the strange power of harmonizing
diction. If the drama rarely captivates the eye, it takes possession of
the ear. May it never lose its appropriate language of verse--that
language which so well comports with its high ideal character, being one
which, as a French poet has happily expressed it, the world understands,
but does not speak--

"Elle a cela pour elle--
Que le monde l'entend, et ne la parle pas!"

The drama is peculiarly appropriate to the ideal; and it seems to me
that the very fact, that whatever appertains to the middle region of
art, or requires the aid of much circumstance and detail, has found in
the novel a far more perfect development, ought to induce us to purify
the drama, and retain amongst us its most exalted type. It is in vain
that it strives to compete with the novel in the intricacy of its plot,
in the number of its _dramatis personae_, in the representation of the
peculiarities, or as they used to be called, the _humours_ of men. These
have now a better scene for their exhibition than the old five-act play,
or tragi-comedy, could afford them; but the high passions of mankind,
whatever is most elevated or most tender, whatever naturally leads the
mind, be it good or evil, to profound contemplation--this will still
find its most complete, and powerful, and graceful development in the
poetic form of the drama.

The novel and the drama have thus their several characteristics. Do you
wish to hurry on your reader with a untiring curiosity? you will, of
course, select the novel. Do you wish to hold him lingering, meditative,
to your pages--pages which he shall turn backwards as well as forwards?
you were wise to choose the drama. Both should have character, and
passion, and incident; but in the first the interest of the _story_
should pervade the whole, in the second the interest of the _passion_
should predominate. If you write a novel, do not expect your readers
very often to stand still and meditate profoundly; if you write a drama,
forego entirely the charm of curiosity. Do not hope, by any contrivance
of your plot, to entrap or allure the attention of your readers, who
must come to you--there is no help for it--with something of the spirit,
and something of the unwillingness, of the student. What some man of
genius may one day perform, or not perform, it were presumptuous to
assert; for it is the privilege of genius to prove to the critic what is
possible; but, speaking accor