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Show THE COMPOSITION OF BALLETS. 217 The craving that authors, and the public also, have for novelty, is frequently injurious to the arts; hence it is that men of talent have united themselves to extravagant systems and styles, and it must be confessed that their inventions are of the miraculous order. " Humana natura est novitatis avida." Let us seek for novelty, but let not our compositions be void of good sense. " des chemins nouveaux, il est un heureux choix." LEMIERRE. Racine, Voltaire, Metastasio, and Alfieri, opened each for himself an untried way, through which they have passed like great and creating geniuses. Reason readily bestows on them admiration and applause; and the style of unaffected beauty to be found in their works is universally admired. Concerning English dramatic poets who are of the romantic class, Montesquieu observes that, " their genius is of a singular description; they do not even imitate the ancients w h o m they admire; their productions bear less resemblance to the regular course of nature than to those happy freaks in which she sometimes indulges ; and this may be proved by Shakspeare and all his numerous imitators ; and on this system it is that their style has been formed. The same may be observed with respect to Cal-deron and his rivals,31 Vondel, and the tragic poets of Germany." These authors, however, have not always represented the happy freaks of nature; for, what puerilities, absurdities, and extravagances may not be found mixed up with their natural and sublime passages ! They must be examined with peculiar care, for we can obtain no profit from the good things to be found in such authors, except we bring to their perusal a taste already firmly established. |
