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The tragedy, Ottavia, as yet the only novelty with which Madame Ristori has favoured the London public during her present engagement, most palpably shows the impossibility of reconciling the English public with what is called the classic mode of treatment, as generally applicable to dramatic representation. Now and then an historical or mythical in- cident may be found in which results follow so closely upon motives, and an action stands out in such marked completeness that the severe laws imposed upon themselves by the classicists harmonize with the simplicity of the subject. The fall of (Edipus is only the more terrible from its taking place within the limit of a single day, and prior to his departure from Thebes there is nothing to remove him beyond the walls of his palace. The love of Phtedra for Hippolytus need only be exhibited when it becomes a stimulus to crime, and that crime, as far as the guilty stepmother is concerned, is committed in her own house. A personage exhibited at a most remarkable moment, yet apparently influenced as little as possible by any external circumstance, save destiny, is the only hero that excites an interest when presented with that bald seventy which Alfieri so zealously cultivated. Even when we look back upon the antique drama of the Greeks we find that the plays which have made the strongest impression upon us are marked by some typical person or incident, and are exceptions to the general mass. Now the virtuous ill-used wife of Nero is not either with respect to herself or to the nature of her misfortunes a typical personage, after the fashion of the old Medeas, Phmdras, and Antigones. She is the central figure in a tale of domestic interest, not the heroine of a statuesque tra- gedy ; and if we would seek for her semblance in modern life we should turn to some police report, in which a woman nearly beaten to death appears endeavouring to mitigate the punishment awarded by the sitting magistrate to her brutal husband. She has been banished from the im- perial palace for no crime whatever, real or pretended ; she believes that she is called back for the mere purpose of enduring the insults of her rival PoppEea ; yet she goes on loving Nero with the utmost devotion, and fears he may be hurt by the populace that assemble to vindicate her cause. Her affection cannot be called blind, for she sees all Nero's vices, she does not suspect him of a single virtue, and she does not enter- tain the slightest hope that her love will ever be returned. If her hus- band will conduct her into some private room and there cut her throat, her highest aspirations will be gratified ; but this luxury is denied her. Not only must she die, but her reputation must die too, and to avoid the disgrace that is likely to ensue from a series of false accusations she poisons herself with a ring snatched from the finger of her very worthy and exceedingly dull friend Seneca. If the beastly reign of Nero were selected as a subject for an historical tragedy, in which the life of Rome during one of its most vicious periods should be exhibited in a variety of details, the virtuous, devoted, persecuted Octavia would make a highly interesting figure in the motley assemblage. But her qualities are not of the grand kind requisite for a tragedy in which the whole action is sus- tained by five personages,—of whom she is the chief,—at least not in the eyes of a Shakspere-trained audience. All the sympathy that could be felt for the character of Octavio. is awakened by Madame Ristori's impersonation. Her figure, her counte- nance, her voice, are all capable of conveying with the utmost distinct- ness the notion of a dignified, thoroughly unblemished person, who can not only avoid vice, but look down upon it with contempt, and when this quality is called into action by an interview with the unworthy and ignoble PoppEea, she does not omit to season the dialogue with a proper measure of indignation and scorn. The dreamy mode of dying is almost peculiar to herself ; and for its introduction she has a fine opportunity In the last act of the play. Our opinion that Ottavia is altogether a weak piece, is by no means, intended to imply an objection to its production at the St. James Theatre. As, when we enter a museum devoted to Hindoo deities, our purpose is not to contemplate forms of beauty, but to learn what kind of beings are worshiped on the other side of the Indus ; so when we follow a series of foreign plays, our desire to know what is esteemed excellent in such and such a country, is just as strong a motive for our visit as the ex- pectation of being pleased by a work of dramatic art. The patrons of a drama played in a language not their own, seek to be instructed as well as charmed, and on this account Madame Ristori is more welcome in the feeble Ottavia, than in an Italian version of the French Plonlre.
At the Princess's Theatre, the Merchant of Venice has this week been preceded by a short farce, based on the Etre aimi ou momir of M. Scribe, and called by the corresponding title Dying for Love. A young wife is almost ten fled into toleration of an illicit lover, by the threats of the latter to commit suicide in case of a repulse ; but she is instructed in time that such threats are rarely carried out, and so deeply mortifies the youth by the cold indifference with which she regards his deadly pre- parations, that he is fairly cured of his passion. The piece looks some- what weak at the present day, but five-and-twenty years ago it gained a reputation in Paris, as a reactionary work against the extravagancies of the romantic school.
PARISIAN THEATRICALS.
The dramatic soil of France is not fertile at this time of year. How- ever MM. A. Bourgeois and Dugue have contrived to work into theatrical shape the sufferings of an English lady, who passed from Delhi to Cawnpore during the heat of the Indian insurrection. The title of the piece, which is played at the Ambigu-Comique, is Les Engitifs. A translation, not a mere imitation, of the edipus Rex of Sophocles, by M. Jules Lacroix, has been put into rehearsal at the Theatre Francais.
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