Metastasio was of middle stature, rather inclined to be large, but well proportioned in his person, with fine dark eyes, an aquiline nose, a well-shaped mouth, and fresh complexion ; and, even at his advanced age, never wore glasses. Dr. Burney found him, at 72, looking like a man of 50, and the handsomest person for his age he had ever seen. On his features, he says, was painted all the genius, goodness, and propriety, which characterise his writings. He was cautious and modest in his intercourse, and so polite that he was sel dom known to contradict any body in conversation.
Our limits necessarily oblige us to give a general character, and not an analysis, of the works of Me tastasio. They contain, besides his poetry, a number of letters to friends, which were published after his death, and some reflections on the poetics of Aristotle. Gravina had taken care that he should be a good clas sical scholar, and he had studied with some depth the principles of his own art. He has left also some poe tical versions from Horace and Juvenal. He composed eight-and-twenty regular operas, without reckoning a number of short pieces and entertainments, containing both airs and recitatives, like his greater operas, and often animated with theatrical action. His subjects are taken indifferently from mythology and history ; and deal not only with antiquity, but, in one instance, with the mid dle ages, in the romantic and chivalrous piece of Rogero. This grand variety of ages, and countries, and manners, not only gives much scope for theatrical decoration in the representation of his pieces, but prompts the reader's imagination, even without witnessing their exhibition, to form rich and numerous conceptions of scenery and spectacle, and furnishes the poet's own fancy with a wealth of local imagery. With all this wide field of subjects, however, Metastasio is far from exhibiting a fertile diversity of human characters, interests, and pas sions ; nor has he even attempted to be a great painter of nature and history. The cause of this deficiency may have partly lain in the frame of his genius, and partly in the nature of the opera, to which the temperament of his genius, by long habit, conformed itself. His soul, as a poet, was, no doubt, fraught with impassioned feelings, and with high forms and conceptions of the sublime and beautiful ; but he had not, perhaps, from nature, a pro found or daring character of thought ; or, at all events, if he had it, he could not exercise it in the soft, voluptuous, and abstracted reveries of the opera. He devoted him self to the musical drama with an exquisite feeling of music ; and, where poetry is incorporated with music, however enchanting their united effect may be, some thing of the independent and excursive vigour of the latter will necessarily be sacrificed. The enchantment which we experience from hearing some noble war-song, or affecting strain of tender passion, powerfully sung, may seem for a moment to throw a doubt upon this truth. We are apt to feel, in such instances, that poetry and music are natural, and ought to be inseparable allies. And we are right in thus appreciating the magic reci procity which is here exchanged between the two sister arts, when it extends no farther than to a simple burst of ft ding, or the recitation of a short and simple story ; for music can express passion, and powerfully aid the verbal expression of passion. But when poetry extends to the unfolding of complicated situations, to dialogue, and diversified descriptions of life, it leaves the expres sive powers of music behind it ; and if it accommodates itself to musical expression, it must lose by the accom modation. Music cannot paint manners, but would de
generate to burlesque and mimicry, if it attempted to do so. The opera poet, therefore, whose aim is to give his poetry that mould alone to which musical expression can cling, and that beauty alone which music can heighten and adorn, though he may bring the passions into play, and though he may be rich, ideal, and per suasive, cannot carry into imitation that boldness and truth, which make the drama " hold up, as it were, a mir ror to nature." Metastasio, the finest genius who ever attempted the musical drama, illustrates this theory in his whole thea tre. His characters are all general and abstracted re presentations of human nature. They have individual names, but not individual natures; they burn with pas sion ; they are exalted by virtue or debased by vice; but are monotonously good or bad, without the particular and minute traits which make the pictures of human beings illusive semblanccs of reality. The hero of one age and country is exactly the same with the hero of another. They are virtues and vices personified, and in the extreme ; they are defective in physiognomy. Yet, if we weigh Metastasio, not by his generic but specific worth in the drama, as a writer of operas, and not of tra gedies, we shall find room for almost unqualified admi ration. llis operas are, on the whole, in so far exquisite dramas, that the story which they tell is managed with classical and skilful arrangement ; their plots are striking, interesting, and well adjusted ; the story is irresistibly captivating, fraught with grandeur and fire, as well as tenderness of passion. Love, loyalty, and patriotism, are eloquently expressed ; and the harmony and diction, both of air and recitative, are supported with exquisite power and simplicity. His language is so perspicuous as to be almost as intelligible to foreigners as prose itself. his nine dramas the most esteemed, are those which he com posed during the ten first years of his residence at Vienna. issipile, Olimpiade, Dernophoonte, Ladle menza di Tito, Achille in Teiro, Semirami de Riconos ciuto, Temistocle, Zenobia, and Regolo. In our own opinion, the tenderness and luxuriance of feeling in De inetrio is equal to any thing in his works, and almost un rivalled in the drama. The third scene of the third act of Demetrio is peculiarly touching, where Cleonice, the princess of Egypt, who had been induced, by a false sense of honour, to give up her lover Alcestcs, when re pentance seizes her, when she finds herself unable to support a longer struggle against affection, and over takes Alcestes on the sea-shore, in the moment of his embarkation. The eloquence of love was never more romantic and beautiful, than in her speech in that scene which begins Metastasio is eminently the poet of love, and, in gene ral, very happy in delineating noble and amiable senti ments. It is astonishing how much naive, and simple feeling, and natural language, he has thrown into the most artificial department of the drama ; with how little constraint he moves in lyrical poetry, and with what art less, unaffected language, he unites the richest orna ments of imagination. In the opera, he is a poet with out models, and without rivals. (72)