same nature with that which, as we have already noticed, usually rises in an early period of society. These were called Fabula Atellana-farces, for such they were, which took their name from Atella, a town belonging to the Osci in Italy. They were performed by the Roman youth, who used to attack each other with satirical couplets during the intervals of some rude game in which they seem to have represented the characters of fabulous antiquity. But 361 years before the Christian era, the Romans, in the time of a great pestilence, as we learn from Livy, introduced a more regular species of theatrical entertainment, in order to propitiate the deities by a solemn exhibition of public games; after which, what had hitherto been matter of mere frolic and amusement, assumed, according to the historian, the appearance of a professional art; and the Roman youth, who had hitherto appeared as amateur performers, gave up the stage to regular actors.

These plays continued, however, to be of a very rude structure, until the Grecian stage was transplanted to Rome. Livius Andronicus, by birth a Grecian, led the way in this improvement, and is accounted her first dramatist.

Seneca, the philosopher, is the only Roman dramatist whose works have reached our time. His tragedies afford no very favorable specimen of Roman art. They are in the false taste which succeeded the age of Augustus, and debased the style of composition in that of Nero; bombastic, tedious, and pedantic; treating, indeed, of Grecian subjects, but not with Grecian art.

Of

By a singular contrast, although we have lost the more valuable tragedies of Rome, we have been compelled to judge of the new Greek comedy through the medium of the Latin translations. Menander we have but a few fragments, and our examples of his drama are derived exclusively from Plautus and Terence. Of these, the former appears the more original, the latter the more elegant author. The comedies of Plautus are much more connected with manners-much more full of what may be termed drollery and comic situation, and are believed to possess a greater portion of Roman character. The Romans, indeed, had two species of comedythe Palliata, where the scene and dress were Grecian; the Togata, where both were Roman. But besides this distinction, even the Mantled, or Grecian, comedy might be more or less of a Roman cast;

and Plautus is supposed to have infused a much stronger national tone into his plays than can be traced in those of Terence. They are also of a ruder cast, and more extravagant, retaining, perhaps, a larger portion of the rough horse-play peculiar to the Fabula Atellana. Terence, on the contrary, is elegant, refined, and sententious; decorous and regular in the construction of his plots; exhibiting more of wit in his dialogue than of comic force in his situations; grave, often, and moral; sometimes even pathetic, and furnishing, upon the whole, the most perfect specimen of the Grecian. comedy, both in action and character.

The alterations which the Romans made in the practice of the theatrical art do not seem to have been of great consequence. One circumstance, however, deserves notice. The orchestra, or, as we term it, the parquet of the theater, was no longer left vacant for the occasional occupation of the Chorus, but was filled with the senators, knights, and other more respectable citizens. The stage was thus brought more hear to the eye of the higher class of the audience. It would also seem that the theaters were smaller; for we read of two so constructed, that each turned upon a pivot, so that, when placed back to back, they were separate theaters, yet were capable of being wheeled around, with all the audience, so as to bring their oblong ends together, then forming a single amphitheater, in which the games of the circus succeeded to dramatic representation. It is not easy to conceive the existence of such machinery; but the story, at any rate, seems to show, that their theaters must have been greatly smaller than those of Greece, to admit the supposition of such an evolution as being in any degree practicable.. This diminution in the size of the house, and the occupation of the orchestra by the most dignified part of the audience, may have afforded a reason why masks were, at least occasionally, disused on the Roman stage. That they were sometimes disused is certain; for Cicero mentions Roscius Gallus as using a mask to conceal a deformity arising from the inequality of his eyes, which implies plainly that other comedians played with their faces disclosed. It is probable, therefore, that the imperfections of the mask were felt, so soon as the distance was diminished between the performer and the spectators; and we may hazard a conjecture that this disguise was first laid aside in the smaller theaters.

PLATE IV. CHARACTER SKETCHES OF THE ROMAN DRAMA.

See Page 18.

But the principal change introduced by the Romans into the Drama, and which continues to affect it in every country of Europe, respected the status or rank of the actors in society. We have seen that Athens, enthusiastic in her attachment to the fine arts, held no circumstances degrading which were connected with them. Eschylus and Sophocles were soldiers and statesmen, yet lost nothing in the opinion of their countrymen, by appearing on the public stage. Euripides, who was also a person of consequence, proved that "love esteems no office mean;" for he danced in a female disguise in his own drama, and that not as the Princess Nauticlea, but as one of her handmaidens. The Grecians, therefore, attached no dishonor to the person of the actor, nor esteemed that he who contributed to giving the amusement of the theater, was at all degraded beneath those who

received it. It was other

wise in Rome.

The contempt which the Ro

mans entertained for players might be founded partly upon their confounding this elegant amuse

ment with the games of the circus and amphitheater, performed by gladiators and slaves, the meanest, in short, of mankind. Hence, to use the words of St. Augustin," the ancient Romans, accounting the art of stage-playing and the whole scene infamous, ordained that this sort of men should not only want the honor of other citizens, but also be disfranchised and thrust out of their tribe, by a legal and disgraceful censure, which the censors were to execute; because they would not suffer their vulgar sort of people, much less their senators, to be defamed, disgraced, or defiled with stage-players; ' which act of theirs he styles "an excellent true Roman prudence, to be enumerated among the Roman's praises."

Accordingly, an edict of the prætor stigmatized as infamous all who appeared on the stage, either to speak or to act; but it is remarkable that from this general proscription the Roman youth were except

Injustice, however-and we call that law unjust which devotes to general infamy any profession of which it nevertheless tolerates the practice-is usually inconsistent. Several individual play-actors in Rome rose to high public esteem, and to the enjoyment of great wealth. Roscius was the friend and companion of Piso and of Sylla, and, what was still more to his credit, of Cicero himself.

Paris, another Roman actor, reached a hight of celebrity as distinguished as Roscius, and exercised, as many of his profession have since done, an arbitrary authority over the unfortunate dramatic authors. It is recorded by the satirist that the epic poet Statius might have starved had he not given up to this favorite of the public, upon his own terms doubtless, the manuscript of an unacted performance. Paris was put to death by Domitian out of jealousy.

If the actors rose to be persons of importance in

Rome, the dramatic critics were not less so. They had formed a code of laws for the regulation of dramatic authors to which the great names of Aristotle and Horace both contributed their authority. But these will be more properly treated of when we come to mention the adoption of the ancient regulations by the French stage.

Having thus gone hastily through some accounts of the ancient stage, from its rise in Greece to its transportation to Rome, we have only to notice the circumstances under which it expired.

Christianity from its first origin was inimical to the institution of the stage. The Fathers of the Church inveigh against the profaneness and immodesty of the theater. In the treatise of Tertullian, De Spectaculis, he has written expressly upon the subject. The various authorities on this head. have been collected and quoted by the enemies of the stage, from Prynne down to Collier. It ought, however, to be noticed, that their exprobration of the theater is founded, first, upon its origin, as connected with heathen superstition; and secondly, on the beastly and abominable license practiced in the pantomimes, which, although they made no part of the regular drama, were represented nevertheless in the same place, and before the same audience. "We avoid your shows and games," says Tertullian, "because we doubt the warrant of their origin. They savor of superstition and idolatry, and we dislike the entertainment, as abhorring the heathen religion on which it is founded." In another place he observes the temples were united to theaters, in order that superstition might patronize debauchery, and that they were dedicated to Bacchus and to Venus, the confederate deities of lust and intemperance.

It was not only the connection of the theater with heathen superstition that offended the primitive Church; but also the profligacy of some of the entertainments which were exhibited. There cannot be much objection to the regular Roman dramas in this particular, since even Collier allows them to be more decorous than the British stage of his own time; but, as we have already hinted, in the Ludi Scenici, the intrigues of the gods and the heroes were represented upon the stage with the utmost gross

ness.

These obscene and scandalous performances thus far coincided with the drama that they were acted in the same theaters, and in honor of the same deities, and both were subjected to the same sweep

ing condemnation. They were not, however, absolutely or formally abolished, even when Christianity became the religion of the State. Tertullian and St. Austin both speak of the scenic representations of their own day, under the distinct characters of tragedy and comedy; and although condemned by the Church, and abhorred by the more strict Christians, there is little doubt that the ancient theater continued to exist until it was buried under the ruins of the Roman Empire.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

PLATE I.—1-10, 13, 14, 20 and 21 are a collection of masks which were used by the Grecians for dramatic representations. Nos. 11, 15, 18, 22 and 26 are scenes of tragic performances in Greece; while Fig. 16 is a scene from a Grecian comedy. No. 23 shows several male and female figures in the auditorium of a Grecian theater. No. 24 represents the costuming and masking of an actor, while No. 25 shows us the rehearsal of a Grecian play.

PLATE II.-No. 27 shows a scene from the parody of Antigone. No. 28 is Xanthias, a character of Grecian comedy, similar to the Shakespearian Falstaff. No. 29 represents a scene from the comedy of Phormio, by Terence, and Nos. 30 and 36 are characters from the same play. No. 31 is a scene of a favorite Grecian comedy, in which Hercules has captured some foolish mortals who had opposed him, and proposes to sell them at the market. No. 32 represents a scene in which Dionysos is declaring his love at the window of Althæa, the wife of the intoxicated King Eneus. No. 33 is a ludicrous scene, in which a tantalizing woman has stolen the wine of Hercules, who is following her in order to recapture it. No. 34 is a Grecian actor in the character of Silenus. No. 35 is a scene from the play of Andria, written by the famous Roman dramatist Terence. No. 37 is the first scene in the play of "The Frogs," by Aristophanes. No. 38 is a comic scene in which a Grecian lady has excited her lord and master. Nos. 39 and 40 are scenes from Grecian comedies of which the authorship is unknown. No. 41 represents a comedy scene from a Roman play attributed by some to Plautus, and by others to Terence. PLATE III.-No. 1 represents a singer teaching a pupil. No. 2 shows us a musical director instructing a singer who is being accompanied by another performer playing the lyre. Nos. 3 and 4 are of an imaginary nature, in which flying Victorias announce the victory of musicians playing for prizes before a master. No. 5 is a traveling musician. Nos. 6, 7 and 14 are female dancers, two of whom (6 and 14) are accompanying themselves with cymbals, while the third is making use of an instrument similar to our modern castanet. No. 8 represents a musician playing before the judge who awards prizes. Nos. 9 and 13 are scenes from a dramatic and musical representation at the funeral of some celebrated man. No. 10 represents a singer and flute player being crowned by flying Victorias. Nos. 11 and 12 are female performers on the lyre. No. 15 is a master in the act of presenting his crowned pupil with a lyre. No. 17 represents a group of singers and performers on the flute, cithara and trigon. In No. 16 a female musician is performing on two instruments at the same time. No. 18 is a musical rehearsal.

PLATE IV.-Nos. 1 and 12 are statues of a Roman actor and actress, Nos. 2, 13, and 26 represent females of the hetaristic class. Nos. 3 and 8 are slaves who are meditating over the castigation they have received, while No. 6 is a slave undergoing the ordeal of punishment. No. 7 is a slave rejoicing in some mischievous action he has just committed. No. 18 is a slave making love to a female flute player, unconscious that his master is looking on. No. 22 shows us the same slave seated upon an altar to avoid punishment. No. 9 represents an old farmer, and No. 25 is the character of another old man. Nos. 5. 10, 16 and 17 are characters representing parasites. Nos. 11, 14 and 21 are jesters. No. 15 is a dwarf. No. 19 represents dancing Galli beating cymbals and tympanums. No. 20 represents jugglers and singers with musical accompaniment. No. 23 is the ancient emblem of comedy.