Tragedy Part 11

"Timon," and "t.i.tus Andronicus," s.h.i.+rley's "Traitor," and Beaumont and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy," "Valentinian," and "A King and No King," "The Loyal Subject," and other of their tragicomedies. "Henry VIII," "Rollo,"

"Bonduca," and "Philaster" were performed within the next few years. Of Restoration tragedies, Banks's "Unhappy Favorite" and Lee's "Rival Queens"

were perhaps the most popular, and other plays of Banks, Lee, Otway, Dryden, Congreve, and Southerne were acted yearly. A number of the heroic plays also still kept the stage, including Howard's "Indian Queen,"

Dryden's "Conquest of Granada," "Indian Emperor," and "Aureng Zebe."

Throughout the century both the London and the provincial theatres presented each year a large number of old plays, including many of these already mentioned. The Elizabethan tragedies, except Shakespeare's, and the heroic plays gradually disappeared from the regular repertoire, but Shakespeare's tragedies steadily gained in popularity, and "The Unhappy Favorite" (rewritten as "The Earl of Ess.e.x"), "The Orphan," "Venice Preserved," "Oronooko," "The Fatal Marriage" (altered as "Isabella"), "All for Love," and "The Mourning Bride" maintained their places into the nineteenth century. Tragedy thus had its permanent representatives in this group of stock plays, to which newcomers gained admission only by marked success on the stage.

To these stock plays no writer of the eighteenth century made more notable additions than Nicholas Rowe, the first editor of Shakespeare, whose work began the century, borrowed much from his predecessors, and yet introduced most of the changes which distinguish the eighteenth century type of tragedy from that of the Restoration or Elizabethan period. His first play was followed by four other tragedies by 1707, and, after an interval of seven years, by "Jane Sh.o.r.e" (1714) and "Lady Jane Grey" (1715). Of the first five, three are of little interest except as representing common variations of the prevailing type. They all relate love stories of rivalry and intrigue among heroic personages, and all observe the French proprieties in structure. "The Ambitious Stepmother," like so many predecessors and successors, places the scene in an oriental court; "Ulysses" more daringly invades Homeric territory; and "The Royal Convert"

turns to early English history, a field which literary patriotism was appropriating for tragedy.

In "Tamerlane" (1702), love and intrigue play subordinate parts to the political and moral interest which the author endeavored to centre upon his protagonist. Tamerlane, who, we are told, was patterned on William III, is an extremely pious pagan, who overtops conquest with mercy and adorns every occasion with a moralizing discourse. Had he ever encountered his Marlowean namesake, he would have shed the pitying tear. In general, the structure is on the French plan, but the large number of characters and the considerable amount of action recall Elizabethan models. The verse, too, with its feminine endings, occasionally reminds one of Fletcher, and the figures of speech are feebly patterned on Shakespeare, while the ravings of Bajazet are worthy of Nat Lee. The play, long acted every November fifth, seems to have owed its great success to its high moral tone and its patriotic eloquence. It set the key for many similarly patriotic tunes.

"The Fair Penitent" (1703) links itself with the two later "She-tragedies,"

to borrow a term from one of their epilogues. Its prologue proclaims an innovation from the usual tragic themes of monarchs' cares and lost royalty, because--

"We ne'er can pity what we ne'er can share

Therefore an humbler Theme our Author chose, A melancholy Tale of Private Woes."

This was the play of which Dr. Johnson said that "scarcely any work of any poet is at once so interesting by the fable and so delightful by the language." The domestic theme, the female protagonist, and the insistent appeal to pity were all already familiar in the plays of Otway and Southerne. Rowe gave these a larger popularity; and from his Lothario and Calista Richardson received suggestions for Lovelace and Clarissa.

"The Fair Penitent" is also interesting as an adaptation of an Elizabethan play. Rowe borrowed the plot and some hints in the characterization from "The Fatal Dowry" of Ma.s.singer and Field, but he refas.h.i.+oned the scenes and rewrote the verse in accord with current modes. While "The Fatal Dowry" is by no means one of the best of Elizabethan tragedies, a comparison of it with Rowe's version of the story emphasizes the losses which tragedy was suffering as it moved farther and farther from its old traditions.[28] "The Fair Penitent" reduces the host of _dramatis personae_ to eight, the fair penitent, her husband, his rival, his sister, and three friends or confidants, and confines the action to one place and something over twenty-four hours. Much of the action of the early play is omitted or reduced to narrative, including all the opening scenes of the funeral of the husband's father and the origin of his friends.h.i.+p with the father of the heroine. The various attempts of the faithful friend to mend matters are also restricted, and Ma.s.singer's usual trial scene omitted. The result of these structural changes is a loss of verisimilitude. The old play had something of the illusion of a true history; in "The Fair Penitent" the action, though narrowed, is still far too much for the time supposed, and improbabilities are solved by well-worn theatrical devices. The guilt is discovered by means of a lost letter and an over-heard conversation, and throughout literary and moral proprieties lead to a reduction of action and an increase of talk. This is well ill.u.s.trated in the scenes in which the husband confronts the guilty wife. In "The Fair Penitent," the wife and Lothario are having a final meeting, or declamation contest, on the day after the wedding. She upbraids him and incidentally relates the story of her seduction; the husband overhears. In "The Fatal Dowry," the husband comes unexpectedly to the house of Aymer where the lovers have an a.s.signation. Aymer is attempting to divert him with music, when a laugh is heard within,--more music, and the lady's laugh again. The husband rushes from the stage and returns driving in the lovers. Further, the restricted action of Rowe's play causes a conventionalizing of the characters. The wife and her lover are shallow persons in Ma.s.singer's play, but they have some plausibility. In Rowe, he becomes the avenging rival; she, an impossible declaimer, now the evil woman of the heroic plays, now the lachrymose moralizer. The moralizing, emphatic in all of Rowe's plays, also adds to the general artificiality. Calista dies after most voluble repentance, and her husband matches her "groan for groan and tear for tear."

If the Elizabethan play is confused, long spun out, and not especially edifying, it is yet occasionally intense in its emotional effect and maintains some verisimilitude of life and character. Rowe's artificially ingenious and morally mellifluous play, if edifying, is never thrilling.

Its conventional persons and scenes do not depict life by action; they declaim sentimentally a story that ends in a sermon. In its conventionalization and moralization Rowe ill.u.s.trates the main tendencies of the drama, tendencies derived largely from the French, but it must not be thought that either his play or the majority in the century altogether forsake English models for French. Rowe's declamations and laments, immeasurably inferior in all respects, differ essentially from Racine's in that they fail to disclose psychological moments and emotional crises. They also differ from Racine in their retention of spectacle, incident, and business in accord with English tradition. Like other of his contemporaries and successors, Rowe was p.r.o.ne to copy the Elizabethans at their worst. The most Elizabethan thing in his play, though not found in "The Fatal Dowry,"

is the setting for the long famous fifth act. "The Scene is a Room hung with Black; on one side, Lothario's body on a Bier; on the other, a Table with a Scull and other Bones, a Book, and a Lamp on it. Calista is discovered on a Couch in Black, her Hair hanging loose and disordered: After Musick and a Song, she rises and comes forward"--and begins her midnight soliloquy. Perhaps, as Dr. Ward surmises, this business went far to give the act its great effectiveness.

Of the two later "She-tragedies," "Lady Jane Grey" presents the usual love intrigue (fomented here by the discarded rival), the female protagonist, and much Protestant and Whig patriotism, but nothing not paralleled in Rowe's other plays. "Jane Sh.o.r.e" (1714), one of the most popular plays of the century, represents another treatment of "the fair penitent," this time not only in a story used in the Elizabethan drama, but in a style avowedly in imitation of Shakespeare's.

Gloster, who is closely modeled on Shakespeare's Richard III, plays an important part, usually in consultation with his two confidants, Catesby and Radcliffe. Hastings, suspected by Gloster of loyalty to the child prince, becomes enamored of Jane Sh.o.r.e, the former mistress of Edward IV. She, now dedicated to penitence, resists his persuasions, in which she is encouraged by Dumont (her husband in disguise) and his confidant Bellmour. When Hastings resorts to force, Dumont comes to the rescue and disarms him. Alicia, deserted by Hastings, is the jealous and vengeful woman, well known in tragedy; and she denounces Hastings and Jane Sh.o.r.e in a letter which she subst.i.tutes for the pet.i.tion for the release of Dumont, imprisoned through Hastings, that Jane Sh.o.r.e presents to Gloster. Gloster, upon testing Hastings and Jane Sh.o.r.e, is met by frank protestations from both of their loyalty to the prince. Hastings is condemned to death, but has time for a final interview with Alicia, and the exchange of mutual upbraidings, confessions, and forgiveness. Jane Sh.o.r.e is condemned to public penance.

She has a parting interview with Alicia, who has gone mad, and then encounters Dumont, who, after a long discussion with his confidant, has decided to reveal himself and forgive his wife. She dies and he is led away to prison.

"Let those who view this sad Example, know What Fate attends the broken Marriage Vow; And teach their Children in succeeding Times, No common Vengeance waits upon their Crimes, When such severe Repentance could not save From Want, from Shame, and an untimely Grave."

The play is undoubtedly Rowe's masterpiece, the closing scenes having a natural pathos that he rarely attains elsewhere. The only Shakespearean imitation now discernible is in the character of Gloster, though Rowe may have endeavored in his female characters to supply the naturalness and greatness of emotions which he recognized as characteristic of Shakespeare's men, but curiously thought lacking in his women. Here and elsewhere in language and metaphors Rowe reverts at times to the Elizabethans, as also in the admission of much action and spectacle, in pale horrors, and in the plots of his two best known plays. In the general conception and structure of his plays he follows Otway. Taken as a whole, however, his plays, without comedy, with much heroic love, with few persons, and a restricted action, come nearer to French models than those of any preceding writer of large reputation. Sentimentalized, moralized, conventionalized as the plays are, Rowe may be said to have made a novel departure in tragedy, though one accomplished a century before by Heywood's "A Woman Killed with Kindness." Penitence is the sole theme of his two famous plays, and the moral lesson is constantly enforced. The protagonist is a repentant sinner for whom we feel pity because of her punishment, which we nevertheless regard as just.

Rowe's plays, tame as they are, seem to have been too exciting and too rude for the coterie of wits who set the standards of criticism; and before the appearance of "Jane Sh.o.r.e" an effort was made under the direction of Addison toward still greater refinement and closer accord with French rules. Smith's "Phaedra and Hippolitus" (1706), an adaptation of Racine, failed on the stage in spite of Addison's approval, but it was later often revived, and it prepared the way for the great success of Ambrose Philips's "Distrest Mother" (1712), a translation of the "Andromaque." This success, promoted by the zealous support of Mr. Spectator and Sir Roger de Coverley, was due in large measure to the story, sentimental and moral in accord with the taste of the day.[29] In these respects "The Distrest Mother" had the advantage of "Phaedra," though both ill.u.s.trate the tendency, growing since Lee and Otway, of making the heroine the protagonist. At all events, the success of Philips's translation was not only great for the moment, but long continued. It remained a popular stock play through the century, gave a favorite part to Mrs. Siddons, and introduced Macready to a London audience.

In the flush of Philips's first success, Addison was emboldened to present his long withheld "Cato" upon the stage. The political circ.u.mstances made the first night one of the most memorable in the history of the theatre, and gave the play what was then the enormous initial run of a month.

Voltaire praised; and, with the exception of the doughty Dennis, English critics seemed agreed that here at last was an English tragedy in full accord with cla.s.sical precedents and the rules of reason. The play continued a favorite on the stage into the nineteenth century, and even after the retirement of Kemble, who found in Cato one of his great parts.

It would be vain to search for dramatic merits to account for this great success. The play combines love intrigues, as absurd as those usual in contemporary plays, with lucid declamation and aphoristic moralizing.

Aphorism and declamation have, indeed, rarely been absent from the tragedy of any period or nation, but they were especially delightful to the taste of the Augustan era. Addison was only continuing the success of Rowe's "Tamerlane," reducing its rant to a more reasonable pattern. The reforming cla.s.sicists, like the theatre-pleasing Rowe, hit on the two themes which pleased the public, the distressed female and the patriotic moralizer.

The success of "The Distrest Mother" and "Cato" was the beginning of the long triumph of French influence over English tragedy, yet the victory was never more than half won. There was no capitulation, and the battle continued through the century both among the critics and on the stage.

Rowe's plays maintained at least a feeble English tradition, and Shakespeare's won increasing admiration. If critical opinion was for a time warm in support of French cla.s.sicism, the theatre still clung to Elizabethan practices. Later, when imitations of the French models had established themselves in some degree upon the stage, criticism turned to condemnation of the unities and renewed its laudations of Shakespeare. The lines of battle were often obscured. Between Rowe's refinements of Elizabethan plays and Addison's imitation of the French there is little difference; and later, in spite of the din of critical essays and prefaces, the representatives of "Shakespeare's school" and of "correct taste" have a great similarity.

The Elizabethan tradition was directly represented by Elizabethan imitations and revivals, by many new plays that reverted in one way or another to the early methods, by the conservatism of actors and playgoers, and by the tragedies of Shakespeare. As Shakespeare grew in the appreciation of readers and critics, there was a tendency toward the restoration of a real Shakespearean text to the stage. There were, to be sure, innumerable new alterations and adaptations, but these were mostly of little importance on the stage. They dealt with the minor plays, as "Cymbeline," "Coriola.n.u.s," or "Timon;" or they were the essays of admiring amateurs with a bent for restringing the rough diamonds of the original, or of playwrights trying to meet the theatrical demands of the moment.

Cibber's "Richard III" and Tate's "Lear" held the stage well into the next century, but "Julius Caesar," "Hamlet" (except for Garrick's alteration, 1772-80), and "Oth.e.l.lo" admitted no alterations. After 1744 Shakespeare's "Macbeth" took the place of Davenant's, and "Romeo and Juliet" of Otway's "Caius Marius." "Coriola.n.u.s," variously revised, altered, and finally combined with Thomson's play of the same name, was toward the end of the century given a great vogue by Kemble; and, indeed, the only one of the tragedies neglected during the century was "Antony and Cleopatra."[30]

Dryden's "All for Love" had usurped its place. As the critical tone toward Shakespeare grew more admiring and less tainted by condescension, so the att.i.tude of actors and audiences grew in heartiness of appreciation. The revival of the romantic comedies marked an important change of taste, though not calling for more than mention here. Year after year his comedies, histories, and tragedies were acted oftener and to larger audiences, and gave opportunity for the best efforts of a long series of great actors and actresses. Garrick's revivals and triumphs were followed by those of Mrs. Siddons and Kemble. Now one play became a favorite, now another, under the influence of a great impersonation; but few were neglected, and over the theatre Shakespeare's domination was unquestioned.

Except for Shakespeare the direct influence of the Elizabethans was small.

A few of the tragedies were acted intermittently in the first half of the century, and a few comedies kept their places in the stock list much longer. Revivals, though not infrequent, were rarely permanent. Revampings sometimes resulted in an almost unconditional surrender to the French.

Theobald in the first half of the century attempted a reversion to the Elizabethans without much success, and later a revival of interest in Ma.s.singer succeeded in restoring only his two comedies to the theatre. As sources of incentive for those writers who shunned French modes, Otway, Southerne, and Rowe took the places of the Elizabethans other than Shakespeare. The English tradition which these names represent had, as we have seen, already been much subject to French influence, though protected by the adherence of the theatre to old custom. Consequently, while the majority of eighteenth century tragedies retain some Elizabethan practices, there is not one of importance that is a thoroughgoing representative of the old methods and technic.

French influence, on the contrary, had many representatives among the new plays. The success of "The Distrest Mother" led to a number of translations. In the first quarter of the century there were ten of Racine's plays and four of Corneille's; and of these fourteen, eight were acted, and several with success. Later on, Whitehead's "Roman Father"

(1750), an adaptation of Corneille's "Horace," won a place in the stock list. But the leading factor in the French influence on English tragedy during the century was Voltaire. The long critical debate which he waged in behalf of the rules and against the barbarities of Shakespeare has its importance in English as well as French literary history. But while the English critics grew more and more eager as the century advanced to uphold the glory of Shakespeare and to denounce an atheist who denied this, or to proclaim their freedom from the narrowing rules which were French, yet the triumphs of Voltaire's plays upon the English stage continued unabated.

Adaptations of no less than nine of his tragedies had appeared on the London stage before the English translation of his full works in 1779-80, and there were manifold borrowings from him in many other plays.[31] A number of the translations, Hill's "Zara" and "Merope," Miller's "Mahomet,"

and Murphy's "Orphan of China," made notable successes. From the production of "Brutus" to that of "Semiramis" in 1776 Voltaire may be said to have been the most popular and influential of the writers of tragedy for the English theatre.[32]

The translations of these tragedies, however, indicate the influence of English traditions. The long speeches are shortened, the dialogue is broken and enlivened, the minor proprieties disregarded, the sentiments and morals Anglicized, and some business and bloodshed introduced on the stage. In Hill's "Merope," for example, the great scene where Merope strives to kill the murderer of her long-lost son and discovers the supposed murderer to be her son himself, loses all its simplicity as well as its poetry. It is ornamented by Hill with processions, virgins in white, music, a sacrificial song, and many starts and strains. Where on the French stage Egisthe decorously withdraws behind the scenes as his mother approaches with the dagger, on the English stage everything was in full sight. If some of the other translations are less altered, the imitations and unavowed adaptations are much more so. Hoole's "Cyrus" (1768), a popular play, is obviously based on "Merope," but adds a much complicated plot, a mad woman, a love intrigue between the long-lost son and the daughter of the old tutor, and a returning husband for Mandane (Merope). The great success of Voltaire in England did not, in fact, produce any very marked change in the course of tragedy. He represents the continuance of French influence but established no departures of note from the general type established in the English theatres by 1725. Virtually no English tragedies in the eighteenth century introduced comedy; few reveled in horrors and bloodshed, the majority observed the unities, nearly all had few persons, a restricted action, and themes and situations confined to slight variations of a stereotyped love story; and nearly all had regard for poetic justice. The differences between French and English tragedy were largely those which adapters of Voltaire eliminated when they made over his plays for the London theatres and gave them a more broken dialogue and more stage action, and perhaps a mad woman or a villain. Moreover, the amelioration of the differences between the two theatres was not all on one side, as is shown by Voltaire's own imitations of Shakespeare and his introduction of ghosts and horrors, and by the growing interest in France in Shakespeare and other English dramatists.[33] Voltaire, with his ingenious plots and telling crises, was nearer than Racine to the English tradition, and he wrote at a time when the differences between the two national theatres were minimized to a degree that made intercommunication easy. His talents gave him an easy superiority over any English writer of tragedies after the cla.s.sical formulas.

In the course of the century there were also a considerable number of plays that turned from French to Greek models. While these cannot be regarded as wholly representative of a reaction from a pseudo to a truer cla.s.sicism, they certainly offered hardly more resemblance to Voltaire than to Shakespeare. The Greek influence was, however, variously manifested.

Adaptations of Euripides were numerous, half a dozen of which were presented at the theatres. In addition, a number of original plays were written, following the Greek form. Most famous of these were two by Gray's friend Mason, "Elfrida" and "Caractacus." The latter, while stilted and academic, compares favorably in point of literary excellence with most tragedies of the century, and not altogether unworthily takes its place in a series that includes "Samson Agonistes" and "Prometheus Unbound." "Read Shakespeare," wrote Lyttleton to Aaron Hill, "but study Racine and Sophocles." But the cla.s.sicists were occupied in the main with neither poet, but in discussing various minor questions of dramatic propriety: Should any violence or bloodshed be permitted? Should rhyme tags end the scenes? Should the epilogue be comic or serious? Should figures of speech be allowed? Should long speeches be shortened for presentation? Cla.s.sicism in both England and France was not greatly imitative of either Sophocles or Racine, but mainly insistent on immaterialities.

If we attempt to follow the diminis.h.i.+ng differences between English and French standards in the work of individual authors, Young's "Busiris"

(1719) and "Revenge" (1721) are the most important of those tragedies in the first quarter of the century which cling to some of the characteristics of the early English drama, while his "Brothers," written at about the same time but not acted until 1753, is based upon Thomas Corneille's "Persee et Demetrius." In "Busiris" there is no villain, but tyranny, conspiracy, and a pa.s.sionate revenging queen play their usual parts. There is an attempt, both in incidents and expression, at Elizabethan force and horror; the main action deals with a rape, and five of the princ.i.p.al persons are killed upon the stage. "The Revenge" is still more Elizabethan, being a palpable imitation of "Oth.e.l.lo." The prologue declares that the proper field for tragedy is not villany but "the tumults of a G.o.dlike mind," yet the villain, the Moor Zanga, is the chief character and was acted by Garrick, Kemble, and Kean. The villain's part, it is interesting to note, affords the most striking difference between this popular play and the even more popular "Zara." In both, the heroine, pure and innocent, is killed by the husband, Oth.e.l.lo-like in both magnanimity and jealousy; but in Voltaire the jealousy is occasioned by the heroine's meetings with her brother, a captive Christian, in Young by the busy and ponderous intrigues of a Moorish Iago.

In opposition to Young, Thomson represents the vogue of cla.s.sicism both in literary circles and in the theatres. His early tragedies, "Sophonisba"

(1730), "Agammemnon" (1738), and "Edward and Eleonora," prohibited by the censor because of its attacks upon Walpole, won little favor except in the circle of wits who attempted to dictate the national taste in letters and among the opponents of Walpole. The first was dedicated to the Queen and the two later to the Princess of Wales, and "Tancred and Sigismunda" (1743) to Frederick, Prince of Wales, the patron of the drama and the hope of the Tories. This play, the presentation of which was fathered and superintended by Lyttleton and Pitt, achieved a large popular success; and portions of "Coriola.n.u.s," acted after the author's death in 1749, were combined with Shakespeare's tragedy in versions by Thomas Sheridan and Kemble, and supplied the latter with his greatest part. All Thomson's plays endeavor to retell stories often used in tragedy, in strict accord with the rules, with absolute propriety of diction, some reference to political events, and a due inculcation of moral sentiments. In the language of one of their admirers, they were intended to be "reasonable entertainments becoming virtue itself to behold with tears of approbation."[34] "Sophonisba" is sternly heroic in its subordination of love to patriotic hate of Rome in the character of its heroine, and sternly cla.s.sic in the simplicity of its plot and the heaviness of its inflated rhetoric. "Agammemnon," also a "She-tragedy," is designed after the school of Racine rather than of Corneille; and its wavering, inconsistent Clytemnestra, who closes the play with a torrent of remorse and a faint, its Melisander saved from a desert island, and its courtly love-sick Egisthus are queer denizens of the house of Atreus. "Edward and Eleanor," telling of the queen who sucked poison from her husband's wound, and of the sultan who, suspected of the attempted murder, bore a truly miraculous antidote to the Christian camp, owes allegiance to Voltaire. Its emotional changes and elaborate intrigue bring it also more closely in accord with the prevailing English type. "Tancred and Sigismunda," based on the story as told in "Gil Blas,"[35] makes the lover a claimant to the throne and the intervention of the father due to reasons of state. The plot is developed with more skill than is usual in Thomson, and the rival lovers, the marriage in revenge, the midnight interview, the duel, and the murder of the heroine are quite in conformity to the prevailing model. "Coriola.n.u.s," the subject of many French tragedies and of Shakespearean alterations by Tate and Dennis, ill.u.s.trates the inferiority of the cla.s.sic scheme to the Elizabethan in the presentation of history. The action, beginning with the arrival of Coriola.n.u.s as a suppliant for Tullus's hospitality, crowds the remaining events and the changes in the two rivals within the impossible confines of the unities of time and place. Coriola.n.u.s himself exemplifies the effort toward "Nature,"

that is, typicality and reasonableness, in pseudo-cla.s.sical characterization. He expresses the sentiments and manners approved by the eighteenth century, and, even when pride and revenge most fire his pa.s.sion, is a very tame lion. The moral lessons, somewhat clouded in Shakespeare, are distinctly enunciated and finally summed up by Galesus:--

"This man was once the glory of his age, Disinterested, just, with every virtue Of civil life adorn'd, in arms unequall'd.

His only blot was this; that, much provok'd, He rais'd his vengeful arm against his country," etc. (v. 4).

In Thomson's other plays the inflated declamation occasionally gives way to a bit of description that recalls "The Seasons," but in "Coriola.n.u.s" he follows the promise of the Prologue to "Tancred" with unerring fidelity:--

"Your taste rejects the glittering false sublime, To sigh in metaphor, and die in rhyme.

High _rant_ is tumbled from his gallery throne; Description, dreams,--nay, similes are gone."

He was obviously seeking what he called Shakespeare's "simple, plain sublime," and his declamations occasionally reach a sententious lucidity worthy of Addison, but the pseudo-cla.s.sic diction freezes every emotion with its "transports," "charms," and "nuptial loves." This is Volumnia's appeal to Coriola.n.u.s, her husband in Thomson's play:--

"Ah Coriola.n.u.s!

Is then this hand, this hand to be devoted, The pledge of nuptial love, that has so long Protected, bless'd, and shelter'd us with kindness, Now lifted up against us? Yet I love it, And, with submissive veneration, bow Beneath th' affliction which it heaps upon us.

But O! what n.o.bler transports would it give thee!

What joy beyond expression! couldst thou once Surmount the furious storm of fierce revenge, And yield ye to the charms of love and mercy.

Oh make the glorious trial!" (v. 1).

Thomson's plays were not esteemed even by his master Voltaire as contributing greatly to that perfection of art possibly attainable by a "due mixture of the French taste and English energy." For, though "wisely intricated and elegantly writ," Voltaire found him, like Addison, lacking in warmth, an "iced genius."[36] Frigid to his contemporaries, the tragedies were long since decently interred. They const.i.tute, nevertheless, the most considerable attempt made by any author of the eighteenth century to conserve the cla.s.sic theory of tragedy, and they recall nearly every variety of pseudo-cla.s.sic endeavor. Of cla.s.sicism it might be said, as of Thomson, that it attempted cla.s.sic and early English history, that it found in partisan patriotism its favorite theme for rhetoric, that its French rules and taste usually pleased readers better than spectators, but that when it took one of Shakespeare's tragedies as the basis for an infusion of cla.s.sical theory, or when it was tempered with a love story and a lively action, it triumphed in the theatre.

Thomson's friends, Mallet and the versatile and indefatigable Aaron Hill, joined him in his efforts to redeem the tragic muse. Hill's efforts, if no more successful than Thomson's and much less consistent, are at least more amusing. His general theory seems to have been not unlike that which actually controlled theatrical practice; he purposed a combination of French rules with romantic incident, theatrical bustle, and his own inimitable style. His "Fatal Vision, or Fall of Siam" (1716), he boasted, had "a deeper and more surprising plot than any play which has been published, that I know of, in the English tongue; and yet is written in strict observance of the dramatic rules" and affords "room for topical reflections, large description, love, war, show, and pa.s.sion," and also "a very high regard to decoration." The play is noticeable for its tangle of trite dramatic motives.

The emperor's vision is of a son who shall kill him and usurp the throne. The two elder sons are in love with the Princess of Siam. Sworn by her to kill their father, and condemned by him for a murder they did not commit, they die fighting in his behalf. The third son kills the emperor, marries the princess, and ascends the throne. In his rapid advance he is aided by the banished empress, who has returned to court and attained high power, disguised as the favorite eunuch.

Hill adapted three of Voltaire's plays, "Zara," "Alzira," and "Merope." To the first he wrote some comic choruses intended to be sung between the acts, and to the third he prefixed his revised and final opinion of Voltaire and French tragedy:--

"Our unpolished English stage (as he a.s.sumes the liberty of calling it) has entertained a n.o.bler taste of dignify'd simplicity, than to deprive dramatic poetry of all that animates its pa.s.sions; in pursuit of a _cold, starv'd, tame abstinence_, which, from an affectation to shun _figure_, sinks to _flatness_: an _elaborate escape_ from _energy_ into a groveling, wearisome, bald, barren, unalarming _chilness_ of expression, that _emasculates_ the mind, instead of _moving it_."

"Athelwold" (1731), a revision of his early "Elfrid," is colorlessly conventional; "The Roman Revenge" (1753) is an alteration of "Julius Caesar"; "The Insolvent" (1758) is a rewriting of "The Fatal Dowry," making the heroine an innocent object of jealousy. Most Aaronic of all is "Henry V" (1723). Here he gives up French unities and technic, and introduces many characters, s.h.i.+fting scenes, a bit of comedy, and the "genius of England,"

who sings a song. His greatest addition to Shakespeare is his Harriet, who starts out like one of the evil queens in the heroic tragedies. When abandoned by Henry, she is still jealous and revengeful; next she appears disguised as a page in the French camp, and, Viola-like, relates a story of a love-lorn sister; then recaptured by Henry, she storms and melts; but the Jane Sh.o.r.e mood is transient, and, like a tragedy queen again, she stabs herself. A man who could write a comic duet for Voltaire's "Zare" and could supply Prince Hal with a paramour whose grandmothers were Viola and the Indian Queen, ought not to be wholly forgotten.