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It is to be found in the 'Semiramis' of Voltaire, in the 'Merope' of Alfieri, in the 'Ion' of Euripides, and again and again in Victor Hugo's dramas.
Merope, the widowed queen of the murdered Heraclid Cresphontes, has saved her youngest son from the murderer and usurper, Polyphontes, and sent him out of the country. When he has grown up, and has secretly returned to Messenia to take vengeance, Polyphontes is pressing Merope to let bygones be bygones and marry him, so as to reconcile the jarring parties in the State.
After dining at a Restaurateur's, who gave us a most excellent dinner, wine, &c., for about 3s. a head, we went to the Théâtre Français, or the Drury Lane of Paris. We expected to see Talma in Mérope, but his part was taken by one who is equally famous, Dufour, and the female part by Mme. Roncour. She was intolerable, though apparently a great favourite; he tolerable, and that is all I can say.
The tragedy of Meropè, and particularly the part of the son Egistus, was butchered in a very superior style; the Marquise turned to my sister, and said to her, "Oh how touching! how does it happen that it does not make you cry? But you shall see me cry in a minute; I shall just think of my poor son whom Napoleon took for the conscription."
It was Mme. du Châtelet who encouraged him, sympathized with him, and appreciated his mobile humor as well as his talent. During these years, while he was under the influence of madame, appeared Mérope, Alzire, the Siècle de Louis XIV, etc. Mme. du Châtelet was the one great femme savante of that century.
Æpytus, the son, to facilitate his reception, represents himself as a messenger charged to bring the news of his own death; and Merope, hearing this and believing the messenger to be also the assassin, obtains access to the chamber where he is resting after his journey, and is about to murder her own sleeping son when he is saved by the inevitable anagnorisis.
Here are Alexander the Great and Zaire, and Pyrrhus and Merope, Mahomet, Harlequin, Pierrot, Scapin, Blaise and Babette. They have come from all parts, from Greece and Rome and the lands of Faëry, to dance together. What a fine thing a fancy ball is, and how delicious to be a great King for an hour or a famous Princess! There is nothing to spoil the pleasure.
This you will all say would be insupportable. Do but consider the famous Merope in the tragedy, who taking up a hatchet, and lifting it at her son's head, whom she took for her son's murderer, speaks thus as she was ready to give the fatal blow,
... from a mind that so loved the Pleiades she made their loveliness and joy her own... Alcyone, Merope, Maia... It dipped away into silence like a flower closing for the night, and the train, he realised, was slackening speed as it drew into the hideous Gare de Lyon.
But Martelli was only a tame imitator of French models, while Maffei, possessing real talent and feeling, deserved the extended reputation he acquired. His "Merope" is considered as the last and the best specimen of the elder school of Italian tragedy.
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