England. The merchants, who frequented these fairs in numerous caravans or companies, employed every art to draw the people together. They were therefore accompanied by juglers, minstrels, and buffoons; who were no less interested in giving their attendance, and exerting all their skill, on these occafions. As now but few large towns exifted, no public spectacles or popular amusements were established; and as the fedentary pleasures of domestic life and private fociety were yet unknown, the fair-time was the season for diverfion. In proportion as thefe fhews were attended and encouraged, they began to be fet off with new decorations and improvements: and the arts of buffoonery being rendered still more attractive by extending their circle of exhibition, acquired an importance in the eyes of the people. By degrees the clergy, obferving that the entertainments of dancing, mufic, and mimicry, exhibited at these protracted annual celebrities, made the people lefs religious, by promoting idleness and a love of feftivity, profcribed these sports, and excommunicated the performers. But finding that no regard was paid to their cenfures, they changed their plan, and determined to take these recreations into their own hands. They turned actors; and instead of profane mummeries, presented stories taken from legends or the bible. This was the origin of facred comedy. The death of faint Catharine, acted by the monks of faint Dennis, rivalled the popularity of the profeffed players. Mufic was admitted into the churches, which ferved as theatres for the reprefen tion of holy farces. The festivals among the French, called LA FETE DE FOUX, DE L'ANE', and DES INNOCENS, at length

h See fupr. vol. i. p. 279.

i For a moft full and comprehensive account of these feafts, fee "Memoires pour "fervir a l'histoire de la FETE DE FOUX, "qui fe faifoit autrefois dans plufieurs eg"lifes. Par M. du TILLIOT, gentil "homme ordinaire de fon Alteffe royale

"Monfeigneur le duc de BERRY, A "LAUSANNE et a GENEVE, 1741." 4to. Grofthead, bishop of Lincoln in the eleventh century, orders his dean and chapter to abolish the FESTUM ASINORUM, cum fit vanitate plenum, et voluptatibus fpurcum, which ufed to be annually celebrated in

Lincoln

became greater favorites, as they certainly were more capricious and abfurd, than the interludes of the buffoons at the fairs. These are the ideas of a judicious French writer, now living, who has investigated the history of human manners with great comprehenfion and fagacity.

Voltaire's theory on this fubject is also very ingenious, and quite new. Religious plays, he fuppofes, came originally from Conftantinople; where the old Grecian stage continued to flourish in fome degree, and the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides were reprefented, till the fourth century. About that period, Gregory Nazianzen, an archbishop, a poet, and one of the fathers of the church, banished pagan plays from the stage at Conftantinople, and introduced felect ftories from the old and new Teftament. As the antient Greek tragedy was a religious fpectacle, a tranfition was made on the fame plan; and the choruffes were turned into Christian hymns'. Gregory wrote many facred dramas for this purpose, which have not survived those inimitable compofitions over which they triumphed for a time: one, however, his tragedy called Xiclos ασxwv, or CHRIST'S PASSION, is still extant". In the prologue it is faid to be in imitation of Euripides, and that this is the first time the Virgin Mary has been produced on the stage.

Lincoln cathedral on the feast of the Circumcifion. Groffetefti EPISTOL. Xxxii. apud Browne's FASCICUL. P. 331. edit. Lond. 1690. tom. ii. Append. And p. 412. Alfo he forbids the archdeacons of his diocese to permit SCOT-ALES in their chapters and fynods, (Spelm. Gl. p. 506.) and other LUDI on holidays. Ibid. Epiftol. xxii. p. 314. [See fupr. vol. i. p. 247.] See in the MERCURE FRANCOIS for September, 1742, an account of a mummery celebrated in the city of Befançon in France, by the canons of the cathedral, confifting of dancing, finging, eating and drinking, in the cloifters and church, on Eafter-day, called BERGERETTA, or the SONG OF

The fashion of acting

fpiritual dramas, in which at first a due degree of method and decorum was preferved, was at length adopted from Conftantinople by the Italians; who framed, in the depth of the dark ages, on this foundation, that barbarous fpecies of theatrical reprefentation called MYSTERIES, or facred comedies, and which were foon afterwards received in France ". This opinion will acquire probability, if we confider the early commercial intercoufe between Italy and Conftantinople and although the Italians, at the time when they may be supposed to have imported plays of this nature, did not understand the Greek language, yet they could underftand, and confequently could imitate, what they faw.

In defence of Voltaire's hypothefis it may be further obferved, that the FEAST OF FOOLS and of the Ass, with other religious farces of that fort, fo common in Europe, originated at Conftantinople. They were instituted, although perhaps under other names, in the Greek church, about the year 99o, by Theophylact, patriarch of Conftantinople, probably with a better defign than is imagined by the ecclefiaftical annalists; that of weaning the minds of the people from the pagan ceremonies, particularly the Bacchanalian and calendary folemnities, by the fubftitution of chriftian fpectacles, partaking of the fame spirit of licentiousness. The fact is, however, recorded by Cedrenus, one of the Byzantine hiftorians, who flourished about the year 1050, in the following words. σε Εργον εκείνο, και το νυν κραίεν σε εθος, εν ταις λαμπραις και δημοβέλεσιν εορίαις ὑβριζεθαι τον θεον, και τας τον άγιων μνήμας, δια λογισμάτων απρεπων και γελωίων, και παραφόρων κραυγών, τελουμένων σε των θείων ύμνων· ὁυς εδει, μελα καταλυξεως και συντριμμε καρδίας, ὑπερ της ἡμων σωτηρίας, πρόσφερειν τῷ θεῷ. • Πλήθος γαρ συστησαμενος επιβοήτων ανδρων, και εξαρχον

Vol. II.

* Hift. Gen. Addit. p. 138.

Bb b

σε αυτοις,

!

« αύτοις επιςησας Ευθυμιον τινα Κασνην λεγουμενον, σε αυλος Δομεσικον της εκκλησίας προβαλλειο κ τας σε σαλανικας ορχησεις, και τας ασημες κραυγας, και τα εκ * τριόδων και χαμαλυπειων ηρανισμενα άσματα τελεισθαι εδιδαξεν. That is, "Theophylact introduced the prac"tice, which prevails even to this day, of fcandalising god "and the memory of his faints, on the most splendid and popular feftivals, by indecent and ridiculous fongs, and "enormous fhoutings, even in the midst of thofe facred hymns, which we ought to offer to the divine grace with compunction of heart, for the falvation of our fouls. "But he, having collected a company of base fellows, and

placing over them one Euthymius, furnamed Cafnes, whom "he also appointed the fuperintendant of his church, ad"mitted into the facred fervice, diabolical dances, exclama"tions of ribaldry, and ballads borrowed from the streets " and brothels "." This practice was fubfifting in the Greek church two hundred years afterwards: for Balsamon, patriarch of Antioch, complains of the grofs abominations committed by the priests at Christmas and other festivals, even in the great church at Conftantinople; and that the clergy, on certain holidays, perfonated a variety of feigned characters, and even entered the choir in a military habit, and other enormous difguifes '.

I must however observe here, what perhaps did not immediately occur to our lively philofopher on this occasion, that in the fourth century it was customary to make christian parodies and imitations in Greek, of the best Greek claffics, for the use of the christian schools. This practice prevailed much under the emperor Julian, who forbad the pagan poets, orators, and philofophers, to be taught in the christian feminaries

• Cedren. COMPEND. HIST. p. 639. B.. edit. Parif. 1647. Compare Baron. ANNAL. fub ann. 956. tom x. p. 752. C. edit. Plantin. Antw. 1603. fol.

P COMMENT. ad CANON. Ixii. SYNOD. vi. in Trullo. Apud Beverigii SYNODIC. tom. i. Oxon. fol. 1672. p. 230. 231. In return, he forbids the profeffed players to

appear

Apollinaris bishop of Laodicea, abovementioned, wrote Greek tragedies, adapted to the stage, on most of the grand events recorded in the old Teftament, after the manner of Euripides. On fome of the familiar and domestic stories of scripture, he compofed comedies in imitation of Menander. He wrote christian odes on the plan of Pindar. In imitation of Homer, he wrote an heroic poem on the history of the bible, as far as the reign of Saul, in twenty-four books. Sozomen says, that thefe compofitions, now loft, rivalled their great originals in genius, expreffion, and conduct. His fon, a bishop alfo of Laodicea, reduced the four gospels and all the apoftolical books into Greek dialogues, resembling thofe of Plato'.

But I must not omit a much earlier and more fingular specimen of a theatrical representation of sacred history, than this mentioned by Voltaire. Some fragments of an antient Jewish play on the EXODUS, or the Departure of the Ifraelites from Egypt under their leader and prophet Moses, are yet preferved in Greek iambics'. The principal characters of this drama are Mofes, Sapphora, and God from the Bush, or God fpeaking from the burning bufh. Mofes delivers the prologue, or introduction, in a speech of fixty lines, and his rod is turned into a ferpent on the stage. The author

appear on the flage in the habit of monks. Saint Austin, who lived in the fixth century, reproves the paganising christians of his age, for their indecent fports on holidays; but it does not appear, that these sports were celebrated within the churches. "In fanctis " festivitatibus choros ducendo, cantica lux"uriofa et turpia, &c. Ifti enim infelices "ac miferi homines, qui balationes ac fal"tationes ANTE IPSAS BASILICAS fanc"torum exercere nec metuunt nec erubef"cunt.' SERM. CCXV. tom. x. opp. S. Auguftin. edit. Froben. 1529. fol. 763. B. See alfo SERM. cxcvii. cxcviii. opp. edit. Benedictin. tom. v. Parif. 1683. p. 904. et feq.

• Sozomen (ubi infra) fays, that he com piled a fyftem of grammar, Xpiolaning ruwW, on the chriftian model.

Socrates, iii. 16. ii. 46. Sozomen, v. 18. vi. 26. Niceph. x. 25.

s In Clemens Alexandrin. lib. i. STROM. P. 344. feq. Eufebius, PREPARAT. E-. VANG. C. Xxviii. xxix. Euftathius ad HEx. p. 25. They are collected, and tranflated into Latin, with emendations, by Fr. Morellus, Parif. 1580. See alfo CORPUS POETAR. GR. TRAGICOR. et COMICOR. Genev. 1614. fol. And POETA CHRISTIAN. GRÆCI, Parif. 1609. 8vo.