tions; it being no uncommon thing with him to finish an act or two in a morning, and to write out whole scenes upon the paper in which his favourite tobacco had been wrapped up. Negligence of this kind will no doubt give rise to great inequalities in the productions of an author, so careless of his reputation; but will scarcely account for an attribute something like dulness, which pervades Fielding's plays, and which is rarely found in those works which a man of genius throws off "at a heat," to use Dryden's expression, in prodigal self-reliance on his internal resources. Neither are we at all disposed to believe, that an author so careless as Fielding, took much more pains in labouring his novels, than in composing his plays; and we are, therefore, compelled to seek some other and more general reason for the inferiority of the latter. This may perhaps be found in the nature of those two studies, which, intimately connected as they seem to be, are yet naturally distinct in some very essential particulars; so much so as to vindicate the general opinion, that he who applies himself with eminent success to the one, becomes, in some degree, unqualified for the other;-like the artisan, who, by a particular turn for excellence in one mechanical department, loses the habit of dexterity necessary for acquitting himself with equal reputation in another; or as the artist, who has dedicated himself to the use of water-colours, is usually less distinguished by his skill in oil-painting.

It is the object of the novel-writer, to place before the reader as full and accurate a representation of the events which he relates, as can be done by the

mere force of an excited imagination, without the assistance of material objects. His sole appeal is made to the world of fancy and of ideas, and in this consists his strength and his weakness, his poverty and his wealth. He cannot, like the painter, present a visible and tangible representation of his towns and his woods, his palaces and his castles; but, by awakening the imagination of a congenial reader, he places before his mind's eye, landscapes fairer than those of Claude, and wilder than those of Salvator. He cannot, like the dramatist, present before our living eyes the heroes of former days, or the beautiful creations of his own fancy, embodied in the grace and majesty of Kemble or of Siddons ; but he can teach his reader to conjure up forms even more dignified and beautiful than theirs. The same difference follows him through every branch of his art. The author of a novel, in short, has neither stage nor scene-painter, nor company of comedians, nor dresser, nor wardrobe; words, applied with the best of his skill, must supply all that these bring to the assistance of the dramatist. Action, and tone, and gesture, the smile of the lover, the frown of the tyrant, the grimace of the buffoon,—all must be told, for nothing can be shown. Thus, the very dialogue becomes mixed with the narration; for he must not only tell what the characters actually said, in which his task is the same as that of the dramatic author, but must also describe the tone, the look, the gesture, with which their speech was accompanied,-telling, in short, all which, in the drama, it becomes the province of the actor to express. It must, therefore, frequently

happen, that the author best qualified for a province, in which all depends on the communication of his own ideas and feelings to the reader, without any intervening medium, may fall short of the skill necessary to adapt his compositions to the medium of the stage, where the very qualities most excellent in a novelist are out of place, and an impediment to success. Description and narration, which form the essence of the novel, must be very sparingly introduced into dramatic composition, and scarce ever have a good effect upon the stage. Even Puff, in The Critic, has the good sense to leave out "all about gilding the eastern hemisphere;" and the very first thing which the players struck out of his memorable tragedy was, the description of Queen Elizabeth, her palfrey, and her sidesaddle. The drama speaks to the eye and ear; and when it ceases to address these bodily organs, and would exact from a theatrical audience that exercise of the imagination which is necessary to follow forth and embody circumstances neither spoken nor exhibited, there is an immediate failure, though it may be the failure of a man of genius. Hence it follows, that though a good acting play may be made by selecting a plot and characters from a novel, yet scarce any effort of genius could render a play into a narrative romance. In the former case, the author has only to contract the events within the space necessary for representation, to choose the most striking characters, and exhibit them in the most forcible contrast, discard from the dialogue whatever is redundant or tedious, and so dramatize the whole. But we know not any

effort of genius, which could successfully insert into a good play, those accessories of description and delineation, which are necessary to dilate it into a readable novel. It may thus easily be conceived, that he whose chief talent lies in addressing the imagination only, and whose style, therefore, must be expanded and circumstantial, may fail in a kind of composition where so much must be left to the efforts of the actor, with his allies and assistants the scene-painter and property-man, and where every attempt to interfere with their province, is an error unfavourable to the success of the piece. Besides, it must be farther remembered, that in fictitious narrative an author carries on his manufacture alone, and upon his own account; whereas, in dramatic writing, he enters into partnership with the performers, and it is by their joint efforts that the piece is to succeed. Copartnery is called, by Civilians, the mother of discord; and how likely it is to prove so in the present instance, may be illustrated by reference to the admirable dialogue between the Player and the Poet in Joseph Andrews, book iii., chap. 10. The poet

must either be contented to fail, or to make great condescensions to the experience, and pay much attention to the peculiar qualifications, of those by whom his piece is to be represented. And he who in a novel had only to fit sentiments, action, and character, to the ideal beings, is now compelled to assume the much more difficult task of adapting all these to real existing persons, who, unless their parts are exactly suited to their own taste, and their peculiar capacities, have, each in his line, the

means, and not unfrequently the inclination, to ruin the success of the play. Such are, amongst many others, the peculiar difficulties of the dramatic art, and they seem impediments which lie peculiarly in the way of the novelist who aspires to extend his sway over the stage.1

["This account of the matter, interesting and in many parts ingenious as it is, appears to us to be on the whole rather unsatisfactory. In the first place, Sir Walter accounts for the dramatic failures of his novelists, by suggesting that they had lost, in the habitual exercise of their talents for narrative, the 'particular turn' requisite for the attainment of excellence in the drama. But, unfortunately for this theory, the fact is, that Cervantes, Le Sage, Fielding, Smollett, began, one and all of them, with the drama, and, after failing in that, betook themselves to the efforts by which they have earned their immortality. No one instance is presented to us of a practised and successful dramatist trying his hand unsuccessfully at the novel; and yet it seems to be throughout assumed, that the frequent occurrence of such examples constitutes the principal difficulty to be solved. Another assumption, equally bold, and, as it seems to us, equally unfounded, is, that though a good acting play may be made by selecting a plot and characters from a novel, yet scarcely any effort of genius could render a play into a narrative romance. Now, in the first place, the former attempt (in the sense in which Sir Walter speaks of the matter) never has been made but once, by an author from whose talents any degree of success might have been à priori expected. Werner is in every point of view an anomaly, and we cannot consent to draw from it any general conclusion whatever. Such borrowing both of plot and character as we can trace in regard to almost every one of Shakspeare's plays, is nothing to the present purpose; for there infinitely more both of quantity and quality was added than taken. But who can suppose, that a man of genius in his senses ever will condescend to busy himself with transferring another man's complete extended plot, and all its full-length characters, from one form of composition to another -either from drama to romance, or from romance to drama 2