello, are perhaps the best illustrations we could give, both of what ought not and of what ought to govern the relations existing between the rà καθόλου and the τὰ καθ ̓ ἕκαστον. The art with which Molière has elsewhere combined, in due proportion, the elements of his dramatic character, we hold to be the key to his genius. So that when A. W. Schlegel winds up his coarse criticism on Molière, by saying that the originals of his individual portraits have long since disappeared, we hasten to reply, that unless German nature be a different thing from human nature, this contemptuous Zoilus of the French drama (both buskin and cothurn) must have gone through the world with his eyes shut, not to have recognised, again and again, the originals of those types into which the genius of Molière has breathed the breath of life. Such sneers at the obsolete manners, manners à la Louis Quatorze, of the characters in Molière's plays, deserve to be met with an answer similar to that which Sully returned when his re-appearance in the council chamber of Louis XIII. elicited the sneers of some court fops, who could not brook the antiquated cut of his hose: 'Sire, lorsque le feu roi votre père, me faisait l'honneur de m'appeler à ses conseils, nous ne parlions point d'affaires qu'on n'eût au préalable renvoyé les baladins et les bouffons de cour.'

In the dramatic literature of the nineteenth century, a new element seems to have taken the place of that Idealism of character which constituted the glory of the seventeenth

century. Interest of plot or of intrigue (in Molière, a matter of less than even secondary consideration), telling situations, passions torn to rags, and above all, stage decorations, such are the ingredients which spice the dramatic cookery of London and Paris. Compare, for instance, the Lady Tartuffe of Madame Emile de Girardin with the Tartuffe of Molière.* The extreme intricacy and gross improbability of the plot are aggravated by the clumsy manner in which it is woven together. As far as we can collect, the only moral to be drawn from the play is, to avoid making your exit from a lady's chamber by the window, especially if you are carrying a gun. For observe: Madame de Blossac, alias Lady Tartuffe, has four lovers. Three of these she loves: the fourth-for he is a 'maréchal-she only wishes to marry. Number one ends a stolen interview by jumping out of Madame's window, gun in hand. The gun goes off: so does Madame de Blossac; but she leaves her bouquet, to say nothing of her lover's corpse, behind her. Probable, very! Said bouquet comes into possession of number two (who it must be said does not return the affection of this choice specimen of her sex), so that the lady's effort to save her character is somewhat endangered, as the sequel will show. Number three also declines making use of the door, and is greeted on his descent by a dog of irascible temperament; said dog belongs to a young lady in the same hotel, who rushes to the rescue, by pacifying the vicious mastiff, with marks of simulated tenderness towards his prey; said young lady turns out to be a niece of number four, le Maréchal d'Estigny, and the betrothed of number two, Hector de Renneville. Bent on frustrating this marriage, partly from financial, partly from spiteful motives (the spreta injuria forma), Lady Tartuffe fabricates a histoire scandaleuse out of the dog affair, by representing the scene outside the window, as a ditto of what had been going on within. Not the least, assuredly, of the absurdities of the plot, is this preposterous and suicidal calumny set on foot by one whose alias would lead one to suppose that she was not less wily than worthless. To tell how her schemes are defeated, and she herself confounded, partly by the treachery of her confidant (mark another absurdity-hypocrites of Tartuffe's calibre keep their own counsel) partly by the production of her bouquet, but chiefly by the candour and the innocence of the maréchal's niece, is beside

* Madame de Girardin challenges the comparison by adopting such a title. Beaumarchais was more modest: he sheltered the words L'autre Tartuffe' behind the first member of the title, 'La mère coupable.'

Lady Tartuffe and Le Tartuffe.

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our purpose. We merely wished to give an apposite illustration of the feeble makeweights-an intricate and melodramatic tissue of absurdities-by which the writer endeavours to compensate her deficiencies in the portraiture of character. In any future edition or representation it would be well to substitute, in the title, a parody of Musset for that of Molière, by calling the play-Il faut qu'une fenêtre soit ouverte ou fermée. For our own part, before the thing made its appearance, we had strong misgivings as to its merits, from the fact that the writer, as we understood, was hesitating whether to call it La Prude or Lady Tartuffe. Our suspicions were confirmed by the result. By endeavouring to unite both features -prudery and hypocrisy-in one character, Madame de Girardin committed the same mistake as a famous English philosopher, when he made two holes in his door, one for the cat the other for the kitten. To rival Molière's Tartuffe was difficult; to make the same portrait serve for Tartuffe and Arsinoe (that matchless type of prudery in Le Misanthrope) was impossible. To complete the inconsistencies of this nondescript character, Lady Tartuffe adds to her hypocrisy and prudery a very namby-pamby kind of remorse, and what we are led to suppose is a genuine love for number two aforesaid.

And is it for such trash* as this, set off though it be by the meretricious ornaments of brilliant dialogue and smart repartees, that we are called upon to exchange those great and glorious monuments which the genius of Molière has erected? Truly it is well for us that our taste, blown about as it is by every wind of Fancy, can betake itself for shelter to those harbours of refuge where the great classics of all nations ride stately and secure. Not with impunity can we cease from communing with those choice spirits of Foretime, whose works no lapse of years can render antiquated, founded as they are on the principle, by virtue of which alone man can penetrate within the Veil of the Temple, a High Priest of Literature and Art; I mean the principle, that the Beautiful is but the reflection of the True. Not with impunity can we turn aside from the

* Since we wrote the above remarks, the authoress of Lady Tartuffe has been removed from a circle which she adorned by her talents and her virtues. We are glad to have an opportunity of stating, while these pages are passing through the press, that it is not without some qualms of remorse we find we have been betrayed into language which, to the admirers of Madame de Girardin-their name is legion-may seem harsh, flippant, and unjust. Will it be any compensation to express our conviction that in the loveliness with which she has clad one of the characters in the play-the maréchal's niece-she has but mirrored the graces of her own gentle nature?

exhibition of sentiments which are natural without being obvious,' which come from the heart, and to the heart appeal, for sentiments which are the forced utterances of morbid natures, extorted by situations which we feel to be improbable, and witnessing to characters which we know to be impossible. Surely there is something febrile, unhealthy, spasmodic in the literature of the present day, which is not to be found in that of the classical ages. But here we pause: for we are anxious to anticipate the rejoinder which may be cast in our teethLa littérature est l'expression la plus vraie de la société.'

At the commencement of this Essay we proposed to inquire how far Molière's genius bore the trace of the age in which he lived, how far it was essentially his own. That promise we have endeavoured to fulfil; and very little to our own satisfaction have we succeeded. We trust the judgement and reflection of our readers will supply what is awanting, and correct what is amiss. We have attempted to show, that the absence of all extravagance of conception or of expression-the preference of general effect to laboured details-the equilibrium maintained between the imagination and the judgement, that all these are qualities which he possesses in common with other the great classics of his age. On the other hand, we have endeavoured to point out in what respect, and in what degree, his power in the creation of dramatic character differs from, and surpasses that, which is to be discerned in the works of Corneille and Racine. The art with which he combines man with men, makes persons of passions, characters of types, and gives to general qualities the sharp relief of individual personality-this art is, to our apprehension, so transcendently great, that we have felt justified in placing the author of Tartuffe on the same pinnacle as Homer and Shakspeare. How far the details of this inquiry may meet with the approbation of our readers, we know not; of this, however, we feel assured, that all true students of French literature will not hesitate to subscribe to the words of Lafontaine : 'Molière c'est mon homme.'

C. K. W.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN AMERICA.

HE languages of the various European settlers of America, transported to that remote region, and for many years almost isolated there, might naturally be expected, in the lapse of time, to exhibit a certain amount of difference from the same tongues as continued to be spoken in their original countries. Such difference would be brought about by two opposite sets of causes-the changes which the language underwent in its new position, and those which it did not undergo. For, though the written languages of modern Europe have sustained no remarkable alterations since the settlement of America, the familiar phrases of conversation alter, not merely from century to century, but even from generation to generation. If, on the one hand, local peculiarities of custom or contact with other languages would introduce new terms in the new country, on the other hand, fashion or accident itself might work changes in the old country which would not penetrate to the new. In a word, then, we should expect to find in the colonial speech, compared with that of the mother country, archaisms as well as neologisms.

But as regards the continental languages which have permanently established themselves to a greater or less extent in America, these changes excite the smallest possible amount of curiosity. Little, for instance, is known, and as little cared about, the nature and extent of the modifications which the Spanish language may have received in the Hispano-American republics, for these countries occupy but an insignificant place in the political world, and what is more to the point here, are absolutely nowhere in the literary world. With the English language, however, the case is widely different. Contemporaneous with the astounding increase in material greatness and political rank of the United States, has been the development of their literature, both in quantity and quality, to an extent which makes a complete anachronism of Sidney Smith's once