These lines struck Voltaire, and he has imitated them; but, in imitating them, what does he put into the mouth of Orosmane, when equally happy and confident? Just the contrary of what Othello says:

"Je vais donner une heure aux soins de mon empire,

Et le reste du jour sera à Zaïre."

Thus Orosmane, the proud sultan, who, a moment before, was speaking of war and conquest, expressing his alarm for the fate of the Mussulmans, and blaming the sloth of his neighbors, now appears as neither sultan nor warrior; he forgets all else, and becomes only a lover. Assuredly, Othello is not less passionate than Orosmane, and his passion will be neither less credulous nor less violent; but he does not abdicate, in an instant, all the interests, and all the thoughts, of his past and future life. Love possesses his heart without invading his whole existence. The passion of Orosmane is that of a young man who has never done any thing, and never had any thing to do, and who is as yet ignorant of the necessities and labors of the real world. That of Othello takes root in a more complete, more experienced, and more serious character. it to be less factitious, and in greater conformity to moral probabilities, as well as to positive truth. But, however this may be, the difference between the two systems is fully revealed in this feature alone. In one the passion and the position are all; from them the poet derives all his means. In the other he obtains his resources from individual characters and the whole of human nature; passion and a position are, for him, only an opportunity for bringing them on the stage with greater energy and interest.

I believe

The action which constitutes the subject of "Othello" must be referred to the year 1570, the period of the prin

cipal attack of the Turks on the island of Cyprus, then under the rule of the Venetians. As for the date of the composition of the tragedy itself, Mr. Malone fixes it in the year 1611. Some critics doubt whether Shakspeare was acquainted with the original novel of Giraldi Cinthio, and suppose that he only had access to a French imitation of it, published at Paris in 1584, by Gabriel Chappuys. But the exactness with which Shakspeare has conformed to the Italian narrative, even in the slightest details, leads me to believe that he made use of some more literal English translation.

SHAKSPEARE'S OTHELLO,

AND

DRAMATIC ART IN FRANCE IN 1830

BY THE DUKE DE BROGLIE.*

It was not in vain that some far-seeing, conservative, and especially wise spirits addressed themselves to the authorities in the year of grace 1829; and not without good reason did they call to their aid Cæsar and his legions— that is to say, his excellency the Minister of the Interior and the honorable gentlemen of the Chamber of Deputies, adjuring them to save the sanctuary of the Muses from ruin, and to repulse the onward advance of the barbarians. The danger was only too real; and this time, as in times gone by, as Cæsar paid no regard to it, their pathetic complaints, their gemitus Britannorum, having been dissolved into empty vapor, behold now the evil has become irremediable! The barbarians who knocked at the doors, emboldened by impunity, have forced their way through the first inclosure; they have made a breach in the body of the place; or rather, they have constrained the citadel itself to capitulate. The Théâtre Français has surrendered through want of timely succor, because the opportunity for infusing into it new vitality was neglected. Attila-Shakspeare has taken possession of it with arms and baggage, his banners are streaming, and the clang of a thousand trumpet-calls sound in wild confusion. Alas!

* Reprinted from the "Revue Française." January, 1830.

poor poets of the old school, what will become of you? Naught remains but that feeble souls should surrender at discretion, and sacrifice themselves on the altars of the false gods, and that true believers should cover their faces with their mantles.

Banter apart, the revolution which has for some time been going on in the taste of the public is a curious phenomenon, and one singularly worthy of attention. Never has a remarkable change been introduced in a more startling mode and with greater rapidity.

Scarcely twenty years have elapsed since M. Népomucène Lemercier launched, on the stage of the Odéon, the vessel which conveyed Christopher Columbus and his genius from Spain to America. We know what was the actual reception which this attempt in the romantic style met with. However, the name of the author commanded respect, and his rare talent gave him at least a right to indulgence. In other respects he proved himself quite as hardy and prudent as his hero; he had, before hazarding his adventure, neglected nothing in order to disarm the prejudices of the pit. He only offered this foundling child as a caprice of his imagination-an unimportant freak; in decorating it, he had not scrupled to profane the consecrated regulations of tragedy, of comedy, yea, even of melodrama. His friends protested in favor of his profound regard for the triple unity; for the most sacred Aristotelian trinity; for the canonical precepts which had been consecrated in the poetic codes of Horace and Boileau, and illustrated in the learned glosses of Le Batteux and La Harpe, and in the "Rhetoric for Young Ladies." Useless precautions! In spite of the originality and unquestionable beauties which he displayed, his unfortunate "Columbus" was outrageously and repeatedly hissed. Those

who ventured to do him justice paid dearly for such audacity; they narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by the rest of the spectators, to such an excessive height was the popular indignation roused; there were, if we remember rightly, two who were almost knocked down on the spotmartyrs to a cause which had hardly sprung into lifethe John Huss and Jerome of Prague, of a doctrine which was yet to have its Luther and its Melancthon.

At the present day, we behold at our theatres, with the greatest composure, the representation of pieces in which a duration of some twenty, thirty, or forty years, as the case may be, is condensed into an hour between eight and nine o'clock in the evening; pieces in which, literally speaking, the principal personage,

"Enfant au premier acte, est barbon au dernier;"

pieces which are not, in other respects, very much entitled to the indulgence which is thus shown to them. While seated serenely upon our benches, we follow, without the smallest compunction, King Louis XI. from Plessis-lesTours to Péronne, only regretting that this trifling cruise is not for us entirely a pleasure-voyage,

Seven or eight years ago two or three English comedians, who happened to be in Paris, formed the scheme of giving us at the Theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin-the Theatre of the "Femme à deux Maris" and of the "Pied de Mouton"-a specimen of their skill. Forthwith a great stir arose. The capture of Calais and of Dunkirk by the troops of his Britannic majesty would not certainly have excited a more patriotic wrath. As the guardians of pure doctrines, and the depositaries of wholesome traditions in all matters of taste, the boulevard public took this matter in hand with a quite inconceivable violence, and, had