DRAM A. 



91 



DTMM. consideration should prevent our being swayed implicitly 

 """V by the indefinite charge of plagiarism, attached to Plautus 

 Roman dra- an( ^ Terence. The works of Cratinus and Menander, 

 iu. cannot now be consulted, to ascertain the extent of their 



debt ; but the humour of Plautus, and the elegance of 

 Terence, still remain to us, and if they were imitators, 

 it must be owned that they were good ones. The co- 

 mic vein of Plautus, it may be said, is coarse, monstrous, 

 and limited in its range of characters. Yet it is from 

 this Plautus, that modern comedy has borrowed some of 

 its richest materials. His Miser, the original of Moliere's 

 Avare, has not been so entirely transmuted or recreated 

 in the hands of the French dramatist, as the French 

 critics would lead us to believe. His Train Brothers is 

 evidently the source of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, 

 with the difference, that Shakespeare's plot is more im- 

 probable, and much less skilfully conducted.* 



With regard to Terence, he is said to have joined to- 

 gether several of the plots of Menander into one of his 

 own ; a circumstance which entitles us to suspect, as 

 the plots of Terence are remarkably simple, that the 

 originals must have been thin and deficient in action, 

 and that he improved on them with considerable dra- 

 matic art. Comedy at Rome, ventured to delineate Ro- 

 man manners. Tragedy was more timid. It attempt- 

 ed, indeed, sometimes to rise above its models. The 

 subject of Iphigenia in Tauris was enriched by the 

 genius of Pacuvius. It is to him that we owe that af- 

 fecting scene of a combat of friendship, where Pylades 

 wishes to die for Orestes ; but although the tragedy of 

 Rome borrowed something of her stateliness and heroic 

 genius, it appears almost invariably to have attached it- 

 self to Greek subjects. It is known, that Andronicus 

 was a mere translator, and the titles of the tragedies 

 known to be written after him, betray the same origin, 

 as the Orestes of Pacuvius, the Elutra of Accius, the 

 CEdipus of Julius Casar, the Ajax of Cassius and of 

 Octavius, the Thyestes of Gracchus and that of Varius, 

 the Medea of Ovid, and the Theatre of Seneca. 

 Origin From the Roman poets till the revival of modern 



of tin mo- learning, there is a blank of many ages in the history 

 Uern drama. o f the drama, as in that of all the other branches of litera- 

 ture. About the eighth century, the trade of Europe 

 was principally carried on by means of fairs, which 

 lasted several days. Charlemagne established many 

 marts of tlu's sort in France ; as did William the Con- 

 queror and his Norman successors in England. The 

 merchants, who frequented these fairs in numerous ca- 

 ravans or companies, employed every art to draw the 

 people together. They were therefore accompanied by 

 jugglers, minstrels, and buffoons, who were no less in- 

 terested in giving their attendance, and exerting all their 

 skill on these occasions. As now but few large towns 

 existed, no public spectacles or popular amusements 

 were established ; and as the sedentary pleasures of do- 

 mestic life and private society were yet unknown, the 

 fair time was the season for diversion. In proportion 

 as these shows were attended and encouraged, they be- 

 gan to be set off with new decorations and improve- 

 ments ; and the arts of buffoonery being rendered still 

 more attractive by extending their circle of exhibition, 

 acquired an importance in the eyes of the people. By 



degrees the clergy observing that the entertainments of Dr- 

 dancing, music, and mimicry, exhibited at these pro- ^""Y""** 

 tracted annual celebrities, made the people less reli- 

 gious, by promoting idleness and a love of festivity,, 

 proscribed these sports, and excommunicated the per- 

 formers. But finding that no regard was paid to their 

 censures, they changed their plan, and determined to 

 take these recreations into their own hands. They 

 turned actors themselves, and, instead of profane mum- 

 meries, presented stories taken either from legends or 

 the Bible. This was the origin of that incongruous thing 

 called sacred comedy. The death of St Catherine, Sacr'4 

 acted by the monks of St Denis, rivalled the popula- dramas, 

 rity of the professed players. Music was admitted into 

 the churches, which served as theatres for the repre- 

 sentation of holy entertainments. The festivals among 

 the French, called Le fete de foitx, fie I'anc, et des in- 

 nocens, at length became greater favourites, as they 

 certainly were more capricious and absurd than the in- 

 terludes of the buffoons at the fairs. These are the 

 ideas of a judicious French writer, given by Warton in 

 his history of English poetry. 



Voltaire's theory, Warton continues, on this sub- 

 ject, is also very ingenious, and quite new. Religious 

 plays, he supposes, came originally from Constantino- 

 ple, where the old Grecian stage continued to flourish 

 in some degree ; and the tragedies of Sophocles and Eu- 

 ripides were represented till the fourth century. About 

 that period, Gregory Nazianzen, an archbishop, a poet, 

 and one of the lathers of the church, banished Pagan 

 plays from the stage at Constantinople, and introduced 

 select stories from the Old and New Testament. A 

 the ancient Greek tragedy was a religious spectacle, a 

 transition was made on the same plan, and the choruses 

 were turned into Christian hymns. Gregory wrote ma- 

 ny sacred dramas for this purpose, which have not sur- 

 vived those inimitable compositions. One, however, his 

 tragedy called X^ia-rtf vanr^m, or Christ's Passion, is still 

 extant. In the prologue, it is said to be in imitation of 

 Euripides, and that this is the first time the Virgin 

 Mary had been produced on the stage. The fashion 

 of acting spiritual dramas, in which, at first, a due de- 

 gree of method and decorum was observed, was at 

 length adopted from Constantinople by the Italians, 

 who framed, in the depth of the dark ages, on this 

 foundation, that barbarous species of theatrical repre- 

 sentation called Mysteries, or Sacred Comedies, and 

 which were soon afterwards received in France. This 

 opinion will acquire probability, if we consider the ear- 

 ly commercial intercourse between Italy and Constan- 

 tinople ; and although the Italians, at the time when 

 they may be supposed to have imported plays of this 

 nature, did not understand the Greek language, yet 

 they could understand, and consequently could imitate, 

 what they saw. In defence of Voltaire's hypothesis, 

 it may be farther observed, that the Feast of Fools 

 and of the Ass, with other religious farces of that sort, 

 so common in Europe, originated at Constantinople. 

 They were instituted, although perhaps under other 

 names in the Greek church, by Theophylact, patriarch 

 of Constantinople, probably with a better design than 

 is imagined by the ecclesiastical annalists, that of wean 



* The circumstance in the Latin drama, of the two brothers being perfectly alike, is rather improbable. But Shakespeare 

 doubles the miracle, and presents us with two pair of twins instead of one. Plautus accounts very naturally for the brothers having 

 both the same name. The grandfather, on the luss of the eldest, whom he loved best, having given the same name to the youngest, 

 to preserve the remembrance of the first. .Shakespeare, without any reason, makes the twin son* of Ageon be both called Anti- 

 pholis, and the twin brothers, their slaves, both Dromio. The separation of the husband, the wife, and their children, from 

 whence all the diverting mistakes in the " Comedy of Errors" arise, is also brought about in Shakespeare, without the least regard 

 to probability. In the Latin poet, all appears the effect of chance. In Shakespeare, every thing betrays design. 



