Racine, we have seen Voltaire; because, in the eighteenth century, men were more profound thinkers than in the seventeenth. But what could have been added to the excellence of poetry after Racine?

The Italians have no romances like those of the French and English, because the love which inspired them, not being a passion of the mind capable of any long continuation, their customs and manners were too licentious to preserve any interest in this style. Their comedies were filled with that kind of buffoonery which arises from the absurdities and vices; but we do not find, if we except a few pieces of Goldoni, one striking and variegated picture of the vices of the human heart, such as are found in the French comedies. The Italians simply wished to create laughter; no serious aim can be discovered through the veil of flippancy, and their comedies are not the picture of human life, but its caricature.

The Italians, even in their theatres, have often turned their priests into ridicule, although in other respects they were entirely subjected to them; but it was not with a philosophical view that they attacked the abuses of religion; they had not, like some of our writers a wish to reform the faults they complained of; it was easy to perceive that their real opinions were totally opposite to that kind of authority to which they were compelled to submit; but this spirit of opposition incited them to nothing more than a contempt for those who commanded esteem; it was like the cunning of children to their teachers; they were willing to obey them on condition they might be permitted to make sport of them.

It follows from this that all the works of the Italians, except those which treat on physical sciences, have nothing useful in view; which is absolutely necessary in order to give a real strength and solidity to their reflections. The works of Beccaria, Filangieri, and a few others, make the only exception to what I have now advanced.

One question more remains to be decided before I close,which is, whether the Italians have carried the dramatic art to any length in tragedy.

Metastasio, and the
The Italians have a

For myself, in spite of the charms of energy of Alfieri, I do not think they have. lively invention in subjects, and a brilliancy in expression; but the personages which they represent are not characterized in a

manner to leave any lasting traces on the mind; and the affliction which they portray excites but little sympathy. This may be occasioned by their moral and political situation, not allowing the mind its full display: their sensibility is not serious, their sadness is without melancholy, and their grandeur commands no respect. The Italian author was therefore obliged to have recourse entirely to himself; and, to compose a tragedy, he must not only forget all he sees, but renounce all his habitual ideas and impressions: and it is very difficult to find out the true basis of a tragedy which is so widely different from the general manners and customs of the time in which it was composed.

Vengeance is the passion which is the best described in the Italian tragedies: it is natural to their character to be suddenly roused by this sentiment in the midst of that habitual indolence in which they spent their lives; and their resentments were naturally expressed, because they really felt them.

The operas alone were followed, because at the opera was heard that enchanting music which was the glory and pleasure of Italy. The performers did not exert themselves in tragedy; fine acting would have been thrown away; they were not even heard; and it must ever be thus, when the art of touching the passions is not carried to a sufficient length to predominate over every other pleasure. The Italians did not require to be softened, and the authors for want of spectators, and the spectators for want of authors, did not give themselves up to the profound impressions of the dramatic art.

Metastasio, however, found out the secret of turning his operas almost into tragedies; and though compelled to struggle with all the difficulties imposed by the obligation of submitting to music, he still preserved many beauties of style and situation truly dramatic. It may be that there exist yet some other exceptions little known to strangers; but to draw the principal characters of any national literature, it is absolutely necessary to lay aside many details; there are no general ideas that are not contradicted by certain exemptions; but the mind would be incapable of ever forming any determination, if it were to stop at each particular instead of drawing a consequence from a collective whole.

Melancholy, that sentiment which is so fertile in works of genius, appears to have belonged almost exclusively to the people. of the North. The Oriental style, which the Italians have often imitated, had a sort of melancholy of which we find some traces

in the Arabian poetry, and likewise in the Hebrew psalms; but it has a character entirely distinct from that we shall find when we analyze the literature of the North.

The people of the East, whether Jews or Mahometans, were sustained and directed by their positive reliance on their religion. It was not that uncertain and undetermined apprehension which afforded the mind a more philosophical impression; the melancholy of the Orientals was that of men who were happy from every enjoyment of nature; they simply reflected with regret upon the brevity of human life, and the rapid decay of prosperity; while the melancholy of the people of the North was that which is inspired by the sufferings of the mind, the void which the absence of sensibility makes in the existence, and that continual musing upon the calamities of this life, and the uncertainty of their destiny in a life to come.

From "The Influence of Literature

upon Society,»