E ENGLISH THEATRE_

I have cast my eyes on an edition of Shakespeare issued by Master Samuel
Johnson. I saw there that foreigners who are astonished that in the
plays of the great Shakespeare a Roman senator plays the buffoon, and
that a king appears on the stage drunk, are treated as little-minded. I
do not desire to suspect Master Johnson of being a sorry jester, and of
being too fond of wine; but I find it somewhat extraordinary that he
counts buffoonery and drunkenness among the beauties of the tragic
stage: and no less singular is the reason he gives, that the poet
disdains accidental distinctions of circumstance and country, like a
painter who, content with having painted the figure, neglects the
drapery. The comparison would be more just if he were speaking of a
painter who in a noble subject should introduce ridiculous grotesques,
should paint Alexander the Great mounted on an ass in the battle of
Arbela, and Darius' wife drinking at an inn with rapscallions.

But there is one thing more extraordinary than all, that is that
Shakespeare is a genius. The Italians, the French, the men of letters of
all other countries, who have not spent some time in England, take him
only for a clown, for a joker far inferior to Harlequin, for the most
contemptible buffoon who has ever amused the populace. Nevertheless, it
is in this same man that one finds pieces which exalt the imagination
and which stir the heart to its depths. It is Truth, it is Nature
herself who speaks her own language with no admixture of artifice. It is
of the sublime, and the author has in no wise sought it.

What can one conclude from this contrast of grandeur and sordidness, of
sublime reason and uncouth folly, in short from all the contrasts that
we see in Shakespeare? That he would have been a perfect poet had he
lived in the time of Addison.

The famous Addison, who flourished under Queen Anne, is perhaps of all
English writers the one who best knew how to guide genius with taste. He
had a correct style, an imagination discreet in expression, elegance,
strength and simplicity in his verse and in his prose. A friend of
propriety and orderliness, he wanted tragedy to be written with dignity,
and it is thus that his "Cato" is composed.

From the very first act the verses are worthy of Virgil, and the
sentiments worthy of Cato. There is no theatre in Europe where the scene
of Juba and Syphax was not applauded as a masterpiece of skill, of
well-dev