All is lost. Obliterate from your memory
These vain regrets for the happy days of your life.
When we are in misery, pride is folly.

Act iii. scene 1.

In this we see a misery of our times, that is, a misery which the sufferings of vanity especially manifest! Euphémon, the son, endeavors in vain to be a philosopher, as becomes a gallant man of the eighteenth century; it is in vain that he recognizes that Jasmin is his equal, since he is a man; it is this equality nevertheless, which for him, as for us, is the characteristic feature of his misery. The Prodigal Son of Voltaire suffers not only in his vanity, he suffers also in his love; another moral pain, another chagrin of people who are not entirely under the yoke of misery, which scarcely leaves them the leisure to love. He has loved Lise, the daughter of Rondon, a merchant of Cognac, and was loved by her; but very soon abandoned her to follow his more easy amours, and now the young Lise becomes betrothed to Fiéren fat, the brother of Euphémon. This idea drives the Prodigal Son to despair, who, as a well-instructed hero of the stage, is more sensible to the pains of love than to the sufferings of poverty:

See all my misfortunes, know their depth; (says he to Jasmin,)
To have drawn upon myself, by a tissue of crimes,

The just anger of a loved father,—

To be cursed, to be disinherited,

To feel the horrors of beggary,

To see my fortune pass to a younger brother,
To be compelled in my disgrace

To serve him, when he has taken all from me;

Such is my fate; I have well deserved it.

But would you believe that in the midst of suffering,
Dead to pleasure, and devoid of hope,
Hated by the world, and despised by all,

Expecting nothing, I would still dare to be jealous!

Act iii. scene 5.

These are fine verses; but we are far from the Prodigal Son of the Gospel. It is no longer between the father and the son that the interest of the drama is concentrated, it is between Lise and her old lover; and it is no longer a question of paternal clemency, but the passionate indulgence of love. We witness a scene of reconciliation between two lovers; a touching scene, and where the prayers of Euphé

mon have a tone of repentance calculated to touch the heart of Lise. But how easy is repentance towards a beloved object! How the heart rejoices while still humbling itself! How the hope of a pardon which it is already sweet to solicit, controls remorse for a fault, corrects the bitterness and diminishes the weight of it! Lise has loved Euphémon, she still loves him, and it is for this reason that she yet pardons him; it is for this reason that she intercedes with the old Euphémon. Moreover, it seems that according to Voltaire, this is the first pardon which Lise has granted, which leads to the second, and that the father should only be indulgent after the example of the mistress:

Follow, follow, for this unfortunate one,
The good example which love has given.

Act v. scene 6.

This is to degrade, or rather to undervalue paternal love, to place it below another sentiment, more passionate perhaps, but certainly less strong and less permanent. It is to detract from the Prodigal Son the grandeur which he possesses in the Gospel; to make Euphémon one of those tender and lachrymose fathers, who, in pardoning, yield less to the repentance of their sons than to this weakness of heart which makes us pardon easily what we love, as Lise the young Euphémon; it is, in a word, to return to the Menedemus of Terence, of which the Euphémon of Voltaire has not in other respects the true and pathetic tenderness, and to quit the finest and most amiable model of paternal love to take one less elevated, without succeeding in attaining it.

XII.

THE PATERNAL CHARACTER IN COMEDY-THE FATHER OF A FAMILY OF DIDEROT-THE UNGRATEFUL SONS OF PIRON-THE TWO SONSIN-LAW OF ETIENNE.

We have seen how the father expressed his anger against the ingratitude of his children; we have also seen how he pardoned their faults. But when the events are of a serious and tragical nature, the paternal character easily preserves, either in its anger or clemency, all the majesty which belongs to it. In comedy, on the contrary, where the events are humorous or trivial, the dignity of the paternal character is not at its ease.

We must require of each art only that which it can accomplish. The art of comedy is to amuse us, and to make us laugh at the expense of vice, and not to inspire us with the respect and love of virtue. Fathers, in comedy, can then scarcely preserve all their dignity; they must be proportioned to the frame of the picture in which they are represented. In a word, comedy, to express ourselves fully, is not respectful in its nature; it readily attaches disgrace to the ingratitude of sons or sons-in-law, but is embarrassed in the respect which it ought to entertain for fathers. All that can be expected of it is that, when it takes part against a ridiculous father, it does not at the same time condemn all fathers, and does not discredit the paternal character itself, in making us laugh at a Géronte or a Harpagon.

Comedy, accustomed as she is to censure fathers, does still greater injury to the paternal character, when she undertakes to defend it. It is even a bad sign for the paternal authority, when comedy takes its cause in hand: it is usually an indication that this authority has lost its influence. When sophistry begins to shake the authority of fathers and husbands in the world, comedy then gives them an important

place; the Theatre no longer exhibits any but virtuous and indulgent fathers, who graciously save their sons the trouble of duping them, for they consent to every thing; or irreproachable husbands, whose misfortunes it is the poet's effort to persuade us to pity, instead of making us laugh at them. It is curious to observe how comedy, which did not fear to attack the paternal authority, when this authority was an indisputable right, treats it with tenderness when it was no longer supported except by worldly proprieties. We often, even in these days, when the idea of duty is changed, hear comedy loudly regretting the severity of the ancient manners. It becomes austere, in order to remain censorious.

In the eighteenth century, the Theatre witnessed, during many years, an affecting procession of virtuous and tender fathers, such as the Father of a Family in Diderot, and the father of Eugenia, in the drama of Beaumarchais; excellent people, whom we would love more, if they would say less about their goodness, and whose chagrins we would be more willing to pity, if their grief did not mount upon two points of exclamation, as if upon crutches. "O holy bond of marriage," says the father of a family in Diderot, M. D'Orbesson, "when I think of you, my heart becomes cheered and elevated. O tender names of son and daughter! I can never pronounce you without leaping with joy, and becoming affected to tears." Well! we are willing that you should be affected, but say less about it! It is for us to be moved and affected; but it is not for you to make a display of your paternal transports. Be a father, like Venceslas, embracing his son when he has just condemned him to death; be a father like the old Horace or Don Diego: be it in joy or in grief; but do not practise it before a mirror; do not talk about the feelings which you experience. Unfortunately, Diderot was a philosopher and a critic, rather than a poet. He made his drama to justify his dramatic theories. His characters do not live; they are precepts put in action; they have the secret of all the emotions which they feel, and they, moreover, take great care to tell us of it, so that we may lose nothing of their intentions. The father of a family analyzes and dwells upon his tenderness for his children; Saint Albin his love for Sophia; Cecile her love for Germeuil. It is only the commander who naturally bursts out into a fit of anger, and without making any observations about it.

Each one in this piece speaks for the

public, and not for his interlocutor; therefore, the reasons of the characters are arguments drawn from the general state of society, and which are better calculated to please the audience than particular reasons derived from the passions of each individual; and yet, these passionate reasons are the only good ones, the only ones, indeed, which influence men. What, for example, can we think of a father who gravely says to his daughter, who wishes to retire into a convent, on account of some disappointment in love: "Who will then repeople society with virtuous citizens, if the women who are most worthy to become mothers of families refuse to do so?" This argument of the philosopher, who does not love convents, and which, in its very expression, has something to cause a young girl to blush, would affect her, certainly, much less than a single word of the secret love which she feels for Germeuil. What signify, we may also ask, the constant eulo giums upon virtue and morality with which Diderot and Beaumarchais have interspersed their dramas? Is it for our instruction? Useful lessons are only those which are seasonably introduced. But when Lord Clarendon, in the Eugenia of Beaumarchais, having been secretly married to Eugenia, and having shamefully deceived her, repents, in the denouement, and returns to his wife, is that the time for a father to think of passing a eulogy upon virtue, and of saying gravely to Eugenia, to Clarendon, and particularly to the audience, "Never forget that the only solid blessings of life are in the exercise of virtue ?" Be it so; but, during the five long acts, you have occupied us with every thing else but the practice of virtue. Let us frankly confess, that the drama is intended to move, and not to instruct us; to paint the life of man, such as it is, and not to teach virtue. But it is this painting of the life and affections of man, it is this truth which is wanting in the dramas of the eighteenth century. In all these dramas, which intended to represent the paternal character on the stage and to make it respectable, Sedaine alone has succeeded, in the drama entitled The Philosopher without knowing it, in showing the heart of a father, such as it really is, in its most cruel moments of anxiety.

The drama of the eighteenth century did not know how to represent the paternal character; it wished to invest it with the dignity which belongs to it, but it fell into stiffness and declamation. When the paternal character goes out of