Hence acts and scenes her fertile stage affords,
Unknown, unrivall'd, on the foreign boards."

Life of Lope de Vega, p. 106.

While we admire the richness of fancy displayed in the Spanish pieces, it is impossible, in an age of refinement, to avoid being shocked by their wilful and extravagant neglect of every thing which can add probability to the action of their Drama. But the apology for this license is well pleaded by Lord Holland.

"Without dwelling on the expulsion of the Chorus, (a most unnatural and inconvenient machine,) the moderns, by admitting a complication of plot, have introduced a greater variety of incidents and character. The province of invention is enlarged; new passions, or at least new forms of the same passions, are brought within the scope of dramatic poetry. French sources of interest are opened, and additional powers of imagination called into activity. Can we then deny what extends its jurisdiction, and enhances its interest, to be an improvement in an art whose professed object is to stir the passions by the imitation of human actions? In saying this, I do not mean to justify the breach of decorum, the neglect of probability, the anachronisms and other extravagances of the founders of the modern theatre. Because the first disciples of the school were not models of perfection, it does not follow that the fundamental maxims were defective. The rudeness of their workmanship is no proof of the inferiority of the material; nor does the want of skill deprive them of the merit of having discovered the mine. The faults objected to them form no necessary part of the system they introduced. Their followers in every country have either completely corrected or gradually reformed such abuses. Those who bow not implicitly to the authority of Aristotle, yet avoid such violent outrages as are common in our early plays. And those who pique themselves on the strict observance of his laws, betray in the conduct, the sentiments, the characters, and the dialogue of their pieces (especially of their comedies) more resemblance to the modern than the ancient theatre; their code may be Grecian, but their manners, in spite of themselves, are Spanish, English, or French. They may renounce their pedigree, and even change their dress, but they cannot divest their features of a certain family-likeness to their poetical progenitors.” In France the irregularities of the revived Drama were of a lower complexion; for, until her stage was refined by Corneille, and brought under its present strict régime, it was adorned by but little talent; a circumstance which, amongst others, may account for the ease with which she subjected herself to critical rules, and assumed the yoke of Aristotle. Until she submitted to the Grecian forms and restrictions, there is but little interesting in the history of her stage.

England adopted the historical and romantic Drama with ardour, and in a state scarce more limited by rules than that of Spain herself.

Her writers seem early to have ransacked Spanish literature; for the union of the countries during the short reign of Mary, nay even their wars under Elizabeth and Philip, made them acquainted with each other. The Spaniards had the start in the revival of the_Drama. Ferrex and Porrex, our earliest tragedy, was first presented in 1561; and Gammer Gurton's Needle, our first comedy, in 1575; whereas Lopez de Vega (who was not by any means the earliest Spanish dramatist) died in 1562, leaving the stage stocked with his innumerable productions, to which his contemporaries had not failed to add their share. Thus, so soon as the stage of Britain was so far advanced as to be in a capacity of borrowing, that of Spain offered a fund to which her authors could have recourse; and, in fact, the Spanish Drama continued to be a mine in which the British poets collected materials, often without acknowledgement, during all the earlier part of her dramatic history. From this source, as well as from the partialities of the audience, arose that early attempt at show and spectacle, at combats and marvellous incidents, which, though with very poor means of representation, our early dramatic poets loved to produce at the Bull or the Fortune playhouses. The extravagance of their plots, and the poor efforts by which our early dramatists endeavoured to represent show and procession, did not escape the censure of Sir Philip Sydney, who, leaning to the critical reformation which was already taking place in Italy, would gladly have seen our stage reduced to a more classical model.

"It is faultie,” says that gallant knight, "both in place and time, the two necessary companions of all corporall actions. For the stage should alway present but one place; and the uttermost time presupposed in it should bee, both by Aristotle's precept and common reason, but one day; there are both many dayes and many places inartificially imagined. But if it be so in Gorboduke, how much more in all the rest? where you shall have Asia of the one side, and Affricke of the other, and so many other under kingdomes, that the plair when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where hee is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walke to gather flowers, and then wee must beleeve the stage to be a garden. By and by wee heare newes of shipwracke in the same place, then wee are to blame if we accept it not for a rocke. Upon the backe of that comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while, in the meantime, two armies flie in, represented with some swordes and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field? Now of time they are much more liberall; for ordinarie it is, that two young princes fall in love. After many traverses shee is got with childe, delivered of a faire boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is readie to get another childe, and all this in two houres space; which how absurd

it is in sense, even sense may imagine, and art hath taught, and all ancient examples justified, and at this day the ordinary players in Italy will not err in.”

Italy, referred to by Sir Philip Sidney as the cradle of the reformed Drama, had had her own age of liberty and confusion; her mysteries, her moralities, her historical, and her romantic Dramas. But the taste for the ancient and classical stage was still rooted in the country where it had flourished, and Trissino is acknowledged as the father of the regular Drama. The Sophonisba of this learned prelate is praised by Voltaire as the first regular tragedy which Europe had seen after so many ages of barbarism. Pope has added his tribute.

"When learning, after the long Gothic night,
Fair o'er the western world renew'd its light,
With arts arising, Sophonisba rose,

The tragic muse returning wept her woes;
With her the Italian scene first learn'd to glow,
And the first tears for her were taught to flow."

This tragedy was represented at Rome in the year 1515. The Greek model is severely observed, and the author has encumbered his scene with a Chorus. It has some poetic beauties, and is well calculated to recommend the new or rather revived system on which it was written. La Rosmonda of Ruçelleri was written about the same time with Sophonisba; and, after these pieces, tragic-comedies, histories, and romantic Dramas, were discarded, and succeeded by tragedies upon a regular classical model; written in verse having five acts, and generally with a Chorus.

Notwithstanding their rigorous attention to the ancient model, the modern tragic poets of Italy have not been very successful in arresting the attention of their countrymen. They are praised rather than followed; and the stern and unbending composition of Alfieri, while it has given a tone of rude and stoical dignity to his Dramas, has failed in rendering them attractive. They frequently please in the closet; but the audience of modern days requires to be kept awake by something more active, more bustling, more deeply interesting, than the lessons of the schools; and a poet of high fancy has written in some measure in vain, because he has mistaken the spirit of his age. The tragic actors also, whatever excellence they may attain to in their art, do not attract the same consideration, attention, and respect, as in France or England; and they who are the direct authors of a pleasure so nearly connected with our noblest and best feelings, occupy a rank subordinate to the performers at the opera.

It is only as a modification of the Drama, that we here propose to touch upon that entertainment of Italian growth, but known by importation in every civilized kingdom of Europe. These kingdoms have often rivalled each other in the rewards held forth to musical perform

ers, and encouraged their merit by a degree of profusion, which has had the effect of rendering the professors petulant, capricious, and unmanageable. Their high emoluments are not granted, or their caprices submitted to, without a degree of pleasure in some degree corresponding to the expense and the sufferance; and it is in vain for the admirers of the legitimate Drama to pretend that such is not obtained. Voltaire has with more justice confessed, that probably the best imitation of the ancient stage was to be found in the Italian tragic opera. The recitative resembled the musical declamation of the Athenians, and the choruses, which are frequently introduced, when properly combined with the subject, approach to those of the Greeks, as forming a contrast, by the airs which they execute, to the recitative, or modulated dialogue of the scene. Voltaire instances the tragic operas of Metastasio in particular, as approaching in beauty of diction, and truth of sentiment, near to the ancient simplicity; and finds an apology even for the detached airs, (so fatal to probability,) in the beauty of the poetry and the perfection of the music. And although, as a critic and man of cultivated taste, this author prefers the regular, noble, and severe beauties of the classic stage, to the effeminate and meretricious charms of the opera, still he concludes, that, with all its defects, the sort of enchantment which results from the brilliant intermixture of scenery, chorus, dancing, music, dress, and decoration, subjects even the genius of criticism; and that the most sublime tragedy, and most artful comedy, will not be so frequently revisited by the same individual as an indifferent opera. We may add the experience of London to the testimony of this great critic; and, indeed, were it possible that actors could frequently be procured, possessed of the powers of action and of voice, which were united in Grassini, it would be impossible to deny to the opera the praise of being an amusement as exquisite in point of taste, as fascinating from show and music. But as the musical parts of the entertainment are predominant, every thing else has been too often sacrificed to the caprice of a composer, wholly ignorant in every art save his own; and the mean and paltry dialogue, which is used as a vehicle for the music, is become proverbial to express nonsense and inanity.

The Italian comedy, as well as their tragedy, boasts its regular descent from classical times. Like the comedy of Menander, it introduces dramatis persona, whose characters are never varied, and some of whom are supposed to be directly descended from the ancient Mimi of the Atellanian fables. Such an origin is claimed for the celebrated Harlequin, and for the no less renowned Puncinello, our English Punch, both of whom retain the character of jesters, cowards, wags, and buffoons, proper to the Sannio of the Romans. It is believed of these worthies, that they existed before the time of Plautus, and continued to play their frolics during the middle ages, when the legitimate

M

Drama was unknown. For the former fact, sculpture, as well as tradition, is appealed to by Italian antiquaries, who have discovered the representation of these grotesque characters upon the Etruscan vases. In support of the latter averment, the grave authority of Saint Thomas Aquinas is appealed to, who, we rejoice to find, thought Harlequin and Punch no unlawful company in fitting time and place. "Ludus,” says that eminent person, with more consideration for human infirmity than some saints of our own day, est necessarius ad conversationem vitæ humana: ad omnia autem que sunt utilia conversationi humanæ deputari possunt aliqua officia licita: et ideò etiam officium histrionum quod ordinatur ad solatium hominibus exhibendum, non est secundum se illicitum, nec sunt histriones in statu peccati, dummodo moderatè ludo utantur; id est, non utendo aliquibus illicitis verbis vel factis, ad ludum, et non adhibendo ludum negotiis et temporibus indebitis unde illi qui moderate eis subveniunt, non peccant, sed juste faciunt mercedem ministerii eorum eis tribuendo. Et licet D. August. super. Joan. dicit quod donare res suas histrionibus vitium est immane, hoc intelligi debet de illis qui dant histrionibus qui in ludo utuntur illicitis, vel de illis qui superflue sua in tales consumunt, non de illis histrionibus qui moderate ludo utuntur."

Saint Anthony gives his sanction to Saint Thomas on this point: "Histrionalis ars, quia deservit humanæ recreationi, quæ necessaria est vitæ hominis secundum D. Thomam, de sa non est illicita, et de illa arte vivere non est prohibitum." (S. Antonius in 3 part. suæ Summæ, tit. iii. cap. 4.) Saint Anthony, indeed, adds the reasonable restriction that no clergyman should play Harlequin, and that Punch should not exhibit in the church.

66

Under this venerable authority, these Mimi went on and flourished. Other characters enlarged their little Drama. The personages appeared in masks. Each of these," says Mr. Walker, was originally intended as a kind of characteristic representation of some particular Italian district or town. Thus Pantalone was a Venetian merchant ; Dottore, a Bolognese physician; Spaviento, a Neapolitan braggadocio; Pullicinella,, a wag of Apulia; Giangurgolo and Coviello, two clowns of Calabria; Gelsomino, a Roman beau; Beltrame, a Milanese simpleton; Brighella, a Ferrarese pimp; and Arlecchino, a blundering servant of Bergamo. Each of these personages was clad in a peculiar dress; each had his peculiar mask; and each spoke the dialect of the place he represented. Besides these, and a few other such personages, of which at least four were introduced in each play, there were the Amorosos or Innamoratos; that is, some men and women who acted serious parts, with Smeraldina, Colombina, Spilletta, and other females, who played the parts of servettas or waiting-maids. All these spoke Tuscan or Roman, and wore no masks." (Essay on the Revival of the Drama in Italy, p. 249.)