CAIUS GRACCHUS: A TRAGEDY, En Five Acts. BY JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES, ESQ. Author of Virginius, William Tell, &c. PRINTED FROM THE ACTING COPY, WITH REMARKS, To which are added, A DESCRIPTION OF THE COSTUME,-CAST OF THE CHARACTERS, ENTRANCES AND EXITS, RELATIVE POSITION OF THE PERFORMERS ON THE STAGE, AND THE WHOLE OF THE STAGE BUSINESS. As now performed at the THEATRES ROYAL, LONDON: EMBELLISHED WITH A FINE ENGRAVING, By Mr. WHITE, from a Drawing taken in the Theatre, by LONDON JOHN CUMBERLAND, 19, LUDGATE HILL. REMARKS Caius Gracchus. THE Fall of the Gracchi is one of the many evidences of the glory and degeneracy of the Roman nation. Of its glory, in producing such illustrious examples of true greatness-of its degeneracy, in abandoning and leading them forth to sacrifice and death. The annals of the republic exhibit little else but continual struggles between the nobles and the people; and it is difficult to say which party, in the pursuit of their several ends, adopted the most unjustifiable means. If the patricians were haughty, ambitious, and tyrannical, the plebeians were fickle, treacherous, and cruel. The former made their common cause against liberty; the latter sought licence, rather than liberty-the indulgence of private and party animosity, not the good order and just government of the state. The cowardice of the people was as flagrant as their ingratitude.Their caps and hands were alternately devoted to their champions and betrayers: "He that trusts to you, Where he should find you lions, finds you hares, "It shall be writ in blood, The man who labours for the people's good, This story of imperial Rome is well calculated for a dramatie poem. The characters of Caius Gracchus and Cornelia give ample scope for the highest flights of poetry; and we can hardly imagine a subject more capable of awakening the noblest enthusiasm, than the tenderness, the heroism, the patriotric ardour, of the Roman matron and her son. With the general spectator, who looks for bustle and stage-trick, this tragedy is of limited interest. It has much to affect, but little to surprise. The incidents are few; and, without the aid of history (of which nine-tenths of our enlightened audiences are ig norant), we have, from the very beginning, a certain presage of the hero's fate. To remedy, as much as possible, this unavoidable defect, the author has drawn an interesting portrait of Licinia, the wife of Caius; and has made the consuls, patricians, and tribunes, as prominent as the ascendancy of his principal character would justify. He has evinced considerable shrewdness and humour in the plebeian, Titus; but these scenes, though conducted with propriety and art, remind us too strongly of Coriolanus. We have the lofty spirit of Caius Marcius, the heroic grandeur of Volumnia, the quaint jests of Menenius, and the deafening shouts of the Roman multitude, all brought to our remembrance in regular succession. Mr. Knowles has, therefore, not only the fearful odds of contending with Shakspeare, in the delineation of the same characters and passions, but he has to contend with novelty; which, in modern times, is greater odds than Shakspeare. There are those who condemn historical dramas, on the principle that history and fiction should be kept separate and distinct; and that the sobriety of the one should not be disturbed by the imagination of the other. Palpable anachronisms, misrepresentation of character, and perversion of material facts, are wholly inadmissible.-But, when history borrows the aid of romance to heighten and adorn its more unimportant details; when the inventor's art is only seen where the interest becomes secondary-and the integrity of the principal characters and events are strictly maintained, those who, but for the dramatist, had remained ignorant of Greek and Roman story may be led to the fountains of ancient lore, and become wise-not in the every-day sense of the term-but by study, experience, and research. This tragedy is in perfect keeping with the times it represents. The characters are purely Roman; nor do they betray their illegitimacy by any action or sentiment inconsistent and out of place. Caius Gracchus is the same illustrious patriot that history paints him; and is second only to Cornelia, in glory. The language, in many parts, is beautiful; particularly the interview between Caius and his mother, in Act 4, Scene 2.-The mournful exclamation of Cornelia: "What will be left me, should I lose thee, son ?" "Go to the Forum, go! Thou art Cornelia's son !" are in a high degree powerful and affecting. DG. |