occasions for such a worship; the worshippers often wore goatskins to counterfeit the Satyrs, and so gave tragedy its name. Grouped about rude altars, in a rude chorus, they told the story of the god's wanderings and adventures, not with words only, but with gesture, dance, and music. The expression of thought and feeling was free from self-consciousness, and was like a mirror of the emotions of the worshipper. This ballad-dance, which Mr. Moulton describes as a kind of literary protoplasm because several literary forms were implicit in it and were later developed out of it, was a free, spontaneous, natural act of worship; it was also a genuine drama, which unfolded by easy gradations into a noble literary form. The frequent repetition of the story threw its dramatic element into more striking relief: the narrative gradually detached itself from the choral parts and fell to individual singers; these singers separated themselves from the chorus and gave their parts increasing dramatic quality and distinctness; until, by a process of rude and almost unconscious evolution, the story was acted instead of narrated, and the dramatic poet, when he arrived, found all the materials for a complete drama ready to his hand. It is sober history, therefore, and not figurative speech, that the drama was born at the foot of the altar.

And more than eighteen hundred years later the drama was born again at the foot of the altar. Whatever invisible streams of tradition may have flowed from the days of a declining theatre at Rome through the confused and largely recordless life of the early Middle Ages, it may

safely be assumed that the modern drama began, as the ancient drama had begun, in the development of worship along dramatic lines. In the history of fairy tales and folk-lore, the explanation of striking similarities between the old and the new is to be sought, probably, in the laws of the mind rather than in the direct transmission of forms or materials. When spiritual and intellectual conditions are repeated, the action or expression of the mind affected by them is likely to be repeated. In every age men of a certain temperament dramatize their own experience whenever they essay to describe it, and dramatize whatever material comes to their hand for the purpose of entertaining others. The instinct which prompts men of this temper to make a story of every happening by selecting the most striking incidents, rearranging them, and heightening the effect by skilful grouping, has made some kind of drama inevitable in every age. When the influence of Menander, modified and adapted to Roman taste by Terence, Plautus, and their successors, was exhausted, farces, with music, pantomime, and humorous dialogue, largely improvised, met the general need with the coarse fun which suited a time of declining taste and decaying culture. The indecency and vulgarity of these purely popular shows became more pronounced as the Roman populace sank in intelligence and virtue; the vigour which redeemed in part their early license gave place to the grossest personalities and the cheapest tricks and feats of skill.

The mimes, or players, carried this degenerate

drama into the provinces, where taste was even less exacting than in Rome, and the half-heathen world was entertained by cheap imitations of the worst amusements of the Capital. At a still later date, in market-places, on village greens, in castle yards, and even at Courts, strolling players recited, postured, sang, danced, played musical instruments, and broke up the monotony of life at a time when means of communication were few, slow, and expensive. It is difficult for modern men to realize in imagination the isolation of small communities and of great castles in the Middle Ages. The strolling player was welcome, not only because he was entertaining, but because he brought the air of the remote world with him.

The vulgarity and indecency of shows of such an origin, everywhere adapting themselves to popular taste at a time when popular taste was coarse to the last degree, were inevitable. Then, as now, society had the kind of entertainment for which it asked; then, as now, the players were bent on pleasing the people. The Church, having other ends in view, tried to purify the general taste by purifying the amusements of the people, and in the fifth century the players of various kinds — mimes, histriones, joculatores were put under formal ecclesiastical condemnation. The Church not only condemned the players; she excluded them from her sacraments.

The players continued to perform in the face of ecclesiastical disapproval, and they found audiences; for the dramatic instinct lies deep in men, and the only way to shut out vulgar and indecent plays is to

replace them by plays of a better quality. The play persists, and cannot be successfully banned. This degenerate practice of a once noble art came into England after the Norman Conquest, and the players became, not only the entertainers of the people, but the story-tellers and reporters of the period. They made the monotony of life more bearable.

How much indirect influence this humble and turbid stream of dramatic activity may have had on the development of the English drama cannot be determined; the chief influence in the making of that drama came from the Church. The Church condemned the manifestation of the dramatic instinct, but it did not fall into the later error of condemning the instinct itself; on the contrary, it was quick to recognize and utilize that instinct. It had long appealed to the dramatic instinct in its worshippers; for the Mass is a dramatization of certain fundamental ideas generally held throughout Christendom for many centuries. From the sixth century the Mass was the supreme act of worship throughout western Europe. "In the wide dimensions which in course of time the Mass assumed," says Hagenbach, "there lies a grand, we are almost inclined to say an artistic, idea. A dramatic progression is perceptible in all the symbolic processes, from the appearance of the celebrant priest at the altar and the confession of sins, to the Kyrie Eleison, and from this to the grand doxology, after which the priest turns with the Dominus vobiscum to the congregation, calling upon it to pray. Next, we listen to the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel.

Between the two actions or acts intervenes the Graduale (a chant), during which the deacon ascends the lectorium. With the Halleluia concludes the first act; and then ensues the Mass in a more special sense, which begins with the recitation of the Creed. Then again a Dominus vobiscum and a prayer, followed by the offertory and, accompanied by the further ceremonies, the Consecration. The change of substance- the mystery of mysteries- takes place amid the adoration of the congregation and the prayer for the quick and the dead; then, after the touching chant of the Agnus Dei, ensues the Communion itself, which is succeeded by prayer and thanksgiving, the salutation of peace, and the benediction."

In the impressive and beautiful liturgy of the Mass the dramatization of the central mystery of the Christian faith was effected by action, by pantomime, and by music. There was no purpose to be dramatic; there was a natural evolution of the instinct to set forth a truth too great and mysterious to be contained in words by symbols, which are not only more inclusive than words but which satisfy the imagination, and by action.

The Church did not stop with a dramatic presentation of the sublimest of dramatic episodes, the vicarious death of Christ; it went further and set forth the fact and the truth of certain striking and significant scenes in the New Testament. As early as the fifth century these scenes were reproduced in the churches in living pictures, with music. In this manner the people not only heard the story of the Adoration of