and unchanging expression, is favourable only to a partial and
inharmonious effect; it is fit for nothing but a monologue, where
all the attention may be directed to some great master of ideal
mimicry. The modern practice of blending comedy with tragedy,
though liable to great abuse in point of practice, is undoubtedly
an extension of the dramatic circle; but the comedy should be
as in KING LEAR, universal, ideal, and sublime. It is perhaps the
intervention of this principle which determines the balance in
favour of KING LEAR against the OEDIPUS TYRANNUS or the AGAMEMNON,
or, if you will, the trilogies with which they are connected; unless
the intense power of the choral poetry, especially that of the
latter, should be considered as restoring the equilibrium. KING
LEAR, if it can sustain this comparison, may be judged to be the
most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world;
in spite of the narrow conditions to which the poet was subjected
by the ignorance of the philosophy of the drama which has prevailed
in modern Europe. Calderon, in his religious AUTOS, has attempted
to fulfil some of the high conditions of dramatic representation
neglected by Shakespeare; such as the establishing a relation
between the drama and religion and the accommodating them to music
and dancing; but he omits the observation of conditions still
more important, and more is lost than gained by the substitution
of the rigidly-defined and ever-repeated idealisms of a distorted
superstition for the living impersonations of the truth of human
passion.

But I digress.--The connexion of scenic exhibitions with the
improvement or corruption of the manners of men, has been universally
recognized: in other words, the presence or absence of poetry in
its most perfect and universal form, has been found to be connected