The relics of the Roman stage.

of pageants from the creation';' but Chaucer, however ' emptie' his purse, would doubtless have scorned to apply his fancy to such a purpose.

But this is to anticipate, although the warning is possibly not premature even at this early point of the enquiry. To return to our starting-point, it may next be asked whether any other influences survived from the ancient world which, though not in themselves constituting the origin of the modern drama, were yet of a nature necessarily to affect its early growth. Now, it is well known that in the history of the Roman stage we have to distinguish two developements, the one native, the other foreign and artificial. The latter, which alone is represented in the Latin dramatic literature handed down to us, was, like the great body of that literature at large, borrowed from the Greeks. It is doubtful whether at any time the reproductions or imitations of Greek tragedy among the Romans secured the favour of more than a small cultivated minority; already in the latter days of the Republic the multitude (including even the knights, according to Horace) could only be reconciled to tragedy by the introduction of that species of accessories by which in our own day a play of Shakspere's is said to be 'revived". In the early days of the Empire tragedy was dissolved into choral music and pantomimic action; and the pantomime, a species of baliet of action, established itself as a favourite class of entertainment. Greek comedy, i. e. the new comedy of Menander, with which we are acquainted in the versions of Plautus and Terence, survived more honourably both in Rome and the provinces; it is praised by faint blame in a work of St. Augustine in the beginning of the fifth

1 Collier, ii. 141. The same author's Chichevache and Bycorne cannot be called dramatic in design or character.

2 The comparison is not impertinent. What could better correspond to Horace's description,

'Mox trahitur manibus regum fortuna retortis,

Esseda festinant, pilenta, petorrita,'

than e.g. the actual representation into a performance of Richard II. of Bolingbroke's entry into London? The imagination of our audiences is as systematically debilitated as that of the Roman mobs.

century; and it thus, as has been already seen, furnished a literary link between the ancient and the mediaeval world. But both tragedy and comedy are to be regarded as essentially the diversions of cultivated Romans. The popular dramatic appetite of the Italian capital had long fed with greater relish upon dramatic entertainments of native, or at least neighbouring origin. Probably those farces which combined pantomime, dance, and music with humorous dialogue, and were termed Saturae or mixtures, were of Etruscan origin. With them were united the Fabulae Atellanae, which came from Campania, and, originally improvisations, were introduced into literature in the early part of the first century B. C. These were distinguished by their four established character-figures, which have survived to this day in the popular Italian comedy1. Another species, apparently more peculiar to the town, was the Mimus, which, like the Atellana, took its figures from common life, but had no established characters. These popular farces were at all times the favourite dramatic entertainment of the Romans, whom they delighted by their vigour, vulgarity, and obscenity, while constant opportunity was found in them for that licence of specch which, in spite of law and government, tempered the despotism of nearly all the Caesars.

strollers.

In the days of the close of the Republic, and of the Mimes and early Empire, the size of the Roman theatres, as well as the diversity of nationality which was beginning to characterise the Roman population, made it necessary to devise entertainments suitable for large masses of spectators, and at the same time agreeable to the craving for mere enjoyments of the eye. The circus had at all times, and the amphitheatre since its establishment, outvied the theatre in popularity as they exhibited a constantly increasing variety of

1 The Italian farsa is the origin of the commedia dell' arte of the sixteenth century, as to the influence of which on our English comedy I shall have something to say below. At Naples, no form of dramatic entertainment seems to flourish during the heat of the summer except the oldest, unless it be the politico-religious sensation drama. I remember how, during a sojourn there in a summer-month of 1869, our nightly choice lay between Arlecchino and the Nun of Cracow.

spectacles, processions, and contests by land and water, they more and more superseded it; and the theatre itself came to supplement its waning attractions by every species of illegitimate intermezzo. The ribald jests of Atellanes and mimes, and the lascivious charms of the pantomimes, were not enough to satisfy an endless appetite for amusement; and it had to be gratified, in addition, by 'crowds of rope-dancers, conjurors, boxers, clowns, and posture-makers, men who walked on their heads, or let themselves be whirled aloft by machinery, or suspended upon wires, or who danced on stilts, or exhibited feats of skill with cups and balls. Nor was the degradation of tastes inevitably produced by such entertainments confined to the public theatre; Roman supper-tables were enlivened by similar exhibitions, as a relief to the recitations by which the guests had to allow themselves to be fatigued, or to the conversation which they must not unfrequently have found it difficult to maintain at a level of interest, when politics were dangerous and philosophy and wit had alike taken flight from the overladen board.

In short, the decay of the Roman theatre, and the character of the dramatic or quasi-dramatic amusements which survived its decay, are sufficiently attested throughout the period of the Empire. The history of Roman pantomime connects itself, grotesquely enough, with the history of the Roman Empire from Nero to Theodora; luxury, lust, and licence were sought in it by its votaries, and stigmatised in it by the fathers of the Christian Church. But though it gradually ceased to flourish as a diversion of state, its traditions, as well as those of the humbler mimes, were carried on by that class of actors which is of its nature indestructible. The strolling mimes carried the last, and probably many of the worst, reminiscences of the Roman acting drama across the period of those great migrations

1 Quoted from Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, vol. v. p. 67; where see a curious passage from Bulenger de Theatro. More details, together with a full general view of the Roman entertainments of the days of the Empire, and of the decay of the Roman drama, will be found in Friedländer's Sittengeschichte Rom's, vol. ii. pp. 125–396.

which changed the face of the Western world. In the fifth century we hear of a condemnation of histriones, mimi, and joculatores by an ecclesiastical council. Previously, the Church had with praiseworthy impartiality excluded not only actors of all kinds, but also those who were addicted to 'theatromania,' from the benefits of the Christian community. Similar enactments occur frequently in the Caroling period; yet the craving for dramatic entertainments of a popular character continued to produce a supply, and it is related of Lewis the Pious, how he never raised his voice in laughter, not even when at festivals there appeared, for the enjoyment of the people, 'thymelici, scurrae et mimi".

Here and there may have existed remnants of ancient heathen religious rites, among both Celtic and Teutonic populations, which partook of the nature of masques, and thus contained dramatic elements; but these phenomena are so isolated as not to require more than a passing notice. The performances of the strolling mimes, on the other hand, with which we are more especially concerned, must necessarily have been so varied in character as utterly to defy analysis. It is the glory of the true popular entertainer to be all things to all men; to mingle every element of amusement which the human voice, face, and limbs can furnish with every adventitious aid which ingenuity and experience can provide in a portable form. The joculatores, The joculathe successors of the mimes, whose name they occasionally early Middle received, and like whom they shaved their heads (doubtless originally for convenience' sake, thus helping to produce that eternal type of the profession which every actor, from the highest to the lowest, betrays), were therefore of their nature Protean. The term may be taken to include reciters, singers, musicians, dancers, posture-makers, buffoons, and actors of every description, and doubtless frequently included all these characters in a single person. According

1 Klein, iii. 635; cf. iv. 104; ii. 665.

2 Ib. iii. 636. Grimm's attempt to deduce the German popular religious plays from Germanic paganism cannot be accepted. See Wilkens, Gesch. der geistl. Spiele in Deutschland, p. 3.

tores of the

Ages.

The jongleurs and minstrels in France;

to the nature of their accomplishments, these entertainers would be welcome among high and low, at the court and in the castle, in the market-place and on the village-green.

But as these purveyors of amusement associated themselves with particular countries, and sought to gratify the higher as well as the lower tendencies of particular social developements, their efforts gradually fell into more distinct forms, and their appellations began to assume distinct and different meanings. In France, to which it will suffice to confine our attention, the literary tastes of the higher classes had taken two principal directions, in the North of an epical, in the South of a lyrical character. The age was an age of wars. Its social system everywhere asserted the personal, and ignored what had not yet become a national tic. In addition, chivalry had established its artificial code, consciously devised to impose restraint during the pursuit of the two strongest of human passions, love and war. Under these influences flourished the poetry of the troubadours and of the trouvères. The home of the former was Provence, and here the chief duty of the jongleurs, as the joculatores were now called, was to accompany with music and song the lyric recitations of the masters who had taken them into their employ. In Normandy, and the north of France generally, the trouvères sang their chansons de geste, commemorative of deeds of war. Efforts of this kind required a rather more elaborate training; and the names of trouvères and jongleurs became all but interchangeable as indicating a profession. And both here, and afterwards in England, it was customary for great personages to appoint jongleurs or menestrels of their own (ministeriales is the regular term for servants of the house, but the idea of unfreedom is not necessarily attached to it even in a much earlier period1), who at times enjoyed high esteem and position, while others, who were without any such special appointment, led a life of errantry from castle to castle. The intimate relation between the Norman dukes and barons and their minstrels may possibly have a Scandinavian origin, for the duty of the skald had 1 See Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, ii. 152.