like other people, his promenades on the Thuilleries would have attracted nobody. Helvetius was caught, and immediately set himself to study geometry; but his attempts must have been attended with little success, since he very soon renounced it.' He was then dazzled by the glory of Voltaire, and instantly conceived the project of partaking it, by throwing himself into the field of poetry. He composed a poem on happiness, which Voltaire himself approved; but from the specimens which I saw of it,' says M. Grimm, I doubt if it would ever have made its way in the world.' At last, the renown of l'Esprit des Lois completed the turning of his brain, and inspired him with the resolution of achieving the honours of a quarto and the immortality of a long philosophical treatise. This also was the epoch of an entire change of life. Montesquieu's book appeared in 1749, and in 1750 Helvetius resigned his place, married a girl of family but no fortune in Lorraine, and ran to shut himself up at his country-seat, where he divided his time between his book, the chase, and the society of his wife. The book De Esprit' made its appearance just ten years after the Esprit des Lois; but was far from procuring the author all the consideration which he expected from it, and owed its subsequent celebrity entirely to the persecution which it excited against him. A la cour de la reine, et de feu M. le Dauphin, M. Helvétius fut regardé comme un enfant de perdition, et la reine plaignait sa malheureuse mère, comme si elle avait donné le jour à l'antichrist.' After all, says Grimm, Helvetius wanted nothing but genius-but it is that terrible want which renders so true what his friend Buffon used to say of him,qu'il aurait dû faire un bail de plus, et un livre de moins.'

M. Grimm does not seem to have entertained much respect or affection for Marmontel. If we are not mistaken, there had been some quarrel or dispute between them which was never reconciled: however that may be, we are somewhat inclined to join with the former in many of the censures which he casts on his good brother. In 1770, his opera of Silvain was represented at the Comédie Italienne, and the subject of it gave great offence to the court. The Duke de Noailles said that the moral it inculcated was qu'il faut épouser sa servante et laisser braconner ses paysans; and the generality of the courtiers were firmly persuaded that it was composed by virtue of an order issued by the Encyclopédistes for a sermon to be preached at the Comédie Italienne, par le révérend père Caillot et par notre chère soeur Laruette, De la Chimère des Naissances illustres et la Doctrine abominable de la Liberté de la Chasse.' Had they consulted me,' proceeds our author, I would have told them that what they attributed to a plot of the philosophical party was no more than a very natural effect of the weak

ness

ness of M. Marmontel's genius, and his want of dramatic talent; it is only that it is much more easy to be outré than simple, to imagine romantic manners and events, than to find out real subjects and paint manners such as they are.' In another place, he speaks highly of the effect of the Zemire et Azor at the representation, but adds, of the piece itself, Mais M. Marmontel est froid; il n'a point de sentiment; il n'entend point le théâtre, et sa pièce se ressent de tous ces vices.'

In his remarks on national taste, M. Grimm evinces a much more just and philosophical spirit than most of his contemporaries, whether of France or England. The attack of Voltaire on the repatation of Shakspeare had, about this time, turned the tide of popular opinion very strongly against the Anglomanie which had preiously begun to infect all classes of dramatic critics, that is to say, all orders and degrees of society in Paris. Our candid and sensible German observes, upon much sounder principles, that it is a very bad sign of the times, when one nation is so passionately fond of imitating the fashions of another, as to forget that there are natural barriers of taste and feeling, which can never be altogether surmounted, and which to endeavour to level, is to enfeeble the powers of genius, to narrow the soul, to refrigerate the imagination, and ultimately to corrupt the purity of manners, and extinguish the national character. The theatre of Shakspeare,' he continues, 'may be excellent for the English; but only that of Corneille and Racine is good for us; and it seems to me that we have no need to complain of the part which is fallen to our lot. When the English took it into their heads to imitate the regularity of our dramas, they appeared cold and feeble. When we, in our turn, ventured to take them for our guides, we became only outrageous and extravagast, without energy or originality:' as La Fontaine says,

Ne forçons point notre talent,

Nous ne ferions rien avec grace.'

His reflections on the state of the stage about this period are not of a very complimentary nature to the Parisian dramatists.

6

'For several years,' he says M. Mercier the dramomane has predicted the approaching fall of French tragedy. We know the particular reasons which influence him to believe in it more than others; but it is possible to find better reasons for drawing the same conclusions, and, without being dramomanes, to agree that the accomplishment of the fatal cracle was never more to be dreaded. All the resources of our dramatic system seem to be used up; after two or three thousand pieces cast, as one may say, in the same mould, how should it be otherwise? where are we now to look for new subjects, situations, movements, and effects, while we attach ourselves to the eternal pursuit of the same method, the same course of proceeding?

The

The decay of dramatic talent is always sure to be accompanied, either as a cause or effect, with a proportionate declension in the histrionic art. 'We have seen disappear from the stage, by turns, Le Couvreur, Dufresne, Gaussin, Clairon, Dumesnil; and those great powers have not even left behind them the hope of ever being replaced. A single actor of this brilliant school yet remained to us; he had alone out-lived the glory of the theatre, and alone supported all its remaining lustre. He is no more.' The death of Le Kain is attributed to a cause which has always taken off a larger proportion of great men of the French nation, from Louis Douze down to himself inclusive, than of any other tribe under the sun.

'On attribue la maladie inflammatoire qui vient de nous l'enlever, aux efforts qu'il fit dans le rôle de Vendôme pour plaire à une certaine dame Benoit, dont il était éperdument amoureux, et dont l'excessive réconnaissance a bien plus contribué, dit on, à precipiter le terme de ses jours que les rigueurs d'Adélaïde. Il est fort à craindre que les charmes de Madame Benoît n'aient fait plus de tort à la tragédie que toutes les Phillippiques de M. Mercier.'

Nature had refused this great actor every exterior advantage of voice, person and countenance.

'One only gift supplied all these defects, c'était une sensibilité fort et profonde, qui faisait disparaître la laideur de ses traits sous le charme de l'expression dont elle les rendait susceptibles, qui ne laissait appercevoir que le caractère et la passion dont son âme s'était remplie, et lui donnait à chaque instant de nouvelles formes, un nouvel être.'

In the motion of his eyebrows, we are told, there resided a magical expression, entirely his own, et dont il tirait un parti prodigieux: he was an actor to the very tip of his nails; his smallest gestures and most indifferent attitudes were studied with a degree of painful minuteness of attention, which we are at first apt to imagine incompatible with the efforts of real genius, and destructive of all the finer qualities of conception and feeling. On this point, however, we have at least the force of authority against the general and most natural opinion. Mr. Kemble undoubtedly thinks with Le Kain. In another part of this work, we have a remarkably ingenious paper of Diderot's, expressly to prove, not, as might erroneously be inferred from it, that original taste and feeling are unnecessary to an actor, but that minute study and repeated practice, which must gradually wear out the original feeling of the part which is performed, tend in the same degree and proportion to refine and improve the performance; in other words, that a great actor seldom attains, in the representation of any part, that degree of perfection which most engages the sympathies and awakens the passions of the spectators, until continual practice has blunted his own feelings and rendered him really insensible in his own person to

the

the passions which he excites in others. This metaphysical assertion is supported by many curious anecdotes, which apparently tend to

confirm it.

At the first representation of the play of Inez de Castro,' some absurdity in the performance set the pit in a roar of laughter in the most pathetic part. Mademoiselle Duclos, who acted Inez, exdained in a transport of indignation, Ris donc, sot parterre, au plus d endroit de la pièce! The pit was immediately silent; the actress as immediately returned from her real indignation to her fictitious grief, and the tears of the spectators began to flow in good earnest. Du Fresne was playing the part of Sévère in Polyente, where he confides to a friend his secret opinions respecting the oppressed party of the Christians; and, as is obviously right, be communicated this confidence in an under-tone of voice: the pit called out Plus haut!' the actor instantly answered, Et vous, seurs, plus bas! If he had been really Sévère, (asks M. Diderot,) could he so immediately have fallen back into Du Fresne? Quant au philosophe, (this is a note of the Editor's on the little Essay above mentioned,) ' il n'aurait pas encore fini, s'il avait su le fait que je vais rapporter ici. C'est que Mademoiselle Arnoud, cette Sophie touchante au théâtre, si folle à souper, si redoutable dans la coulisse par ses épigrammes, emploie ordinairement les momens les plus pathétques, les momens où elle fait pleurer ou frémir toute la salle, à dire but bas des folies aux acteurs qui se trouvent avec elle en scène; t lorsqu'il lui arrive de tomber gémissante, évanouie, entre les bras d'un amant au désespoir, et tandis que le parterre crie et s'extasie, elle ne manque guère de dire au héros éperdu qui la tient: Ah mon cher Pillot, que tu es laid! Quel parti notre philosophe aurait tiré de cette anecdote!' Sophie Arnoud was a celebrated performer at the Opera, but stil more celebrated for her native wit than her talents for the stage. Mademoiselle Clairon, for some offence on the stage, was once committed to Fort l'Evêque, and exclaimed in a tragedy strain, that the ing was master of her life and fortune, but not of her honour. Sophie replied in a soothing accent, Vous avez raison, mademoiselle; où il n'y a rien, le roi perd ses droits. She once complained that her chimney smoked; and M. Thomas undertook to apply on her behalf to the minister to have some nuisance removed which caused the obstruction. When he came to inform her of the execution of bis commission, he began in a formal manner, Mademoiselle, I have seen the Duc de la Vrillière, and took an opportunity of speaking to him about your chimney. I talked to him first, as a citizen, then, as a philosopher'-Eh! monsieur, interrupted the lady, ce s'était ni en citoyen ni en philosophe, mais en ramoneur, qu'il fallait parler.

Whether it was the cause or the consequence of the decline of

VOL. IX. NO. XVII.

H

French

1

French tragedy, already noticed, the Opera, and most especially the corps de ballet, engaged much more of the attention of the good citizens of Paris during all this period, than the drama. The National Assembly might have taken the hint of many of their proceedings from those of the grand Congress (the denomination they themselves affixed to their meeting) of the Vertus d'Opera, who drew up manifestos and framed memorials to be presented to the manager, complaining of his encroachments on their rights, representing qu'elles dansèrent beaucoup plus sous son règne que sous celui de ses prédécesseurs, et qu'il serait juste d'augmenter en conséquence leurs honoraires. Mademoiselle Guimard sent to demand a new dress pour danser les plaisirs célestes de Castor; and the economical manager having hazarded a refusal, she, with a spirit of exalted patriotism, immediately tore her old dress into a thousand pieces and sent him the tatters, Scenes of this kind,' observes the Baron, renewed daily, might compromise a little the dignity of government; but could they have excited a general revolt, but for the spirit of independence with which this unhappy philosophy has infected all orders of the state-what do I say?-all kingdoms and nations of the earth?' This communication bears date, March, 1779.

The Congress of the rebel dancers was held in the dressing room of Mademoiselle Guimard, and Vestris, le Diou de la danse, (as he stiled himself in his Provençal accent,) set up for the Washington. Le ministre veut que je danse, said Mademoiselle la Presidente, 'ch bien, qu'il y prenne garde, moi je pourrais bien le faire sauter. At last government interfered. Among others the son of Vestris was condemned to fort l'Evêque. "Nothing so pathetic was ever witnessed as the parting of father and son-Allez, said the Diou de la danse, Allez, mon fils; voilà le plus beau jour de votre vie. Prenez mon carosse, et demandez l'appartment de mon ami le roi de Pologne; je paierai tout. How wise was the moderation, and how just the reproof, of poor Louis Seize when his ministers detailed to him the history of these theatrical commotions! It is your own fault, gentlemen-these opera girls would not be so insolent but for your encouragement. Si vous les aimiez moins, elles ne seraient pas si insolentes.

There are other anecdotes of extraordinary conceit and self-sufficiency of the Diou de la danse, not a little amusing.

Lorsque le jeune Vestris débuta, son père, le Diou de la danse, vêtu du plus riche et du plus sévère costume de cour, l'épée au côté, le chapeau sous le bras, se présenta avec son fils sur le bord de la scène ;et après avoir addressé au parterre des paroles pleines de dignité sur la sublimité de son art et les nobles espérances que donnait l'auguste héritier de son nom, il se tourna d'un air imposant vers le jeune candidat,

t