ivalry, made; and how inexcusable does it render modern genius, if,
with such an additional chord to touch in the human heart, it has never
yet rivalled the great models of antiquity!

And has modern genius not yet equalled the masterpieces of the drama in
ancient Greece? We answer, decidedly not--either on the Continent or
this country--any more than modern sculpture has rivalled the
perfections of Grecian statuary. Neither in the old French and Italian
school, which followed the ancient models, nor in the Romantic school in
which old England and young France proposed to rival it, has any thing
approaching to the interest and pathos of the Athenian dramatists been
produced. It is not difficult to see what have been the causes of this
inferiority, and they seem to have been these.

The regular drama of France was addressed, entirely and exclusively, to
the court, the noble, and the highly educated classes. It was nothing
more than an extension of the theatres of Versailles. The opinion of
Louis XIV., his ministers or mistresses, of the Duke of Orleans, and a
few leading nobles of Louvois, and one or two statesmen, were all in
all. The approbation of the king stamped a tragedy in public opinion, as
his dancing with her stamped the estimation of a new court beauty. The
voice and feelings of the middle or lower ranks of society had no more
to say on the subject than they had in the formation of court dresses,
or the etiquette of the _Oeil de Boeuf_. They took their opinions
from that of the magnates of the land, as milliners and tailors now do
from the dresses of London and Paris. Rank and fashion were paramount in
literature, as they are still in manner, dancing, and etiquette. It was
impossible that the drama, addressed to, and having its success
dependent on, the approbation of such an audience, could faithfully
paint the human heart. The stately dances and haughty seigneurs of
Versailles, would have been shocked with the vehement bursts of passion,
the pathetic traits of nature, the undisguised expression of feeling,
which appeared in Euripides and Sophocles, and entranced the mixed and
more natural audience of Athens. It would have appeared vulgar and
painful; it revealed what it was the great object of art and education
to conceal. The stately Alexandrine verses, the sonorous periods, the
dignified and truly noble thoughts, which so strongly characterize the
French tragedies, arose naturally, and perhaps unavoidably,