Récitant ces beaux vers, où l'amour seul domine, Vous, de ces demi-dieux modernes interprètes, Et l'art couvre de fleurs le buste de Clairon." No part of the scandalous chronicle of French manners opens a more amusing, as well as characteristic, page than the history of the Parisian actresses. Le Sage, in his description of the theatrical morality of Madrid, which was meant for Paris, has not much overcharged the picture. That a state, we were about to say of such undisguised debauchery, should have revolted the puritanism of Rousseau, will not excite surprise. Our readers are familiar with the diatribes of Jeremy Collyer, and others of his cloth and colour, against the deadly profaneness of English actors. Their spleen would have been more justifiable at Paris; although the invectives of JeanJacques were, even there, outrageously hyperbolical. Dorat has not omitted, in this system of theatrical rules, to legislate for theatrical morality. He cannot, of course, be suspected of siding with the philosopher of Geneva; but he recommends, if not an abstinence from intrigue, which he would probably, and even justly, have regarded as "a wild and visionary scheme of human perfectibility," at least a more cautious practice of incurable vice. His receipt is palliative only; his system," gradual reform." "Je sais qu'un sage illustre, un mortel renommé, Ne peut-on s'en former une riante image? Et nous ôter nos arts, nos talens enchanteurs, Sachez donc repousser de frivoles atteintes ; But this "flamme de l'amour" must be kindled with caution; and one place is especially to be avoided, however seductive: "Il est un lieu charmant, et toujours fréquenté This seems scarcely reconcilable with the following draft of a moral code; but we suppose the project of an extensive reform was too bold for the poet's imagination. "Pour vous faire adorer, vous respectant vous-même, Adoptez de Ninon l'ingénieux systême. Que l'amant, enchanté de vos frêles appas, Vous trouve plus charmante, en sortant de vos bras. En la justifiant, augmente sa tendresse, Et qu'enfin l'amitié, nous fixant à son tour, Pare encore votre automne, et survive à l'amour. Voilà par quels moyens et quelle heureuse addresse, Hors du théatre même, une actrice intéresse ; Calumny must have put off the bands and cassock of Jeremy Taylor, if she permit herself to be appeased by sacrifices so moderate as these. However, in this instance, we may overlook the sentiment for the sake of the verses in which it is so agreeably conveyed. We have only space for one more quotation; but that is marked by peculiar merit. It is the passage in which the author attributes the dearth of good actors, which afflicted his play-loving, pleasure-loving countrymen, at the time when his poem was written, to the want of original writers for the stage. A complaint of the same nature might be justifiably offered at the present moment, with regard to both actors and authors of the British drama. "Le plaisir m'égaroit; la raison me ramène. A sa meute, sa troupe, et sur-tout sa musique, Qui, fille de l'Amour, le sert et le profane, Qu'un Molière s'élève, il naîtra des Barons." We could, however, have suggested other causes for the decline of the French theatre, more adequate to explain that effect, than the want of original writers. Let the reader but glance at the condition of the French actor." under the old regime.' Deprived of all the privileges of a citizen, he was still subject to the penalties of law without sharing in its protection. Expelled by vulgar prejudice from an equality of intercourse with those for whose society nature and education had fitted him, he only mixed with the better part of the world, by submitting to perpetual insults, or with the worse, by the sacrifice of their virtue. Imagine Garrick, or the elder Kemble, in the situation of Le Kain,-an actor of rival genius and fame. At the latter period of his life, when Le Kain had amassed a competent fortune, he was one day accosted in a large assembly by a brutal military officer-the standing pests of continental society-with a complaint, that the government should leave men of his merits to starve on half-pay, whilst a play-actor had the privilege of riding in his coach. 'Sir," said the insulted man of genius, "do you count it for no privilege that you are permitted to address me thus ?" Think of Barron, Brizard, Le Kain, excommunicated-dying without the sacrament-refused the burial of the church, and flung into the common-sewer, in consequence of treading those boards, from which, had they absented themselves for a single night, they would have been sent to the Bastille!-Of Le Couvreur, contumeliously cast into unconsecrated ground; whilst the body of Garrick was attended by British peers to Westminster Abbey! Our readers will remember a similar event which took place not seven years ago, in the French metropolis; an outrage which was repeated by the same priesthood on the corpse of Lady Hamilton. The French actor was a perfect slave. An eminent performer, justly irritated at the interruption of the pit, of which the hinder benches called out to him to speak louder-plus hautin the midst of a pathetic scene, replies, in a moment of passion -Et vous, Messieurs, plus bas. An apology is demanded, and refused. He is sent to prison, and liberated only on condition of begging pardon of the tyrannical audience. He begins,"Gentlemen, I have never before felt my situation to be one of such deep humiliation, as in preparing to apologise.”—Even the Parisian pit was affected by this forced degradation of a man of genius, and drowned the remainder of his apology in vociferous applause. Clairon, the illustrious Clairon, refuses to play in some unworthy character; she is sent to La Force. Le Kain, for the same offence, suffers the same indignity. No class of performers was exempt, from the hero and heroine of tragedy, to the dancers of the Opera. The younger Vestris was desired to appear for the gratification of a royal stranger. He had injured his foot, and had long been disabled from treading the boards of the Opera. He endeavoured to obey the royal order; and in practising for the evening, increased the lameness so much, as to render his appearance impossible. He is sent to La Force. It was on this occasion that his father, the celebrated Dieu de la danse, made the pathetic observation :—Hélas! c'est la première brouillerie de notre maison avec la famille des Bourbons. The family which could perpetrate such an act was not disgraced by the comparison. We are not writing a history of the French stage. We must return to Dorat, and his verses. Of his lighter productions, or, more properly speaking, of his lightest, the Ode to Hume, the philosopher, is one of the best. He justly wonders at the philosopher's pastime amidst the frivolities of Parisian society. “Toi, qui d'un sévère burin As, dans tes archives sublimes, Et dans les cabinet de rois Suit la chaîne métaphysique;— |