Part 30 (1/2)

This lover of literature has favoured the curious with the interesting a.n.a.lysis of two rare French Protestant plays, _Le Marchand Converti_, in 1558; and _Le Pape Malade et tirant a sa Fin_, in 1561. Allowing largely for the gross invectives of the Calvinist--”_les impietes_”--they display an original comic invention, and sparkle with the most lively sallies.[23] It is remarkable that _Le Marchand Converti_, at such an early period of modern literature, is a regular comedy of five acts, introduced by a prologue in verse; odes are interspersed, and each act concludes with a chorus, whom the author calls ”the company.” The cla.s.sical form of this unacted play, instinct with the spirit of the new reform, betrays the work of a learned hand.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Warton's ”Hist. of Eng. Poetry,” iii. 195, 8vo edition; but it has been suggested that, as Saint Gregory composed more poetically, this earliest sacred drama was the production of a later writer, another Gregory, bishop of Antioch, A.D. 572. The dramatist, however, was an ecclesiastic, and that point only is important on the present occasion.

[2] TERTULLIAN, CHRYSOSTOM, LACTANTIUS, CYPRIAN, and others, have vehemently declaimed against theatres and actors. It is doubtless the invectives of the Fathers which have been the true origin of the puritanic denouncement against ”stage-plays” and ”play-goers.” The Fathers furnished ample quotations for PRYNNE in his ”Histriomastix.”

It is, however, curious to observe that at a later day, in the thirteenth century, the great schoolman, Thomas Aquinas, greatly relaxed the prohibitions; confessing that amus.e.m.e.nt is necessary to the happiness of man, he allows the decent exercise of the histrionic art. See a curious tract, ”The Stage Condemned,” which contains a collection of the opinions of the Fathers, 1698. Riccoboni, ”Sur les Theatres,” does not fail to appeal to the great schoolman.

[3] ”Tiraboschi,” iv.

[4] These dramas subsequently formed no uncommon spectacle in the streets of Italy, whence some Italian critics have fancied that the Gothic poem of Dante--his h.e.l.l, his Purgatory, and his Paradise--was an idea caught from the threefold stage of a mystery which often fixed his musings in the streets of his own Florence. As late as in the year 1739, a mystery of _The d.a.m.ned Soul_, acted by living personages, was still exhibited by a company of strollers in Turin; we have the amusing particulars in a letter by Spence.--Spence's ”Anecdotes,” 397. They have sunk to the humble state of puppet-shows, and are still exhibited at Carnival time at Venice and elsewhere.

[5] See the note and this extraordinary blunder in _Fabliaux_, ii.

152.

[6] Mr. Wright has published a curious collection of Latin mysteries of the twelfth century. [For a detailed notice of other printed collections see note to ”Curiosities of Literature,” vol. i. p.

352.--ED.]

[7] Perhaps the very last remains of such rude dramatic exhibitions are yet to be traced in our counties--about Christmas-tide, or rather old Christmas, whose decrepit age is personified. In Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re, and also in Dorsets.h.i.+re, families are visited by ”the great Emperor of the Turks” and St. George of England, or by the lion-hearted Richard. After a fierce onset, ringing their tin swords, the Saracens groan and drop. The Leech appears holding his phial; from some drops the dead survive their fate, and rise for the hospitable supper. The dialogue, however, has not been so traditional as the exhibition. The curious portion of these ancient exhibitions is, therefore, totally lost in the subst.i.tutions of the rude rustics.

The Wa.s.sail Songs, or the Christmas Carols, have come down with fewer losses than these ancient ”Tales of the Crusaders;” for the language of emotion, and the notice of old picturesque customs, cling to the memory, and endure with their localities. But for these we must travel far from the land of the c.o.c.kneys.

[8] Bouterwek.

[9] The clergy long continued to a.s.sist at these exhibitions, if they did not always act in them. In 1417, an _English Mystery_ was exhibited before the Emperor Sigismund, at the Council of Constance, on the usual subject of the Nativity. The _English Bishops_ had it rehea.r.s.ed several days, that the actors might be perfect before their imperial audience. We are not told in what language their _English Mystery_ was recited; but we are furnished with a curious fact, that ”the Germans consider this play as the first introduction of that sort of dramatic performance in their country.”--”Henry of Monmouth,”

by the Rev. J. E. Tyler, ii. 61.

[10] The Spanish nation, unchangeable in their customs, have retained the last remains of the ancient Mysteries in the divisions of their dramas, called ”Jornadas.”

[11] ”A sheep-skin for Jews, wigs for the Apostles, and vizards for Devils,” appear in the churchwardens' accounts at Tewkesbury, 1578, ”for the players' geers.”--”Hist. of Dramatic Poetry,” ii. 140. The same diligent inquirer has also discovered the theatrical term ”properties,” in allusion to the furniture of the stage, and which is so used by Shakspeare, employed in its present sense in an ancient morality.--Ib. ii. 129.

[12] ”Reliques of Ancient Poetry,” i. 129.

[13] ”Dictionnaire de l'Academie Francaise.”--The proverbial phrase is accompanied by a very superfluous remark--”Ce mot a pa.s.se d'usage avec les moeurs de ces temps anciens.” See also ”Dict. de Trevoux,”

art. _Mystere_.

[14] That the translation of the ”Chester Plays” was made from the _French_, and not from the _Latin_, as Warton supposed, is ingeniously elucidated by Mr. Collier. In the English translation, some of the original French pa.s.sages have been preserved.--”Annals of the Stage,” ii. 129.

When Warton found that these plays were translated into English, he concluded that they were from the Latin. He totally forgot that the French was long the prevalent language of England. And this important circ.u.mstance, too often overlooked by preceding inquirers, has thrown much confusion in our literary history.

The best account we have of Ralph Higden may be found in the _first_ volume of Lardner's Cyclopaedia on ”The Early History of the English Stage,” a work of some original research, at page 193.

[15] The earliest and rudest known miracle-play in English has been published by Mr. Halliwell--_The Harrowing of h.e.l.l_. It was written in the reign of Edward the Second, and is a curious instance of the childhood of the drama.

[16] The reign of Henry the Sixth may he fixed upon as the epoch of a new species of dramatic representation, known by the name of a moral.--_Collier_, i. 23.