The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Voltaire
• List of Plates
• Short Studies On English Topics. With Notes On the Peopling of America.
• The English Parliament.
• The English Constitution.
• English Commerce.
• Inoculation.
• Chancellor Bacon.
• Locke.
• Suicide.
• English Tragedy.
• On the English Comedy.
• On Courtiers Who Have Cultivated Learning.
• The Earl of Rochester and Mr. Waller.
• Prior; That Singular Poem Called “hudibras”; and Dean Swift.
• On Pope.
• The Royal Society and Academies.
• On Cromwell.
• The Misfortunes of Charles I.
• Oliver Cromwell.
• England Under Charles II.
• The English Theatre. 1
• Plan of the Tragedy of Hamlet.
• Plan of “the Orphan.”
• The Several Revolutions In the Tragic Art.
• A Discourse On Tragedy.
• The Religion of the Quakers.
• The Church of England.
• The Presbyterians.
• The Socinians, Or Arians, Or Antitrinitarians.
• The Peopling of America.
• Fernando CortÉs.
• The Conquest of Peru.
• The Negro.
• The French In America.
• The French Islands, and the Buccaneers, Or Freebooters.
• Possessions of the English and Dutch In America.
• On Paraguay.
• The Changes That Have Happened In Our Globe.

THE ENGLISH THEATRE.1

Two little English books inform us that this nation, famous for so many excellent works, and so many famous enterprises, is possessed of two excellent tragic poets; one is Shakespeare, who is said greatly to surpass Corneille; the other, the tender Otway, much superior to the tender Racine.

This dispute turning entirely upon taste, there does not seem any answer to be made to the English. Who can hinder a whole nation from liking a poet of its own better than one of another country? It is impossible to prove to a whole people that it is pleased in the wrong place; but we may refer the matter in dispute between the stage of Paris and that of London to other nations. We therefore address ourselves to all readers, from St. Petersburg to Naples, and we entreat them to decide the controversy.

There is not a man of learning in Russia, in Italy, in Germany, in Spain, in Switzerland, or in Holland, who is not acquainted with “Cinna” and “Phædra”; and very few of them have any knowledge of the works of Shakespeare or Otway. This is a great prejudice in favor of the former; however, it is but a prejudice. The papers relative to the suit should be produced before the bar. “Hamlet” is one of the most admired works of Shakespeare, as well as one of those most frequently represented. We shall faithfully lay it before the judges.

[1 ]This first appeared with the pseudonym “Jerome Carré,” which explains the incidental allusion to Voltaire. In his seventieth year Voltaire undertook the reviewing of foreign works in the “Gazette Littéraire.” Shakespeare’s plays had been published in twenty volumes, translated by Pierre le Tourneur, with scholarly assistance. The translator’s introductory “Essay upon Shakespeare,” stirred Voltaire’s cynical indignation deeply. He had introduced and championed the English dramatist, whom he proclaimed to be “the sovereign genius of the stage.” Royalty and fashion turned from the national poets to do homage to Shakespeare.