have most effect. Thereafter the King, in the play, ratified, approved, and confirmed all that was rehersed." The other nations of Europe, as well as England, had their Mysteries and Moralities. In France, Boileau, following Menestrier, imputes the introduction of these spectacles to travelling bands of pilgrims. Chez nos devots ayeux, le théâtre abhorré Fut long-temps dan la France un plaisir ignoré: Et sottement zélée, en sa simplicité Joua les saints, la Vierge, et Dieu par pieté. L'Art Poëtique, Chant iii. In Spain the Autos Sacramentales, which are analogous to the Mysteries of the middle ages, are still presented without shocking a nation whose zeal is stronger than their taste; and, it is believed, such rude and wild plays, founded on Scripture, are also occasionally acted in Flanders. In the History of the Council of Constance, we find that Mysteries were introduced into Germany by the English, about 1417, and were first performed to welcome the Emperor Sigismund, on his return from England; and, from the choice of the subjects, we should almost suppose, that they had transferred to that country the Chester Mysteries themselves. "Les Anglois," says the historian, "se signalèrent entre les autres par un spectacle nouveau, ou au moins inusité jusques alors en Allemagne. Ce fut une comédie sacrée que les Evêques Anglois firent représenter, devant l'Empereur, le Dimanche 13 de Janvier, sur la Massacre des Innocens.” (Hist. du Concile de Constance, par L'Enfant, lib. v.) The character of these rude dramatic essays renders them rather subjects for the antiquary, than a part of a history of the regular dramatic art. We may also pass over, with brief notice, the Latin plays which, upon the revival of letters, many of the learned composed, in express imitation of the ancient Grecian and Roman productions. We have mentioned those of Mussato, who was followed by the more celebrated Cararo, in the path which he had opened to fame. In other countries the same example was followed. These learned prolusions, however, were only addressed to persons of letters, then a very circumscribed circle, and, when acted at all, were presented at universities or courts on solemn public occasions. They form no step in the history of the Drama, unless that, by familiarising the learned with the form and rules of the ancient classical Drama, they gradually paved the way for the adoption of similar regulations into the revived vernacular Drama, which, adopted by Italy and France, and rejected by Britain, Spain, and other countries, has formed a frequent subject of debate amongst dramatic critics. While the learned laboured to revive the Classical Drama in all its purity, the public at large, to which the treasures of the learned languages were as a fountain sealed, became addicted to a species of representation which properly neither fell under the denomination of comedy or tragedy, but was named History or Historical Drama. Charles Verardo, who, about 1492, composed a Drama of this sort, in Latin, upon the expulsion of the Moors from Gra nada, claims, for this production, a total emancipation from the rules of dramatic criticism. Requirat autem nullus hic comedia "Let none expect that in this piece the rules of comedy or of tragedy should be observed; we mean to act a history, not a fable." From this expression it would seem, that, in a Historical Drama, the author did not think himself entitled to compress or alter the incidents as when the plot was fabulous, but was bound, to a certain extent, to conform to the actual course of events. In these histories, the subject often comprehended the life and death of a monarch, or some other period of history, containing several years of actual time, which, nevertheless, were made to pass before the eyes of the audience during the two or three hours usually allotted for the action of a play. It is not to be supposed that, with so fair a field open before them, and the applause of the audience for their reward, the authors of these histories should long have confined themselves to the matter-of-fact contained in records. They speedily innovated or added to their dramatic chronicles, without regard to the real history. To those who plead for stage-plays, that they elucidate and explain many dark and obscure histories, and fix the facts firmly in the minds of the audience, of which they had otherwise but an imperfect apprehension, the stern Prynne replies with great scorn, "that play-poets do not explain but sophisticate and deform good histories, with many false varnishes and playhouse fooleries ;" and that "the his tories are more accurately to be learned in the original authors who record them, than in derivative playhouse pamphlets, which corrupt them.” Prynne's Histrio-Mastix, p. 940. The dramatic chronicles, therefore, were a field in which the genius of the poet laboured to supply by character, sentiment, and incident, the meagre detail of the historian. They became so popular in England, that, during the short interval betwixt the revival of the stage and the appearance of Shakspeare, the most part of the English monarchs had lived and died upon the stage; and it is wellknown, that almost all his historical plays were new written by him, upon the plan of old dramatic chronicles which already existed. But the miscellaneous audience which crowded to the vernacular theatre at its revival in Europe, were of that rank and intellect which is apt to become tired of a serious subject, and to demand that a lamentable tragedy should be intermingled with very pleasant mirth. The poets, obliged to cater for all tastes, seldom failed to insert the humours of some comic character, that the low or grotesque scenes in which he was engaged, might serve as a relief to the graver passages of the Drama, and gratify the taste of those spectators who, like Christophero Sly, tired until the fool came on the stage again. Hence Sir Philip Sidney's censure on these dramatists, "how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings with clowns; not because the matter so carrieth it, but to thrust in the clown, by head and shoulders, to play a part in magestical matters, with neither decency nor dis cretion, so that neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragic-comedy attained." (Defence of Poesie, Sidney's Arcadia, edit. 1627, p. 563.) "If we mark them well," he concludes, " funerals and hornpipes seldom match daintily together." The historical plays led naturally into another class, which may be called Romantic Dramas, founded upon popular poems or fictitious narratives, as the former were on real history. Some of these were borrowed from foreign nations, ready dramatised to the hand of the borrower; others were founded on the plots which occurred in the almost innumerable novels and romances which we had made our own by translation. "I may boldly say it," says Gosson, a recreant play-wright who attacked his former profession, "because I have seen it, that the Palace of Pleasure, the Golden Asse, the Ethiopian History, Amadis of France, the Round Table, Bawdie Comedies in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, have been thoroughly ransacked to furnish the playhouse in London." But it was not to be supposed that the authors would confine themselves to stricter rules in pieces founded upon Italian and Spanish novels, or upon romances of chivalry, than they had acted upon in the histories. Every circumstance which tended to loosen the reins of theatrical discipline, in the one case, existed in the other; and, accordingly, comedies of intrigue, and tragedies of action and show, everywhere superseded, at least in popular estimation, the severe and simple model of the Classical Drama. |