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in which the people have been placed, in giving, in some respects, a new tone to dramatic compositions, and in calling forth productions of deeper interest, and capable of exciting more profound emotion, than could generally be produced by the works of the earlier periods of French literature. It is an animating proof of the ascendancy of virtuous feeling, and a striking illustration of the tendency of great assemblies of men, when not actuated by particular passions, to join in what is generous and elevated in human thought, that not only have the tragedies of the earlier writers continued to be universally admired, and constantly acted during the whole period of the revolution, but that the standard of sentiment has not been lowered in those productions which have been designed expressly for the French stage during that period, and that the dignity of ancient virtue, and the elevation of natural feeling, still ennoble the tone of French tragedy. * * * The French comedies and comic acting are not less characteristic of the people than their tragedies. They are a gay and lively, but not a humorous people. A Frenchman enters into amusements with an eagerness and relish, of which, in this country, we have no conception; all his cares and sorrows are forgotten; all his serious occupations are postponed; all his unruly passions are calmed;--he thinks neither of his individual misfortunes, nor of his national degradation; neither of the friends whom he has lost in the war, nor of the foreign soldiers whom it has placed at his elbow; his whole soul is absorbed in the game, in the dance, or in the _spectacle_. But his object is not laughter, or passive enjoyment, or relaxation; it is the excitation of his spirits, the occupation, and interest, and agitation of his mind, the varied gratification of his senses, the exercise of his fancy, the display of his wit, and taste, and politeness. The exhibitions at the theatres are accommodated to this taste. With the exception of some of Moliere's works, such as the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and M. de Pourceaugnac, (which are seldom acted, at least at the Theatre Francais), there are hardly any French comedies which are characterised by what we call humour,--which have for their main object the representation of palpably ludicrous peculiarities of character and manner. You never hear, in a French theatre, the same loud uncontrollable bursts of laughter, which are so often excited b
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