French Comedy--Molière--Criticism of his Works--Scarron, Boursault, Regnard; Comedies in the Time of the Regency; Marivaux and Destouches; Piron and Gresset--Later Attempts--The Heroic Opera: Quinault--Operettes and Vaudevilles--Diderot's attempted Change of the Theatre--The Weeping Drama--Beaumarchais--Melo-Dramas--Merits and Defects of the Histrionic Art.
Comparison of the English and Spanish Theatres--Spirit of the Romantic Drama--Shakspeare--His Age and the Circumstances of his Life.
Ignorance or Learning of Shakspeare--Costume as observed by Shakspeare, and how far necessary, or may be dispensed with, in the Drama--Shakspeare the greatest drawer of Character--Vindication of the genuineness of his pathos--Play on Words--Moral Delicacy--Irony-Mixture of the Tragic and Comic--The part of the Fool or Clown--Shakspeare's Language and Versification.
Criticisms on Shakspeare's Historical Dramas.
Two Periods of the English Theatre: the first the most important--The first Conformation of the Stage, and its Advantages--State of the Histrionic Art in Shakspeare's Time--Antiquities of Dramatic Literature-- Lilly, Marlow, Heywood--Ben Jonson; Criticism of his Works--Masques-- Beaumont and Fletcher--General Characterization of these Poets, and Remarks on some of their Pieces--Massinger and other Contemporaries of Charles I.
Closing of the Stage by the Puritans--Revival of the Stage under Charles II.--Depravity of Taste and Morals--Dryden, Otway, and others-- Characterization of the Comic Poets from Wycherley and Congreve to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century--Tragedies of the same Period--Rowe-- Addison's _Cato_--Later Pieces--Familiar Tragedy: Lillo--Garrick-- Latest State.
Spanish Theatre--Its three Periods: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon-- Spirit of the Spanish Poetry in general--Influence of the National History on it--Form, and various Species of the Spanish Drama--Decline since the beginning of the Eighteenth Century.
Origin of the German Theatre--Hans Sachs--Gryphius--The Age of Gottsched-- Wretched Imitation of the French--Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller--Review of their Works--Their Influence on Chivalrous Dramas, Affecting Dramas, and Family Pictures--Prospect for Futurity.