OCR Text |
Show 230 THE CODE OF TERPSICHORE. France a new, more varied, and more interesting structure. The English have a predilection for the dark and terrible style of writing.- The muse they invoke frequently frightens away the graces, and unhappy consequences attend their flight, for the former immediately bedecks herself with thegingling bells of Momus37. Such writers may be regarded as the Riberas, the Calabreses, the Rosas, and the Caravages of the stage ; Crebillon is weak, and Alfieri is but demi-tragic in comparison with them. T o such authors as these, inequalities and transgressions may justly be objected as well as to their imitators, the Germans and Spaniards. But we must also remark with Le Tourneur, that, " If the English frequently transgressed through too much license and daring, the French may be accused but too often of want of courage on the the dramatic field; they permit their genius to be stifled under the influence of a slavish subserviency to taste." Moderns, however, are generally more free from such a reproach; the progress of art has incited them to throw off the yoke of cold and formal regularity. The words of the above-cited celebrated translator should be engraved on the memory of young composers, who, engaged in bringing each class to perfection, are also honourably availing themselves of the mine of riches to be found in the works of foreign writers. Care must be taken not to listen to those who are enslaved to a certain fixed idea, that there can be but one particular style of beauty. They will deceive you, for the more universal an artist is, the more universally will he be admired. |