house a school, in which we might learn the manly and godlike duties of giving eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, bread to the hungry, and instruction to the ignorant. The religion and learning of a country should determine what the stage ought to be, to mix instruction with amusement. Whether you live to see this happy event or not, you may be sure the play. house shall never do you harm.*

D.— But are there not some very fine and religious sentiments in plays?

F.-- Many scattered in various parts; but I wish to see the stage so modelled as to unite entirely with the pulpit, and keep us in constant remembrance of the immortal glory of a life to come! Thus our amusement might be sanctified, our time redeemed, and no moment of our fleeting hours lost.

D. This would be glorious indeed; but I am afraid your conceit, though easy to understand, is too exalted to be carried into execution.

F. Rather say, ill suited to the present corruption of the heart, which prevails among the greater part of our fellowsubjects. We must never despair. My notion is far from being impracticable. Plays are sometimes represented by boys at school. If any theatrical entertainment is proper for them, it should be such as will give them an early relish for religion, and teach them to discountenance vice and infidelity, and establish all the good truths of Christianity."+

(2d Edition, 4to, Vol. I., p. 214.)

*NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. -Nearly one hundred years have elapsed since the above was written, and the writer's children's children have not seen "this happy event" yet. Prior to this, Addison used the following language: "The stage might be made a perpetual source of the most noble and useful entertainments, were it under proper regulations." Spectator, No. 93.

+ NOTE. The words italicised in this extract are those of the author. We have given them as they are in the original.

MYSTERIES AND MORALITIES.

N the early history of the drama, the Church at

tempted to subserve its doctrines by connecting the Bible, then a sealed book to the many, into visible action and English dialogue, but unfortunately it mistook the dignity of the drama, and added to their scriptural texts the incongruous accompaniment of profane, and not unfrequently indecent, buffooneries, which would not have been tolerated in the most vulgar booth or Bartholomew fair.

Even the revival of literature, when the classic models of antiquity were well known in England, at least to the learned, did not exercise the smallest influence upon their drama, which, struggling slowly and painfully through the different stages of improvement, assumed successively the form of mysteries and miracles, moralities, interludes, masks, until the glorious reign of Elizabeth. This was indeed a brilliant age for the drama. It aroused the public mind from its cloistered slumbers; the genius of Great Britain

burst forth at once, and in all directions, but more especially in that of the drama, with an intellectual might, majesty, and effulgence, which have not been paralleled in any age or country.

The attempt of the Church to identify the drama with its ceremonies, did more injury to its projects than ever did the opposition of the clergy in after years. The effect, as might be expected, was a bad one, for the sacred characters of the Bible were ridiculed, and many of the most striking passages turned into burlesque and profanity, to cater for the ignorant and gratify the folly, and we may say wickedness, of the priestly dramatists.

We do not purpose to devote much space to the history of the drama of England, as much of the material for such a purpose is lost in the vortex of its religious and political revolutions. The reader, therefore, will be presented with only some of the leading features of the ancient national stage history, and of the principal points of its rise and improvement.

The old Greek drama appears to have flourished at Constantinople until the fourth century of the Christian era; about which time Gregory of Nazianzen, the Patriarch of that city, a poet, and one of the fathers of the Church, banished the pagan plays of Sophocles and Euripides from the stage, and introduced those Scripture histories which appear to have been the earliest dramatic entertainments in every part of Europe.* In these the Grecian choruses were

In banishing "the pagan plays of Sophocles and Euri

turned into Christian hymns, the pieces being arranged on the plan of the more ancient tragedies; and one of the oldest religious dramas written by Gregory is yet extant, called "Christ's Passion," the prologue to which states, that the Virgin Mary was then for the first time brought upon the stage. The early commercial intercourse between Constantinople and Italy, soon introduced these performances into Europe; in which country the Italian theatre is affirmed to be the most ancient. The period of its earliest religious drama is, nevertheless, assigned to the year 1243, when a spiritual comedy was performed at Padua; and in 1264, the Fraternitate del Gonfalone was established, part of whose occupation was to represent the sufferings of Christ during Pas

pides," and substituting plays founded upon scriptural subjects, the question naturally arises, was the stage benefited by the change? The founder of the stage, who flourished about 536 B. C., took for his subjects the historical traditions of Greece, which he embellished by appropriate fictions, an innovation highly displeasing to Solon, the legislator of Athens. Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides became the great reformers of the Grecian stage they introduced a number of characters in their plays, perfected their costumes and scenic illusions, banished murders from the stage, and restricted the functions of the chorus, thus rendering the drama worthy the classic age in which it originated. Thus the "Pagan plays" of these great writers laid the foundation of that splendid superstructure upon which Shakespeare devoted a lifetime to embellish and adorn, and whose classic pillars sustain the temples of the histrionic muse, in every land wherever the foot of civilization treads.

sion-Week. The origin of the French theatre cannot be traced higher then 1398, when "The Mystery of the Passion" was represented at Saint-Maur. In England, however, the first spectacle of the kind wast probably the miracle-play of "Saint Catherine," mentioned by Matthew Paris as having been written by Geoffrey, a Norman, afterwards abbot of St. Albans, and performed at Dunstaple Abbey, in the year 1110. It is also stated in the "Description of the most noble City of London," composed by William Fitz Stephen, a monk of Canterbury, about 1174, in treating of the ordinary diversions of the inhabitants of the metropolis, that "instead of the common interludes belonging to theatres, they have plays of a more holy character, representations of those sacred miracles which the holy confessors wrought, or of those sufferings wherein the glorious constancy of the martyrs did appear.”

It will be hence observed that the ancient religious dramas were distinguished by the names of "Mysteries," properly so called, wherein were exhibited some of the mysteries or events of Scripture story; and "Miracles," which were of the nature of tragedy, representing the acts or martyrdom of a saint of the church. The introduction of this species of amusement into England has been attributed to the pilgrims who went to the Holy Land; and the very general custom of performing such pieces at festivals, to the sacred plays at those ancient national marts by which the commerce of Europe was principally supported.