Page:Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron (1824).djvu/108

 “Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood— “As false as Cressid!

These lines he pronounced with great emphasis and effect, and continued:

“But what has poetry to do with a play, or in a play? There is not one passage in Alfieri strictly poetical; hardly one in Racine.”

Here he handed me a prospectus of a new translation of Shakspeare into French prose, and read part of the first scene in ‘The Tempest,’ laughing inwardly, as he was used to do; and afterwards produced a passage from Chateaubriand, contending that we have no theatre.

“The French very properly ridicule our bringing in ‘enfant au premier acte, barbon au dernier.’ I was always a friend to the unities, and believe that subjects are not wanting which may be treated in strict conformity to their rules. No one can be absurd enough to contend, that the preservation of the unities is a defect,—at least a fault. Look at Alfieri’s plays, and tell me what is wanting in them. Does he ever deviate from the