Diderot and the Encyclopaedists Volume I Part 18

[Footnote 272: _Lettre sur les Sourds et les Muets_, i. 355.]

[Footnote 273: _Paradoxe_, viii. 384. The criticism on the detestable rendering of _Hamlet_ by Ducis (viii. 471) makes one doubt whether Diderot knew much about Shakespeare.]

[Footnote 274: Letter to Mdlle. Jodin, xix. 387.]

[Footnote 275: Johnson one day said to John Kemble: "Are you, sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself transformed into the very character you represent?" Kemble answered that he had never felt so strong a persuasion himself. _Boswell_, ch. 77.]

[Footnote 276: Lessing makes this a starting-point of his criticism of the art of acting, though he uses it less absolutely than Diderot would do. _Hamburg. Dramaturgie_, -- 3, vol. vi. 19.]

[Footnote 277: In Lichtenberg's _Briefe aus England_ (1776) there is a criticism of the most admirably intelligent kind on Garrick. Lord Lytton gave an account of it to English readers in the _Fortnightly Review_ (February 1871). The following pa.s.sage confirms what Diderot says above:

"You have doubtless heard much of his extraordinary power of change of face. Here is one example of it. When he played the part of Sir John Brute, I was close to the stage, and could observe him narrowly. He entered with the corners of his mouth so turned down, as to give to his whole countenance the expression of habitual sottishness and debauchery.

And this artificial form of the mouth he retained, unaltered, from the beginning to the end of the play, with the exception only that, as the play went on, the lips gaped and hung more and more in proportion to the gradually increasing drunkenness of the character represented. This made-up face was not produced by stage-paint, but solely by muscular contraction; and it must be so identified by Garrick with his idea of Sir John Brute as to be spontaneously a.s.sumed by him whenever he plays that part; otherwise, his retention of such a mask, without even once dropping it either from fatigue or surprise, even in the most boisterous action of his part, would be quite inexplicable."]

[Footnote 278: viii. 382.]

[Footnote 279: viii. 373, 376, etc.]

[Footnote 280: As Hamlet to his players: "Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of pa.s.sion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."]

[Footnote 281: To Jodin, xix, 382. "Point de hoquets, point de cris, de la dignite vraie, un jeu ferme, sense, raisonne, juste, male; la plus grande sobriete de gestes. C'est de la contenance, c'est du maintien, qu'il faut declamer les trois quarts du temps."--P. 390.]

[Footnote 282: P. 395.]

[Footnote 283: _Bijoux Indiscrets_, ch. x.x.xviii.]

[Footnote 284: vii. 121. Lessing makes a powerful addition to this.

_Hamburg. Dram._ vi. 261.]

[Footnote 285: _Poesie Dramatique_, ---- 20, 21.]

[Footnote 286: _Sienne Entretien_, vii. 138.]

[Footnote 287: _Poes. Dram._., -- 2. The Poetics of the Genre Serieux are to be found, vii. 137, 138.]

[Footnote 288: i. 316.]

[Footnote 289: _Hints for an Essay on the Drama_, p. 155.]

[Footnote 290: _Hist. du Romantisme_, p. 93.]

[Footnote 291: _Der Gegensatz des Cla.s.sischen und des Romantischen, etc._ By Conrad Hermann, p. 66.]

[Footnote 292: Schopenhauer, _Ethik_, 199]

[Footnote 293: _Oeuv._, iv. 29.]

[Footnote 294: _Werke_, xxv. 291.]

[Footnote 295: The original of the text, published in the a.s.sezat edition of Diderot's works, was a ma.n.u.script found, with other waifs and strays of the eighteenth century, in a chest that had belonged to Messrs. Wurtel and Treutz, the publishers at Strasburg. Its authenticity is corroborated by the fact that in the places where Goethe has marked an omission, we find stories or expressions from which we understand only too well why Goethe forbore to reproduce them.]

[Footnote 296: v. 339.]

[Footnote 297: Lucian, [Greek: Peri Parasitou], and [Greek: Peri ton epi mistho sunonton.]]

[Footnote 298: Grimm, ix. 349.]

[Footnote 299: _Anmerkungen, Rameau's Neffe; Werke_, xxv. 268.]