This game the Persian magi did invent,
The force of Eastern wisdom to express;
From thence to busy Europeans sent,

And styled, by modern Lombards, pensive chess.

But the political and moral purposes of the game are more curiously set forth in a short poem by Mr. Craig, prefixed to an old translation of Vida, which is now lying before us. Of these verses we shall extract a few, not for their intrinsic merit, which is moderate enough, but to exemplify the writer's notions of the high mysteries contained in the game, as well as to relieve for a moment the prosaic dulness of our own labours.

A monarch strongly guarded here we view,
By his own consort and his clergy too.
Next those, two knights their royal sire attend,
And two steep rocks are planted at each end.-
To clear the way before this courtly throng,
Eight pawns as private soldiers march along;
Enfans perdus! like heroes stout and brave,
Risk their own lives the sovereign to save-
All in their progress forming a complete
And perfect emblem of the game of state

The bishop's nearness to the royal pair
Points that it still should be a prince's care
To trust and cherish priests of God, because
It is presumed they best explain his laws
To his vicegerent; and in oblique ways
Traverse and mystic to the vulgar eyes,
Perfect their measures, &c.

Though from the king the knights more distant be,
Yet by their crooked leap we often see,

The sovereign forced to fly his royal seat
And in some secret corner seek retreat;
Whereas, had any other been so bold,

Th' insulting check he could have soon controll'd,
And placed another member in the gap,
Till he should meditate his own escape.
So, there's no danger in a government

A prince should be more cautious to prevent,
Than the revolt of nobles and the great,
For their example oft affects the state.→

Each lofty rock with its exalted towers,
Like frontier garrisons the state secures,
And sometimes as a safe asylum prove

To their own monarch, when he's forced to move.→

The king himself but one short pace must go,
Though all the rest may rally to and fro

Hence kings should never heedlessly expose
Their sacred persons to the assaults of foes;
The kingdom's welfare on their life depends,
And in their death the nation's safety ends.

The first deviser thought it fit the queen
Should in this warlike pastime predomine.
In ecclesiastic paths she freely moves,
And thro' the rocky way unbounded roves;
Yet must she not th' indecent footsteps trace
Of leap-skip knights, nor imitate their pace-
Although the king's prerogative is such,
That none his person or his life can touch,
Others, by their bad conduct when misled,
May be swept off the field of war as dead.
Nor does the monarch still the battle lose,
In number tho' inferior to his foes,

But by the hazard of one pawn may gain,
And prudent conduct victory obtain.

Nor must we here omit the pawns' reward,
Who, when courageous, justly are preferr'd,
If they the limits of the board can reach,
Like those who first assault a dangerous breach.-

This to our view doth fully represent
Virtue's reward, and vice's punishment;-
So active minds themselves to glory raise,
While slothful cowards their own souls debase

The game thus ended, kings with pawns are jumbled,
Queens, knights, rooks, bishops, all confus'dly tumbled,
Into the box, pell-mell, are headlong toss'd,

And all their grandeur in oblivion lost.

Thus monarchs with their meanest subjects must
Be one day levell'd in their native dust,

So short-liv'd, fading, vain, and transitory,

That shadow of a phantom-human glory!

It would be hardly fair towards the historian and poetlaureate of the game of chess to dismiss the subject without a short specimen of Marcus Hieronymus Vida, whom Mr. Roscoe lauds for his admirable talent of uniting a considerable portion of classical elegance, and often dignity, with the utmost facility and clearness. Whether his style deserve the praise of being a just mixture of Virgil and Lucretius we leave the reader to determine; so far as a judgment may be formed from so short a citation. Jupiter, enthroned in all his state, thus issues his commands to the deities, as to the parts they are to act in a pending game of chess between an Albian and an Ethiopian prince.

"Hos Pater adversis solos decernere jussit
Inter se studiis, et ludicra bella fovere,
Ac partes tutari ambas, quas vellet uterque:
Nec non proposuit victori præmia digna.--
Dii magni sedêre: Deum stat turba minorum
Circumfusa; caveat sed lege, et fœdere pacto,
Ne quisquam, voce aut nutu, ludentibus ausit
Prævisos monstrare ictus.-Quem denique primum
Sors inferre aciem vocet, atque invadere Martem
Quæ situm: primumque locum certaminis Albo
Ductori tulit, ut quem vellet primus in hostem
Mitteret: Id sané magni referre putabant.—
Tum tacitus secum versat, quem ducere contrà
Conveniat; peditemque jubet procedere campum
In medium, qui Reginam dirimebat ab hoste."

CHAPTER XXIV.

English Drama.

"Hard is his lot that here by fortune placed,
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;
With every meteor of caprice must play,
And chase the new-blown bubbles of the day.
Ah! let not censure term, our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the public voice;
The drama's laws the drama's patrons give,
For we, that live to please, must please to live.
Then prompt no more the follies you decry,
As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die."
Dr. Johnson.

Or the origin of the drama among the Greeks and Romans we have already spoken in our fourth chapter, where we have shown that it had its source in the public games and religious festivals, at which it was customary to celebrate the life and exploits of the deity or hero in whose honour they were instituted. It is not our purpose to enter into the much-agitated controversy concerning the origin of the modern drama in Europe; for whether it arose in France or Italy, among the troubadours of Provence or the shepherds in Calabria, it will be sufficient for our purpose to contend that it was a distinct species of itself, and not a revival of the ancient drama; that it was of Gothic rather

than of classic birth; and that it ought not, therefore, to be bound by the rules or compared with the merits of its Grecian predecessor. Had Shakspeare been circumscribed by the ancient dramatic laws, of which he was probably ignorant, and which he certainly did not mean to follow, we should have had cold and tame imitation, instead of the fiery flights of original genius; and the dramatic glory of England would have suffered a lamentable eclipse.

Nothing, indeed, is more superfluous than our inquiries into the origin of great and useful inventions; nothing more vain than the keen contests among rival nations for the honour of their first discovery: for the principles of human nature being the same in all parts of the world, there may be often coincident productions at the two extremities of the globe, absolutely identical in their general nature, and yet both fully entitled to the merit of being original. Imitation is not less inherent in our nature than the passions; and if these were the sources of poetry in general, the former must in all ages have given rise to dramatic representations. It is natural for indolent persons, who have no resources in their arts or learning against the tediousness of life, to delight in assuming fictitious characters, as we see children at school fond of acting kings and heroes, and of rudely dramatising the stories which have made the most vivid impressions upon their fancy. What thus began in amusement was soon found to be susceptible of a much higher and nobler application. As example is the strongest and most effectual manner of enforcing the precepts of wisdom, it became manifest that a just theatrical representation might be rendered a humanizing and instructive academy; with this special advantage, that the young spectator might contemplate a picture of human nature, and learn the manners of the world without encountering its perils.

"Even some of the inspired writings have been considered dramatical by very pious persons. The illustrious Bossuet divides the Song of Solomon into various scenes: the Book of Job, equally valuable for its great antiquity and for the noble strain of moral poetry in which it is composed, has been esteemed a regular drama; and Milton tells us that a learned critic distributed the Apocalypse into several acts, distinguished by a chorus of angels. Gregory

A a

of Nazianzen, a poet and a father of the church, persuaded the people of Byzantium to represent on their theatre some chosen stories of the Old and New Testament, and to banish from their stage the profane compositions of Sophocles and Euripides. The Jews themselves had the stories of the Old Testament exhibited in the dramatic form; part of a Jewish piece on the subject of Exodus is preserved in Greek iambics, written by one Ezekiel, who styles himself the poet of the Hebrews."*

A custom of representing at every solemn festival some event recorded in Scripture, became almost general nearly at the same period, in the south, the west, and even in the north of Europe; in the two latter of which divisions the poems of Gregory and the language of the Greeks were wholly unknown; so that neither can have borrowed their mysteries from Constantinople. In both these instances they probably originated in the pious desire of disseminating a knowledge of the Bible, at a time when the mass of the people were unable to read, and when even those who possessed that rare qualification, could not betake themselves to the Scriptures, since they were mostly restricted to the Latin language. Although the clergy in many instances opposed themselves to any version of the sacred writings in the vulgar tongue, they do not seem to have objected to the translating into action, or dramatising such portions of them as were most susceptible of being thus illustrated. Of these pious, or as we should now rather say profane, performances, the church was the theatre; the ecclesiastics themselves or their scholars were the performers; and it appears that they were not altogether disinterested teachers, nor content with such scriptural knowledge or moral instruction as could be thus conveyed, since they derived a pecuniary profit from their exhibitions. These were termed mysteries and miracles, because they inculcated the profound doctrines of Christianity, and represented the miracles wrought by the great founders of the faith and their successors, as well as the sufferings of the martyrs..

*The principal characters of this drama are Moses, Sepphora, and 8 Ocоs and Bars, "God speaking from the bush." Moses delivers the prologue in a speech of sixty lines, and his rod is changed into a serpent upon the stage.-See The Origin of the English Drama, by Thomas Hawkins, p. 5.