and even disfigured with modern views. a young Scythian, but of an old Parisian.

It is not the travels of

The superiority of the Greeks, as I have already said, is the most universally acknowledged in the fine arts. An enthusiasm for their literature is in a great measure confined to the English and Germans, among whom also the study of the Grecian language is the most zealously prosecuted. It is singular that the French critics of all others, they who principally acknowledge the remains of the theoretical writing of the ancients on literature, Aristotle, Horace, Quinctilian, &c. as infallible standards of taste, should yet distinguish themselves by the contemptuous and irreverent manner in which they speak of their poetical compositions, and especially of their dramatic literature. Look for instance, into a book very much read,-La Harpe's Cours de Litterature. It contains many nice observations respecting the French Theatre; but he who should think of knowing the Greeks from it would be very ill advised: the author was as much deficient in a solid knowledge of their literature as in a sense for relishing it. Voltaire is often, also, most insupportable in the depreciation of the Greeks: he elevates or lowers them at the suggestions of his caprice, or as the necessity of the moment to produce such or such an effect on the mind of the public renders it expedient. I remember too to have read a rapid view of the Greek tragedies, somewhere in Metastasio, in which he treats their poets like so many school-boys. Racine is much more modest, and cannot be in any manner charged with this sort of presumption: he was of all of them, the best acquainted with the Greeks. It is easy to see into the motives of these hostile critics. The national vanity, and the vanity of the author, will afford us an easy solution: they conceive they have far surpassed the ancients, and they venture to commit such observations to the public, knowing that the works of the ancient poets, accessible only to the learned, have come down to us a mere dead letter, without the animating accompaniment of recitation, music, ideal and truly plastic imitation, and scenic pomp; all which in Athens was in such wonderful harmony with the poetry, that if once it could be represented to our eye and ear, it would silence the whole herd of these noisy and interested critics. The ancient statues require no commentary; they speak for themselves, and everything like supposed competition on the part of a modern artist would appear only in the light of ludicrous pretension. In the theatre, we lay great stress on the infancy of the art; and because their poets lived two thousand years before us, we conclude that we must have carried it farther than they did. In

this way poor Eschylus is generally got rid of. But if we are to call it the infancy of the dramatic art, it was the infancy of a Hercules, who strangled serpents in his cradle.

I have already expressed myself on the subject of that partiality for the ancients, which would limit their excellence to a frigid exemption from error, and which exhibits them as models in such a way as to put a stop to everything like improvement, and reduce us to abandon the exercise of art as altogether fruitless. I am much rather disposed to believe that poetry, as the fervid expression of our whole being, must assume a new and peculiar form in different ages. I entertain, however, an enthusiastic adoration for the Greeks, as a people endowed by the peculiar favour of nature with the most perfect feeling for art, in the consciousness of which they gave to all nations with which they were acquainted, compared with themselves, the appellation of barbarians, an appellation, in the use of which they were in some degree justified. I would not wish to imitate certain travellers, who, in returning from a country which their readers cannot easily visit, tell so many wondrous things as to injure their credibility. I shall rather endeavour to characterize them as they appear to me after sedulous and repeated study, without concealing their defects, and to bring a living picture of the Grecian scene before the eyes of my hearers.

We shall first treat of the Tragedy of the Greeks, then of their old Comedy, and lastly of the new Comedy which arose out of it.

The same theatrical accompaniments were common to all the three kinds. We must, therefore, give a short preliminary view of their architecture and ornaments, that we may have a distinct idea of their representation.

The histrionic art of the ancients had also many peculiarities, the use of masks for example, although these were quite differ-, ent in tragedy and comedy; in the former ideal, and in the latter, at least in the old comedy, somewhat caricatured.

In Tragedy, we shall first consider what constituted its most distinctive peculiarity among the ancients: the ideality of the representation, the prevailing idea of destiny, and the chorus; and we shall lastly treat of their mythology as the materials of tragic poetry. We shall then proceed to characterize, in the tragedians still remaining, the different styles, that is, the necessary epochs in the history of the tragic art.

LECTURE III.

Structure of the stage among the Greeks.-Their acting.-Use of masks.False comparison of ancient tragedy to the Opera.-Tragical Lyric Poetry.-Essence of the Greek Tragedies.-Ideality of the representation.—Idea of fate.--Source of the pleasure derived from tragical representations.--Import of the chorus.--The materials of the Greek tragedy derived from mythology. -Comparison with the plastic art.

WHEN We hear the word theatre, we naturally think of what with us bears the same name; and yet nothing can be more different from our theatre than the Grecian in every part of its construction. If in reading the Grecian pieces we associate our own stage with them, the light in which we shall view them must be false in every respect.

The accurate mathematical dimensions of the principal part of it are to be found in Vitruvius, who also distinctly points out the great difference between the Greek and Roman theatres. But these and similar passages of the ancient writers have been most perversely interpreted by architects unacquainted with the ancient dramatists; and the philologists on the other hand, who were altogether ignorant of architecture, have also fallen into egregious errors. The ancient dramatists are still, therefore, altogether in want of that sort of illustration which relates to scenic regulation. In many tragedies I conceive that my ideas on this subject are sufficiently clear; but others again present difficulties which are not so easily solved. We find ourselves most at a loss in figuring to ourselves the representation of the pieces of Aristophanes: the ingenious poet must have brought his wonderful inventions before the eyes of his audience, in a manner equally bold and astonishing. Even Barthelemy's description of the Grecian stage is not a little confused; and the subjoined plan extremely erroneous; in the place which he assigns for the representation of the pieces, in Antigone and Ajax for instance, he is altogether wrong. The following observations will not therefore appear the less superfluous.†

We have a remarkable instance of this, in the pretended ancient theatre of Palladio, at Vicenza. Herculaneum, it is true, had not then been discovered, and the ruins of the ancient theatre are not easily understood, if we have never seen one in an entire state.

I am partly indebted for them to the illustrations of a learned architect, M. Genelli, of Berlin, author of the ingenious Letters on Vitruvius. We have compared several Greek tragedies with our interpretation of this description of Vitruvius, and endeavoured to figure to ourselves the manner in which they were represented; and I afterwards found my ideas confirmed, on an examination of the theatre of Herculaneum, and the two very small theatres at Pompeii.

*

The theatres of the Greeks were quite open above, and their dramas were always acted in open day, and beneath the canopy of heaven. The Romans, at an after period, endeavoured by a covering to shelter the audience from the rays of the sun; but this degree of luxury was hardly ever enjoyed by the Greeks. Such a state of things appears very inconvenient to us; but the Greeks had nothing of effeminacy about them, and we must not forget, too, the beauty of their climate. When they were overtaken by a storm or a shower, the play was of course interrupted; and they would much rather expose themselves to an accidental inconvenience, than, by shutting themselves up in a close and crowded house, entirely destroy the serenity of a religious solemnity, which their plays certainly were. To have covered in the scene itself, and imprisoned gods and heroes in dark and gloomy apartments with difficulty lighted up, would have appeared still more ridiculous to them. An action which so nobly served to establish the belief of the relation with heaven could only be exhibited under an unobstructed heaven, and under the very eyes of the gods as it were, for whom, according to Seneca, the sight of a brave man struggling with adversity is a becoming spectacle. With respect to the supposed inconvenience, which, according to the assertion of many modern critics, was felt by the poets from the necessity of always laying the scene of their pieces before houses, a circumstance that often forced them to violate probability, this inconvenience was very little felt by tragedy and the older comedy. The Greeks, like so many southern nations of the present day, lived much more in the open air, than we do, and transacted many things in public places which usually take place with us in houses. For the theatre did not represent the street, but a place before the house belonging to it, where the altar stood on which sacrifices to the household gods were offered up. Here the women, who lived in so retired a manner among the Greeks, even those who were unmarried, might appear without any impropriety. Neither was it impossible for them to give a view of the interior of the houses; and this was effected, as we shall immediately see by means of the encyclema.

But the principal reason for this observance was that publicity, according to the republican notions of the Greeks, was essential to a grave and important transaction. This is clearly proved by the presence of the chorus, whose remaining on many occasions when secret transactions were going on has been judged

The theatre at

They carefully made choice of a beautiful situation. Tauromenium, at present Taormim, in Sicily, of which the ruins are still visible, was, according to Munter's description, situated in such a manner that the audience had a view of Etna over the back ground of the theatre.

of according to rules of propriety inapplicable to that country, and most undeservedly censured.

The theatres of the ancients were, in comparison with the small scale of ours, of a colossal magnitude, partly for the sake of containing the whole of the people, with the concourse of strangers who flocked to the festivals, and partly to correspond with the majesty of the dramas represented in them, which required to be seen at a respectful distance. The seats of the spectators consisted of steps which rose backwards round the semicircle of the orchestra, (called by us the pit,) so that they could all see with equal convenience. The effect of distance was remedied by an artificial heightening of the subject, represented to the eye and ear, produced by means of masks, and contrivances for increasing the loudness of the voice, and the size of the figures. Vitruvius speaks also of vehicles of sound, distributed throughout the building; but the commentators are very much at variance with respect to them. We may without hesitation venture to assume, that the theatres of the ancients were constructed on excellent acoustical principles.

The lowest step of the amphitheatre was still raised considerbly above the orchestra, and the stage was placed opposite to it, at an equal degree of elevation. The sunk semicircle of the orchestra contained no spectators, and was destined for another purpose. It was otherwise however with the Romans, but we are not at present considering the distribution of their thea

tres.

The stage consisted of a strip which stretched from one end of the building to the other, and of which the depth bore little proportion to this breadth. This was called the logeum, in Latin pulpitum, and the usual place for the persons who spoke was in the middle of it. Behind this middle part, the scene went inwards in a quadrangular form, with less depth, however, than breadth. The space here comprehended was called the proscenium. The remaining part of the logeum, to the right and left of the scene, had, both before the brink which adjoined the orchestra, and behind, a wall possessing no scenical decorations, but entirely simple, or at most architecturally ornamented, which was elevated to an equal height with the uppermost steps for the audience.

The decoration was contrived in such a manner, that the principal object in front covered the back-ground, and the prospects of distance were given at the two sides, the very reverse of the mode adopted by us. This had also its rules: on the left, appeared the town to which the palace, temple, or whatever occupied the middle, belonged; on the right, the open country, land