University of Virginia Library

In a former number we presented our readers, in The Word of Honor, with a free translation into blank verse of one of the best comedies of Goldoni. In that sprightly drama, the author has depicted the workings of jealousy under ludicrous impressions, with so much skill that the play has long been considered as one of the best comic delineations of any passion. In Love, Honor, and Interest, we have a similar version of another drama by the Venetian Advocate. The character of the piece belongs to a different class, but the simplicity of the plot, the distinctive features of the dramatic persons, and the true sentiment which pervades it, have made it be regarded by many critics, as none inferior to the other in point of contrivance, and much better adapted for stage effect.

The Genius of Goldoni had rather the power of discovering what was ludicrous in the actions and thoughts of mankind, than of painting them with humor. In the originals of his plays there is no wit, and the language of the dialogue is as familiar as the verbiage of the parlour fireside, but when the incidents which he embodies are considered with attention, the variety and delicacy of his metaphysical tact will be fully admitted to the extent of all the claim that his most ardent admirers put in for the superiority of his talents. What we chiefly respect in the two pieces that we have been enabled to publish, is a kind of classical purity of arrangement which is much wanted at present on the English stage. No artifice is employed to produce the effects of the design, but the plot and result are developed by the moral collision of the characters

as naturally as in affairs of common life, and the excrescence of an under plot does not disgrace this beauty.

There is such an austere simplicity in Nature that her physical operations cannot be changed but by the interference of a moral cause, nor the necessary course of her moral proceedings altered without employing physical force. The underplot in the drama is what the magical sword of Harlequin is in pantomime, and the phenomena which it produces are equally contrary to nature. To tell us that they are nevertheless interesting proves nothing. The transformations of the pantomime both interest and delight in despite of the understanding, but the delight and the interest is very different from those enjoyments which we expect from the drama. Mechanical effects are not legitimate dramatic incidents. They are contrary to the first principles of the drama, which is an imitation of those actions of men which originate in moral considerations.

But while we object to incidents which are made to arise from the arrangement of furniture or unexpected discoveries produced by stratagems of the minor characters, we are well aware that unless occurrences are represented on the stage, the spectacle must be as monotonous as a lecture. But such occurrences must obviously spring from the moral feelings of the characters, and the surprises which they may produce must be the consequences of the unexpected collision of effects which have arisen from the operation of the same cause on different characters. Thus it may happen that one man is led to prosecute a particular course of action in believing that he is justified in doing so by the conduct of another, and in the course of the play it may be brought about that he shall find himself in error, and the conviction of his error may be the effect of a sudden disclosure of the truth, as in the case of Maddervan in Love, Honor, and Interest, but in all this there ought to be no apparent predetermined result. While therefore we admire the exquisite artifice with which the screen scene is managed in the School for Scandal, we cannot but regret that the incident itself is not truly dramatic, and lament that the author had not chosen to produce an equal impression by some more legitimate arrangement. There surely might have been

another way of convincing Lady Teazle of Sir Peter's worth, and of Joseph's baseness. But the truth is that the comedy is deficient in its original structure in not being founded on some event that had taken place before the point of time at which the performance is made to commence, and it therefore wanted something to produce a determinate result. The richness of the dialogue, however, conceals every defect in the construction of the plot. The fable of the School for Scandal is like the prop that supports a vine loaded with grapes. It has no value but by its connexion with the foliage and delightful clusters which it sustains.