[ 231 ] 

 XLIl. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



LONDON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETi'. 



[ContinMed from p. 154.] 



iVIr. Reid ihen proceeded to a review oF the Koinan stage, 

 deriving its origin from a similar source to the Greek, the 

 Saturnalian games. But though Livy and others bear 

 witness, he said, to the extravagant love which that peo- 

 ple had to scenic exhibitions, the works of the two 

 Senecas are the only considerable specimens of their tragic 

 Muse that now exist. Livius Andronicus, the next an- 

 cient and least eleoant of all their dramatic writers, was for 

 some time the only star visible in the dramatic horizon, 

 till Nasvius rose to rival, or rather eclipse him. 



Ennius followed, who was a well-known favourite of the 

 immortal Cicero, and of whom Lucretius says, that he was 

 the first of their poets deserving of a lasting crown from 

 the Muses. The Romans were the first to throw off the 

 shackles of the chorus, and Plautus had the merit of the 

 innovation. The comedies of this writer abound with hu- 

 mour, but it is a humour of a coarse and barbarous kind. 

 In the midst hovvever of low buffoonery, his characters have 

 the merit of strong discrimination. Terence, treading in 

 the footmarks of Menander, achieved the perfection of the 

 Roman drama ; but a tiresome want of variety exists in his 

 characters; which may be traced, however, more to the 

 secluded and insipid loves of the Roman females, than to 

 the deficiency of the dramatists, whose polished and elegant 

 styK-, adorned wiih a charming and delicate siniplicity, am- 

 ply atones for the defect. 



The peculiarities which distinguished the ancient stage 

 from the modern next claimed the attention of the lecturer; 

 and after justly observing, that the modern introduction of 

 acts superseded the necessity of that strict observance of 

 the unities for which some critics have been such stickler."?, 

 he remarked that ^Eschylus was the first who introduced, 

 masks upon the stage ; previous to which time the actors 

 niertly concealed their faces from the spectators. The dif- 

 ferent age, sex, and character were strongly depicted on 

 these masks ; and it is a remarkable fact, stroirgly illustra- 

 live of ancient devotion to physiognomy, that it was thought 

 essential for every character to be marked by a particular 

 quiescent cast of countenance; and tliat wlienever a play was 

 cleliv'.:rid to the actors, the author gave drawings of the 

 P 4 masks 



