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English in 1657; this was succeeded by the heroic romances by Gomberville, Calprenède, and Mlle. de Scudéry. These novels are, in the first place, now absolutely unreadable; and if their writers had anything to communicate, it could hardly fail to be diluted by the enormous amount of padding which was required to fill up the vast bulk of these colossal stories. Gomberville's "Pharamond," for instance, appeared in French in 1661, and was translated into English a few years later. This translation contains seven hundred and fifty-eight folio pages, with over nine hundred words on each page-say seven hundred thousand words in all. And this is but one of many. In these excessively long-winded stories we find plenty of love-making of a very polite kind, and much fighting. Problems of love - casuistry are continually discussed; and, more than this, many of them were written about the author's contemporaries, who were turned into Greeks or Romans or Carthaginians; and they went through a travesty of ancient history while talking after the manner of those friends whom the author wished to embalm. Thus Condé appears in one of Mlle. de Scudéry's novels, and others are now interpreted by the curious. Yet for the most part they described simply adventures in cloudland, and are full of gallantry and a sort of chivalrous elegance.

These were admired in France in the first half of the seventeenth century, but by 1660 they began to sink to their proper place in the general estimation. The influence of Boileau and Malherbe was cruelly unfavorable to the natural development of French literature, perhaps, but Boileau's satires put the finishing blow to these romances, which then found their warmest admirers across the Channel. When they were exiled from France, they carried influence from that country into England, as did the émigrés into the rest of Europe a century later.

That it takes time for a fashion to spread is as true in literature as it is in millinery, and it is by no means unusual to be able to follow the course of a literary movement as one does that of a northeast storm. To take examples from current history, Dickens is already somewhat old-fashioned in England; no one there writes stories now about the jollity of Christmas, or of the red-cheeked benevolence which he was fond of describing. When we come across a trace of his mannerism in the work of those who were his contemporaries, we detect a certain antiquity in it; yet only now is Dickens imitated in France. No one can read Daudet without perceiving how much he owes to Dickens; and we are surer to find traces of his influence in this country than in England, where the writers have before them many newer models.

In England the classical French stage was first fairly imitated by Addison's "Cato" (1713), which Voltaire called the first reasonable play ever written in England; and yet, while English writers were discussing the laws of the classic stage, and pondering the question of the unities, Milton had, one may almost say, written a Greek play, the "Samson Agonistes" (1671),* which his contem

*It is curious to notice that Milton published his "Comus" in 1634, just after Prynne's "Histrio-Mastix" appeared (1633), with its denunciation of masques. May not his "Samson Agonistes" have been meant as in some sort a contribution to the discussion concerning plays? He referred in his argument to the question of the unities, and spoke of Greek and Italian models. He distinctly reproved indiscriminate opposition to the stage. "The apostle Paul himself," he says, "thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture; and Parsus, commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole book as a tragedy, into acts, distinguished each by a chorus of heavenly harpings and a song between. Men of highest dignity have labored not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy." He mentions Dionysius the elder, Augustus Cæsar, Seneca the philosopher. Gregory Nazianzen, a father

poraries wholly ignored. After all, they were in a great measure right; for as a dramatic composition the work is lifeless, and, moreover, as Milton said in his preface, it was not intended for the stage. Its value to us consists in the intensity of its expression of a state of things which had no pathos to the literary men of his time. However, we may agree with Voltaire so far as to say that reason had but little place in the composition of the heroic plays. Let us take, for example, this from Lee's "Lucius Junius Brutus." It is a bit of dialogue between the father, Lucius Junius Brutus, and his son, Titus.

"Brutus. Titus, as I remember,

You told me you were married.

Titus. My lord, I did.

Brutus. To Teraminta, Tarquin's natural daughter.

Titus. Most true, my lord, to that poor virtuous maid,
Your Titus, sir, your most unhappy son,

Is joined for ever.

Brutus. No, Titus, not for ever;

Not but I know the virgin's beautiful,

For I did oft converse her when I seemed

Not to converse at all. Yet more, my son,

I think her chastely good, most sweetly framed,
Without the smallest tincture of her father:

Yet, Titus-Ha! what, man? What, all in tears!

Art thou so soft that only saying yet

Has dashed thee thus? Nay, then I'll plunge thee down,

Down to the bottom of this foolish stream

Whose brink thus makes thee tremble. No, my son,

If thou art mine, thou art not Teraminta's;

Or if thou art, I swear thou must not be

Thou shalt not be hereafter.

of the Church, thought it not unbecoming the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which he entitled 'Christ Suffering.'' Thus Milton had a word for both sides, and he never objected to being in a minority. We must remember that he was a child of the Renaissance as well as a Puritan.

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Forgive me, blood and duty, all respects

Due to a father's name-not Teraminta's?

Brutus. No, by the gods I swear, not Teraminta's !
No, Titus, by th' eternal fates that hang
I hope auspicious o'er the head of Rome,
I'll grapple with thee on this spot of earth
About this theme till one of us fall dead;

I'll struggle with thee for this point of honour,
And tug with Teraminta for thy heart,

As I have done for Rome."

Doubtless plays of this kind exercised a bad influence on the mere acting of English plays, which is not yet dead. They seem to require mouthing, and the stage is a great supporter of tradition.* The passage just quoted, it is worth noticing, is in blank verse, and the question whether plays should be written in couplets or in blank verse was in Dryden's time much discussed. Dryden argued at great length in favor of rhyme, and wrote in rhyme; then he abandoned it and denounced it; then he tried it again but the controversy on the matter I will not now review. The rhymed play is practically dead, but we must remember that we have in Milton's wonderful blank verse an argument in favor of that form of writing which Dryden's contemporaries did not have until 1667, and then there was every sort of prejudice at work to render them deaf to its harmonies. They did have, however, the beautiful blank verse of the older

*Davenant, who had seen "Hamlet" acted by men who had received Shakspere's instruction, gave hints to Betterton (1635-1710). Betterton was praised by both Pepys and Steele. That the heroic plays induced heroic acting we may learn from references in the Spectator, and from the delight with which Garrick was welcomed. See, for example, Cumberland's "Memoirs" (Amer. ed.), p. 47. Reference is made to his destruction of "the illusions of imposing declamation."

*

dramatists, but their plays, it must be borne in mind, now seemed most rude and obsolete. Evelyn in his Diary, Nov. 26, 1661, says: "I saw "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,' played, but now the old plays began to disgust this refined age, since his Majesties being so long abroad." In Pepys we find frequent references to Shakspere. "Macbeth" (Nov. 5, 1664) he thought "a pretty good play," and (Dec. 28, 1666) "a most excellent play for variety," and (Jan. 7, 1667) "a most excellent play in all respects, but especially in divertissement, though it be a deep tragedy; which is a strange perfection in a tragedy, it being most proper here and suitable." With "Hamlet" (Aug. 31, 1668) he was "mightily pleased." "MidsummerNight's Dream" he thought (Sept. 25, 1662) the most insipid, ridiculous play "that ever he saw in his life." "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (Aug. 15, 1667) did not please him "at all, no part of it." "Othello" (Aug. 20, 1666) he had "ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good play, but having so lately read The Adventures of Five Houres,' it seems a mean thing ;" and (Jan. 1, 1664) saw the so much cried-up play of Henry VIII. ;' which, though I went with resolution to like it, is so simple a thing made up of a great many patches, that, besides the shows and processions in it, there is nothing in the play good or well done." Nov. 7, 1667, he saw the "Tempest," 99.66 an old play of Shakspere's, . . . the most innocent play that ever I saw; and a curious piece of musique in an echo of half sentences, the echo repeating the former half, while the man goes on to the latter, which is mighty pretty. The

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*Blank verse had some adherents, however. In Evelyn, Feb. 24, 1664, "Dr. Fell, canon of Christ Church, preached before the king on 15 Romans, 2, a very formal discourse and in blank verse, according to his manner; however, he is a good man." Perhaps we have here the explanation of Dr. Fell's mysterious unpopularity.

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