in very recent times. Scruples of conscience respecting the lawfulness of theatrical amusements in general have long been peculiar to the Gallican Church; and they are not creditable to a body which struggled so manfully for its independence. The arms of the rude barbarians of the north were more successful than the declamations of the fathers. They invaded, laid waste, and ruined the western empire, and effectually silenced the poet and the player. It is to be regretted that the Christians, who adopted almost every other institution of the Pagans, and applied them to their own purposes, did not extend their patronage to the Drama. One Ezechiel has written a play on a subject of Jewish history in Greek, under the title 'Eaywy, by which name he designates what we usually term the Exodus, the escape of the Israelites from Egypt under Moses. Some suppose that Ezechiel was a Christian of the second century; but the better opinion seems to be, that he was a Jew, and flourished about 40 years before Christ. It would thus appear that Tragedy had penetrated even into Palestine. Clement of Alexandria, and Eusebius, have preserved large fragments of the Exagoge, which are collected amongst the "Poetæ Christiani Græci.” All that can be said, however, in favour of the tragedy is, that it is not very bad for a Jew. This work proves that the holy fathers might have treated the theatre with more lenity. The Christian Emperors unfortunately assumed also a spirit of intolerance and fanaticism. We find many of their constitutions directed against the players: perhaps these monarchs sometimes felt that they were themselves fit subjects for the stage, and had a secret consciousness that the Comic Muse, unless restrained by fear, might make much mirth at the expense of the sacred and august family. The most inveterate enemies of laughter are always those who are aware that they deserve to be laughed at. Notwithstanding the Emperors and the invaders, and notwithstanding the angry censures of the Church, we read that, even in the worst times, rude songs, dances, and imitations still subsisted, and served to divert the gross minds of the ignorant on public festivals and at private feasts. In the 11th and 12th centuries, dramatic representations began to revive, under the ancient Etruscan name, but somewhat disguised; they were called "Strioni" and "Giuochi Strionali." The ecclesiastics performed them in the churches, as if they desired to acknowledge their errors, and to make reparation and honourable amends for their predecessors, who had done their utmost to prevent imitations which are natural and agreeable to man as if they sought publicly and officially to proclaim their belief, that there is en eternal and indissoluble connection between Religion and the Drama. These representations were still more frequent in the 13th century. In the celebrated code of laws of Alonso the Wise, call the Seven Partidas, is a curious passage, which shows, that in this century dramatic representations were common in Spain. Clerks and other men are forbidden to act certain plays in religious habits; and it enacts, that whosoever puts on the dresses of monks, or nuns, for that purpose, shall be publicly whipped out of the town, or place, where the offence is committed: "Los Clerigos e los otros omes non deven fazer juegos de escarnio con habito de religion-qualquier que vestiere habitos de monges, o de monja, o de religioso, para fazer escarniose juegos con ellos, deve ser echado de aquella villa o de aquel logar donde lo fiziere a açotes."-Tit. 6. ley 36. part. 1. It is not plain whether the legislator forbade the profanation of applying sacred garments to secular uses, or the practice of making sport of monks or nuns. If the offence was the former, the like scandal has existed in modern times. A very serious character was much displeased, some years since, that in one of the colleges at Cambridge, the surplices, which the scholars wear at chapel, had been used by the young men in acting a play. There is no new thing under the sun! The Church, having assisted in destroying the theatre, after a considerable lapse of time restored it again. It has been asserted by some writers, that the Drama was invented anew in the middle ages, because the works of the ancient dramatists were not in general circulation when the spiritual pieces, called Moralities, or Mysteries, were first performed; but the ecclesiastics who composed them were acquainted with some of the ancient dramatic pieces, if not of the Greeks, at least of the Romans,-if not the best, at least the worst models. The old chronicles are full of instances of scriptural and allegorical dramas, performed by sacred persons, in sacred places, and at sacred times, which we will forbear to cite. At certain periods, persons of all ranks seem to have vied with each other in eagerness to produce dramatic compositions, and there was less restraint upon the subject amongst Christians, than there had been formerly amongst the heathen; for even at Athens, as Plutarch informs us, in his treatise on the glory of the Athenians, a judge of the court of Areopagus was forbidden by law to write comedies. We have not, as yet, found it necessary to restrain, by a statute, the facetiousness of our judges. If it were desirable to legislate on the subject, a bill to explain and amend the jokes of many members of the legal profession would be more useful. All religious persons, from the bishop down to the chorister, were equally prone to assist, according to their different gifts, the cultivation of the Drama, and to promote theatricals on all occasions: nor were our countrymen backward in running the race; on the contrary, they were long famous for their addiction to the stage, and their success and skill in every department of the theatre. Many authors give the English bishops the credit of having first introduced dramatic representations into Germany. L'Enfant, in his excellent history of the Council of Constance, informs us, that these prelates honoured the arrival of the Emperor Sigismund in that city, in order to assist at the Council, by the performance of a sacred comedy, relating to the earliest history of the Saviour, which was, moreover, acted on a Sunday. "Tout le monde s'empressa dans cette occasion a lui donner des témoignages publics de son zéle et de sa gratitude. Les Anglois se signalèrent entre les autres par un spectacle nouveau, ou au moins inusité jusqu'alors en Allemagne. Ce fut une comédie sacrée, que les evêques Anglois firent représenter devant l'Empereur le Dimanche 31 de Janvier, 1417, sur la naissance du Sauveur, sur l'arrivée des Mages, et sur le Massacre des Innocens. Ils avoient déjà fait représenter la même pièce quelques jours auparavant, en présence des magistrats de Constance et de quantité de personnes de distinction, afin que les acteurs fussent mieux en état de faire bien leur rôle devant l'Empereur." Similiar performances were frequent until the Reformation, when the theatre was applied, and probably with great effect, to a very different purpose. Many comedies were invented at that time, and patronised by the government, of which the object was to ridicule friars and pardoners: but they had their revenge; for the Puritans, whom the reformation raised up, carried their dislike of Popery so far, that, mistaking the green curtain for a rag, as well as the royal purple, they abolished both the kingly government and the playhouse. The scriptural Drama was destroyed by the Reformation; the allegorical survived, and the scholastic; the latter kind continued to be frequently performed at the universities and other places of education. The most celebrated work in this line was the well-known comedy written in Latin by Ruggles,-which the University of Cambridge "acted before the Majesty of King James," our most pedantic king,—the Ignoramus, which gave so much offence to the common lawyers, because they richly merited the satire it conveyed, and felt the truth of the harsh but just remark of the English translator, who says in his preface," If the Latin tongue were ever the language of the beast, it is in the mouth of these persons." "Sive decennali facundus lite patronus Detonat inculto barbara verba foro," 66 says Milton, on the same subject, and thus sums up the whole sin of the lawyers of those days. Their words were certainly barbarous; but so long as they confined themselves to the Latin, they avoided the horrible prolixity of style in which they have since indulged. As to the style in which the theatrical representations were got up in England formerly, it is not easy to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. We read one while of "the plain and incurious judgment of our ancestors being prepared with favour, and taking every thing by the right and easiest handle; " and that they were willing to take things in the best sense;" at another, that Lewin and Allin, Taylor and Pollard, who lived before the troubles, were as much superior to Hart, Mohun, Lacy, Clun, and Shatterel, as they were to those who followed them; and it is urged, that "it is an argument of the worth of the plays and actors of a former age, and easily inferred, that they were much beyond ours, in this, to consider, that they could support themselves merely from their own merit, and the weight of the matter and goodness of the action, without scenes and machines; whereas the present plays, with all that show, can hardly draw an audience." It is probable that the imagination of the spectator could without difficulty dispense with scenes, particularly if the surrounding objects were somewhat removed from the ordinary aspect of every-day things, if the performance were to take place, for example, in the hall of a college, or in a church. The costume that prevails at present almost universally is so barbarous and mean, and it changes in so many minute particulars so frequently, that it is impossible to conceive the hero of a tragedy actually wearing such attire. A more picturesque dress seems therefore to be indispensable; but the essentials of the costume of any time, from which dramatic subjects could be taken, are by no means costly. All that is absolutely necessary in vestments to content the fancy, might be procured at a trifling expense, and the hero or heroine might be supplied with the ordinary apparel of Greece, or Rome, or of any other country, at a small price: we must carefully distinguish, however, between the necessaries and the luxuries of deception; the form, and sometimes the colour, demand a scrupulous accuracy: the texture is always unimportant. We may comprehend, therefore, how the old English theatre, notwithstanding the small outlay on decorations, by a strict attention to essentials, possessed considerable attractions; we may readily believe that there were many companies who were maintained by their trade; "that all those companies got money and lived in reputation, especially those of the Blackfriars, who were men of grave and sober behaviour." Our literature is remarkably rich in old dramas; but they are of little use to the present age. Fastidiousness and hypocrisy have grown, for many years, slowly but surely, and have at last arrived at such a pitch, that there is hardly a line in the works of our old comic writers which is not reprobated as immoral, or at least vulgar. The excessive squeamishness of taste of the present day is very unfavourable to the genius of comedy, which demands a certain liberty and a freedom from restraints. This morbid delicacy is a great evil, for it renders the time of limitation in all comic writings exceedingly short. The ephemeral duration of the fashion, which is all the production of a man of wit can now enjoy, discourages authors. There is no motive to bestow much care on such compositions, and they fall below the ambition of men of real talents-for the best part of the reward of literary labour consists in the lasting admiration of posterity; and as some new fastidiousness will consign to oblivion, in a short time, every comic production, it is plain that such a reward cannot be reasonably anticipated. We are more completely, than any other nation, the victims of fashion. Every thing here must either be in the last and newest fashion, or it must cease to be. The despotism of fashion, in furniture, and in the pattern of the edges of plate, is perhaps inconvenientit is, however, not very important; but it is a cruel grievance that it should interfere with and annihilate an entire department of our literature. It is no easy matter, unfortunately, to resist this land-flood; it is possible to submit to be antiquated in taste, but it is impossible to agree to be considered vulgar, or perhaps even immoral. Restraints are multiplied daily; and they diminish the extent of the empire of comedy; and whenever restraint becomes perfect and absolute, then comedy ceases. Where is the comic theatre of the Quakers? Into that respectable society, in which every action, work, look, and thought, are exactly regulated by rigid and unbending rules, the light jest can never enter. The comic has been defined as a deviation from decorum, without pain; but where the habits have been formed by the severe laws of the modern Draco, the mild Penn-where all departures from the order are of prodigiously great, if not of equal importance, there can be no deviation without pain. One plait more or less, in the border of a cap, the slaty hue of the garment one shade too light or too dark, will cause a groan as deep and loud as the murder of a parent. Yet no one of these offences would be punished with death by a quiet Quaker legislator-or esteemed a proper subject for comedy, which would be considered as unwarrantable as an execution. No great offender would appear on the scaffold, no small delinquent on the stage but both criminals would be sentenced to undergo a punishment precisely the same in kind, and differing only in duration-the unsocial infliction of hard labour, solitude, hunger, and prayers in some drab-coloured penitentiary. Since these very uncomfortable modes of augmenting the sum of human happiness have been prevalent, and the puritanical practice of enforcing decency, not by laughter, but by frowns, has been in the ascendant, the Comic Muse has seen but bad days. In old times she was more fortunate in England, as well as her Tragic sister. : If our own country be entitled to the first place, we must assign the next to Spain, in dramatic excellence and we will offer, therefore, a very few observations on the Spanish Drama. It was in the sixteenth century that this theatre reached its greatest excellence. It is said that the works of much earlier writers are extant; but there are no means in Great Britain of seeing them, or forming an estimate of their merits. Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca, Moreto, Tellez, Roxas, and Solis, are the authors of the most esteemed dramas; there are several other writers of less renown, but of great worth. The grand and distinguishing characteristic of the Spanish theatre is a wonderful fertility and variety of invention. It is most probable that the inventive turn of this nation was of Eastern origin; for the East was the native country of marvellous inventions. The Arabians and Persians are possessed of a rich and poetical literature, but they have no drama. Is it because their religion forbids creative imitation? They will not make statues, or pictures of animals, because they fear that at the day of judgment they will be compelled to find souls for all the forms they have made. Are they afraid, therefore, that they will be obliged to supply all the characters they may invent with souls out of their own, or have they other objections? In India, the Drama once flourished; the Sacontalà has been called delightful by those who have read it in the original Sanscrit. It is not fair to judge from the translation of Sir William Jones; for he could render tame the wildest genius, and possessed the power of making insipid whatever he touched. In times of oppression and barbarism, as we choose to call them, this and other plays were represented; but in the present days, India being free and happy, as all who are interested in making the assertion loudly proclaim, we do not hear that the natives enjoy the theatre or any other diversion. The Chinese have always had a theatre; and it has been conjectured, that in the establishment of arbitrary rules, and the delicate observance of insignificant points of decorum, they most probably leave even the very correct French very far behind them. But to return to Spain -we are inclined to believe that the Spaniards learned of the Moors their chivalric nobleness of sentiment; at least we find many traces of it in the histories of the Mahometans; and the people of the North were certainly as incapable of teaching it, or any civility or refinement, as a herd of swine. The Spanish theatre is remarkable for a high tone of morality; and, as in the Greek Drama, there is a wonderful force and warmth of domestic affection. In the whole of their poetry, indeed, we meet continually great beauty, and great quaintness; or at least what appears so, to a people of a different temperament. We seem accordingly to perceive something of this also in the writings of the Greeks, and we occasionally even find in the sentiments and expressions, which seem in these days whimsical, if not actually ridiculous. There is, moreover, something fantastic in the high and intensely honourable feelings of the magnanimous personages who take part in the action,-something, at all events, not quite comprehensible to men who live and toil in a busy mercantile age. As to the style, the language of the Spanish Drama, in the classical writers, is mere nectar. This glorious idiom, the fairest and favourite daughter of the Latin, like another Venus, is constantly attended by the Graces, and is most alluring when her native charms are least concealed by extrinsic ornaments. Their dramatists have sometimes a good store of quirks and quibbles, but fewer than our own Shakspeare; these are the faults of the times, and may truly be called spots in the sun. The great fertility of the principal Spanish dramatists, as well as many other peculiarities, have been made known so universally by Lord Holland's agreeable and instructive biographical works, that it is quite unnecessary to repeat a tale that has been already so well told. The illustrious name of Cervantes stands at the head of the list of writers; but we have two only of his pieces, and they are not highly prized. It |