17 



K.VM.VTIC LITERATURE. 



DRAMA; DRAMATIC LITERATIM:!'. 





thorough decline. Hii successor, the imbecile Charles II., was yet in 

 hi* infancy ; au-l the quoeo-regvnt signalised the commencement of her 

 administration by a decree, dictated no doubt by her spiritual director, 

 the Jesuit Xitara, and certainly unique in drmm.tt c h story ; "lie com- 

 manded " that all plays do c<ase until the king my -n shall be old 

 enough to be entertaineil by them." Although this strange order could 

 not be rigorously executed, ret the decay was M> great that, in 1679. 

 at the marriage of Charles if. with a niece of Loui* X I V. , li.-rvin all 

 possible magnificence wa* duplaycd, no more than three companies 

 could be got together to perform at court 



During thU period one writer alune endearoured to support the 

 tottering stage ; Soli*, the eloquent historian of the conquest of Mexico, 

 likewise devoted to the service of the theatre his brilliant intonation, 

 polished wit, and glowing style, lie has left us several plays well 

 worthy of tlio dramatic period which he survived, one <>f which espe- 

 cially, entitled 'Lore k la Mode' (El Amor al l r so), has peculiar 

 v . 



With Soils may be said to have expired the Spanish theatre properly 

 so called The elevation of Philip V. to the throne of Spain having 

 given prevalence to the French taste, and introduced, at court at least, 

 the habits and rammers of the court of Louis XIV., the Spaniard*, 

 after having been the dramatic precursors and teachers of the 1 

 wort content to become their humble translators and copyists. In the 

 course of the I8th century, it is true, some attempts to re-erect a 

 national drama were made successively by Zamora, Luzon, Cauizares, 

 and Jovellanos ; but those honourable endeavours had but a transitory 

 success ; and to arrive at a work of originality after, however, noticing 

 as such the *iif (small satirical pieces) of Ramon de la Cruz we 

 must come down to the commencement of the present century, to 

 Moratin. the witty and elegant author of ' The Coffee-bouse,' ' The 

 Baron,' ' The Maiden's Yes,' Ac., and next, to Martinez de la Rosa, who 

 wrote ' The Mother at the Ball and the Daughter at Home.' 



The few specimens of the Spanish drama in the classic style, consist 

 chiefly of translations from, or adaptations of, plays from the Greek, 

 the Italian, or the French ; and although occasionally a mixture of the 

 romantic was introduced, they never became popular, and are not 

 worth enumerating. 



Although the performance of the awtot tacramcutalet on the ordinary 

 stage was suppressed in 1765, in the reij<n of Charles III., yet the 

 seasons of Advent and Lent, and more especially the Holy Week, are 

 still solemnised by the like representations in the great churches ; a 

 sort of stage, called the monument, is erected in the choir, upon which 

 ore played the acts of the Passion, wherein the numerous characters 

 that successively figure in the piece still wear the costume of the 

 middle ages as it must have been at the origin of these exhibitions, 

 san-benitos, black masks, high pointed caps, long skirts, belts, or rather 

 breastplates, made of cords, all the wardrobe, in short, of an autu-ila-fr 

 procession. 



Frmch Drama. In France the mytterict appear to have had their 

 immediate source in the pilgrimages so common in those days. 

 Menestrier tells us (' Representations en Musique Anciennes et Modernes') 

 that the pilgrims to the Holy Land, St. James of Galicia, Mont St. 

 Michel in Normandy, and the various other places of pious resort in 

 France and abroad, used to compose rude songs on their tr.i\il<. 

 wherein they introduced a recital of the life and death of Christ, or of 

 the last judgment : in others they celebrated the miracles of saints, 

 their martyrdom, and divers wonderful visions and apparitions. These 

 pilgrims, going in companies, and taking their stand in the streets and 

 public places, where they sang with their staves in their hands, and 

 their liats and mantles covered with shells, and painted imagesof various 

 colours, formed a kind of spectacle which pleased the public of that 

 day, and at Paris excited the piety of some of the citizens to raise a 

 fund for purchasing a proper place in which to erect a stage whereon 

 these performance* might be regularly exhibited -on holidays, as well 

 for the instruction of the people as for their entertainment. This 

 appears to have been the origin of the society at Paris called the 

 Brethren of the Passion. In 1402 Charles VI. authorised these exhi- 

 bition* by letters patent ; the Premonstratensian monks gave the use 

 of a great hall of their convent, and a stage was constructed in it upon 

 which the fraternity enacted scriptural pieces. The ecclesiastics 

 crowded to these exhibitions ; stage* soon arose in every province ; and 

 the mytiirr, were so much relished, that on holidays the hour of vespers 

 wu hastened, that the people might have more ample time to be 

 present at the play. The brethren, to vnry the attractions of the per- 

 formance, added a sort of farcical interludes or after-pieces of a merely 

 worldly character, the enacting of wluch however, careful of their own 

 histrionic dignity, they delegated to a junior society called that of the 

 */a, MM Hone*. These Utter pieces, in allusion to their burlesque 

 and buffoon character, were denominated tottitrt or - 



The stage upon which the mysteries were played consisted of several 

 scaffoldings one above another : the most elevated of all represented 

 heaven ; that immediately beneath it, earth ; a third, still lower the 

 palace of Herod, the bouse of Pilate, Ac. ; and hull, which was st the 

 , and in front, was figured by the gaping mouth of a dragon, 

 >. hii-h opened and shut as the devils went in and out. On each side 

 were seats rising in steps one above another, on which the actors rested 

 when they were not upon the stage, a contrivance not very favourable 

 to scenic illusion ; and at the back was a recess, with curtains drawn 



across it, for the exhibition of such matters as were supposed to take 

 place in the interior of a house. 



113 the French, as elsewhere, the Passion was the primary. tli.> 

 most constant, and most solemn subject of these representation 

 parts of Christ on the cross, Judas hanging himself, Ac., being all 

 played by real persons, sometimes at the actual peril of their lives. It 

 seems to have been owing chiefly to the efforts of the early reformers 

 to diffuse a knowledge of the Scriptures among the people that the 

 Romish ecclesiastics throughout Europe, as one means of securing the 

 li l.-lily of their flocks, proceeded studiously to extend the field oi the 

 religious representations so as to embrace, the whole series of OKI and 

 New Testament history, or as much of that history as they deem. . I it 

 prudent to disclose to the multitude. This zealous exertion on the 

 part of the Catholic clergy was supported by all the authority 

 Catholic princes. Thus we find that in 1541, under Francis I.,ti, 

 fonnance of a grand mystery of the Acts of the Apostles wu proclaimed 

 with great solemnity under the royal authority, and acted at Paris in 

 the course of many successive days, before the nobility, clergy, and a 

 great concourse of people, in the Hotel de Flandres. These plays, 

 written in French rhyme by the brothers Greban. 

 2 vols. folio, black letter, under patent of the king to one Uuillaumn 

 Alabat, of Bourges. The dramatis persona; are, God the Father. tin- 

 Son, and the Holy Ghost ; the Virgin an i Joseph ; archangels, angels, 

 apostles, and disciples ; Jewish priests, emperors, philosophers, magi- 

 cians, Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, Belial, Cerberus, and a multitude of 

 other celestial, terrestrial, and infernal personages, aiiiouiitin 

 gether to nearly five hundred. The subjects of these plays are c 

 scriptural; but many of them are from apocryphal New Test 

 subjects, and the whole forms a strange medley of sacred and \- 

 history. This grand performance was executed, not by any st.: 

 company, but by actors selected from the people at large after 1 1 

 the merits of the respective candidates. 



Among the numerous Kgeudary pieces, one of the most > 

 extant is ' The Mystery of the Knight who gives hi* Wife to the 1>. ul ' 

 (Le Mystore du Chevalier qui donne sa Femme au Diable) ; but the 

 most universally popular of them all seems to have been that of the 

 miraculous host, or consecrated wafer, tortured by a Jew at Paris, com- 

 monly colled ' Le Mystere de la Saintc Hoetie,' two several versions of 

 which exist in block letter. 



After the myslfra and the totlrt, and during their continuance, came 

 the muralUd and the fan-it, of which the clerks of the Basocl.. 

 the inventors. These clerks were the young assistants of the 

 reurs, or solicitors, to whom Philippe le Bel granted tin 1 privilege of 

 choosing from among themselves a chief, to be colled their king, to 

 have supreme jurisdiction over their body, and even to coiu mon 

 currency among the clerks. Francis I , in requital of the service r. n- 

 dered him by the king of the Basoche and 6000 of his clerk* in 

 marching against the revolter* of Guienne, presented them, in 1547, 

 witli an extensive promenade ground, bordering on the Se.ne. whieli 

 thence took the name of Pre aux Clera. As early as the conn, 

 uient of the 15th century, the king of the Basoche used every year, in 

 July, to make a review of his clerks, divided into twelve bonds under 

 as many commanders. After the review they went and offered thait 

 salutations to those gentlemen at the head of the legal profession who 

 composed the parliament of Paris ; and then they went and perl 

 a morality or a force. The brethren of the Passion having the exclu- 

 sive privilege of acting mysteries, the clerks were diiven to the 

 invention of the moralities, which were purely allegorical pieces per- 

 sonifying the vices and virtues. The farces and the soties, on tin- 

 other hand, took a satirical turn, the success of which soou carried the 

 authors to licentious extremes. The public calamities and 

 political dissensions of the reigns of Charles V I. and L'luu-Ii Nil. 

 favoured this tendency : the two leading parties, the Armagnacs and 

 the Burgundiaus, had each its poet, and insulted each other by tin ns 

 upon the stage. When public order was restored, the royal out 

 availed itself of the fair pretext which these satirical excesses :i 

 t<> suppress this exclusively popular stage altogether : the clerk 

 forbidden to ploy either farce, sotie, or morality, on pain of flagellation 

 and banishment. This suspension continued until the reign of a prince 

 who was less afraid to hear the truth. 



The society of the Enfant taiu Solicit, too, already mentioned, had 

 been established under Charles VI., hnd been authorised l>y i 

 and hod suffered political oppression. Louis XII. took them likewise 

 under his protection ; and their most celebrated sotie, entitled ' Tin- 

 Abuse of the World ' (L'Abus du Monde) is attributed to the historian 

 Bouchet above quoted. Their farces have been more celebrated, 

 cially that of ' Pathelin,' whose name ha- < i >ial in 



France. The dialogue itself, written in octosyllabic rhyme, is full of 

 humour; and from one passage it may be mentioned that Lafontaine. 

 has taken his charming fable, ' Le Kenord et le Corbeau.' 

 with all its levity, is very interesting, as one of the most truly original 

 and national productions of the early French stage, and therefore as 

 one of those which gave promise of something like that spontaneous and 

 vigorous dramatic growth which was springing up in one 01 two ] 

 bmiring countries. But the three several kinds of theatre w 1 

 particularised were fated soon to sink under the repeated blows aimed 

 at them by the government. To this determined stilling 1 >\ 

 ment of the first germs of a truly national drama we ought to attribute 



