Chapter 4

As to the other article which her Ladyship says she has received in exchange for her _impartiality!_--"proscription abroad,"--we feel pretty confident that it exists no where but in her own imagination. There it has, doubtless, been engendered by the malice of some ultra in disguise, who has made her Ladyship believe, that the Emperor of Austria, the Grand Signior, the King of Owyhee, and the other despots of the earth, have forbidden, on pain of racking, roasting, and every kind of torture, the importation of her books into their dominions, lest these should be revolutionized by them forthwith. Heaven defend us! we are very much afraid that Lady Morgan will set this world of ours on fire, somewhere about the time when it comes in contact with the comet. It is not mere supposition on our part that her Ladyship deems herself an object of dread to the Austrian government at least;--read what she says apropos of the entree of its ambassador into a ball-room where she was making all the lamps and candles hide their diminished heads. "When his Austrian excellence was announced, how I started, with all the weight of Aulic proscription on my head! The representative of the long-armed monarch of Hapsburg so near me,--of him, who, could he only once get his fidgetty fingers on my _little_ neck, would give it a twist, that would save his custom-house officers all future trouble of breaking carriages and harassing travellers, in search of the pestilent writings of 'Ladi Morgan.' I did not breathe freely, till his excellency had passed on with his glittering train, into the illumined conservatory, and was lost in a wilderness of flowering shrubs and orange trees." Ought not this ambassador to be recalled for his negligence, his want of loyalty, in not attempting to get his fingers about Miladi's 'little neck,' in order to restore his Imperial master to peace and tranquillity of mind? Poor Francis! still are you doomed to be _fidgetty_ on your throne. We think we see you receiving intelligence of the appearance of this last emanation from Ladi Morgan's untiring pen--a mortal paleness overspreads your face, as Metternich rushes into your presence with terror depicted in his countenance, articulating only "Ladi Morgan, Ladi Morgan," having just obtained himself a knowledge of the dreadful fact from an almost breathless courier--in an agony of suspense you gaze wildly at your faithful counsellor, until he has recovered composure sufficient to unfold to you the whole tale of horror. It is told! The monarch in whose hands are the lives of fifty millions of subjects, lies himself, to all appearance, deprived of existence. But see! he revives--his lips move--what are the words which fall faintly upon the ears of the bewildered attendants who have been called into the apartment by the cries of the prime minister? They are words of malediction, of the same purport as those which Henry II. of England uttered against his servants, for their want of zeal in allowing him to be so long tormented by Thomas a Becket, and which caused that prelate's death. But alas! for your repose, Imperial Caesar, it is not so easy at the present day, as in former times, for de Luces and de Morevilles to gratify the vengeful wishes of their masters, and Lady Morgan yet breathes the breath of life (although it is true she did not do it "freely," according to her own account, while in the vicinity of your ambassador in Paris,) to keep your nervous system in disorder, and for the continued vexation of the rational part of the reading world.

Multifarious are the other instances we might cite of the manner in which her simple Ladyship was _mystified_ by the ironical propensities of some, and the malicious ultraism of others, during her visit to Paris in 1829-30. "There are certain characters," observes M. Jouy, "who may be considered as the scourges of whatever is ridiculous (_les fleaux du ridicule_;) they discover it under whatever form it may be hid, and pitilessly immolate it with the weapon of irony," and into the hands of persons of this merciless tribe she seems to have been perpetually falling. We must content ourselves, however, with referring to but one example more; a conversation between herself and a young Frenchman, about Romanticism and Classicism, which she has detailed in her first volume. This is a subject, which, as every one must know, has set all Paris by the ears, and attracts almost as much attention there as the overthrow of one dynasty and the creation of another. Lady Morgan, of course, is a thorough-going _romantique_, and demonstrates the greater excellence of the school of which she deems herself the chief support and brightest ornament, in pretty much the same way as the superiority of modern writers over the ancients used to be proved by the advocates of the former, viz. by two methods, reason and example, the first of which they derived from their own taste, and the second from their own works. At the time she was delivered of her quarto about France in 1810, Paris was still immersed in classical darkness, and it may therefore be fairly inferred that the romantic light with which it has since been illumined, radiated from that same tome. What can be more natural? When she left France, "the word '_Romanticism_' was unknown (or nearly so) in the circles of Paris; the writers _a la mode_, whether ultra or liberal, were, or thought themselves to be, supporters and practisers of the old school of literature;" in the interval of her absence she published a work in which she told the Parisians that Racine was no poet, and gave them other valuable information of the kind, calculated to dispel their classical infatuation:--when she returned, every thing was changed; poets and prosers were vieing with each other in gloriously offending against all rules and canons; Romanticism, in short, was, as she asserts, completely the order of the day. The classical wrath of one man was the source of unnumbered woes to ancient Greece, and why may not the romantic wrath of one woman--a woman too, who keeps autocrats and sultans _fidgetty_ on their thrones, be the cause of a change in the literature of a country? This change, at all events, however it may have been operated, seems to have inspired her with additional courage in her assaults, and additional fury in her anathemas upon the poor French authors whom the ignorant world has hitherto been in the habit of regarding as objects of admiration. She now asserts, in "France in 1829-30," that the whole classic literature of that country is "feeble and unuseful," nay, even fitted to "enervate and degrade;" and in a wonderfully luminous chapter about modern literature, she has shown as clearly as Hudibras could have proved by "force of argument" that "a man's no horse," that Classicism is the ally of despotism, and that it was the policy of arbitrary power to encourage a fondness for the ancient authors!

Fiercely romantic, however, as her Ladyship is, she is mild as a cooing dove in comparison with the male interlocutor in the famous conversation to which we have alluded. This personage completely out-herods Herod; but that he was an ultra in disguise, endeavouring to make her Ladyship write down absurdities, is a conviction which 'fire and water could not drive out of' us;--even she, herself, at one period of the dialogue, can not help doubting whether she "is or is not the subject of what in England is called a hoax, and in France a _mystification_," and when _she_ doubts upon such a point, it would be extremely difficult for any one else not to deem it a matter of certainty. Had we space sufficient, we should transcribe the whole of this colloquy, as it deserves repetition; but we can only give a small specimen of it for the amusement of our readers. The gentleman having informed Miladi, that Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire, are "dethroned monarchs," and no longer tolerated at the Theatre, she asks him what is to be seen or heard there, to which he answers:--

"'Our great historic dramas, written not in pompous Alexandrines, but in prose, the style of truth, the language of life and nature, and composed boldly, in defiance of Aristotle and Boileau. Their plot may run to any number of acts, and the time to any number of nights, months, or years; or if the author pleases, it may take in a century, or a millennium: and then, for the place, the first scene may be laid in Paris, and the last in Kamschatka. In short, France has recovered her literary liberty, and makes free use of it.'

"'_Oui da!_' I rejoined, a little bothered, and not knowing well what to say, but still looking very wise, 'In fact, then, you take some of those liberties, that you used to laugh at, in our poor Shakspeare?'

"'Your _poor_ Shakspeare! your divine, immortal Shakspeare, the idol of new France!--you must see him played _textuellement_ at the _Francais_, and not in the diffuse and feeble parodies of Ducis.'

"'Shakspeare played _textuellement_ at the _Francais_!" I exclaimed--'_O, par exemple!_'

"'Yes, certainly. Othello is now in preparation; and Hamlet and Macbeth are stock pieces. But even your Shakspeare was far from the truth, the great truth, that the drama should represent the progress, development, and accomplishment of the natural and moral world, without reference to time or locality. Unknown to himself, his mighty genius was mastered by the fatal prejudices and unnatural restrictions of the _perruques_ of antiquity. Does nature unfold her plots in five acts? or confine her operations to three hours by the parish clock?'

"'Certainly not, Monsieur; but still....'

"'_Mais, mais, un moment, chere Miladi._ The drama is one great illusion of the senses, founded on facts admitted by the understanding, and presented in real life, past or present. When you give yourself up to believe that Talma was Nero, or Lafont Britannicus, or that the Rue Richelieu is the palace of the Caesars, you admit all that at first appears to outrage possibility. Starting, then, from that point, I see no absurdity in the tragedy, which my friend Albert de S---- says he has written for the express purpose of trying how far the neglect of the unities may be carried. The title and subject of this piece is "the Creation," beginning from Chaos (and what scenery and machinery it will admit!) and ending with the French revolution; the scene, infinite space; and the time, according to the Mosaic account, some 6000 years.'

"'And the protagonist, Monsieur? Surely you don't mean to revive the allegorical personages in the mysteries of the middle ages?'

"'_Ah ca! pour le protagoniste, c'est le diable._ He is the only contemporaneous person in the universe that we know of, whom in these days of _cagoterie_ we can venture to bring on the stage, and who could be perpetually before the scene, as a protagonist should be. He is particularly suited, by our received ideas of his energy and restlessness, for the principal character. The devil of the German patriarch's _Faust_ is, after all, but a profligate casuist; and the high poetical tone of sublimity of Milton's Satan is no less to be avoided in a delineation that has truth and nature for its inspiration. In short, the devil, the true romantic devil, must speak, as the devil would naturally speak, under the various circumstances in which his immortal ambition and ceaseless malignity may place him. In the first act, he should assume the tone of the fallen hero, which would by no means become him when in corporal possession of a Jewish epileptic, and bargaining for his _pis aller_ in a herd of swine. Then again, as a leader of the army of St. Dominick, he should have a fiercer tone of bigotry, and less political _finesse_, than as a privy councillor in the cabinet of the Cardinal de Richelieu. At the end of the fourth act, as a guest at the table of Baron Holbach, he may even be witty; while as a minister of police, he should be precisely the devil of the schoolmen, leading his victim into temptation, and triumphing in all the petty artifices and verbal sophistries of a bachelor of the Sorbonne. But as the march of intellect advances, this would by no means be appropriate; and before the play is over, he must by turns imitate the _patelinage_ of a Jesuit _a robe courte_, the pleading of a procureur general, the splendid bile of a deputy of the _cote droit_, and should even talk political economy like an article in the 'Globe.' But the author shall read you his piece--'_La Creation! drame Historique et Romantique_, in six acts, allowing a thousand years to each act. _C'est l'homme marquant de son siecle._''

"'But,' said I, 'I shall remain in Paris only a few weeks, and he will never get through it in so short a time.'

"'_Pardonnez moi, madame_, he will get through it in six nights--the time to be actually occupied by the performance; an act a night, to be distributed among the different theatres in succession, beginning at the _Francais_ and ending at the _Ambigu_.'"

It is here that her Ladyship begins to doubt whether this romantic gentleman was not hoaxing her, and certes it was time; but 'melt and disperse ye spectre doubts!' an attempt to hoax Lady Morgan, impossible! They do quickly pass away, and the conversation is pursued in the same strain, until "Monsieur de ---- one of the conscript fathers of classicism" is announced. No sooner has his name passed the lips of the servant, than the romantic gentleman snatches up his hat, and endeavours to make an exit from the room, in as much consternation as if the "protagonist" himself were about to appear. But Monsieur de ---- the classicist, enters before he can escape; "he draws up." The two then "glanced cold looks at each other, bowed formally, and the romanticist retired, roughing his wild locks, and panting like a hero of a tragedy." What a picture! We venture to affirm, however, that had an attentive observer been present, he would have seen something like a wink or a covert glance passing between the two worthies as they enacted the above scene, which might have led him to suspect that they knew each other better than Miladi supposed: it was only on the previous evening, be it stated, on her own authority, that she had made the acquaintance of the romanticist, whom she describes as having "something of an exalte in his air, in his open shirt collar, black head, and wild and melancholy look." The dialogue that ensues with the classicist after the disappearance of the other, is quite as ridiculous as the foregoing one, and quite as well calculated to give her Ladyship a fit of the "doubts," though it does not appear that she suffered by them a second time. We may mention, before leaving this subject, that when the romanticist told her, in the extract we have just made, that Othello was in preparation for the _Theatre Francais_, he told her truth; but, if we are not very much mistaken, the other piece of information he communicated--that Hamlet and Macbeth are stock-tragedies at that theatre--could only have been related by a gentleman of great fertility of imagination. Othello, we know, was actually performed, and went off tolerably well until the final scene, but then the nerves of the Frenchmen were put to a trial they could not by any possibility endure. The sight of a Moor and an Infidel, endeavouring to smother a lady and a Christian, so completely aroused all the gallant and religious sensibilities of the audience, that shouts of _terrible, abominable_, resounded from every part of the house, and Monsieur Othello was (theatrically) damned for his wickedness. As far as we know, he never showed his copper-coloured visage again at the _Theatre Francais_, but contented himself thenceforward with running after poor Desdemona, and stabbing her behind the scene at the opera, where this minor exhibition of cruelty is tolerated in consideration of the _roulades_, with which he smooths her passage into the other world.

Speaking of theatres puts us in mind, as the story-tellers say, of a remark made by her Ladyship in the chapter she has devoted to the theatres of Paris, which we wish to notice. She says, "it is strange, that among the many men of genius who have treated the subject of the unities, none should have clearly laid it down, that the great object of dramatic composition is the satisfaction of the audience, no matter by what means." What a fine thing it is to be endowed with uncommon powers of original thought! It is so delightful to be able to belie the assertion, that it is too late now to think of propounding any new idea, every thing having already been said that can be said about any thing! Here, ye croakers about modern degeneracy, here is something that should cover you with confusion and shame. Lady Morgan, after having read all, aye, all, that has been written about a certain subject by all the "many men of genius" who have treated it--which it would only require the lifetime of a Methuselah to do--has discovered an idea relating to it, which is to be found in none of the works of those "many men of genius," and this she has revealed for the edification and astonishment of the world, in the sentence we have quoted above. How every lover of new ideas now living, should bless his stars for having cast his existence in the same period as that of her Ladyship! It is, however, our melancholy duty, to be obliged to deprive our generation of the glory which would be shed upon it by such an intellectual invention as the foregoing. Though it has undoubtedly never been adverted to in any way, since she so asserts the fact, by any of the "many men of genius" who have exercised their minds upon the topic of the unities, yet by a singular chance we have fallen upon something very much like it in the petty effusions of two or three subordinate scribblers, who have presumed to hint at what was not excogitated by their betters. One of those effusions is a paper called a "Preface to Shakspeare," written about fifty years ago, as we have discovered, after long research and a great deal of trouble, by a certain Samuel Johnson, who dubbed himself Doctor, and published likewise, if our investigations have informed us rightly, other works, under the titles of "The Rambler," "Rasselas," "Biographies of the British Poets," &c., and tradition even says that he attempted a dictionary of the English language. Another of those effusions is an "Essay upon the Drama," by a person called Walter Scott, who, it is affirmed, is still in the land of the living, but where he dwelleth, and what other productions he hath printed, we have been able to obtain no clue for finding out. It must indeed be confessed, that neither of those individuals has so "clearly laid it down" as her Ladyship, that the audience should be pleased, "_no matter by what means_," though they certainly have intimated that its gratification ought to be one of the principal objects of a dramatic author. They were foolish enough to think, that to pander to the tastes of an audience, if corrupt and vitiated, is paltry, is despicable; that to consult its inclinations when at war with sound taste or proper decorum, is to do the work of those who are influenced only by a love of sordid gain, reckless of every pure and elevated feeling--that "the end of all writing is to instruct, the end of all poetry, _to instruct by pleasing_." This is the difference between the sentiment of the authors and that of the authoress; but were that same Samuel Johnson now alive, sooner than maintain an opinion in any the slightest manner at variance with one expressed by her Ladyship, he would,--as he was ready to do, according to his own avowal, when asserting something that was denied by persons scarcely more important than himself,--"sink down in reverential silence, as AEneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he saw Neptune shaking the wall, and Juno heading the besiegers."

We do not wish to insinuate that her Ladyship has derived any advantage from consulting the pages of either the Preface or the Essay to which we have alluded. By no means. Nothing would be more unjust; for how could she be indebted for any thing to what may be contained in a couple of insignificant pamphlets, whose scarcity is such, that we might almost suppose our copies of them to be the only ones in existence? How they came into our hands, is a point we leave for elucidation to those who find pleasure or profit in unravelling mysteries. There is, to be sure, a wonderful similitude throughout, between her reflections upon the classical and romantic drama, and those which may be read in the Essay; but this circumstance must unquestionably be considered one of those "remarkable coincidences" that every now and then prompt the cry of "a miracle!" It must, else, be accounted for, by supposing that the author of the Essay is gifted with a power over future operations of mind, similar to that which was possessed over future events, by the wizard who warned Lochiel against the fatal day at Culloden, and that he is thus enabled, by his "mystical lore," to make

"Coming _ideas_ cast their shadow before."

Seriously, however, the observations of her Ladyship on this head, furnish as nice an instance of plagiarism as we recollect. The best of the matter is, that after filling nearly a couple of pages with remarks, amongst which not a single original idea is to be found, save perhaps the rather novel one, that "in Macbeth the interest is suspended at the death of Duncan, and does not revive until that of the tyrant is at hand;" she winds up with saying, "obvious as this train of reasoning appears, _it has been overlooked equally by the opponents and the sticklers for the old canons of criticism_; a lamentable instance of the influence of authority, and of the spirit of party, on the judgments of the most cultivated minds." This is a sample of modest assurance in perfection. There is another "remarkable coincidence" in these volumes, between the biography they contain of General Lafayette, and an article about "the Nation's Guest" in a number of the North American Review for 1825. But we leave it to our contemporary to take her Ladyship to task for this appropriation of his property.

In our foregoing remarks we have confined ourselves, in great measure, to some of those portions of the volumes before us, which are most susceptible of ridicule, though we have adverted to only a few even of those--there are others, however, that would require a graver tone. The sickly sentimentalism about Ninon de l'Enclos, La Valliere, Madame d'Houdetot, and other strumpets--such "free" conversations as those which are detailed at page 138, in the first volume, and page 108, in the second; especially as they were held in the presence of a young girl, her Ladyship's niece, who was doubtless one of the chief causes why so many gentlemen came "_pour faire leurs hommages_" to the aunt--and various expressions upon matters appertaining to religion, deserve reprehension in no measured terms. But we have not space enough at our disposal to bestow any further notice upon these, or to glance at other parts of "France in 1829-30," although we have reaped but a small portion of the harvest which it contains.