If in most of the English tragedies the heroes are awkward and the heroines extravagant, in return the style is more natural in comedy; but then this style would appear to us rather that of debauchery than of politeness; it distinguishes everything by its proper name; a woman, enraged at her lover, wishes him the pox; a drunkard, in a piece that is very often performed, is disguised like a priest, makes a great riot, and is arrested by the watch: he calls himself a curate; he is asked what cure he has; and he replies, “An excellent one for the... .” In one of the most decent comedies, “The Careless Husband,” this husband is represented having his head rubbed by a servant–maid, who is seated by his side: his wife enters, and exclaims: “To what power may one not arrive by being a whore!” Some cynics justify these gross expressions, and quote the example of Horace, who describes, by their proper names, all the parts of the human body, and all the pleasures they give. These are images that succeed with us only when properly veiled; but Horace, who seemed made for the stews as well as for the court, and who perfectly understood the customs of both, speaks as freely of the way of a man with a maid, as if he was describing a walk, or a collation. It has been observed, that the Romans, in the days of Augustus, were as polite as the Parisians are at present; and that this very Horace, who praises the emperor Augustus for reforming the manners, complied, without scruple, with the customs of the times, which permitted the promiscuous use of girls and boys, and of the proper names of things. Strange it is — if anything can be said to be so — that Horace, while speaking the language of a debauchee, should be the favorite of a reformer; and that Ovid, for speaking only the language of gallantry, should be exiled by a debauchee, an impostor, an assassin, called Octavius, who acquired the empire by crimes which merited death.
However this be, Bayle pretends that expressions are indifferent, in which he, the cynics, and the Stoics, deceive themselves; for everything has different names which represent it under different aspects, and afford different ideas of it. The words “magistrate” and “lawyer,” “gentleman” and “squire,” “officer” and “sharper,” “monk” and “friar,” have not the same signification. The consummation of marriage, and everything that contributes to the completion of this great work, will be differently expressed by the parson, the husband, the physician, and the rake. The word the latter of these would make use of would awaken the idea of pleasure, the terms the physician would explain himself in would put you in mind of a dead body, the husband would make that understood with decency which the young libertine had described immodestly, and the parson would attempt to give you the idea of a sacrament. Words then are not in themselves indifferent; for they are not synonymous.
It must further be considered, that though the Romans permitted these gross expressions in satires, which were read but by a few people, they never suffered indecent words on the stage; for, as La Fontaine says: “Chaste are the ears, although the eyes are wanton.” In a word, no expression should be made use of in public, which a modest woman would be ashamed to repeat.
The English have stolen, disguised, and mangled, most of Molière’s plays. They attempted to make a Tartuffe. It was impossible that this subject should succeed at London, because the portrait of a stranger affords very little pleasure. One of the blessings of the English nation is, that she has no Tartuffes: to have hypocrites, it is necessary to have bigots; but the name of bigot is almost unknown there, while that of an honest man is common. He sees no dotards committing to others the care of their souls; no petty tyrants establishing a despotic empire, in some quarter of the city, over a set of superannuated females, who were once coquettes, and always weak; and over men still more weak and despicable. Philosophy, liberty, and the climate, lead the way to misanthropy. London, which has no Tartuffes, abounds with Timons. The “Plain Dealer” is one of the best English comedies: it was written at the time when Charles II. and his splendid court were endeavoring to laugh away the settled gloom that had overspread the nation. Wycherly, the author of this comedy, was the professed admirer of the duchess of Cleveland, the king’s mistress. This man, who passed his life in the gay world, as it is called, painted its follies and absurdities in the strongest colors. The strokes are bolder in Wycherly’s piece than in Molière’s; but they are not so delicate, nor so refined. The English author has corrected the only fault in Molière’s piece, the want of plot and intrigue: the English comedy is interesting, the intrigue is ingenious, but too bold for our manners.
A captain of a ship, of distinguished courage and frankness, and a professed despiser of mankind, has a sincere and prudent friend whom he mistrusts, and a mistress, by whom he is tenderly beloved, whom he slights: whilst he places all his confidence in a false friend, the most unworthy of men; and gives his heart to a jilt, the most perfidious of her sex. He believes, however, that this woman is a Penelope, and this false friend a Cato: he sets–out on an expedition against the Dutch, and leaves all his money, jewels, and other effects, in the hands of this woman to the care of this friend he so firmly relies on; while the true friend, whom he mistrusts, embarks with him, and the lady, to whom he has not deigned to pay the least regard, disguises herself in the habit of a page, and performs the voyage with him, without discovering her sex the whole time.
The captain’s ship being blown up in an engagement, he returns to London in the utmost distress, accompanied by his friend and the page, without knowing the friendship of the one, or the love of the other. He goes immediately to that paragon of women from whom he expects to receive his strong box, and a fresh proof of her fidelity. He finds her married to the sharper he had confided in, and can get no account of the treasure he had committed to her charge. The good man will hardly believe that so virtuous a woman could be guilty of such baseness; when the better to convince him of it, this honest lady falls in love with the little page, and attempts to take him away by force: but as it is necessary, in a dramatic piece, that justice should take place, vice be punished, and virtue meet its reward, at the close of the catastrophe, the captain supplied the place of the page, goes to bed to his inconstant mistress, cuckolds his treacherous friend, runs him through the body, recovers the remains of his effects, and marries his page. You will observe, that this piece is interlarded with an old litigious woman, related to the captain, who is one of the merriest creatures, and one of the best characters, on the stage.
Wycherly has taken another piece from Molière not less bold and singular; it is a sort of “School for Women.” The principal character in the piece is a droll libertine, the terror of the husbands of London; who, to make sure of his business, spreads a report, that, in a late illness, his surgeons had found it necessary to make him a eunuch. Having this curious character, the husbands grant him free access to their wives, and his only difficulty is where to fix his choice. However, at last, he gives the preference to a little country–woman, who has a great share of innocence, with a natural warmth of constitution, by which she makes her husband a cuckold with a good will and readiness that far exceeds the premeditated malice of experienced dames. This piece is not indeed “The School of Morality”; but it is “The School of Wit and True Comic Humor.”
The comedies of Sir John Vanbrugh are more facetious, but less ingenious. The knight was a man of pleasure, and besides a poet and an architect. It is remarked, that he wrote as delicately and as elegantly as he built clumsily: it was he who built the famous castle of Blenheim, the heavy but durable monument of our unfortunate battle of Höchstädt. If the apartments were only as large as the walls are thick, this mansion would be convenient enough. In Sir John Vanbrugh’s epitaph, the earth is invoked to lie heavy on him, who, when living, had laid such heavy loads upon it. This gentleman took a tour into France just before the curious war of 1701, and was put into the Bastille, where he remained some time, without knowing what it was that had procured him this mark of distinction from our ministry. He wrote a comedy in the Bastille, and, what is in my opinion very remarkable, there is not in all the piece the least stroke against the country where he suffered this violence.
Of all the English writers, the late Mr. Congreve has carried the glory of the comic theatre to the highest pitch. He wrote but few pieces, but they are all excellent of their kind: the laws of the drama are strictly observed in them; they are full of characters elegantly varied; no mean pleasantry, not the least indecency, is introduced; you find in every part the language of politeness, even in describing the actions of knaves; which proves that he knew the world, and kept what is called good company. His comedies are the most sprightly and correct, Sir John Vanbrugh’s the gayest, and Wycherly’s the boldest. It is to be observed, that none of these sublime wits have spoken ill of Molière: it is only writers of no repute that have vilified this great man. In a word, do not expect from me any extracts from these English performances that I am so great an advocate of; nor that I should give you a single bon mot or jest from Congreve or Wycherly. One cannot laugh in a translation. If you would be acquainted with the English comedy, you must go to London: you must reside there three years; you must learn the language perfectly, and constantly frequent the theatre. I take no great pleasure in reading Plautus or Aristophanes, because I am neither Greek nor Roman. The delicate turn of bon mots, the allusion, and the apropos, are all lost to a foreigner.
It is not the same in tragedy; that consists alone in the sublime passions, and heroic fooleries, consecrated by the stale error of fables and histories. Œdipus and Electra belong as much to us, to the English, and to the Spaniards, as to the Greeks: but true comedy is the living picture of the absurdities of a country; and, if you are not thoroughly acquainted with the country, you can hardly judge of the painting.
It has been objected to the English, that their scene is bloody, and often covered with dead bodies; that their gladiators fight half naked before young girls, and often return from the combat with the loss of a nose or a cheek. In answer to this, they tell you that they imitate the Greeks in tragedy, and the Romans in the act of cutting off noses: but their theatre is widely different from that of Sophocles and Euripides; and, with respect to the Romans, it must be acknowledged that a nose or a cheek is a trifle in comparison with that multitude of victims that mutually butchered each other in the circus for the diversion of the Roman ladies.
The English have sometimes had dances in their comedies, which were allegorical, and of a very singular taste. Despotic power and a republican state were represented by a very gallant dance in 1709. A king appears in the dance, who, after a few capers, gives his prime minister a very severe kick on the... . the minister bestows it on a second person, the second on a third, and, in fine, he who received the last represented the bulk of the nation, which had nobody to revenge itself on: all was performed in cadence. The republican government was represented by a round dance, where everyone equally received and returned the blow. This, however, is the country that has given birth to Addisons, Popes, Lockes, and Newtons.