terrify them by the history and actions of a race of beings before whom ordinary mortality dwindled into pigmy size. This the ancient dramatists dared to attempt; and, what may appear still more astonishing to the mere English reader, this they appear in a great measure to have performed. Effects were produced upon their audience which we can only attribute to the awful impression communicated by the immediate presence of the Divinity. The emotions excited by the apparition of the Eumenides, or Furies, in Æschylus's tragedy of that name, so appalled the audience, that females are said to have often suffered serious consequences, and children to have actually expired in convulsions of terror. These effects may have been exaggerated; but that considerable inconveniences occurred from the extreme horror with which this tragedy impressed the spectators, is evident from a decree of the magistrates, limiting the number of the Chorus, in order to prevent in future such tragical consequences. It is plain. that the feeling by which such impressions arose must have been something very different from what the spectacle of the scene alone could possibly have produced. The mere sight of actors disguised in masks, suited to express the terrific yet sublime features of an antique Medusa, with her hair entwined with serpents; the wild and disheveled appearance, the sable and bloody garments, the blazing torches, the whole apparatus, in short, or properties, as they are technically called, with which the classic fancy of Eschylus could invest those terrific personages; in fact, even the appropriate terrors of language and violence of gesture with which they were bodied forth, must still have fallen far short of the point which the poet certainly attained, had it not been for the intimate and solemn conviction of his audience that they were in the performance of an act of devotion, and, to a certain degree, in the presence of the deities themselves. It was this conviction, and the solemn and susceptible temper to which it exalted the minds of a large assembly, which prepared them to receive the electric shock produced by the visible representation of these terrible beings, in whom, whether as personifying the stings and terrors of an awakened conscience, or as mysterious and infernal divinities, the survivors of an elder race of deities, whose presence was supposed to strike awe even into Jove himself, the ancients ascribed the task of pursuing and punishing atrocious guilt. It was in consistency with this connection between the Drama and religion of Greece that the principal Grecian dramatists thought themselves entitled to produce upon the stage the most sacred events of their mythological history. It might have been thought that, in doing so, they injured the effect of their fable and action, since suspense and uncertainty, so essential to the interests of a play, could not be supposed to exist where the immortal gods, beings controlling all others, and themselves uncontrolled, were selected as the agents in the piece. But it must be remembered that the synod of Olympus, from Jove downward, were themselves but limitary deities, possessing, indeed, a certain influence upon human affairs, but unable to stem or divert the tide of fate or destiny, upon whose dark bosom, according to the Grecian creed, gods as well as men were embarked, and both sweeping downward to some distant, yet inevitable termination of the present system of the universe, which should annihilate at once the race of divinity and mortality. This awful catastrophe is hinted at not very obscurely by Prometheus, who, when chained to his rock, exults, in his prophetic view, in the destruction of his oppressor Jupiter; and so far did Æschylus, in particular, carry the introduction of religious topics into his drama, that he escaped with some difficulty from an accusation of having betrayed the Eleusinian mysteries. Where the subject of the Drama was not actually taken from mythological history, and when the gods themselves did not enter upon the scene, the Grecian stage was, as we have already hinted, usually trod by beings scarcely less awful to the imagination of the audience; the heroes, namely, of their old traditional history, to whom they attributed an immediate descent from their deities-a frame of body and mind surpassing humanity, and after death an exaltation into the rank of demi-gods. It must be added that, even when the action was laid among a less dignified set of personages, still the altar was present on the stage; incense frequently smoked; and frequent prayers and obtestations of the Deity reminded the audience that the sports of the ancient theater had their origin in religious observances. It is scarcely necessary to state how widely the classical Drama, in this re 8 spect, differs in principle from that of the modern, which pretends to be nothing more than an elegant branch of the fine arts, whose end is attained when it supplies an evening's amusement, whose lessons are only of a moral description, and which is so far from possessing a religious character, that it has, with difficulty, escaped condemnation as a profane, dissolute, and anti-Christian pastime. From this distinction of principle there flows a difference of practical results, serving to account for many circumstances which might otherwise seem embarrassing. sent. The ancients, we have seen, endeavored by every means in their power, including the use of masks and of buskins, to disguise the person of the actor; and, at the expense of sacrificing the expression of his countenance, and the grace-or, at least, the ease of his form, they removed from the observation of the audience every association which could betray the person of an individual player, under the garb of the deity or hero he was designed to repreTo have done otherwise would have been held indecorous, if not profane. It follows that, as the object of the Athenian and of the modern auditor in attending the theater was perfectly different, the pleasure which each derived from the representation had a distinct source. Thus, for example, the American's desire to see a particular character is intimately connected with the idea of the actor by whom it was performed. He does not wish to see Hamlet in the abstract so much as to see how Booth performs that character, and to compare him, perhaps, with his own recollections of Fechter in the same part. He comes prepared to study each variation of the actor's countenance, each change in his accentuation and deportment; to note with critical. accuracy the points which discriminate his mode of acting from that of others, and to compare the whole with his own conception of the character. The pleasure arising from this species of critical investigation and contrast is so intimately allied with our ideas of theatrical amusement, that we can scarce admit the possibility of deriving much satisfaction from a representation sustained by an actor, whose personal appearance and peculiar expression of features should be concealed from us, however splendid his declamation, or however appropriate his gesture and action. But this mode of considering the Drama, and the delight which we derive from it, would have appeared to the Greeks a foolish and profane refinement not very different in point of taste from the expedient of Snug the Joiner, who intimated his identity by letting his natural visage be seen, under the mask of the lion which he represented. It was with the direct purpose of concealing the features of the individual actors, as tending to destroy the effect of his theatrical disguise, that the mask and buskin were first invented, and afterward retained in use. The figure was otherwise so dressed as to represent the Deity or demi-god, according to the statue best known, and adored with most devotion by the Grecian public. The mask was formed by artists who were eminent in the plastic art, so as to perfect the resemblance. Theseus, or Hercules, stood before the audience in the very form in which painters and statuaries had taught them to invest the hero, and there was certainly thus gained a more complete scenic deception than could have been obtained in our present mode. It was aided by the distance interposed between the audience and the stage; but, above all, by the influence of enthusiasm acting upon the congregated thousands, whose imaginations, equally lively and susceptible, were prompt to receive the impressions which the noble verse of their authors conveyed to their ears, and the living personification of their gods and demi-gods placed before their eyes. It is scarcely necessary to add that, while these observations plead their apology for the mask and the buskin of the ancients, they leave where it stood before every objection to those awkward and unseemly disguises, considered in themselves, and without reference to the peculiar purpose and tendency of the ancient theater. In fact, the exquisite pleasure derived from watching the eloquence of feature and eye, which we admire in an accomplished actor, was not, as some have supposed, sacrificed by the ancients for the assumption of these disguises. They never did, and, according to the plan of their theaters, never could, possess that source of enjoyment. The circuit of the theater was immense, and the eyes of the thousands whom it contained were so far removed from the stage, that, far from being able to enjoy the minute play of the actor's features, the mask and buskin were necessary to give distinction to his figure, and to convey all which the ancients expected to see, his general resemblance, namely, to the character he represented. The style of acting, so far as it has been described to us, corresponded to the other circumstances of the representation. It affected gravity and sublimity of movement, and of declamation. Rapidity of motion and vivacity of action seemed to have been reserved for occasions of particular emotion; and that delicacy of by-play, as well as all the aid which look and slight gesture bring so happily to the aid of an impassioned dialogue, were foreign to their system. The actors, therefore, had an easier task than on the modern stage, since it is much more easy to preserve a tone of high and dignified declamation, than to follow out the whirlwind and tempest of passion, in which it is demanded of the performer to be energetic without bombast, and natural without vulgarity. The Grecian actors held a high rank in the republic, and those esteemed in the profession were richly recompensed. Their art was the more dignified, because the poets themselves usually represented the principal character in their own pieces—a circumstance which corroborates what we have already stated concerning the comparative inferiority of talents required in a Grecian actor, who was only expected to move with grace, and declaim with truth and justice. His disguise hid all personal imperfections, and thus a Grecian poet might aspire to become an actor, without that extraordinary and unlikely union of moral and physical powers which would be necessary to qualify a modern dramatist to mount the stage in person, and excel at once as a poet and as an actor. THE GREAT DRAMATISTS. It is no part of our present object to enter into any minute examination of the comparative merits of the three great tragedians of Athens-Eschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Never, perhaps, did there arise, within so short a space, such a succession of brilliant talents. Sophocles might, indeed, be said to be the contemporary of both his rivals, for his youthful emulation was excited by the success of Eschylus, and the eminence of his latter years was disturbed by the rivalry of Euripides, whom, however, he survived. To Eschylus, who led the van in dramatic enterprise, as he did in the field of Marathon, the sanction of antiquity has ascribed unrivaled powers over the realms of astonishment and terror. At his summons, the mysterious and tremendous volume of destiny, in which was inscribed the doom of gods and men, seemed to display its leaves of iron before the appalled spectators; the more than mortal voices of Deities, Titans and departed Heroes were heard in awful conference; heaven bowed, and its divinities descended; earth yawned, and gave up the pale specters of the dead and the still more undefined and grizzly forms of those infernal deities who struck horror into the gods themselves. All this could only be dared and done by a poet of the highest order, confident, during that early age of enthusiasm, that he addressed an au SOPHOCLES. dience prompt to kindle at the heroic scene which he placed before them. It followed almost naturally, from his character, that the dramas of Eschylus, though full of terrible interest, should be deficient of grace and softness; that his sublime conciseness should deviate sometimes into harshness and obscurity; that, finding it impossible to sustain himself at the hight to which he had ascended, he should sometimes drop, "fluttering his pinions vain," into great inequalities of composition; and, finally, that his plots should appear rude and inartificial, contrasted with those of his successors in the dramatic art. Nevertheless, Eschylus led not only the way in the noble career of the Grecian drama, but outstripped, in point of sublimity at least, those by whom he was followed. Sophocles, who obtained from his countrymen the title of the Bee of Attica, rivalled Eschylus when in the possession of the stage, and obtained the first |