ter, to write for the world. It may be fairly admitted, too, that it is equally free from that obscurity, mysticism, or want of logical precision, with which much of the German criticism may be reproached, and from that arbitrary and capricious distribution of praise or censure, referable to no principle except the personal feeling of the critic, with which our modern English criticism is not less justly chargeable. The principles of the French critics are indeed drawn from a narrow sphere, and, as universal rules, are unquestionably false; but their deductions from them are clearly and logically made; the opinion is put in a tangible shape, in which it either admits of refutation or compels assent. To clear and consequent reasoning, though from narrow premises, they join a corresponding precision and clearness of style; their learning, though far from extensive, is respectable; in the perception of the ridiculous or the incongruous, their tact is rarely mistaken; where the point and application of the criticism can be heightened by wit, it is seldom wanting. Now that our literary horizon is enlarged, and our principles of taste drawn from a wider experience, much advantage, we humbly think, might be gained from the judicious study of the French criticism of the last century. It would do much to explode that vicious and exaggerated school of criticism, to which the vast increase of periodical writing at the present day has given rise, in which the extravagance of the sentiments is equalled by the inflation of the style; in which praise and blame are equally in extremes, and neither is bestowed upon any consistent, intelligible, or even conscientious principle.
We have said that the tendency towards criticism is not less visible in Voltaire than in his successors; and, all things considered, he remains the best representative of the French criticism of the eighteenth century. With the true spirit of antiquity, indeed, he was but partially acquainted. His ideas of it were taken at second hand from the writings of the dramatists and critics of the seventeenth century. To the manly, bold, and picturesque outlines of Homer, he has done justice. If his criticism on the father of poetry contains nothing profound or novel, it is at least just and discriminating, so far as it goes. But the simple, statue-like, grandeur of the Greek theatre, he appears to have been altogether unable to appreciate; he is constantly blaming its poverty of dramatic resources, its defect of skill in the exposition of plot, the want of a stirring and antithetic dialogue. One of his remarks on a passage in the Œdipus Tyrannus, is characteristic of this ignorance of the Greek original, and his incapacity of entering into the spirit of ancient manners. In the first scene of that tragedy, Œdipus, alarmed at the groans and lamentations of his people thronging to the altar, comes out to enquire the cause, and addresses them—
"I could have sent to learn the fatal cause,
But see, your anxious sovereign comes himself,
To know of all of you: Behold your king,
Renowned Œdipus!"
Whereupon Voltaire thus remarks—"The scene opens with a chorus of Thebans prostrate at the foot of the altar. Œdipus, their liberator and their king, appears among them. I am Œdipus, says he, so renowned through all the world. There is some likelihood that, the Thebans were not ignorant that his name was Œdipus. This is no great proof of that perfection to which, it has been maintained some years since," (by Racine and Boileau,) "that tragedy had been brought by Sophocles. It does not appear that we are much in the wrong in refusing our admiration to a poet, who employs no better artifice to make his personages known than to make them say 'I am Œdipus.' We no longer call such rudeness a noble simplicity." La Harpe justly remarks, which is, indeed, sufficiently obvious,—that Sophocles does not say, "I am Œdipus;" but, after stating that he might have employed a meaner messenger, goes on to say, that he, their king himself—the world-renowned victor of the Sphynx—Œdipus—had not hesitated to come in person to answer the call of his subjects. But if Sophocles be in the wrong, what becomes, on the same principle, of the opening line of the Iphigenie of Racine
"Oui, c'est Agamemnon, c'est son Roi que l'eveille?"
Might not a critic with as much justice say—"There is some likeli-
