scene for a hundred miles, between the acts, would be in the unity of place. Furthermore, no audience has ever been deceived into a belief of the truth of what was represented before it on the stage, the very house and audience belie such a deception; it only expects to see an approximation to truth, a semblance of what has occurred before. Here the romantics have far the better of the argument. The hero of the romantic tragedy is made to speak, in his situation, all he would naturally utter were he the character he represents. The "classic school" gives only the language of the poet, and sinks nature in high-flown phrase and lofty declamation-in the language of actors and not of those who feel. This arises from the modern classic school, being imitators only, for the ancients kept to the truth of nature as it exhibited itself in their day, and wrote agreeably to their customs. Can it be consistent, then, that modern tragedies should possess no national truth, but be merely the reflection of antiquity! The romantics assert that truth and nature must be followed as closely as possible, and that where this is adhered to, the effect must be more perfect, nature being always the same. In describing her emotions in the passion of love, for example, that writer will be most correct whose delineations impress the greatest number of readers with their force and truth; his judges will then comprehend the greatest number of hearers, because all understand what is natural ;-while the poet of the classic school will call in Cupid to his aid, or substitute general phrases, and the fruits of closet learning, for the exquisite developement of the passion

itself, and a knowledge of its effects on the human heart. Venus and Cupid have no place in our mythology; but the brief language and peculiarities of ancient feelings and habits, have endeavoured to introduce them into nations with opinions, temperaments, and a mythology totally different, cramping genius and tying down a writer to rules, a breach of which consigned him to the anathemas of the court and the academy.* Hence the genius of France seemed incapable of any new flight; it was confined in a narrow space, and no one dared venture into a region of literary novelty. It must be confessed, however, that before the revolution it required transcendant talents to break the thraldom in which genius was entrammelled.

"La nation Française," says De Staël, "la plus cultivée des nations latines, penche vers la poésie classique, imite des Grecs et des Romains; la nation Anglaise, la plus illustre des nations Germaniques, aime la poésie romantique et chevaleresque, et se glorifie des chefs-d'œuvre qu'elle possède en ce genre." It may be justly doubted, however, whether this definition has much to do with the present question. The French , may lean in style towards the present writers, but the advocates for disenthraldom from the classic school, neither want a literature romanesque or chevaleresque ; they demand a literature which, while the characters and incidents it describes may be modern and even national, or barbarous, or of remote eras, shall be penned with a fidelity adapted to the universal feeling

If the French classic school has, in some instances, been more true to nature and feeling than in others, it is because it insensibly leaned, at the time, towards the principles of its opponents.

BEAUTIES OF MODERN LITERATURE.

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of truth, in every age and nation. They wish to have tragedy, which shall be neither Greek nor Roman, but French; in short, they desire pictures of nature on the model of Shakspeare, and not of something neither ancient nor modern, a Gallico-Latin medley, to preserve the servility of which, originality and nature must be sacrificed,-they want high-wrought passion and high feeling in simple language. The exclusive character of classic, as an imitation of the ancients, with which the French Academy dignifies such writings, is clearly a misnomer. Those writers alone are the classics of a nation whose works, sanctioned by public approbation, have established a lasting fame. Shakspeare is as much an English classic, in the national sense of the term, as the author of Cato-Burns as Pope. Whether a writer be an imitator of the ancients, or be an original, if the labours of his genius obtain for him lasting celebrity, he is a classic of his country. But the French Academy, adopting the style of literature of countries in which the manners and language were different from their own, in place of fostering a literature adapted to the language and feeling of the people, claim to be exclusively classic, while a national literature must be the expression of society.

Great things arise from small beginnings. He must be blind indeed, who does not perceive, in the present dispute, the dawn of a new era of literature in France. The writers who have come forth in battle order against the Academy (or Sorbonne, as it is now dubbed) are men of zeal and genius; they have the public on their side, and the Government and Academy against them, this alone helps their cause. The mi

nistry is an object of dislike, and its measures are regarded with just suspicion by the people. The public taste on literary subjects might have been influenced before the revolution, but that time is gone by. Literature is no longer the tool of the government, but belongs to the nation. The present contest will be decided in the theatres; the structure of the drama will be changed, and the innovations first introduced will make the impression irresistible.

MM. Stendhal (Beyle), Soumet, Ancelot, Nodier, &c. &c. have openly appeared as advocates of a free national literature, or on the side of the "Romantics :" they possess talent sufficient to keep the subject alive, and promote the abrogation of the decrees that have enchained French literature, if not by the peculiar excellence of their writings, yet by their novelty, and the interest they excite in the public mind. They are aided by translations from the English and German writers of the "Romantic school;" and other writers will, no doubt, appear in France, who, giving the rein to imagination, and finding themselves free from their former bondage, will give their country a new and more exalted literature than it has ever yet known.

Horace Walpole says of Lord Chatham, that he not only wished to see his country free, but also other nations, a desire in which he probably stood alone among the statesmen of his country. Let us cherish a similar spirit in regard to French literature: let us rejoice to see it emancipated from the shackles of tyrants and courtiers, and follow the line of truth and nature. In its renovated state it may furnish an object of rivalry to our men of genius, instead of chilling them

with its affectation, fatiguing them with its monotony, and disgusting them with its pompous pretensions, notwithstanding brilliant pens have, heretofore, submitted to its guidance.

Y. J.

New Monthly Magazine.

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY.

"Hâc in re scilicet unâ

Multum dissimiles."-HOR.

In a visit which we paid some time ago to our wor thy contributor, Morris Gowan, we became acquainted with two characters; upon whom, as they afford a perfect counterpart to Messrs. " Rhyme and Reason," recorded in No. I., we have bestowed the names of Sense and Sensibility.

The Misses Lowrie, of whom we are about to give our readers an account, are both young, both handsome, both amiable: 'nature made the outline of their characters the same; but education has varied the colouring. Their mother died almost before they were able to profit by her example or instruction. Emily, the eldest of the sisters, was brought up under the immediate care of her father. He was a man of strong and temperate judgment, obliging to his neighbours, and affectionate to his children; but certainly rather calculated to educate a son than a daughter. Emily