e, that we think the
French theatre is decidedly superior to our own, in the propriety and
discrimination with which they keep out of view many of those
exhibitions, which, on the English stage, are studiously brought forward
with a view to effect: It would be altogether useless, to enter into any
discussion of a question which has often been the subject of much idle
controversy; nor should we be able, we know, to suggest any thing which
could have any influence with those who think, that all the murders, and
battles, and bustle, which occur in many of the grander scenes in the
English tragedies, can increase the interest which such tragedies might
produce, or contribute to the effect of theatrical illusion. We were not
fortunate enough to see Talma in Ducis' play of Macbeth, where the
difference between the French and English stage in this particular is
very strongly illustrated; but from every thing we have, understood, of
the wonderful impression which is produced, when he describes his
interview with the weird sisters--the terrors which accompanied their
appearance, and the feelings which their predictions awakened, we are
persuaded that the effect must be much finer than any thing which can
result from the feeble attempt to represent all this to the eye.
Macbeth, however, without the witches, and all the clumsy machinery
which is employed on the stage to carry through so impracticable a
scene, would appear stripped of its principal beauties to the taste of a
great part of an English audience; and yet we are perfectly convinced,
that there is no one imperfection, in the plan or composition of the
French tragedies, so deserving of censure, as the taste which can admit
such representations on the stage. We allude, of course, entirely to the
attempt to introduce this celebrated scene upon the stage; none can
admire more than we do, the powerful and creative imagination which it
displays.

3. The next circumstance to which we allude, is that very remarkable
one--of the dignity of sentiment, and elevation of thought, which
uniformly characterise the compositions of the French stage. This is a
perfection which, we believe, has never been denied by any one who is in
any degree acquainted with these productions; and therefore we are
anxious, as that very excellence has sometimes been thought to unfit
them for actual representation, merely to state, from our own
experience, the very great impression which such lofty and dign