MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



497 



and New Testament," Adam and 

 Eve were both exhibited on the 

 stage naked, and appeared in the 

 subsequent scene with their fig- 

 leaves; and Malone says, this kind 

 of primitive exhibition was revived 

 in the time of James the First; 

 " several persons appearing al- 

 most entirely naked, in a pastoral 

 exhibited at Oxford before the 

 king and queen, and the ladies who 

 attended her." 



Mr. Barrow has conjectured, 

 that the low and trifling amuse- 

 ments of the court, may have been 

 introduced by the Tartars, as more 

 congenial to their rude and un- 

 jjolished manners, while the songs 

 and recitative of the regular drama 

 are more suited to the genius and 

 spirit of the ceremonious Chinese. 

 The two Mahomedans who visited 

 China are silent on the subject ; 

 and Marco Polo only observes, that 

 at the emperor's feasts were buf- 

 foons, and players on musical in- 

 struments, and posture -masters. 

 At that time, hovvever, a Tartar 

 dynasty also occupied the throne. 



As far as the mere spectacle is 

 concerned, the several travellers 

 we have mentioned could not well 

 be mistaken. Some deduction, 

 I however, ought probably to be 

 I made, on account of their igno- 

 rance of the language. The ab- 

 surdities tliat strike the eye they 

 are capable of describing, but the 

 dialogue of the regular drama, 

 being utterly unintelligible, ceases 

 to create any interest. What their 

 merits and defects may therefore 

 be, Europeans have hitherto pos- 

 sessed very slender means of form- 

 ing a sound judgment. A garbled 

 translation of a single drama by 

 Pcre Premare, a Jesuit, is the 

 solitary specimen of this kind of 



VolLIX. 



composition in any European lan- 

 guage, before that which is now 

 offered to the public. It is called 

 the Orphan of Chao, and forms 

 one of a collection of one hundred 

 plays, written under the dynasty of 

 Yuen,* in the fourteenth century. 

 Voltaire, who adapted the subject 

 to the French stage, considers it 

 as a valuable monument of Chi- 

 nese literature at tliat early period, 

 barbarous as it is when compared 

 with the dramatic art in Europe, 

 but far superior to any thing that 

 Europe could boast at the time 

 it was written. He considers it 

 at least equal to the English and 

 Spanish tragedies of the seven- 

 teenth century ; and observes that, 

 " like the monstrous farces of 

 Shakespeare, and of Lopez de Ve- 

 ga, which have been called trage- 

 dies, the action of the Chinese 

 piece continues five and twenty 

 years." — " Montrous," however, 

 as they may be, few Englishmen 

 would give up the worst " farce" 

 of Shakespeare, for the heavy mo- 

 notony and blustering declamation 

 of the best "tragedy" of Voltaire. 

 He admits that "the Orphan of 

 Chao," notwithstanding the im- 

 probability of the occurrences, has 

 something in it which interests 

 us ; and that, in spite of the in- 

 numerable crowd of events, they 

 are all exhibited in the most clear 

 and distinct manner — but these 

 he considers as its only beauties ; 

 unity of time and action, senti- 

 ment, character, eloquence, pas- 

 sion, all, he says, are wanting. 

 Some of them, it is true, are vvant- 

 ing in Premare's translation, be- 

 cause he has omitted most of the 



• This d^rnasty comiaencf din 1260, wid 

 ceased in 1333. 



2 K poetry, 



