which custom still enjoined as a necessary and in- | which were passing upon the stage, was a most imdispensable branch of the entertainment. They portant improvement upon the earlier Drama. By were no longer a body of vocal musicians, whose strains were as independent of what was spoken by the personages of the Drama, as those of our modern orchestra when performing betwixt the acts; the Chorus assumed from this time a different and complicated character, which, as we have already hinted, forms a marked peculiarity in the Grecian Drama, distinguishing it from the theatrical compositions of modern Europe.

The Chorus, according to this new model, was composed of a certain set of persons, priests, captive virgins, matrons, or others, usually of a solemn and sacred character, the contemporaries of the heroes who appeared on the stage, who remained upon the scene to celebrate in hymns set to music the events which had befallen the active persons of the Drama; to afford them alternately their advice or their sympathy; and, at least, to moralize in lyrical poetry, on the feelings to which their history and adventures, their passions and sufferings, gave rise. The Chorus might be considered as, in some degree, the representatives of the audience, or rather of the public, on whose great stage those events happen in reality, which are presented in the mimicry of the Drama. In the strains of the Chorus, the actual audience had those feelings suggested to them as if by reflection in a mirror, which the events of the scene ought to produce in their own bosom; they had at once before them the action of the piece, and the effect of that action upon a chosen band of persons, who, like themselves, were passive spectators, whose dignified strains pointed out the moral reflections to which the subject naturally gave rise. The Chorus were led or directed by a single person of their number, termed the Coryphæus, who frequently spoke or sung alone. They were occasionally divided into two bands, who addressed and replied to each other. But they always preserved the character proper to them, of spectators, rather than agents in the Drama.

this means, the two unconnected branches of the old Bacchanalian revels were combined together; and we ought rather to be surprised that Eschylus ventured, while accomplishing such a union, to render the hymns sung by the Chorus subordinate to the action or dialogue, than that he did not take the bolder measure of altogether discarding that which, before his time, was reckoned the principal object of a religious entertainment.

The new theatre and stage of Athens was reared, as we have seen, under the inspection of Eschylus. He also introduced dresses in character for his principal actors, to which were added embellishments of a kind which mark the wide distinction betwixt the ancient and modern stage. The personal disguise which had formerly been attained by staining the actor's face, was now, by what doubtless was considered as a high exertion of ingenuity, accomplished by the use of a mask, so painted as to represent the personage whom he represented. To augment the apparent awkwardness of this contrivance, the mouths of these masks were frequently fashioned like the extremity of a trumpet, which, if it aided the actor's voice to reach the extremity of the huge circuit to which he addressed himself, must still have made a ridiculous appearance upon the stage, had not the habits and expectations of the spectators been in a different tone from those of a modern audience. The use of the cothurnus or buskin, which was contrived so as to give to the performer additional and unnatural stature, would have fallen under the same censure. But the ancient and modern theatres may be said to resemble each other only in name, as will appear from the following account of the Grecian stage, abridged from the best antiquaries.

The theatres of the Greeks were immensely large in comparison to ours; and the audience sat upon rows of benches, rising above each other in due gradation. In form they resembled a horse-shoe. The stage occupied a platform, which closed in the flat end of the building, and was raised so high as to be on a level with the lowest row of benches. The central part of the theatre, or what we call the pit, instead of being filled with spectators, according to modern custom, was left for the occasional ocenpation of the Chorus, during those parts of their duty which did not require them to be nearer to the stage. This place was called the ORCHESTRA, and corresponded in some measure with the open space which, in the modern equestrian amphitheatres, is the display of feats of horsemanship. The delusion of the scene being thus removed to a considerable distance from the eye of the spectator, was heightened, and many of the objections offered to the use of the mask and the buskin were lessened, or totally removed. When the Chorus did not occupy the orchestra, they ranged themselves beside the THYMELE, a sort of altar, surrounded with steps, placed in front of their stage Orchestra. From this, as a post of observation, they watched the progress of the Drama, and to this point the actors turned themselves when addressing them. The solemn hymns and mystic dances of the Chorus, performed during their retreat into the orchestra, formed a sort of interludes, or interruptions of the action, similar in effect to the modern division into acts. But, properly speaking, there was no interruption of the represent

The number of the Chorus varied at different periods, often extending to fifty persons, and sometimes restricted to half that number; and it is evident that the presence of so many persons on the scene officiating as no part of the dramatis persona, but rather as contemporary spectators, involved many inconveniences and inconsistencies. That which the hero, however agitated by passion, must naturally have suppressed within his own breast, or uttered in soliloquy, was thus necessarily committed to the confidence of fifty people, less or more. And when a deed of violence was to be acted, the help-interposed betwixt the audience and the stage, for less Chorus, instead of interfering to prevent the atrocity to which the perpetrator had made them privy, could only, by the rules of the theatre, exhaust their sorrow and surprise in dithyrambics. This was well ridiculed by Bentley, in his farce called The Wishes, in one part of which strange performance he introduced a Chorus after the manner of the ancient Greeks, who are informed by one of the dramatis persona, that a madman with a firebrand has just entered the vaults beneath the place which they occupy, and which contain a magazine of gunpowder. The Chorus, instead of stirring from the dangerous vicinity, immediately commence a long complaint of the hardship of their fate, exclaiming pathetically, "O, unhappy madman -or rather unhappy we, the victims of this madman's fury-or thrice, thrice unhappy the friends of the madman, who did not secure him, and restraination from beginning to end. The piece was not, him from the perpetration of such deeds of frenzy or three and four times hapless the keeper of the magazine, who forgot the keys of the door," &c. &c. &c.*

indeed, constantly progressive, but the illusion of the scene was always before the audience, either by means of the actors themselves, or of the Chorus. And the musical recitation and character of the The real Choruses of the ancients, of whose apa- dances traced by the Chorus in their interludes, thy and passive observation of the enormities which were always in correspondence with the character pass on the stage, the above is a caricature, afford of the piece, grave, majestic, and melancholy; in some instances not much less ridiculous. But still tragedy, gay and lively; in comedy, and during the the union which Eschylus accomplished betwixt representation of satirical pieces, wild, extravagant, the didactic hymns of the Chorus, and the events and bordering on buffoonery. The number of these *The author never read The Wishes, and quotes from the in-interludes, or interruptions of the action, seems to have varied from three to six, or even more, at the

formation of a friend.

46

ESSAY ON THE DRAMA.

pleasure of the author. The music was simple and with a fine of a thousand drachmæ, because, in a
inartificial, although it seems to have produced comedy founded upon the siege of Miletos, he had
powerful effects on the audience. Two flute-players agitated their feelings to excess, in painting an inci-
performed a prelude to the choral hymns, or direct- dent which Athens lamented as a misfortune dis-
ed the movement of the dances; which, in trage-honourable to her arms and her councils.
dy, were a solemn, slow, modulated succession of
movements, very little resembling any thing termed
dancing among the moderns.

The stage itself was well contrived for the purpo-
ses of the Greek Drama. The front was called the
LOGEUM, and occupied the full width of the flat ter-
mination of the theatre, contracted, however, at
each extremity, by a wall, which served to conceal
the machinery necessary for the piece. The stage
narrowed as it retired backwards, and the space so
restricted in breadth was called the PROSCENIUM. It
was terminated by a flat decoration, on which was re-
presented the front of a temple, palace, or whatever
Suitable de-
else the poet had chosen for his scene.
corations appeared on the wings, as in our theatres.
There were several entrances, both by the back
ecene and in front. These were not used indiscri-
minately, but so as to indicate the story of the
piece, and render it more clear to apprehension,
Thus, the persons of the Drama, who were supposed
'to belong to the palace or temple in the flat scene,
entered from the side or the main door, as befitted
their supposed rank; those who were inhabit-
ants of the place represented, entered through a
door placed at the side of the Logeum, while those
supposed to come from a distance were seen to tra-
verse the Orchestra, and to ascend the stage by a
stair of communication, so that the audience were
made spectators, as it were, of his journey. The
Proscenium was screened by a curtain, which was
withdrawn when the piece commenced. The deco-
rations could be in some degree altered, so as to
change the scene; though this, we apprehend, was
seldom practised. But machinery for the ascent of
phantoms, the descent of deities, and similar exhi-
bitions, were as much in fashion among the Greeks
as on our own modern stage; with better reason,
indeed, for we shall presently see that the themes
which they held most proper to the stage, called fre-
quently for the assistance of these mechanical con-

trivances.

In the dress and costume of their personages, the Greeks bestowed much trouble and expense. It was their object to disguise, as much as possible, the mortal actor who was to represent a divinity or a hero; and while they hid his face, and augmented his height, they failed not to assign him a masque and dress in exact conformity to the popular idea of the character represented; so that, seen across the orchestra, he might appear the exact resemblance of Hercules or of Agamemnon.

The Grecians, but in particular the Athenians, became most passionately attached to the fascinating and splendid amusement which Eschylus thus regulated, which Sophocles and Euripides improved, and which all three, with other dramatists of inferior talents, animated by the full vigour of their genius. The delightful climate of Greece permitted the spectators to remain in the open air (for there was no roof to their huge theatres) for whole days, during which several plays, high monuments of poetical talent, were successively performed before them. The enthusiasm of their attention may be judged of by what happened during the representation of a piece written by Hegemon. It was while the Athenians were thus engaged, that there suddenly arrived the astounding intelligence of the total defeat of their army before Syracuse. The theatre was filled with the relations of those who had fallen; there was scarce a spectator who, besides sorrowing as a patriot, was not called to mourn a friend or relative. But, spreading their mantles before their faces, they commanded the representation to proceed, and, thus veiled, continued to give it their attention to the conclusion. National pride, doubtless, had its share in this singular conduct, as well as fondness for the dramatic art. Another instance is given of the nature and acuteness of their feelings, avhen the assembly of the people amerced Phrynicus

The price of admission was at first one drachma; class of citizens, caused the entrance-money to be but Pericles, desirous of propitiating the ordinary lowered to two oboli, so that the meanest Athenian had the ready means of indulging in this luxurious mental banquet. As it became difficult to support. the expense of the stage, for which such cheap terms of admission could form no adequate fund, the same statesman, by an indulgence yet more perilous, caused the deficiency to be supplied from the treasure destined to sustain the expense of the war. It is a sufficient proof of the devotion of the Athenians to the stage, that not even the eloquence of Demosthenes could tempt them to forego this perni cious system. He touched upon the evil in two of his orations; but the Athenians were resolved not to forego the benefits of an abuse which they were aware could not be justified;-they passed a law making it death to allude to that article of reformation.

It must not be forgotten, that the Grecian audience enjoyed the exercise of critical authority as well as of classical amusement at their theatre. They applauded and censured, as at the present day, by clapping hands and hissing. Their suffrage, at those tragedies acted upon the solemn feasts of Bacchus, adjudged a laurel crown to the most successful dramatic author. This faculty was frequently abused; but the public, on sober reflection, seldom failed to be ashamed of such acts of injustice, and faithful, upon the whole, to the rules of criticism, evinced a fineness and correctness of judgment, which never descended to the populace of any other nation.

To this general account of the Grecian stage, it is proper to add some remarks on those peculiar circumstances, from which it derives a tone and character so different from that of the modern Drama -circumstances affecting at once its style of action, mode of decoration, and general effect on the feelings of the spectators.

The Grecian Drama, it must be remembered, derived its origin from a religious ceremony, and, amid all its refinement, never lost its devotional character, unless it shall be judged to have done so in the department of satirical comedy.

When the audience was assembled they underwent a religious lustration, and the archons, or chief magistrates, paid their public adoration to Bacchus, still regarded as the patron of the theatrical art, and whose altar was always placed in the theatre.

The subject of the Drama was frequently religious. In tragedy, especially, Sophocles and Euripides, as well as Eschylus, selected their subjects from the exploits of the deities themselves, or of the demigods and heroes whom Greece accounted to draw an immediate descent from the denizens of Olym pus, and to whom she paid nearly equal reverence. The object of the tragic poets was less to amuse and interest their audience by the history of the human heart, or soften them by the details of domes tic distress, than to elevate them into a sense of devotion or submission, or to astound and terrify them by the history and actions of a race of beings before whom ordinary mortality dwindled into pigmy size. This the ancient dramatists dared to attempt; and, what may appear still more astonishing to the mere English reader, this they appear in a great measure to have performed. Effects were produced upon their audience which we can only attribute to the awful impression communicated by the recollection, that the performance was in its origin a religious ceremony, and conveying an idea of the immediate presence of the Divinity. The emotions excited by the apparition of the Eumenides, or Furies, in Es chylus's tragedy of that name, so appalled the audience, that females are said to have lost the fruit of their womb, and children to have actually expired in

convulsions of terror. These effects may have been exaggerated but that considerable inconveniences occurred from the extreme horror with which this tragedy impressed the spectators, is evident from a decree of the magistrates, limiting the number of the Chorus, in order to prevent in future such tragical consequences. It is plain, that the feeling by which such impressions arose, must have been something very different from what the spectacle of the scene alone could possibly have produced. The mere sight of actors disguised in masks, suited to express the terrific yet sublime features of an antique Medusa, with her hair entwined with serpents; the wild and dishevelled appearance, the sable and bloody garments, the blazing torches, the whole apparatus, In short, or properties as they are technically called, with which the classic fancy of Eschylus could invest those terrific personages; nay more, even the appropriate terrors of language and violence of gesture with which they were bodied forth, must still have fallen far short of the point which the poet certainly attained, had it not been for the intimate and solemn conviction of his audience that they were in the performance of an act of devotion, and, to a certain degree, in the presence of the deities themselves. It was this conviction, and the solemn and susceptible temper to which it exalted the minds of a large assembly, which prepared them to receive the electric shock produced by the visible representation of those terrible beings, to whom, whether as personifying the stings and terrors of an awakened conscience, or as mysterious and infernal divinities, the survivors of an elder race of deities, whose presence was supposed to strike awe even into Jove himself, the ancients ascribed the task of pursuing and punishing atrocious guilt.

to be nothing more than an elegant branch of the fine arts, whose end is attained when it supplies an evening's amusement, whose lessons are only of a moral description, and which is so far from possessing a religious character, that it has, with difficulty, escaped condemnation as a profane, dissolute, and antichristian pastime. From this distinction of principle there flows a difference of practical results, serving to account for many circumstances, which might otherwise seem embarrassing. The ancients, we have seen, endeavoured by every means in their power, including the use of masks and of buskins, to disguise the person of the actor; and at the expense of sacrificing the expression of his countenance, and the grace, or at least the ease of his form, they removed from the observation of the audience, every association which could betray the person of an individual player, under the garb of the deity or hero he was designed to represent. To have done otherwise would have been held indecorous, if not profane. It follows, that as the object of the Athenian and of the modern auditor in attending the theatre was perfectly different, the pleasure which each derived from the representation had a distinct source. Thus, for example, the Englishman's desire to see a particular character is intimately connected with the idea of the actor by whom it is performed. He does not wish to see Hamlet in the abstract, so much as to see how Kemble performs that character, and to compare him perhaps with his own recollections of Garrick in the same part. He comes prepared to study each variation of the actor's countenance, each change in his accentuation and deportment; to note with critical accuracy the points which discriminate his mode of acting from that of others; and to compare the whole with It was in consistency with this connexion betwixt his own abstract of the character. The pleasure the Drama and religion of Greece, that the princi- arising from this species of critical investigation and pal Grecian tragedians thought themselves entitled contrast is so intimately allied with our ideas of to produce upon the stage the most sacred events of theatrical amusement, that we can scarce admit the their mythological history. It might have been possibility of deriving much satisfaction from a rethought that, in doing so, they injured the effect of presentation sustained by an actor, whose personal their fable and action, since suspense and uncertain- appearance and peculiar expression of features ty, so essential to the interest of a play, could not be should be concealed from us, however splendid his supposed to exist where the immortal gods, beings declamation, or however appropriate his gesture controlling all others, and themselves uncontrolled, and action. But this mode of considering the Drawere selected as the agents in the piece. But, it ma, and the delight which we derive from it, would must be remembered, that the synod of Olympus, have appeared to the Greeks a foolish and profane from Jove downwards, were themselves but limita- refinement, not very different in point of taste from ry deities, possessing, indeed, a certain influence the expedient of Snug the joiner, who intimated his upon human affairs, but unable to stem or divert the identity by letting his natural visage be seen, under the tide of fate or destiny, upon whose dark bosom, ac- mask of the lion which he represented. It was with cording to the Grecian creed, gods as well as men the direct purpose of concealing the features of the were embarked, and both sweeping downwards to individual actors, as tending to destroy the effect of some distant, yet inevitable termination of the pre-his theatrical disguise, that the mask and buskin sent system of the universe, which should annihi- were first invented, and afterwards retained in use. late at once the race of divinity and of mortality. The figure was otherwise so dressed as to represent This awful catastrophe is hinted at not very ob- the Deity or demigod, according to the statue best scurely by Prometheus, who, when chained to his known, and adored with most devotion, by the rock, exults, in his prophetic view, in the destruc- Grecian public. The mask was, by artists who were tion of his oppressor Jupiter; and so far did Eschy-eminent in the plastic art, so formed as to perfect lus, in particular, carry the introduction of religious topics into his Drama, that he escaped with some difficulty from an accusation of having betrayed the Eleusinian mysteries.

Where the subject of the Drama was not actually taken from mythological history, and when the gods themselves did not enter upon the scene, the Grecian stage was, as we have already hinted, usually trod by beings scarcely less awful to the imagination of the audience; the heroes, namely, of their old traditional history, to whom they attributed an immediate descent from their deities,-a frame of body and mind surpassing humanity, and after death an exaltation into the rank of demigods.

It must be added, that, even when the action was laid among a less dignified set of personages, still the altar was present on the stage; incense frequently smoked; and frequent prayers and obtestations of the deity reminded the audience that the sports of the ancient theatre had their origin in religious observances. It is scarce necessary to state how widely the classical Drama, in this respect, differs in principle from that of the modern, which pretends

the resemblance. Theseus, or Hercules, stood before the audience, in the very form with which painters and statuaries had taught them to invest the hero, and there was certainly thus gained a more complete scenic deception, than could have been obtained in our present mode. It was aided by the distance interposed betwixt the audience and the stage; but, above all, by the influence of enthusiasm acting upon the congregated, thousands, whose imagination, equally lively and susceptible, were prompt to receive the impressions which the noble verse of their authors conveyed to their ears, and the living personification of their gods and demigods placed before their eyes.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that while these observations plead an apology, arising out of custom and manners, for the mask and the buskin of the ancients, they leave where it stood before every objection to those awkward and unseemly disguises, considered in themselves, and without reference to the peculiar purpose and tendency of the ancient theatre. In fact, the exquisite pleasure derived from watching the eloquence of feature and eye, which

48

ESSAY ON THE DRAMA.

we admire in an accomplished actor, was not, as some has supposed, sacrificed by the ancients for the assumption of these disguises. They never did, and, according to the plan of their theatres, never could, possess that source of enjoyment. The circuit of the theatre was immense, and the eyes of the thousands whom it contained were so far removed from the stage, that, far from being able to enjoy the minute play of the actor's features, the mask and buskin were necessary to give distinction to his figure, and to convey all which the ancients expected to see, his general resemblance, namely, to the character he represented.

tic art. Still, however, Eschylus led not only the
way in the noble career of the Grecian drama, but
out stripped, in point of sublimity at least, those by
whom he was followed.

Sophocles, who obtained from his countrymen the title of the Bee of Attica, rivalled Eschylus when in the possession of the stage, and obtained the first prize. His success occasioned the veteran's retreat to Sicily, where he died, commanding that his epitaph should make mention of his share in the victory of Marathon, but should contain no allusion to his dramatic excellencies. His more fortunate rival judiciously avoided the dizzy and terrific The Grecian style of acting, so far as it has been path which Eschylus had trod with so firm and described to us, corresponded to the other circum- daring a step. It was the object of Sophocles to stances of the representation. It affected gravity move sorrow and compassion, rather than to excite and sublimity of movement and of declamation. Ra- indignation and terror. He studied the progress of pidity of motion, and vivacity of action, seem to have action with more attention than Eschylus, and exbeen reserved for occasions of particular emotion; celled in that modulation of the story by which inand that delicacy of by-play, as well as all the aid terest is excited at the beginning of a drama, mainwhich look and slight gesture bring so happily to the tained in its progress, and gratified at its conclusion. aid of an impassioned dialogue, were foreign to their His subjects are also of a nature more melancholy system. The actors, therefore, had an easier task and less sublime than those of his predecessors. He than on the modern stage, since it is much more loved to paint heroes rather in their forlorn than in easy to preserve a tone of high and dignified decla- their triumphant fortunes, aware that the contrast mation, than to follow out the whirlwind and tem- offered new sources of the pathetic to the author. pest of passion, in which it is demanded of the per- Sophocles was the most fortunate of the Greek traformer to be energetic without bombast, and natu-gedians. He attained the age of ninety-one years; and in his eightieth, to vindicate himself from a ral without vulgarity. The Grecian actors held a high rank in the repub-charge of mental imbecility, he read to the Judges lic, and those esteemed in the profession were richly recompensed. Their art was the more dignified, because the poets themselves usually represented It is observed by Schlegel, that the tone of the the principal character in their own pieces,-a circumstance which corroborates what we have already stated concerning the comparative inferiority of tragedies of Euripides approaches more nearly to talents required in a Grecian actor, who was only modern taste than to the stern simplicity of his preexpected to move with grace, and declaim with truth decessors. The passion of love predominates in his and justice. His disguise hid all personal imperfec-pieces, and he is the first tragedian who paid tribute tions, and thus a Grecian poet might aspire to be- to that sentiment which has been too exclusively come an actor, without that extraordinary and un- made the moving cause of interest on the modern likely union of moral and physical powers, which stage, the first who sacrificed to would be necessary to qualify a modern dramatist to mount the stage in person, and excel at once as a poet and as an actor.

his Edipus Coloneus, the most be autiful, at least the most perfect, of his tragedies. He survived Euripides, his most formidable rival, of whom, also, we must speak a few words.

Cupid, king of gods and men..

The dramatic use of this passion has been purified in modern times, by the introduction of that tone of It is no part of our present object to enter into any feeling, which, since the age of chivalry, has been a minute examination of the comparative merits of principal ingredient in heroic affection. This was the three great tragedians of Athens, Eschylus, unknown to the ancients, in whose society females, Sophocles, and Euripides. Never, perhaps, did there generally speaking, held a low and degraded place, arise, within so short a space, such a succession of from which few individuals emerged, unless those brilliant talents. Sophocles, might, indeed, be said who aspired to the talents and virtues proper to the masculine sex. Women were not forbidden to beto be the contemporary of both his rivals, for his youthful emulation was excited by the success of come competitors for the laurel or oaken crown of Eschylus, and the eminence of his latter years was fered to genius and to patriotism; but antiquity held disturbed by the rivalry of Euripides, whom, how-out no myrtle wreath, as a prize for the domestic ever, he survived. To Eschylus, who led the van virtues peculiar to the female character. Love, in dramatic enterprise, as he did in the field of Ma- therefore, in Euripides, does not always breathe purathon, the sanction of antiquity has ascribed unri- rity of sentiment, but is stained with the mixture of valled powers over the realms of astonishment and violent and degrading passions. This, however, was the fault of the age, rather than of the poet, alterror. At his summons, the mysterious and tremendous volume of destiny, in which are inscribed though he is generally represented as an enemy of the doom of gods and men, seemed to display its the female sex; and his death was ascribed to a judgment of Venus. leaves of iron before the appalled spectators; the When blood-hounds met him by the way, more than mortal voices of Deities, Titans, and deAnd monsters made the bard their prey. parted Heroes, were heard in awful conference; heaven bowed, and its divinities descended; earth This great dramatist was less successful than Soyawned, and gave up the pale spectres of the dead; and the yet more undefined and grisly forms of those phocles in the construction of his plots; and, ininfernal deities who struck horror into the gods stead of the happy expedients by which his predethemselves. All this could only be dared and done cessor introduces us to the business of the drama, by a poet of the highest order, confident, during that he had too often recourse to the mediation of a proearly age of enthusiasm, that he addressed an audi-logue, who came forth to explain, in detail, the preence prompt to kindle at the heroic scene which he vious history necessary to understand the piece. Euripides is also accused of having degraded the placed before them. It followed almost naturally, from his character, that the dramas of Eschylus, character of his personages, by admitting more alloy though full of terrible interest, should be deficient in of human weakness, folly, and vice, than was congrace and softness; that his sublime conciseness sistent with the high qualities of the heroic age. should deviate sometimes into harshness and obscu- Eschylus, it was said, transported his audience into rity; that, finding it impossible to sustain himself a new and more sublime race of beings; Sophocles Yet the variety of character at the height to which he had ascended, he should painted mankind as they ought to be, and Euripides as they actually are. sometimes drop, "fluttering his pinions vain," into great inequalities of composition; and, finally, that introduced by the latter tragedian, and the interest his plots should appear rude and inartificial, con-of his tragedies, must always attract the modern trasted with those of his successors in the drama-reader, coloured as they are by a tone of sentiment,

and by his knowledge of the business, rules, and habits, of actual life, to which his predecessors, living as they did, in an imaginary and heroical world of their own, appear to have been strangers. And although the judgment of the ancients assigned the pre-eminence in tragedy to Eschylus or Sophocles, yet Euripides has been found more popular with posterity than either of his two great predecessors. The division betwixt tragedy and comedy, for both sprung from the same common origin, the feasts, namely, in honour of Bacchus, and the disguises adopted by his worshippers, seems to have taken place gradually until the jests and frolics, which made a principal part of these revels, were found misplaced when introduced with graver matter, and were made by Susarion, perhaps, the subject of a separate province of the Drama. The Grecian comedy was divided into the ancient, the middle, and the modern, style of composition.

rites which they thus ridiculed, we cannot wonder that similar profanities were well received among the Pagans, whose religion sat very loosely upon them, and who professed no fixed or necessary articles of faith.

It is probable, that, had the old Grecian comedy continued to direct its shafts of ridicule only against the inhabitants of Olympus, it would not have attracted the coercion of the magistracy. But its kingdom was far more extensive, and the poets claiming the privilege of laying their opinions on public affairs before the people in this shape, Cratinus, Eupolis, and particularly Aristophanes, a daring, powerful, and apparently unprincipled writer, converted comedy into an engine for assailing the credit and character of private individuals, as well as the persons and political measures of those who administered the state. The doctrines of philosophy, the power of the magistrate, the genius of the The ancient and original comedy was of a kind poet, the rites proper to the Deity, were alternately which may, at first sight, appear to derogate from made the subject of the most uncompromising and the religious purposes which we have pointed out as severe satire. It was soon discovered, that the the foundation of the Drama. The writings under more directly personal the assault could be made, this head frequently turn upon parodies, in which and the more revered or exalted the personage, the the persons and adventures of those gods and he- greater was the malignant satisfaction of the audiroes who are the sublime subjects of the tragic Dra-ence, who loved to see wisdom, authority, and relima, are introduced for the purpose of buffoon-sport, gious reverence, brought down to their own level, and ridicule, as in Carey's modern farces of Midas and made subjects of ridicule by the powers of the and the Golden Pippin. Hercules appears in one merciless satirist. The use of the mask enabled of those pieces astonishing his host by an extrava- Aristophanes to render his satire yet more pointedly gant appetite, which the cook in vain attempts to personal; for, by forming it so as to imitate, probasatiate, by placing before him, in succession, all the bly with some absurd exaggeration, the features of various dishes which the ancient kitchen afforded. the object of his ridicule, and by imitating the dress In another comedy, Bacchus (in whose honour the and manner of the original, the player stepped upon solemnity was instituted) is brought in only in or- the stage, a walking and speaking caricature of the der to ridicule his extreme cowardice. hero of the night, and was usually placed in some ludicrous position, amidst the fanciful and whimsical chimeras with which the scene was peopled. In this manner, Aristophanes ridiculed with equal freedom Socrates, the wisest of the Athenians, and Cleon, the demagogue, when at the height of his power. As no one durst perform the latter part, for fear of giving offence to one so powerful, the author acted Cleon himself, with his face smeared with the lees of wine. Like the satire of Rabelais, the politi

At other times, allowing a grotesque fancy its wildest range, the early comic authors introduced upon the stage animals, and even inanimate things, as part of their dramatis persona, and embodied forth on the stage, the fantastic imaginations of Lucian in his True History. The golden age was represented in the same ridiculous and bizarre mode of description as the Pays de la Cocagne of the French minstrels, or the popular ideas of Lubberland in England and the poets furnished king-cal and personal invective of Aristophanes was mindoms of birds and worlds in the moon.

Had the only charm of these entertainments consisted in the fantastic display with which the eyes of the spectators were regaled at the expense of the over-excited imagination of the poet, they would soon have fallen into disuse; for the Athenians were too acute and judicious critics, to have been long gratified with mere extravagance. But these grotesque scenes were made the medium for throwing the most bold and daring ridicule upon the measures of the state, upon the opinions of individuals, and upon the religion of the country.

gled with a plentiful allowance of scurril and indecent jests, which were calculated to ensure a favour able reception from the bulk of the people. He resembles Rabelais, also, in the wild and fanciful fictions which he assumes as the vehicle of his satire; and his comedy of The Birds may even have given hints to Swift, when, in order to contrast the order of existing institutions with those of a Utopian and fantastic fairy land, he carries Gulliver among giants and pigmies. Yet though his indecency, and the offensive and indiscriminate scurrility of his satire, deserve censure; though he merits the blame This propensity to turn into ridicule that which is of the wise for his attack upon Socrates, and of the most serious and sacred, had probably its origin in learned for his repeated and envenomed assaults on the rude gambols of the sylvan deities who accom- Euripides, Aristophanes has nevertheless added one panied Bacchus, and to whose petulant and lively deathless name to the deathless period in which he demeanour rude jest was a natural accompaniment. flourished; and, from the richness of his fancy, and The audience, at least the more ignorant part of gayety of his tone, has deserved the title of the Fa them, saw these parodies with pleasure, which ther of Comedy. When the style of his sarcasm equalled the awe they felt at the performance of the possessed the rareness of novelty, it was considered tragedies,, whose most solemn subjects were thus of so much importance to the state, that a crown of burlesqued; nor do they appear to have been checked olive was voted to the poet, as one who had taught by any sense that their mirth was profane. In fact, Athens the defects of her public men. But unless when the religion of a nation comes to consist chiefly angels were to write satires, ridicule cannot be conin the practice of a few unmeaning ceremonies, it is sidered as the test of truth. The temptation to be often found that the populace, with whatever incon- witty is just so much the more resistless, that the sistency, assume the liberty of profaning them by author knows he will get no thanks for suppressing grotesque parodies, without losing their reverence the jest which rises to his pen. As the public befor the superstitions which they thus vilify. Cus- comes used to this new and piquant fare, fresh chatoms of a like tendency were common in the middle racters must be sacrificed for its gratification. Reages. The festival of the Ass in France, of the Boy-crimination adds commonly to the contest, and Bishop in England, of the Abbot of Unreason in Scotland, and many other popular practices of the same kind, exhibited, in countries yet Catholic, daring parodies of the most sacred services and ceremonies of the Roman Church. And as these were practised openly, and under authority, without being supposed to shake the people's attachment to the VOL. I.-5 Q

those who were at first ridiculed out of mere wantonness of wit, are soon persecuted for resenting the ill usage; until literature resembles an actual personal conflict, where the victory is borne away by the strongest and most savage, who deals the most desperate wounds with the least sympathy for the feeling of his adversary.