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Miscellaneous Prose: 6
Sir Walter Scott: Miscellaneous Prose Works
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volume I, part 6
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a machine-readable transcription Version: 1.0 1997-07-06
Contents:
For further information about the printed edition and
the transcription, please see the notes at the end of
this text file. CONTENTS.
PAGE
Essay on Chivalry, . . . . .
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</p>
<h2><table of contents></h2>
<p> ESSAYS</p>
<p> ON</p>
<p> CHIVALRY, ROMANCE,</p>
<p> AND</p>
<p> THE DRAMA</p>
<p> CHIVALRY.<*><! p1></p>
<p>------- Romance, . . . . . <? p30></p>
<h2>------- The Drama, . . . . . <? p51></h2>
<p> But the present article respects the peculiar
meaning given to the word in modern Europe, as
applied to the order of knighthood, established in
almost all her kingdoms during the middle ages,
and the laws, rules, and customs, by which it was
governed. Those laws and customs have long been
antiquated, but their effects may still be traced in
European manners; and, excepting only the change
which flowed from the introduction of the Christian
religion, we know no cause which has produced
such general and permanent difference betwixt the
ancients and moderns, as that which has arisen out
of the institution of chivalry. In attempting to
treat this curious and important subject, rather as
philosophers than as antiquaries, we cannot, however,
avoid going at some length into the history
and origin of the institution.</p>
<p> From the time that cavalry becomes used in war,
the horseman who furnishes and supports a charger
arises, in all countries, into a person of superior
importance to the mere foot-soldier. The apparent
difficulty of the art of training and managing in the
field of battle an animal so spirited and active, gave
the <igr`><pgr><pgr><ogr><dgr><agr><mgr><ogr><sfgr> <Egr`><kgr><tgr><ogr><rgr> or <u>Domitor equi,</u> in rude ages,
a character of superior gallantry, while the necessary
expense attending this mode of service attested
his superior wealth. In various military nations,
therefore, we find that horsemen are distinguished
as an order in the state; and need only appeal to
the <u>equites</u> of ancient Rome as a body interposed
betwixt the senate and the people, or to the laws
of the conquerors of New Spain, which assigned a
double portion of spoil to the soldier who fought on
horseback, in support of a proposition in itself very
obvious. But, in the middle ages, the distinction
ascribed to soldiers serving on horseback assumed
a very peculiar and imposing character. They
were not merely respected on account of their
wealth or military skill, but were bound together
by a union of a very peculiar character, which
monarchs were ambitious to share with the poorest
of their subjects, and governed by laws directed to
enhance, into enthusiasm, the military spirit and
the sense of personal honour associated with it.
The aspirants to this dignity were not permitted
to assume the sacred character of knighthood until
after a long and severe probation, during which
they practised, as acolytes, the virtues necessary to
the order of Chivalry. Knighthood was the goal
to which the ambition of every noble youth turned;
and to support its honours, which (in theory at least)
could only be conferred on the gallant, the modest,
and the virtuous, it was necessary he should spend
a certain time in a subordinate situation, attendant
upon some knight of eminence, observing the conduct
of his master, as what must in future be the
model of his own, and practising the virtues of humility,
modesty, and temperance, until called upon
to display those of a higher order.</p>
<p> The general practice of assigning some precise
period when youths should be admitted into the society
of the manhood of their tribe, and considered
as entitled to use the privileges of that more mature
class, is common to many primitive nations. The
custom, also, of marking the transition from the
one state to the other, by some peculiar formality
or personal ceremonial seems so very natural, that
it is quite unnecessary to multiply instances, or
crowd our pages with the barbarous names of the
nations by whom it has been adopted. In the general
and abstract definition of Chivalry, whether
as comprising a body of men whose military service
was on horseback, and who were invested with
peculiar honours and privileges, or with reference
to the mode and period in which these distinctions
and privileges were conferred, there is nothing
either original or exclusively proper to our Gothic
ancestors. It was in the singular tenets of Chivalry,
---in the exalted, enthusiastic, and almost
sanctimonious, ideas connected with its duties,---in
the singular balance which its institutions offered
against the evils of the rude ages in which it arose,
that we are to seek those peculiarities which render
it so worthy of our attention.</p>
<p> The original institution of Chivalry has been
often traced to the custom of the German tribes
recorded by Tacitus. ``All business,'' says the
historian, ``whether public or private, is transacted
by the citizens under arms. But it is not the custom
that any one shall assume the military dress
or weapons without the approbation of the state.
For this purpose, one of the chief leaders, or the
father or nearest relation of the youthful candidate,
introduces him into the assembly, and confers on
him publicly a buckler and javelin. These arms
form the dress proper to manhood, and are the first
honour conferred on youth. Before he receives
them, the young man is but a member of his own
family, but after this ceremony he becomes a part
of the state itself.''<*> The records of the northern</p>
<p><title></p>
<ul>
<li>First published in The Supplement to the Encyclop<ae>dia
* Britannica. 1818.</li>
</ul>
<p><text>
The primitive sense of this well-known word, derived
from the French <u>Chevalier,</u> signifies merely
cavalry, or a body of soldiers serving on horseback;
and it has been used in that general acceptation
by the best of our poets, ancient and modern,
from Milton to Thomas Campbell.</p>
<ul>
<li><u>De Moribus Germanorum.</u><p> Other instances might be pointed out, in which
the ancient customs of the Gothic tribes may be
traced in the history of Chivalry; but the above
are enough to prove that the seeds of that singular
institution existed in the German forests, though
they did not come to maturity until the destruction
of the Roman empire, and the establishment of the
modern states of Europe upon its ruins.</p>
<p> Having thus given a general view of the origin
of Chivalry, we shall, I. Briefly notice the causes
from which it drew its peculiar characters, and the
circumstances in which it differs so widely from the
martial character as it existed, either among the
ancient Greeks and Romans, or in other countries
and nations. II. We shall attempt a general abstract
of its institutions. III. The rise and progress
of Chivalry,---its effects upon the political
state of Europe,---and its decay and extinction, will
close the article.<p> *</p>
</p>
<ol>
<li> Agreeably to this division, the general nature
and spirit of the institution of Chivalry falls first
under our consideration.</li>
</ol>
<p> In every age and country valour is held in esteem,
and the more rude the period and the place,
the greater respect is paid to boldness of enterprise
and success in battle. But it was peculiar to the
institution of Chivalry, to blend military valour
with the strongest passions which actuate the
human mind, the feelings of devotion and those of
love. The Greeks and Romans fought for liberty
or for conquest, and the knights of the middle ages
for God and for their ladies. Loyalty to their
sovereigns was a duty also incumbent upon these
warriors; but although a powerful motive, and by
which they often appear to have been strongly actuated,
it entered less warmly into the composition
of the chivalrous principle than the two preceding
causes. Of patriotism, considered as a distinct
predilection to the interests of one kingdom, we
find comparatively few traces in the institutions of
knighthood. But the love of personal freedom,
and the obligation to maintain and defend it in the
persons of others as in their own, was a duty particularly
incumbent on those who attained the honour
of Chivalry. Generosity, gallantry, and an
unblemished reputation, were no less necessary
ingredients in the character of a perfect knight.
He was not called upon simply to practise these
virtues when opportunity offered, but to be sedulous
and unwearied in searching for the means of
exercising them, and to push them without hesitation
to the brink of extravagance, or even beyond
it. Founded on principles so pure, the order of
Chivalry could not, in the abstract at least, but
occasion a pleasing, though a romantic developement
of the energies of human nature. But as, in
actual practice, every institution becomes deteriorated
and degraded, we have too much occasion to
remark, that the devotion of the knights often degenerated
into superstition,---their love into licentiousness,
---their spirit of loyalty or of freedom
into tyranny and turmoil,---their generosity and
gallantry into harebrained madness and absurdity.</p>
<p> We have mentioned devotion as a principal feature
in the character of Chivalry. At what remote
period the forms of Chivalry were first blended with
those of the Christian religion, would be a long and
difficult inquiry. The religion which breathes nothing
but love to our neighbour and forgiveness of
injuries, was not, in its primitive purity, easily
transferable into the warlike and military institutions
of the Goths, the Franks, and the Saxons. At
its first infusion, it appeared to soften the character
of the people among whom it was introduced so
much, as to render them less warlike than their
heathen neighbours. Thus the pagan Danes ravaged
England when inhabited by the Christian
Saxons,---the heathen Normans conquered Neustria
from the Franks,---the converted Goths were
subdued by the sword of the heathen Huns,---the
Visigoths of Spain fell before the Saracens. But
the tide soon turned. As the necessity of military
talent and courage became evident, the Christian
religion was used by its ministers (justly and wisely
so far as respected self-defence) as an additional
spur to the temper of the valiant. These books of
the Old Testament which Ulphilas declined to
translate, because they afforded too much fuel for
the military zeal of the ancient Goths, were now
commented upon to animate the sinking courage of
their descendants. Victory and glory on earth,
and a happy immortality after death, were promised
to those champions who should distinguish
themselves in battle against the infidels. And who
shall blame the preachers who held such language,
when it is remembered that the Saracens had at
one time nearly possessed themselves of Aquitaine,
and that but for the successful valour of Charles
Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne, the crescent might
have dispossessed the cross of the fairest portion
of Europe The fervent sentiments of devotion
which direct men's eyes toward heaven, were then
justly invoked to unite with those which are most
valuable on earth,---the love of our country and its
liberties.</p>
<p> But the Romish clergy, who have in all ages possessed
the wisdom of serpents, if they sometimes
have fallen short of the simplicity of doves, saw the
advantage of converting this temporary zeal, which
animated the warriors of their creed against the
invading infidels, into a permanent union of principles,
which should blend the ceremonies of religions
worship with the military establishment of
the ancient Goths and Germans. The admission
of the noble youth to the practice of arms was no
longer a mere military ceremony, where the sword
or javelin was delivered to him in presence of the
prince or elders of his tribe; it became a religious
rite, sanctified by the forms of the Church which
he was in future to defend. The novice had to
watch his arms in a church or chapel, or at least on
hallowed ground, the night before he had received
the honour of knighthood. He was made to assume
a white dress, in imitation of the neophytes
of the Church. Fast and confession were added to
vigils; the purification of the bath was imposed on
the military acolyte, in imitation of the initiatory
rite of Christianity; and he was attended by god-fathers,
who became security for his performing his
military vows, as sponsors had formerly appeared
for him at baptism. In all points of ceremonial,
the investiture of Chivalry was brought to resemble,
as nearly as possible, the administration of the
sacraments of the Church. The ceremony itself was
performed, where circumstances would admit, in a
church or cathedral, and the weapons with which
the young warrior was invested were previously
blessed by the priest. The oath of Chivalry bound
the knight to defend the rights of the holy Church,
and to respect religious persons and institutions,
and to obey the precepts of the Gospel. Nay, more,
so intimate was the union betwixt chivalry and religion
esteemed to be, that the several gradations
of the former were seriously considered as parallel
to these of the Church, and the knight was supposed
to resemble the bishop in rank, duties, and privileges,
while the squire and page corresponded to
the priest and deacon. At what period this infusion
of religious ceremonial into an order purely
military first commenced, and when it became complete
and perfect, would be a curious but a difficult
subject of investigation. Down to the reign of
Charlemagne, and somewhat lower, the investiture
was of a nature purely civil, but long before the
time of the crusades, it had assumed the religious
character we have described.</p>
<p> The effect which this union of religious and military
zeal was likely to produce in every other
case, save that of defensive war, could not but be
unfavourable to the purity of the former. The
knight, whose profession was war, being solemnly
enlisted in the service of the gospel of peace, regarded
infidels and heretics of every description
as the enemies whom, as God's own soldier, he was
called upon to attack and slay wherever he could
meet with them, without demanding or waiting for
any other cause of quarrel than the difference of
religious faith. The duties of morality were indeed
formally imposed on him by the oath of his order,
as well as that of defending the Church, and extirpating
heresy and misbelief. But, in all ages, it
has been usual for men to compound with their
consciences for breaches of the moral code of religion,
by a double portion of zeal for its abstract
doctrines. In the middle ages, this course might be
pursued on system: for the Church allowed an exploit
done on the infidels as a merit which might
obliterate the guilt of the most atrocious crimes.</p>
<p> The genius alike of the age and of the order
tended to render the zeal of the professors of Chivalry
fierce, burning, and intolerant. If an infidel,
says a great authority, impugn the doctrines of the
Christian faith before a churchman, he should reply
to him by argument; but a knight should render
no other reason to the infidel than six inches of his
falchion thrust into his accursed bowels. Even
courtesy, and the respect due to ladies of high degree,
gave way when they chanced to be infidels.
The renowned Sir Bevis of Hamptoun, being invited
by the fair Princess Josiane to come to her
bower, replies to the Paynims who brought the
message,<p> ``I will ne gou one foot on ground
Fur to speke with an heathen hound;
Unchristian houndes, I rede ye flee,
Or I your heart's bloode will see.''</p>
</p>
<p> This intemperate zeal for religion the knights
were expected to maintain at every risk, however
imminent. Like the early Christians, they were
prohibited from acquiescing, even by silence, in the
rites of idolatry, although death should be the consequence
of their interrupting them. In the fine
romance of <u>Huon of Bourdeaux,</u><*> that champion is</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>nations, though we cannot rely upon their authenticity
with the same unlimited confidence, because
we conceive most of the legends relating to them
have been written at a much later period than the
times in which the scene is laid, may be referred
to in confirmation of the Roman historians. The
Scandinavian legends and <u>sagas</u> are full of the deeds
of those warriors whom they termed heroes or
champions, and who appear to have been formed
into an order somewhat resembling that of Chivalry,
and certainly followed the principal and most
characteristic employment of its profession; wandering
from court to court, and from shore to shore,
bound on high adventure, and seeking, with equal
readiness, their fortunes in love and in war. It
would not be difficult to deduce from this very early
period some of those peculiar habits and customs,
which, brought by the Gothic conquerors into the
provinces of the divided empire of Rome, subsisted
and became ingrafted upon the institutions of Chivalry.
Tacitus, for example, informs us, that among
the Germans, and especially among the Catti, every
youthful champion permitted his beard and hair to
grow, and did not shave them until he had performed
some signal feat of arms. In the like manner,
as the general reader may have learned from
that irrefragable authority, Don Quixote de la Mancha,
a knight who received his order was obliged to
wear white armour, and a shield without a device,
until, by some daring and distinguished achievement,
he had acquired title to an honourable badge
of distinction. If this correspondence of customs
shall be thought too far-fetched, and too general,
the next, which we also derive from Tacitus, is too
close to be disputed. The German warriors, who
piqued themselves upon their bravery, used, at the
commencement of a war, to assume an iron ring,
after the fashion of a shackle, upon their arm,
which they did not remove until they had slain an
enemy. The reader may be pleased to peruse the
following instance of a similar custom from the
French romance of _Jehan de Saintr<e'>,_ written in
the year 1459, and supposed to be founded, in a
great measure, upon real incidents.<*> The hero,</p>
<ul>
<li>L'Hystoire et plaisant Chronique de petit =Jehan de
<em> Saintre,= et de la jeune Dame des Belles Cousines, sans autre
</em> nom nommer. Paris: 1517.---=Ed.= We may here observe,
<em> once for all, that we have no hesitation in quoting the romances
</em> of Chivalry as good evidence of the laws and customs
<em> of knighthood. The authors, like the painters of the period,
</em> invented nothing, but, copying the manners of the age in which
<em> they lived, transferred them, without doubt or scruple, to the
</em> period and personages of whom they treated. But the romance
* of _Jehan de Saintr<e'>_ is still more authentic evidence,
<em> as it is supposed to contain no small measure of fact, though
</em> disguised and distorted. Probably the achievement of the
* Polish knights may have been a real incident.---S.<p> It was after the conquest of the Holy Land that
the union between temporal and spiritual Chivalry
(for such was the term sometimes given to monastic
establishments) became perfect, by the institution
of the two celebrated military orders of monks, the
Knights Templars and Knights of St. John of Jerusalem,
who, renouncing (at least in terms) the pomp,
power, and pleasures of the world, and taking upon
themselves the monastic vows of celibacy, purity,
and obedience, did not cease to remain soldiers, and
directed their whole energy against the Saracens.<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>with nine companions at arms, four of whom were
knights, and five squires, vowed to carry a helmet
of a particular shape, that of the knights having a
visor of gold, and that of the squires a visor of
silver. Thus armed, they were to travel from
court to court for the space of three years, defying
the like number of knights and squires, wherever
they came, to support the beauty of their mistresses
with sword and lance. The emblems of their enterprise
were chained to their left shoulders, nor
could they be delivered of them until their vow was
honourably accomplished. Their release took place
at the court of the Emperor of Germany, after a
solemn tournament, and was celebrated with much
triumph. In like manner, in the same romance, a
Polish knight, called the Seigneur de Loiselench, is
described as appearing at the court of Paris wearing
a light gold chain attached to his wrist and
ankle in token of a vow, which emblem of bondage
he had sworn to wear for five years, until he should
find some knight or squire without reproach, by
encountering with whom he might be <u>delivered</u>
(such was the phrase) of his vow and enterprise.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury mentions, in his Memoirs,
that when he was made Knight of the Bath,
a tassel of silken cordage was attached to the mantle
of the order, which, doubtless, had originally
the same signification as the shackle worn by the
German champion. The rule was, however, so far
relaxed, that the knot was unloosed so soon as a
lady of rank gaged her word that the new Knight
of the Bath would do honour to the order; and
Lord Herbert, whose punctilious temper set great
store by the niceties of chivalrous ceremony, fails
not to record, with becoming gratitude, the name
of the honourable dame who became his security
on this important occasion.</p>
<ul>
<li>Les prouesses et faictz merveilleux du noble =Huon de
<em> Bardeaux,= per de France, Duc de Guyenne; rediges en bon
</em> Francoys. Paris, 1516.<p> The obvious danger of teaching a military body
to consider themselves as missionaries of religion,
and bound to spread its doctrines, is, that they are
sure to employ in its service their swords and lances.
The end is held to sanctify the means, and the
slaughter of thousands of infidels is regarded as an
indifferent, or rather as a meritorious action, providing
it may occasion the conversion of the remnant,
or the peopling their land with professors of
a purer faith. The wars of Charlemagne in Saxony,
the massacres of the Albigenses in the south
of France, the long-continued wars of Palestine, all
served to illustrate the dangers resulting from the
doctrine, which inculcated religion, not as a check
upon the horrors and crimes of war, but as itself its
most proper and legitimate cause. The evil may
be said to have survived the decay of Chivalry, to
have extended itself to the New World, and to have
occasioned those horrors with which it was devastated
for ages after its first discovery. The Spanish
conquerors of South America were not, indeed,
knights-errant, but the nature of their enterprises,
as well as the mode in which they were conducted,
partook deeply of the spirit of Chivalry. In no
country of Europe had this spirit sunk so deeply
and spread so wide as in Spain. The extravagant
positions respecting the point of honour, and the
romantic summons which Chivalry proclaimed to
deeds of danger and glory, suited the ardent and
somewhat Oriental character of the Spaniards, a
people more remarkable for force of imagination,
and depth of feeling, than for wit or understanding.
Chivalry, in Spain, was embittered by a double proportion
of intolerant bigotry, owing to their constant
and inveterate wars with the Moorish invaders.
The strain of sentiment, therefore, which Chivalry
inspired, continued for a long time to mark the manners
of Spain after the decay of its positive institutions,
as the beams of the sun tinge the horizon
after the setting of its orb. The warriors whom
she sent to the New World sought and found marvels
which resembled those of romance; they
achieved deeds of valour against such odds of numbers
as are only recorded in the annals of knight-errantry;
and, alas, they followed their prototypes
in that indifference for human life, which is the
usual companion of intolerant zeal. Avarice, indeed,
brought her more sordid shades to complete
the gloomy picture; and avarice was unknown to
the institutions of Chivalry. The same intolerance,
however, which overthrew the altars of the Indians
by violence, instead of assailing their errors by
reason, and which imputed to them as crimes their
ignorance of a religion which had never been
preached to them, and their rejection of speculative
doctrines of faith, propounded by persons whose
practice was so ill calculated to recommend them
---all these may be traced to the spirit of Chivalry,
and the military devotion of its professors.</p>
<p> The religion of the knights, like that of the
times, was debased by superstition. Each champion
had his favourite saint, to whom he addressed
himself upon special occasions of danger, and to
whom, after the influence of his lady's eyes, he was
wont to ascribe the honour of his conquest. St.
Michael, the leader of banded Seraphim, and the
personal antagonist of Satan,---St. George, St. James,
and St. Martin, all of whom popular faith had invested
with the honours of Chivalry,---were frequently
selected as the appropriate champions of
the militant adventurers yet on earth. The knights
used their names adjected to their own, as their
insignia, watch-word, or signal for battle. Edward
III., fighting valiantly in a night-skirmish before
the gates of Calais, was heard to accompany each
blow he struck with the invocation of his tutelar
saints, Ha! Saint Edward! ha! St. George! but
the Virgin Mary, to whom their superstition ascribed
the qualities of youth, beauty, and sweetness,
which they prized in their terrestrial mistresses,
was an especial object of the devotion of the followers
of Chivalry, as of all other good Catholics.
Tournaments were undertaken, and feats of arms
performed in her honour, as in that of an earthly
mistress; and the veneration with which she was
regarded seems occasionally to have partaken of
the character of romantic affection. She was often
held to return this love by singular marks of her
favour and protection. During an expedition of the
Christians to the coast of Africa, Froissart informs
us that a large black dog was frequently seen in
their camp, which barked furiously whenever the
infidels approached it by night, and rendered such
service to the Christian adventurers by its vigilance,
that with one consent they named it ``The
Dog of our Lady.''</p>
<p> But although, as is incidental to human institutions,
the mixture of devotion in the military character
of the knight degenerated into brutal intolerance
and superstition in its practical effects, nothing
could be more beautiful and praiseworthy
than the theory on which it was grounded. That
the soldier drawing the sword in defence of his
country and its liberties, or of the oppressed innocence
of damsels, widows, and orphans, or in support
of religious rights, for which those to whom
they belonged were disqualified by their profession
to combat in person,---that he should blend with
all the feelings which these offices inspired, a deep
sense of devotion, exalting him above the advantage
and even the fame which he himself might derive
from victory, and giving dignity to defeat itself, as
a lesson of divine chastisement and humiliation
that the knight on whose valour his countrymen
were to rely in danger should set them an example
in observing the duties and precepts of religion,---
are circumstances so well qualified to soften, to dignify,
and to grace the profession of arms, that we
cannot but regret their tendency to degenerate into
a ferocious propensity to bigotry, persecution, and
intolerance. Such, however, is the fate of all human
institutions, which, however fairly framed in
theory, are in practice too often corrupted by our
evil passions, until the results which flow from them
become the very reverse of what was to have been
expected and desired.</p>
<p> The next ingredient in the spirit of Chivalry,
second in force only to the religious zeal of its professors,
and frequently predominating over it, was
a devotion to the female sex, and particularly to her
whom each knight selected as the chief object of
his affection, of a nature so extravagant and unbounded
as to approach to a sort of idolatry.</p>
<p> The original source of this sentiment is to he
found, like that of Chivalry itself, in the customs
and habits of the northern tribes, who possessed,
even in their rudest state, so many honourable and
manly distinctions, over all the other nations in the
same stage of society. The chaste and temperate
habits of these youth, and the opinion that it was
dishonourable to hold sexual intercourse until the
twentieth year was attained, was in the highest degree
favourable not only to the morals and health
of the ancient Germans, but must have contributed
greatly to place their females in that dignified and
respectable rank which they held in society. Nothing
tends so much to blunt the feelings, to harden
the heart, and to destroy the imagination, as the
worship of the <u>Vaga Venus</u> in early youth. Whereever
women have been considered as the early,
willing, and accommodating slaves of the voluptuousness
of the other sex, their character has become
degraded, and they have sunk into domestic
drudges and bondswomen among the poor,---the
captives of a haram among the more wealthy. On
the other hand, the men, easily and early cloyed
with indulgences, which soon lose their poignancy
when the senses only are interested, become first
indifferent, then harsh and brutal, to the unfortunate
slaves of their pleasures. The sated lover,---
and perhaps it is the most brutal part of humanity,
---is soon converted into the capricious tyrant, like
the successful seducer of the modern poet.<p> ``Hard with their fear, and terrors to behold
The cause of all, the faithless lover cold,
Inpatient grown at every wish denied,
And barely civil, soothed and gratified.''
=Crabbe'=s <u>Borough.</u></p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>represented as having failed in duty to God and his
faith, because he had professed himself a Saracen
for the temporary purpose of obtaining entrance
into the palace of the Amial Gaudifer. ``And when
Sir Huon passed the third gate, he remembered
him of the lie he had spoken to obtain entrance
into the first. Alas! said the knight, what but
destruction can betide one who has so foully falsified
and denied his faith towards him who has done
so much for me!'' His mode of repentance was
truly chivalrous. When he came to the gate of
the last interior enclosure of the castle, he said to
the warder, ``Pagan, accursed be thou of God, open
the gate.'' When he entered the hall where the
pagan monarch was seated in full state, he struck
off, without ceremony, the head of the pagan lord
who sat next in rank to him, exclaiming at the same
time with a loud voice, ``God, thou hast given me
grace well to commence my emprise; may our
Redeemer grant me to bring it to an honourable
conclusion!'' Many such passages might be quoted
to show the outrageous nature of the zeal which
was supposed to actuate a Christian knight. But
it is needless to ransack works of fiction for this
purpose. The real history of the Crusades, founded
on the spirit of Chivalry, and on the restless
and intolerant zeal which was blended by the
churchmen with this military establishment, are
an authentic and fatal proof of the same facts.
The harebrained and adventurous character of
these enterprises, not less than the promised pardons,
indulgences, and remissions of the Church,
rendered them dear to the warriors of the middle
ages; the idea of re-establishing the Christian religion
in the Holy Land, and wresting the tomb of
Christ from the infidels, made kings, princes, and
nobles, blind to its hazards; and they rushed, army
after army, to Palestine, in the true spirit of Chivalry,
whose faithful professors felt themselves the
rather called upon to undertake an adventure, from
the peculiar dangers which surrounded it, and the
numbers who had fallen in previous attempts.<p> The marriages formed under these wise auspices
were, in general, happy and affectionate.---``Adultery,''
says Tacitus, ``was infrequent, and punished
with the utmost rigour; nor could she who had
undergone the penalty of such a crime find a second
husband, however distinguished by beauty,
birth, or wealth.'' The awe and devotion with
which the lover had regarded his destined bride
during the years in which the German youth were
enjoined celibacy, became regard and affection in
the husband towards the sharer of his labours and
the mistress of his household. The matron maintained
that rank in society which love had assigned
to the maiden. No one then, says the Roman historian,
dared to ridicule the sacred union of marriage,
or to term an infringement of its laws a compliance
with the manners of the age. The German
wife, once married, seldom endeavoured to form a
second union, but continued, in honoured widowhood,
to direct and manage the family of her deceased
husband. This habitual subjection of sensuality
to sentiment, those plain, simple, virtuous,
and temperate manners of the German women,
placed the females in that high rank of society,
which the sex occupies when its conduct is estimable,
and from which it as certainly declines in
ages or climates prone to luxurious indulgence.
The superintendence of the domestic affairs was
assigned to the German women, a duty in which
the men seldom interfered, unless when rendered
by age or wounds incapable of warfare. They were
capable of exercising the supreme authority in their
tribe, and of holding the honours of the priesthood.
But the influence of the women in a German tribe,
as well as their duties in war, will he best understood
from the words of Tacitus.</p>
<p> ``It is the principal incitement to the courage of the Germans,
that in battle their separate troops or columns are not
arranged promiscuously as chance directs, but consist each of a
united family, or clan, with its relatives. Their most precious
pledges are placed in the vicinity whence may be heard the
cries of their females, the wailings of their infants, whom each
accounts the most sacred witnesses and the dearest eulogists of
his valour. The wounded repair to their mothers and spouses,
who hesitate not to number their wounds, and to suck the
blood that flows from them. The females carry refreshment
to those engaged in the contest, and encourage them by their
exhortations. It is related, that armies, when disordered, and
about to give way, have renewed the contest, at the instance
of the women; moved by the earnestness of their entreaties,
their exposed bosoms, and the danger of approaching captivity;
---a doom which they dread more on account of their females
than even on their own;---insomuch that these German
estates are most effectually bound to obedience among the
number of whose hostages there are noble damsels as well as
men. They deem, indeed, that there resides in the female
sex something sacred and capable of presaging the future:
nor do they scorn their advice or neglect their responses. In
the time of Vespasian we have seen Velleda long hold the
rank of a deity in most of the German states; and, in former
times, the venerated Aurinia and other females; neither
however, from mere flattery, nor yet in the character of actual
goddesses.''</p>
<p> The tales and <u>Sagas</u> of the north, in which females
often act the most distinguished part, might
also be quoted as proofs of the rank which they
held in society. We find them separating the most
desperate frays by their presence, their commands,
or their mantles, which they threw over the levelled
weapons of the combatants. Nor were their
rights less extensive than their authority. In the
<u>Eyrbiggia Saga</u> we are informed, that Thordisa,
the mother of the celebrated Pontiff Snorro, and
wife of Borko of Helgafels, received a blow from
her husband. The provocation was strong, for the
matron had, in the husband's house and at his table,
attempted to stab his guest Eyulf Gray, on account
of his having slain one of her relations. Yet so
little did this provocation justify the offence, that
in the presence of the comitia, or public assembly
of the tribe, Thordisa invoked witnesses to bear
testimony, that she divorced her husband on account
of his having raised his hand against her person.
And such were the rights of a northern <u>mater familias,</u>
that the divorce and a division of goods
immediately took place between the husband and
wife, although the violence of which Thordisa complained
was occasioned by her own attempt to
murder a guest.</p>
<p> We have traced the ideas of the Gothic tribes
on this important point the more at length, because
they show, that the character of veneration, sanctity,
and inviolability, attached to the female character,
together with the important part assigned
to them in society, were brought with them from
their native forests, and had existence long before
the chivalrous institutions in which they made so
remarkable a feature. They easily became amalgamated
in a system so well fitted to adopt whatever
was romantic and enthusiastic in manners or
sentiment. Amid the various duties of knighthood,
that of protecting the female sex, respecting their
persons, and redressing their wrongs, becoming the
champion of their cause, and the chastiser of those
by whom they were injured, was represented as
one of the principal objects of the institution. Their
oath bound the new-made knights to defend the
cause of all women without exception; and the
most pressing way of conjuring them to grant a
boon was to implore it in the name of God and the
ladies. The cause of a distressed lady was, in many
instances, preferable to that even of the country to
which the knight belonged. Thus, the Captal de
Buche, though an English subject, did not hesitate
to unite his troops with those of the Comte de
Foix, to relieve the ladies in a French town, where
they were besieged and threatened with violence
by the insurgent peasantry. The looks, the words,
the sign of a lady, were accounted to make knights
at time of need perform double their usual deeds of
strength and valour. At tournaments and in combats,
the voices of the ladies were heard like those
of the German females in former battles, calling
on the knights to remember their fame, and exert
themselves to the uttermost. ``Think, gentle
knights,'' was their cry, ``upon the wool of your
breasts, the nerve of your arms, the love you cherish
in your hearts, and do valiantly, for ladies behold
you.'' The corresponding shouts of the combatants
were, ``Love of ladies! Death of warriors!
On, valiant knights, for you fight under fair eyes.''</p>
<p> Where the honour or love of a lady was at stake,
the fairest prize was held out to the victorious
knight, and champions from every quarter were
sure to hasten to combat in a cause so popular.
Chaucer, when he describes the assembly of the
knights who came with Arcite and Palemon to
fight for the love of the fair Emilie, describes the
manners of his age in the following lines:---<p> ``For every knight that loved chivalry,
And would his thankes have a passant name,
Hath pray'd that he might ben of that game,
And well was him that thereto chusen was.
For if there fell to-morrow such a case,
Ye knowen well that every lusty knight
That loveth par amour, and hath his might,
Were it in Engellonde, or elleswhere,
They would hir thankes willen to be there.
To fight for a lady! Ah! Benedicite,
It were a lusty sight for to see.''</p>
</p>
<p> It is needless to multiply quotations on a subject
so trite and well known. The defence of the female
sex in general, the regard due to their honour, the
subservience paid to their commands, the reverent
awe and courtesy, which, in their presence, forbear
all unseemly words and actions, were so blended
with the institution of Chivalry, as to form its very
essence.</p>
<p> But it was not enough that the ``very perfect,
gentle knight'' should reverence the fair sex in
general. It was essential to his character that he
should select, as his proper choice, ``a lady and a
love,'' to be the polar star of his thoughts, the mistress
of his affections, and the directress of his
actions. In her service he was to observe the
duties of loyalty, faith, secrecy, and reverence.
Without such an empress of his heart, a knight, in
the phrase of the times was a ship without a rudder,
a horse without a bridle, a sword without a
hilt; a being, in short devoid of that ruling guidance
and intelligence, which ought to inspire his
bravery, and direct his actions.</p>
<p> The Dame des Belles Cousines, having cast her
eyes upon the little Jean de Saintr<e'>, then a page of
honour at court, demanded of him the name of his
mistress and his love, on whom his affections were
fixed. The poor boy, thus pressed, replied, that
the first object of his love was the lady his mother,
and the next his sister Jacqueline. ``Jouvencel,''
replied the inquisitive lady, who had her own
reasons for not being contented with this simple
answer, ``we do not now talk of the affection due
to your mother and sister; I desire to know the
name of the lady whom you love _par amours._''---
``In faith, madam,'' said the poor page, to whom
the mysteries of chivalry, as well as love, were yet
unknown, ``I love no one _par amours._''</p>
<p> ``Ah, false gentleman, and traitor to the laws of chivalry,''
returned the lady, ``dare you say that you love no lady? well
may we perceive your falsehood and craven spirit by such an
avowal. Whence were derived the great valour and the high
achievements of Lancelot, of Gawain, of Tristrem, of Giron
the Courteous, and of other heroes of the Round Table,---
whence those of Panthus, and of so many other valiant
knights and squires of this realm, whose names I could enumerate
had I time,---whence the exaltation of many whom
I myself have known to arise to high dignity and renown,
except from their animating desire to maintain themselves in
the grace and favour of their ladies, without which mainspring
to exertion and valour, they must have remained unknown
and insignificant? And do you, coward page, now
dare to aver, that you have no lady and desire to have none?
Hence! false heart that thou art.''</p>
<p> To avoid these bitter reproaches, the simple page
named as his lady and love, <u>par amours,</u> Matheline
de Coucy, a child of ten years old. The answer of
the Dame des Belles Cousines, after she had indulged
in the mirth which his answer prompted,
instructed him how to place his affections more
advantageously; and as the former part of the
quotation may show the reader how essential it was
to the profession of chivalry that every one of its
professors should elect a lady of his affections, that
which follows explains the principles on which his
choice should be regulated.</p>
<p> ``Matheline,'' said the lady, ``is indeed a pretty girl, and
of high rank, and better lineage than appertains to you. But
what good, what profit, what honour, what advantage, what
comfort, what aid, what council for advancing you in the
ranks of chivalry, can you derive from such a choice? Sir,
you ought to choose a lady of high and noble blood, who has
the talent and means to counsel and aid you at your need, and
her you ought to serve so truly, and love so loyally, that she
must be compelled to acknowledge the true and honourable
affection which you bear to her. For believe there is no lady,
however cruel and haughty, but through length of faithful
service will be brought to acknowledge and reward loyal
affection with some portion of pity, compassion, or mercy.
In this manner, you will attain the praise of a worthy knight;
and, till you follow such a course, I will not give an apple for
you or your achievements.''</p>
<p> The lady then proceeds to lecture the acolyte of
Chivalry at considerable length on the seven mortal
sins, and the way in which the true amorous
knight may eschew commission of them. Still, however,
the saving grace inculcated in her sermon
was fidelity and secrecy in the service of the mistress
whom he should love <u>par amours.</u> She
proves, by the aid of quotations from the Scripture,
the fathers of the Church, and the ancient
philosophers, that the true and faithful lover can
never fall into the crimes of Pride, Anger, Envy,
Sloth, or Gluttony. From each of these his true
faith is hold to warrant and defend him. Nay, so
pure was the nature of the flame which she recommended,
that she maintained it to be inconsistent
even with the seventh sin of Chambering and Wantonness,
to which it might seem too nearly allied.
The least dishonest thought or action was, according
to her doctrine, sufficient to forfeit the chivalrous
lover the favour of his lady. It seems, however,
that the greater part of her charge concerning
incontinence is levelled against such as haunted the
receptacles of open vice; and that she reserved an
exception (of which, in the course of the history,
she made liberal use) in favour of the intercourse
which, in all love, honour, and secrecy, might take
place, when the favoured and faithful knight had
obtained, by long service, the boon of amorous
mercy from the lady whom he loved <u>par amours.</u>
The last encouragement which the Dame des Belles
Cousines held out to Saintr<e'>, in order to excite his
ambition, and induce him to fix his passion upon a
lady of elevated birth, rank, and sentiment, is also
worthy of being quoted, since it shows that it was
the prerogative of Chivalry to abrogate the distinctions
of rank, and elevate the hopes of the knight,
whose sole patrimony was his arms and valour, to
the high-born and princely dame, before whom he
carved as a sewer.</p>
<p> ``How is it possible for me,'' replied poor Saintr<e'>,
after having heard out the unmercifully long lecture
of the Dame des Belles Cousines, ``to find a
lady, such as you describe, who will accept of my
service, and requite the affection of such a one as
I am?''---``And why should you not find her?''
answered the lady preceptress. ``Are you not
gently born? Are you not a fair and proper youth?
Have you not eyes to look on her---ears to hear her
---a tongue to plead your cause to her---hands to
serve her---feet to move at her bidding---body and
heart to accomplish loyally her commands? And,
having all these, can you doubt to adventure yourself
in the service of any lady whatsoever?''</p>
<p> In these extracts are painted the actual manners
of the age of Chivalry. The necessity of the perfect
knight having a mistress, whom he loved <u>par
amours,</u> the duty of dedicating his time to obey her
commands, however capricious, and his strength to
execute extravagant feats of valour, which might
redound to her praise,---for all that was done for
her sake, and under her auspices, was counted her
merit, as the victories of their generals were
ascribed to the Roman Emperors,---was not a whit
less necessary to complete the character of a good
knight than the Dame des Belles Cousines represented
it.</p>
<p> It was the especial pride of each distinguished
champion, to maintain, against all others, the superior
worth, beauty, and accomplishments of his
lady; to bear her picture from court to court, and
support, with lance and sword, her superiority to
all other dames, abroad or at home. To break a
spear for the love of their ladies, was a challenge
courteously given and gently accepted, among all
true followers of Chivalry; and history and romance
are alike filled with the tilts and tournaments
which took place upon this argument, which was
ever ready and ever acceptable. Indeed, whatever
the subject of the tournament had been, the lists
were never closed until a solemn course had been
made in honour of the ladies.</p>
<p> There were knights yet more adventurous, who
sought to distinguish themselves by singular and
uncommon feats of arms in honour of their mistresses;
and such was usually the cause of the
whimsical and extravagant vows of arms which
we have subsequently to notice. To combat against
extravagant odds, to fight amid the press of armed
knights without some essential part of their armour,
to do some deed of audacious valour in face
of friend and foe, were the services by which the
knights strove to recommend themselves, or which
their mistresses (very justly so called) imposed on
them as proofs of their affection.</p>
<p> On such occasions, the favoured knight, as he
wore the colours and badge of the lady of his affections,
usually exerted his ingenuity in inventing
some device or cognisance which might express
their love, either openly, as boasting of it in the
eye of the world, or in such mysterious mode of
indication as should only be understood by the beloved
person, if circumstances did not permit an
avowal of his passion. Among the earliest instances
of the use of the English language at the court of
the Norman monarchs, is the distich painted in the
shield of Edward III. under the figure of a white
swan, being the device which that warlike monarch
wore at a tourney, at Windsor.<p> ``Ha! Ha! the white swan,
By God his soul, I am thy man.''</p>
</p>
<p> The choice of these devices was a very serious
matter; and the usurpation of such as any knight
had previously used and adopted, was often the
foundation of a regular quarrel, of which many
instances occur in Froissart and other writers.</p>
<p> The ladies, bound as they were in honour to
requite the passion of their knights, were wont, on
such occasions, to dignify them by the present of a
scarf, ribbon, or glove, which was to be worn in the
press of battle and tournament. These marks of
favour they displayed on their helmets, and they
were accounted the best incentives to deeds of
valour. The custom appears to have prevailed in
France to a late period, though polluted with the
grossness so often mixed with the affected refinement
and gallantry of that nation. In the attack
made by the Duke of Buckingham upon the Isle
of Rh<e'>, favours were found on the persons of many
of the French soldiers who fell at the skirmish on
the landing; but for the manner in which they
were disposed, we are compelled to refer to Howel's
<u>Familiar Letters.</u></p>
<p> Sometimes the ladies, in conferring these tokens
of their favour, clogged them with the most extravagant
and severe conditions. But the lover had
this advantage in such cases, that if he ventured to
encounter the hazard imposed, and chanced to survive
it, he had, according to the fashion of the age,
the right of exacting, from the lady, favours corresponding
in importance. The annals of Chivalry
abound with stories of cruel and cold fair ones,
who subjected their lovers to extremes of danger,
in hopes that they might get rid of their addresses,
but were, upon their unexpected success, caught in
their own snare, and, as ladies who would not have
their name made the theme of reproach by every
minstrel, compelled to recompense the deeds which
their champion had achieved in their name. There
are instances in which the lover used his right of
reprisals with some rigour, as in the well-known
<u>fabliau</u> of the three knights and the shift; in which
a lady proposes to her three lovers, successively,
the task of entering, unarmed, into the _m<e'>l<e'>e_ of a
tournament, arrayed only in one of her shifts. The
perilous proposal is declined by two of the knights
and accepted by the third, who thrusts himself, in
the unprotected state required, into all the hazards
of the tournament, sustains many wounds, and
carries off the prize of the day. On the next day
the husband of the lady (for she was married) was
to give a superb banquet to the knights and nobles
who had attended the tourney. The wounded victor
sends the shirt back to its owner, with his request,
that she would wear it over her rich dress on this
solemn occasion, soiled and torn as it was, and
stained all over with the blood of its late wearer.
The lady did not hesitate to comply, declaring,
that she regarded this shift, stained with the blood
of her ``fair friend, as more precious than if it wore
of the most costly materials.'' Jaques de Basin,
the minstrel, who relates this curious tale, is at a
loss to say whether the palm of true love should be
given to the knight or to the lady on this remarkable
occasion. The husband, he assures us, had
the good sense to seem to perceive nothing uncommon
in the singular vestment with which his
lady was attired, and the rest of the good company
highly admired her courageous requital of the
knight's gallantry.</p>
<p> Sometimes the patience of the lover was worn
out by the cold-hearted vanity which thrust him on
such perilous enterprises. At the court of one of
the German emperors, while some ladies and gallants
of the court were looking into a den where
two lions were confined, one of them purposely let
her glove fall within the palisade which enclosed
the animals, and commanded her lover, as a true
knight, to fetch it out to her. He did not hesitate
to obey, jumped over the enclosure; threw his
mantle towards the animals as they sprung at him;
snatched up the glove, and regained the outside of
the palisade. But when in safety, he proclaimed
aloud, that what he had achieved was done for the
sake of his own reputation, and not for that of a
false lady, who could, for her sport and cold-blooded
vanity, force a brave man on a duel so desperate.
And, with the applause of all that were present,
renounced her love for ever.</p>
<p> This, however, was an uncommon circumstance.
In general, the lady was supposed to have her
lover's character as much at heart as her own, and
to mean by pushing him upon enterprises of hazard,
only to give him an opportunity of meriting her
good graces, which she could not with honour confer
upon one undistinguished by deeds of chivalry.
An affecting instance is given by Godscroft.</p>
<p> At the time when the Scotch were struggling to
recover their country from the usurpation of Edward
I., the Castle of Douglas was repeatedly garrisoned
by the English, and these garrisons were
as frequently surprised, and cut to pieces, by the
good Lord James of Douglas, who, lying in the
mountainous wilds of Cairntable, and favoured by
the intelligence which he maintained among his
vassals, took opportunity of the slightest relaxation
of vigilance to surprise the fortress. At length, a
fair dame of England announced to the numerous
suitors who sought her hand, that she would confer
it on the man who should keep the perilous Castle
of Douglas (so it was called) for a year and a day.
The knight who undertook this dangerous task at
her request, discharged his duty like a careful soldier
for several months, and the lady, relenting at
the prospect of his continued absence, sent a letter
to recall him, declaring she held his probation as
accomplished. In the meantime, however, he had
received a defiance from Douglas, threatening, that
let him use his utmost vigilance, he would recover
from him his father's castle before Palm-Sunday.
The English knight deemed that he could not in
honour leave the castle till this day was past; and
on the very eve of Palm-Sunday was surprised and
slain with his lady's letter in his pocket, the perusal
whereof greatly grieved the good Lord James
of Douglas.<*></p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>``Such were the troops, and such the leaders, who assumed
<em> the cross for the deliverance of the holy sepulchre. As
</em> soon as they were relieved by the absence of the plebeian multitude,
<em> they encouraged each other, by interviews and messages,
</em> to accomplish their vow, and hasten their departure.
<em> Their wives and sisters were desirous of partaking the danger
</em> and merit of the pilgrimage; their portable treasures were
<em> conveyed in bars of silver and gold; and the princes and barons
</em> were attended by their equipage of hounds and hawks,
<em> to amuse their leisure, and to supply their table. The difficulty
</em> of procuring subsistence fur so many myriads of men
<em> and horses, obliged them to separate their forces; their choice
</em> or situation determined the road; and it was agreed to meet
<em> in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and from thence to
</em> begin their operations against the Turks.''---=Gibbon,= ch. lviii.<p> We are left much to our own conjectures on the
appearance and manners of those haughty beauties,
who were wooed with sword and lance, whose favours
were bought at the expense of such dear and
desperate perils, and who were worshipped, like
heathen deities, with human sacrifices. The character
of the ladies of the ages of Chivalry was
probably determined by that of the men, to whom
it sometimes approached. Most of these heroines
were educated to understand the treatment of
wounds, not only of the heart, but of the sword;
and in romance, at least, the quality of leech-craft
(practised by the Lady Bountifuls of the last generation)
was essential to the character of an accomplished
princess. They sometimes trespassed on
the province of their lovers, and actually took up
arms. The Countess de Montfort in Bretagne is
celebrated by Froissart for the gallantry with which
she defended her castle, when besieged by the
English; and the old Prior of Lochlevon, in Scotland,
is equally diffuse in the praise of Black Agnes,
Countess of March, who, in the reign of Edward
III., held out the castle of Dunbar against the
English. She appeared on the battlements with a
white handkerchief in her hands, and wiped the
walls in derision where they had been struck by
stones from the English engines. When Montagu,
Earl of Salisbury, brought up to the walls a military
engine, like the Roman <u>testudo,</u> called a sow,
she exclaimed in rhyme,<p> ``Beware, Montagou,
For farrow shall thy sow.''</p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The history of these orders will be found in its proper
place in this work; but their existence is here
noticed as illustrating our general proposition concerning
the union of devotion and chivalry. A few
general remarks will close this part of the subject.</p>
<p>Habitual indulgence seeks change of objects to relieve
satiety. Hence polygamy, and all its brutalizing
consequences, which were happily unknown
to our Gothic ancestors. The virtuous and manly
restraints imposed on their youth were highly calculated
to exalt the character of both sexes, and
especially to raise the females in their own eyes
and those of their lovers. They were led to regard
themselves, not as the passive slaves of pleasure,
but as the objects of a prolonged and respectful
affection, which could only be finally gratified when
their lovers had attained the age of mature reason,
and were capable to govern and to defend the
family which should arise around them. With the
young man imagination and sentiment combined
to heighten his ideas of a pleasure which nature
instructed him to seek, and which the wise laws of
his country prevented him from prematurely aspiring
to share. To a youth so situated, the maiden
on whom he placed his affections became an object
of awe as well as of affection; the passion which he
indulged for her was of a nature as timid and pure
as engrossing and powerful; the minds of the parties
became united before the joining of their hands,
and a moral union preceded the mere intercourse
of the sexes.<p> The nature of the conferences between these
high-minded heroines and their lovers, was somewhat
peculiar. Their delectations were in tales of
warlike exploits, and in discourse of hunting and
hawking. But when these topics wore exhausted,
they found in metaphysical discussions of nice
questions concerning the passion of love, an endless
source of interesting disquisition. The idea and
definition of a true and pure passion, illustrated by
an hundred imaginary cases devised on purpose,
were managed in the same manner in which the
schoolmen of the day agitated their points of metaphysical
theology. The Scotists and the Thomists,
whose useless and nonsensical debates cumbered
the world with so many volumes of absurd disquisition
upon the most extravagant points of polemical
divinity, saw their theological labours rivalled
in the Courts of Love, where the most abstracted
reasoning was employed in discussing subtle questions
upon the exaggerated hopes, fears, doubts,
and suspicions of lovers, the circumstances of whose
supposed cases were often ridiculous, sometimes
criminal, sometimes licentious, and almost always
puerile and extravagant. It is sufficient to state,
that the discussions in the Courts of Love regarded
such important and interesting questions, as, Whether
his love be most meritorious who has formed
his passion entirely on hearing, or his who has actually
seen his mistress? with others of a tendency
equally edifying.</p>
<p> Extremes of every kind border on each other;
and as the devotion of the knights of Chivalry degenerated
into superstition, the Platonic refinements
and subtleties of amorous passion which they
professed, were sometimes compatible with very
coarse and gross debauchery. We have seen that
they derived from the Gothic tribes that high and
reverential devotion to the female sex, which forms
the strongest tint in the manners of Chivalry. But
with the simplicity of those ancient times they lost
their innocence; and woman, though still worshipped
with enthusiasm as in the German forests, did
not continue to be (in all cases at least) the same
pure object of regard. The marriage-tie ceased to
be respected; and, as the youthful knights had seldom
the means or inclination to encumber themselves
with wives and families, their lady-love was
often chosen among the married ladies of the court.
It is true, that such a connexion was supposed to
be consistent with all respect and honour, and was
regarded by the world, and sometimes by the husband,
as a high strain of Platonic sentiment,
through which the character of its object in no respect
suffered. But nature vindicated herself for
the violence offered to her; and while the metaphysical
students and pleaders in the Courts of
Love professed to aspire but to the lip or hand of
their ladies, and to make a merit of renouncing all
farther intrusion on their bounties, they privately
indulged themselves in amours which had very
little either of delicacy or sentiment. In the romance
of the _Petit Jehan de Saintr<e'>,_ that self-same
Lady des Belles Cousines, who lectures so learnedly
upon the seven mortal sins, not only confers on
her deserving lover ``le don d'amoureux merci,''
but enters into a very unworthy and disgraceful
intrigue with a stout broad-shouldered abbot, into
which no sentiment whatever can be supposed to
enter. The romance of <u>Tirante the White,</u><*> praised</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Here is the germ of the last of the Waverley Novels,---
* <u>Castle Dangerous.</u></li>
</ul>
<p>A huge rock discharged from the battlements dashed
the sow to pieces, and the English soldiers who
escaped from its ruins were called by the Countess
in derision, Montagu's pigs.<*><p> Indeed, the gross license which was practised
during the middle ages, may be well estimated by
the vulgar and obscene language that was currently
used in tales and fictions addressed to the young
and noble of both sexes. In the romance of the
<u>Round Table,</u> as Ascham sternly states, little was
to be learned but examples of homicide and adultery,
although he had himself seen it admitted to
the antechamber of princes, when it was held a
crime but to be possessed of the Word of God. In
the romance of <u>Amadis de Gaul,</u> and many others,
the heroines, without censure or imputation, confer
on their lovers the rights of a husband before the
ceremony of the church gave them a title to the
name. These are serious narrations, in which decorum,
at least, is rarely violated. But the comic
tales are of a far more indelicate cast.</p>
<p> The <u>Canterbury Tales</u> of Chaucer contain many
narratives, of which, not only the diction, but the
whole turn of the narrative, is extremely gross.
Yet it does not seem to have occurred to the
author, a man of rank and fashion, that they were
improper to be recited, either in the presence of
the Prioress and her votaries, or in that of the noble
Knight who<p> ``of his port was meek as is a maid,
And never yet no villany he said.''</p>
</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>See this story at more length in Sir W. Scott's <u>Provincial
* Antiquities,</u> and also in the <u>Tales of a Grandfather.</u><p> Should the manners of the times appear inconsistent
in these respects which we have noticed, we
must remember that we are ourselves variable and
inconsistent animals, and that, perhaps, the surest
mode of introducing and encouraging any particular
vice, is to rank the corresponding virtue at a
pitch unnatural in itself, and beyond the ordinary
attainment of humanity. The vows of celibacy introduced
profligacy among the Catholic clergy, as
the high-flown and overstrained Platonism of the
professors of Chivalry favoured the increase of license
and debauchery.</p>
<p> After the love of God and of his lady, the preux
chevalier was to be guided by that of glory and renown.
He was bound by his vow to seek out adventures
of risk and peril, and never to abstain
from the quest which he might undertake, for any
unexpected odds of opposition which he might encounter.
It was not indeed the sober and regulated
exercise of valour, but its fanaticism, which
the genius of Chivalry demanded of its followers.
Enterprises the most extravagant in conception,
the most difficult in execution, the most useless
when achieved, were those by which an adventurous
knight chose to distinguish himself. There
were solemn occasions also, on which these displays
of chivalrous enthusiasm were specially expected
and called for. It is only sufficient to name the
tournaments, single combats, and solemn banquets,
at which vows of chivalry were usually formed and
proclaimed.</p>
<p> The tournaments were uniformly performed and
frequented by the choicest and noblest youth in
Europe, until the fatal accident of Henry II., after
which they fell gradually into disuse. It was in
vain that, from the various dangers to which they
gave rise, these perilous amusements were prohibited
by the heads of the Christian Church. The
Popes, infallible as they were deemed, might direct,
but could not curb, the military spirit of Chivalry;
they could excite crusades, but they could not abolish
tournaments. Their laws, customs, and regulations,
will fall properly under a separate article.
It is here sufficient to observe, that these military
games were of two kinds. In the most ancient,
meaning ``nothing in hate, but all in honour,'' the
adventurous knights fought with sharp blades and
lances, as in the day of battle. Even then, however,
the number of blows was usually regulated,
or, in cases of a general combat, some rules were
laid down to prevent too much slaughter. The
regulations of Duke Theseus for the tournament in
Athens, as narrated by Chaucer in the <u>Knight's
Tale,</u> may give a good example of these restrictions.
When the combatants fought on foot, it was prohibited
to strike otherwise than at the head or body;
the number of strokes to be dealt with the sword
and battle-axe were carefully numbered and limited,
as well as the careers to be run with the lance.
In these circumstances alone, the combats at <u>outrance,</u>
as they were called, differed from encounters
in actual war.</p>
<p> In process of time, the dangers of the solemn
justs, hold under the authority of princes, wore
modified by the introduction of arms of courtesy, as
they wore termed; lances, namely, without heads,
and with round braces of wood at the extremity
called <u>rockets,</u> and swords without points, and with
blunted edges. But the risk continued great, from
bruises, falls, and the closeness of the defensive armour
of the times, in which the wearers wore often
smothered. The weapons at <u>outrance</u> were afterwards
chiefly used when knights of different and
hostile countries engaged by appointment, or when
some adventurous gallants took upon them the execution
of an enterprise of arms (<u>pas d'armes,</u>) in
which they, as challengers, undertook, for a certain
time, and under certain conditions, to support the
honour of their country, or their mistresses, against
all comers. These enterprises often ended fatally,
but the knights who undertook them were received
in the foreign countries which they visited in accomplishment
of their challenge, with the highest
deference and honour; their arrival was considered
as affording a subject of sport and jubilee to all
ranks; and when any mischance befell them, such
as that of De Lindsay, who, in a tournament at Berwick,
had his helmet nailed to his skull, by the
truncheon of a lance which penetrated both, and died,
after devoutly confessing himself, in the casque from
which they could not disengage him, the knights
who were spectators prayed that God would vouchsafe
them in his mercy a death so fair and so
honourable. Stories of such challenges, with the
minute details of the events of the combat, form
frequent features in the histories of the age.</p>
<p> The contests of the tournament and the <u>pas
d'armes</u> were undertaken merely in sport, and for
thirst of honour. But the laws of the period
afforded the adventurous knight other and more
serious combats, in which he might exercise his
valour. The custom of trying all doubtful cases by
the body of a man, or, as it was otherwise expressed,
by the judgment of God---in plain words, by referring
the decision to the issue of a duel, prevailed
universally among the Gothic tribes, from the highest
antiquity. A <u>salvo</u> was devised, for the obvious
absurdity of calling upon the weak to encounter the
strong, a churchman to oppose a soldier, or age to
meet in the lists with activity and youth. It was
held that either party might appear personally, or
by his champion. This sage regulation gave exercise
for the valour of the knights, who were bound
by their oaths to maintain the cause of those who
had no other protector. And, indeed, there is good
reason to think, that the inconveniences and injustice
of a law so absurd in itself as that of judicial
combat, were evaded and mitigated by the institutions
of Chivalry, since among the number of knights
who were eagerly hunting after opportunities of
military distinction, a party incapable of supporting
his own cause by combat could have little difficulty
in finding a formidable substitute; so that no one,
however bold and confident, could prosecute an unjust
cause to the uttermost, without the risk of encountering
some champion of the innocent party,
from among the number of hardy knights who traversed
every country seeking ostensible cause of
battle.</p>
<p> Besides these formal combats, it was usual for
the adventurous knight to display his courage by
stationing himself at some pass in a forest, on a
bridge, or elsewhere, compelling all passengers to
avouch the superiority of his own valour, and the
beauty of his mistress, or otherwise to engage with
him in single combat. When Alexius Comnenus
received the homage of the crusaders, seated upon
his throne, previous to their crossing the Hellespont,
during the first crusade, a French baron seated
himself by the side of the Emperor of the East.
Upon being reproved by Baldwin, he answered in
his native language, ``What ill-taught clown is
this, [meaning Alexius,] who dares to keep his seat
when the flower of the European nobility are standing
around him!'' The Emperor, dissembling his
indignation, desired to know the birth and condition
of the audacious Frank. ``I am,'' replied the baron,
``of the noblest race of France. For the rest, I
only know that there is near my castle a spot where
four roads meet, and near it a church where men,
desirous of single combat, spend their time in prayer
till some one shall accept their challenge. Often
have I frequented that chapel, but never met I
one who durst accept my defiance.''<*> Thus the</p>
</li>
<li>``<u>Tirante</u> was first published in the Catalonian dialect at
<em> Valencia in 1480. It was thence transformed into the Castilian
</em> language, and published at Valladolid in 1511.''---=Dunlop.=</li>
</ul>
<p>by Cervantes as a faithful picture of the knights
and ladies of his age, seems to have been written
in an actual brothel, and, contrasted with others,
may lead us to suspect that their purity is that of
romance, their profligacy that of reality. This license
was greatly increased by the Crusades, from
which the survivors of these wild expeditions
brought back the corrupted morals of the East, to
avenge the injuries they had inflicted on its inhabitants.
Joinville has informed us of the complaints
which Saint Louis made to him in confidence of
the debaucheries practised in his own royal tent,
by his attendants, in this holy expedition. And
the ignominious punishment to which he subjected
a knight, detected in such excesses, shows what
severe remedies he judged necessary to stem the
increase of libertinism.</p>
<p>And he makes but a little apology for including the
disasters of the <u>Millar of Trompington,</u> or of <u>Absalom
the Gentle Clerk,</u> in the same series of narrations
with the <u>Knight's Tale.</u> Many of Bandello's
most profligate novels are expressly dedicated to
females of rank and consideration. And, to conclude,
the <u>Fabliaux,</u> published by Barbazan and
Le Grand, are frequently as revolting, from their
naked grossness, as interesting from the lively pictures
which they present of life and manners. Yet
those were the chosen literary pastimes of the fair
and the gay, during the times of Chivalry, and listened
to, we cannot but suppose, with an interest
considerably superior to that exhibited by the
yawning audience who heard the theses of the
Courts of Love attacked and supported in logical
form, and with metaphysical subtlety.</p>
<ul>
<li>On this anecdote the author has built his romance of
* <u>Count Robert of Paris.</u><p> *</p>
<p> II. Such being the tone and spirit of Chivalry,
derived from love, devotion, and valour,---we have
next to notice the special forms and laws of the
order, which will be found to correspond in every
respect to the spirit which they were designed to
foster.</p>
<p> The education of the future knight began at an
early period. The care of the mother, after the first
years of early youth were past, was deemed too
tender, and the indulgences of the paternal roof too
effeminate, for the future aspirant to the honours
of Chivalry. ``Do you not bless God,'' said the
Lady Mabel to her husband, the noble Duke Guerin
of Montglaive, as on a solemn feast they looked on
their four hopeful sons, ``do you not bless God
that has given you such a promising issue ?''---
``Dame,'' replied Guerin, in the true spirit of the
age, ``so help me God and Saint Martin! nothing
can do me greater despite than to look on these
four great lurdanes, who, arrived at such an age,
yet do nothing but eat the fat, and drink the sweet,
and spend their time in idle amusement''<*> To</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Bridge of Rodomont, in the Orlando Furioso, and
the valiant defence which the Knight of La Mancha
hurled against the merchants of Toledo, who were
bound to the fairs of Murcia, were neither fictions
of Ariosto nor Cervantes, but had their prototypes
in real story. The chivalrous custom of defying all
and sundry to mortal combat, subsisted in the Borders
until the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the
worthy Bernard Gilpin found in his church of
Houghton le Spring a glove hung over the altar,
which he was informed indicated a challenge to all
who should take it down. The remnants of the judicial
combats, and the enterprises of arms, may be
found in the duels of the present day. In former
times they still more resembled each other; for, in
the seventeenth century, not only the seconds on
each side regularly engaged, but it was usual to
have more seconds, even to the number of five or
six; a custom pleasantly ridiculed by Lord Chesterfield,
in one of the papers of <u>The World.</u><*> It is</p>
<ul>
<li>See No. 47; which paper is assigned by the editor of the
<em> <u>British Essayists</u> to the Earl of Cork. There is another _on
</em> duelling,_ (No. 113,) which was certainly written by Lord
* Chesterfield.<p> The young and noble stripling, generally about
his twelfth year, was transferred from his father's
house to that of some baron or gallant knight, sedulously
chosen by the anxious parent as that which
had the best reputation for good order and discipline.
The children of the first nobles and high crown-vassals
were educated by the royal court. And,
however the reins of discipline might be in particular
cases relaxed, or become corrupted in latter days,
the theory was uniformly excellent. The youth who
was to learn modesty, obedience, and address in
aims and horsemanship, was duly exercised in the
use of his weapons, beginning with such as were
suited to his strength. He was instructed how to
guide a horse with grace and dexterity; how to use
the bow and the sword; how to manage the lance,
an art which was taught by making him ride a
career against a wooden figure holding a buckler
called a quintaine. This quintaine turned on an
axis; and as there was a wooden sword in the
other hand of the supposed opponent, the young
cavalier, if he did not manage his horse and weapon
with address, was liable to receive a blow when the
shock of his charge made the quintaine spin round.</p>
<p> Besides these exercises, the noble youth was
required to do the work which, in some respects,
belonged to a menial; but the task was not imposed
on him as in a servile capacity. He attended his
lord during the chase, the rules of which, as an
image of war, and as held the principal occupation
of a gentleman during peace, were carefully inculcated.
He was taught the principal blasts or notes
of <u>venerie,</u> to be sounded when the hounds were
uncoupled, when the prey was on foot, when he
was brought to bay, and when he fell. This art
did not tend solely to amusement. ``The gentle
damosel;'' to use the language of the times, learned
to bear the fatigue, the hunger, and thirst, which
huntsmen are exposed to. By the necessity of
encountering and despatching a stag, a boar, or a
wolf, at bay, he acquired promptitude and courage
in the use of his weapons. The accuracy with
which he was required to mark the tracks of the
hunted animal's course gave him habits of attention
and reflection. In the days and nights spent in
the chase, amid wide and pathless forests, he
acquired the art, so necessary to a soldier, of
remarking and studying the face of the country.
When benighted, he was taught to steer his course
by the stars, if they were visible; if not, to make
his couch with patience on the withered leaves, or
in a tree. Had he lost his way by daytime, he
distinguished the points of the compass by remarking
which side of the trees were most covered with
moss, and from which they threw their branches
most freely, circumstances which, compared with
the known course of the prevailing wind, afforded
him the necessary information.</p>
<p> The ceremonial of the chase was to be acquired,
as well as its arts. To <u>brittle</u> or <u>break</u> the deer
(in French, _faire la cur<e'>e,_) in plain terms, to flay
and disembowel the stag, a matter in which much
precision was required, and the rules of which were
ascribed to the celebrated Sir Tristrem of Lionesse,
was an indispensable requisite of the page's education.
Nor did his concern with the venison end
here; he placed it on the table, waited during the
banquet, and carved the ponderous dishes, when
required or permitted to do so. Much grace and
delicacy, it was supposed, might be displayed on
these occasions; and, in one romance, we read of
the high birth and breeding of a page being ascertained,
by his scrupulously declining to use a towel
to wipe his hands, when washed before he began to
carve, and contented himself with waving them in
the air till they dried of themselves. It is, perhaps,
difficult to estimate the force of this delicacy,
unless by supposing that he had not a towel or
napkin appropriated to his own separate use.</p>
<p> Amidst these various instructions, the page was
often required to wait upon the ladies, rather as
attending a sort of superior beings, to whom adoration
and obsequious service were due, than as ministering
to the convenience of human creatures like
himself. The most modest demeanour, the most
profound respect, was to be observed in the presence
of these fair idols. Thus the veneration due
to the female character was taught to the acolyte
of Chivalry, by his being placed so near female
beauty, yet prohibited the familiarity which might
discover female weakness. Love frequently mingled
with this early devotion, and the connexion betwixt
some lady of distinction and her gallant knight, is
often, in romantic fiction, supposed to have originated
from such early affection. In a romance
called <u>The Golden Thread</u> (of which we have only
seen a modern edition in German, but which has
many features of originality,) when the daughter
of the Count bestows her annual gifts on her father's
household, she gives the page Leofried, in derision,
a single thread of gold tissue. To show the value
which he places upon the most minute memorial,
coming from such a hand, the youth opens a wound
in his bosom, and deposits the precious thread in
the neighbourhood of his heart. The Dame des
Belles Cousines, whom we have already mentioned,
was assuredly not the only lady of high rank who
was tempted to give a handsome young page the
benefit of her experience in completing his education.
This led the way to abuse; and the custom
of breeding up youths as pages in the houses of the
great, although it survived the decay of Chivalry,
was often rather the introduction to indolence,
mischief, and debauchery, than to useful knowledge
and the practice of arms. The proper purposes
of this preliminary part of chivalrous education,
are well given by one of the characters in Ben
Jonson's <u>New Inn,</u> and he is answered by another,
who alleges, with satire resembling that of Juvenal,
the modern corruptions of the order of pages.
Lord Lovel has requested mine Host to give him
his son for a page. The Host answers, by declaring,
he would rather hang his child with his own
hand,<p> ``Than damn him to that desperate course of life.
<u>Lovel.</u> Call you that desperate, which, by a line
Of institution from our ancestors,
Hath been derived down to us, and received
In a succession, for the noblest way
Of breeding up our youth in letters, arms,
Fair mien, discourses, civil exercises,
And all the blazon of a gentleman?
Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence,
To mar his body gracefully, to speak
His language purer, or to turn his mind
Or manners more to the harmony of nature
Than in those nurseries of nobility?
<u>Host.</u> Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble,
And only virtue made it, not the market.''</p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>obvious that a usage, at once so ridiculous, and so
detrimental to the peace and happiness of society,
must give way, in proportion to the progress of
common sense. The custom is in general upon the
wane, even as far as respects single combat between
men who have actually given or taken offence at
each other. The general rules of good-breeding
prevent causes of such disagreement from arising
in the intercourse of society, and the forward duellist,
who is solicitous in seeking them out, is generally
accounted a vulgar and ferocious, as well as a
dangerous character. At the same time, the habits
derived from the days of Chivalry still retain a
striking effect on our manners, and have fully established
a graceful as well as useful punctilio, which
tends on the whole to the improvement of society.
Every man enters the world under the impression,
that neither his strength, his wealth, his station,
nor his wit, will excuse him from answering, at the
risk of his life, any unbecoming encroachment on
the civility due to the weakest, the poorest, the
least important, or the most modest member of
the society in which he mingles. All, too, in the
rank and station of gentlemen, are forcibly called
upon to remember, that they must resent the imputation
of a voluntary falsehood as the most gross
injury; and that the rights of the weaker sex demand
protection from every one who would hold
a good character in society. In short, from the
wild and overstrained courtesies of Chivalry has
been derived our present system of manners. It is
not certainly faultless, and it is guarded by penalties
which we must often regret as disproportionably
severe. Yet it has a grace and dignity unknown
to classic times, when women were slaves,
and men coarse and vulgar, or overbearing and
brutal, as suited their own humour, without respect
to that of the rest of their society.<p> When advancing age and experience in the use
of arms had qualified the page for the hardships
and dangers of actual war, he was removed, from
the lowest to the second gradation of Chivalry, and
became an <u>Escuyer,</u> Esquire, or =Squire.= The
derivation of this phrase has been much contested.
It has been generally supposed to be derived from
its becoming the official duty of the esquire to carry
the shield (<u>Escu</u>) of the knight his master, until
he was about to engage the enemy. Others have
fetched the epithet (more remotely certainly) from
<u>Scuria,</u> a stable, the charger of the knight being
under the especial care of the squire. Others, again,
ascribe the derivation of the word to the right
which the squire himself had to carry a shield, and
to blazon it with armorial bearings. This, in later
times, became almost the exclusive meaning attached
to the appellative esquire; and, accordingly, if
the phrase now means any thing, it means a gentleman
having a right to carry arms. There is reason,
however, to think this is a secondary meaning of
the word, for we do not find the word Escuyer,
applied as a title of rank, until so late as the Ordonnance
of Blois, in 1579.</p>
<p> The candidate for the honours of Chivalry, now
an immediate attendant on the knight or nobleman,
was withdrawn from the private apartments
of the ladies, and only saw them upon occasions of
stated ceremony. In great establishments, there
were squires of different ranks, and destined for
different services; but we shall confine ourselves
to those general duties which properly belonged to
the office. The squire assisted his master in the
offices at once of a modern valet-de-chambre and
groom---he attended to dress and undress him,
trained his horses to the menage, and kept his
arms bright and burnished. He did the honours
of the household to the strangers who visited it,
and the reputation of the prince or great lord whom
he served, was much exalted by the manner in
which these courteous offices were discharged. In
the words of Chaucer, describing the character of
the squire,<p> ``Curteis he was, lowly and servisable,
And carf before his fader at the table.''</p>
</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>_L'Hystoire de Guerin de Montglaive._---S.<p> ---``Could songs make, and well indite,
Joust, and eke dance, and well pourtray and write.''</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>counteract these habits of indulgence, the first stop
to the order of knighthood was the degree of =Page.=<p> To understand the squire's mode of life more
particularly, it is necessary to consider that which
was led in the courts and castles of the middle ages.
Froissart has given us a very striking account of
the mode of house-keeping in the family of Gaston,
Earl of Foix, a prince whose court was considered
as a first-rate nursery for the noble youth; and,
from his lively description, we may, in some measure,
conceive the mode in which the esquires spent
their time. Froissart abode in his house above
twelve weeks, much recommended to the favourable
notice of the Earl, by his having brought with
him a book containing all the songs, ballads, and
virilays, which Wincislaus of Bohemia, the gentle
Duke of Brabant, had made, and the historian
himself had compiled or transcribed. ``Every
night, after supper,'' says Froissart, ``I read thereon
to him, and while I read there was none durst
speak any thing to interrupt me, so much did the
Earl delight in listening.'' The quotation necessary
to describe the Earl of Foix, and the economy
of his household, must necessarily be a long one,
but it is a picture, by the hand of an inimitable
artist, of a school of Chivalry when Chivalry was
at its highest pitch, and we are unwilling to destroy
the likeness by abridging it.</p>
<p> ``This Erle Gascone of Foix, with whom I was, at that tyme,
he was of a fyftie yere of age and nyne; and, I say, I have in
my tyme sees many knights, kynges, princes, and others, but
I neuer saw none like him of personage, nor of so fayre forme,
nor so well made; his vysage fayre, sanguyne, and smyling, his
eyen gray and amorous, wher as he lyst to set his regarde; in
euery thing he was so parfite that he cannot be praised to
moche; he loued that ought to be beloued, and hated that
ought to be hated: he was a wyse knyght, of highe enterprise,
and of good counsayle; he neuer had myscreant with
hym; he sayd many orisons every day, a nocturn of the psalter,
matyns of our Lady, of the Holy Ghost, and of the Crosse,
and dirig<e'> euery day; he gaue fyue florins, in small monies, at
his gate to poore folkes for the loue of God; he was large and
courtesse in gyftes; he could ryght well take where it parteyned
to hym, and to delyuer agayne wher as he ought; he
loued houndes of all beestes, wynter and somer he loued huntyng:
he neuer loued folly, outrage, nor foly larges; euery
moneth he wolds knowe what he spended; he tooke in his
countre to receyue his reuenwes, and to serue him, notable
persons, that is to saye, twelve recyueurs, and euer fro two
monethes to two monethes, two of them shulde serue for his
receyte; for, at the two monethes ende, he wolde change and
put other two into that offiyce; and one that he trusted best
shulde he his comptroller, and to hym all other shulde accompt,
and the comptroller shulde accompt to hym by rolles
and bokes written, and the comptes to remayne still with
therle: he had certeyne cofers in his chambre, out of
whiche oftetymes he wolde take money to gyve to lordes,
knyhtes, and squyers, such as came to hym, for none shulde
departs from him without some gift, and yet dayly he multiplyed
his treasure, to resyst the aduentures and fortunes that
he doubted; he was of good and easy acquayntance with every
man, and amorously wold speke to them; he was short in
counsayle, and answers; he had four secretaries, and, at his
rising, they must ever be redy at his hande, without any callynge;
and whan any letter were delyuered him, and that he
had reed it, than he wolde calle them to write agayne, or els
for some other thynge. In this estate therle of Foix lyued.
And at mydnight, whan he came out of his chambre into the
hall to supper, he had ever before hym twelve torches brennying,
borne by twelve varlettes standying before his table
all supper; they gaue a gret light, and the hall ever full of
knightes and squyers and many other tables dressed to suppe
who welde; ther was none should speke to hym at his table;
but if he were called; his meate was lightlye wylde foule, the
legges and wynges alonely, and in the day he dyd but lytell
eate and drinke; he had great pleasure in armony of instrumentes;
he coude do it right well hymselfe; he wold have
songes song before him, he wolde gladlye so conseytes and
fantesies at his table. And or I came to his court, I had ben
in many courtes of kynges, dukes, princes, erles, and great
ladyes, but I was neuer in none y so well liked me, nor ther
was none mure rejoysed in dedes of armes, than the erle dyde:
ther was sene in his hall, chambre, and court, knightes and
squyers of honour going up and downe, and talking of armes
and amours; all honour ther was found, all maner of tidynges
of every realme and countre ther might be herde, for out of
every countree there was resort, for the valyantnesse of this
erle.''<*></p>
</p>
<p>And he replies, by enumerating instances of the
decay of honour among the nobles, and of the debauchery
of their household pages. In La Noue's
<u>Political and Military Discourses,</u> is a similar
complaint of the hazards to which the morals of
youths of rank were exposed while acting in this
domestic capacity. Nevertheless, the custom of
having young gentlemen thus bred, continued, in a
certain degree, down to the last century, although
those destined to such employments became, by
degrees, of a lower quality. In some few instances,
the institution was maintained in its purity, and
the page, when leaving the family in which he was
educated, usually obtained a commission. The last
instance we know, was that of a gentleman bred a
page in the family of the Duchess of Buccleuch
and Monmouth, who died during the reign of
George III., a general-officer in his Majesty's service.<p> While the courage of the young aspirant to the
honours of knighthood was animated, and his emulation
excited, by the society in which he was
placed, and the conversation to which he listened,---
while every thing was done which the times admitted
to refine his manners, and, in a certain degree,
to cultivate his understanding; the personal exercises
to which he had been trained, while a page,
were now to be pursued with increasing assiduity,
proportional to the increase of his strength. ``He
was taught,'' says a historian, speaking of Bou<c,>icaut,
while a squire, ``to spring upon a horse, while
armed at all points; to exercise himself in running,
to strike for a length of time with the axe or club;
to dance and throw somersets, entirely armed, excepting
the helmet; to mount on horseback behind
one of his comrades, by barely laying his hands on
his sleeve; to raise himself betwixt two partition
walls to any height, by placing his back against the
one, and his knees and hands against the other;
to mount a ladder, placed against a tower, upon
the reverse or under side, solely by the aid of his
hands, and without touching the rounds with his
feet; to throw the javelin, to pitch the bar,'' to do
all, in short, which could exercise the body to feats
of strength and agility, in order to qualify him for
the exploits of war. For this purpose, the esquires
had also their tourneys, separate and distinct from
those of the knights. They were usually solemnized
on the eve of the more formal and splendid
tournaments, in which the knights themselves displayed
their valour; and lighter weapons than
those of the knights, though of the same kind, were
employed by the esquires. But, as we shall presently
notice, the most distinguished among the esquires
were (notwithstanding the high authority of
the knight of La Mancha to the contrary) frequently
admitted to the honours and dangers of the more
solemn encounter.</p>
<p> In actual war the page was not expected to render
much service, but that of the squire was important
and indispensable. Upon a march he bore
the helmet and shield of the knight and led his
horse of battle, a tall heavy animal fit to bear the
weight of a man in armour, but which was led in
hand in marching, while the knight rode an ambling
hackney. The squire was also qualified to
perform the part of an armourer, not only lacing his
master's helmet and buckling his cuirass, but also
closing with a hammer the rivets by which the various
pieces were united to each other. This was
a point of the utmost consequence; and many instances
occur of mischances happening to celebrated
warriors when the duty was negligently performed.
In the actual shock of battle, the esquire
attended closely on the banner of his master, or on
his person if he were only a knight bachelor, kept
pace with him during the _m<e^>l<e'>e,_ and was at hand
to remount him when his steed was slain, or relieve
him when oppressed by numbers. If the knight
made prisoners they were the charge of the esquire;
if the esquire himself fortuned to make one, the
ransom belonged to his master.</p>
<p> On the other hand, the knights who received
these important services from their esquires, were
expected to display towards them that courteous
liberality which made so distinguished a point of
the chivalrous character. Lord Audley led the van
of the Black Prince's army at the battle of Poitiers,
attended by four squires who had promised not to
fail him. They distinguished themselves in the
front of that bloody day, leaving such as they overcame
to be made prisoners by others, and ever
pressing forward where resistance was offered.
Thus they fought in the chief of the battle until
Lord James Audley was sorely wounded, and his
breath failed him. At the last, when the battle
was gained, the four faithful esquires bore him out
of the press, disarmed him, and stanched and dressed
his wounds as they could. As the Black Prince
called for the man to whom the victory was in
some measure owing, Lord Audley was borne before
him in a litter, when the Prince, after having
awarded to him the praise and renown above all
others who fought on that day, bestowed on him
five hundred marks of yearly revenue, to be assigned
out of his heritage in England. Lord Audley
accepted of the gift with due demonstration of gratitude;
but no sooner was he brought to his lodging
than he called before him the four esquires by
whom he had been so gallantly seconded, and the
nobles of his lineage, and informed his kinsmen,---</p>
<p> `` `Sirs, it hath pleased my Lord the Prince to bestow on
me five hundred marks of heritage of which I am unworthy,
for I have done him but small service. Behold, sirs, these
four squires, which have always served me truly, and specially
this day; the honour that I have is by their valour, therefore
I resign to them and their heirs for ever, in like manner as it
was given to me, the noble gift which the Prince hath assigned
me.<code> The lords beheld each other, and agreed it was a proof
of great chivalry to bestow so royal a gift and gladly undertook
to bear witness to the transfer. When Edward heard
these tidings, he sent for Lord Audley, and desired to know
why he had bestowed on others the gift he had assigned him,
and whether it had not been acceptable to him: `Sir,</code> said
Lord Audley, `these four squires have followed me well and
truly in several severe actions, and at this battle they served
me so well, that had they done nothing else, I had been bound
to reward them. I am myself but a single man, but, by aid
of their united strength and valour, I was enabled to execute
the vow which I had made, to give the onset in the first battle
in which the King of England or his sons should be present,
and had it not been for them, I must have been left dead on
the field. This is the reason I have transferred your Highness's
bounty, as to those by whom it was best deserved.' ''</p>
<p> The Black Prince not only approved of and confirmed
Lord Audley's grant, but conferred upon
him, not to be outdone in generosity, a yearly revenue
of six hundred marks more, for his own use.<*></p>
</p>
<p>The squire was also expected to perfect himself in
the accomplishments of the period, and not only to
be a master of the ceremonial of the feast, but to
be capable of enlivening it by his powers of conversation.
He was expected to understand chess,
draughts, and other domestic games. Poetry and
music, if he had any turn for those beautiful arts,
and whatever other accomplishments could improve
the mind or the person, where accounted to
grace his station. And, accordingly, Chaucer's
squire, besides that he was ``singing or fluting all
the day,''</p>
<p>Unquestionably, few possessed all these attributes;
but the poet, with his usual precision and vivacity,
has given us the picture of a perfect esquire.<p> Although, in its primitive and proper sense, the
state of esquire was merely preparatory to that of
knighthood, yet it is certain that many men of birth
and property rested content with attaining that first
step; and though greatly distinguished by their
feats of arms, never rose, nor apparently sought to
rise, above the rank which it conferred. It does
not appear that any of the esquires of Lord Audley
were knighted after the battle of Poitiers, although
there can be no doubt that their rank, as well as
their exploits, entitled them to expect that honour.
The truth seems to be, that it may frequently have
been more convenient, and scarcely less honourable,
to remain in the unenvied and unpretending rank
of esquire, than to aspire to that of knighthood,
without a considerable fortune to supply the expenses
of that dignity. No doubt, in theory, the
simplest knight bachelor was a companion, and in
some degree equal, with princes. But, in point of
fact, we shall presently see, that, where unsupported
by some sort of income to procure suitable
equipment and retainers, that dignity was sometimes
exposed to ridicule. Many gallant gentlemen,
therefore, remained esquires, either attached to
the service of some prince or eminent nobleman,
or frequently in a state of absolute independence,
bringing their own vassals to the field, whom, in
such cases, they were entitled to muster under a
<u>Penoncele,</u> or small triangular streamer, somewhat
like the naval pendant of the present day. The
reader of history is not, therefore, to suppose, that,
where he meets with an esquire of distinguished
name, he is therefore, necessarily, to consider him
as a youthful candidate for the honour of knighthood,
and attending upon some knight or noble.
This is, indeed, the primitive, but not the uniform
meaning of the title. So many men of rank and
gallantry appear to have remained esquires, that,
by degrees, many of the leading distinctions between
them and the knights were relaxed or abandoned.
In Froissart's <u>Chronicles,</u> we find that
esquires frequently led independent bodies of men,
and, as we have before hinted, mingled with the
knights in the games of Chivalry; the difference
chiefly consisting in title, precedence, the shape of
the flag under which they arrayed their followers,
and the fashion of their armour. The esquires
were permitted to bear a shield, emblazoned, as we
have already seen, with armorial bearings. There
seems to have been some difference in the shape
of the helmet; and the French esquire was not
permitted to wear the complete hauberk, but only
the shirt of mail, without hood or sleeves. But the
principal distinction between the independent esquire
(terming him such who was attached to no
knight's service) and the knight, was the spurs,
which the esquire might wear of silver, but by no
means gilded.</p>
<p> To return to the esquires, most properly so termed,
their dress was, during their period of probation,
simple and modest, and ought regularly to
have been made of brown, or some other uniform
and simple colour. This was not, however, essential.
The garment of Chaucer's squire was embroidered
like a meadow. The petit Jehan de
Saintr<e'> was supplied with money by his mistress
to purchase a silken doublet and embroidered hose.
There is also a very diverting account, in the <u>Memoirs
of Bertrand de Guesclin,</u><*> of the manner in</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Froissart's <u>Chronicles,</u> translated by Lord Berners.---S.</li>
<li>Froissart. Barne's _History of Edward III._---S.<p> A youth usually ceased to be a page at fourteen,
or a little earlier, and could not regularly receive
the honour of knighthood until he was one-and-twenty.
But, if their distinguished valour anticipated
their years, the period of probation was
shortened. Princes of the blood-royal, also, and
other persons of very high eminence, had this term
abridged, and sometimes so much so, as to throw a
ridicule upon the order of knighthood, by admitting
within ``the temple of honour,'' as it was the
fashion of the times to call it, children, who could
neither understand nor discharge the duties of the
office to which they were thus prematurely called.</p>
<p> The third and highest rank of Chivalry was that
of Knighthood. In considering this last dignity, we
shall first inquire, how it was conferred; secondly,
the general privileges and duties of the order;
thirdly, the peculiar ranks into which it was finally
divided, and the difference betwixt them.</p>
<p> Knighthood was, in its origin, an order of a republican,
or at least an oligarchic nature; arising,
as has been shown, from the customs of the free
tribes of Germany, and, in its essence, not requiring
the sanction of a monarch. On the contrary,
each knight could confer the order of knighthood
upon whomsoever preparatory noviciate and probation
had fitted to receive it. The highest potentates
sought the <u>accolade,</u> or stroke which conferred
the honour, at the hands of the worthiest knight
whose achievements had dignified the period. Thus
Francis I. requested the celebrated Bayard, the
<u>Good Knight without reproach or fear,</u> to make
him; an honour which Bayard valued so highly,
that, on sheathing his sword, he vowed never more
to use that blade, except against Turks, Moors, and
Saracens. The same principle was carried to extravagance
in a romance, where the hero is knighted
by the hand of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, when
dead. A sword was put into the hand of the skeleton,
which was so guided as to let it drop on the
neck of the aspirant. In the time of Francis I. it
had already become customary to desire this honour
at the hands of greatness rather than valour,
so that the King's request was considered as an
appeal to the first principles of Chivalry. In theory,
however, the power of creating knights was supposed
to be inherent in every one who had reached
that dignity. But it was natural that the soldier
should desire to receive the highest military honour
from the general under whose eye he was to
combat, or from the prince or noble at whose court
he passed as page and squire through the gradations
of his noviciate. It was equally natural, on the
other hand, that the prince or noble should desire
to be the immediate source of a privilege so important.
And thus, though no positive regulation took
place on the subject, ambition on the part of the
aspirant, and pride and policy on that of the sovereign
princes and nobles of high rank, gradually
limited to the latter the power of conferring knighthood,
or drew at least an unfavourable distinction
between the knights dubbed by private individuals,
and those who, with more state and solemnity, received
the honoured title at the hand of one of high
rank. Indeed, the change which took place respecting
the character and consequences of the
ceremony, naturally led to a limitation in the right
of conferring it. While the order of knighthood
merely implied a right to wear arms of a certain
description, and to bear a certain title, there could
be little harm in intrusting, to any one who had
already received the honour, the power of conferring
it on others. But when this highest order of
Chivalry conferred not only personal dignity, but
the right of assembling under the banner, or pennon,
a certain number of soldiers; when knighthood
implied not merely personal privileges, but
military rank, it was natural that sovereigns should
use every effort to concentrate the right of conferring
such distinction in themselves, or their immediate
delegates. And latterly it was held, that the
rank of knight only conferred those privileges on
such as were dubbed by sovereign princes.</p>
<p> The times and place usually chosen for the creation
of knights, were favourable to the claim of the
sovereigns to be the proper fountain of Chivalry.
Knights were usually made either on the eve of
battle, or when the victory had been obtained; or
they were created during the pomp of some solemn
warning or grand festival. In the former case,
the right of creation was naturally referred to the
general or prince who led the host; and, in the
latter, to the sovereign of the court where the
festival was held. The forms in these cases were
very different.</p>
<p> When knights were made in the actual field of
battle, little solemnity was observed, and the form
was probably the same with which private individuals
had, in earlier times, conferred the honour on
each other. The novice, armed at all points, but
without helmet, sword, and spurs, came before the
prince or general, at whose hands he was to receive
knighthood, and kneeled down, while two persons
of distinction, who acted as his godfathers, and were
supposed to become pledges for his being worthy
of the honour to which he aspired, buckled on his
gilded spurs, and belted him with his sword. He
then received the accolade, a slight blow on the
neck, with the flat of the sword, from the person
who dubbed him, who, at the same time, pronounced
a formula to this effect: ``I dub thee knight,
in the name of God and St. Michael (or in the name
of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.) Be faithful,
bold, and fortunate.'' The new-made knight had
then only to take his place in the ranks of war, and
endeavour to distinguish himself by his forward
gallantry in the approaching action, when he was
said to win his spurs. It is well known, that, at
the battle of Cressy, Edward III. refused to send
succours to the Black Prince, until he should hear
that he was wounded or dismounted, being determined
he should, on that memorable day, have full
opportunity to <u>win his spurs.</u> It may be easily
imagined, that on such occasions, the courage of the
young knights was wound up to the highest pitch,
and, as many were usually made at the same time,
their gallantry could not fail to have influence on
the fortune of the day. At the siege of Toulouse
(1159,) Henry II. of England made thirty knights
at once, one of whom was Malcolm IV. King of
Scotland. Even on these occasions, the power of
making knights was not understood to be limited
to the commander-in-chief. At the fatal battle of
Homildown, in 1401, Sir John Swinton, a warrior
of distinguished talents, observing the slaughter
made by the English archery, exhorted the Scots
to rush on to a closer engagement. Adam Gordon,
between whose family and that of Swinton a
deadly feud existed, hearing this sage counsel,
knelt down before Swinton, and prayed him to
confer on him the honour of knighthood, which he
desired to receive from the wisest and boldest
knight in the host. Swinton conferred the order;<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The names of the esquires, who thus distinguished
themselves, and experienced such liberality at the
hands of their leader, were Delves of Doddington,
Dutton of Dutton, Fowlishurst of Crewe, and
Hawkeston of Wreynehill, all Cheshire families.
This memorable instance may suffice to show the
extent of gratitude which the knights entertained
for the faithful service of their squires. But it also
leads us to consider some other circumstances relating
to the order of esquire.</p>
<ul>
<li>Histoire de =Bertrand De Guesclin,= conn<e'>table de
<em> France. Paris, 1666, folio. There is an earlier edition in
</em> <u>black letter,</u> without date.<p> ``With brand dubb'd many a knight.''</p>
<p> But it was not in camps and armies alone that
the honours of knighthood were conferred. At the
_Cour Pleni<e`>re,_ a high court, to which sovereigns
summoned their crown vassals at the solemn festivals
of the Church, and the various occasions of
solemnity which occurred in the royal family, from
marriage, birth, baptism, and the like, the monarch
was wont to confer on novices in chivalry its highest
honour, and the ceremonies used on such investiture
added to the dignity of the occasion. It was
then that the full ritual was observed, which, on
the eve of battle, was necessarily abridged or omitted.
The candidates watched their arms all night
in a church or chapel, and prepared for the honour
to be conferred on them, by vigil, fast, and prayer.
They were solemnly divested of the brown frock,
which was the appropriate dress of the squire, and
having been bathed, as a symbol of purification of
heart, they were attired in the richer garb appropriate
to knighthood. They were then solemnly
invested with the appropriate arms of a knight;
and it was not unusual to call the attention of the
novice to a mystical or allegorical explanation of
each piece of armour as it was put on. These exhortations
consisted in strange and extravagant
parallels betwixt the temporal and spiritual state of
warfare, in which the metaphor was hunted down
in every possible shape. The under dress of the
knight was a close jacket of chamois leather, over
which was put the mail shirt, composed of rings of
steel artificially fitted into each other, as is still the
fashion in some parts of Asia. A suit of plate armour
was put on over the mail shirt, and the legs
and arms were defended in the same manner.
Even this accumulation of defensive armour, was
by some thought insufficient. In the combat of the
Infantes of Carrion with the champions of the Cid,
one of the former was yet more completely defended,
and to little purpose.<p> ``Onward into Ferrand's breast, the lance's point is driven
Full upon his breastplate, nothing would avail;
Two breastplates Ferrand wore, and a coat of mail,
The two are riven in sunder, the third stood him in stead,
The mail sunk in his breast, the mail and the spear head;
The blood burst from his mouth, that all men thought him dead.''<*></p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>which he prevailed on his uncle, a covetous old
churchman, to assign him money for his equipment
on some occasion of splendour. We may therefore
hold, that the sumptuary laws of squirehood were
not particularly attended to, or strictly enforced.<p> The novice being accoutred in his knightly armour,
but without helmet, sword, and spurs, a rich
mantle was flung over him, and he was conducted
in solemn procession to the church or chapel in
which the ceremony was to be performed, supported
by his godfathers, and attended with as much
pomp as circumstances admitted. High mass was
then said, and the novice, advancing to the altar,
received from the sovereign the accolade. The
churchman present, of highest dignity, often belted
on his sword, which, for that purpose, had been
previously deposited on the altar, and the spurs
were sometimes fastened on by ladies of quality.
The oath of Chivalry was lastly taken, to be loyal
to God, the king, and the ladies. Such were the
outlines of the ceremony, which, however, was varied
according to circumstances. A king of Portugal
knighted his son in presence of the dead body
of the Marquis of Marialva, slain in that day's action,
and impressively conjured the young prince
to do his duty in life and death like the good knight
who lay dead before him. Alms to the poor, largesses
to the heralds and minstrels, a liberal gift to
the Church, were necessary accompaniments to the
investiture of a person of rank. The new-made
knight was conducted from the church with music
and acclamations, and usually mounted his horse
and executed some curvets in presence of the multitude,
couching his lance, and brandishing it as if
impatient to open his knightly career. It was at
such times, also, that the most splendid tournaments
were executed, it being expected that the young
knights would display the utmost efforts to distinguish
themselves.</p>
<p> Such being the solemnities with which knighthood
was imposed, it is no wonder that the power
of conferring it should, in peace as well as in war,
become more and more confined to sovereign
princes, or nobles who nearly equalled them in
rank and independence. By degrees these restrictions
were drawn gradually closer, until at length
it was held that none but a sovereign or a commander-in-chief,
displaying the royal banner, and
vested with plenary and vice-regal authority, could
confer the degree of knighthood. Queen Elizabeth
was particularly jealous of this part of her prerogative,
and nothing more excited her displeasure
and indignation against her favourite Essex, than
the profuseness with which he distributed the honour
at Cadiz, and afterwards in Ireland. These
anecdotes, however, belong to the decay of Chivalry.</p>
<p> The knight had several privileges of dignity and
importance. He was associated into a rank wherein
kings and princes were, in one sense, only his equals.
He took precedence in war and in counsel, and was
addressed by the respectful title of <u>Messire</u> in
French, and <u>Sir</u> in English, and his wife by that
of Madame and Dame. A knight was also, in
point of military rank, qualified to command any
body of men under a thousand. His own service
was performed on horseback and in complete armour,
of many various fashions, according to the
taste of the warriors and the custom of the age.
Chaucer has enumerated some of these varieties:---<p> ``With him ther wenten knights many on.
Som wol ben armed in an habergeon,
And in a brest plate, and in a gipon;
And som wol have a pair of plates large
And som wol have a pruse sheld, or a targe;
Som wol ben armed on his legges wele,
And have an axe, and some a mace of stele.
Ther n'is no newe guise, that it n'as old.
Armed they weren, as I have you told,
Everich after his opinion.''</p>
</p>
<p> The weapons of offence, however, most appropriate
to knighthood, were the lance and sword.
They had frequently a battle-axe or mace at their
saddle-bow, a formidable weapon even to men
sheathed in iron like themselves. The knight had
also a dagger which he used when at close quarters.
It was called the dagger of mercy, probably because,
when unsheathed, it behoved the antagonist
to crave mercy or to die. The management of the
lance and of the horse was the principal requisite
of knighthood. To strike the foeman either on the
helmet or full upon the breast with the point of the
lance, and at full speed, was accounted perfect practice;
to miss him, or to break a lance across, <u>i. e.</u>
athwart the body of the antagonist, without striking
him with the point, was accounted an awkward
failure; to strike his horse, or to hurt his person
under the girdle, was conceived a foul or felon action,
and could only be excused by the hurry of a
general encounter. When the knights, from the
nature of the ground, or other circumstances, alighted
to fight on foot, they used to cut some part from
the length of their spears, in order to render them
more manageable, like the pikes used by infantry.
But their most formidable onset was when mounted
and ``in host.'' They seem then to have formed
squadrons not unlike the present disposition of cavalry
in the field---their squires forming the rear-rank,
or performing the part of serrefiles. As the
horses were trained in the tourneys and exercises
to run upon each other without flinching, the shock
of two such bodies of heavy-armed cavalry was
dreadful, and the event usually decided the battle;
for, until the Swiss showed the superior steadiness
which could be exhibited by infantry, all great actions
were decided by the men-at-arms. The yeomanry
of England, indeed, formed a singular exception;
and, from the dexterous use of the long-bow,
to which they were trained from infancy, were
capable of withstanding and destroying the mail-clad
chivalry both of France and Scotland.<*> Their</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li><u>Regent.</u> Gordon, stand forth.
<em> <u>Gordon.</u> I pray your Grace forgive me
</em> <u>Regent.</u> How! seek you not for knighthood?
<em> <u>Gordon.</u> I do thirst for't.
</em> But, pardon me---'tis from another sword.
<em> <u>Regent.</u> It is your sovereign's---seek you for a worthier?
</em> <u>Gordon.</u> Who would drink purely, seeks the secret fountain,
<em> How small soever---not the general stream,
</em> Though it be deep and wide. My Lord, I seek
<em> The boon of knighthood from the honour'd weapon
</em> Of the best knight and of the sagest leader,
<em> That ever graced a ring of chivalry.
</em> Therefore, I beg the boon on bended knee,
<em> Even from Sir Alan Swinton. [<u>Kneels</u>
</em> <u>Regent.</u> Degenerate boy! abject at once and insolent!
<em> See, Lords, he kneels to him that slew his father!
</em> <u>Gordon</u> (<u>starting up.</u>) Shame be on him who speaks such
<em> shameful world!
</em> Shame be on him whose tounge would sow dissension,
<em> When most the time demands that native Scotsmen
</em> Forget each private wrong!
<em> <u>Swinton</u> (<u>interrupting him.</u>) Youth, since you crave me
</em> To be your sire in chivalry I remind you
<em> War has its duties, office has its reverence;
</em> Who governs in the sovereign's name is sovereign:---
<em> Crave the Lord Regent's pardon.
</em> <u>Gordon.</u> You task me justly; and I crave his pardon,
<em> [<u>Bows to the Regent.</u>
</em> His and these noble Lords'; and pray them all
<em> Bear witness to my words, Ye noble presence,
</em> Here I remit unto the Knight of Swinton
<em> All bitter memory of my father's slaughter,
</em> All thoughts of malice, hatred, and revenge;
<em> By no base fear or composition moved,
</em> But by the thought, that in our country's battle
<em> All hearts should be as one. I do forgive him
</em> As freely as I pray to be forgiven,
<em> And once more kneel to him to sue for knighthood.
</em> <u>Swinton</u> (<u>affected, and drawing his sword.</u>)
<em> Alas! brave youth, 'tis I should kneel to you,
</em> And tendering thee the hilt of the fell sword
<em> That made thee fatherless, bid thee use the point
</em> After thine own discretion. For the boon---
<em> Trumpets be ready---In the Holiest name,
</em> And in Our Lady's and Saint Andrew's name,
<em> [<u>Touching his shoulder with his sword.</u>
</em> I dub thee Knight!---Arise, Sir Adam Gordon!
<em> Be faithful, brave, and O, be fortunate,
</em> Should this ill hour permit!
* =Sir Walter Scott'=s <u>Poetical Works,</u> (<u>Halidon Hill.</u>)</li>
</ul>
<p>and they both rushed down upon the English host
followed only by a few cavalry. If they had been
supported, the attack might have turned the fate
of the day. But none followed their gallant example,
and both champions fell. It need hardly be
added, that the commander, whether a sovereign
prince or not, equally exercised the privilege of
conferring knighthood. In the old ballad of the
battle of Otterburn, Douglas boasts, that since he
had entered England, he had</p>
<ul>
<li>See Translations [by Mr. Frere] from the Spanish Metrical
<em> Romance on the subject of the Cid, appended to Mr.
</em> Southey's Cid.---S.</li>
<li><u>K. Edward.</u> See, Chandos, Percy---Ha, Saint George! Saint Edward!
<em> See it descending now, the fatal hail-shower,
</em> The storm of England's wrath---sure, swift, resistless,
<em> Which no mailcoat can brook.---Brave English hearts!
</em> How close they shoot together!---as one eye
<em> Had aim'd five thousand shafts---as if one hand
</em> Had loosed five thousand bow strings!
<em> <u>Percy.</u> The thick volley
</em> Darkens the air, and hides the sun from us.
<em> <u>K. Edward.</u> It falls on those shall see the sun no more,
</em> The winged, the resistless plague is with them.
<em> How their vex'd host is reeling to and fro!
</em> Like the chafed whale with fifty lances in him,
<em> They do not see, and cannot shun the wound.
</em> The storm is viewless, as death's sable wing,
<em> Unerring as his scythe.
</em> <u>Percy.</u> Horses and riders are going down together.
<em> 'Tis almost pity to see nobles fall,
</em> And by a peasant's arrow.
<em> <u>Baliol.</u> I could weep them
</em> Although they are my rebels.
<em> <u>Chandos.</u> 'Tis the worst of it,
</em> That knights can claim small honours in the field
<em> Which archers win unaided by our lances.
</em>
* =Sir Walter Scott'=s <u>Poetical Works,</u> (<u>Halidon Hill.</u>)<p> To distinguish him in battle, as his face was hid
by the helmet, the knight wore above his armour
a surcoat, as it was called, like a herald's coat, on
which his arms were emblazoned. Others had
them painted on the shield, a small triangular
buckler of light wood, covered with leather, and
sometimes plated with steel, which, as best suited
him, the knight could either wield on his left arm,
or suffer to hang down from his neck, as an additional
defence to his breast, when the left hand was
required for the management of the horse. The
shape of these shields is preserved, being that on
which heraldic coats are most frequently blazoned.
But it is something remarkable, that not one of
those <u>heater</u><*> shields has been preserved in the</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>shafts, according to the exaggerating eloquence of
a monkish historian, Thomas of Walsingham, penetrated
steel coats from side to side, transfixed helmets,
and even splintered lances, and pierced
through swords! But, against every other pedestrian
adversary, the knights, squires, and men-at-arms,
had the most decided advantage, from their
impenetrable armour, the strength of their horse's,
and the fury of their onset.<*> To render success yet</p>
<ul>
<li>See this subject treated in detail in the <u>Tales of a Grandfather,</u>
* on the <u>History of France,</u> ch. vii.<p> Froissart's heart never fails to overflow when he
describes the encounter of a body of men-at-arms,
arrayed in the manner we have described; he
dwells with enthusiasm on the leading circumstances.
The waving of banners and pennons, the
dashing of spurs into the sides of chargers, and
their springing forward to battle; the glittering of
armour, the glancing of plumes, the headlong shock
and splintering of the lances, the swords flashing
through the dust over the heads of the combatants,
the thunder of the horses' feet and the clash of armour,
mingled with the war-cry of the combatants
and the groans of the dying, form the mingled scene
of tumult, strife, and death, which the Canon has
so frequently transferred to his chivalrous pages.</p>
<p> It was not in war alone that the adventurous
knight was to acquire fame. It was his duty, as we
have seen, to seek adventures throughout the world,
whereby to exalt his own fame and the beauty of
his mistress, which inspired such deeds. In our
remarks upon the general spirit of the institution,
we have already noticed the frantic enterprises
which were seriously undertaken and punctually
executed by knights desirous of a name. On those
occasions, the undertaker of so rash an enterprise
often owed his life to the sympathy of his foes, who
had great respect for any one engaged in the discharge
of a vow of chivalry. When Sir Robert
Knowles passed near Paris, at the head of an English
army, in the reign of Edward III., the following
remarkable incident took place:</p>
<p> ``Now it happened, one Tuesday morning, when the English
began to decamp, and had set fire to all the villages wherein
they were lodged, so that the fires were distinctly seen from
Paris, a knight of their army, who had made a vow, the preceding
day, that he would advance as far as the barriers and
strike them with his lance, did not break his oath, but set off
with his lance in his hand, his target on his neck, and completely
armed except his helmet, and, spurring his steed, was
followed by his squire on another courser, carrying the helmet.
When he approached Paris, he put on the helmet, which his
squire laced behind. He then gallopped away, sticking spurs
into his horse, and advanced prancing to strike the barriers.
They were then open, and the lords and barons within imagined
he intended to enter the town; but he did no so mean,
for having struck the gates according to his vow, he checked
his horse and turned about. The French knights, who saw
him thus retreat, cried out to him `Get away! get away!
thou hast well acquitted thyself.' As for the name of this
knight, I am ignorant of it, nor do I know from what country
he came; but he bore for his arms gules <a`> deux fousses noir;
with une bordure noir non endent<e'>e.</p>
<p> ``However, an adventure befell him from which he had not
so fortunate an escape. On his return he met a butcher on
the pavement in the suburbs, a very strong man, who had noticed
him as he had passed him, and who had in his hand a
very sharp and heavy hatchet with a long handle. As the
knight was returning alone, and in a careless manner, the
valiant butcher came on one side of him, and gave him such a
blow between the shoulders, that he fell on his horse's neck;
he recovered himself, but the butcher repeated the blow on
his head, so that the axe entered it. The knight, through excess
of pain, fell to the earth, and the horse galloped away to
to the squire, who was waiting for his master in the fields at
the extremity of the suburbs. The squire caught the courser,
but wondered what was become of his master; for he had seen
him gallop to the barriers, strike them, and then turn about
to come back. He therefore set out to look for him; but he
had not gone many paces before he saw him in the hands of
four fellows, who were beating him as if they were hammering
on an anvil. This so much frightened the squire, that he
dared not advance further, for he saw he could not give him
any effectual assistance; he therefore returned as speedily as
he could.</p>
<p> ``Thus was this knight slain; and those lords who were
posted at the barriers had him buried in holy ground. The
squire returned to the army, and related the misfortune which
had befallen his master. All his brother warriors were greatly
displeased thereat.''---=Johnes'=s <u>Froissart,</u> vol. ii., p. 63.</p>
<p> An equally singular undertaking was that of
Galeazzo of Mantua, as rehearsed by the venerable
Doctor Paris de Puteo, in his treatise _De Duello
et re Militari,) and by Brantome in his <u>Essay on
Duels.</u><*> Queen Joan of Naples, at a magnificent</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>more certain, and attack less hazardous, the horse,
on the safety of which the riders so much depended,
was armed en-barbe, as it was called, like himself.
A masque made of iron covered the animal's
face and ears; it had a breast-plate, and armour
for the croupe. The strongest horses were selected
for this service; they were generally stallions,
and to ride a mare was reckoned base and unknightly.</p>
<ul>
<li>So called because resembling in shape the heater of a
* smoothing-iron.---S.<p> We return to consider the duties of a knight.
His natural and proper element was war. But in
time of peace when there was no scope for the fiery
spirit of chivalry, the knights attended the tourneys
proclaimed by different princes, or, if these amusements
did not occur, they themselves undertook
feats of arms, to which they challenged all competitors.
The nature of these challenges will be best
understood from an abridged account of the <u>pas
d'armes,</u> called the <u>Justs</u> of Saint Inglebert, or Sandying
Fields. This emprise was sustained by three
gallant knights of France, Bou<c,>icaut, Reynold de
Roy, and Saint Py or Saimpi. Their articles bound
them to abide thirty days at Saint Inglebert, in the
marches of Calais, there to undertake the encounter
of all knights and squires, Frenchmen, or
strangers, who should come hither, for the breaking
of five spears, sharp, or with rockets, at their pleasure.
On their lodgings they hung two shields
called of peace and war, with their armorial blazons
on each. The stranger desiring to just was invited
to come or send, and touch which shield he would.
The weapons of courtesy were to be employed if he
chose the shield of peace, if that of war, the defenders
were to give him the desired encounter with
sharp weapons. The stranger knights were invited
to bring some noblemen with them, to assist in
judging the field, and the proclamation concludes
with an entreaty to knights and squires, strangers,
that they will not hold this offer as made for any
pride, hatred, or ill-will; but only that the challengers
do it to have their honourable company
and acquaintance, which, with their whole heart,
they desire. They were assured of a fair field,
without fraud or advantage; and it was provided,
that the shields used should not be covered with
iron or steel. The French king was highly joyful
of this gallant challenge, (although some of his
council doubted the wisdom of permitting it to go
forth,) and exhorted the challengers to regard the
honour of their prince and realm, and spare no cost
at the solemnity, for which he was willing to contribute
ten thousand franks. A number of knights
and squires came from England to Calais to accept
this gallant invitation; and at the entrance of the
``fresh and jolly month of May,'' the challengers
pitched three green pavilions in a fair plain between
Calais and the Abbey of Saint Inglebert.
Two shields hung before each pavilion, with the
arms of the owner.</p>
<p> ``On the 21st of the month of May, as it had been proclaimed,
the three knights were properly armed, and their
horses properly saddled, according to the laws of the tournament.
On the same day, those knights who were in Calais
sallied forth, either as spectators or tilters, and, being arrived
at the spot, drew up on one side. The place of the tournament
was smooth and green with grass.</p>
<p> ``Sir John Holland was the first who sent his squire to
touch the war-target of Sir Bou<c,>icaut, who instantly issued
from his pavilion completely armed. Having mounted his
horse, and grasped his spear, which was stiff and well steeled,
they took their distances. When the two knights had for a
short time eyed each other, they spurred their horses, and met
full gallop with such a force that Sir Bou<c,>icaut pierced the
shield of the Earl of Huntingdon, and the point of his lance
slipped along his arm, but without wounding him. The two
knights, having passed, continued their gallop to the end of
the list. This course was much praised. At the second course,
they hit each other slightly, but no harm was done; and their
horses refused to complete the third.</p>
<p> ``The Earl of Huntingdon, who wished to continue the tilt,
and was heated, returned to his place, expecting that Sir Bou<c,>icant
would call for his lance but he did not, and showed
plainly he would not that day tilt more with the Earl. Sir
John Holland, seeing this, sent his squire to touch the war-target
of the Lord de Saimpi. This knight, who was waiting
for the combat, sallied out from his pavilion, and took his
lance and shield. When the Earl saw he was ready, he violently
spurred his horse, as did the Lord de Saimpi. They
couched their lances, and pointed them at each other. At
the onset, their horses crossed; not withstanding which, they
met; but by this crossing, which was blamed, the Earl was
unhelmed. He returned to his people, who soon rehelmed
him; and, having resumed their lances, they met full gallop,
and hit each other with such a force, in the middle of their
shields, they would have been unhorsed, had they not kept
tights seats by the pressure of their legs against their horses'
sides. They went to the proper places, where they refreshed
themselves, and took breath.</p>
<p> ``Sir John Holland, who had a great desire to shine at this
tournament, had his helmet braced and regrasped his spear:
when the Lord de Saimpi, seeing him advance on the gallop,
did not decline meeting, but, spurring his horse on instantly,
they gave blows on their helmets, that were, luckily, of well-tempered
steel, which made sparks of fire fly from them. At
this course the Lord de Saimpi lost his helmet; but the two
knights continued their career, and returned to their places.</p>
<p> ``This tilt was much praised, and the English and French
said, that the Earl of Huntingdon, Sir Bou<c,>icaut, and the Lord
de Saimpi, had excellently well justed, without sparing or
doing themselves any damage. The Earl wished to break
another lance in honour of his lady, but it was refused him.
He then quitted the lists to make room for others, for he had
run his six lances with such ability and courage as gained him
praise from all sides.''---(=Johne'=s <u>Froissart,</u> vol. iv., p. 143.)</p>
<p> The other justs were accomplished with similar
spirit; Sir Peter Courtney, Sir John Russel, Sir
Peter Sherburn, Sir William Clifton, and other
English knights, sustaining the honour of their
country against the French, who behaved with the
greatest gallantry; and the whole was regarded at
one of the most gallant enterprises which had been
fulfilled for some time.</p>
<p> Besides these dangerous amusements, the unsettled
and misruled state of things during the feudal
times, found a gentle knight, anxious to support
the oppressed and to put down injustice, and agreeably
to his knightly vow, frequent opportunities to
exercise himself in the use of arms. There were
everywhere to be met with oppressors to be chastised,
and evil customs to be abolished, and the
knight's occupation not only permitted, but actually
bound him to volunteer his services in such cases.
We shall greatly err if we suppose that the adventures
told in romance, are as fictitious as its magic,
its dragons, and its fairies. The machinery was
indeed imaginary, or rather, like that of Homer, it
was grounded on the popular belief of the times.
But the turn of incidents resembled, in substance,
those which passed almost daily under the eye of
the narrator. Even the stupendous feats of prowess
displayed by the heroes of those tales against the
most overwhelming odds, were not without parallel
in the history of the times. When men fought
hand to hand, the desperate exertions of a single
champion, well mounted and armed in proof, were
sometimes sufficient to turn the fate of a disputed
day, and the war-cry of a well-known knight struck
terror farther than his arms. The advantage possessed
by such an invulnerable champion over the
half-naked infantry of the period, whom he might
pursue and cut down at his pleasure, was so great,
that, in the insurrection of the peasants called the
<u>Jacquerie,</u> the Earl of Foix and the Captal de
Buche, their forces not being nearly as one to ten,
hesitated not to charge these disorderly insurgents,
with their men-at-arms, and were supposed to have
slain nearly seven thousand, following the execution
of the fugitives with as little mercy as the
peasants had showed during the brief success of
their rebellion.</p>
<p> The right which crown-vassals claimed and exercised,
of imposing exorbitant tolls and taxes within
their domains, was often resisted by the knights-errant
of the day, whose adventures, in fact, approached
much nearer to those of Don Quixote
than perhaps our readers are aware of. For although
the Knight of La Mancha was, perhaps, two
centuries too late in exercising his office of redresser
of wrongs, and although his heated imagination
confounded ordinary objects with such as were immediately
connected with the exercise of Chivalry,
yet at no great distance from the date of the inimitable
romance of Cervantes, real circumstances
occurred, of a nature nearly as romantic as the
achievements which Don Quixote aspired to execute.<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Tower, or, so far as we know, in any English collection.
The helmet was surmounted by a crest,
which the knight adopted after his own fancy.
There was deadly offence taken if one knight, without
right, assumed the armorial bearings of another;
and history is full of disputes on that head, some
of which terminated fatally. The heralds were the
persons appealed to on these occasions, when the
dispute was carried on in peace, and hence flowed
the science, as it was called, of Heraldry, with all
its fantastic niceties. By degrees the crest and
device became also hereditary, as well as the bearings
on the shield. In addition to his armorial
bearings, the knight distinguished himself in battle
by shouting out his war-cry, which was echoed by
his followers. It was usually the name of some
favourite saint, united with that of his own family.
If the knight had followers under his command,
they re-echoed his war-cry, and rallied round his
pennon or flag at the sound. The pennon differed
from the penoncel, or triangular streamer which
the squire was entitled to display, being double the
breadth, and indented at the end like the tail of a
swallow. It presented the appearance of two penoncels
united at the end next the staff, a consideration
which was not perhaps out of view in determining
its shape. Of course, the reader will
understand that those knights only displayed a
pennon who had retainers to support and defend it;
the mounting this ensign being a matter of privilege,
not of obligation.</p>
<ul>
<li>The ``Discours sur les Duels'' is included in the sixth
* volume of the _<OE>uvres Completes de Brantome._ 8 vols. 8vo,
* Paris: 1823.<p> The most ancient, and originally the sole order
of knighthood, was that of the Knight-Bachelor.
This was the proper degree conferred by one
knight on another, without the interference either
of prince, noble, or churchman, and its privileges
and duties approached nearly to those of the knight-errant.
Were it possible for human nature to have
acted up to the pitch of merit required by the statutes
of Chivalry, this order might have proved for
a length of time a substitute for imperfect policy,
---a remedy against feudal tyranny,---a resource
for the weak when oppressed by the strong. Unquestionably,
in many individual instances, knights
were all that we have described them. But the
laws of Chivalry, like those of the ascetic orders,
while announcing a high tone of virtue and self-denial,
unfortunately afforded the strongest temptations
to those who professed its vows to abuse the
character which they assumed. The degree of
knighthood was easily attained, and did not subject
the warrior on whom it was bestowed to any particular
tribunal in case of his abusing the powers
which it conferred. Thus the knight became, in
many instances, a wandering and licentious soldier,
carrying from castle to castle, and from court
to court, the offer of his mercenary sword, and
frequently abusing his character, to oppress those
whom his oath bound him to protect. The license
and foreign vices imported by those who had returned
from the crusades, the poverty also to which
noble families were reduced by those fatal expeditions,
all aided to throw the quality of knight-bachelor
lower in the scale of honour, when unsupported
by birth, wealth, or the command of
followers.</p>
<p> The poorest knight-bachelor, however, long continued
to exercise the privileges of the order. Their
title of bachelor (or <u>Bas Chevalier,</u> according to
the best derivation) marked that they were early
held in inferior estimation to those more fortunate
knights, who had extensive lands and numerous
vassals. They either attached themselves to the
service of some prince or rich noble, and were
supported at their expense, or they led the life of
mere adventurers. There were many knights, who,
like Sir Gaudwin in the romance of <u>Partenopex de
Blois,</u> subsisted by passing from one court, camp,
and tournament to another, and contrived even, by
various means open to persons of that profession,
to maintain, at least for a time, a fair and goodly
appearance.<p> ``So riding, they o'ertake an errant-knight
Well horsed, and large of limb, Sir Gaudwin hight;
He nor of castle nor of land was lord,
Houseless, he reap'd the harvest of the sword
And now, not more on fame than profit bent,
Rode with blythe heart unto the tournament;
For cowardice he held it deadly sin,
And sure his mind and bearing were akin,
The face an index to the soul within.
it seem'd that he, such pomp his train bewray'd,
Had shaped a goodly fortune by his blade;
His knaves were, point device, in livery dight,
With sumpter-nags, and tents for shelter in the night.''</p>
</p>
<p> These bachelor-knights, as Mr. Rose has well
described Sir Gaudwin, set their principal store by
valour in battle; and perhaps it was the only quality
of Chivalry which they at all times equally prized
and possessed. Their boast was to be the children
of war and fight, living in no other atmosphere but
what was mingled with the dust of conflict, and
the hot breath of charging steeds. A ``gentle
bachelor'' is so described in one of the <u>Fabliaux</u>
translated by Mr. Way:---<p> ``What gentle bachelor is he,
Sword-begot in fighting field,
Rock'd and cradled in a shield,
Whose infant food a helm did yield.''</p>
</p>
<p> His resistless gallantry in tournament and battle,
---the rapidity with which he traversed land and
sea, from England to Switzerland, to be present at
each remarkable occasion of action,---with his hardihood
in enduring every sort of privation,---and
his generosity in rewarding minstrels and heralds,
---his life of hazard and turmoil,---and his deeds of
strength and fame, are all enumerated. But we
hear nothing of his redressing wrongs, or of his
protecting the oppressed. The knight-bachelor, according
to this picture, was a valiant prize-fighter,
and lived by the exercise of his weapons.</p>
<p> In war, the knight-bachelor had an opportunity
of maintaining, and even of enriching himself, if
fortunate, by the ransom of such prisoners as he
happened to take in fight. If, in this way, he
accumulated wealth, he frequently employed it in
levying followers, whose assistance, with his own,
he hired out to such sovereigns as were willing to
set a sufficient price on his services. In time of
peace, the tournaments afforded, as we have already
observed, a certain means of income to these adventurous
champions. The horses and arms of the
knights who succumbed on such occasions, were
forfeited to the victors, and these the wealthy were
always willing to reclaim by a payment in money.
At some of the achievements in arms, the victors
had the right, by the conditions of the encounter,
to impose severe terms on the vanquished, besides
the usual forfeiture of horse and armour. Sometimes
the unsuccessful combatant ransomed himself
from imprisonment, or other hard conditions, by a
sum of money; a transaction in which the knights-bachelors,
such as we have described them, readily
engaged. These adventurers called the sword
which they used in tourneys, their <u>gagne-pain,</u> or
bread-winner, as itinerant fiddlers of our days denominate
their instruments.<p> ``Dont i est gaigne-pain nomm<e'>e,
Car par li est gagnies li pains.''
<u>Pelerinage du Monde,</u> par Guigneville.</p>
</p>
<p> Men of such roving and military habits, subsisting
by means so precarion; and lying under little
or no restraint from laws, or from the social system,
were frequently dangerous and turbulent members
of the commonwealth. Every usurper, tyrant, or
rebel, found knights-bachelors to espouse his cause
in numbers proportioned to his means of expenditure.
They were precisely the ``landless resolute;''
whom any adventurer of military fame or known
enterprise could easily collect,<p> ``For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't.''</p>
</p>
<p> Sometimes knights were found who placed themselves
directly in opposition to all law and good
order, headed independent bands of depredators, or,
to speak plainly, of robbers, seized upon some castle
as a place of temporary retreat, and laid waste the
country at their pleasure. In the disorderly reigns
of Stephen and of King John, many such leaders of
banditti were found in England. And France, in
the reign of John and his successors, was almost
destroyed by them. Many of these leaders were
knights, or squires, and almost all pretended that
in their lawless license they only exercised the
rights of Chivalry, which permitted, and even enjoined,
its votaries to make war without any authority
but their own, whenever a fair cause of quarrel
occurred.</p>
<p> These circumstances brought the profession of
knight-bachelor into suspicion, as, in other cases,
the poverty of those who held the honour exposed
it to contempt in their person. The sword did not
always reap a good harvest; an enterprise was
unfortunate, or a knight was discomfited. In such
circumstances, he was obliged to sell his arms and
horse, and endure all the scorn which is attached
to poverty. In the beautiful lay of Lanval, and in
the corresponding tale of Gruelan, the story opens
with the picture of the hero reduced to indigence,
dunned by his landlord, and exposed to contempt
by his beggarly equipment. And when John de
Vienne<*> and his French men-at-arms returned</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>feast given in her castle of Gaeta, had presented her
hand to Galeazzo, for the purpose of opening the
ball. The dance being finished, the gallant knight
kneeled down before his royal partner, and, in order
to make fitting acknowledgment of the high honour
done him, took a solemn vow to wander through the
world wherever deeds of arms should be exercised,
and not to rest until he had subdued two valiant
knights, and had presented them prisoners at her
royal foot-stool, to be disposed of at her pleasure.
Accordingly, after a year spent in visiting various
scenes of action in Brittany, England, France, Burgundy,
and elsewhere, he returned like a falcon with
his prey in his clutch, and presented two prisoners
of knightly rank to Queen Joan. The queen received
the gift very graciously; and, declining to
avail herself of the right she had to impose rigorous
conditions on the captives, she gave them liberty
without ransom, and bestowed on them, over and
above, several marks of liberality. For this she is
highly extolled by Brantome and Dr. Paris, who
take the opportunity of censuring the very opposite
conduct of the Canons of Saint Peter's Church at
Rome, upon whom a certain knight had bestowed
a prisoner taken in single combat. These ungracious
churchmen received the gift as if it had been
that of a wild beast for a menagerie, permitting the
poor captive the freedom of the church indeed, but
prohibiting him to go one step beyond the gate.
In which condition, worse than death, they detained
the vanquished knight for some time, and were
justly blamed, as neither understanding Christian
charity nor gentlemanlike courtesy.</p>
<ul>
<li>Mr. du Boulay accompanied the French ambassador to
<em> Spain when Cervantes was yet alive, and told that the ambassador
</em> one day complimented Cervantes on the great reputation
<em> he had acquired by his <u>Don Quixote;</u> and that Cervantes
</em> whispered in his ear, ``Had it not been for the Inqusition, I
<em> should have made my book much more entertaining.''
</em>
<em> We have lost many good things of Cervantes, and other
</em> writers, through the tribunal of religion and dulness. One
<em> Aonius Palearius was sensible of this; and said, that ``the
</em> Inquisition was a poniard aimed at the throat of literature.''
<em> The image is striking, and the observation just; but the ingenious
</em> observer was, in consequence, immediately led to the
<em> stake!---=D'Israeli'=s <u>Curiosities of Literature,</u> vol. ii, p. 174.
</em> 8vo.<p> ``Listen, gentles, while I tell
How this knight in fortune fell:
Lands nor vineyards had he none
Justs and war his living won;
Well on horseback could he prance,
Boldly could he break a lance,
Well he knew each warlike use;
But there came a time of truce,
Peaceful was the land around,
Nowhere heard a trumpet sound;
Rust the shield and falchion hid,
Just and tourney were forbid;
All his means of living gone,
Ermine mantle had he none,
And in pawn had long been laid
Cap and mantle of brocade,
Harness rich and charger stout,
All were eat and drunken out.''<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>In the more ancient times, the wandering
knight could not go far without finding some gentleman
oppressed by a powerful neighbour, some
captive immured in a feudal dungeon, some orphan
deprived of his heritage, some traveller pillaged,
some convent or church violated, some lady in need
of a champion, or some prince engaged in a war
with a powerful adversary,---all of which incidents
furnished fit occasion for the exercise of his valour.
By degrees, as order became more generally established,
and the law of each state began to be strong
enough for the protection of the subject, the interference
of these self-authorized and self-dependent
champions, who besides were, in all probability,
neither the most judicious or moderate, supposing
them to be equitable, mediators, became a nuisance
rather than an assistance to civil society; and undoubtedly
this tended to produce those distinctions
in the order of knighthood which we are now to
notice.<p> As the circumstances which we have mentioned,
tended to bring the order of knight-bachelor in
many instances into contempt, the great and powerful
attempted to intrench themselves within a circle
which should be inaccessible to the needy adventurers
whom we have described. Hence the institution
of Knights-Banneret was generally received.</p>
<p> The distinction between the knight-banneret and
the knight-bachelor was merely in military rank
and precedence, and the former may rather be accounted
an institution of policy than of Chivalry.
The bachelor displayed, or was entitled to display,
a pennon or forked ensign. The knight-banneret
had the right of raising a proper <u>banner,</u> from
which his appellation was derived. He held a
middle rank, beneath the barons or great feudatories
of the crown, and above the knights-bachelors.
The banner from which he took his title was
a flag squared at the end, which, however, in strictness
was oblong, and not an exact square on all
the sides, which was the proper emblem of a baron.
Du Tillet reports, that the Count de Leval challenged
Sir Roul de Couequens' right to raise a
square banner, being a banneret, and not a baron,
and adds, that he was generally ridiculed for this
presumption, and called the knight with the square
ensign. The circumstance of the encroachment
plainly shows, that the distinction was not absolutely
settled, nor have we found the ensign of the
bannerets anywhere described except as being
generally a square standard. Indeed it was only
the pennon of the knight a little altered; for he
who aspired to be a banneret received no higher
gradation in Chivalry, as attached to his person,
and was inducted into his new privileges, merely
by the commander-in-chief, upon the eve of battle,
cutting off the swallow-tail or forked termination of
the pennon.</p>
<p> In the appendix to Joinville's <u>Memoirs,</u> there is
an essay on the subject of the bannerets, in which
the following account of them is quoted from the
ancient book of Ceremonies:</p>
<p> ``<u>Comme un bachelier peut lever banniere, et devenir banneret.</u></p>
<p> ``Quant un bachelier a grandement servi et suivy la guerre,
et que il a assez terre, et que 'il puisse avoir gentilshommes
ses hommes, et pour accompagner sa banniere, il peut licitement
lever banniere, et non autrement. Car nul homme ne
doit porter, ne lever banniere en battaille, s'il n'a du moins
cinquainte hommes d'armes, tous ses hommes et les archiers
et arbalestriers qui y appartiennent. Et s'il les a 'il doit <a`> la
premi<e`>re battaille, ou il se trouvera, apporter un pennon de
ses armes, et doit venir au connestable, ou aux marischaux,
on <a`> celui qui sera lieutenant de l'ost pour le prince, requirer
qu'il porte banniere; et s'il lui octroient, doit sommer les
heraux pour tesmoignage, et doiveut couper la queue du pennon,
et alors de loit porter et lever avant les autres bannieres,
an dessoubs des autres barons.''</p>
<p> There is this same ceremonial, in a chapter, respecting
the banneret, in these terms:</p>
<p> ``<u>Comme se doit maintenir un banneret en battaille.</u></p>
<p> ``Le banneret doit avoir cinquante lances, et les gens de
trait qui y appartiennent: c'est <a`> savoir les xxv. pour lui, et
sa banniere garder. Et doit estre sa banniere dessoubs des
barons. Et s'il y a autres banniere ils doivent mettre leurs
bannieres <a`> l'onneur, chacun selon son endroit, et pareillement
tout homme qui porte banniere.''</p>
<p> Froissart, always our best and most amusing
authority, gives an account of the manner in which
the celebrated Sir John Chandos was made banneret
by the Black Prince, before the battle of
Navarete. The whole scene forms a striking picture
of an army of the middle ages moving to battle.
Upon the pennons of the knight; penoncels of the
squires, and banners of the barons and bannerets,
the army formed, or, in modern phrase, dressed its
line. The usual word of the attack was, ``Advance
banners, in the name of God and Saint
George.''</p>
<p> ``When the sun was risen, it was a beautiful sight to view
these battalions, with their brilliant armour glittering with its
beams. In this manner, they nearly approached to each other.
The Prince, with a few attendants, mounted a small hill, and
saw very clearly the enemy marching strait towards them.
Upon descending this hill, he extended his line of battle in
the plain, and then halted.</p>
<p> ``The Spaniards, seeing the English halted, did the same, in
order of battle; then each man tightened his armour, and
made ready as for instant combat.</p>
<p> ``Sir John Chandos advanced in front of the battalions with
his banner uncased in his hand. He presented it to the Prince,
saying, `My lord, here is my banner; I present it to you, that
I may display it in whatever manner shall be most agreeable
to you; for, thanks to God, I have now sufficient lands that
will enable me so to do, and maintain the rank which it ought
to hold.'</p>
<p> ``The Prince, Don Pedro being present, took the banner in
his hands, which was blazoned with a sharp stake gules, on a
field argent; after having cut off the tail to make it square,
he displayed it, and, returning it to him by the handle, said,
`Sir John, I return you your banner, God give you strength
and honour to preserve it.'</p>
<p> ``Upon this, Sir John left the Prince, went back to his men,
with the banner in his hand, `Gentlemen, behold my banner
and yours; you will, therefore, guard it as it becomes you.
His companions, taking the banner, replied with much cheerfulness,
that `if it pleased God and St. George, they would
defend it well, and act worthily of it, to the utmost of their
abilities.'</p>
<p> ``The banner was put into the hands of a worthy English
squire called William Allestry, who bore it with honour that
day and loyally acquitted himself in the service. The English
and Gascons soon after dismounted on the heath, and assembled
very orderly together, each lord under his banner or
pennon, in the same battle-array as when they passed the
mountains. It was delightful to see and examine these banners
and pennons, with the noble army that was under them.''</p>
<p> It should not be forgotten, that Sir John Chandos
exerted himself so much to maintain his new
honour, that, advancing too far among the Spaniards,
he was unhorsed, and, having grappled with
a warrior of great strength, called Martin Ferrand,
he fell undermost, and must have been slain had he
not bethought him of his dagger, with which he
stabbed his gigantic antagonist. (Johnes's <u>Froissart,</u>
vol. i., p. 731.)</p>
<p> A banneret was expected to bring into the field
at least thirty men-at-arms, that is, knights or
squires mounted, and in complete order, at his own
expense. Each man-at-arms, besides his attendants
on foot, ought to have a mounted crossbow-man,
and a horseman armed with a bow and axe.
Therefore, the number of horsemen alone, who assembled
under a banner, was at least three hundred,
and, including followers on foot, might amount to
a thousand men. The banneret might, indeed, have
arrayed the same force under a pennon, but his accepting
a banner bound him to bring out that number
at least. There is no room, however, to believe,
that these regulations were very strictly observed.</p>
<p> In the reign of Charles VII., the nobles of
France made a remonstrance to the King, setting
forth, that their estates were so much wasted by
the long and fatal wars with England, that they
could no longer support the number of men attached
to the dignity of banneret. The companies of
men-at-arms, which had hitherto been led by
knights of that rank, and the distinction between
knights-bannerets and knights-bachelors, was altogether
disused from that period.<*> In England the</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>``In 1385, the French, finding themselves hard pressed by
<em> the English in their own country, resolved to send an army
</em> into Scotland, to assist that nation in making war upon the
<em> English, and thus find work for the latter people at home.
</em> They sent, therefore, one thousand men-at-arms,---knights,
<em> and squires, that is, in full armour; and as each of these had
</em> four or five soldiers under him, the whole force was very considerable.
<em> They sent also twelve hundred suits of complete
</em> armour to the Scots, with a large sum of money, to assist
<em> them to make war. This great force was commanded by
</em> John de Vienne, High-Admiral of France, a brave and distinguished
* general.''---<u>Tales of a Grandfather,</u> ch. xvi.</li>
</ul>
<p>from Scotland, disgusted with the poverty and
ferocity of their allies, without having had any opportunity
to become wealthy at the expense of the
English, and compelled before their departure to
give satisfaction for the insolencies which they
committed towards the inhabitants, ``divers knights
and squires had passage and so returned, some
into Flanders, and as wind and weather would drive
them, without horse and harness, right poor and
feeble, cursing the day that ever they came into
Scotland, saying that never man had so hard a
voyage.'' (Berner's <u>Froissart,</u> vol. ii. (reprint) p.
32.) The frequent prohibition of tournaments,
both by the Church and by the more peaceful sovereigns,
had also its necessary effect in impoverishing
the knights-bachelors, to whom, as we have
seen, these exhibitions afforded one principal means
of subsistence. This is touched upon in one of the
French <u>fabliaux,</u> as partly the cause of the poverty
of a chevalier, whose distresses are thus enumerated:<p> The distinction of banneret was not the only
subdivision of knighthood. The special privileged
fraternities, orders, or associations of knights, using
a particular device, or embodied for a particular
purpose, require also to be noticed. These might,
in part, be founded upon the union which knights
were wont to enter into with each other as ``companions
in arms,'' than which nothing was esteemed
more sacred. The partners were united for weal
and woe, and no crime was accounted more infamous
than to desert or betray a companion-at-arms.
They had the same friends and the same foes; and
as it was the genius of Chivalry to carry every
virtuous and noble sentiment to the most fantastic
extremity, the most extravagant proofs of fidelity to
this engagement were often exacted or bestowed.
The beautiful romance of <u>Amis and Amiloun,</u><*> in</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>See the original in the republication of Barbazan's <u>Fabliaux,</u>
* vol. iii., p. 410.----S.</li>
<li>See the works of Pasquier, Du Tillet, Le Gendre, and
* other French antiquaries.---S.<p> To this fraternity only two persons could, with
propriety, bind themselves. But the various orders,
which had in view particular objects of war, or were
associated under the authority of particular sovereigns,
were also understood to form a bond of alliance
and brotherhood amongst themselves.</p>
<p> The great orders of the Templars and Knights-Hospitallers
of Saint John of Jerusalem, as well as
that of the Teutonic Knights, were military associations,
created, the former for defence of the Holy
Land, and the last for conversion (by the edge of
the sword of course) of the Pagans in the north of
Europe. They were managed by commanders or
superintendents, and by a grand master, forming a
sort of military republic, the individuals of which
were understood to have no distinct property or
interest from the order in general. But the system
and history of these associations will be found under
the proper heads.<*> It is here only necessary</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>title survived, but in a different sense. Those who
received knighthood in a field of battle, where the
royal standard was displayed, were called knights-bannerets.
Thus, King Edward VI. notices in his
<u>Journal,</u> that, after the battle of Pinkie, ``Mr.
Brian Sadler and Vane were made bannerets.''</p>
<ul>
<li><u>Amis and Amiloun,</u> an English metrical romance, was
<em> first printed in Weber's Metrical Romances of the 13th, 14th,
</em> and 15th centuries. Edinburgh, 1810, vol. ii., 8vo.<p> Other subdivisions arose from the various associations,
also called orders, formed by the different
sovereigns of Europe, not only for the natural purpose
of drawing around their persons the flower of
knighthood, but often with political views of much
deeper import. The romances which were the
favourite reading of the time, or which, at least, like
the servant in the comedy, the nobles ``had read
to them,'' and which were on all occasions quoted
gravely, as the authentic and authoritative records
of Chivalry, afforded the most respectable precedents
for the formation of such fraternities under
the auspices of sovereign princes; the Round Table
of King Arthur, and the Paladins of Charlemagne,
forming cases strictly in point. Edward III., whose
policy was equal to his love of Chivalry, failed not
to avail himself of these precedents, not only for
the exaltation of military honour and exercise of
warlike feats, but questionless that he might draw
around him, and attach to his person, the most
valiant knights from all quarters of Europe. For
this purpose, in the year 1344, he proclaimed as
well in Scotland, France, Germany, Hainault, Spain,
and other foreign countries, as in England, that
he designed to revive the Round Table of King
Arthur, offering free conduct and courteous reception
to all who might be disposed to attend the
splendid justs to be held upon that occasion at
Windsor Castle. This solemn festival, which Edward
proposed to render annual, excited the jealousy
of Philip de Valois, King of France, who not only
prohibited his subjects to attend the Round Table
at Windsor, but proclaimed an opposite Round
Table to be held by himself at Paris. In consequence
of this interference, the Festival of Edward
lost some part of its celebrity, and was diminished
in splendour and frequency of attendance. This
induced King Edward to establish the memorable
Order of the Garter. Twenty-six of the most noble
knights of England and Gascony were admitted into
this highly honourable association, the well-known
motto of which (<u>Honi soit qui mal y pense</u>) seems
to apply to the misrepresentation which the French
monarch might throw out respecting the order of
the Garter, as he had already done concerning the
festival of the Round Table. There was so much
dignity, as well as such obvious policy, in selecting
from the whole body of Chivalry a select number
of champions to form an especial fraternity under
the immediate patronage of the sovereign; it held
out such a powerful stimulus to courage and exertion
to all whose eyes were fixed on so dignified
a reward of ambition, that various orders were
speedily formed in the different courts of Europe,
each having its own peculiar badges, emblems, and
statutes. To enumerate these is the task of the
herald, not of the historian, who is only called upon
to notice their existence and character. The first
effect of these institutions on the spirit of Chivalry
in general, was doubtless favourable, as holding
forth to the knighthood a high and honourable
prize of emulation. But when every court in
Europe, however petty, had its own peculiar order
and ceremonial, while the great potentates established
several; these dignities became so common,
as to throw into the shade the order of
Knights Bachelors, the parent and proper degree
of Chivalry, in comparison to which the others
were mere innovations. The last distinction introduced,
when the spirit of Chivalry was almost
totally extinguished, was the degree of Knight
Baronet.</p>
<p> The degree of Baronet, or of hereditary knighthood,
might have been, with greater propriety,
termed an inferior rank of noblesse, than an order
of Chivalry. Nothing can be more alien from the
original idea of Chivalry, than that knighthood
could he bestowed on an infant, who could not have
deserved the honour or be capable of discharging
its duties. But the way had been already opened
for this anomaly, by the manner in which the
orders of foreign knighthood had been conferred
upon children and infants in nonage. Some of
these honours were also held by right of blood; the
Dauphin of France, for example, being held to be
born a knight of the Holy Ghost, without creation;
and men had already long lost sight of the proper
use and purpose of knighthood, which was now regarded
and valued only as an honorary distinction
of rank, that imposed no duties, and required no
qualifications, or period of preliminary noviciate.
Still it was judged necessary in the terms of this new
dignity, to avoid, or rather elude the impropriety of
declaring that a baronet's apparent heir should be
a knight from the cradle. In the patent of baronetcy
was therefore introduced a clause by which
the King engaged for himself and his successors,
to confer the degree of knighthood upon the eldest
son of the baronet, so soon as he should attain the
age of twenty-one years complete. Hence, if the
father died while the son was in minority, it seems
that the heir, though a baronet, was not properly a
knight; and, in like manner, if he claimed the right
to be knighted during his father's lifetime, he was
a knight-bachelor only until his father's death.
Hence, too, the old and strictly proper style of
Knight and Baronet---and hence that, in the
seventeenth century, we recognise so frequently
the existence of two knights, father and son, in the
same family. But this attention to form has been
long disused; and while the child in the cradle
immediately takes the title on his father's death, it
has been of late unusual for the eldest son of a
baronet to avail himself of the clause in the patent
entitling him to the honour of knighthood during
his father's life. The creation of this new dignity,
as is well known, was a device of James I. to fill
those coffers which his folly and profusion had
emptied; and although the pretext of a Nova
Scotia, or of an Ulster settlement, was used as the
apology for the creation of the order, yet it was
perfectly understood, that the real value given was
the payment of a certain sum of money. The
cynical Osborne describes this practice of the sale
of honours, which, in their origin, were designed
as the reward and pledge of chivalrous merit, with
satirical emphasis.</p>
<p> ``At this time the honour of knighthood, which antiquity
reserved sacred, as the cheapest and readiest jewel to present
virtue with, was promiscuously laid on any head belonging to
the yeomanry (made addle through pride and a contempt of
their ancestor's pedigree,) that had but a court-friend, or money
to purchase the favour of the meanest able to bring him
into an outward roome, when the king, the fountaine of honour,
come downe, and was uninterrupted by other businesse:
in which case, it was then usuall for him to grant a comission
for the chamberlaine, or some other lord to do it.''<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>which a knight slays his own child to make a salve
with its blood to cure the leprosy of his brother-in-arms,
turns entirely on this extravagant pitch of
sentiment.<p> Having related the manner in which knighthood
was conferred, and the various subdivisions of the
order in general, it is proper also to notice the mode
in which a knight might be degraded from his rank.
This forfeiture might take place from crimes either
actually committed, or presumed by the law of
arms. The list of crimes for which a knight was
actually liable to degradation corresponded to his
duties. As devotion, the honour due to ladies,
valour, truth, and loyalty, were the proper attributes
of Chivalry,---so heresy, insults or oppression
of females, cowardice, falsehood, or treason, caused
his degradation. And Heraldry, an art which
might be said to bear the shield of Chivalry, assigned
to such degraded knights and their descendants
peculiar bearings, called in Blazonry abatements,
though it may be doubted if these were
often worn or displayed.</p>
<p> The most common case of a knight's degradation,
occurred in the appeal to the judgment of God by
the single combat in the lists. In the appeal to
this awful criterion, the combatants, whether personally
concerned, or appearing as champions, were
understood, in martial law, to take on themselves
the full risk of all consequences. And, as the defendant,
or his champion, in case of being overcome,
was subjected to the punishment proper to the
crime of which he was accused, so the appellant, if
vanquished, was, whether a principal or substitute,
condemned to the same doom to which his success
would have exposed the accused. Whichever combatant
was vanquished he was liable to the penalty
of degradation; and, if he survived the combat,
the disgrace to which he was subjected was worse
than death. His spurs were cut off close to his
heels, with a cook's cleaver; his arms were baffled
and reversed by the common hangman; his belt
was cut to pieces, and his sword broken. Even his
horse showed his disgrace, the animal's tail being
cut off, close to the rump, and thrown on a dung-hill.
The death-bell tolled, and the funeral service
was said, for a knight thus degraded, as for one
dead to knightly honour. And, if he fell in the
appeal to the judgment of God, the same dishonour
was done to his senseless corpse. If alive, he was
only rescued from death to be confined in the
cloister. Such, at least, were the strict rules of
Chivalry, though the courtesy of the victor, or the
clemency of the prince, might remit them in favourable
cases.</p>
<p> Knights might also be degraded without combat,
when convicted of a heinous crime. In Stowe's
<u>Chronicle,</u> we find the following minute account of
the degradation of Sir Andrew Harday, created
Earl of Carlisle, by Edward II. for his valiant
defence of that town against the Scots, but afterwards
accused of traitorous correspondence with
Robert the Bruce, and tried before Sir Anthony
Lucy.</p>
<p> ``He was ledde to the barre as an carle worthily apparelled,
with his sword girt about him, horsed, booted, and spurred,
and unto whom Sir Anthony spake in this manner. Sir Andrewe
(quoth he,) the King, for thy valiant service, hath done
thee great honour, and made thee Earle of Carlisle; since
which tyme, thou, as a traytor to thy Lord the King, leddest
his people, that shoulde have holpe him at the battell of
Heightand, awaie by the county of Copland, and through the
earledom of Lancaster, by which meanes, our Lorde the King
was discomfitted there of the Scottes, through thy treason and
falsenesse; whereas, if thou haddest come betimes, he hadde
had the victorie: and this treason thou committedst for ye
great summe of golde and silver that thou receivedst of James
Dowglasse, a Scot, the King's enemy. Our Lord the King
will, therefore, that the order of knighthood, by the which
thou receivedst all thine honour and worship uppon thy bodie,
be brought to nought, and thy state undone, that other knights,
of lower degree, may after thee beware, and take example
trudy to serve.</p>
<p> ``Then commanded he to hewe his spurres from his heeles,
then to break his sword over his head, which the King had
given him to keepe and defend his land therewith, when he
made him Earle. After this, he let unclothe him of his furred
tabard, and of his hoode, of his coate of armes, and also of his
girdle: and when this was done, Sir Anthony sayde unto him,
Andrewe (quoth he,) now art thou no knight, but a knave;
and, for thy treason, the King will that thou shalte be hanged
and drawne, and thyne head smitten off from thy bodie, and
burned before thee, and thy bodie quartered: and thy head
being smitten off afterwarde to be set upon London bridge,
and thy foure quarters shall be sent into foure good townes of
England, that all other may beware by thee. And as Anthony
Lucy hadde sayde, so was it done in all things, on the
last daie of October.''<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> III. We are arrived at the third point proposed
in our arrangement, the causes, namely, of the decay
and extinction of Chivalry.</p>
<p> The spirit of Chivalry sunk gradually under a
combination of physical and moral causes; the first
arising from the change gradually introduced into
the art of war, and the last from the equally great
alteration produced by time in the habits and modes
of thinking in modern Europe. Chivalry began to
dawn in the end of the tenth, and beginning of the
eleventh century. It blazed forth with high vigour
during the Crusades, which indeed may be considered
as exploits of national knight-errantry, or general
wars, undertaken on the very same principles
which actuated the conduct of individual knights
adventurers. But its most brilliant period was during
the wars between France and England, and it
was unquestionably in those kingdoms, that the
habit of constant and honourable opposition, unembittered
by rancour or personal hatred, gave the
fairest opportunity for the exercise of the virtues
required from him whom Chaucer terms ``a very
perfect gentle knight.'' Froissart frequently makes
allusions to the generosity exercised by the French
and English to their prisoners, and contrasts it with
the dungeons to which captives taken in war were
consigned, both in Spain and Germany. Yet both
these countries, and indeed every kingdom in Europe,
partook of the spirit of Chivalry in a greater
or less degree; and even the Moors of Spain caught
the emulation, and had their orders of knighthood
as well as the Christians. But even during this
splendid period, various causes were silently operating
the future extinction of the flame, which
blazed thus wide and brightly.</p>
<p> An important discovery, the invention of gunpowder,
had taken place, and was beginning to be
used in war, even when Chivalry was in its highest
glory. It is said Edward III. had field-pieces at the
battle of Cressy (1346,) and the use of guns is mentioned
even earlier. But the force of gunpowder
was long known and used, ere it made any material
change in the art of war. The long-bow continued
to be the favourite, and it would seem the more
formidable missile weapon, for almost two centuries
after guns had been used in war. Still every successive
improvement was gradually rendering the
invention of fire-arms more perfect, and their use
more decisive of the fate of battle. In proportion
as they came into general use, the suits of defensive
armour began to be less generally worn. It was
found, that these cumbrous defences, however efficient
against lances, swords, and arrows, afforded
no effectual protection against those more forcible
missiles. The armour of the knight was gradually
curtailed to a light head-piece, a cuirass, and the
usual defences of men-at-arms. Complete harness
was only worn by generals and persons of high
rank, and that rather, it would seem, as a point of
dignity than for real utility. The young nobility of
France, especially, became weary of the unwieldy
steel coats in which their ancestors sheathed themselves,
and adopted the slender and light armour of
the German Reiters, or mercenary cavalry. They
also discontinued the use of the lance; in both
cases, contrary to the injunctions of Henry IV.
and the opinion of Sully. At length, the arms of the
cavalry were changed almost in every particular
from those which wore proper to Chivalry; and as,
in such cases, much depends upon outward show
and circumstance, the light-armed cavalier, who did
not carry the weapons, or practise the exercises of
knighthood, laid aside, at the same time, the habits
and sentiments peculiar to the order.</p>
<p> Another change, of vital importance, arose from
the institution of the bands of gens-d'armes, or
men-at-arms in France, constituted, as we have
observed, expressly as a sort of standing army, to
supply the place of bannerets, bachelors, squires,
and other militia of early times. It was in the
year 1445, that Charles VII. selected from the
numerous Chivalry of France fifteen companies of
men-at-arms, called Les Compagnies d'Ordonnance,
which were to remain in perpetual pay and subordination,
and for the purpose of enabling the
sovereign to dispense with the services of the
tumultuary forces of Chivalry, which, arriving and
departing from the host at pleasure, collecting
their subsistence by oppressing the country, and
engaging in frequent brawls with each other, rather
weakened than aided the cause they professed to
support. The regulated companies, which were
substituted for these desultory feudal levies, were
of a more permanent and manageable description
Each company contained an hundred men-at-arms,
and each man-at-arms was to be what was termed
a <u>lance garnie,</u> that is, a mounted spearman, with
his proper attendants, being four archers and a
varlet, called a <u>coustillier,</u> from the knife or dagger
with which he was armed. Thus, each company
consisted of six hundred horse, and the fifteen
bands amounted to fifteen thousand cavalry. The
charge of national defence was thus transferred
from the Chivalry of France, whose bold and
desperate valour was sometimes rendered useless
by their independent wilfulness and want of discipline,
to a body of regular forces, whose officers
(a captain, lieutenant, and an ensign in each company)
held command, not in virtue of their knighthood
or banner-right, but as bearing direct commissions
from the Crown, as in modern times. At
first, indeed, these bands of regulated gens-d'armes
were formed of the same materials as formerly,
though acting under a new system. The officers
were men of the highest rank; the archers, and
even the varlets, were men of honourable birth.
When the Emperor Maximilian proposed that the
French gens-d'armes should attempt to storm
Padua, supported by the German lance-knechts or
infantry, he was informed by Bayard, that, if the
French men-at-arms were employed, they must be
supported by those of the Germans, and not by the
lance-knechts, because, in the French companies
of ordonnance, every soldier was a gentleman. But,
in the reign of Charles IX., we find the change
natural to such a now order of things, was in complete
operation. The King was content to seek, as
qualifications for his men-at-arms, personal bravery,
strength, and address in the use of weapons, without
respect to rank or birth; and, probably, in
many instances, men of inferior birth were preferred
to fill up the ranks of these regulated bands.
Monluc informs us in his <u>Commentaries,</u> that he
made his first campaign, as an archer, in the
Marechal de Foix's company of gens-d'armes; it
was ``a situation much esteemed in those days,
when many nobles served in that capacity. At
present the rank is greatly degenerated.'' The
complaints of the old noblesse, says Mezerai, were
not without reason. Mean carabineers, they said,
valets and lacqueys, were recruited in companies,
which were put on the same footing with the ancient
corps of gens-d'armes, whose officers were all
barons of high rank, and almost every man-at-arms
a gentleman by birth. These complaints, joined
with the charge against Catharine of Medicis, that
she had, by the creation of twenty-five new members
of the order of Saint Michael, rendered its
honours as common as the cockle-shells on the sea-shore,
serve to show how early the first rude
attempt at establishing a standing and professional
army operated to the subversion of the ideas and
privileges of Chivalry. According to La Noue, it
would seem that, in his time, the practice still prevailed
of sending youths of good birth to serve as
pages in the gens-d'armes; but, from the sort of
society with whom they mixed in service of that
sort, their natural spirit was rather debased, and
rendered vulgar and brutal, than trained to honour
and gallantry.</p>
<p> A more fatal cause had, however, been for some
time operating in England, as well as France, for
the destruction of the system we are treating of.
The wars of York and Lancaster in England, and
those of the Huguenots and of the League, were of
a nature so bitter and rancorous, as was utterly inconsistent
with the courtesy, fair play, and gentleness,
proper to Chivalry. Where different nations
are at strife together, their war may be carried on
with a certain degree of moderation.</p>
<p> ``During the foreign wars between France and Spain, especially
in Piedmont,'' says La Noue, ``we might often see a body
of spears pass a village, where the peasants only interrupted
their village dance to offer them refreshments; and, in a little
after, a hostile troop receive, from the unoffending and unoffended
inhabitants, the same courtesy. The two bodies would
meet and fight gallantly, and the wounded of both parties
would he transferred to the same village, lodged in the same
places of accommodation, receive the same attention, and
rest peaceably on each other's good faith till again able to
take the field.''</p>
<p> He contrasts this generosity with the miserable
oppression of the civil wars, carried on by murdering,
burning, and plundering friend and foe, armed
and unarmed, alleging, all the while, the specious
watch-words of God's honour, the King's service,
the Catholic religion, the Gospel, our Country. In
the end, he justly observes, ``the soldiers become
ravenous beasts, the country is rendered desert,
wealth is wasted, the crimes of the great become a
curse to themselves, and God is displeased.'' The
bloody wars of the Rose in England, the execution
of prisoners on each side, the fury and animosity
which allowed no plea of mercy or courtesy, were
scarce less destructive of the finer parts of the
spirit of Chivalry in England, than those of the
Huguenots in France.</p>
<p> The Civil Wars not only operated in debasing
the spirit of Chivalry, but in exhausting and destroying
the particular class of society from which
its votaries were drawn. To be of noble birth was
not, indeed, absolutely essential to receiving the
honour of knighthood, for men of low descent frequently
attained it. But it required a distinguished
display of personal merit to raise such persons
out of the class where they were born, and the
honours of Chivalry were, generally speaking, appropriated
to those of fair and gentle parentage.
The noble families, therefore, were the source from
which Chivalry drew recruits; and it was upon the
nobles that the losses, proscriptions, and forfeitures,
of the Civil Wars chiefly fell. We have seen, that,
in France, their poverty occasioned their yielding
up the privilege of military command to the disposal
of the Crown. In England it was, fortunately,
not so much the Crown as the Commons who rose
on the ruins of the feudal Chivalry. But it is well
known, that the Civil Wars had so exhausted the
English nobility, as to enable Henry VII. to pass
his celebrated statutes against those hosts of retainers,
which struck, in fact, at the very root of their
power. And, thus, Providence, whose ways bring
good out of evil, laid the foundation of the future
freedom of England in the destruction of what had
long been its most constitutional ground of defence,
and, in the subjugation of that system of Chivalry,
which, having softened the ferocity of a barbarous
age, was now to fall into disuse, as too extravagant
for an enlightened one.</p>
<p> In fact, it was not merely the changes which had
taken place in the constitution of armies and fashion
of the fight, nor the degraded and weak state of the
nobles, but also, and in a great degree, the more
enlightened manners of the times, and the different
channels into which enthusiasm and energy wore
directed, which gradually abolished the sentiments
of Chivalry. We have seen, that the abstract principles
of Chivalry were, in the highest degree, virtuous
and noble, nay, that they failed by carrying
to an absurd, exaggerated, and impracticable point,
the honourable duties which they inculcated. Such
doctrines, when they fail to excite enthusiasm, become
exploded as ridiculous. Men's minds were
now awakened to other and more important and
complicated exercises of the understanding, and
were no longer responsive to the subjects which so
deeply interested their ancestors of the middle
ages. Sciences of various kinds had been rekindled
in the course of the sixteenth century; the arts had
been awakened in a style of perfection unknown
oven to classical ages. Above all, religion had become
the interesting study of thousands, and the
innovating doctrines of the Reformers, while hailed
with ecstasy by their followers, rejected as abominations
by the Catholics, and debated fiercely by
both parties, involved the nobility of Europe in
speculations very different from the _arr<e^>ts_ of the
Court of Love, and demanded their active service
in fields more bloody than those of tilt and tournament.
When the historians or disputants on either
side allude to the maxims of Chivalry, it is in terms
of censure and ridicule. Yet, if we judge by the
most distinguished authorities on either side, the
Reformers rejected as sinful what the Catholics
were contented to brand as absurd. It is with no
small advantage to the Huguenots,---to that distinguished
party which produced Sully, D'Aubigne;
Coligni, Duplessis-Mornay, and La Noue, that we
contrast the moral severity with which they pass
censure on the hooks of Chivalry, with the licentious
flippancy of Brantome, who ridicules the same
works, on account of the very virtues which they
inculcate. From the books of <u>Amadis de Gaul,</u>
refining, as he informs us, upon the ancient vanities
of Perceforest, Tristan, Giron, &c., La Noue contends
the age in which he lived derived the recommendation
and practice of incontinence, of the
poison of revenge, of neglect of sober and rational
duty, desperate blood-thirstiness, under disguise of
search after honour, and confusion of public order.
``They are the instructions,'' he says, ``of Apollyon,
who, being a murderer from the beginning,
delighteth wholly in promoting murther.'' Of the
tournaments, he observes, ``that such spectacles,
rendering habitual the sight of blows and blood,
had made the court of France pitiless and cruel.''
``Let those,'' he exclaims, ``who desire to feed
their eyes with blood, imitate the manner of England,
where they exorcise their cruelty on brute
beasts, bringing in bulls and bears to fight with
dogs, a practice beyond comparison far more lawful
than the justs of Chivalry.''<*></p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>It may here and elsewhere he recollected, that this article
* was originally written for an Encyclop<ae>dia.---S.<p> It is curious to contrast the opinions of La Noue,
a stern and moral reformer, and a skilful and brave
soldier as France ever produced, although condemning
all war that did not spring out of absolute
necessity, with those of Brantome, a licentious
courtier, who mixed the Popish superstitions, which
stood him instead of religion, with a leaven of infidelity
and blasphemy. From the opinions he has
expressed, and from what he has too faithfully
handed down as the manners of his court and age,
it is plain that all which was valuable in the spirit
of Chivalry had been long renounced by the French
noblesse. To mark this declension, it is only necessary
to run over the various requisites already
pointed out as necessary to form the chivalrous
character, and contrast them with the opinions
held in the end of the sixteenth century, in the
court of the descendants of Saint Louis.</p>
<p> The spirit of devotion which the rules of Chivalry
inculcated, was so openly disavowed, that it was
assigned as a reason for preferring the character
of Sir Tristrem to that of Sir Lancelot, that the
former is described in romance as relying, like
Mezentius, upon his own arm alone, whereas Lancelot,
on engaging in fight, never failed to commend
himself to God and the saint; which, in the
more modern opinions of the gallants of France,
argued a want of confidence in his own strength
and valour.</p>
<p> The devotion with which the ancient knights
worshipped the fair sex, was held as old-fashioned
and absurd as that which they offered to Heaven.
The honour paid to chastity and purity in the German
forests, and transferred as a sacred point of
duty to the sons of Chivalry, was as little to be
found in the Court of France, according to Brantome,
as the chastity and purity to which it was
due. The gross and coarse sensuality which we
have seen engrafted upon professions of Platonic
sentiment, became finally so predominant, as altogether
to discard all marks of sentimental attachment;
and from the time of Catharine of Medicis,
who trained her maids of honour as courtezans,
the manners of the Court of France seem to have
been inferior in decency to those of a well-regulated
bagnio. The sort of respect which these ladies
were deemed entitled to, may be conjectured from
an anecdote given by Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
whose own character was formed upon the chivalrous
model which was now become obsolete. As
he stood in the trenches before a besieged place,
along with Balagny, a celebrated duellist of the
period, between whom and Lord Herbert some altercation
had formerly occurred, the Frenchman,
in a bravade, jumped over the entrenchment, and,
daring Herbert to follow him, ran towards the besieged
place, in the face of a fire of grape and
musketry. Finding that Herbert outran him, and
seemed to have no intention of turning back, Balagny
was forced to set the example of retreating.
Lord Herbert then invited him to an encounter
upon the old chivalrous point, which had the fairer
and more virtuous mistress; to which proposition
Balagny replied by a jest so coarse as made the
Englishman retort, that he spoke like a mean debauchee,
not like a cavalier and man of honour.
As Balagny was one of the most fashionable gallants
of his time, and, as the story shows, ready for
the most harebrained achievements, his declining
combat upon the ground of quarrel chosen by Lord
Herbert, is a proof how little the former love of
Chivalry accorded with the gallantry of these later
days.</p>
<p> Bravery, the indispensable requisite of the <u>preux
chevalier,</u> continued, indeed, to be held in the same
estimation as formerly; and the history of the age
gave the most brilliant as well as the most desperate
examples of it, both in public war and private
encounter. But courage was no longer tempered
with the good faith and courtesy,---<u>La gran bonta
die cavalier antichi,</u> so celebrated by Ariosto.
There no longer existed those generous knights,
that one day bound the wounds of a gallant opponent,
guided him to a place of refuge, and defended
him on the journey, and who, on the next, hesitated
not in turn to commit their own safety to the
power of a mortal foe, without fear that he would
break the faithful word he had pawned for the
safety of his enemy. It such examples occur in
the civil wars of France, they were dictated by the
generosity of individuals who rose above the vices
of their age, and were not demanded, as matters of
right, from all who desired to stand well in public
opinion. The intercourse with Italy, so fatal to
France in many respects, failed not to imbue her
nobility with the politics of Machiavel,---the coarse
licentiousness of Aretin,---and the barbarous spirit
of revenge, which held it wise to seek its gratification,
not in fair encounter, but _per ogni modo_---in
what manner soever it could be obtained. Duels,
when they took place, were no longer fought in the
lists, or in presence of judges of the field, but in
lonely and sequestered places. Inequality of arms
was not regarded, however great the superiority
on one side. ``Thou hast both a sword and dagger,''
said Quelus to Antraguet, as they were about
to fight, ``and I have only a sword.''---``The more
thy folly,'' was the answer, ``to leave thy dagger at
home. We came to fight, not to adjust weapons.''
The duel accordingly went forward, and Quelus
was slain, his left hand (in which he should have
had his dagger) being shockingly cut in attempting
to parry his antagonist's blows without that weapon.
The challenged person having a right to
chose his weapons, often endeavoured to devise
such as should give him a decidedly unfair advantage.
Brantome records with applause the ingenuity
of a little man, who, being challenged by a
tall Gascon, made choice of a gorget so constructed,
that his gigantic adversary could not stoop his neck,
so as to aim his blows right. Another had two
swords forged of a temper so extremely brittle, that,
unless used with particular caution, and in a manner
to which be daily exercised himself the blade
must necessarily fly in pieces. Both these ingenious
persons killed their man with very little risk
or trouble, and no less applause, it would seem,
than if they had fought without fraud and covine.
The seconds usually engaged, and when one of the
combatants was slain, his antagonist did not hesitate
to assist his comrade in oppressing by odds
him who remained. The <u>Little French Lawyer</u> of
Fletcher turns entirely on this incident. By a yet
more direct mode of murder, a man challenged to
a duel was not always sure that his enemy was not
to assassinate him by the assistance of ruffians at
the place of rendezvous, of which Brantome gives
several instances without much censure. The
plighted word of an antagonist by no means ensured
against treachery to the party to whom it was given.
De Rosne, a gentleman well skilled in the practice
and discipline of the wars, receiving a challenge
from De Fargy, through the medium of a young
man, who offered to pledge his word and faith for
the fair conduct of his principal---made an answer
which Brantome seems to approve as prudential.
``I should be unwilling,'' he replied, ``to trust my
life upon a pledge on which I would not lend twenty
crowns.''</p>
<p> In many cases no ceremony was used, but the
nobles assassinated each other without scruple or
hesitation. Brantome gives several stories of the
Baron des Vitaux, whom he describes as the very
mirror of gallantry, known as such not only in
France, but in Italy, Spain, Poland, and England,
and one whom strangers wore desirous to see on
account of his renown in arms. Most of this person's
acts of gallantry, nevertheless, were mere
assassinations, perpetrated by the assistance of his
attendants, and especially of two brothers called
Bou<c,>icault, who were called Vitaux's Lions. The
Baron had a quarrel with Monsieur du Gua, and
Brantome, the friend of both parties, endeavoured
to bring about a reconciliation, but in vain. ``Vitaux,''
says the historian, ``had thoughts of challenging
his enemy, but did not do so, for certain
reasons which I will not here enter into, and because
it was not his best and surest course.''---He
left Paris, therefore, for six months, and returning
suddenly, entered into Du Gua's lodgings, leaving
two men to guard the door. He found his victim
lying on his bed, owing to some indisposition. Du
Gua had scarce time to start up and seize a lance,
ere Vitaux rushed within his weapon, and with a
very sharp and short sword, (which, in such cases,
says Brantome, by way of parenthesis, ``is more
convenient than a long one,'') ran him once or
twice through the body, and left him wounded to
death. This, with similar deeds of atrocity committed
by the same ruffian, are termed by the historian,
bold and worthy acts of revenge. Vitaux
was himself slain in a duel with Millaud, another
stabber of the age, who wore a flexible cuirass on
his right side, so artificially painted like the natural
skin, as to deceive the seconds who searched his
person to ascertain that he wore no defensive armour.</p>
<p> Another instance of the total abolition of the
rules of Chivalry, and a very brutal one, occurs in
the same author. Matas, an experienced soldier,
and of some fame in arms, had a quarrel at a royal
hunting-match, in the wood of Vincennes, with a
young man called Achon, a nephew of the Mar<e'>chal
de St. Andr<e'>. They rode apart into the wood,
and, dismounting from their horses, began an engagement,
in which young Achon's sword was soon
struck out of his hand. The veteran, forbearing
any farther violence, said to him, with some scorn,
``Go, young man. Learn another time to hold
your sword faster before you provoke such as I
am---Go, take up your sword. I forgive you, and
let there be no more words of the matter; but begone
for a rash boy as you are.'' Achon, furious
at this species of scorn, took up his sword, and running
after Matas, who had by this time turned his
back, run him through the body from behind, and
killed him on the spot.</p>
<p> ``And there was no more said upon the matter,'' says Brantome,
``because Achon was the nephew of the Mar<e'>chal St.
Andr<e'>, and the slain man a relation of Madame do Valentinois,
who, by the recent death of Prince Henry, had lost her
credit at court. Much noise, however, was made for the death
of Matas, who was both gallant and valiant. Nevertheless, he
was much censured, and even by the great Duke of Guise, for
having failed to use the advantage which he had obtained, and
thus, by trifling with his own good fortune, having given him
whom he spared an opportunity of taking his life.''</p>
<p> It were needless, by multiplying examples, to
illustrate the blood-thirsty and treacherous maxims
and practices, which, during the sixteenth century,
succeeded to the punctilious generosity exacted by
the rules of Chivalry. It is enough to call to the
reader's recollection the bloody secret of the massacre
of St. Bartholomew, which was kept by such a
number of the Catholic noblemen for two years, at
the expense of false treaties, promises, and perjuries
innumerable, and the execution which followed on
naked, unarmed, and unsuspecting man, in which
so many gallants lent their willing swords.</p>
<p> In England, the free tone of the government, and
the advantage of equal laws, administered without respect
of persons, checked similar enormities, which,
however, do not appear to have been thought, in all
cases, inconsistent with the point of honour, which,
if not, as in France, totally depraved from the ancient
practices of Chivalry, might probably have
soon become so. Sir John Ayres did not hesitate
to attack Lord Herbert with the assistance of his
servants; and the outrage upon the person of Sir
John Coventry, by the young officers belonging to
the guards of Charles II., which gave rise to the
Coventry act against cutting and maiming, evinced
the same spirit of degenerate and blood-thirsty revenge.<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>to notice them as subdivisions of the knighthood, or
Chivalry of Europe.</p>
<ul>
<li>Secret History of the court of King James I.; containing,
<em> among other tracts, <u>Osborne's Traditional Memoirs.</u> 2 vols.
</em> 8vo. Edinburgh, 1811.</li>
<li><u>Discourses, Potitical and Military,</u> translated out of the
* French of La Noue, 1587.---S.</li>
<li>See ante, <u>Life of Dryden,</u> p. 36.<p> From these circumstances, the total decay of
chivalrous principle is sufficiently evident. As the
progress of knowledge advanced, men learned to
despise its fantastic refinements; the really enlightened
undervaluing them, as belonging to a system
inapplicable to the modern state of the world; the
licentious, fierce, and subtle, desiring their abrogation,
as throwing the barriers of affected punctilio
betwixt them and the safe, ready, and unceremonious
gratification of their lust or their vengeance.</p>
<p> The system of Chivalry, as we have seen, had its
peculiar advantages during the middle ages. Its
duties were not, and indeed could not, always be
performed in perfection, but they had a strong influence
on public opinion; and we cannot doubt
that its institutions, virtuous as they were in principle,
and honourable and generous in their ends,
must have done much good and prevented much
evil. We can now only look back on it as a beautiful
and fantastic piece of frostwork, which has
dissolved in the beams of the sun! But though we
seek in vain for the pillars, the vaults, the cornices,
and the fretted ornaments of the transitory fabric,
we cannot but be sensible that its dissolution has
left on the soil valuable tokens of its former existence.
We do not mean, nor is it necessary to trace,
the slight shades of Chivalry, which are yet received
in the law of England. An appeal to combat in a
case of treason, was adjudged, in the celebrated
case of Ramsay and Lord Reay, in the time of
Charles I. The personal combat offered in bar of
an appeal of murder seems to have been admitted
as legal some years since, and was only abolished
of late by positive statute. But it is not in such
issues, rare as they must be, that we ought to trace
the consequences of Chivalry. We have already
shown, that its effects are rather to be sought in the
general feeling of respect to the female sex; in the
rules of forbearance and decorum in society; in the
duties of speaking truth and observing courtesy
and in the general conviction and assurance, that,
as no man can encroach upon the property of another
without accounting to the laws, so none can
infringe on his personal honour, be the difference
of rank what it may, without subjecting himself to
personal responsibility. It will be readily believed
that, in noticing the existence of duelling as a relic
of Chivalry, we do not mean to discuss the propriety
of the custom. It is our happiness that the
excesses to which this spirit is liable, are checked
by the laws which wisely discountenance the practice;
for, although the severity of these laws sometimes
gives way to the force of public opinion, they
still remain an effectual restraint, in every case
where the circumstances argue either wanton provocation
or unfair advantage. It is to be hoped,
that as the custom of appealing to this Gothic mode
of settling disputes is gradually falling into disuse,
our successors may possibly enjoy the benefit of the
general urbanity, decency, and courtesy, which it
has introduced into the manners of Europe, without
the necessity of having recourse to a remedy, not
easily reconciled to law or to Christianity.<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Lord Sanquhar, having lost an eye in a
trial of skill with a master of defence, conceived
that his honour required that he should cause the
poor man to be assassinated by ruffians in his own
school. But as this base action met its just reward
at the gallows, the spirit of Italian revenge was probably
effectually checked by such a marked example.
At the gallows, the unfortunate nobleman expressed
his detestation for the crime, which he then saw
in all its enormity. ``Before his trial,'' he said,
``the devil had so blinded his understanding, that
he could not understand that he had done amiss, or
otherwise than befiting a man of high rank and
quality, having been trained up to the court, and
living the life of a soldier; which sort of men,'' he
said, ``stood more on a point of honour than religion.''
The feelings of Chivalry must have beast
indeed degraded, when so base an assassination was
accounted a point of honour.<*> In Scotland, at the</p>
<ul>
<li>See <u>Tales of a Grandfather,</u> ch. xxxv.<p> Romance.<*><! p30></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>same period, the manners of which country, as is
well observed by Robertson, strongly resembled
those of France, the number of foul murders, often
committed on persons of the most eminent rank,
was almost incredible; and indeed assassination
might be termed the most general vice of the sixteenth
century.</p>
<ul>
<li>``It so happens that the good old times, when `l'amour du
<em> bon vieux tems, l'amour antique' flourished, were the most
</em> profligate of all possible centuries. Those who have any doubts
<em> on this subject may consult Sainte-Palaye, passim, and more
</em> particularly vol. ii., p. 69. The vows of chivalry were no better
<em> kept than any other vows whatsoever; and the songs of
</em> the Troubadours were not more decent, and certainly much
<em> less refined, than those of Ovid. The `Cours l'amour, parlamens
</em> d'amour, ou de court<e'>sie et do gentilesse,<code> had much
* more of love than of courtesy or gentleness. See Roland on
* the same subject with Sainte-Palaye. Whatever other objection
* may be urged to that most unamiable personage Childe
* Harold, he was so far perfectly knightly in his attributes.
* `No waiter, but a knight-templar.</code> By the by, I fear that Sir
<em> Tristrem and Sir Lancelot were no better than they should
</em> be, although very poetical personages and true knights `sans
* peur,<code> though not `sans reproche.</code> If the story of the institution
<em> of the `Garter' be not a fable, the knights of that order
</em> have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of
<em> Salisbury of indifferent memory. So much for chivalry. Burke
</em> need not have regretted that its days are over, though Marie
<em> Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose honour
</em> lances were shivered and knights unhorsed.
<em>
</em> ``Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of Sir Joseph
<em> Banks, (the most chaste and celebrated of ancient and modern
</em> times,) few exceptions will be found to this statement, and I
<em> fear a little investigation will teach us not to regret these monstrous
</em> mummeries of the middle ages.''
<em>
</em> =Byron,= <u>Preface to Childe Harold.</u></li>
</ul>
<h2><title></h2>
<p> The word Romance, in its original meaning, was
far from corresponding with the definition now assigned.
On the contrary, it signified merely one
or other of the popular dialects of Europe, founded
(as almost all these dialects were) upon the Roman
tongue, that is, upon the Latin. The name of Romance
was indiscriminately given to the Italian, to
the Spanish, even (in one remarkable instance at
least)<*> to the English language. But it was especially</p>
<ul>
<li>First published in the Supplement to the Encyclop<ae>dia
* Britannica. 1824.</li>
</ul>
<p><text>
Dr. Johnson has defined Romance, in its primary
sense, to be ``a military fable of the middle
ages; a tale of wild adventures in love and chivalry.''
But although this definition expresses correctly
the ordinary idea of the word, it is not sufficiently
comprehensive to answer our present purpose.
A composition may be a legitimate romance,
yet neither refer to love nor chivalry---to war nor
to the middle ages. The ``wild adventures'' are
almost the only absolutely essential ingredient in
Johnson's definition. We would be rather inclined
to describe a <u>Romance</u> as ``a fictitious narrative in
prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon
marvellous and uncommon incidents;'' being thus
opposed to the kindred term <u>Novel,</u> which Johnson
has described as a ``smooth tale, generally of love;''
but which we would rather define as ``a fictitious
narrative, differing from the Romance, because the
events are accommodated to the ordinary train of
human events, and the modern state of society.''
Assuming these definitions, it is evident, from the
nature of the distinction adopted, that there may
exist compositions which it is difficult to assign precisely
or exclusively to the one class or the other;
and which, in fact, partake of the nature of both.
But, generally speaking, the distinction will be
found broad enough to answer all general and useful
purposes.<*><p> ``All is calde geste Inglis,
That in this language spoken is---
Frankis speech is caled <u>Romance,</u>
So sayis clerkis and men of France.''</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>``The <u>epic</u> poem and the <u>romance of chivalry</u> transport us
<em> to the world of wonders, where supernatural agents are mixed
</em> with human character, where the human characters themselves
<em> are prodigies, and where events are produced by causes
</em> widely and manifestly different from those which regulate the
<em> course of human affairs. With such a world we do not think
</em> of comparing our actual situation; to such characters we do
<em> not presume to assimilate ourselves or our neighbours; from
</em> such a concatenation of marvels we draw no conclusions with
<em> regard to our own expectations in real life. But real life is the
</em> very thing which <u>novels</u> affect to imitate; and the young and
<em> inexperienced will sometimes be too ready to conceive that the
</em> picture is true, in those respects at least in which they wish it
<em> to be so. Hence both their temper, conduct, and happiness
</em> may be materially injured. For novels are often <u>romantic,</u>
<em> not indeed by the relation of what is obviously miraculous or
</em> impossible, but by deviating, though perhaps insensibly, beyond
<em> the bounds of probability or consistency. And the girl
</em> who dreams of the brilliant accomplishments and enchanting
<em> manners which distinguish the favourite characters in those
</em> fictitious histories, will he apt to look with contempt on the
<em> most respectable and amiable of her acquaintance; while in
</em> the showy person and flattering address of some contemptible
<em> and perhaps profligate coxcomb, she may figure to herself the
</em> prototype of her imaginary heroes, the only man upon earth
<em> with whom it is possible to be happy.''---<u>Quarterly Review,</u>
</em> vol. i., p. 305.<p> ``Qui <u>de Latin</u> is trest, et <u>en Roman</u> la mit.''</p>
</li>
<li>This curious passage was detected by the industry of Ritson
* in <u>Geraldus Cambrensis,</u> ``_Ab aq<u^>a illa optima, qu<ae> Scottice
<em> vocata est =Froth;= Brittanice, =Waite;= Romana vero
</em> Scotte-Wattre._'' Here the various names assigned to the Frith
<em> of Forth are given in the Gaelic or Earse, the British or Welsh;
</em> and the phrase <u>Roman</u> is applied to the ordinary language of
<em> England. But it would be difficult to show another instance
</em> of the English language being termed Roman or Romance.---S.<p> The most noted metrical tales or chronicles of
the middle ages were usually composed in the Romance
or French language, which, being spoken
both at the Court of Paris and that of London, under
the kings of the Norman race, became in a peculiar
degree the speech of love and chivalry. So
much is this the case, that such metrical narratives
as are written in English always affect to refer to
some French original, which, usually, at least, if
not in all instances, must be supposed to have had a
real existence. Hence the frequent recurrence of
the phrase,<p> ``As in romance we read;''</p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>applied to the compound language of France;
in which the Gothic dialect of the Franks, the Celtic
of the ancient Gauls, and the classical Latin,
formed the ingredients. Thus Robert De Brunne:<p> ``Right as the romaunt us tells;''</p>
</p>
<p>At a period so early as 1150, it plainly appears
that the Romance language was distinguished from
the Latin, and that translations were made from
the one into the other; for an ancient Romance on
the subject of Alexander, quoted by Fauchet, says
it was written by a learned clerk,<p> ``Upon my bed I sate upright,
And bade one rechin me a boke,
A =Romaunce,= and it me took
To read and drive the night away.''</p>
</p>
<p>That is, ``who translated the tale from the Latin,
and clothed it in the <u>Romance</u> language.''<p> ``Fable,
That clerkis had, in old tyme,
And other poets, put in rhyme.''</p>
</p>
<h2>Or,</h2>
<p> ``This boke ne spake but of such things,
Of Queens' lives and of Kings.''</p>
<p>and equivalent terms, well known to all who have
at any time perused such compositions. Thus, very
naturally, though undoubtedly by slow degrees, the
very name of <u>romaunt,</u> or <u>romance,</u> came to be
transferred from the language itself to that peculiar
style of composition in which it was so much employed,
and which so commonly referred to it. How
early a transference so natural took place, we have
no exact means of knowing; but the best authority
assures us, that the word was used in its modern
and secondary sense so early as the reign of Edward
III. Chaucer, unable to sleep during the night,
informs us, that, in order to pass the time,<p> Having thus accounted for the derivation of the
word, our investigation divides itself into three
principal branches, though of unequal extent. In
the =first= of these we propose to inquire into the
general History and Origin of this peculiar species
of composition, and particularly of Romances relating
to European Chivalry, which necessarily form
the most interesting object of our inquiry. In the
=second,= we shall give some brief account of the
History of the Romance of Chivalry in the different
states of Europe. =Thirdly,= We propose to
notice cursorily the various kinds of Romantic
Composition by which the ancient Romances of
Chivalry were followed and superseded, and with
these notices to conclude the article.<p> *</p>
</p>
<ol>
<li> In the views taken by Hurd, Percy, and other
older authorities, of the origin and history of romantic
fiction, their attention seems to have been
so exclusively fixed upon the Romance of Chivalry
alone, that they appear to have forgotten that, however
interesting and peculiar, it formed only one
species of a very numerous and extensive genus.
The progress of Romance, in fact, keeps pace with
that of society, which cannot long exist, even in the
simplest state, without exhibiting some specimens
of this attractive style of composition. It is not
meant by this assertion, that in early ages such
narratives were invented, as in modern times, in
the character of mere fictions, devised to beguile
the leisure of those who have time enough to read
and attend to them. On the contrary, Romance
and real history have the same common origin. It
is the aim of the former to maintain as long as possible
the mask of veracity; and indeed the traditional
memorials of all earlier ages partake in such
a varied and doubtful degree of the qualities essential
to those opposite lines of composition, that they
form a mixed class between them; and may be
termed either romantic histories, or historical romances,
according to the proportion in which their
truth is debased by fiction, or their fiction mingled
with truth.</li>
</ol>
<p> A moment's glance at the origin of society will
satisfy the reader why this can hardly be otherwise.
The father of an isolated family, destined one day
to rise into a tribe, and in farther progress of time
to expand into a nation, may, indeed, narrate to
his descendants the circumstances which detached
him from the society of his brethren, and drove
him to form a solitary settlement in the wilderness,
with no other deviation from truth, on the part of
the narrator, than arises from the infidelity of memory,
or the exaggerations of vanity. But when
the tale of the patriarch is related by his children,
and again by his descendants of the third and fourth
generation, the facts it contains are apt to assume
a very different aspect. The vanity of the tribe
augments the simple annals from one cause---the
love of the marvellous, so natural to the human
mind, contributes its means of sophistication from
another---while, sometimes, from a third cause, the
king and the priest find their interest in casting a
holy and sacred gloom and mystery over the early
period in which their power arose. And thus altered
and sophisticated from so many different
motives, the real adventures of the founder of the
tribe bear as little proportion to the legend recited
among his children, as the famous hut of Loretto
bears to the highly ornamented church with which
superstition has surrounded and enchased it. Thus
the definition which we have given of Romance, as
a fictitious narrative turning upon the marvellous
or the supernatural, might, in a large sense, be said
to embrace<p> quicquid Gr<ae>cia mendax
Audet in historia,</p>
</p>
</p>
<p>The book described as a Romance contained, as we
are informed,<p> It is also important to remark, that poetry, or
rather verse---rhythm at least of some sort or other,
is originally selected as the best vehicle for these
traditional histories. Its principal recommendation
is probably the greater facility with which metrical
narratives are retained in the memory---a point of
the last consequence, until the art of writing is
generally introduced; since the construction of the
verse itself forms an artificial association with the
sense, the one of which seldom fails to recall the
other to recollection. But the medium of verse,
at first adopted merely to aid the memory, becomes
soon valuable on account of its other qualities. The
march or measure of the stanza is gratifying to the
ear, and, like a natural strain of melody, can be
restrained or accelerated, so as to correspond with
the tone of feeling which the words convey; while
the recurrence of the necessary measure, rhythm,
or rhyme, is perpetually gratifying the hearer by a
sense of difficulty overcome. Verse being thus
adopted as the vehicle of traditional history, there
needs but the existence of a single man of genius,
in order to carry the composition a step higher in
the scale of literature than that of which we are
treating. In proportion to the skill which he attains
in his art, the fancy and ingenuity of the artist
himself are excited; the simple narrative transmitted
to him by ruder rhymers is increased in length;
is decorated with the graces of language, amplified
in detail, and rendered interesting by description;
until the brief and barren original bears as little
resemblance to the finished piece, as the <u>Iliad</u> of
Homer to the evanescent traditions, out of which
the blind bard wove his tale of Troy Divine. Hence
the opinion expressed by the ingenious Percy, and
assented to by Ritson himself. When about to
present to his readers an excellent analysis of the
old Romance of <u>Lybius Disconius,</u> and making several
remarks on the artificial management of the
story, the Bishop observes, that ``if an Epic poem
may be defined a fable related by a poet to excite
admiration and inspire virtue, by representing the
action of some one hero favoured by Heaven, who
executes a great design in spite of all the obstacles
that oppose him, I know not why we should withhold
the name of <u>Epic Poem</u> from the piece which
I am about to analyze.''<*></p>
</p>
<h2>And the author tells us, a little lower,</h2>
<p> Yet although this levelling proposition has been
laid down by Percy, and assented to by Ritson
(writers who have few opinions in common,) and
although, upon so general a view of the subject,
the <u>Iliad,</u> or even the <u>Odyssey,</u> of Homer might be
degraded into the class of Romances, as <u>Le Beau
Deconnu</u> is elevated into that of epic poems, there
lies in ordinary speech, and in common sense, as
wide a distinction between these two classes of composition,
as there is betwixt the rude mystery or
morality of the middle ages, and the regular drama
by which these were succeeded. Where the art and
the ornaments of the poet chiefly attract our attention---
where each part of the narrative bears a due
proportion to the others, and the whole draws gradually
towards a final and satisfactory conclusion---
where the characters are sketched with force, and
sustained with precision---where the narrative is
enlivened and adorned with so much, and no more,
of poetical ornament and description, as may adorn,
without impeding its progress---where this art and
taste are displayed, supported, at the same time, by
a sufficient tone of genius, and art of composition,
the work produced must be termed an Epic Poem,
and the author may claim his seat upon the high
and honoured throne occupied by Homer, Virgil,
and Milton. On the other hand, when a story
languishes in tedious and minute details, and relies
for the interest which it proposes to excite, rather
upon the wild excursions of an unbridled fancy, than
upon the skill of the poet---when the supernatural
and the extraordinary are relied upon exclusively
as the supports of the interest, the author, though
his production may be distinguished by occasional
flashes of genius, and though it may be interesting
to the historian, as containing some minute fragments
of real events, and still more so to the antiquary,
from the light which it throws upon ancient
manners, is still no more than a humble romancer,
and his works must rank amongst those rude ornaments
of a dark age, which are at present the subject
of our consideration. Betwixt the extremes of
the two classes of composition, there must, no doubt,
exist many works, which partake in some degree of
the character of both; and after having assigned
most of them each to their proper class, according
as they are distinguished by regularity of composition
and poetical talent, or, on the contrary, by
extravagance of imagination, and irregularity of
detail, there may still remain some, in which these
properties are so equally balanced, that it may be
difficult to say to which class they belong. But although
this may be the case in a very few instances,
our taste and habits readily acknowledge as complete
and absolute a difference betwixt the Epopeia
and Romance, as can exist betwixt two distinct
species of the same generic class.</p>
<p> We have said of Romance, that it first appears
in the form of metrical history, professes to be a
narrative of real facts, and is, indeed, nearly allied
to such history as an early state of society affords;
which is always exaggerated by the prejudices and
partialities of the tribe to which it belongs, as well
as deeply marked by their idolatry and superstition.
These it becomes the trade of the romancers still
more to exaggerate, until the thread of truth can
scarce be discerned in the web of fable which involves
it; and we are compelled to renounce all
hope of deriving serious or authentic information
from the materials upon which the compounders
of fiction have been so long at work, from one
generation to another, that they have at length
obliterated the very shadow of reality or even probability.</p>
<p> The view we have given of the origin of Romance
will be found to agree with the facts which the researches
of so many active investigators of this
curious subject have been able to ascertain. It is
found, for example, and we will produce instances
in viewing the progress of Romance in particular
countries, that the earliest productions of this sort,
known to exist, are short narrations or ballads,
which were probably sung on solemn or festival
occasions, recording the deeds and praises of some
famed champion of the tribe and country, or perhaps
the history of some remarkable victory or signal
defeat, calculated to interest the audience by the
associations which the song awakens. These poems,
of which very few can now be supposed to exist,
are not without flashes of genius, but brief, rude,
and often obscure, from real antiquity or affected
sublimity of diction. The song on the battle of
Brunanburgh, preserved in the <u>Saxon Chronicle,</u> is
a genuine and curious example of this aboriginal
style of poetry.</p>
<p> Even at this early period,<*> there may be observed</p>
<p>The volume proves to be no other than Ovid's <u>Metamorphoses;</u>
and Chaucer, by applying to that
work the name of Romance, sufficiently establishes
that the word was, in his time, correctly employed
under the modern acceptation.</p>
<p>or, in fine, the mythological and fabulous history
of all early nations.<p> However different the Spiritual Romance may
be from the temporal in scope and tendency, the
nature of the two compositions did not otherwise
greatly differ. The structure of verse and style of
composition was the same; and the induction, even
when the most serious subject was undertaken,
exactly resembled that with which minstrels introduced
their idle tales, and often contained allusions
to them. Warton quotes a poem on the Passions,
which begins,<p> ``I hereth one lutele tale, that Ich eu wille telle,
As wi vyndeth hit invrite in the godspelle,
Nuz hit nouht of Charlemeyne ne of the Duzpere,
Ac of Criste's thruurynge,'' &c.</p>
</p>
<p> The Temporal Romances, on the other hand,
often commenced by such invocations of the Deity,
as would only have been in place when a much
more solemn subject was to be agitated. The exordium
of the Romance of <u>Ferumbras</u> may serve
as an example of a custom almost universal:<p> ``God in glorye of mightis moost
That all things made in sapience.
By virtue of Word and Holy Gooste,
Giving to men great excellence,'' &c.</p>
</p>
<p> The distresses and dangers which the knight
endured for the sake of obtaining earthly fame and
his mistress's favour, the saint or martyr was exposed
to for the purpose of securing his rank in
heaven, and the favour of some beloved and peculiar
patron saint. If the earthly champion is in peril
from monsters, dragons, and enchantments, the spiritual
hero is represented as liable to the constant
assaults of the whole invisible world, headed by the
ancient dragon himself. If the knight is succoured
at need by some favouring fairy or protecting
genius, the saint is under the protection not only
of the whole heavenly host, but of some one divine
patron or patroness who is his especial auxiliary.
Lastly, the conclusion of the Romance, which
usually assigns to the champion a fair realm, an
abundant succession, and a train of happy years,
consigns to the martyr his fane and altar upon
earth, and in heaven his seat among saints and
angels, and his share in a blessed eternity. It remains
but to say, that the style and language of
these two classes do not greatly differ, and that the
composers of both employ the same structure of
rhythm and of language, and draw their ideas and
their incidents from similar sources; so that, having
noticed the existence of the Spiritual Romance,
it is unnecessary for the present to prosecute this
subject farther.</p>
<p> Another early and natural division of these works
of fiction seems to have arranged them into <u>Serious</u>
and <u>Comical.</u> The former were by far the most
numerous, and examples of the latter are in most
countries comparatively rare. Such a class, however,
existed as proper Romances, even if we hold
the Comic Romance distinct from the <u>Contes</u> and
<u>Fabliaux</u> of the French, and from such jocular
English narratives as the <u>Wife Lapt in Moril's
Skin, The Friar and the Boy,</u> and similar humorous
tales: of which the reader will find many examples
in Ritson's <u>Ancient English Poetry,</u> and in other
collections. The scene of these <u>gestes</u> being laid
in low, or at least in ordinary life, they approach
in their nature more nearly to the class of novels,
and may, perhaps, be considered as the earliest
specimens of that kind of composition. But the
proper Comic Romance was that in which the high
terms and knightly adventures of chivalry were
burlesqued, by ascribing them to clowns, or others
of a low and mean degree. Such compositions
formed, as it were, a parody on the Serious Romance,
to which they bore the same proportion as
the anti-masque, studiously filled with grotesque,
absurd, and extravagant characters, ``entering,''
as the stage direction usually informs us, ``to a confused
music,'' bore to the masque itself, where all
was dignified, noble, stately, and harmonious.</p>
<p> An excellent example of the Comic Romance is
the <u>Tournament of Tottenham,</u> printed in Percy's
<u>Reliques,</u> in which a number of clowns are introduced
practising one of those warlike games, which
were the exclusive prerogative of the warlike and
noble. They are represented making vows to the
swan, the peacock, and the ladies; riding a tilt on
their clumsy cart-horses, and encountering each
other with plough-shares, and flails; while their
defensive armour consisted of great wooden bowls
and troughs, by way of helmets and cuirasses. The
learned editor seems to have thought this singular
composition was, like Don Quixote, with which he
compares it, a premeditated effort of satire, written
to expose the grave and fantastic manners of the
Serious Romance. This is considering the matter
too deeply, and ascribing to the author of the
<u>Tournament of Tottenham</u> a more critical purpose
than he was probably capable of conceiving. It is
more natural to suppose that his only ambition was
to raise a laugh, by ascribing to the vulgar the
manners and exercises of the noble and valiant; as
in the well-known farce of <u>High Life below Stairs,</u>
the ridicule is not directed against the manners
described, but against the menials who affect those
that are only befitting their superiors.</p>
<p> The <u>Hunting of the Hare,</u> published in the
collection formed by the late industrious and accurate
Mr. Weber, is a comic Romance of the same
order. A yeoman informs the inhabitants of a
country hamlet that he has found a hare sitting,
and inquires if there is any gentleman near who
keeps greyhounds, for the purpose of coursing her.
The villain to whom he communicates this information
replies, there is no need of sending for a
gentleman's assistance, and proceeds to enumerate
the catalogue of ban-dogs, which are the property
of himself and the other clowns of the village:<p> ``Hob Andrew Y thykne on now,
He has a dogge wyll take a sow,
And bryng hur to the cowtte:
Ther is no thyng he wyll forsake,
Ye schall se hym this hare take,
And gnaw ate hur throwtte.</p>
<p> ``Parkyn the potter, hase iij that wyll not fayll;
Short schonkes and neuer a tayll:
No kalfe so greyt, as Y wene,
So has Dykon and Jac Gryme,
So has yonge Raynall and Sym,
And all the schall hom sene.''</p>
</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li><u>Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,</u> III. xxvii. The Prelate
* is citing a discourse on Epic Poetry, prefixed to _Telemachus._---S.<p> It can hardly be supposed the satire is directed
against the sport of hunting itself; since the whole
ridicule arises out of the want of the necessary
knowledge of its rules, incident to the ignorance
and inexperience of the clowns, who undertook to
practise an art peculiar to gentlemen.</p>
<p> The ancient poetry of Scotland furnishes several
examples of this ludicrous style of romantic composition;
as the <u>Tournament at the Drum,</u> and the
<u>Justing of Watson and Barbour,</u> by Sir David
Lindsay. It is probable that these mock encounters
were sometimes acted in earnest; at least King
James I. is accused of witnessing such practical
jests; ``sometimes presenting David Droman and
Archie Armstrong, the King's fool, on the back of
other fools, to tilt at one another till they fell together
by the ears.''---(Sir Anthony Weldon's <u>Court
of King James.</u>)</p>
<p> In hastily noticing the various divisions of the
Romance, we have in some degree delayed our promised
account of its rise and progress; an inquiry
which we mean chiefly to confine to the Romance
of the middle ages. It is indeed true that this
species of composition is common to almost all
nations, and that even if we deem the <u>Iliad</u> and
<u>Odyssey</u> compositions too dignified by the strain of
poetry in which they are composed to bear the
name of Metrical Romances; yet we have the
Pastoral Romance of <u>Daphnis and Chloe,</u> and the
Historical Romance of <u>Theagenes and Chariclea,</u>
which are sufficiently accurate specimens of that
style of composition. <u>The Milesian Fables,</u> and the
Romances of Antonius Diogenes, described by
Photius, could they be recovered, would also, be
found to belong to the same class. It is impossible
to avoid noticing that the Sybarites, whose luxurious
habits seem to have been intellectual, as well
as sensual, were peculiarly addicted to the perusal
of the Milesian Fables; from which we may conclude
that the narratives were not of that severe
kind which inspired high thoughts and martial virtues.
But there would be little advantage derived
from extending our researches into the ages of classical
antiquity respecting a class of compositions,
which, though they existed then, as in almost every
stage of society, were neither so numerous nor of
such high repute as to constitute any considerable
portion of that literature.</p>
<p> Want of space also may entitle us to dismiss the
consideration of the Oriental Romances, unless in
so far as in the course of the middle ages they came
to furnish materials for enlarging and varying the
character of the Romances of knight-errantry. That
they existed early, and were highly esteemed both
among the Persians and Arabians, has never been
disputed; and the most interesting light has been
lately thrown on the subject by the publication of
<u>Antar,</u> one of the most ancient as well as most
rational, if we may use the phrase, of the Oriental
fictions.<*> The Persian Romance of the <u>Sha-Nameh</u></p>
</li>
<li>The religious Romances of <u>Jehosaphat</u> and <u>Barlaam</u> were
<em> composed by John of Damascus in the eighth century.---S.
</em> ``The history of <u>Jehosaphat</u> and <u>Barlaam,</u> which was written
<em> to inspire a taste for the ascetic virtues, seems to have been the
</em> origin of Spiritual romance. It is true, that in the first ages
<em> of the Church, many fictitious gospels were composed, full
</em> of improbable fables; but as they contained opinions in contradiction
<em> to what was deemed the orthodox faith, they were
</em> discountenanced by the Fathers of the Church, and soon fell
<em> into disrepute. On the other hand, the history of <u>Jehosaphat</u>
</em> and <u>Barlaam,</u> which was more sound in its doctrines, passed
<em> at an early period into the west of Europe, and through the
</em> medium of the old Latin translation, which was a common
<em> manuscript, and was even printed so early as the year 1471
</em> it because a very general favourite.''---=Dunlop,= vol, iii,,
* p. 5.</li>
</ul>
<p>a distinction betwixt what may be called the <u>Temporal</u>
and <u>Spiritual</u> Romances; the first destined
to the celebration of worldly glory,---the second to
recording the deaths of martyrs and the miracles
of saints; both which themes unquestionably met
with an almost equally favourable reception from
their hearers. But although most nations possess,
in their early species of literature, specimens of
both kinds of Romance, the proportion of each, as
was naturally to have been expected, differs according
as the genius of the people amongst whom they
occur leaned towards devotion or military enterprise.
Thus, of the Saxon specimens of poetry,
which manuscripts still afford us, a very large proportion
is devotional, amongst which are several
examples of the Spiritual Romance, but very few
indeed of those respecting warfare or chivalry. On
the other hand, the Norman language, though rich
in examples of both kinds of Romances, is particularly
abundant in that which relates to battle and
warlike adventure. The Christian Saxons had
become comparatively pacific, while the Normans
were certainly accounted the most martial people
in Europe.<p> The European Romance, wherever it arises, and
in whatever country it begins to be cultivated, had
its origin in some part of the real or fabulous history
of that country; and of this we will produce, in the
sequel, abundant proofs. But the simple tale of
tradition had not passed through many mouths, ere
some one, to indulge his own propensity for the
wonderful, or to secure by novelty the attention of
his audience, augments the meagre chronicle with
his own apocryphal inventions. Skirmishes are elevated
into great battles; the champion of a remote
age is exaggerated into a sort of demi-god; and the
enemies whom he encountered and subdued are
multiplied in number, and magnified in strength,
in order to add dignity to his successes against
them. Chanted to rhythmical numbers, the songs
which celebrate the early valour of the fathers of
the tribe become its war-cry in battle, and men
march to conflict hymning the praises and the deeds
of some real or supposed precursor who had marshalled
their fathers in the path of victory. No
reader can have forgotten, that when the decisive
battle of Hastings commenced, a Norman minstrel,
Taillefer, advanced on horseback before the invading
host, and gave the signal for onset, by singing
the <u>Song of Roland,</u> that renowned nephew of
Charlemagne, of whom Romance speaks so much,
and history so little; and whose fall, with the chivalry
of Charles the Great in the pass of Roncesvalles,
has given rise to such clouds of romantic
fiction, that its very name has been for ever associated
with it. The remarkable passage has been
often quoted from the <u>Brut of Wace,</u> an Anglo-Norman
metrical chronicle.<p> ``Taillefer, qui moult bien chantont
Sur un cheval gi tost alont,
Devant le Duc alont chantant
De Karlemaigne et de Rollant,
Et d'Oliver et des vassals,
Qui morurent en Rencevals.''</p>
</p>
</p>
<p>When the chase is assembled, the yeoman puts up
the hare, who with little difficulty makes her escape
from the mongrel mastiffs, and breaks a ring which
had been formed by the peasants, armed with their
great clubs and bats. Great is the terror of the
individual over whom she ran in her retreat, and
who expected fully that she would have torn his
throat out. The inexperienced curs and mastiffs,
instead of pursuing the game, commence a battle-royal
amongst themselves,---their masters take part
in the fray, and beat each other soundly. In short,
the hunting of the hare, scarce less doleful than
that of Cheviot, concludes like the latter, with the
women of the village coming to carry off the
wounded and slain.<p> ``Taillefer, who sung both well and loud,
Came mounted on a courser proud;
Before the Duke the minstrel sprung,
And loud of Charles and Roland sung,
Of Oliver and champions mo,
Who died at fatal Roncevaux.''</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li><u>Antar,</u> a Bedoueen Romance, translated from the Arabic,
* by Terrick Hamilton, Esq., 4 vols. 8vo. London, 1819.<p> But neither with those romantic and metrical
chronicles did the mind long remain satisfied.
More details were demanded, and were liberally
added by the invention of those who undertook to
cater for the public taste in such matters. The
same names of kings and champions, which had
first caught the national ear, were still retained, in
order to secure attention; and the same assertions
of authenticity, and affected references to real history,
were stoutly made, both in the commencement
and in the course of the narrative. Each nation,
as will presently be seen, came at length to adopt
to itself a cycle of heroes like those of the <u>Iliad;</u>
a sort of common property to all minstrels who
chose to make use of them, under the condition always
that the general character ascribed to each
individual hero was preserved with some degree of
consistency. Thus, in the Romances of <u>The Round
Table,</u> Gawain is usually represented as courteous;
Kay as rude and boastful; Mordred as treacherous;
and Sir Launcelot as a true though a sinful
lover, and in all other respects a model of chivalry.
Amid the Paladins of Charlemagne, whose cycle
may be considered as peculiarly the property of
French in opposition to Norman-Anglo Romance,
Gan, or Ganelon of Mayence, is always represented
as a faithless traitor, engaged in intrigues for the
destruction of Christianity; Roland as brave, unsuspicious,
devotedly loyal, and somewhat simple in
his disposition; Renaud, or Rinaldo, who possessed
the frontier fortress, is painted with all the properties
of a borderer, valiant, alert, ingenious, rapacious,
and unscrupulous.<*> The same conventional</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>is well known to Europeans by name, and by copious
extracts; and the love-tale of _M<e'>jnoun and
Leilah_ is also familiar to our ears, if not to our
recollections. Many of the fictions in the extraordinary
collection of the <u>Arabian Tales,</u> that of Codadad
and his brethren, for example, approach
strictly to the character of Romances of Chivalry;
although in general they must be allowed to exceed
the more tame northern fictions in dauntless vivacity
of invention, and in their more strong tendency
to the marvellous. Several specimens of the Comic
Romance are also to be found mingled with those
which are serious; and we have the best and most
positive authority that the recital of these seductive
fictions is at this moment an amusement as fascinating
and general among the people of the East, as
the perusal of printed Romances and novels among
the European public. But a minute investigation
into this particular species of Romance would lead
us from our present field, already sufficiently extensive
for the limits to which our plan confines it.</p>
<h2>Which may be thus rendered:</h2>
<p> In the characters thus assigned to the individual
personages of romantic fiction, it is possible there
might be some slight foundation in remote tradition,
as there were also probably some real grounds
for the existence of such persons, and perhaps for
a very few of the leading circumstances attributed
to them. But these realities only exist as the few
grains of wheat in the bushel of chaff, incapable of
being winnowed out, or cleared from the mass of
fiction with which each new romancer had in his
turn overwhelmed them. So that Romance, though
certainly deriving its first original from the pure
font of History, is supplied, during the course of a
very few generations, with so many tributes from
the Imagination, that at length the very name comes
to he used to distinguish works of pure fiction.</p>
<p> When so popular a department of poetry has
attained this decided character, it becomes time to
inquire who were the composers of these numerous,
lengthened, and once admired narratives which are
called Metrical Romances, and from whence they
drew their authority. Both these subjects of discussion
have been the source of great controversy
among antiquaries; a class of men who, be it said
with their forgiveness, are apt to be both positive
and polemical upon the very points which are least
susceptible of proof, and which are least valuable if
the truth could be ascertained; and which, therefore,
we would gladly have seen handled with more
diffidence, and better temper, in proportion to their
uncertainty.</p>
<p> The late venerable Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore,
led the way unwarily to this dire controversy,
by ascribing the composition of our ancient heroic
songs and metrical legends, in rather too liberal
language, to the minstrels, that class of men by
whom they were generally recited. This excellent
person, to whose memory the lovers of our ancient
lyre must always remain so deeply indebted, did
not, on publishing his work nearly fifty years ago,
see the rigid necessity of observing the utmost and
most accurate precision either in his transcripts or
his definitions. The study which he wished to introduce
was a new one---it was his object to place
it before the public in an engaging and interesting
form; and, in consideration of his having obtained
this important point, we ought to make every allowance,
not only for slight inaccuracies, but for some
hasty conclusions, and even exaggerations, with
which he was induced to garnish his labour of love.
He defined the minstrels, to whose labours he
chiefly ascribed the metrical compositions on which
he desired to fix the attention of the public, as ``an
order of men in the middle ages, who subsisted by
the arts of poetry and music, and sung to the harp
verses composed by themselves or others.''<*> In a</p>
<p>This champion possessed the sleight-of-hand of the
juggler, as well as the art of the minstrel. He
tossed up his sword in the air, and caught it again
as he galloped to the charge, and showed other
feats of dexterity. Taillefer slew two Saxon warriors
of distinction, and was himself killed by a
third. Ritson, with less than his usual severe accuracy,
supposed that Taillefer sung some part of
a long metrical Romance upon Roland and his
history; but the words <u>chanson, cantilena</u> and <u>song,</u>
by which the composition is usually described, seems
rather to apply to a brief ballad or national song;
which is also more consonant with our ideas of the
time and place where it was chanted.</p>
<ul>
<li>With regard to historical traditions, Charlemagne was
<em> considered principally, nay, almost solely, as a religious conqueror;
</em> and the flame of all his other exploits merged in the
<em> warlike missions which he undertook for the purpose of converting
</em> the heathen to the Christian faith. In those days the
<em> defeat of his army at Roncesvalles created a greater sensation
</em> in the world than the destruction of the French army in Russia,
<em> did in ours; because Charlemagne and his heroes were
</em> deemed invincible, and it was thought that angels led them
<em> on; the uninformed and illiterate nations of Europe could
</em> neither separate truth from falsehood, nor rouse themselves
<em> from their state of stupid wonder by learning to attribute
</em> human events to natural causes. A few judicious writers
<em> endeavoured yet in vain to dispel this mental darkness. They
</em> had not the power of dispersing their works amongst the
<em> multitude; even sovereigns could not read; and it is said that
</em> even Charlemagne himself was unable to write his name.
<em> Great events became known to the public chiefly by oral communication;
</em> whilst the task of committing them to writing
<em> devolved wholly upon the clergy and it was their interest to
</em> bring religion into action on every occasion. When Charlemagne
<em> fought for the propagation of the faith, his victories
</em> were attributed to the co-operation of the celestial hierarchy;
<em> and when he was defeated in the Spanish passes, the credit
</em> of his defeat was given to Beelzebub and Satan. The preachers
<em> acted exactly the part of story-tellers, as it is now sustained
</em> by the Turkish dervises; and whenever they wrote on the
<em> subject, they converted the life of Charlemagne into a tissue
</em> of legends and miracles. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
<em> the church began to recover its learning and dignity;
</em> at that period legendary lore became the property of the story-tellers
<em> by profession. The marvellous tales which had once
</em> been repeated in the temples were retailed by the roadside.
<em> They quoted an their authority, a chronicle ascribed to Archbishop
</em> Turpin, but which he certainly never wrote. Pope
<em> Calixtus the Second, declared this chronicle to be authentic.
</em> Perhaps he was influenced by the advantages which resulted
<em> to the Papal See, by encouraging the growth of every species
</em> of credulity. The highest sanction was thus given to a collection
<em> of all the lies and absurdities concerning the court of
</em> Charlemagne and his exploits, which had ever been sung, or
<em> preached, or written. It may be easily conceived that these
</em> tales bear no resemblance to the truth, except that here and
<em> there an historical name may be discovered amongst the heroes.
</em> It has been justly observed by M. Merivale, that there
<em> is only one authentic document from the middle ages in which
</em> we find any mention of Orlando, the Roland of the French,
<em> and in this he appears as Ruitlandus, Governor of the Marches
</em> of Brittany; yet this obscure chieftain is the Achilles of romantic
<em> poetry. Dante himself, in spite of his historical accuracy,
</em> has adopted some fabulous traditions relating to this
<em> hero, and to the battle of Roncesvalles.
</em>
<em> ``Dapo la dolorosa rotta, quando
</em> Carlomagno perd<e`> la santa gesta,
<em> Non son<o`> si terribilmente Orlando!''
</em> <u>Quarterly Review,</u> vol. xxi., (1819.)
* <p> The late acute, industrious, and ingenious Mr.
Joseph Ritson, whose severe accuracy was connected
with an unhappy eagerness and irritability of
temper, took advantage of the exaggerations occasionally
to be found in the Bishop's <u>Account of
Ancient Minstrelsy,</u> and assailed him with terms
which are any thing but courteous. Without finding
an excuse, either in the novelty of the studies
in which Percy had led the way, or in the vivacity
of imagination which he did not himself share, he
proceeded to arraign each trivial inaccuracy as a
gross fraud, and every deduction which he considered
to be erroneous as a wilful untruth, fit to be
stigmatized with the broadest appellation by which
falsehood can be distinguished. Yet there is so
little room for this extreme loss of temper, that,
upon a recent perusal of both these ingenious essays,
we were surprised to find that the Reverend
Editor of the <u>Reliques,</u> and the accurate Antiquary,
have differed so very little, as, in essential facts,
they appear to have done. Quotations are, indeed,
made by both with no sparing hand; and hot arguments,
and, on one side at least, hard words, are
unsparingly employed; while, as is said to happen
in theological polemics, the contest grows warmer,
in proportion as the ground concerning which it is
carried on is narrower and more insignificant.
But notwithstanding all this ardour of controversy,
their systems in reality do not essentially differ.</p>
<p> Ritson is chiefly offended at the sweeping conclusion,
in which Percy states the minstrels as subsisting
by the arts of poetry and music, and reciting
to the harp verses composed by themselves and
others. He shows very successfully that this definition
is considerably too extensive, and that the
term minstrel comprehended, of old, not merely
those who recited to the harp or other instrument
romances and ballads, but others who were distinguished
by their skill in instrumental music only;
and, moreover, that jugglers, sleight-of-hand performers,
dancers, tumblers, and such like subordinate
artists, who were introduced to help away the
tedious hours in an ancient feudal castle, were also
comprehended under the general term of minstrel.
But although he distinctly proves that Percy's definition
applied only to one class of the persons
termed minstrels, those namely who sung or recited
verses, and in many cases of their own composition;
the bishop's position remains unassailable, in
so far as relates to one general class, and those the
most distinguished during the middle ages. All
minstrels did not use the harp, and recite or compose
romantic poetry; but it cannot be denied that
such was the occupation of the most eminent of the
order. This Ritson has rather admitted than denied;
and the number of quotations which his industry
has brought together, rendered such an admission
inevitable.</p>
<p> Indeed, the slightest acquaintance with ancient
Romances of the metrical class, shows us that they
were composed for the express purpose of being
recited, or, more properly, chanted, to some simple
tune or cadence for the amusement of a large audience.
Our ancestors, as they were circumscribed
in knowledge, were also more limited in conversational
powers than their enlightened descendants;
and it seems probable, that, in their public festivals,
there was great advantage found in the presence
of a minstrel, who should recite some popular
composition on their favourite subjects of love
and war, to prevent those pauses of discourse which
sometimes fall heavily on a company, even of the
present accomplished age, and to supply an agreeable
train of ideas to those guests who had few of
their own. It is, therefore, almost constantly insinuated,
that the Romance was to be chanted or recited
to a large and festive society, and in some part
or other of the piece, generally at the opening,
there is a request of attention on the part of the
performer; and hence, the perpetual ``Lythe and
listen, lordings free,'' which in those, or equivalent
words, forms the introduction to so many Romances.
As, for example, in the old poem of <u>Guy
and Colbrand,</u> the minstrel speaks of his own occupation:<p> ``When meat and drink is great plentye,
Then lords and ladyes still will be,
And sit and solace lythe.
Then it is time for mee in speake,
Of kern knights and kempes greate,
Such carping for to kythe.''</p>
</p>
<p> Chaucer, also, in his Ryme of Sir Thopas, assigns
to the minstrels of his hero's household the same
duty of reciting Romances of spiritual or secular
heroes, for the good knight's pastime while arming
for battle:<p> ``Do cum,'' he sayd, ``my minestrales,
And jestours for to tellen tales
Anon in min arming,
Of romaunces that ben reales,
Ot popes and of cardinales,
And eke of love-longing.''</p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>distinctions may be traced in the history of the
Nibelung, a composition of Scandinavian origin,
which has supplied matter for so many Teutonic
Romances. Meisteir Hildebrand, Etzel, Theodorick,
and the champion Hogan, as well as Crimhilda
and the females introduced, have the same individuality
of character, which is ascribed, in Homer's
immortal writings, to the wise Ulysses, the brave
but relentless Achilles, his more gentle friend Patroclus,
Sarpedon the favourite of the gods, and
Hector the protector of mankind. It was not permitted
to the invention of a Greek poet to make
Ajax a dwarf, or Teucer a giant, Thersites a hero,
or Diomedes a coward; and it seems to have been
under similar restrictions respecting consistency,
that the ancient romancers exercised their ingenuity
upon the materials supplied them by their
predecessors. But, in other respects, the whole
store of romantic history and tradition was free to
all as a joint stock in trade, on which each had a right
to draw as suited his particular purposes. He was
at liberty not only to select a hero out of known
and established names which had been the theme
of others, but to imagine a new personage of his
own pure fancy, and combine him with the heroes
of Arthur's Table or Charlemagne's Court, in the
way which best suited his fancy. He was permitted
to excite new wars against those bulwarks of
Christendom, invade them with fresh and innumerable
hosts of Saracens, reduce them to the last extremity,
drive them from their thrones, and lead
them into captivity, and again to relieve their persons,
and restore their sovereignty, by events and
agents totally unknown in their former story.<p> ``To harp and carp, Thomas, wheresoever ye gon,
Thomas take the these with the''------
``Harping,'' he said, ``ken I non,
For tong is chefe of Mynstralse.''<*></p>
</p>
<ul>
<li><u>Essay on Ancient Minstrels in England,</u> prefixed to the
* first volume of Bishop Percy's <u>Reliques.</u></li>
</ul>
<p>very learned and elegant essay upon the text thus
announced, the reverend Prelate in a great measure
supported the definition which he had laid
down; although it may be thought that, in the first
editions at least, he has been anxious to view the
profession of the minstrels on their fairest and most
brilliant side; and to assign to them a higher station
in society than a general review of all the passages
connected with them will permit us to give
to a class of persons, who either lived a vagrant
life, dependent on the precarious taste of the public
for a hard-earned maintenance, or, at best were
retained as a part of the menial retinue of some
haughty baron, and in a great measure identified
with his musical band.<p> That the minstrels were also the authors of many
of these poems, and that they altered and enlarged
others, is a matter which can scarce be doubted,
when it is proved that they were the ordinary reciters
of them. It was as natural for a minstrel to
become a poet or composer of Romances, as for a
player to be a dramatic author, or a musician a
composer of music. Whatever individual among
a class, whose trade it was to recite poetry, felt the
least degree of poetical enthusiasm in a profession
so peculiarly calculated to inspire it, must, from
that very impulse, have become an original author,
or translator at least: thus giving novelty to his
recitations, and acquiring additional profit and fame.
Bishop Percy, therefore, states the case fairly in
the following passage:---``It can hardly be expected,
that we should be able to produce regular and
unbroken annals of the minstrel art and its professors,
or have sufficient information, whether every
minstrel or bard composed himself, or only repeated
the songs he chanted. Some probably did the one,
and some the other; and it would have been wonderful
indeed, if men, whose peculiar profession it
was, and who devoted their time and talents to
entertain their hearers with poetical compositions,
were peculiarly deprived of all poetical genius themselves,
and had been under a physical incapacity of
composing those common popular rhymes, which
wore the usual subjects of their recitation.''<*> While,</p>
</p>
<p>Not to multiply quotations, we will only add one of
some importance, which must have escaped Ritson's
researches; for his editorial integrity was
such, as rendered him incapable of suppressing evidence
on either side of the question. In the old
Romance or legend of <u>True Thomas and the Queen
of Elfland,</u> Thomas the Rhymer, himself a minstrel,
is gifted by the Queen of the Fairy with the
faculties of music and song. The answer of Thomas
is not only conclusive as to the minstrel's custom of
recitation, but shows that it was esteemed the highest
branch of his profession, and superior as such
to mere instrumental music:</p>
<ul>
<li>Jamieson's <u>Popular Ballads,</u> vol. ii., p. 27.---S.<p> Nay, besides a truant disposition to a forbidden
task, many of the grave authors may have alleged,
in their own defence, that the connexion between
history and Romance was not in their day entirely
dissolved. Some eminent men exercised themselves
in both kinds of composition; as, for example,
Maitre Wace, a canon of Caen, in Normandy, who,
besides the metrical chronicle of <u>La Brut,</u> containing
the earliest history of England, and other historical
legends, wrote, in 1155, the <u>Roman de Chevalier
de Lyon,</u> probably the same translated under
the title of <u>Ywain and Gawain.</u> Lambert li Cors,
and Benoit de Saint-Maur, seem both to have been
of the clerical order; and, perhaps, Chretien de
Troyes, a most voluminous author of Romance,
was of the same profession. Indeed, the extreme
length of many Romances being much greater than
any minstrel could undertake to sing at one or even
many sittings, may induce us to refer them to men
of a more sedentary occupation than those wandering
poets. The religions Romances were, in all
probability, the works of such churchmen as might
wish to reconcile an agreeable occupation with their
religious profession. All which circumstances must
be received as exceptions from the general proposition,
that the Romances in metre were the composition
of the minstrels by whom they were recited
or sung, though they must still leave Percy's
proposition to a certain extent unimpeached.</p>
<p> To explain the history of Romance, it is necessary
to digress a little farther concerning the condition
of the minstrels by whom these compositions
were often made, and, generally speaking, preserved
and recited. And here it must be confessed,
that the venerable Prelate has, perhaps, suffered
his love of antiquity, and his desire to ennoble the
productions of the middle ages, a little to overcolour
the importance and respectability of the minstrel
tribe; although his opponent Ritson has, on the
other hand, seized on all circumstances and inferences
which could be adduced to prove the degradation
of the minstrel character, without attending
to the particulars by which those depreciating circumstances
were qualified. In fact, neither of these
excellent antiquaries has cast a general or philosophic
glance on the necessary condition of a set of
men, who were by profession the instruments of the
pleasure of others during a period of society such
as was presented in the middle ages.</p>
<p> In a very early period of civilisation, ere the division
of ranks has been generally adopted, and
while each tribe may be yet considered as one great
family, and the nation as a union of such independent
tribes, the poetical art, so nearly allied to that
of oratory or persuasion, is found to ascertain to its
professors a very high rank. Poets are, then, the
historians and often the priests of the society.
Their command of language, then in its infancy,
excites not merely pleasure, hut enthusiasm and
admiration. When separated into a distinct class,
as was the case with the Celtic Bards, and, perhaps,
with the Skalds of Scandinavia, they rank high in
the scale of society, and we not only find kings and
nobles listening to them with admiration, but emulous
of their art, and desirous to be enrolled among
their numbers. Several of the most renowned
northern kings and champions, valued themselves
as much upon their powers of poetry as on their
martial exploits; and of the Welsh princes, the
Irish kings, and the Highland chiefs of Scotland,
very many practised the arts of poetry and music.
Llywarch Hon was a prince of the Cymraig,---
Brian Boromhe, a harper and a musician,---and,
without resorting to the questionable authenticity
of Ossian, several instances of the same kind might
be produced in the Highlands.</p>
<p> But, in process of time, when the classes of society
come to assume their usual gradation with
respect to each other, the rank of professional poets
is uniformly found to sink gradually in the scale,
along with that of all others whose trade it is to
contribute to mere amusement. The professional
poet, like the player or the musician, becomes the
companion and soother only of idle and convivial
hours; his presence would be unbecoming on occasions
of gravity and importance; and his art is
accounted at best an amusing but useless luxury.
Although the intellectual pleasure derived from
poetry, or from the exhibition of the drama, be of
a different and much higher class than that derived
from the accordance of sounds, or from the exhibition
of feats of dexterity, still it will be found,
that the opinions and often the laws of society,
while individuals of these classes are cherished and
held in the highest estimation, have degraded the
professions themselves among its idle, dissolute,
and useless appendages. Although it may be accounted
ungrateful in mankind thus to reward the
instruments of their highest enjoyments, yet some
justification is usually to be drawn from the manners
of the classes who were thus lowered in public
opinion. It must be remembered, that, as professors
of this joyous science, as it was called, the
minstrels stood in direct opposition to the more
severe part of the Catholics, and to the monks in
particular, whose vows bound them to practise virtues
of the ascetic order, and to look upon every
thing as profane which was connected with mere
worldly pleasure. The manners of the minstrels
themselves gave but too much room for clerical
censure. They were the usual assistants at scenes,
not merely of conviviality, but of license; and, as
the companions and encouragers of revelling and
excess, they became contemptible in the eyes, not
only of the aged and the serious, but of the libertine
himself, when his debauch palled on his recollection.
The minstrels, no doubt, like their brethren
of the stage, sought an apology in the corrupted
taste and manners of their audience, with which
they were obliged to comply, under the true but
melancholy condition, that<p> ``they who live to please must please to live.''<*></p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>We, therefore, arrive at the legitimate conclusion,
that although, under the general term minstrels,
were comprehended many who probably entertained
the public only with instrumental performances,
with ribald tales, with jugglery, or farcical representations,
yet one class amongst them, and that a
numerous one, made poetical recitations their chief
if not their exclusive occupation. The memory of
these men was, in the general case, the depository
of the pieces which they recited; and hence, although
a number of their Romances still survive,
very many more have doubtless fallen into oblivion.</p>
<ul>
<li><u>Essay on the Ancient Minstrels,</u> p. 30.---Another authority
<em> of ancient date, the <u>Chronicle</u> of Bertrand Guesclin, distinctly
</em> attributes the most renowned Romances to the composition
<em> of the minstrels by whom they were sung. As the passage
</em> will be afterwards more fully quoted, we may here only say,
<em> that after enumerating Arthur, Lancelot, Godfrey, Roland,
</em> and other champions, he sums up his account of them as being
<em> the heroes
</em>
* ``De quoi cils minestriers font le noble romans.''---S.<p> It may be presumed, that, although the class of
minstrels, like all who merely depend upon gratifying
the public, carried in their very occupation the
evils which first infected, and finally altogether
depraved, their reputation; yet, in the earlier ages,
their duties were more honourably estimated, and
some attempts were made to introduce into their
motley body the character of a regular establishment,
subjected to discipline and subordination.
Several individuals, both of France and England,
bore the title of King of Minstrels, and were invested
probably with some authority over the others.
The Serjeant of Minstrels is also mentioned; and
Edward IV. seems to have attempted to form a
Guild or exclusive Corporation of Minstrels. John
of Gaunt, at an earlier period, established (between
jest and earnest, perhaps) a Court Baron of Minstrels,
to be held at Tilbury. There is no reason,
however, to suppose, that the influence of their establishments
went far in restraining the license of a
body of artists so unruly as well as numerous.</p>
<p> It is not, indeed, surprising that individuals,
whose talents in the arts of music, or of the stage,
rise to the highest order, should, in a special degree,
attain the regard and affection of the powerful,
acquire wealth, and rise to consideration; for, in
such professions, very high prizes are assigned only
to pre-eminent excellence; while ordinary or inferior
practisers of the same art may be said to draw
in the lottery something worse than a mere blank,
In the useful arts, a great equality subsists among
the members, and it is wealth alone which distinguishes
a tradesman or a mechanic from the
brethren of his guild; in other points their respectability
is equal. The worst weaver in the craft is
still a weaver, and the best, to all but those who
buy his web, is little more---as men they are entirely
on a level. In what are called the fine arts,
it is different; for excellence leads to the highest
points of consideration; mediocrity, and marked
inferiority, are the object of neglect and utter contempt.
Garrick, in his chariot, and whose company
was courted for his wit and talent, was, after all, by
profession, the same with the unfortunate stroller,
whom the British laws condemn as a vagabond, and
to whose dead body other countries refuse even the
last rites of Christianity. In the same manner it is
easy to suppose, that when, in compliance with the
taste of their age, monarchs entertained their domestic
minstrels,<*> those persons might be admitted</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>however, we acquiesce in the proposition, that the
minstrels composed many, perhaps the greater part,
of the metrical Romances which they sung, it is
evident they were frequently assisted in the task
by others, who, though not belonging to this profession,
were prompted by leisure and inclination to
enter upon the literary or poetical department as
amateurs. These very often belonged to the clerical
profession, amongst whom relaxation of discipline,
abundance of spare time, and impatience of
the routine of ceremonious duties, often led individuals
into worse occupations than the listening to
or composing metrical Romances. It was in vain
that both the poems and the minstrels who recited
them, were, by statute, debarred from entering the
more rigid monasteries. Both found their way frequently
to the refectory, and were made more welcome
than brethren of their own profession; as
we may learn from a memorable <u>Gest,</u> in which two
poor travelling priests, who had been received into
a monastery with acclamation, under the mistaken
idea of their being minstrels, are turned out in disgrace,
when it is discovered that they were indeed
capable of furnishing spiritual instruction, but understood
none of the entertaining arts with which
the hospitality of their hosts might have been repaid
by itinerant bards.</p>
<ul>
<li>Johnson's Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre,
* 1747.</li>
</ul>
<p>But this very necessity, rendered more degrading
by their increasing numbers and decreasing reputation,
only accelerated the total downfall of their
order, and the general discredit and neglect into
which they had fallen. The statute of the 39th of
Queen Elizabeth, passed at the close of the sixteenth
century, ranks those dishonoured sons of
song among rogues and vagabonds, and appoints
them to be punished as such; and the occupation,
though a vestige of it was long retained in the habits
of travelling ballad-singers and musicians, sunk
into total neglect and contempt. Of this we shall
have to speak hereafter; our business being at present
with those Romances, which, while still in the
zenith of their reputation, were the means by which
the minstrels, at least the better and higher class
among them, recommended themselves to the favour
of their noble patrons, and of the audiences
whom they addressed.</p>
<ul>
<li>Berdic (Regis Joculator,) the jongleur or minstrel of William
<em> the Conqueror, had, as appears from the Doomesday
</em> record, three vills and five caracates of land in Gloucestershire
<em> without rent. Henry I. had a minstrel called Galfrid,
</em> who received an annuity from the Abbey of Hide.---S.</li>
</ul>
<p>to the most flattering intimacy with their royal
masters; sleep within the royal chamber,<*> amass</p>
<ul>
<li>A minstrel of Edward I., during that prince's expedition
<em> to the Holy Land, slept within his tent, and came to his assistance
</em> when an attempt was made to assassinate him.---S.</li>
</ul>
<p>considerable fortunes, found hospitals,<*> and receive</p>
<ul>
<li>The Priory and Hospital of Saint Bartholomew, in London,
<em> was founded in the reign of Henry I., by Royer, or Raher,
</em> a minstrel of that prince.---S.</li>
</ul>
<p>rewards singularly over-proportioned to the perquisites
of the graver professions;<*> and even practise,</p>
<ul>
<li>In 1441, the monks of Maxlock, near Coventry, paid a
<em> donation of four shillings to the minstrels of Lord Clinton for
</em> songs, harping, and other exhibitions, while, to a doctor who
<em> preached before the community in the same year, they assigned
</em> only sixpence.---S.<p> Respecting the style of their composition, Du
Cange informs us, that the minstrels sometimes
devoted their strains to flatter the great, and sing
the praises of those Princes by whom they were
protected; while he owns, at the same time, that
they often recommended to their hearers the path of
virtue and nobleness, and pointed out the pursuits
by which the heroes of Romance had rendered
themselves renowned in song.<*> He quotes from</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>in company with their royal masters, the pleasing
arts of poetry and music, which all are so desirous
of attaining;<*> whilst, a the same time, those who</p>
<ul>
<li>The noted anecdote of Blondel and his royal master,
* Richard C<oe>ur de Lion, will occur to every reader.---S.</li>
</ul>
<p>ranked lower in the same profession were struggling
with difficulty to gain a precarious subsistence, and
many, of a rank still more subordinate, were incurring
all the disgrace usually attached to a
vagabond life and a dubious character. In the
fine arts, we repeat, excellence is demanded, and
mere mediocrity is held contemptible; and, while
the favour with which the former is loaded, sometimes
seems disproportioned to the utility of the
art itself, nothing can exceed the scorn poured out
on those who expose themselves by undertaking
arts which they are unable to practise with success;
and it follows, that as excellence can only be the
property of a few individuals, the profession in general
must be regarded as a degraded one, though
these gifted persons are allowed to pass as eminent
exceptions to the general rule. Self-conceit, however,
love of an idle life, and a variety of combined
motives, never fail to recruit the lower orders of
such idle professions with individuals, by whose
performances, and often by their private characters,
the art which they have rashly adopted is discredited,
without any corresponding advantage to
themselves. It is not, therefore, surprising, that
while such distinguished examples of the contrary
appeared amongst individuals, the whole body of
minstrels, with the Romances which they composed
and sung, should be reprobated by graver historians
in such severe terms as often occur in the monkish
chronicles of the day.</p>
<ul>
<li>=Ministelli= dicti prasertim Scurr<ae>, mimi, joculatores,
<em> quos etiamnum vulgo <u>Menestreux</u> vel <u>Menestriers,</u> apellamus.
</em> ---Porro ejusmodi scurrarum erat Principes non suis duntaxat
<em> ludicris oblectare, set et eorum aures varii avorum,
</em> adeoque ipsorum Principum laudibus, non sine assentatione,
<em> cum cantilenis et musicis instrumentis, demulcere.---Interdum
</em> etiam viorum insignum et heroum gesta, aut explicata
<em> et jucunda narratione commemorabant, aut suavi vocis inflectione,
</em> fidibusque decantabant, quo sic dominorum, c<ae>terorumque
<em> qui his intererant ludicris, nobilium animos ad virtutem
</em> capessendam et summorum virorum imitationem accenderent:
<em> quod fuit olim apud Gallos Bardorum ministerium,
</em> ut auctor est Tacitus. Neque enim alios <a`> <u>Ministellis,</u> veterum
<em> Gallorum <u>Bardos</u> fuisse pluribus probat Henricus Valesius
</em> ad 15. Ammiani.---<u>Chronicon</u> Bertrandi Guesclini:
<em>
</em> _Qui veut avoir renom des bons et des vaillans
<em> Il doit aler souvent <a`> la plui et au champ,
</em> Et estre en la bataille, ainsy que fu Rollans,
<em> Les quatre fils Haimon et Charlon li plus grans,
</em> Li Dus Lions de Bourges, et Guion de Connans,
<em> Perceval li Galois, Lancelot et Tristans,
</em> Alexandres, Artus, Godefroy li sachans,
* De quoy cils Menestriers font les nobles Romans._---S.<p> The Romances, therefore, exhibited the same
system of manners which existed in the nobles of
the age. The character of a true son of chivalry
was raised to such a pitch of ideal and impossible
perfection, that those who emulated such renown
were usually contented to stop far short of the
mark. The most adventurous and unshaken valour,
a mind capable of the highest flights of romantic
generosity, a heart which was devoted to the will
of some fair idol, on whom his deeds were to reflect
glory, and whose love was to reward all his toils,---
these were attributes which all aspired to exhibit
who sought to rank high in the annals of chivalry;
and such were the virtues which the minstrels celebrated.
But, like the temper of a tamed lion, the
fierce and dissolute spirit of the age often showed
itself through the fair varnish of this artificial system
of manners. The valour of the hero was often
stained by acts of cruelty, or freaks of rash desperation;
his courtesy and munificence became solemn
foppery and wild profusion; his love to his lady
often demanded and received a requital inconsistent
with the honour of the object; and those who affected
to found their attachment on the purest and
most delicate metaphysical principles, carried on
their actual intercourse with a license altogether
inconsistent with their sublime pretensions. Such
were the real manners of the middle ages, and we
find them so depicted in these ancient legends.</p>
<p> So high was the national excitation in consequence
of the romantic atmosphere in which they
seemed to breathe, that the knights and squires of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries imitated the
wildest and most extravagant emprises of the
heroes of Romance; and, like them, took on themselves
the most extraordinary adventures, to show
their own gallantry, and do most honour to the
ladies of their hearts. The females of rank, erected
into a species of goddesses in public, and often degraded
as much below their proper dignity in more
private intercourse, equalled in their extravagances
the youth of the other sex. A singular picture is
given by Knyghton of the damsels-errant who attended
upon the solemn festivals of chivalry, in
quest, it may reasonably be supposed, of such adventures
as are very likely to be met with by such
females as think proper to seek them. ``These
tournaments are attended by many ladies of the
first rank and greatest beauty, but not always of
the most untainted reputation. These ladies are
dressed in party-coloured tunics, one half of one
colour, and the other half of another; their lirri-pipes,
or tippets, are very short; their caps remarkably
little, and wrapt about their heads with
cords; their girdles and ponchos are ornamented
with gold and silver; and they wear short swords,
called <u>daggers,</u> before them, a little below their
navels; they are mounted on the finest horses,
with the richest furniture. Thus equipped, they
ride from place to place in quest of tournaments,
by which they dissipate their fortunes, and sometimes
ruin their reputation.''---(Knyghton, quoted
in Henry's <u>History,</u> vol. viii., p. 402.)</p>
<p> The minstrels or those who aided them in the
composition of the Romances, which it was their
profession to recite, roused to rivalry by the unceasing
demand for their compositions, endeavoured
emulously to render them more attractive by subjects
of new and varied interest, or by marvellous
incidents which their predecessors were strangers
to. Much labour has been bestowed, somewhat unprofitably,
in endeavouring to ascertain the sources
from which they drew the embellishments of their
tales, when the hearers began to be tired of the
unvaried recital of battle and tournament which
had satisfied the simplicity of a former age. Percy
has contended for the Northern <u>Sagas</u> as the unquestionable
origin of the Romance of the middle
ages; Warton conceived that the <u>Oriental fables,</u>
borrowed by those minstrels who visited Spain, or
who in great numbers attended the crusades, gave
the principal distinctive colouring to those remarkable
compositions; and a later system, patronised
by later authors, has derived them in a great measure,
from the <u>Fragments of Classical Superstition,</u>
which continued to be preserved after the fall of
the Roman Empire. All those systems seem to
be inaccurate, in so far as they have been adopted,
exclusively of each other, and of the general proposition,
That fables of a nature similar to the Romances
of Chivalry, modified according to manners
and the state of society, must necessarily be invented
in every part of the world, for the same reason that
grass grows upon the surface of the soil in every
climate and in every country. ``In reality,'' says
Mr. Southey, who has treated this subject with his
usual ability, ``mythological and romantic tales are
current among all savages of whom we have any
full account: for man has his intellectual as well as
his bodily appetites, and these things are the food
of his imagination and faith. They are found whereever
there is language and discourse of reason, in
other words, wherever there is man. And in similar
stages of civilisation, or states of society, the
fictions of different people will bear a corresponding
resemblance, notwithstanding the difference of
time and scene.''<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>the Romance of <u>Bertrand Guesclin,</u> the injunction
on those who would rise to fame in arms to copy
the valiant acts of the Paladins of Charles, and the
Knights of the Round Table, narrated in Romances;
and it cannot be denied, that those high tales,
in which the virtues of generosity, bravery, devotion
to his mistress, and zeal for the Catholic religion,
were carried to the greatest height of romantic
perfection in the character of the hero, united
with the scenes passing around them, were of the
utmost importance in affecting the character of the
age. The fabulous knights of Romance were so
completely identified with those of real history, that
graver historians quote the actions of the former in
illustration of and as a corollary to, the real events
which they narrate.<*> The virtues recommended in<p> To this it may be added, that the usual appearances
and productions of nature offer to the fancy,
in every part of the world, the same means of
diversifying fictitious narrative by the introduction
of prodigies. If in any Romance we encounter the
description of an elephant, we may reasonably conclude
that a phenomenon, unknown in Europe,
must have been borrowed from the East; but whoever
has seen a serpent and a bird, may easily aggravate
the terrors of the former by conferring on
a fictitious monster the wings of the latter; and
whoever has seen or heard of a wolf, or lion, and
an eagle, may, by a similar exertion of invention,
imagine a griffin or hippogriff. It is imputing great
poverty to the human imagination, to suppose that
the <u>speciosa miracula,</u> which are found to exist in
different parts of the world, must necessarily be
derived from some common source; and perhaps
we should not err more grossly in supposing, that
the various kinds of boats, skiffs, and rafts, upon
which men have dared the ocean on so many
various shores, have been all originally derived
from the vessel of the Argonauts.</p>
<p> On the other hand, there are various romantic
incidents and inventions of a nature so peculiar
that we may boldly, and at once, refer them to
some particular and special origin. The tale of
<u>Flora and Blanchefleur,</u> for example, could only be
invented in the East, where the scene is laid, and
the manners of which are observed with some accuracy.
That of <u>Orfeo and Herodiis,</u> on the contrary,
is the classical history of Orpheus and
Eurydice, with the Gothic machinery of the Elves
or Fairies, substituted for the infernal regions.
But notwithstanding these and many other instances,
in which the subjects or leading incidents
of Romance can be distinctly traced to British or
Armorican traditions, to the tales and history of
Classic Antiquity, to the wild fables and rich
imagery of Arabia, or to those darker and sterner
themes which were first treated of by the Skalds
of the North, it would be assuming greatly too much
upon such grounds, to ascribe the derivation of
romantic fiction, exclusively to any one of these
sources. In fact, the foundation of these fables lies
deep in human nature, and the superstructures
have been imitated from various authorities by those
who, living by the pleasure which their lays of
chivalry afforded to their audience, were especially
anxious to recommend them by novelty of every
kind; and were undoubtedly highly gratified when
the report of travellers, or pilgrims, or perhaps
their own intercourse with minstrels of other
nations, enabled them to vary their usual narrations
with circumstances yet unheard in bower and
hall. Romance, therefore, was like a compound
metal, derived from various mines, and in the different
specimens of which one metal or other was
alternately predominant; and, viewed in this light,
the ingenious theories of those learned antiquaries,
who have endeavoured to seek the origin of this
style of fiction in one of these sources alone, to the
exclusion of all others, seem as vain as that of
travellers affecting to trace the proper head of the
Nile to various different springs, all of which are
allowed to be accessary to form the full majesty of
his current.</p>
<p> As the fashion of all things passes away, the
Metrical Romances began gradually to decline in
public estimation, probably on account of the depreciated
character of the minstrels by whom they
were recited. Tradition, says Ritson, is an alchymy,
which converts gold into lead; and there is
little doubt, that, in passing from mouth to mouth,
and from age to age, the most approved Metrical
Romances became gradually corrupted by the defect
of memory of some reciters, and the interpolations
of others; since few comparatively cam be
supposed to have had recourse to the manuscripts
in which some have been preserved. Neither were
the reciters in the latter, as in the former times,
supplied with new productions of interest and
merit. The composition of the Metrical Romance
was gradually abandoned to persons of an inferior
class. The art of stringing together in loose verse
a number of unconnected adventures, was too easy
not to be practised by many who only succeeded to
such a degree as was discreditable to the art, by
showing that mere mediocrity was sufficient to exercise
it. And the licentious character, as well as
the great number of those who, under the various
names of glee-men, minstrels, and the like, traversed
the country, and subsisted by this idle trade,
brought themselves and their occupation into still
greater contempt and disregard. With them, the
long recitations, formerly made at the tables of the
great, were gradually banished into more vulgar
society.<*></p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Barbour, the Scottish historian, censures a Highland chief,
<em> when, in commending the prowess of Bruce in battle, he likened
</em> him to the celtic hero Fin MacCoul, and says, he might in
<em> more mannerly fashion have compared him to Guadifer, a
</em> champion celebrated in the _Romance of Alexander._---S.<p> But though the form of those narratives underwent
a change of fashion, the appetite for the fictions
themselves continued as ardent as ever; and
the Prose Romances which succeeded, and finally
superseded those composed in verse, had a large
and permanent share of popularity. This was, no
doubt, in a great degree owing to the important
invention of printing, which has so much contributed
to alter the destinies of the world. The Metrical
Romances, though in some instances sent to the
press, were not very fit to be published in this form.
The dull amplifications, which passed well enough
in the course of a half-heard recitation, became intolerable
when subjected to the eye; and the public
taste gradually growing more fastidious as the
language became more copious, and the system of
manners more complicated, graces of style and
variety of sentiment were demanded instead of a
naked and unadorned tale of wonders. The authors
of the Prose Romance endeavoured, to the best of
their skill, to satisfy this newly awakened and more
refined taste. They used, indeed, the same sources
of romantic history which had been resorted to by
their metrical predecessors; and Arthur, Charlemagne,
and all their chivalry, were as much celebrated
in prose as ever they had been in poetic narrative.
But the new candidates for public favour
pretended to have recourse to sources of authentic
information, to which their metrical predecessors
had no access. They refer almost always to Latin
and sometimes to Greek originals, which certainly
had no existence; and there is little doubt that the
venerable names of the alleged authors are invented,
as well as the supposed originals from which
they are said to have translated their narratives.
The following account of the discovery of <u>La tres
elegante delicieux melliflue et tres plaisante Hystoire
du tres noble Roy Perceforest</u> (printed at Paris in
1528 by Galliot du Pr<e'>;)<*> may serve to show that</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Romance were, however, only of that overstrained
and extravagant cast which consisted with the spirit
of chivalry. Great bodily strength, and perfection
in all martial exercises, was the universal accomplishment
inalienable from the character of the
hero, and which each romancer had it in his power
to confer. It was also easily in the composer's
power to devise dangers, and to free his hero from
them by the exertion of valour equally extravagant.
But it was more difficult to frame a story which
should illustrate the manners as well as the feats of
Chivalry; or to devise the means of evincing that
devotion to duty, and that disinterested desire to
sacrifice all to faith and honour;---that noble spirit
of achievement which laboured for others more
than itself---which form, perhaps, the fairest side of
the system under which the noble youths of the
middle ages were trained up. The sentiments of
Chivalry, as we have explained in our article on
that subject, were founded on the most pure and
honourable principles, but unfortunately carried
into hyperbole and extravagance; until the religion
of its professors approached to fanaticism, their
valour to frenzy, their ideas of honour to absurdity,
their spirit of enterprise to extravagance, and their
respect for the female sex to a sort of idolatry.
All those extravagant feelings, which really existed
in the society of the middle ages, were magnified
and exaggerated by the writers and reciters of
Romance; and these, given as resemblances of
actual manners, became, in their turn, the glass by
which the youth of the age dressed themselves
while the spirit of Chivalry and of Romance thus
gradually threw light upon and enhanced each
other.</p>
<ul>
<li>Preface to Southey's edition of the <u>Morte D'Arthur,</u> vol.
* ii., Lond. 1817.---S.<p> By such details, the authors of the Prose Romances
endeavoured to obtain for their works a credit
for authenticity which had been denied to the
rhythmical legends. But in this particular they
did great injustice to their contemned predecessors,
whose reputations they murdered in order to rob
them with impunity. Whatever fragments or
shadowings of true history may yet remain hidden
under the mass of accumulated fable, which had
been heaped on them during successive ages, must
undoubtedly be sought in the Metrical Romances;
and, according to the view of the subject which we
have already given, the more the works approach
in point of antiquity to the period where the story
is laid, the more are we likely to find those historical
traditions in something approaching to an
authentic state. But those who wrote under the
imaginary names of Rusticien de Puise, Robert de
Borron, and the like, usually seized upon the subject
of some old minstrel; and, recomposing the whole
narrative after their own fashion, with additional
characters and adventures, totally obliterated in
that operation any shades which remained of the
first, and probably authentic, tradition, which was
the original source of the elaborate fiction. Amplification
was especially employed by the prose
romancers, who, having once got hold of a subject,
seem never to have parted with it until their power
of invention was completely exhausted. The Metrical
Romances, in some instances, indeed, ran to
great length, but were much exceeded in that particular
by the folios which were written on the same
or similar topics by their prose successors. Probably
the latter judiciously reflected, that a book
which addresses itself only to the eyes, may be laid
aside when it becomes tiresome to the reader;
whereas it may not always have been so easy to
stop the minstrel in the full career of his metrical
declamation.</p>
<p> Who, then, the reader may be disposed to inquire,
can have been the real authors of those prolix
works, who, shrouding themselves under borrowed
names, derived no renown from their labours,
if successful, and who, certainly, in the infant state
of the press, were not rewarded with any emolument?
This question cannot, perhaps, be very satisfactorily
answered; but we may reasonably suspect
that the long hours of leisure which the cloister
permitted to its votaries, were often passed away in
this manner; and the conjecture is rendered more
probable, when it is observed that matters are introduced
into those works which have an especial
connexion with sacred history, and with the traditions
of the Church. Thus, in the curious Romance
of <u>Huon de Bourdeaux,</u><*> a sort of second part is</p>
</li>
<li>``His wither'd cheek, and tresses grey,
<em> Seem'd to have known a better day;
</em> The bigots of the iron time
<em> Had call'd his harmless art a crime,
</em> A wandering harper, scorn'd and poor,
<em> He begg'd his bread from door to door,
</em> And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
<em> The harp a king had loved to hear.''
</em> <u>Lay of the Last Minstrel.</u></li>
<li>``_Perceforest_---which comprehends the fabulous history
<em> of Britain, previous to the age of Arthur. It is the longest
</em> and best known romance of the class to which it belongs, and
<em> is the work which St. Palaye, and similar writers, have chiefly
</em> selected for illustrations and proofs of the manners of the
<em> times, and the institutions of chivalry.
</em>
<em> ``It is strange that <u>Perceforest,</u> which sets all chronology,
</em> geography and probability at defiance, more boldly than almost
<em> any other romance, should begin with a profound, and
</em> by no means absurd, investigation concerning the topography
* of Britain, and the earliest ages of its history. Julius C<ae>sar,
<em> Pliny, Bede, and Solinus, are cited with the utmost ostentation
</em> of learning:---The author, however, soon enters on the
* regions of fiction.''---=Dunlop.= vol. i, p. 266<p> Churchmen, however, were by no means the only
authors of these legends, although the <u>Sires Clercs,</u>
as they were sometimes termed, who were accounted
the chroniclers of the times in which they lived,
were usually in orders; and although it appears
that it was upon them that the commands of the
sovereigns whom they served often imposed the
task of producing new Romances, under the usual
disguise of ancient chronicles translated from the
learned languages, or otherwise collected from the
ruins of antiquity. As education became improved,
and knowledge began to be more generally diffused,
individuals among the laity, and those of no mean
rank, began to feel the necessity, as it may be called,
of putting into a permanent form the ``thick-coming
fancies'' which gleam along the imagination
of men of genius. Sir Thomas Malory, who
compiled the <u>Morte d'Arthur</u> from French originals,
was a person of honour and worship; and
Lord Berners, the excellent translator of Froissart,
and author of a Romance called <u>The Chevalier de
la Cygne,</u> is an illustrious example that a nobleman
of high estimation did not think his time misemployed
on this species of composition. Some literary
fame must therefore have attended these
efforts; and perhaps less eminent authors might,
in the later ages, receive some pecuniary advantages.
The translator of <u>Perceforest,</u> formerly mentioned,
who appears to have been an Englishman
or Fleming, in his address to the warlike and invincible
nobility of France, holds the language of a
professional author, who expected some advantage
besides that of pleasing those whom he addressed;
and who expresses proportional gratitude for the
favourable reception of his former feeble attempts
to please them. It is possible, therefore, that the
publishers, these lions of literature, had begun already
to admit the authors into some share of their
earnings. Other printers, like the venerable Caxton,<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>modern authors were not the first who invented the
popular mode of introducing their works to the
world as the contents of a newly-discovered manuscript.
In the abridgement to which we are limited,
we can give but a faint picture of the minuteness
with which the author announces his pretended
discovery, and which forms an admirable example
of the lie with a circumstance. In the year 1286,
Count William of Hainault had, it is averred,
crossed the seas in order to be present at the nuptials
of Edward, and in the course of a tour through
Britain, was hospitably entertained at an abbey
situated on the banks of the Humber, and termed,
it seems, Burtimer, because founded by a certain
Burtimericus, a monarch of whom our annals are
silent, but who had gained, in that place, a victory
over the heathens of Germany. Here a cabinet,
which was enclosed in a private recess, had been
lately discovered within the massive walls of an
ancient tower, and was found to contain a Grecian
manuscript, along with a royal crown. The abbot
had sent the latter to King Edward, and the Count
of Hainault with difficulty obtained possession of the
manuscript. He had it rendered from Greek into
Latin by a monk of the abbey of Saint Landelain,
and from that language it is said to have been
translated into French by the author, who gives it
to the world in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and
for the edification of nobleness and chivalry.</p>
<ul>
<li>``<u>Huon de Bourdeaux,</u> though a romance of considerable
<em> antiquity, is not supposed to be anterior to the invention of
</em> printing, as there are no manuscripts of it extant. The oldest
<em> edition is one in folio, without date, and the second is in quarto,
</em> 1516. The English translation, executed by Lord Berners
<em> in the reign of Henry VIII., has gone through three editions,
</em> and it has lately formed the subject of the finest poem in the
<em> German language.''---[Wieland's _Oberon_]---=Dunlop,= vol. i.,
</em> p. 336.<p> The Prose Romance did not, in the general conduct
of the story, where digressions are heaped on
digressions, without the least respect to the principal
narrative, greatly differ from that of their metrical
predecessors, being to the full as tedious and
inartificial; nay, more so, in proportion as the new
Romances were longer than the old. In the transference
from verse to prose, and the amplification
which the scenes underwent in the process, many
strong, forcible, and energetic touches of the original
author have been weakened, or altogether lost;
and the reader misses with regret some of the redeeming
bursts of rude poetry which, in the Metrical
Romance, make amends for many hundred
lines of bald and rude versification. But, on the
other hand, the Prose Romances were written for
a more advanced stage of society, and by authors
whose language was much more copious, and who
certainly belonged to a more educated class than
the ancient minstrels. Men were no longer satisfied
with hearing of hard battles and direful wounds;
they demanded, at the hand of those who professed
to entertain them, some insight into nature, or at
least into manners; some description of external
scenery, and a greater regard to probability, both in
respect of the characters which are introduced, and
the events which are narrated. These new demands
the Prose Romances endeavoured to supply to the
best of their power. There was some attention
shown to relieve their story, by the introduction of
new characters, and to illustrate these personages
by characteristic dialogue. The lovers conversed
with each other in the terms of metaphysical gallantry,
which were used in real life; and, from being
a mere rhapsody of warlike feats, the Romance
began to assume the nobler and more artificial form
of a picture of manners. It is in the prose folios of
<u>Lancelot du Lac, Perceforest,</u> and others, that
antiquaries find recorded the most exact accounts
of fights, tournaments, feasts, and other magnificent
displays of chivalric splendour; and as they descend
into more minute description than the historians of
the time thought worthy of their pains, they are a
mine from which the painful student may extract
much valuable information. This, however, is not
the full extent of their merit. These ancient books,
amid many pages of dull repetition and uninteresting
dialect, and notwithstanding the languor of an
inartificial, protracted, and confused story, exhibit
from time to time passages of deep interest and
situations of much novelty, as well as specimens of
spirited and masculine writing. The general reader,
who dreads the labour of winnowing out these valuable
passages from the sterile chaff through which
they are scattered, will receive an excellent idea
of the beauties and defects of the Romance from
Tressan's <u>Corps d'Extraits de Romans de Chevalrie,</u>
from Mr. Ellis's <u>Specimens of Early English
Romances,</u> and from Mr. Dunlop's <u>History of
Fiction.</u></p>
<p> These works continued to furnish the amusement
of the most polished courts in Europe so long as
the manners and habits of Chivalry continued to
animate them. Even the sagacious Catherine of
Medicis considered the Romance of <u>Perceforest</u> as
the work best qualified to form the manners and
amuse the leisure of a young prince; since she
impressed on Charles IX. the necessity of studying
it with attention. But by degrees the progress of
new opinions in religion, the promulgation of a
stricter code of morality, together with the important
and animating discussions which began to be
carried on by means of the press, diverted the public
attention from these antiquated legends. The
Protestants of England, and the Huguenots of
France, were rigorous in their censure of books of
chivalry, in proportion as they had been patronised
formerly under the Catholic system; perhaps because
they helped to arrest men's thoughts from
more serious subjects of occupation. The learned
Ascham thus inveighs against the Romance of
<u>Morte d'Arthur,</u> and at the same time acquaints
us with its having passed out of fashion:</p>
<p> ``In our forefathers' tyme, when Papistrie, as a standyng
poole, covered and overflowed all <u>Englande,</u> fewe bookes were
read in our tongue savying certaine bookes of chevalrie, as
they said for pastime and pleasure; which, as some say, were
made in monasteries by idle monks or wanton chanons. As,
for example, <u>La Morte d'Arthur,</u> the whole pleasure of which
booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open manslaughter,
and bold bawdrye: in which booke they are counted the noblest
knightes that do kill most men without any quarrell, and
commit fowlest adultries by sutlest shiftes; as sir <u>Launcelote,</u>
with the wife of King <u>Arthur</u> his master; Sir <u>Tristram,</u> with
the wife of King <u>Marke</u> his uncle; Sir <u>Lamerocke,</u> with the
wife of King <u>Lote,</u> that was his own aunt. This is goode stuffe
for wise men to laughe at, or honest men to take pleasure at:
yet I know, when God's Bible was banished the court, and <u>La
Morte d'Arthur</u> received into the prince's chamber.''<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>added to that delightful history, in which the hero
visits the terrestrial paradise, encounters the first
murderer Cain, in the performance of his penance,
with more matter to the same purpose, not likely
to occur to the imagination of a layman; besides
that the laity of the period were, in general, too
busy and too ignorant to engage in literary tasks
of any kind. The mystical portion of the Romance
of the <u>Round Table</u> seems derived from the same
source. It may also be mentioned, that the audacious
and sometimes blasphemous assertions, which
claimed for those fictions the credit due even to the
inspired writings themselves, were likely to originate
amongst Roman Catholic churchmen, who
were but too familiar with such forgeries for the
purpose of authenticating the legends of their
superstition. One almost incredible instance of
this impious species of imposture occurs in the history
of the <u>Saint Graal,</u> which curious mixture
of mysticism and chivalry is ascribed by the unfearing
and unblushing writer to the Second Person
of the Trinity<p> The brave and religious La Noue is not more
favourable to the perusal of Romances than the
learned Ascham; attributing to the public taste for
those compositions the decay of morality among the
French nobility.</p>
<p> ``The ancient fables whose relikes doe yet remain namely,
<u>Lancelot of the Lake, Perceforest, Tristran, Giron the Courteous,</u>
and such others, doe beare witnesse of this olde vanitie;
herewith were men fed for the space of 500 yeeres, untill our
language growing more polished, and our mindes more ticklish,
they were driven to invent some nouelties wherewith to
delight us. Thus came ye bookes of <u>Amadis</u> into light among
us in this last age. But to say ye truth, <u>Spaine</u> bred th<e->, and
<u>France</u> new clothed th<e-> in gay garments. In ye daies of <u>Henrie
the Second</u> did they beare chiefest sway, and I think if any
man would then have reproved th<e->, he should have bene spit
at, because they were of themselves playfellowes and maintainers
to a great sort of persons; whereof some, after they
had learned to amize in speech, their teeth watered, so desirous
were they even to taste of some small morsels of the
delicacies therein most livelie and naturally represented.''<*></p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>William Caxton, the earliest English printer, was born in
<em> 1412, and died in 1492. The title of the first book he printed,
</em> ---being also the first book printed in the English language,
<em> runs: ``The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, composed
</em> and drawen out of diuerce bookes of Latyn into Frensshe, by
<em> the Ryght venerable persone and worshipful man, Raoul le
</em> Feure, &c.; and translated and drawn out of Frensshe into
<em> Englisshe, by William Caxton, mercer, of the cyte of London,
</em> at the commandement of the ryght hye myghty and vertuose
<em> Pryncesse, hys redoubted Lady Margareta &c., Duchesse of
</em> Borgoyne, &c.---Cologne, 1471.''<p> The gallant Mar<e'>chal proceeds at considerable
length to refute the arguments of those who contended,
that these books were intended as a spur
to the practice of arms and honourable exercises
amongst youth, and labours hard to show that they
teach dishonest practices both in love and in arms.
It is impossible to suppress a smile when we find
such an author as La Noue denouncing the introduction
of spells, witchcrafts, and enchantments
into these volumes, not because such themes are
absurd and nonsensical, but because the representing
such beneficent enchanters as Alquife and Urgunda,
is, in fact, a vindication of those who traffic
with the powers of darkness; and because those
who love to read about sorceries and enchantments
become, by degrees, familiarized with those devilish
mysteries, and may at length be induced to have
recourse to them in good earnest.</p>
<p> The Romances of Chivalry did not, however, sink
into disrepute under the stern rebuke of religious
puritans or severe moralists, but became gradually
neglected as the customs of chivalry itself fell into
disregard; when of course the books which breathed
its spirit, and were written under its influence,
ceased to produce any impression on the public
mind, and, superseded by better models of composition,
and overwhelmed with the ridicule of Cervantes,
sunk by degrees into utter contempt and
oblivion.</p>
<p> Other works of amusement, of the same general
class, succeeded the proper Romance of Chivalry.
Of these we shall take some notice hereafter; since
we must here close our general view of the history
of Romance, and proceed briefly to give some account
of those peculiar to the various European nations.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> II. We can here but briefly touch upon a subject
of great interest and curiosity, the peculiar character
and tone, namely, which the Romance of
Chivalry received from the manners and early history
of the nations among whom it is found to exist;
and the corresponding question, in what degree
each appears to have borrowed from other countries
the themes of their own minstrels, or to have
made use of materials common to the whole.</p>
<p> Scandinavia, as was to be expected, may be
safely considered as the richest country in Europe
in ancient tales corresponding with the character
of Romance; sometimes composed entirely in
poetry or rhythm, sometimes in prose, and much
more frequently in a mixture of prose, narrative,
and lyrical effusions. Their well-known Skalds, or
bards, held a high rank in their courts and councils.
The character of a good poet was scarce second
to that of a gallant leader, and many of the
most celebrated champions ambitiously endeavoured
to unite both in their own persons. Their earlier
sagas, or tales, approach to the credit of real
history, and were unquestionably meant as such,
though, as usual at an early period, debased by the
intermixture of those <u>speciosa miracula,</u> which the
love of the wonderful early introduces into the annals
of an infant country. There are, however,
very many of the sagas, indeed by far the greater
number of those now known to exist, which must
be considered as falling rather under the class of
fictitious than of real narratives; and which, therefore,
belong to our present subject of inquiry. The
<u>Omeyinger Saga,</u> the <u>Heimskringla,</u> the <u>Saga of
Olaf Triggwason,</u> the <u>Eyrbiggia Saga,</u> and several
others, may be considered as historical; whilst the
numerous narratives referring to the history of
the Nibilungen and Volsungen are as imaginary as
the Romances which treat of King Arthur and of
Charlemagne. These singular compositions, short,
abrupt, and concise in expression, full of bold and
even extravagant metaphor, exhibiting many passages
of forceful and rapid description, hold a character
of their own; and while they remind us of
the indomitable courage and patient endurance of
the hardy Scandinavians, at once the honour and
the terror of Europe, rise far above the tedious
and creeping style which characterised the minstrel
efforts of their successors, whether in France or
England. In the pine forests, also, and the frozen
mountains of the North, there were nursed, amid
the relics of expiring Paganism, many traditions of
a character more wild and terrible than the fables
of classical superstition; and these the gloomy imagination
of the Skalds failed not to transfer to their
romantic tales. The late spirit of inquiry, which
has been so widely spread through Germany, has
already begun to throw much light on this neglected
storehouse of romantic lore, which is worthy of
much more attention than has yet been bestowed
upon it in Britain. It must, however, be remarked,
that although the north possesses champions
and Romances of its own, unknown to southern
song, yet in a later age, the inhabitants of these
countries borrowed from the French minstrels
some of their most popular subjects; and hence we
find sagas on the subject of Sir Tristrem, Sir Percival,
Sir Ywain, and others, the well-known themes
of French and English Romance. These, however,
must necessarily be considered later in date,
as well as far inferior in interest, to the sagas of
genuine northern birth. Mr. Ritson has indeed
quoted their existence as depreciating the pretensions
of the northern nations to the possession of
poems of high antiquity of their own native growth.
Had he been acquainted with the _Norman-Ki<e`>mpe-Datur,_
a large folio, printed at Stockholm in 1737,
he would have been satisfied, that out of the numerous
collection of legends respecting the achievements
of Gothic champions, far the greater part
are of genuine Norse origin; and although having
many features in common with the Romances of
southern chivalry, are, in the other marked particulars,
distinctly divided from that class of fictitious
composition.</p>
<p> The country of Germany, lying contiguous to
France, and constantly engaged in friendly and
hostile intercourse with that great seat of romantic
fiction, became, of course, an early partaker in the
stores which it afforded. The minnesingers of the
Holy Empire were a race no less cherished than
the troubadours of Provence, or the minstrels of
Normandy; and no less active in availing themselves
of their indigenous traditions, or importing
those of other countries, in order to add to their
stock of romantic fiction. Godfred of Strasburgh
composed many thousand lines upon the popular
subject of Sir Tristrem; and others have been
equally copious, both as translators and as original
authors, upon various subjects connected with
French Romance; but Germany possessed materials,
partly borrowed from Scandinavia, partly
peculiar to her own traditional history, as well as
to that of the Roman empire, which they applied
to the construction of a cycle of heroes as famous in
Teutonic song as those of Arthur and Charlemagne
in France and Britain.</p>
<p> As in all other cases of the kind, a real conqueror,
the fame of whose exploits survived in tradition,
was adopted as the central object, around
whom were to be assembled a set of champions,
and with whose history was to be interwoven the
various feats of courage which they performed, and
the adventures which they underwent. Theodorick,
King of the Goths, called in these romantic
legends, Diderick of Bern (<u>i. e.</u> Verona,) was selected
for this purpose by the German minnesingers.
Amongst the principal personages introduced
are Ezzel, King of the Huns, who is no other than
the celebrated Attila; and Gunter, King of Burgundy,
who is identified with a Guntachar of history,
who really held that kingdom. The good
knight Wolfram de Eschenbach seems to have been
the first who assembled the scattered traditions and
minstrel tales concerning these sovereigns into one
large volume of German verse, entitled <u>Helden-Buch,</u>
or the Book of Heroes. In this the author
has availed himself of the unlimited license of a
romancer; and has connected with the history of
Diderick and his chivalry a number of detached
legends, which had certainly a separate and independent
existence.---Such is the tale of <u>Sigard the
Horny,</u> which has the appearance of having originally
been a Norse Saga. An analysis of this singular
piece was published by Mr. Weber, in a work
entitled <u>Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, from
the earlier Teutonic and Scandinavian Romances;</u>
and the subject has been fully illustrated by the
publications of the learned Von der Hagen in Germany,
and those of the Honourable William Herbert.</p>
<p> It is here only necessary to say, that Theodorick,
like Charlemagne and Arthur, is considered in the
Romance as a monarch more celebrated for the
valorous achievements of the brotherhood of chivalry
whom he has drawn around him than for his
own, though neither deficient in strength nor courage.
His principal followers have each their discriminatory
and peculiar attributes. Meister Hildebrand,
the Nestor of the band, is, like the Maugis
of Charlemagne's heroes, a magician as well as a
champion. Hogan, or Hagan, begot betwixt a mortal
and a sea-goblin, is the fierce Achilles of the
confederation. It is the uniform custom of the
romancers to conclude by a general and overwhelming
catastrophe, which destroys the whole ring of
chivalry whose feats they had commemorated. The
ruin which Roncesvalles brought to the Paladins
of Charlemagne, and the fatal battle of Camlan to
the Knights of the Round Table, fell upon the warriors
of Diderick through the revengeful treachery
of Crimhilda, the wife of Ezzel; who, in revenge
for the death of her first husband, and in her inordinate
desire to possess the treasures of the Niflunga
or Burgundians, brought destruction on all
those celebrated champions. Mr. Weber observes,
that these German fictions differ from the Romances
of French Chivalry, in the greater ferocity and
less refinement of sentiment ascribed to the heroes;
and also in their employing to a great extent the
machinery of the Duergar, or Dwarfs, a subterranean
people to whom the <u>Helden-Buch</u> ascribes
much strength and subtilty, as well as profound
skill in the magic art; and who seem, to a certain
extent, the predecessors of the European fairy.
The same excellent authority affords us another
curious Romance of German origin, entitled Duke
Ernest of Bavaria, which appears deeply tinged
with Oriental learning and imagination. The hero,
at no greater distance than the Isle of Crete, has
the good fortune, such at least he must have esteemed
it, in his capacity of a knight-errant, to meet
with a people having necks and heads like storks.
He is in danger of being shipwrecked on a mountain
of adamant---is carried away by a roc, and
meets with sundry other adventures, which remind
us of those of the celebrated Sinbad.</p>
<p> Italy, so long the seat of classical learning, and
where that learning was first revived, seems never
to have strongly embraced the taste for the Gothic
Romance. They received, indeed, the forms and
institutions of chivalry; but the Italians seem to
have been in a considerable degree strangers to its
spirit, and not to have become deeply enamoured
of its literature. There is an old romance of Chivalry
proper to Italy, called <u>Guerino the Wretched,</u>
but we doubt if even this be of indigenous growth.
Indeed, when they did adopt from the French the
fashionable tales of Charlemagne and his Paladins,
they did not attract the attention of the classical
Italians, until Boiardo, Berni, Pulci, and, above all,
the divine Ariosto, condescended to use them as the
basis of their well-known romantic poems; and
thus the fictitious narratives originally composed
in metre, and after re-written in prose, were anew
decorated with the honours of verse. The romantic
poets of Italy did not even disdain to imitate the
rambling, diffuse, and episodical style proper to the
old Romance; and Ariosto, in particular, although
he torments the reader's attention by digressing
from one adventure to another, delights us, upon
frequent perusals, by the extreme ingenuity with
which he gathers up the broken ends of his narrative,
and finally weaves them all handsomely together
in the same piece. But the merits and faults
of romantic poetry form themselves the fruitful
subject of a long essay. We here only notice the
origin of those celebrated works, as a species of
composition arising out of the old Romance, though
surpassing it in regularity, as well as in all the
beauties of style and diction.</p>
<p> With Spain the idea of Romance was particularly
connected; and the associations which are
formed upon perusing the immortal work of Cervantes,
induce us for a long time to believe that
the country of Don Quixote must be the very cradle
of romantic fiction. Yet, if we speak of priority of
date, Spain was among the last nations in Europe
with whom Romance became popular. It was not
indeed possible that, among a people speaking so
noble and poetical a language, engaged in constant
wars, which called forth at once their courage and
their genius, there should not exist many historical
and romantic ballads descriptive of their rencounters
with the Moors. But their native poets seem
to have been too much engaged with the events of
their own age, or of that which had just preceded
them, to permit of their seeking subjects in the
regions of pure fiction; and we have not heard of
a Spanish Metrical Romance, unless the poems
describing the adventures of the Cid should be
supposed to have any affinity to that class of composition.
The Peninsula, however, though late in
adopting the prevailing taste for romantic fiction,
gave origin to one particular class, which was at
least as popular as any which had preceded it.
<u>Amadis de Gaul,</u> the production, it would seem, of
Vasco do Lobeira, a Portuguese knight, who lived
in the fourteenth century, gave a new turn to the
tales of chivalry; and threw into the shade the
French Prose Romances, which, until the appearance
of this distinguished work, had been the most
popular in Europe.</p>
<p> The author of <u>Amadis,</u> in order, perhaps, to facilitate
the other changes which he introduced, and
to avoid rushing against preconceived ideas of
events or character, laid aside the worn-out features
of Arthur and Charlemagne, and imagined to himself
a new dynasty both of sovereigns and of heroes,
to whom he ascribed a style of manners much more
refined, and sentiments much more artificial, than
had occurred to the authors of <u>Perceval</u> or <u>Perceforest.</u>
Lobeira had also taste enough to perceive,
that some unity of design would be a great improvement
on the old Romance, where one adventure
is strung to another with little connexion from
the beginning to the end of the volume; which
thus concluded, not because the plot was winded
up, but because the author's invention, or the
printer's patience, was exhausted. In the work of
the Portuguese author, on the contrary, he proposes
a certain end, to advance or retard which all
the incidents of the work have direct reference.
This is the marriage of Amadis with Oriana, against
which a thousand difficulties are raised by rivals,
giants, sorcerers, and all the race of evil powers
unfavourable to chivalry; whilst these obstacles
are removed by the valour of the hero, and constancy
of the heroine, succoured on their part by
those friendly sages, and blameless sorceresses,
whose intervention gave so much alarm to the tender-conscienced
De la Noue. Lobeira also displayed
considerable attention to the pleasure which
arises from the contrast of character; and to relieve
that of Amadis, who is the very essence of
chivalrous constancy, he has introduced Don Galaor,
his brother, a gay libertine in love, whose
adventures form a contrast with those of his more
serious relative. Above all, the <u>Amadis</u> displays
an attention to the style and conversation of the
piece, which, although its effects are now exaggerated
and ridiculous, was doubtless at the time
considered as the pitch of elegance; and here were,
for the first time, introduced those hyperbolical
compliments, and that inflated and complicated
structure of language, the sense of which walks as
in a masquerade.</p>
<p> The <u>Amadis</u> at first consisted only of four books,
and in that limited shape may be considered as a
very well-conducted story; but additions were
speedily made which extended the number to
twenty-four; containing the history of Amadis subsequent
to his obtaining possession of Oriana, and
down to his death, as also of his numerous descendants.
The theme was not yet exhausted; for, as
the ancient romancers, when they commenced a
new work, chose for their hero some newly-invented
Paladin of Charlemagne, or knight of King Arthur,
so did their new successors adopt a new descendant
of the family of Amadis, whose genealogy was
thus multiplied to a prodigious degree. For an
account of <u>Esplandian, Florimond of Greece, Palmerin
of England,</u> and the other Romances of this
class, the reader must he referred to the valuable
labours of Mr. Southey, who has abridged both
<u>Amadis</u> and <u>Palmerin</u> with the most accurate attention
to the style and manners of the original.
The books of <u>Amadis</u> became so very popular as to
supersede the elder Romances almost entirely, even
at the court of France, where, according to La
Noue, already quoted, they were introduced about
the reign of Henry II. It was against the extravagance
of these fictions, in character and in style,
that the satire of Cervantes was chiefly directed;
and almost all the library of Don Quixote belongs
to this class of Romances, which, no doubt, his adventures
contributed much to put out of fashion.</p>
<p> In every point of view, France must be considered
as the country in which Chivalry and Romance
flourished in the highest perfection; and the
originals of almost all the early Romances, whether
in prose or verse, whether relating to the history of
Arthur or of Charlemagne, are to be found in the
French language; and other countries possess only
translations from thence. This will not be so surprising
when it is recollected, that these earlier
Romances were written, not only for the use of the
French, but of the English themselves, amongst
whom French was the prevailing language during
the reigns of the Anglo-Norman monarchs. Indeed,
it has been ingeniously supposed, and not without
much apparent probability, that the fame of Arthur
was taken by the French minstrels for the foundation
of their stories in honour of the English kings,
who reigned over the supposed dominions of that
British hero; while, on the other hand, the minstrels
who repaired to the court of France, celebrated
the prowess of Charlemagne and his twelve
peers as a subject more gratifying to those who sat
upon his throne. It is, perhaps, some objection to
this ingenious theory, that, as we have already seen,
the battle of Hastings was opened by a minstrel,
who sung the war-song of Roland, the nephew of
Charlemagne; so that the Norman Duke brought
with him to England the tales that are supposed,
at a much later date, to have been revived to soothe
the national pride of the French minstrels.</p>
<p> How the French minstrels came originally by
the traditional relics concerning Arthur and Merlin,
on which they wrought so long and so largely,
must, we fear, always remain uncertain. From the
Saxons, we may conclude they had them not; for
the Saxons were the very enemies against whom
Arthur employed his good sword Excalibar; that is
to say, if there was such a man, or such a weapon.
We know, indeed, that the British, like all the
branches of the Celtic race, were much attached to
poetry and music, which the numerous relics of
ancient poetry in Wales, Ireland, and the Highlands
of Scotland, sufficiently evince. Arthur, a
name famous among them, with some traditions
concerning the sage Merlin, may have floated either
in Armorica, or among the half-British of the borders
of Scotland, and of Cumberland; and, thus
preserved, may have reached the ear of the Norman
minstrels, either in their newly-conquered dominions,
or through their neighbours of Brittany. A
theme of this sort once discovered, and found acceptable
to the popular ear, gave rise, of course, to a
thousand imitations; and gradually drew around it
a cloud of fiction which, embellished by such poetry
as the minstrels could produce, arranged itself by
degrees into a system of fabulous history, as the
congregated vapours, touched by the setting sun,
assume the form of battlements and towers. We
know that the history of Sir Tristrem, first versified
by Thomas the Rhymer of Ercildoune, was derived
from Welsh traditions, though told by a Saxon
poet. In fact, it may be easily supposed, that the
romancers of that early period were more eager to
acquire popular subjects than delicately scrupulous
of borrowing from their neighbours; sad when the
foundation-stone was once laid, each subsequent
minstrel brought his contribution to the building.
The idea of an association of knights assembled
around one mighty sovereign, was so flattering to
all the ruling princes of Europe, that almost all of
them endeavoured to put themselves at the head of
some similar institution, and the various Orders of
Chivalry are to be traced to this origin. The historical
foundation of this huge superstructure is
almost imperceptible. Mr. Turner has shown that
the evidence rather inclines to prove the actual
existence of King Arthur; and the names of Gawain,
his nephew, and of Geneura, his faithful spouse, of
Mordred, and Merlin, were preserved by Welsh
tradition. To the same source may be referred the
loves of Tristrem and Ysolde, which, although a
separate story, has become, in the later Romances,
amalgamated with that of Arthur. But there can
he little doubt that all beyond the bare names of
the heroes owes its existence to the imagination of
the romancers.</p>
<p> It might be thought that the Romances referring
to the feats of Charlemagne ought to contain
more historical truth than those concerning Arthur;
since the former relate to a well-known monarch
and conqueror, the latter to a personage of a very
doubtful and shadowy existence. But the Romances
concerning both are equally fabulous. Charles
had, indeed, an officer, perhaps a kinsman, named
Roland, who was slain with other nobles in the field
of Roncesvalles, fighting, not against the Saracens
or Spaniards, but against the Gascons. This is the
only point upon which the real history of Charlemagne
coincides with that invented for him by
romancers. Roland was Prefect of Bretagne, and
his memory was long preserved in the war-song
which bore his name. A fabulous chronicler, calling
himself Turpin, compiled, in or about the eleventh
century, a romantic history of Charlemagne; but
it may be doubted whether, in some instances, he
has not availed himself of the fictions already devised
by the early romancers, while to those who
succeeded them, his annals afforded matter for new
figments. The personal character of Charlemagne
has suffered considerably in the hands of the romantic
authors, although they exaggerated his
powers and his victories. He is represented as fond
of flattery, irritable in his temper, ungrateful for the
services rendered him by his most worthy Paladins,
and a perpetual dupe to the treacherous artifices of
Count Gan, or Ganelon, of Mayence; a renegade
to whom the romancers impute the defeat at Roncesvalles,
and all the other misfortunes of the reign
of Charles. This unfavourable view of the Prince,
although it may bear some features of royalty,
neither resembles the real character of the conqueror
of the Saxons and Lombards, nor can be
easily reconciled with the idea that he was introduced
to flatter the personal vanity of the Princes
of the Valois race, by a portrait of their great predecessor.</p>
<p> The circumstance, that Roland was a lieutenant
of Brittany, and the certainty that Marie borrowed
from that country the incidents out of which she
composed her lays, seems to fortify the theory that
the French minstrels obtained from that country
much of their most valuable materials; and that,
after all that has been said and supposed, the history
of Arthur probably reached them through the
same channel.</p>
<p> The Latin writers of the middle ages afforded
the French romancers the themes of those metrical
legends which they have composed on subjects of
classical fame.</p>
<p> The honour of the prose Romances of Chivalry,
exclusive always of the books of <u>Amadis,</u> belongs
entirely to the French, and the curious volumes
which are now the object of so much research
amongst collectors, are almost universally printed
at Paris.</p>
<p> England, so often conquered, yet fated to receive
an accession of strength from each new subjugation,
cannot boast much of ancient literature of any kind;
and, in the department of which we treat, was totally
inferior to France. The Saxons had, no doubt,
Romances (taking the word in its general acceptation;)
and Mr Turner, to whose researches we are
so much indebted, has given us the abridgement of
one entitled <u>Caedmon,</u> in which the hero, whose
adventures are told much after the manner of the
ancient Norse Sagas, encounters, defeats, and finally
slays an evil being called Grendel, who, except in
his being subject to death, seems a creature of a
supernatural description.<*> But the literature of the</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>compiled themselves, or translated from other
languages, the Romances which they sent to the
press; thus uniting in their own persons the three
separate departments of author, printer, and publisher.</p>
<ul>
<li><u>Works</u> of Roger Ascham, p. 254. Fourth edition.---S.<p> Robert de la Brunne, who composed his <u>History
of England</u> about this time, has this remarkable
passage, which we give, along with the commentary
of the Editor of <u>Sir Tristrem,</u> as it is peculiarly
illustrative of the subject we are inquiring into.<p> Als thai haf wryten and sayd
Haf I alle in myn Inglis layd,
In simple speche as I couthe,
That is lightest in manne's mouthe.
I made noght for no disours,
Ne for no seggours, no harpours,
Bot for the luf of symple men,
That strange Inglis cannot ken;
For many it ere that strange Inglis,
In ryme wate never what it is;
And bot thai wist what it mente,
Ellis methought it were alle schente.
I made it not for to be praysed,
Bot at the lewed men were aysed.
If it were made in ryme couwee,
Or in strangere, or enterlac<e'>,
That rede Inglis it ere inowe,
That couthe not have coppled a kowe.
That outher in cowee or in baston,
Sum suld haf ben fordon;
So that fele men that it herde
Sold not witte howe that it ferde.
I see in song, in sedgeying tale,
Of Erceldoune and of Kendale,
Non thaim sayis as thai thaim wroght,
And in ther saying it semes noght,
That may thou here in Sir Tristrem,
Over gestes it has the steem,
Over all that is or was,
If men it sayd as made Thomas;
Bot I here it no man so say,
That of some copple som is away.
So thare fayre saying here beforns,
Is thare travaile nere forlorne;
Thay sayd it for pride and nobleye,
That were not suylke as thei.<*></p>
</p>
</li>
<li><u>The Politicke and Militaire Discourses</u> of the Lord de la
* Noue, pp. 87, 85. Quarto, Lond. 1587.---S.<p> And alle that thai willed overwhere,
Alle that ilke will now forfare.
Thai sayd it in so quaint Inglis,
That many wate not what it is,
Therfore heuyed wele the more
In strange ryme to travayle sore;
And my wit was oure thynne
So strange speche to travayle in;
And forsoth I couth noght
So strange Inglis as thai wroght.
And men besoght me many a tyme
To tuene it bot in light ryme.
Thai seyd if I in strange ryme it turn,
To here it many on suld skorne;
Foe in it ere names full selcouthe,
That ere not used now in mouthe.
And therfore, for the commonalt<e'>,
That blythely wald listen to me,
On light lange I it began,
For luf of the lewed man.</p>
<p> ``This passage requires some commentary, as the sense has
been generally mistaken. Robert de Brunne does not mean,
as has been supposed, that the minstrels who repeated Thomas's
Romance of <u>Sir Tristrem,</u> disguised the meaning by
putting it into `_quainte Inglis;_' but, on the contrary, that
Kendal and Thomas of Erceldoune did themselves use such
`_quainte Inglis,_' that these who repeated the story were unable
to understand it, or to make it intelligible to their hearers.
Above all, he complains, that by writing an intricate and
complicated stanza, as `_ryme cowee, strangere,_' or `_entrelac<e'>,_'
it was difficult for the <u>disours</u> to recollect the poem; and of
<u>Sir Tristrem,</u> in particular, he avers, that he never heard a
perfect recital, because of some one `_copple_' or stanza, a part
was always omitted. Hence he argues at length, that he
himself, writing not for the minstrel or harper, nor to acquire
personal fame, but solely to instruct the ignorant in the history
of their country, does well in choosing a simple structure
of verse, which they can retain correctly on their memory, and
a style which is popular and easily understood. Besides
which, he hints at the ridicule he might draw on his poem,
should hs introduce the uncouth names of his personages into
a courtly or refined strain of verse. They were<p> `Great names, but hard in verse to stand.'</p>
</p>
</li>
<li>The English public are now made more fully acquainted
<em> with this ancient process, by the ample and more interesting
</em> analysis, furnished by Mr. Connybeare.---S.</li>
</ul>
<p>Saxons was destroyed by the success of William
the Conqueror, and the Norman knights and barons,
among whom England was in a great measure
divided, sought amusement, not in the lays of the
vanquished, but in those composed in their own
language. In this point of view, England, as a
country, may lay claim to many of the French
Romances, which were written, indeed, in that
language, but for the benefit of the court and nobles
of England, by whom French was still spoken.
When the two languages began to assimilate together,
and to form the mixed dialect termed the
Anglo-Norman, we have good authority for saying
that it was easily applied to the purpose of romantic
fiction, and recited in the presence of the
nobility.<p> If the editor of <u>Sir Tristrem</u> be correct in his
commentary, there existed in the time of Thomas de
Brunne minstrels or poets who composed English
poetry to be recited in the presence of the great,
and who, for that purpose, used a singularly difficult
stanza, which was very apt to be mutilated in
recitation. <u>Sir Tristrem,</u> even as it now exists,
shows likewise that considerable art was resorted
to in constructing the stanza, and has, from beginning
to end, a concise, quaint, abstract turn of
expression, more like the Saxon poetry than the
simple, bald, and diffuse details of the French
minstrel. Besides <u>Sir Tristrem,</u> there remain, we
conceive, at least two other examples of ``gestes
written in quainte Inglis,'' composed, namely, according
to fixed and complicated rules of verse,
and with much attention to the language, though
the effect produced is far from pleasing. They are
both of Scottish origin, which may be explained by
recollecting that in the Saxon provinces of Scotland,
as well as at the court, Norman was never generally
used; and therefore it is probable that the
English language was more cultivated in that
country at an early period than in England itself,
where, among the higher classes, it was for a long
time superseded by that of the French conquerors.
These Romances, entitled <u>Sir Gawain,</u> and <u>Sir
Gologras,</u> and <u>Sir Galeran of Galloway,</u> have all
the appearance of being original compositions, and
display considerable poetical effort. But the uncouth
use of words dragged in for the sake of alliteration,
and used in secondary and oblique meanings,
renders them extremely harsh in construction,
as well as obscure in meaning.</p>
<p> In England, it would seem that the difficulties
pointed out by De la Brunne early threw out of
fashion this ornate kind of composition; and the
English minstrels had no readier resource than
translating from the French, who supplied their
language at the same time with the phrases of chivalry
which did not exist in English. These compositions
presented many facilities to the minstrel.
He could, if possessed of the slightest invention,
add to them at pleasure, and they might as easily
be abridged, when memory failed, or occasion required.
Accordingly, translations from the French
fill up the list of English Romance. They are
generally written in short lines rhyming together;
though often, by way of variety, the third and sixth
lines are made to rhyme together, and the poem
is thus divided into stanzas of three couplets each.
In almost all of these legends, reference is made to
``the Romance,'' that is, some composition in the
French language, as to the original authority. Nay,
which is very singular, tales where the subjects
appear to be of English growth, seem to have yet
existed in France ere they were translated into the
language of the country to which the heroes belonged.
This seems to have been the case with
<u>Hornchild,</u> with <u>Guy of Warwick,</u> with <u>Bevis of
Hampton,</u> all of which appear to belong originally
to England; yet are their earliest histories found
in the French language, or at least the vernacular
persons refer to such for their authority. Even
the Romance of <u>Richard,</u> England's own C<oe>ur de
Lion, has perpetual references to the French original
from which it was translated. It must naturally be
supposed that these translations were inferior to the
originals; and whether it was owing to this cause,
or that the composition of these rhymes was attended
with too much facility, and so fell into the hands
of very inferior composers, or that they were composed
for the ruder and more illiterate part of the
nation, it is certain, and is proved by the highest
authority, that of Chaucer himself, that even in his
time these rhyming Romances had fallen into great
contempt. The <u>Rime of Sir Thopas,</u> which that
poet introduces as a parody, undoubtedly, of the
rhythmical Romances of the age, is interrupted by
mine host Harry Bailly with the strongest and most
energetic expressions of total and absolute contempt.
But though the minstrels were censured
by De la Brunne for lack of skill and memory, and
the poems which they recited were branded as
``drafty rhymings,'' by the far more formidable
sentence of Chaucer, their acceptation with the
public in general must have been favourable, since,
besides many unpublished volumes, the two publications
of Ritson and Weber bear evidence of their
popularity. Some original compositions doubtless
occur among so many translations, but they are not
numerous, and few have been preserved. The very
curious poem of <u>Sir Eger and Sir Greme,</u> which
seems of Scottish origin, has no French original;
nor has any been discovered either of the <u>Squire
of Low Degree, Sir Eglamour, Sir Pleindamour,</u> or
some others. But the French derivation of the
two last names renders it probable that such may
exist.</p>
<p> The minstrels and their compositions seem to
have fallen into utter contempt about the time of
Henry VIII. There is a piteous picture of their
condition in the person of Richard Sheale, which
it is impossible to read without compassion, if we
consider that he was the preserver at least, if not
the author, of the celebrated heroic ballad of <u>Chevy
Chase,</u> at which Sir Philip Sydney's heart was wont
to beat as at the sound of a trumpet. This luckless
minstrel had been robbed on Dunsmore Heath,
and, shame to tell, he was unable to persuade the
public that a son of the muses had ever been possessed
of the twenty pounds which he averred he
had lost on the occasion. The account he gives of
the effect upon his spirits is melancholy, and yet
ridiculous enough.<p> ``After my robbery my memory was so decayde,
That I colde neather syne nor talke, my wytts were so dismayde.
My audacitie was gone, and all my myrry tawk,
Ther ys sum heare have sene me as myrry as a hawke;
But nowe I am so troblyde with phansis in my mynde,
That I cannnot play the myrry knave, according to my kynd.
Yet to tak thought, I perseve, ys not the next waye
To bring me out of det, my creditors to paye.
I may well say that I hade but evil hape,
For to lose about threscore pounds at a clape.
The loss of my mony did not greve me so sore,
But the talke of the pyple dyde greve me moch mor.
Sum sayde I was not robde, I was but a lyeng knave,
Yt was not possyble for a mynstrell so much mony to have;
In dede, to say the truthe, that ys ryght well knowene,
That I never had so moche mony of myn owene,
But I had frendds in London, whos namys I can declare,
That at all tyms wolde lende me cc. lds. worth of ware,
And sum agayn such frendship I founde,
That thei wold lend me in mony nyn or ten pownde.
The occasion why I cam in debt I shall make relacion,
My wyff in dede ys a sylk woman be her occupacion,
And lynen cloths most chefly was her greatyste trayd,
And at faris and merkytts she solde sale-warre that she made;
As shertts, smockys, partlytts, hede clothes, and othar thinggs,
As sylk thredd, and eggyngs, skirrts, bandds, and strings.''
From <u>The Chant</u> of Richard Sheale,
<u>British Bibliographer,</u> No. xiii., p. 101.</p>
</p>
<p> Elsewhere, Sheale hints that he had trusted to
his harp, and to the well-known poverty attached
to those who used that instrument, to bear him
safe through Dunsmore Heath. From this time,
the poor degraded minstrels seem literally to have
merited the character imposed on them by the
satirist Dr. Bull, and quoted with such glee by
Ritson, whose enmity against Dr. Percy seems to
have extended itself against the race.<p> ``When Jesus went to Jairus' hence,
[Whose daughter was about to dye,]
He turn'd the minstrels out of doors,
Among the rascal company:
Beggars they are with one consent,
And rogues, by Act of Parliament.''</p>
</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>The editor of Warton's <u>History of English Poetry</u> (Mr.
<em> Price,) observes that this line is wrongly quoted: It ought to
</em> stand
<em>
</em> ``That non were suilk as they;''
<em>
</em> and he interprets ``pride and nobleys,'' dignity and loftiness
* of expression.<p> ``Now for the good chear that ye have had heare,
I gyve you harrte thanks, with bowyng off my shanks.
Desyryng you be petycyon to graunte me suche commission,
Becaus my name ys Sheale, that bothe by meat and meale
To you I may resorte, sum tyme to mye comforte.
For I perceive here at all tymes is good chere,
Both ale, wyne, and beere, as hit dothe nowe apere.
I perseve wythoute fable, ye kepe a good table,
Sum tyme I wyll be your gueste, or els I were a beaste,
Knowynge off your mynde, yff I wolde not be so kynde,
Somtyme to tast youre cuppe, and wyth you dyne and suppe.
I can be contente, yf hit be out of Lente,
A peace of byffe to take mye honger to aslake:
Both mutton and veile ys goode for Rycharde Sheale.''
<u>British Bibliographer,</u> No. xiii., p. 105.</p>
<p> The Metrical Romances which they recited also
fell into disrepute, though some of the more popular,
sadly abridged and adulterated, continued to be
published in chap books, as they are called. About
fifty or sixty years since, a person acquired the nickname
of <u>Rosewal and Lilian</u> from singing that
Romance about the streets of Edinburgh, which is
probably the very last instance of the proper minstrel
craft.</p>
<p> If the Metrical Romances of England can boast
of few original compositions, they can show yet
fewer examples of the Prose Romance. Sir Thomas
Malory, indeed, compiled, from various French
authorities, his celebrated <u>Morte d'Arthur,</u> indisputably
the best Prose Romance the language can
boast. There is also <u>Arthur of Little Britain;</u>
and the Lord Berners compiled the Romance of the
Knight of the Swan. The books of <u>Amadis</u> were
likewise translated into English; but it may be
doubted whether the country in general ever took
that deep interest in the perusal of these records of
love and honour with which they were greeted in
France. Their number was fewer; and the attention
paid to them in a country where great political
questions began to be agitated, was much less than
when the feudal system still continued in its full
vigour.<p> *</p>
<p> III. We should now say something on those
various kinds of romantic fictions which succeeded
to the Romance of Chivalry. But we can only
notice briefly works which have long slumbered in
oblivion, and which certainly are not worthy to
have their slumbers disturbed.</p>
<p> Even in the time of Cervantes, the Pastoral
Romance, founded upon the <u>Diana</u> of George of
Mont<e'> Mayor, was prevailing to such an extent as
made it worthy of his satire. It was, indeed, a
system still more remote from common sense and
reality than that of chivalry itself. For the maxims
of chivalry, high-strained and absurd as they are,
did actually influence living beings, and even the
fate of kingdoms. If <u>Amadis de Gaule</u> was a fiction,
the Chevalier Bayard was a real person. But
the existence of an Arcadia, a pastoral region in
which a certain fantastic sort of personages, desperately
in love, and thinking of nothing else but
their mistresses, played upon pipes, and wrote sonnets
from morning to night, yet were supposed all
the while to be tending their flocks, was too monstrously
absurd to be long credited or tolerated.</p>
<p> A numerous, and once most popular, class of fictions,
was that entitled the <u>Heroic Romance of the
Seventeenth Century.</u></p>
<p> If the ancient <u>Romance of Chivalry</u> has a right
to be called the parent of those select and beautiful
fictions, which the genius of the Italian poets has
enriched with such peculiar charms, another of its
direct descendants, <u>The Heroic Romance of the
Seventeenth Century,</u> is, with few exceptions, the
most dull and tedious species of composition that
ever obtained temporary popularity. The old
Romance of Heliodorus, entitled <u>Theagenes and
Chariclea,</u> supplied, perhaps, the earliest model of
this style of composition; but it was from the
Romances of Chivalry that it derives its most peculiar
characteristics. A man of a fantastic imagination,
Honor<e'> d'Urf<e'>, led the way in this style
of composition. Being willing to record certain
love intrigues of a complicated nature which had
taken place in his own family, and amongst his
friends, he imagined to himself a species of Arcadia
on the banks of the Lignon, inhabited by swains
and shepherdesses, who live for love and for love
alone. There are two principal stories, said to
represent the family history of D'Urf<e'> and his
brother, with about thirty episodes, in which the
gallantries and intrigues of Henry IV.'s court are
presented under borrowed names. Considered by
itself, this is but an example of the Pastoral
Romance; but it was so popular, that three celebrated
French authors, Gomberville, Calprenede,
and Madame Scuderi, seized the pen, and composed
in emulation many interminable folios of
Heroic Romance. In these insipid performances,
a conventional character, and a set of family manners
and features, are ascribed to the heroes and
heroines, although selected from distant ages and
various quarters of the world. The heroines are,
without exception, models of beauty and perfection;
and so well persuaded of it themselves, that
to approach them with the most humble declaration
of love was a crime sufficient to deserve the penalty
of banishment from their presence; and it is well
if the doom were softened to the audacious lover,
by permission, or command to live, without which,
absence and death were to be accounted synonymous.
On the other hand, the heroes, whatever
kingdoms they have to govern, or other earthly
duties to perform, live through these folios for love
alone; and the most extraordinary revolutions
which can agitate the world are ascribed to the
charms of a Mandane or a Statira acting upon the
crazy understanding of their lovers. Nothing can
be so uninteresting as the frigid extravagance with
which these lovers express their passion; or, in
their own phrase, nothing can be more freezing
than their flames, more creeping than their flights
of love. Yet the line of metaphysical gallantry
which they exhibited had its date, and a long one,
both in France and England. They remained the
favourite amusement of Louis XIV.'s court, although
assailed by the satire of Boileau. In England
they continued to be read by our grandmothers
during the Augustan age of English, and while Addison
was amusing the world with his wit, and
Pope by his poetry, the ladies were reading <u>Clelia,
Cleopatra,</u> and the <u>Grand Cyrus.</u> The fashion did
not decay till about the reign of George I.; and
even more lately, Mrs. Lennox, patronized by Dr.
Johnson, wrote a very good imitation of Cervantes,
entitled, <u>The Female Quixote,</u> which had those works
for its basis. They are now totally forgotten.</p>
<p> The Modern Romance, so ennobled by the productions
of so many master hands, would require a
long disquisition. But we can here only name that
style of composition in which De Foe rendered fiction
more impressive than truth itself, and Swift
could render plausible even the grossest impossibilities.<*></p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>While he arrogates praise to himself for his choice, he excuses
Thomas of Erceldoune and Kendale for using a more ambitious
and ornate kind of poetry. `They wrote,<code> he says, for
pride (fame) and for nobles, not such as these my ignorant
hearers.</code> ''<*></p>
<ul>
<li><u>Sir Tristrem,</u> Introduction, pp. 63 to 66. [See Editor's
<em> prefatory notice, Edition of Sir Walter Scott's Poetical Works
</em> (1833,) vol. v.]<p> The Drama.<*><! p51></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>At length the order of English minstrels was formally
put down by the act 39th of Queen Elizabeth,
classing them with sturdy beggars and vagabonds;
in which disgraceful fellowship they only existed in
the capacity of fiddlers, who accompanied their instrument
with their voice. Such a character is introduced
in the play of <u>Monsieur Thomas,</u> as the
``poor fiddler who says his songs.'' Such, too, was
Sheale, already mentioned: the ``Minstrel's Farewell,''
by this unlucky child of the muses, intimates
the degraded character of his profession, the professors
of which now sung for their victuals.</p>
<ul>
<li>There was the less occasion to continue and complete this
<em> Essay, as the author has, in the Lives of the British Novelists,
</em> expressed the opinions he entertains upon the subject of Modern
<em> Romance, and its connexion with the elder fictions by
</em> which it was preceded. 1824.---S. See Parts iii. and iv., <u>ante.</u><p> A disposition to this fascinating amusement, considered
in its rudest state, seems to be inherent in
human nature. It is the earliest sport of children,
to take upon themselves some fictitious character,
and sustain it to the best of their skill, by such
appropriate gestures and language, as their youthful
fancies suggest, and such dress and decoration
as circumstances place within their reach. The infancy
of nations is as prone to this pastime as that
of individuals. When the horde emerges out of a
nearly brutal state, so far as to have holidays, public
sports, and general rejoicings, the pageant of
their imaginary deities, or of their fabulous ancestors,
is usually introduced as the most pleasing and
interesting part of the show. But however general
the predisposition to the assumption of fictitious
character may be, there is an immeasurable distance
betwixt the rude games in which it first displays
itself, and that polished amusement which is numbered
among the fine arts, which poetry, music,
and painting, have vied to adorn, to whose service
genius has devoted her most sublime efforts, while
philosophy has stooped from her loftier task, to
regulate the progress of the action, and give probability
to the representation and personification of
the scene.</p>
<p> The history of Greece---of that wonderful country,
whose days of glory have left such a never-dying
blaze of radiance behind them---the history
of Greece affords us the means of correctly tracing
the polished and regulated Drama, the subject of
severe rule, and the vehicle for expressing the
noblest poetry, from amusements as rude in their
outline, as the mimic sports of children or of savages.
The history of the Grecian stage is that of
the dramatic art in general. They transferred the
Drama, with their other literature, to the victorious
Romans, with whom it rather existed as a foreign
than flourished as a native art. Like the other fine
arts, the stage sunk under the decay of the empire,
and its fall was accelerated by the introduction of
the Christian religion. In the middle ages, dramatic
representation revived, in the shape of the homely
Mysteries and Moralities of our forefathers. The
revival of letters threw light upon the scenic art,
by making us acquainted with the pitch of perfection
to which it had been carried by the genius of
Greece. With this period commences the history
of the modern stage, properly so called. Some
general observations on the Drama, and the state
in which it now exists in Britain, will form a natural
conclusion to the present Article.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> The account which we have of the origin of Grecian
theatrical representations, describes them as
the fantastic orgies of shepherds and peasants, who
solemnized the rites of Bacchus by the sacrifice of
a goat, by tumultuous dances, and by a sort of masquerade,
in which the actors were disguised like
the ancient <u>Morrice-dancers</u> of England, or the
<u>Guisards</u> of Scotland, who have not as yet totally
disused similar revels. Instead of masks, their
faces were stained with the lees of wine, and the
songs and jests corresponded in coarseness to the
character of the satyrs and fawns, which they were
supposed to assume in honour of their patron
Bacchus. Music, however, always formed a part
of this rude festivity, and to this was sometimes
added the recitations of an individual performer,
who, possessed of more voice or talent than his
companions, was able to entertain an audience for
a few minutes by his own unaided exertions.</p>
<p> Out of such rude materials, Thespis is supposed
to have been the first who framed something like
an approach to a more regular entertainment. The
actors under this, the first of theatrical managers,
instead of running about wild among the audience,
were exalted upon a cart, or upon a scaffold formed
of boards laid upon trestles. In modern phrase,
they were exalted from mere mummers into a
company of mountebanks. In these improvements
Thespis is supposed to have had the aid of one Susarion,
whose efforts were more particularly directed
to the comic Drama. But their fortunes have
been unequal; for while the name of Thespis is still
united with every thing dramatic, that of Susarion has
fallen into oblivion, and is only known to antiquaries.</p>
<p> The Drama in Greece, as afterwards in Britain,
had scarce begun to develope itself from barbarism,
ere, with the most rapid strides, it advanced towards
perfection. Thespis and Susarion flourished
about four hundred and forty or fifty years before
the Christian era. The battle of Marathon was
fought in the year 490 before Christ; and it was
upon <AE>schylus, one of the Athenian generals on
that memorable occasion, that Greece conferred
the honoured title of the Father of Tragedy. We
must necessarily judge of his efforts, by that which
he did, not by that which he left undone; and if
some of his regulations may sound strange in modern
ears, it is but just to compare the state in which he
found the Drama, with that in which he left it.</p>
<p> <AE>schylus was the first who, availing himself of
the invention of a stage by Thespis, introduced
upon the boards a plurality of actors at the same
time, and converted into action and dialogue, accompanied
or relieved at intervals by the musical
performance of the Chorus, the dull monologue of
the Thespian orator. It was <AE>schylus, also, who
introduced the deceptions of scenery; stationary,
indeed, and therefore very different from the decorations
of our stage, but still giving a reality to
the whole performance, which could not fail to afford
pleasure to those who beheld, for the first
time, an effort to surround the player, while invested
with his theatrical character, with scenery which
might add to the illusions of the representation.
This was not all: A theatre, at first of wood, but
afterwards of stone, circumscribed, while it accommodated,
the spectators, and reduced a casual and
disorderly mob to the quality and civilisation of a
regular and attentive audience.</p>
<p> The most remarkable effect of the tragedy of
<AE>schylus, was the introduction of the Chorus in a
new character, which continued long to give a peculiar
tone to the Grecian Drama, and still makes
the broad and striking difference betwixt that original
theatre, and those which have since arisen in
modern nations.</p>
<p> The Chorus, who sung hymns in favour of Bacchus,---
the musical part, in short, of the entertainment,---
remained in the days of Thespis exactly
such as it had been in the rude village gambols
which he had improved, the principal part of the
dramatic performance. The intervention of monologue,
or recitation, was merely a relief to the musicians,
and a variety to the audience. <AE>schylus,
while he assigned a part of superior consequence
to the actor in his improved dialogue, new-modelled
the Chorus, which custom still enjoined as a
necessary and indispensable branch of the entertainment.
They were no longer a body of vocal
musicians, whose strains were as independent of
what was spoken by the personages of the Drama,
as those of our modern orchestra when performing
betwixt the acts; the Chorus assumed from this
time a different and complicated character, which,
as we have already hinted, forms a marked peculiarity
in the Grecian Drama, distinguishing it from
the theatrical compositions of modern Europe.</p>
<p> The Chorus, according to this new model, was
composed of a certain set of persons, priests, captive
virgins, matrons, or others, usually of a solemn
and sacred character, the contemporaries of the
heroes who appeared on the stage, who remained
upon the scene to celebrate in hymns set to music
the events which had befallen the active persons
of the Drama; to afford them alternately their advice
or their sympathy; and, at least, to moralize,
in lyrical poetry, on the feelings to which their history
and adventures, their passions and sufferings,
gave rise. The Chorus might be considered as, in
some degree, the representatives of the audience,
or rather of the public, on whose great stage those
events happen in reality, which are presented in
the mimicry of the Drama. In the strains of the
Chorus, the actual audience had those feelings suggested
to them, as if by reflection in a mirror, which
the events of the scene ought to produce in their
own bosom; they had at once before them the action
of the piece, and the effect of that action upon
a chosen band of persons, who, like themselves, were
passive spectators, whose dignified strains pointed
out the moral reflections to which the subject naturally
gave rise. The Chorus were led or directed
by a single person of their number, termed the
Coryph<ae>us, who frequently spoke or sung alone.
They were occasionally divided into two bands,
who addressed and replied to each other. But they
always preserved the character proper to them, of
spectators, rather than agents in the Drama.</p>
<p> The number of the Chorus varied at different
periods, often extending to fifty persons, and sometimes
restricted to half that number; and it is evident
that the presence of so many persons on the
scene, officiating as no part of the _dramatis person<ae>,_
but rather as contemporary spectators, involved
many inconveniences and inconsistencies. That
which the hero, however agitated by passion, must
naturally have suppressed within his own breast, or
uttered in soliloquy, was thus necessarily committed
to the confidence of fifty people, less or more.
And when a deed of violence was to be acted, the
helpless Chorus, instead of interfering to prevent the
atrocity to which the perpetrator had made them
privy, could only, by the rules of the theatre, exhaust
their sorrow and surprise in dithyrambics.
This was well ridiculed by Bentley, in his farce
called <u>The Wishes,</u> in one part of which strange performance
he introduced a Chorus after the manner
of the ancient Greeks, who are informed by one of
the dramatis person<ae>, that a madman with a fire-brand
has just entered the vaults beneath the place
which they occupy, and which contain a magazine
of gunpowder. The Chorus, instead of stirring from
the dangerous vicinity, immediately commence a
long complaint of the hardship of their fate, exclaiming
pathetically, ``O, unhappy madman---or
rather unhappy we, the victims of this madman's
fury---or thrice, thrice unhappy the friends of the
madman, who did not secure him, and restrain
him from the perpetration of such deeds of frenzy
---or three and four times hapless the keeper of
the magazine, who forgot the keys in the door,''
&c. &c. &c.<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2><title></h2>
<p> The real Choruses of the ancients, of whose
apathy and passive observation of the enormities
which pass on the stage, the above is a caricature,
afford some instances not much less ridiculous.
But still the union which <AE>schylus accomplished
betwixt the didactic hymns of the Chorus, and the
events which were passing upon the stage, was a
most important improvement upon the earlier
Drama. By this means, the two unconnected
branches of the old Bacchanalian revels were combined
together; and we ought rather to be surprised
that <AE>schylus ventured, while accomplishing
such a union, to render the hymns sung by the
Chorus subordinate to the action or dialogue, than
that he did not take the bolder measure of altogether
discarding that which, before his time, was
reckoned the principal object of a religious entertainment.</p>
<p> The new theatre and stage of Athens was reared,
as we have seen, under the inspection of <AE>schylus.
He also introduced dresses in character for his principal
actors, to which were added embellishments
of a kind which mark the wide distinction betwixt
the ancient and modern stage. The personal disguise
which had formerly been attained by staining
the actor's face, was now, by what doubtless
was considered as a high exertion of ingenuity,
accomplished by the use of a mask, so painted as to
represent the personage whom he represented. To
augment the apparent awkwardness of this contrivance,
the mouths of these masks were frequently
fashioned like the extremity of a trumpet, which,
if it aided the actor's voice to reach the extremity
of the huge circuit to which he addressed himself,
must still have made a ridiculous appearance upon
the stage, had not the habits and expectations of
the spectators been in a different tone from those
of a modern audience. The use of the <u>cothurnus,</u>
or buskin, which was contrived so as to give to the
performer additional and unnatural stature, would
have fallen under the same censure. But the ancient
and modern theatres may he said to resemble
each other only in name, as will appear from the
following account of the Grecian stage, abridged
from the best antiquaries.</p>
<p> The theatres of the Greeks were immensely large
in comparison to ours; and the audience sat upon
rows of benches, rising above each other in due
gradation. In form they resembled a horse-shoe.
The stage occupied a platform, which closed in the
flat end of the building, and was raised so high as
to be on a level with the lowest row of benches.
The central part of the theatre, or what we call the
pit, instead of being filled with spectators, according
to modern custom, was left for the occasional
occupation of the Chorus, during those parts of their
duty which did not require them to be nearer to
the stage. This space was called the =orchestra,=
and corresponded in some measure with the open
space which, in the modern equestrian amphitheatres,
is interposed betwixt the audience and the
stage, for the display of feats of horsemanship. The
delusion of the scene being thus removed to a considerable
distance from the eye of the spectator,
was heightened, and many of the objections offered
to the use of the mask and the buskin were lessened,
or totally removed. When the Chorus did not occupy
the orchestra, they ranged themselves beside
the =thymele,= a sort of altar, surrounded with steps,
placed in front of their stage Orchestra. From
this, as a post of observation, they watched the
progress of the Drama, and to this point the actors
turned themselves when addressing them. The
solemn hymns and mystic dances of the Chorus,
performed during their retreat into the orchestra,
formed a sort of interludes, or interruptions of the
action, similar in effect to the modern division into
acts. But, properly speaking, there was no interruption
of the representation from beginning to end.
The piece was not, indeed, constantly progressive,
but the illusion of the scene was always before the
audience, either by means of the actors themselves,
or of the Chorus. And the musical recitation and
character of the dances traced by the Chorus in
their interludes, were always in correspondence
with the character of the piece, grave, majestic,
and melancholy, in tragedy; gay and lively, in
comedy; and during the representation of satirical
pieces, wild, extravagant, and bordering on buffoonery.
The number of these interludes, or interruptions
of the action, seems to have varied from three
to six, or even more, at the pleasure of the author.
The music was simple and inartificial, although it
seems to have produced powerful effects on the
audience. Two flute-players performed a prelude
to the choral hymns, or directed the movement of
the dances; which, in tragedy, were a solemn, slow,
modulated succession of movements, very little resembling
any thing termed dancing among the
moderns.</p>
<p> The stage itself was well contrived for the purposes
of the Greek Drama. The front was called
the =logeum,= and occupied the full width of the flat
termination of the theatre, contracted, however, at
each extremity, by a wall, which served to conceal
the machinery necessary for the piece. The stage
narrowed as it retired backwards, and the space so
restricted in breadth was called the =proscenium.=
It was terminated by a flat decoration, on which
was represented the front of a temple, palace, or
whatever else the poet had chosen for his scene.
Suitable decorations appeared on the wings, as in
our theatres. There were several entrances, both
by the back scene and in front. These were not
used indiscriminately, but so as to indicate the
story of the piece, and reader it more clear to apprehension.
Thus, the persons of the Drama, who
were supposed to belong to the palace or temple in
the flat scene, entered from the side or the main
door, as befitted their supposed rank; those who
were inhabitants of the place represented, entered
through a door placed at the side of the Logeum,
while those supposed to come from a distance were
seen to traverse the Orchestra, and to ascend the
stage by a stair of communication, so that the
audience were made spectators, as it were, of his
journey. The Proscenium was screened by a curtain,
which was withdrawn when the piece commenced.
The decorations could be in some degree
altered, so as to change the scene; though this, we
apprehend, was seldom practised. But machinery
for the ascent of phantoms, the descent of deities,
and similar exhibitions, were as much in fashion
among the Greeks as on our own modern stage;
with better reason, indeed, for we shall presently
see that the themes which they held most proper
to the stage, called frequently for the assistance of
these mechanical contrivances.</p>
<p> On the dress and costume of their personages,
the Greeks bestowed much trouble and expense. It
was their object to disguise, as much as possible,
the mortal actor who was to represent a divinity or
a hero; and while they hid his face, and augmented
his height, they failed not to assign him a masque
and dress in exact conformity to the popular idea
of the character represented; so that, seen across
the orchestra, he might appear the exact resemblance
of Hercules or of Agamemnon.</p>
<p> The Grecians, but in particular the Athenians,
became most passionately attached to the fascinating
and splendid amusement which <AE>schylus thus
regulated, which Sophocles and Euripides improved,
and which all three, with other dramatists of
inferior talents, animated by the full vigour of their
genius. The delightful climate of Greece permitted
the spectators to remain in the open air (for
there was no roof to their huge theatres) for whole
days, during which several plays, high monuments
of poetical talent, were successively performed before
them. The enthusiasm of their attention may
be judged of by what happened during the representation
of a piece written by Hegemon. It was
while the Athenians were thus engaged, that there
suddenly arrived the astounding intelligence of the
total defeat of their army before Syracuse. The
theatre was filled with the relations of those who
had fallen; there was scarce a spectator who, besides
sorrowing as a patriot, was not called to mourn
a friend or relative. But, spreading their mantles
before their faces, they commanded the representation
to proceed, and, thus veiled, continued to give
it their attention to the conclusion. National pride,
doubtless, had its share in this singular conduct, as
well as fondness for the dramatic art. Another
instance is given of the nature and acuteness of
their feelings, when the assembly of the people
amerced Phrynicus with a fine of a thousand
drachmae, because, in a comedy founded upon the
siege of Miletos, he had agitated their feelings to
excess, in painting an incident which Athens lamented
as a misfortune dishonourable to her arms
and her councils.</p>
<p> The price of admission was at first one <u>drachma;</u>
but Pericles, desirous of propitiating the ordinary
class of citizens, caused the entrance-money to be
lowered to two <u>oboli,</u> so that the meanest Athenian
had the ready means of indulging in this luxurious
mental banquet. As it became difficult to support
the expense of the stage, for which such cheap
terms of admission could form no adequate fund,
the same statesman, by an indulgence yet more
perilous, caused the deficiency to be supplied from
the treasure destined to sustain the expense of the
war. It is a sufficient proof of the devotion of the
Athenians to the stage, that not even the eloquence
of Demosthenes could tempt them to forego this
pernicious system. He touched upon the evil in
two of his orations; but the Athenians were resolved
not to forego the benefits of an abuse which
they were aware could not be justified;---they passed
a law making it death to allude to that article of
reformation.</p>
<p> It must not be forgotten, that the Grecian
audience enjoyed the exercise of critical authority
as well as of classical amusement at their theatre.
They applauded and censured as at the present day,
by clapping hands and hissing. Their suffrage, at
those tragedies acted upon the solemn feasts of
Bacchus, adjudged a laurel crown to the most successful
dramatic author. This faculty was frequently
abused; but the public, on sober reflection,
seldom failed to be ashamed of such acts of injustice,
and faithful, upon the whole, to the rules of
criticism, evinced a fineness and correctness of
judgment, which never descended to the populace
of any other nation.</p>
<p> To this general account of the Grecian stage, it
is proper to add some remarks on those peculiar
circumstances, from which it derives a tone and
character so different from that of the modern
Drama---circumstances affecting at once its style of
action, mode of decoration, and general effect on
the feelings of the spectators.</p>
<p> The Grecian Drama, it must be remembered,
derived its origin from a religious ceremony, and,
amid all its refinement, never lost its devotional
character, unless it shall be judged to have done so
in the department of satirical comedy.</p>
<p> When the audience was assembled, they underwent
a religions lustration, and the archons, or
chief magistrates, paid their public adoration to
Bacchus, still regarded as the patron of the theatrical
art, and whose altar was always placed in
the theatre.</p>
<p> The subject of the Drama was frequently religious.
In tragedy, especially, Sophocles and Euripides,
as well as <AE>schylus, selected their subjects
from the exploits of the deities themselves, or of
the demi-gods and heroes whom Greece accounted
to draw an immediate descent from the denizens of
Olympus, and to whom she paid nearly equal reverence.
The object of the tragic poets was less to
amuse and interest their audience by the history of
the human heart, or soften them by the details of
domestic distress, than to elevate them into a sense
of devotion or submission, or to astound and terrify
them by the history and actions of a race of beings
before whom ordinary mortality dwindled into
pigmy size. This the ancient dramatists dared to
attempt; and, what may appear still more astonishing
to the mere English reader, this they appear in
a great measure to have performed. Effects were
produced upon their audience which we can only
attribute to the awful impression communicated by
the recollection, that the performance was in its
origin a religious ceremony, and conveying an idea
of the immediate presence of the Divinity. The
emotions excited by the apparition of the Eumenides,
or Furies, in <AE>schylus's tragedy of that name,
so appalled the audience, that females are said to
have lost the fruit of their womb, and children to
have actually expired in convulsions of terror.
These effects may have been exaggerated: but
that considerable inconveniences occurred from the
extreme horror with which this tragedy impressed
the spectators, is evident from a decree of the magistrates,
limiting the number of the Chorus, in
order to prevent in future such tragical consequences.
It is plain, that the feeling by which such
impressions arose, must have been something very
different from what the spectacle of the scene
alone could possibly have produced. The mere
sight of actors disguised in masks, suited to express
the terrific yet sublime features of an antique Medusa,
with her hair entwined with serpents; the
wild and dishevelled appearance, the sable and
bloody garments, the blazing torches, the whole apparatus,
in short, or properties as they are technically
called, with which the classic fancy of <AE>schylus
could invest those terrific personages; nay
more, even the appropriate terrors of language and
violence of gesture with which they were bodied
forth, must still have fallen far short of the point
which the poet certainly attained, had it not been
for the intimate and solemn conviction of his audience
that they were in the performance of an act
of devotion, and, to a certain degree, in the presence
of the deities themselves. It was this conviction,
and the solemn and susceptible temper to
which it exalted the minds of a large assembly,
which prepared them to receive the electric shock
produced by the visible representation of those terrible
beings, to whom, whether as personifying the
stings and terrors of an awakened conscience, or as
mysterious and infernal divinities, the survivors of
an elder race of deities, whose presence was supposed
to strike awe even into Jove himself, the ancients
ascribed the task of pursuing and punishing
atrocious guilt.</p>
<p> It was in consistency with this connexion betwixt
the Drama and religion of Greece, that the principal
Grecian tragedians thought themselves entitled
to produce upon the stage the most sacred events
of their mythological history. It might have been
thought that, in doing so, they injured the effect of
their fable and action, since suspense and uncertainty,
so essential to the interest of a play, could
not be supposed to exist where the immortal gods,
beings controlling all others, and themselves uncontrolled,
were selected as the agents in the piece.
But it must be remembered, that the synod of
Olympus, from Jove downwards, were themselves
but limitary deities, possessing, indeed, a certain
influence upon human affairs, but unable to stem
or divert the tide of fate or destiny, upon whose
dark bosom, according to the Grecian creed, gods
as well as men were embarked, and both sweeping
downwards to some distant, yet inevitable termination
of the present system of the universe, which
should annihilate at once the race of divinity and of
mortality. This awful catastrophe is hinted at not
very obscurely by Prometheus, who when chained
to his rock, exults, in his prophetic view, in the destruction
of his oppressor Jupiter and so far did
<AE>schylus, in particular, carry the introduction of
religious topics into his Drama, that he escaped
with some difficulty from an accusation of having
betrayed the Eleusinian mysteries.</p>
<p> Where the subject of the Drama was not actually
taken from mythological history, and when the gods
themselves did not enter upon the scene, the Grecian
stage was, as we have already hinted, usually
trod by beings scarcely less awful to the imagination
of the audience; the heroes, namely, of their
old traditional history, to whom they attributed an
immediate descent from their deities,---a frame of
body and mind surpassing humanity, and after death
an exaltation into the rank of demi-gods.</p>
<p> It must be added, that, even when the action was
laid among a less dignified set of personages, still
the altar was present on the stage; incense frequently
smoked; and frequent prayers and obtestations
of the Deity reminded the audience that
the sports of the ancient theatre had their origin in
religious observances. It is scarce necessary to
state how widely the classical Drama, in this respect,
differs in principle from that of the modern,
which pretends to be nothing more than an elegant
branch of the fine arts, whose end is attained when
it supplies an evening's amusement, whose lessons
are only of a moral description, and which is so far
from possessing a religious character, that it has,
with difficulty, escaped condemnation as a profane,
dissolute, and antichristian pastime. From this
distinction of principle there flows a difference of
practical results, serving to account for many circumstances
which might otherwise seem embarrassing.</p>
<p> The ancients, we have seen, endeavoured by every
means in their power, including the use of masks
and of buskins, to disguise the person of the actor;
and at the expense of sacrificing the expression of
his countenance, and the grace, or at least the ease
of his form, they removed from the observation of
the audience, every association which could betray
the person of an individual player, under the garb
of the deity or hero he was designed to represent.
To have done otherwise would have been held indecorous,
if not profane. It follows, that as the
object of the Athenian and of the modern auditor
in attending the theatre was perfectly different, the
pleasure which each derived from the representation
had a distinct source. Thus, for example, the
Englishman's desire to see a particular character
is intimately connected with the idea of the actor
by whom it was performed. He does not wish to
see Hamlet in the abstract, so much as to see how
Kemble performs that character, and to compare
him, perhaps, with his own recollections of Garrick
in the same part. He comes prepared to study each
variation of the actor's countenance, each change
in his accentuation and deportment; to note with
critical accuracy the points which discriminate his
mode of acting from that of others; and to compare
the whole with his own abstract of the character.
The pleasure arising from this species of
critical investigation and contrast is so intimately
allied with our ideas of theatrical amusement, that
we can scarce admit the possibility of deriving
much satisfaction from a representation sustained
by an actor, whose personal appearance and peculiar
expression of features should be concealed from
us, however splendid his declamation, or however
appropriate his gesture and action. But this mode
of considering the Drama, and the delight which
we derive from it, would have appeared to the
Greeks a foolish and profane refinement, not very
different in point of taste from the expedient of
Snug the joiner, who intimated his identity by letting
his natural visage be seen, under the mask of
the lion which he represented. It was with the
direct purpose of concealing the features of the individual
actors, as tending to destroy the effect of
his theatrical disguise, that the mask and buskin
were first invented, and afterwards retained in use.
The figure was otherwise so dressed as to represent
the Deity or demi-god, according to the statue best
known, and adored with most devotion by the Grecian
public. The mask was, by artists who were
eminent in the plastic art, so formed as to perfect
the resemblance. Theseus, or Hercules, stood before
the audience, in the very form with which
painters and statuaries had taught them to invest
the hero, and there was certainly thus gained a
more complete scenic deception, than could have
been obtained in our present mode. It was aided
by the distance interposed betwixt the audience
and the stage; but, above all, by the influence of
enthusiasm acting upon the congregated thousands,
whose imaginations, equally lively and susceptible,
were prompt to receive the impressions which the
noble verse of their authors conveyed to their ears,
and the living personification of their gods and
demi-gods placed before their eyes.</p>
<p> It is scarcely necessary to add, that while these
observations plead an apology, arising out of custom
and manners, for the mask and the buskin of
the ancients, they leave where it stood before every
objection to those awkward and unseemly disguises,
considered in themselves, and without reference to
the peculiar purpose and tendency of the ancient
theatre. In fact, the exquisite pleasure derived
from watching the eloquence of feature, and eye,
which we admire in an accomplished actor, was not,
as some have supposed, sacrificed by the ancients
for the assumption of these disguises. They never
did, and, according to the plan of their theatres,
never could, possess that source of enjoyment. The
circuit of the theatre was immense, and the eyes
of the thousands whom it contained were so far
removed from the stage, that, far from being able
to enjoy the minute play of the actor's features,
the mask and buskin were necessary to give distinction
to his figure, and to convey all which the
ancients expected to see, his general resemblance,
namely, to the character he represented.</p>
<p> The Grecian style of acting, so far as it has been
described to us, corresponded to the other circumstances
of the representation. It affected gravity
and sublimity of movement and of declamation.
Rapidity of motion, and vivacity of action, seem to
have been reserved for occasions of particular emotion;
and that delicacy of by-play, as well as all
the aid which look and slight gesture bring so happily
to the aid of an impassioned dialogue, were
foreign to their system. The actors, therefore, had
an easier task than on the modern stage, since it is
much more easy to preserve a tone of high and dignified
declamation, than to follow out the whirlwind
and tempest of passion, in which it is demanded of
the performer to he energetic without bombast,
and natural without vulgarity.</p>
<p> The Grecian actors held a high rank in the
republic, and those esteemed in the profession were
richly recompensed. Their art was the more dignified,
because the poets themselves usually represented
the principal character in their own pieces,
---a circumstance which corroborates what we have
already stated concerning the comparative inferiority
of talents required in a Grecian actor, who
was only expected to move with grace and declaim
with truth and justice. His disguise hid all personal
imperfections, and thus a Grecian poet might
aspire to become an actor, without that extraordinary
and unlikely union of moral and physical
powers, which would be necessary to qualify a modern
dramatist to mount the stage in person, and
excel at once as a poet and as an actor.<*></p>
<ul>
<li>First published in the Supplement to the Encyclop<ae>dia
* Britannica. 1819.<p> It is no part of our present object to enter into
any minute examination of the comparative merits
of the three great tragedians of Athens, <AE>schylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides. Never, perhaps, did
there arise, within so short a space, such a succession
of brilliant talents. Sophocles might, indeed,
be said to be the contemporary of both his rivals,
for his youthful emulation was excited by the success
of <AE>schylus, and the eminence of his latter
years was disturbed by the rivalry of Euripides,
whom, however, he survived. To <AE>schylus, who
led the van in dramatic enterprise, as he did in the
field of Marathon, the sanction of antiquity has ascribed
unrivalled powers over the realms of astonishment
and terror. At his summons, the mysterious
and tremendous volume of destiny, in which
are inscribed the doom of gods and men, seemed to
display its leaves of iron before the appalled spectators;
the more than mortal voices of Deities, Titans,
and departed Heroes, were heard in awful
conference; heaven bowed, and its divinities descended;
earth yawned, and gave up the pale spectres
of the dead; and the yet more undefined and
grisly forms of those infernal deities who struck
horror into the gods themselves. All this could
only be dared and done by a poet of the highest
order, confident, during that early age of enthusiasm,
that he addressed an audience prompt to
kindle at the heroic scene which he placed before
them. It followed almost naturally, from his character,
that the dramas of <AE>schylus, though full of
terrible interest, should be deficient of grace and
softness; that his sublime conciseness should deviate
sometimes into harshness and obscurity; that,
finding it impossible to sustain himself at the height
to which he had ascended, he should sometimes
drop, ``fluttering his pinions vain,'' into great inequalities
of composition; and, finally, that his plots
should appear rude and inartificial, contrasted with
those of his successors in the dramatic art. Still,
however, <AE>schylus led not only the way in the
noble career of the Grecian drama, but outstripped,
in point of sublimity at least, those by whom he was
followed.</p>
<p> Sophocles, who obtained from his countrymen
the title of the <u>Bee</u> of Attica, rivalled <AE>schylus
when in the possession of the stage, and obtained
the first prize. His success occasioned the veteran's
retreat to Sicily, where he died, commanding
that his epitaph should make mention of his share
in the victory of Marathon, but should contain no
allusion to his dramatic excellencies. His more
fortunate rival judiciously avoided the dizzy and
terrific path which <AE>schylus had trod with so firm
and daring a step. It was the object of Sophocles
to move sorrow and compassion, rather than to
excite indignation and terror. He studied the progress
of action with more attention than <AE>schylus,
and excelled in that modulation of the story by
which interest is excited at the beginning of a
drama, maintained in its progress, and gratified at
its conclusion. His subjects are also of a nature
more melancholy and less sublime than those of his
predecessors. He loved to paint heroes rather in
their forlorn than in their triumphant fortunes,
aware that the contrast offered new sources of the
pathetic to the author. Sophocles was the most
fortunate of the Greek tragedians. He attained
the age of ninety-one years; and in his eightieth,
to vindicate himself from a charge of mental imbecility,
he read to the judges his _<OE>dipus Coloneus,_
the most beautiful, at least the most perfect, of his
tragedies. He survived Euripides, his most formidable
rival, of whom, also, we must speak a few words.</p>
<p> It is observed by Schlegel, that the tone of the
tragedies of Euripides approaches more nearly to
modern taste than to the stern simplicity of his predecessors.
The passion of love predominates in
his pieces, and he is the first tragedian who paid
tribute to that sentiment which has been too exclusively
made the moving cause of interest on the
modern stage,---the first who sacrificed to<p> ``Cupid, king of gods and men.''</p>
</p>
<p> The dramatic use of this passion has been purified
in modern times, by the introduction of that
tone of feeling, which, since the age of chivalry, has
been a principal ingredient in heroic affection. This
was unknown to the ancients, in whose society females,
generally speaking, held a low and degraded
place, from which few individuals emerged, unless
those who aspired to the talents and virtues proper
to the masculine sex. Women were not forbidden
to become competitors for the laurel or oaken crown
offered to genius and to patriotism; but antiquity
held out no myrtle wreath, as a prize for the domestic
virtues peculiar to the female character. Love,
therefore, in Euripides, does not always breathe
purity of sentiment, but is stained with the mixture
of violent and degrading passions. This, however,
was the fault of the age, rather than of the poet,
although he is generally represented as an enemy
of the female sex; and his death was ascribed to a
judgment of Venus.<p> ``When blood-hounds met him by the way,
And monsters made the bard their prey.''</p>
</p>
<p> This great dramatist was less successful than
Sophocles in the construction of his plots; and,
instead of the happy expedients by which his predecessor
introduces us to the business of the drama,
he had too often recourse to the mediation of a prologue,
who came forth to explain, in detail, the previous
history necessary to understand the piece.</p>
<p> Euripides is also accused of having degraded the
character of his personages, by admitting more
alloy of human weakness, folly, and vice, than was
consistent with the high qualities of the heroic age.
<AE>schylus, it was said, transported his audience
into a new and more sublime race of beings; Sophocles
painted mankind as they ought to be, and
Euripides as they actually are. Yet the variety of
character introduced by the latter tragedian, and
the interest of his tragedies, must always attract the
modern reader, coloured as they are by a tone of
sentiment, and by his knowledge of the business,
rules, and habits, of actual life, to which his predecessors,
living as they did, in an imaginary and
heroical world of their own, appear to have been
strangers. And although the judgment of the
ancients assigned the pre-eminence in tragedy to
<AE>schylus or Sophocles, yet Euripides has been
found more popular with posterity than either of
his two great predecessors.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> The division betwixt tragedy and comedy, for
both sprang from the same common origin, the
feasts, namely, in honour of Bacchus, and the disguises
adopted by his worshippers, seems to have
taken place gradually, until the jests and frolics,
which made a principal part of these revels, were
found misplaced when introduced with graver matter,
and were made by Susarion, perhaps, the subject
of a separate province of the Drama. The
Grecian comedy was divided into the ancient, the
middle, and the modern, style of composition.</p>
<p> The ancient and original comedy was of a kind
which may, at first sight, appear to derogate from
the religious purposes which we have pointed out as
the foundation of the Drama. The writings under
this head frequently turn upon parodies, in which
the persons and adventures of those gods and heroes
who were the sublime subjects of the tragic Drama,
are introduced for the purpose of buffoon-sport, and
ridicule, as in Carey's modern farces of <u>Midas</u> and
the <u>Golden Pippin.</u> Hercules appears in one of
those pieces astonishing his host by an extravagant
appetite, which the cook in vain attempts to satiate,
by placing before him, in succession, all the various
dishes which the ancient kitchen afforded. In
another comedy, Bacchus (in whose honour the
solemnity was instituted) is brought in only in
order to ridicule his extreme cowardice.</p>
<p> At other times, allowing a grotesque fancy its
wildest range, the early comic authors introduced
upon the stage animals, and even inanimate things,
as part of their _dramatis person<ae>,_ and embodied
forth on the stage, the fantastic imaginations of
Lucian in his <u>True History.</u> The golden age was
represented in the same ridiculous and bizarre mode
of description as the <u>Pays de la Cocaigne</u> of the
French minstrels, or the popular ideas of <u>Lubberland</u>
in England: and the poets furnished kingdoms
of birds and worlds in the moon.</p>
<p> Had the only charm of these entertainments consisted
in the fantastic display with which the eyes
of the spectators were regaled at the expense of the
over-excited imagination of the poet, they would
soon have fallen into disuse; for the Athenians
were too acute and judicious critics, to have been
long gratified with mere extravagance. But those
grotesque scenes were made the medium for throwing
the most bold and daring ridicule upon the
measures of the state, upon the opinions of individuals,
and upon the religion of the country.</p>
<p> This propensity to turn into ridicule that which
is most serious and sacred, had probably its origin
in the rude gambols of the silvan deities who accompanied
Bacchus, and to whose petulant and lively
demeanour rude jest was a natural accompaniment.
The audience, at least the more ignorant part of
them, saw these parodies with pleasure, which
equalled the awe they felt at the performance of
the tragedies, whose most solemn subjects were
thus burlesqued; nor do they appear to have been
checked by any sense that their mirth was profane.
In fact, when the religion of a nation comes to consist
chiefly in the practice of a few unmeaning ceremonies,
it is often found that the populace, with
whatever inconsistency, assume the liberty of profaning
them by grotesque parodies, without losing
their reverence for the superstitions which they thus
vilify. Customs of a like tendency were common
in the middle ages. The festival of the Ass in
France, of the Boy-Bishop in England, of the Abbot
of Unreason in Scotland,<*> and many other</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><text>
A drama (we adopt Dr. Johnson's definition,
with some little extension) is a poem of fictitious
composition in dialogue, in which the action is not
related but represented.</p>
<ul>
<li>The author never read <u>The Wishes,</u> and quotes from the
* information of a friend.---S.<p> It is probable, that, had the old Grecian comedy
continued to direct its shafts of ridicule only against
the inhabitants of Olympus, it would not have
attracted the coercion of the magistracy. But its
kingdom was far more extensive, and the poets,
claiming the privilege of laying their opinions on
public affairs before the people in this shape, Cratinus,
Eupolis, and particularly Aristophanes, a
daring, powerful, and apparently unprincipled writer,
converted comedy into an engine for assailing
the credit and character of private individuals, as
well as the persons and political measures of those
who administered the state. The doctrines of philosophy,
the power of the magistrate, the genius of
the poet, the rites proper to the Deity, were alternately
made the subject of the most uncompromising
and severe satire. It was soon discovered, that
the more directly personal the assault could be
made, and the more revered or exalted the personage,
the greater was the malignant satisfaction
of the audience, who loved to see wisdom, authority,
and religious reverence, brought down to their own
level, and made subjects of ridicule by the powers
of the merciless satirist. The use of the mask
enabled Aristophanes to render his satire yet more
pointedly personal; for, by forming it so as to imitate,
probably with some absurd exaggeration, the
features of the object of his ridicule, and by imitating
the dress and manner of the original, the
player stepped upon the stage, a walking and
speaking caricature of the hero of the night, and
was usually placed in some ludicrous position, amidst
the fanciful and whimsical chimeras with which the
scene was peopled.</p>
<p> In this manner, Aristophanes ridiculed with
equal freedom Socrates, the wisest of the Athenians,
and Cleon, the demagogue, when at the height of
his power. As no one durst perform the latter
part, for fear of giving offence to one so powerful,
the author acted Cleon himself, with his face smeared
with the lees of wine. Like the satire of Rabelais,
the political and personal invective of Aristophanes
was mingled with a plentiful allowance of
scurril and indecent jests, which were calculated
to ensure a favourable reception from the bulk of
the people. He resembles Rabelais also, in the
wild and fanciful fictions which he assumes as the
vehicle of his satire; and his Comedy of The Birds
may even have given hints to Swift, when, in order
to contrast the order of existing institutions with
those of a Utopian and fantastic fairy land, he
carries Gulliver among giants and pigmies. Yet
though his indecency, and the offensive and indiscriminate
scurrility of his satire, deserve censure;
though he merits the blame of the wise for his
attack upon Socrates, and of the learned for his
repeated and envenomed assaults on Euripides,
Aristophanes has nevertheless added one deathless
name to the deathless period in which he flourished;
and, from the richness of his fancy, and gaiety
of his tone, has deserved the title of the Father of
Comedy.<*> When the style of his sarcasm possessed</p>
</li>
<li>It seems reasonable to expect that a great dramatic poet
<em> should without difficulty become a great actor; that he who
</em> can feel could express; that he who can excite passion should
<em> exhibit with great readiness in external modes; but since
</em> experience has fully proved, that of those powers, whatever
<em> be their affinity, one may be possessed in a great degree by
</em> him who has very little of the other; it must be allowed
<em> that they depend upon different faculties, or on different use
</em> of the same faculty; that the actor must have a pliancy of
<em> mien, a flexibility of countenance, and a variety of tones
</em> which the poet may easily be supposed to want; or that the
<em> attention of the poet and the player has been differently employed;
</em> the one has been considering thought, and the other
<em> action; one has watched the heart, and the other contemplated
</em> the face.---=Johnson.=</li>
<li>See these Saturnalia described in =D'Israeli'=s _Curiosities
<em> of Literature,_ vol. iii.---of the Abbot of Unreason at greater
</em> length, and with more of graphic illustration, in the romance
* of <u>The Abbot,</u> ch. 14, 15.<p> The ancient comedy was of a character too licentious
to be long tolerated. Two or three decrees
having been in vain passed, in order to protect the
citizens against libels of this poignant description,
the ancient comedy was finally proscribed by that
oligarchy, which assumed the sway over Athens,
upon the downfall of the popular government towards
the end of the Peloponnesian war. By order
of these rulers, Anaxander, an actor, was punished
capitally, for parodying a line of Euripides, so as
to infer a slight of the government. He was starved
to death, to which, as an appropriate punishment,
the public has since his time often indirectly condemned
both actors and dramatists. Aristophanes,
who was still alive, bowed to the storm, and relinquished
the critical and satirical scourge, which he
had hitherto exercised in the combined capacity of
satirist, reformer, and reviewer; and the use of
the Chorus was prohibited to comic authors, as it
seems to have been in their stanzas chiefly that
the offensive satire was invested. To this edict
Horace alludes in the well-known lines:<p> ``Successit vetus his comedia, nun sine mult<a`>
Laude, sed in vitium libertas excidit, et vim
Dignam lege regi: lex est accepta: Chorusque
Turpiter obticuit, sublato jure nocendi.''<*></p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>popular practices of the same kind, exhibited, in
countries yet Catholic, daring parodies of the most
sacred services and ceremonies of the Roman
Church. And as these were practised openly, and
under authority, without being supposed to shake
the people's attachment to the rites which they
thus ridiculed, we cannot wonder that similar profanities
were well received among the Pagans, whose
religion sat very loosely upon them, and who professed
no fixed or necessary articles of faith.<p> In the middle comedy, Thalia and her votaries
seemed to have retraced their steps, and, avoiding
personal satire, resorted once more to general subjects
of burlesque raillery. We learn from history,
real or fabulous, or from the works of the elder
poets, that these plays had the fanciful wildness
without the personal satire of the ancient comedy,
for the authors were obliged to take care that there
was no ``offence'' in their pleasantry. At most,
they only ventured to touch on matters of instant
interest in the way of inuendo, under feigned titles
and oblique hints, and had no longer the audacity
to join men's vices or follies to their names. Aristophanes
recast several of his pieces in this manner.
But the same food, without the poignant seasoning
to which the audience had been accustomed, palled
on their taste, and this cast of pieces soon gave
place to that which the ancients called the New
Comedy, so successfully cultivated by Menander
and others.</p>
<p> Notwithstanding what modern critics have said
to the contrary, and particularly the ingenious
Schlegel, the new tone which comedy thus assumed,
seems more congenial to true taste as well as to
public decorum, and even to the peace and security
of the community, than that of Aristophanes, whose
satiric wit, like a furious bull, charged upon his
countrymen without respect or distinction, and
tossed and gored whatever he met with in his way.</p>
<p> The new comedy had for its object the ludicrous
incidents of private life,---<u>celebrare domestica facta,</u>
says Horace,---to detail those foibles, follies, and
whimsical accidents, which are circumstances material
and serious to the agents themselves, but, as
very usually happens on the stage of the world,
matters only of ludicrous interest to the on-lookers.
The new comedy admitted also many incidents of
a character not purely ludicrous, and some which,
calling forth pathetic emotion, approached more
nearly to the character of tragedy than had been
admitted in the ancient comedies of Aristophanes,
and in this rather resembled what the French have
called _Trag<e'>die Bourgoise._ It is scarce necessary
to remark, that the line cannot be always distinctly
drawn betwixt the subjects which excite mirth and
those which call forth sympathy. It often happens
that the same incident is at once affecting and ludicrous,
or admits of being presented alternately in
either point of view. In a Drama, also, which
treats of the faults and lighter vices, as well as of
the follies of mankind, it is natural that the author
should sometimes assume the high tone of the
moralist. In these cases, to use the language of
Horace, comedy exalts her voice, and the offended
father, the pantaloon of the piece, swells into sublimity
of language. A pleasant species of composition
was thus attained, in which wit and humour
were relieved by touches both of sentiment and
moral instruction. The new comedy, taken in this
enlarged point of view, formed the introduction to
the Modern Drama; but it was neither so comprehensive
in its plan, nor so various in character and
interest.</p>
<p> The form which the Greeks, and in imitation of
them the Romans, adopted, for embodying their
comic effusions, was neither extended nor artificial.
To avoid the charge of assaulting, or perhaps the
temptation to attack private persons, the actors in
their drama were rather painted as personifications
of particular classes of society, than living individual
characters. The list of these personages was
sufficiently meagre. The principal character, upon
whose devices and ingenuity the whole plot usually
turns, is the Geta of the piece, a witty, roguish, insinuating,
and malignant slave, the confidant of a
wild and extravagant son, whom he aids in his pious
endeavours to cheat a suspicious, severe, and griping
father. When to these three are added a wily
courtezan, a procuress, a stolen virgin, who is generally
a mute or nearly such, we have all the stock-characters
which are proper to the classic comedy.
Upon this limited scale of notes the ancients rung
their changes, relieving them occasionally, however,
by the introduction of a boastful soldier, a
boorish clown, or a mild and good-natured old man,
to contrast with the irascible Chremes of the piece,
the more ordinary representative of old age.</p>
<p> The plot is in general as simple as the cast of the
characters. A father loses his child, who falls into
the hands of a procuress or slave-merchant. The
efforts of the youth, who falls in love with this
captive, to ransom her from her captivity, are
seconded by the slave, who aids him in the various
devices necessary to extort from his father the funds
necessary for the purchase, and their tricks form
the principal part of the intrigue. When it is
necessary that the play shall close, the discovery of
the girl's birth takes place, and the young couple
are married. The plots are, indeed, sometimes
extended or enlarged by additional circumstances,
but very seldom by any novelty of character or
variety of general form.</p>
<p> It is a necessary consequence, that the ancient
comic authors were confined within a very narrow
compass. The vast and inexhaustible variety of
knavery, folly, affectation, humour, &c &c., as
mingled with each other, or as modified by difference
of age, sex, temper, education, profession, and
habit of body, are all within the royalty of the
modern comic dramatist, and he may summon them
up under what limitations, and in what circumstances
he pleases, to play their parts in his piece.
The ancients were much more limited in their circle
of materials, and, perhaps, we must look for the
ruling cause, once more, in the great size of their
theatres, and to the use of the mask; which, though
it easily presented the general or generic character
of the personage introduced, was incapable of the
endless variety which can be given to ridicule of a
more minute, refined, and personal kind, by the
flexible organs of a modern actor.</p>
<p> But besides this powerful reason for refraining
from any attempt to draw characters distinguished
by peculiar habits, there is much reason to think
that the mode of life pursued by the ancient Athenians
was unfavourable to the formation of whimsical,
original, or eccentric characters. Citizens of the
same state, they lived in the habits of familiar intercourse
with each other, and the differences of ranks
did not make the same distinction in taste and
manners as in modern Europe. The occupation,
also, of Grecian citizens had a uniform and national
character. They were all public men, and had a
common interest in the management of the state;
and it probably followed, that, in men whose
thoughts and pursuits were all bent the same way,
the same general similarity of manners might be
found to exist, which is remarked in those who follow
the same profession. The differences of youth
and age, of riches and poverty, of good or bad temper,
&c. must have been much modified in Attica,
where all free citizens were, to a certain degree, on
a level,---discussed the same topics of state, and
gave their votes in the same popular assemblies,---
enjoyed without restriction the same public amusements,---
and where the same general cast of manners
might descend to the lowest of the citizens,
for the very reason that even a poor herb-woman
understood the delicacy of the Attic dialect so perfectly,
as to distinguish a stranger by the first
words he addressed to her.</p>
<p> The Chorus, silenced, as we have seen, owing to
the license of the old comedy, made no appendage
to that which was substituted in its place. The
exhibition of the Grecian comedy did not, in other
respects, in so far as we know, materially differ
from that of the tragedy. Instead of the choral
interludes, the representation was now divided, by
intervals of cessation, into acts, as upon the modern
stage. And the number <u>five</u> seems to have been
fixed upon as the most convenient and best adapted
for the purposes of representation. The plot, as
we have seen, and the distinct and discriminated
specification of character, were, in either case, subordinate
considerations to the force of style and
composition. It follows, of consequence, that we
can better understand and enjoy the tragedies than
the comedies of the ancients. The circumstances
which excite sublime or terrific sensations are the
same, notwithstanding the difference of age, country,
and language. But comic humour is of a character
much more evanescent. The force of wit
depends almost entirely upon time, circumstance,
and manners; in so much, that a jest which raises
inextinguishable laughter in a particular class of
society appears flat or disgusting if uttered in another.
It is, therefore, no wonder that the ancient
comedy, turning upon manners so far removed from
our own time, should appear to us rather dull and
inartificial. The nature of the intercourse between
the sexes in classic times was also unfavourable for
comedy. The coquette, the fine lady, the romp,
all those various shades of the female character,
which occupy so many pleasant scenes on the modern
stage, were totally unknown to ancient manners.
The wife of the ancient comedy was a mere
household drudge, the vassal, not the companion,
of an imperious husband. The young woman,
whose beauty is the acting motive of the intrigue,
never evinces the slightest intellectual property of
any kind. And the only female character admitting
of some vivacity, is that of the courtezan, whose
wit as well as her charms appear to have been professional.</p>
<p> After subtracting the large field afforded by female
art or caprice, female wit, or folly, or affection,
the realm of the ancient comedy will appear much
circumscribed; and we have yet to estimate a large
deduction to be made on account of the rust of antiquity,
and the total change of religion and manners.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the wit of
Plautus and Terence should come forth diminished
in weight and substance, after having been subjected
to the alembic of modern criticism. That
which survives the investigation, however, is of a
solid and valuable character. If these Dramas do
not entertain us with a display of the specific
varieties of character, they often convey maxims
evincing a deep knowledge of human passion and
feeling; and are so admirably adapted to express,
in few and pithy words, truths which it is important
to remember, that even the Apostle Paul himself
has not disdained to quote a passage from a
Grecian dramatist.<*> The situation, also, of their</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>However vulgar and even corrupted Aristophanes may
<em> have been in his personal inclinations, and however much
</em> some of his jokes may have violated the laws of morality and
<em> taste, we cannot deny to him both in the general plan and
</em> execution of his poems the praise of care and the masterly
<em> hand of a finished artist. His language is extremely elegant.
</em> It displays the purest Atticism, and he accommodates it with
<em> the greatest dexterity to every tone, from the most familiar
</em> dialogue up to the high elevation of the dithyrambic ode. We
<em> cannot doubt that he would have been equally successful in
</em> grave poetry, when we see the wanton luxuriance with which
<em> he sometimes lavishes it for the purpose of immediately destroying
</em> the impression. The elegant choice of the language
<em> which he generally uses is the more attractive from the contrast
</em> occasionally displayed by him; for he not only indulges
<em> at times in the rudest expressions of the people, in foreign
</em> dialects, and even in the mutilated articulation of the Greek
<em> in the mouths of barbarians, but he extends the same arbitrary
</em> power, which he exercised over nature and human affairs, to
<em> language itself, and by composition, allusion to names of persons,
</em> or imitation of particular sounds, produces words of the
<em> most singular description. The structure of his versification
</em> is not less artificial than that of the tragedian's. He uses the
<em> same forms, but differently modified,---his object is ease and
</em> variety instead of gravity and dignity, but, amid all this apparent
<em> irregularity, he still adheres with great accuracy to the
</em> laws of metrical composition.---=Schlegel.=</li>
</ul>
<p>the rareness of novelty, it was considered of so much
importance to the state, that a crown of olive was
voted to the poet, as one who had taught Athens
the defects of her public men. But unless angels
were to write satires, ridicule cannot be considered
as the test of truth. The temptation to be witty is
just so much the more resistless, that the author
knows he will get no thanks for suppressing the jest
which rises to his pen. As the public becomes used
to this new and piquant fare, fresh characters must
be sacrificed for its gratification. Recrimination
adds commonly to the contest, and those who were
at first ridiculed out of mere wantonness of wit,
are soon persecuted for resenting the ill usage;
until literature resembles an actual personal conflict,
where the victory is borne away by the strongest
and most savage, who deals the most desperate
wounds with the least sympathy for the feeling of
his adversary.<p> *</p>
<p> Having dwelt thus long upon the Grecian
Drama, we are entitled to treat with conciseness
that of Rome, which, like the other fine arts, that
people, whose national disposition was much more
martial than literary, copied from their more ingenious
neighbours.</p>
<p> The Romans were not, indeed, without a sort of
rude dramatic representation of their own, of the
same nature with that which, as we have already
noticed, usually rises in an early period of society.
These were called _Fabul<ae> Atellan<ae>;_ farces, for
such they were, which took their name from <u>Atella,</u>
a town belonging to the <u>Osci</u> in Italy. They were
performed by the Roman youth, who used to attack
each other with satirical couplets during the intervals
of some rude game in which they seem to
have represented the characters of fabulous antiquity.
But 361 years before the Christian era, the
Romans, in the time of a great pestilence, as we
learn from Livy, introduced a more regular species
of theatrical entertainment, in order to propitiate
the deities by a solemn exhibition of public games;
after which, what had hitherto been matter of mere
frolic and amusement, assumed, according to the
historian, the appearance of a professional art;
and the Roman youth, who had hitherto appeared
as amateur performers, gave up the stage to regular
actors.</p>
<p> These plays continued, however, to be of a very
rude structure, until the Grecian stage was transplanted
to Rome. Livius Andronicus, by birth a
Grecian, led the way in this improvement, and is
accounted her first dramatist.</p>
<p> Seneca, the philosopher, is the only Roman tragedian
whose works have reached our time. His
tragedies afford no very favourable specimen of
Roman art. They are in the false taste which succeeded
the age of Augustus, and debased the style
of composition in that of Nero; bombastic, tedious,
and pedantic; treating, indeed, of Grecian subjects,
but not with Grecian art.</p>
<p> By a singular contrast, although we have lost the
more valuable tragedies of Rome, we have been
compelled to judge of the new Greek comedy,
through the medium of the Latin translations. Of
Menander we have but a few fragments, and our
examples of his Drama are derived exclusively from
Plautus and Terence. Of these, the former appears
the more original, the latter the more elegant
author. The comedies of Plautus are much more
connected with manners,---much more full of what
may be termed drollery and comic situation,---and
are believed to exhibit a greater portion of Roman
character. The Romans, indeed, had two species
of comedy, the <u>Palliata,</u> where the scene and dress
were Grecian; the <u>Togata,</u> where both were Roman.
But besides this distinction, even the <u>Mantled,</u>
or Grecian comedy, might be more or less of
a Roman cast; and Plautus is supposed to have infused
a much stronger national tone into his plays
than can be traced in those of Terence. They are
also of a ruder cast, and more extravagant, retaining,
perhaps, a larger portion of the rough horseplay
peculiar to the _Fabul<ae> Atellan<ae>._ Terence,
on the contrary, is elegant, refined, and sententious
decorous and regular in the construction of his
plots; exhibiting more of wit in his dialogue,
than of comic force in his situations; grave often
and moral; sometimes even pathetic; and furnishing,
upon the whole, the most perfect specimens
of the Grecian comedy, both in action and
character.</p>
<p> The alterations which the Romans made in the
practice of the theatrical art do not seem to have
been of great consequence. One circumstance,
however, deserves notice. The orchestra, or, as we
should say, the pit of the theatre, was no longer left
vacant for the occasional occupation of the Chorus,
but was filled with the senators, knights and other
more respectable citizens. The stage was thus
brought more near to the eye of the higher class
of the audience. It would also seem that the theatres
were smaller; for we read of two so constructed,
that each turned upon a pivot, so that, when
placed back to hack, they were separate theatres,
yet were capable of being wheeled round, with all
the audience, so as to bring their oblong ends together,
then forming a single amphitheatre, in which
the games of the circus succeeded to dramatic representation.
It is not easy to conceive the existence
of such machinery; but the story, at any rate,
seems to show, that their theatres must have been
greatly smaller than those of Greece, to admit the
supposition of such an evolution as being in any
degree practicable. This diminution in the size of
the house, and the occupation of the orchestra by
the most dignified part of the audience, may have
afforded a reason why masks were, at least occasionally,
disused on the Roman stage. That they
were sometimes disused is certain; for Cicero mentions
Roscius Gallus as using a mask to conceal a
deformity arising from the inequality of his eyes,
which implies plainly that other comedians played
with their faces disclosed. It is therefore probable,
that the imperfections of the mask were felt, so soon
as the distance was diminished between the performer
and the spectators; and we may hazard a
conjecture, that this disguise was first laid aside in
the smaller theatres.</p>
<p> But the principal change introduced by the
Romans into the Drama, and which continues to
affect it in every country of Europe, respected the
<u>status</u> or rank of the actors in society. We have
seen that Athens, enthusiastic in her attachment
to the fine arts, held no circumstances degrading
which were connected with them. <AE>schylus and
Sophocles were soldiers and statesmen, yet lost
nothing in the opinion of their countrymen, by
appearing on the public stage. Euripides, who was
also a person of consequence, proved that ``love
esteems no office mean;'' for he danced in a female
disguise in his own Drama, and that not as the
Princess Nauticlea, but as one of her handmaidens,
or, in modern phrase, as a <u>figurante.</u> The Grecians,
therefore, attached no dishonour to the person of
the actor, nor esteemed that he who contributed to
giving the amusement of the theatre, was at all
degraded beneath those who received it. It was
otherwise in Rome. The contempt which the
Romans entertained for players might be founded
partly upon their confounding this elegant amusement
with the games of the Circus and amphitheatre,
performed by gladiators and slaves, the meanest,
in short, of mankind. Hence, to use the words
of St. Augustin, ``the ancient Romans, accounting
the art of stage-playing and the whole scene infamous,
ordained that this sort of men should not
only want the honour of other citizens, but also be
disfranchised and thrust out of their tribe, by a
legal and disgraceful censure, which the censors
were to execute; because they would not suffer
their vulgar sort of people, much less their senators,
to be defamed, disgraced, or defiled with stage-players;''
which act of theirs he styles ``an excellent
true Roman prudence, to be enumerated among
the Roman's praises.''</p>
<p> Accordingly, an edict of the pr<ae>tor stigmatized
as infamous all who appeared on the stage, either
to speak or act; but it is remarkable that from this
general proscription the Roman youth were excepted;
and they continued to enact the _Fabul<ae> Atellan<ae>,_
namely, the farces or drolleries of ancient
Italian origin, without incurring any stigma. This
exception seems to indicate, that the edict originated
in the national pride of the Romans, and their
contempt for Grecian literature, and for foreigners
of every description. Under any other view it is
impossible they should have preferred the actors
in these coarse farces, who, by the by, are supposed
to have been the originals of no less persons
than Harlequin and Punchinello, to those who possessed
taste and talents sufficient to execute the
masterly scenes borrowed from the Grecian Drama.</p>
<p> Injustice, however,---and we call that law unjust
which devotes to general infamy any profession of
which it nevertheless tolerates the practice,---is
usually inconsistent. Several individual play-actors
in Rome rose to high public esteem, and to the enjoyment
of great wealth. Roscius was the friend
and companion of Piso and of Sylla, and, what was
still more to his credit, of Cicero himself, who thus
eulogises the scenic art, while commemorating the
merits of his deceased friend:---``_Quis nostrum tam
animo agresti ac duro fuit, ut Roscii morte super
non commoveretur; qui quum esset senex mortuus,
tamen, propter excellentem artem ac venustatem, videbatur
omnino mori non debuisse?_''<*></p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>The ancient comedy next play'd its part,
<em> Well-famed, at first, for spirit and for art;
</em> But Liberty o'erleaping decent awe,
<em> Satiric rage required restraint from law.
</em> The edict spoke,---dishonor'd silence bound
* The Chorus and forbade their ancient right to wound.---S.<p> Paris, another Roman actor, reached a height of
celebrity as distinguished as Roscius, and exercised,
as many of his profession have since done, an arbitrary
authority over the unfortunate dramatic authors.
It is recorded by the satirist, that Statius
the epic poet might have starved, had he not given
up to this favourite of the public, upon his own
terms doubtless, the manuscript of an unacted performance.
Paris was put to death by Domitian
out of jealousy.</p>
<p> If the actors rose to be persons of importance in
Rome, the dramatic critics were not less so. They
had formed a code of laws for the regulation of
dramatic authors to which the great names of
Aristotle and Horace both contributed their authority.
But these will be more properly treated of
when we come to mention the adoption of the ancient
regulations by the French stage.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> Having thus gone hastily through some account
of the ancient stage, from its rise in Greece to its
transportation to Rome, we have only to notice the
circumstances under which it expired.</p>
<p> Christianity from its first origin was inimical to
the institution of the stage. The Fathers of the
Church inveigh against the profaneness and immodesty
of the theatre. In the treatise of Tertullian,
<u>De Spectaculis,</u> he has written expressly upon the
subject. The various authorities on this head have
been collected and quoted by the enemies of the
stage, from Prynne down to Collier. It ought,
however, to be noticed, that their exprobration of
the theatre is founded, first, upon its origin, as connected
with heathen superstition; and secondly,
on the beastly and abominable license practised in
the pantomimes, which, although they made no
part of the regular Drama, were presented nevertheless
in the same place, and before the same
audience. ``We avoid your shows and games,''
says Tertullian, ``because we doubt the warrant of
their origin. They savour of superstition and idolatry,
and we dislike the entertainment, as abhorring
the heathen religion on which it is founded.''
In another place he observes, the temples were
united to theatres, in order that superstition might
patronise debauchery, and that they were dedicated
to Bacchus and to Venus, the confederate
deities of lust and intemperance.</p>
<p> It was not only the connexion of the theatre
with heathen superstition, that offended the primitive
Church; but also the profligacy of some of the
entertainments which were exhibited. There cannot
be much objected to the regular Roman Dramas
in this particular, since even Mr. Collier allows
them to be more decorous than the British stage
of his own time; but, as we have already hinted,
in the <u>Ludi Scenici,</u> the intrigues of the gods and
the heroes were represented upon the Stage with
the utmost grossness. These obscene and scandalous
performances thus far coincided with the Drama,
that they were acted in the same theatres, and in
honour of the same deities, and both were subjected
to the same sweeping condemnation. They
were not, however, absolutely or formally abolished,
even when Christianity became the religion of
the State. Tertullian and St. Austin both speak of
the scenic representations of their own day, under
the distinct characters of tragedy and comedy;
and although condemned by the Church, and abhorred
by the more strict Christians, there is little
doubt that the ancient theatre continued to exist,
until it was buried under the ruins of the Roman
Empire.<p> MODERN DRAMA.</p>
</p>
<p> The same propensity for fictitious personification,
which we have remarked as common to all countries,
introduced, during the dark ages, a rude species of
Drama into most of the nations of Europe. Like
the first efforts of the ancients in that art, it had its
foundation in religion; with this great difference,
that as the rites of Bacchus before, and even after
the improvements introduced by Thespis, were well
enough suited to the worship of such a deity, the
religious Dramas, mysteries, or whatever other
name they assumed, were often so unworthy of the
Christian religion, on which they were founded,
that their being tolerated can be attributed only to
the gross ignorance of the laity, and the cunning of
the Catholic priesthood, who used them, with other
idle and sometimes indecorous solemnities, as one
means of amusing the people's minds, and detaining
them in contented bondage to their spiritual superiors.</p>
<p> In the Empire of the East, religious exhibitions
of a theatrical character appear to have been instituted
about the year 990, by Theophylact, patriarch
of Constantinople, with the intention (Warton surmises)
of weaning the minds of the people from
the Pagan revels, by substituting Christian spectacles,
partaking of the same spirit of license. His
contemporaries give him little credit for his good
intentions. ``Theophylact,'' says Cedrenus, as
translated by Warton, ``introduced the practice,
which prevails to this day, of scandalizing God and
the memory of his saints, on the most splendid and
popular festivals, by indecent and ridiculous songs
and enormous shoutings, even in the midst of those
sacred hymns which we ought to offer to divine
grace for the salvation of our souls. But he having
collected a company of base fellows, and placing
over them one Euthynicus surnamed Casnes, whom
he also appointed the superintendent of his church,
admitted into the sacred service diabolical dances,
exclamations of ribaldry, and ballads borrowed
from the streets and brothels.''---The irregularities
of the Greek clergy, who, on certain holidays, personated
feigned characters, and entered even the
choir in masquerade, are elsewhere mentioned.
(Warton's <u>History of English Poetry,</u> vol. ii., p.
370.) These passages do not prove that actual
mysteries or sacred Dramas were enacted on such
occasions; but probably the indecent revels alluded
to bore the same relation to such representations,
as the original rites of Bacchus to the more refined
exhibitions of Thespis and Susarion.</p>
<p> There has been some dispute among theatrical
antiquaries, in which country of Europe dramatic
representations of a religious kind first appeared.
The liberal and ingenious editor<*> of the _Chester</p>
</li>
<li>The maxim ``Evil communications corrupt good manners,''
* 1 Cor. xv 33, is said to be from Menander.</li>
</ul>
<p>personages is often truly comic; and the modern
writers who have borrowed their ideas, and arranged
them according to the taste of their own
age, have often been indebted to the ancients for
the principal cause of their success.<p> The practice of processions and pageants with
music, in which characters, chiefly of sacred writ,
were presented before the public, is so immediately
connected with that of speaking exhibitions, that it
is difficult to discriminate the one from the other.</p>
<p> We are tempted to look first to Italy; as it is
natural that the tragic art should have revived in
that country in which it was last exercised, and
where traditions, and perhaps some faint traces, of
its existence were still preserved.</p>
<p> ``The first speaking sacred Dramas,'' says Mr.
Walker, ``was <u>Della Passione di nostro Signore
Gesu Christo,</u> by Giuliano Dati, Bishop of San Leo,
who flourished about the year 1445.'' (Walker's
<u>Essay on the Revival of the Drama in Italy,</u> p. 6.)
This elegant author does, indeed, show that Italian
scholars, and particularly Mussato, the Paduan
historian, had composed two Latin Dramas upon
something like the classical model, about the year
1300. Yet, although his play upon the tyranny and
death of Ezzlino obtained him both reputation and
honour, it does not appear to have been composed
for representation on the stage, but rather to have
been a dramatic poem, since the progress of the
piece is often interrupted by the poet speaking in
his own person.</p>
<p> The French Drama is traced by M. Le Grand
as high as the thirteenth century; and he has produced
one curious example of a pastoral, entitled,
<u>Un Jeu.</u> He mentions also a farce, two devotional
pieces, and two moralities, to each of which he
ascribes the same title. It may be suspected, that
these are only dialogues recited by the travelling
minstrels and troubadours; such as Petrarch acknowledges
having sometimes composed for the
benefit of the strolling musicians. Such were probably
the spectacles exhibited by Philip the Fair in
1313, in celebration of the honour of knighthood
conferred on his children. Ricoboni, anxious for
the honour of Italy, denies to these amusements
the character of a legitimate Drama; with what
justice we have no information that can enable us
to decide.</p>
<p> Amidst this uncertainty, it is not unpleasant to
record the fair claim which Britain possesses to be
one of the earliest, if not the very first nation in
which dramatic representation seems to have been
revived. The <u>Chester Mysteries,</u> called the <u>Whitsun
Plays,</u> appear to have been performed during
the mayoralty of John Arneway, who filled that
office is Chester from 1268 to 1276. The very
curious specimen of these Mysteries, which has
been of late printed for private distribution by Mr.
Markland of the Temple, furnishes us with the
banns, or proclamation, containing the history and
character of the pageants which it announces.<p> ``Reverende lordes and ladyes all,
That at this time here assembled bee,
By this messuage understande you shall,
That sometymes there was mayor of this citie,
Sir John Arnway, Knyghte, who most worthilye
Contented himselfe to sett out an playe
The devise of one Done Randal, moonke of Chester Abbey.</p>
<p> ``This moonke, moonke-like, in scriptures well seene,
In storyes travelled with the best sorte;
In pagentes set fourth, apparently to all eyne,
The Olde and Newe Testament with livelye comforte;
Intermynglinge therewith, onely to make sporte,
Some things not warranted by any writt,
Which to gladd the hearers he woulde men to take yt.</p>
<p> ``This matter he abrevited into playes twenty-foure,
And every playe of the matter gave but a taste,
Leavinge for better learninge circumstances to accomplishe,
For his proceedinges maye appeare to be in haste:
Yet all together unprofitable his labour he did not waste,
For at this daye, and ever, he deserveth the fame
Which all moonkes deserve professinge that name.</p>
<p> ``This worthy Knyghte Arnway, then mayor of this citie,
This order toke, as declare to you I shall,
That by twentye-fower occupations, artes, craftes, or misteries,
These pagentes shoulde be played after breeffe rehearsall;
For every pagente a cariage to be provyded withall,
In which sorte we purpose this Whitsontyde,
Our pagentes into three partes to devyde.
1. Now you worshippful =Tanners= that of custome olde
The fall of Lucifer did set out,
Some writers awarrante your matter, therefore be boulde
Lustelye to playe the same to all the rowtte:
And yf any thereof stand in any doubte,
Your author his author hath, your shewe let bee,
Good speech, fyne players, with apparill comelye.''
(<u>Chester Mysteries.</u>)</p>
</p>
<p> Such were the celebrated <u>Mysteries of Chester.</u>
To Mr. Markland's extracts from them is prefixed
a curious dissertation upon their age and author;
and the subject has received yet further, and most
interesting illustration from a learned antiquarian
dissertation on the subject by Thomas Sharpe,
Esq., published at Coventry, in 1825. They were
so highly popular as to be ranked in the estimation
of the vulgar with the ballads of Robin Hood; for
a character in one of the old moralities is introduced
as boasting,<p> ``I can rhimes of Robin Hood, and Randal of Chester,
But of our Lord and our Lady I can nought at all.''</p>
</p>
<p> The poetical value of these Mysteries is never
considerable, though they are to he found among
the dramatic antiquities of all parts of Europe. It
was, however, soon discovered that the purity of
the Christian religion was inconsistent with these
rude games, in which passages from Scripture were
profanely and indecently mingled with human inventions
of a very rude, and sometimes an indecorous
character. To the Mysteries, therefore, succeeded
the Moralities, a species of dramatic exercise,
which involved more art and ingenuity, and
was besides much more proper for a public amusement,
than the imitations or rather parodies of
Sacred History, which had hitherto entertained the
public.</p>
<p> These Moralities bear some analogy to the old or
original comedy of the ancients. They were often
founded upon allegorical subjects, and almost always
bore a close and poignant allusion to the incidents
of the day. Public reformation was their avowed
object, and, of course, satire was frequently the implement
which they employed. Dr. Percy, however,
remarks that they were of two characters, serious
and ludicrous; the one approaching to the tragedy,
the other to the comedy of classical times; so that
they brought taste as it were to the threshold of the
real Drama. The difference betwixt the Catholic
and Reformed religion was fiercely disputed in some
of these Dramas; and in Scotland, in particular, a
mortal blow was aimed at the superstitions of the
Roman Church, by the celebrated Sir David Lindsay,
in a play or Morality acted in 1539, and entitled
<u>The Satire of the Three Estates.</u><*> The objects</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>``Is there any one so rude and callous as not to have
<em> grieved, the other day, for the death of Roscius; who died old,
</em> indeed, but in the possession of such powers in his art, that
* one might he pardoned for thinking he should never die?''</li>
<li>The author's friend, James H. Markland, Esq., of the
* Temple.<p> In a letter to the Lord Privy Seal of England,
dated 26th January, 1540, =Sir William Eure,
(Envoy from Henry VIII.,)= gives the following
account of the play, as it had then been performed:</p>
<p> ``In the feast of Ephipanie at Lightgowe, before the king,
queene, and the whole counsaile, spirituall and temporall.---
In the firste entres come in =Solace,= (whose parte was but to
make mery, sing ballets with his fellowes, and drink at the
interleydes of the play,) whoe showed firste to all the audience
the play to be played. Next come in a king, who passed to his
throne, having nae speche to thende of the play, and then to
ratify and approve, as in Parliament, all things done by the
rest of the players, which represented =The Three Estates.=
With him came his cortiers, =Placebo, Picthank,= and =Flatterye,=
and sic alike gard; one swering he was the lustiest,
starkeste, best proportionit, and most valyeant man that ever
was; ane other swore he was the beste with long-bowe, crosse-bowe
and culverin, and so fourth. Thairafter there come a
man armed in harnesss, with a swerde drawn in his hande, a
=Bushop,= a =Burges-Man,= and =Experience,= clede like a =Doctor:=
who set them all down on the deis under the =King.=
After them come a =Poor Man,= who did go up and down the
scaffolde making a hevie complainte that he was hereyet,
throw the courtiers taking his fewe in one place, and his tackes
in another; wherthrough he had sceyled his house, his wyfe
and childrene beggyng thair brede, and so of many thousands
in Scotland; saying thair was no remedy to be gotten, as he
was neither acquainted with controller nor treasurer. And
then he looked to tke King, and said he was not king in Scotland,
for there was ane other king in Scotland that hanged
=Johne Armstrang,= with his fellowes, =Sym the Laird,= and
mony other mae; but he had lefte ane thing undone. Then
he made a long narracione of the oppression of the poor, by
the taking of the corse-presaunte beists, and of the herrying of
poor men by the consistorye lawe, and of many other abusions
of the =Spiritualitie= and Church. Then the =Bushop= raise
and rebuked him. Then the =Man of Armes= alledged the
contraire, and commanded the poor man to go on. The poor
man proceeds with a long list of the bushop's evil practices,
the vices of cloisters, &c. This proved by =Experience,= who,
from a New Testament, shows the office of a bushop. The
=Man of Armes= and the =Burges= approve of all that was said
against the clergy, and alledge the expediency of a reform,
with the consent of Parliament. The =Bushop= dissents. The
=Man of Armes= and the =Burges= said they were two, and he
but one, wherefore their voice should have most effect. Thereafter
the King, in the play, ratified, approved, and confirmed
all that was rehersed.''</p>
<p> The other nations of Europe, as well as England,
had their Mysteries and Moralities. In France,
Boileau, following Menestrier, imputes the introduction
of these spectacles to travelling bands of
pilgrims.<p> Chez nos devots ayeux, le th<e'><a^>tre abhorr<e'>
Fut long-temps dan la France en plaisir ignor<e'>:
Des pelerins, dit-on, une troupe grossiere
En public <a`> Paris y monta la premi<e`>re;
Et sottement z<e'>l<e'>e, en sa simplicit<e'>
Jo<u:>a les saints, la Vierge, et Dieu par piet<e'>.
_L'Art Po<e:>tique,_ Chant iii.</p>
</p>
<p> In Spain the <u>Autos Sacramentales,</u> which are
analogous to the Mysteries of the middle ages, are
still presented without shocking a nation whose
zeal is stronger than their taste; and, it is believed,
such rude and wild plays, founded on Scripture, are
also occasionally acted in Flanders. In the <u>History
of the Council of Constance,</u> we find that Mysteries
were introduced into Germany by the English,
about 1417, and were first performed to welcome
the Emperor Sigismund, on his return from England;
and, from the choice of the subjects, we
should almost suppose, that they had transferred
to that country the <u>Chester Mysteries</u> themselves.</p>
<p> ``Les Anglois,'' says the historian, ``se signal<e`>rent
entre les autres par un spectacle nouveau, ou au
moins inusit<e'> jusques alors en Allemagne. Ce fut
une com<e'>die sacr<e'>e que les Ev<e^>ques Anglois firent
repr<e'>senter, devant l'Empereur, le Dimanche 13 de
Janvier, sur la Massacre des Innocens.'' (<u>Hist. du
Concile de Constance,</u> par L'Enfant, lib. v.) The
character of these rude dramatic essays renders
them rather subjects for the antiquary, than a part
of a history of the regular dramatic art.</p>
<p> We may also pass over, with brief notice, the
Latin plays which, upon the revival of letters,
many of the learned composed, in express imitation
of the ancient Grecian and Roman productions.
We have mentioned those of Mussato, who was
followed by the more celebrated Cararo, in the path
which he had opened to fame. In other countries
the same example was followed. These learned
prolusions, however, were only addressed to persons
of letters, then a very circumscribed circle,
and, when acted at all, were presented at universities
or courts on solemn public occasions. They
form no step in the history of the Drama, unless
that, by familiarising the learned with the form
and rules of the ancient classical Drama, they gradually
paved the way for the adoption of similar
regulations into the revived vernacular Drama,
which, adopted by Italy and France, and rejected
by Britain, Spain, and other countries, has formed
a frequent subject of debate amongst dramatic
critics.</p>
<p> While the learned laboured to revive the Classical
Drama in all its purity, the public at large, to
which the treasures of the learned languages were
as a fountain sealed, became addicted to a species
of representation which properly neither fell under
the denomination of comedy or tragedy, but was
named History or Historical Drama. Charles Verardo,
who, about 1492, composed a Drama of this
sort, in Latin, upon the expulsion of the Moors from
Granada, claims, for this production, a total emancipation
from the rules of dramatic criticism.<p> Requirat autem nullus hic comedi<ae>
Leges ut observantur aut tragedi<ae>;
Agenda nempe est =Historia,= non fabula.</p>
</p>
<p> ``Let none expect that in this piece the rules of
comedy or of tragedy should he observed; we mean
to act a history, not a fable.'' From this expression
it would seem, that, in a Historical Drama, the
author did not think himself entitled to compress
or alter the incidents as when the plot was fabulous,
but was bound, to a certain extent, to conform to
the actual course of events. In these histories, the
subject often comprehended the life and death of a
monarch, or some other period of history, containing
several years of actual time, which, nevertheless,
were made to pass before the eyes of the audience
during the two or three hours usually allotted for
the action of a play. It is not to be supposed that,
with so fair a field open before them, and the applause
of the audience for their reward, the authors
of these histories should long have confined themselves
to the matter-of-fact contained in records.
They speedily innovated or added to their dramatic
chronicles, without regard to the real history. To
those who plead for stage-plays, that they elucidate
and explain many dark and obscure histories, and
fix the facts firmly in the minds of the audience,
of which they had otherwise but an imperfect apprehension,
the stern Prynne replies with great
scorn, ``that play-poets do not explain, but sophisticate
and deform good histories, with many false
varnishes and playhouse fooleries;'' and that ``the
histories are more accurately to be learned in the
original authors who record them, than in derivative
playhouse pamphlets, which corrupt them.''
Prynne's <u>Histrio-Mastix,</u> p. 940.</p>
<p> The dramatic chronicles, therefore, were a field
in which the genius of the poet laboured to supply
by character, sentiment, and incident, the meagre
detail of the historian. They became so popular in
England, that, during the short interval betwixt the
revival of the stage and the appearance of Shakspeare,
the most part of the English monarchs had
lived and died upon the stage; and it is well known
that almost all his historical plays were new written
by him, upon the plan of old dramatic chronicles
which already existed.</p>
<p> But the miscellaneous audience which crowded
to the vernacular theatre, at its revival in Europe,
were of that rank and intellect which is apt to become
tired of a serious subject, and to demand that
a lamentable tragedy should be intermingled with
very pleasant mirth. The poets, obliged to cater
for all tastes, seldom failed to insert the humours
of some comic character, that the low or grotesque
scenes in which he was engaged might serve as a
relief to the graver passages of the Drama, and
gratify the taste of those spectators who, like Christophero
Sly, tired until the fool came on the stage
again. Hence Sir Philip Sidney's censure on these
dramatists, ``how all their plays be neither right
tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings with
clowns; not because the matter so carrieth it, but
to thrust in the clown, by head and shoulders, to
play a part in magestical matters, with neither
decency nor discretion, so that neither the admiration
and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness,
is by their mongrel tragic-comedy attained.''
(<u>Defence of Poesie,</u> Sidney's <u>Arcadia,</u> edit. 1627,
p. 563.) ``If we mark them well,'' he concludes,
``funerals and hornpipes seldom match daintily
together.''<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> The historical plays led naturally into another
class, which may be called Romantic Dramas,
founded upon popular poems or fictitious narratives,
as the former were on real history. Some of
these were borrowed from foreign nations, ready
dramatized to the hand of the borrower; others
were founded on the plots which occurred in the
almost innumerable novels and romances which we
had made our own by translation. ``I may boldly
say it,'' says Gosson, a recreant play-wright who
attacked his former profession, ``because I have
seen it, that the <u>Palace of Pleasure,</u> the <u>Golden Asse,</u>
the <u>Ethiopian History, Amadis of France,</u> the <u>Round
Table, Bawdie Comedies in Latin, French, Italian,
and Spanish,</u> have been thoroughly ransacked to
furnish the playhouse in London.'' But it was not
to be supposed that the authors would confine themselves
to stricter rules in pieces founded upon
Italian and Spanish novels, or upon romances of
chivalry, than they had acted upon in the histories.
Every circumstance which tended to loosen the
reins of theatrical discipline, in the one case, existed
in the other; and, accordingly, comedies of
intrigue, and tragedies of action and show, everywhere
superseded, at least in popular estimation, the
severe and simple model of the Classical Drama.</p>
<p> It happened that in England and Spain, in particular,
the species of composition which was most
independent of critical regulation was supported by
the most brilliant display of genius. Lopez de Vega
and Calderon rushed on the stage with their hasty
and high-coloured, but glowing productions, fresh
from the mint of imagination, and scorning that
the cold art of criticism should weigh them in her
balance. The taste of the Spaniards has been proverbially
inclined to the wild, the romantic, and the
chivalrous; and the audience of their bards would
not have parted with one striking scene, however
inartificially introduced, to have gained for their
favourites the praise of Aristotle and all his commentators.
Lopez de Vega himself was not ignorant
of critical rules; but he pleads the taste of his
countrymen as an apology for neglecting those
restrictions which he had observed in his earlier
studies.<p> ``Yet true it is I too have written plays,
The wiser few, who judge with skill, might praise;
But when I see how show and nonsense draws
The crowd's, and, more than all, the fair's applause;
Who still are forward with indulgent rage
To sanction every monster of the stage;
I, doom'd to write the public taste to hit,
Resume the barbarous dress 'twas vain to quit;
I lock up every rule before I write,
Plautus and Terence banish from my sight,
Lest rage should teach these injured wits to join,
And their dumb books cry shame on works like mine.
To vulgar standards, then, I frame my play,
Writing at ease; for, since the public pay,
'Tis just, methinks, we by their compass steer,
And write the nonsense that they love to hear.''
=Lord Holland'=s <u>Life of Lope de Vega,</u> p. 103.</p>
</p>
<p> The Spanish comedies of intrigue also went astray,
as far as their romantic tragedies, from the classical
path. In fact, those new representations were
infinitely more captivating from their vivacity,
novelty, and, above all, from their reflecting the
actual spirit of the time, and holding the mirror up
to nature, than the cold imitations which the learned
wrote in emulation of the Classic Drama. The
one class are existing and living pictures of the
times in which the authors lived; the others, the
cold resurrection of the lifeless corpses which had
long slumbered in the tomb of antiquity. The
spirit of chivalry, which so long lingered in Spain,
breathes through the wild and often extravagant
genius of her poets. The hero is brave and loyal,
and true to his mistress:<p> ``A knight of love, who never broke a vow.''</p>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Mysteries_ has well remarked, (in his introduction
to that curious and beautiful volume,) that a difficulty
must always attend the inquiry, from the
doubts that exist, whether the earliest recorded
performances of each country were merely pantomimes,
or were accompanied with dialogue.<p> That the crowd might have their loud laugh, a
<u>grazioso,</u> or clown, usually a servant of the hero, is,
in the Spanish Drama, uniformly introduced to
make sport. Like Kemp or Tarleton, famous in
the clown's part before the time of Shakspeare,
this personage was permitted to fill up his part with
extemporary jesting, not only on the performers,
but with the audience. This irregularity, with
others, seems to have been borrowed by the English
stage from that of Spain, and is the license
which Hamlet condemns in his instructions to the
players: ``And let those that play your clowns
speak no more than is set down for them; for there
be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on
some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too;
though, in the meantime, some necessary question
of the play be then to be considered; that's villanous;
and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool
that uses it.''</p>
<p> The bald simplicity of the ancient plots was, in
like manner, contrasted to disadvantage with the
intricacies, involutions, suspense, and bustle of
Spanish intrigue upon the stage. Hence the boast
of one of their poets, thus translated by Lord Holland:<p> ``Invention, interest, sprightly turns in plays,
Say what they will, are Spain's peculiar praise;
Hers are the plots which strict attention seize,
Full of intrigue, and yet disclosed with ease.
Hence acts and scenes her fertile stage affords,
Unknown, unrivall'd, on the foreign boards.''
<u>Life of Lope de Vega,</u> p. 106.</p>
</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, made in commendation
<em> of Vertew and Vituperation of Vyce. Edinb. Robert Charteris,
</em> 1602 and 1604. Printed in various editions of Sir David
<em> Lindsay's Works, and contained in the learned and accurate
</em> edition, with Life of the Author, Annotations, and Glossary.
* By George Chalmers, Esq. 3 vols. 8vo. 1806.<p> ``Without dwelling on the expulsion of the Chorus, (a most
unnatural and inconvenient machine,) the moderns, by admitting
a complication of plot, have introduced a greater variety
of incidents and character. The province of invention is
enlarged; new passions, or at least new forms of the same
passions, are brought within the scope of dramatic poetry.
Fresh sources of interest are opened, and additional powers
of imagination called into activity. Can we then deny what
extends its jurisdiction, and enhances its interest, to be an
improvement in an art whose professed object is to stir the
passions by the imitation of human actions. In saying this,
I do not mean to justify the breach of decorum, the neglect
of probability, the anachronisms and other extravagances of
the founders of the modern theatre. Because the first disciples
of the school were not models of perfection, it does not follow
that the fundamental maxims were defective. The rudeness
of their workmanship is no proof of the inferiority of the material;
nor does the want of skill deprive them of the merit of
having discovered the mine. The faults objected to them
form no necessary part of the system they introduced. Their
followers in every country have either completely corrected
or gradually reformed such abuses. Those who bow not
implicitly the authority of Aristotle, yet avoid such violent
outrages as are common in our early plays. And those who
pique themselves on the strict observance of his laws, betray,
in the conduct, the sentiments, the characters, and the dialogue
of their pieces (especially of their comedies) more resemblance
to the modern than the ancient theatre; their code
may be Grecian, but their manners, in spite of themselves,
are Spanish, English, or French. They may renounce their
pedigree, and even change their dress, but they cannot divest
their features of a certain family-likeness to their poetical
progenitors.''</p>
<p> In France the irregularities of the revived Drama
were of a lower complexion; for, until her stage
was refined by Corneille, and brought under its
present strict _r<e'>gime,_ it was adorned by but little
talent; a circumstance which, amongst others, may
account for the ease with which she subjected herself
to critical rules, and assumed the yoke of Aristotle.
Until she submitted to the Grecian forms
and restrictions, there is but little interesting in
the history of her stage.</p>
<p> England adopted the historical and romantic
Drama with ardour, and in a state scarce more
limited by rules than that of Spain herself. Her
writers seem early to have ransacked Spanish literature;
for the union of the countries during the
short reign of Mary, nay even their wars under
Elizabeth and Philip, made them acquainted with
each other. The Spaniards had the start in the
revival of the Drama. <u>Ferrex and Porrex,</u> our
earliest tragedy, was first presented in 1561; and,
<u>Gammer Gurton's Needle,</u> our first comedy, in
1575; whereas Lopez de Vega (who was not by
any means the earliest Spanish dramatist) died in
1562, leaving the stage stocked with his innumerable
productions, to which his contemporaries had
not failed to add their share. Thus, so soon as the
stage of Britain was so far advanced as to be in a
capacity of borrowing, that of Spain offered a fund
to which her authors could have recourse; and, in
fact, the Spanish Drama continued to be a mine in
which the British poets collected materials, often
without acknowledgment during all the earlier
part of her dramatic history. From this source, as
well as from the partialities of the audience, arose
that early attempt at show and spectacle, at combats
and marvellous incidents, which, though with
very poor means of representation, our early dramatic
poets loved to produce at the Bull or the
Fortune playhouses. The extravagance of their
plots, and the poor efforts by which they endeavoured
to represent show and procession, did not
escape the censure of Sir Philip Sydney, who, leaning
to the critical reformation which was already
taking place in Italy, would gladly have seen our
stage reduced to a more classical model.</p>
<p> ``It is faultie,'' says that gallant knight, ``both in place
and time, the two necessarie companions of all corporall
actions. For the stage should alway present but one place;
and the uttermost time presupposed in it should bee, both by
<u>Aristotle's</u> precept, and common reason, but one day; there
are both many dayes and many places inartificially imagined.
But if it be so in <u>Gorboduke,</u> how much more in all the rest?
where you shall have <u>Asia</u> on the one side, and <u>Affricke</u> of the
other, and so many other under kingdomes, that the plair
when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where hee
is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you have
three ladies walke to gather flowers, and then wee must beleeve
the stage to be a garden. By and by wee heare newes
of shipwracke in the same place, then wee are to blame if we
accept it not for a rocke. Upon the backe of that comes out
a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable
beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while, in the
meantime, two armies flie in, represented with some five or
six swordes and bucklers and then what hard heart will not
receive it for a pitched field? Now of time they are much
more liberall; for ordinarie it is, that two young princes fall
in love. After many traverses shee is got with childe, delivered
of a faire boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in
love, and is readie to get another childe, and all this in two
houres space; which how absurd it is in sense, even sense
may imagine, and art hath taught, and all ancient examples
justified, and at this day the ordinary players in <u>Italy</u> wilt
not err in.''</p>
<p> Italy, referred to by Sir Philip Sidney as the
cradle of the reformed Drama, had had her own
age of liberty and confusion; her mysteries, her
moralities, her historical, and her romantic Dramas.
But the taste for the ancient and classical stage was
still rooted in the country where it had flourished,
and Trissino is acknowledged as the father of the
regular Drama. The <u>Sophonisba</u> of this learned
prelate is praised by Voltaire as the first regular
tragedy which Europe had seen after so many ages
of barbarism. Pope has added his tribute.<p> ``When learning, after the long Gothic night,
Fair o'er the western world renew'd its light,
With arts arising, Sophonisba rose,
The tragic muse returning wept her woes;
With her the Italian scene first learn'd to glow,
And the first tears for her were taught to flow.''</p>
</p>
<p> This tragedy was represented at Rome in the
year 1515. The Greek model is severely observed,
and the author has encumbered his scene with a
Chorus. It has some poetic beauties, and is well
calculated to recommend the new or rather revived
system on which it was written. <u>La Rosmonda</u> of
Ru<c,>elleri was written about the same time with
<u>Sophonisba;</u> and, after these pieces, tragi-comedies,
histories, and romantic Dramas, were discarded,
and succeeded by tragedies upon a regular classical
model; written in verse having five acts, and generally
a Chorus.</p>
<p> Notwithstanding their rigorous attention to the
ancient model, the modern tragic poets or Italy
have not been very successful in arresting the
attention of their countrymen. They are praised
rather than followed; and the stern and unbending
composition of Alfieri, while it has given a tone of
rude and stoical dignity to his Dramas, has failed
in rendering them attractive. They frequently
please in the closet; but the audience of modern
days requires to be kept awake by something more
active, more bustling, more deeply interesting, than
the lessons of the schools; and a poet of high fancy
has written in some measure in vain, because he
has mistaken the spirit of his age. The tragic actors
also, whatever excellence they may attain to
in their art, do not attract the same consideration,
attention, and respect as in France or England;
and they who are the direct authors of a pleasure
so nearly connected with our noblest and best feelings,
occupy a rank subordinate to the performers
at the opera.</p>
<p> It is only as a modification of the Drama, that
we here propose to touch upon that entertainment
of Italian growth, hut known by importation in
every civilized kingdom of Europe. These kingdoms
have often rivalled each other in the rewards
held forth to musical performers, and encouraged
their merit by a degree of profusion, which has
had the effect of rendering the professors petulant,
capricious, and unmanageable. Their high emoluments
are not granted, or their caprices submitted
to, without a degree of pleasure in some degree
corresponding to the expense and the sufferance;
and it is in vain for the admirers of the legitimate
Drama to pretend that such is not obtained. Voltaire
has with more justice confessed, that probably
the best imitation of the ancient stage was to be
found in the Italian tragic opera. The recitative
resembled the musical declamation of the Athenians,
and the choruses, which are frequently introduced,
when properly combined with the subject,
approach to those of the Greeks, as forming a contrast,
by the airs which they execute, to the recitative,
or modulated dialogue of the scene. Voltaire
instances the tragic operas of Metastasio in particular,
as approaching in beauty of diction, and truth
of sentiment, near to the ancient simplicity; and
finds an apology even for the detached airs, (so
fatal to probability,) in the beauty of the poetry
and the perfection of the music. And although, as
a critic and man of cultivated taste, this author
prefers the regular, noble, and severe beauties of
the classic stage, to the effeminate and meretricious
charms of the opera, still he concludes, that, with
all its defects, the sort of enchantment which results
from the brilliant intermixture of scenery, chorus,
dancing, music, dress, and decoration, subjects even
the genius of criticism; and that the most sublime
tragedy, and most artful comedy, will not be so
frequently revisited by the same individual as an
indifferent opera. We may add the experience of
London to the testimony of this great critic; and,
indeed, were it possible that actors could frequently
be procured, possessed of the powers of action and
of voice, which were united in Grassini, it would
be impossible to deny to the opera the praise of
being an amusement as exquisite in point of taste,
as fascinating from show and music. But as the
musical parts of the entertainment are predominant,
every thing else has been too often sacrificed
to the caprice of a composer, wholly ignorant in
every art save his own; and the mean and paltry
dialogue, which is used as a vehicle for the music,
is become proverbial to express nonsense and
inanity.</p>
<p> The Italian comedy, as well as their tragedy,
boasts its regular descent from classical times. Like
the comedy of Menander, it introduces _dramatis
person<ae>,_ whose characters are never varied, and
some of whom are supposed to be directly descended
from the ancient <u>Mimi</u> of the <u>Atellanian</u>
fables. Such an origin is claimed for the celebrated
Harlequin, and for the no less renowned Puncinello,
our English Punch, both of whom retain the
character of jesters, cowards, wags, and buffoons,
proper to the <u>Sannio</u> of the Romans. It is believed
in these worthies, that they existed before the time
of Plautus, and continued to play their frolics during
the middle ages, when the legitimate Drama
was unknown. For the former fact, sculpture, as
well as tradition, is appealed to by Italian antiquaries,
who have discovered the representation of
these grotesque characters upon the Etruscan
vases. In support of the latter averment, the grave
authority of Saint Thomas Aquinas is appealed to,
who, we rejoice to find, thought Harlequin and
Punch no unlawful company in fitting time and
place.<*> ``_Ludus,_'' says that eminent person, with</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>of this Drama were entirely political, although it is
mixed with some comic scenes, and introduced by
an interlude, in coarseness altogether unmatched.
The spirit of Aristophanes, in all its good and evil,
seems to have actuated the Scottish King-at-arms.
It is a singular proof of the liberty allowed to such
representations at the period, that James V. and
his queen repeatedly witnessed a piece, in which
the corruptions of the existing government and
religion were treated with such satirical severity.
The play, as acted, seems to have differed in some
respects from the state in which it exists in manuscript.</p>
<p>Lovers of this description, in whose minds the sexual
passion is sublimated into high and romantic
feeling, make a noble contrast with the coarse and
licentious Greek or Roman, whose passion turns
only on the difficulty of purchasing his mistress's
person, but who never conceives the slightest apprehension
concerning the state of her affections.<p> Saint Anthony gives his sanction to Saint Thomas
on this point: ``_Histrionalis ars, quia deservit
human<ae> recreationi, qu<ae> necessaria est vit<ae> hominis
secundum D. Thomam, de sa non est illicita, et de
illa arte vivere non est prohibitum._''<*> (S. Antonius</p>
</p>
<p>While we admire the richness of fancy displayed
in the Spanish pieces, it is impossible, in an age of
refinement, to avoid being shocked by their wilful
and extravagant neglect of every thing which can
add probability to the action of their Drama. But
the apology for this license is well pleaded by Lord
Holland.</p>
<ul>
<li>``Sport is necessary to the usual intercourse of human life;
<em> and whatever things are so necessary, have their lawful uses,
</em> and therefore, the occupation of stage-players, intended for the
<em> solacement of mankind, is not in itself unlawful, nor are the
</em> actors in a state of sin, providing that they use their sport
<em> with moderation; that is, not using any unlawful words or
</em> actions in their diversion, and not producing their sport in
<em> unlawful times and circumstances. Hence, it follows that
</em> those who support them do not commit sin, but act honestly
<em> in paying them the reward of their service. And, although
</em> Saint Augustus hath said, in his Commentary on Saint John,
<em> that it is a great sin to give one's effects to stage-players, yet I
</em> understand it to be said exclusively of those who bestow their
<em> bounty on such actors as use unlawful expressions or actions
</em> in exercising their art, or of such as wantonly waste their
<em> substance on such expenditure; but not to be spoken of moderate
</em> rewards given to actors who exercise their art with
* propriety.''---S.<p> Under this venerable authority, these Mimi went
on and flourished. Other characters enlarged their
little Drama. The personages appeared in masks.
``Each of these,'' says Mr. Walker, ``was originally
intended as a kind of characteristic representation
of some particular Italian district or town.
Thus <u>Pantalone</u> was a Venetian merchant; <u>Dottore,</u>
a Bolognese physician; <u>Spaviento,</u> a Neapolitan
braggadocio; <u>Pullicinella,</u> a wag of Apulia; <u>Giangurgolo</u>
and <u>Coviello,</u> two clowns of Calabria; <u>Gelsomino,</u>
a Roman beau; <u>Beltrame,</u> a Milanese simpleton;
<u>Brighella,</u> a Ferrarese pimp; and <u>Arlecchino,</u>
a blundering servant of Bergamo. Each of these
personages was clad in a peculiar dress; each had
his peculiar mask; and each spoke the dialect of
the place he represented. Besides these, and a few
other such personages, of which at least four were
introduced in each play, there were the <u>Amorosos</u>
or <u>Innamoratos;</u> that is, some men and women who
acted serious parts, with Smeraldina, Colombina,
Spilletta, and other females, who played the parts
of servettas or waiting-maids. All these spoke
Tuscan or Roman, and wore no masks.'' (<u>Essay
on the Revival of the Drama in Italy,</u> p. 249.)</p>
<p> The pieces acted by this class of actors were
called <u>Commedia dell' arte,</u> and were congenial to
the taste of the Italians, with whom gesticulation
and buffoonery are natural attributes. Their Drama
was of the most simple kind. Each of the actors
was already possessed of his dramatic character,
which was as inalienable as his dress, was master of
the dialect he was to use, and had his imagination
and memory stored with all the characteristic jests,
or <u>lazzi</u> as they were termed, peculiar to the personage
he represented. All that the author had to
do was to invent the skeleton of a plot, which
should bring his characters into dramatic situation
with respect to each other. The dialogue suited to
the occasion was invented by the players, just as
ours invest their parts with the proper gestures and
actions. This skeleton had the name of <u>scenario,</u>
and the precise action as well as the dialogue was
filled up by the performers, either impromptu, or
in consequence of previous arrangement and premeditation.
This species of comedy was extremely
popular, especially among the lower class of spectators.
It was often adopted as an amusement in
good society, and by men of genius; and Flamineo
de la Scala has left about fifty such <u>scenarios</u> adapted
for representation. The fashion even found its
way into England, and probably the part of Master
Punch, who first appeared in the character of the
<u>Vice</u> of the English morality, was trusted to the
improvisatory talents of the actor. Mr. D'Israeli,
a curious as well as elegant investigator of ancient
literature, has shown, that at least one scheme of a
<u>Commedia dell' arte</u> has been preserved to us. It
is published in the <u>Variorum</u> edition of Shakspeare,
but remains unexplained by the commentators.
Such comedies, it is evident, could require no
higher merit in the composer than the imagining
and sketching a few comic situations; the dialogue
and diction was all intrusted to the players.</p>
<p> The Italians, however, became early possessed of
a regular comedy, which engrossed the admiration
of the more cultivated classes of society. Bibbiena's
comedy, entitled <u>La Calandra,</u> is composed in imitation
of the Dramas of Terence and Plautus. It
was first acted in 1490. <u>La Calandra</u> is remarkable
not only for being the first Italian comedy,
but also for the perfection of scenic decoration with
which it was accompanied in the representation.
It was followed by the productions of Ariosto and
Trissino, and other authors in the same line. But
it appears from the efforts used to support this
style of Drama, that it did not take kindly root in
the soil, and lacked that popularity which alone can
nurse it freely. Various societies were formed under
the whimsical titles of <u>Gli Intronati, Gli Insensati,</u>
and so forth, for the express purpose of bringing
forward the regular Drama; exertions which would
certainly have been unnecessary, had the legitimate
stage received that support and encouragement
which arises from general popularity.</p>
<p> Goldoni, in a later age, at once indulged his own
fanciful genius and his natural indolence, by renouncing
the classical rules, and endeavouring to
throw into the old and native Italian <u>Mascherata</u>
the variety and attributes of the proper comedy.
He adopted Harlequin and the rest of his merry
troop in the characters which they held, and endeavoured
to enlist them in the more regular service
of the Drama; just as free corps and partisans are
sometimes new-modelled into battalions of the line.
This ingenious and lively writer retained all the
license of the <u>Commedia dell' arte,</u> and all the immunities
which it claimed from regular and classical
rules; but instead of trusting to the extempore
jests and grotesque wit of the persons whom
he introduced, he engaged them in dialogues, as well
as plots, of his own invention, which often display
much humour and even pathos. It required, however,
the richness of a fancy like Goldoni's to extract
novelty and interest from a dramatic system
in which so many of the actors held a fixed and
prescriptive character, hardly admitting of being
varied. Accordingly, we do not find that the Italian
stage is at present in a more flourishing condition
than that of other modern nations.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> The revival of the regular Drama in France was
attended with important consequences, owing to
the nature of her government, the general use of
her language throughout Europe, and the influence
which, from her situation, she must necessarily hold
over other nations. It is the boast of Paris that
the regular classical Drama, banished from every
other stage, found a safe and honourable refuge on
her own. Yet France has reluctantly confessed
that she also had her hour of barbarism. Her earlier
Drama was borrowed, like that of other countries,
from Spain, who, during the whole of the
sixteenth and great part of the seventeenth century,
held such a formidable predominance in the
European republic. While the classical stage was
reviving in Italy, and the historical and romantic
Drama was flourishing in Spain, France was torn
to pieces by civil discord. The first French tragedy
composed upon a regular plan was that of <u>Mairet,</u>
imitated from the <u>Sophonisba</u> of Trissino; and
Riccoboni boasts with justice, that whoever shall
compare the Italian tragedy of the sixteenth century
with that of the French of the same period,
will find the latter extravagant and irregular, and
the former already possessed of gravity, dignity,
and regularity. The French, like the English, date
the excellence of their stage from one great author;
and the illustrious name of Pierre Corneille affords
to their dramatic history the mighty landmark
which Shakspeare gives to our own.</p>
<p> Cardinal Richelieu, who had succeeded in establishing
upon a broad basis the absolute power of
the French monarch, was not insensible to the
graces and ornaments which the throne derived
from being surrounded by the Muses. He was himself
fond of poetry, and even a competitor for the
honours of the buskin. He placed himself at the
head of five dramatic writers, to whom, on that
account, the public gave the title of <u>Les Cinq Auteurs.</u>
All these are deservedly forgotten excepting
Corneille, of whose successful talent the Cardinal
had the meanness to evince no ordinary degree of
jealousy. The malevolence of that minister was
carried so far, that he employed the French Academy,
whose complaisance must be recorded to
their shame, to criticize severely the <u>Cid,</u> the first,
and perhaps the finest of Corneille's tragedies.
Scuderie, a favourite of the Cardinal, buoyed by
Richelieu's favour, was able for some time to balance
Corneille in the opinion of the public; but
his name is now scarcely known by any other circumstance
than his imprudent and audacious rivalry.
This great man was not only surrounded by
the worst possible models, but unfortunately the
authors of these models were also favourites of the
public, and of the all-powerful Cardinal; yet Corneille
vanquished the taste of his age, the competition
of his rivals, and the envy of Richelieu.<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>more consideration for human infirmity than some
saints of our own day, ``_est necessarius ad conversationem
vit<ae> human<ae>: ad omnia autem que sunt utilia
conversationi human<ae> deputari possunt aliqua
officia licita: et ide<o`> etiam officium histrionum quod
ordinatur ad solatium hominibus exhibendum, non
est secundum se illicitum, nec sunt histriones in statu
peccati, dummodo moderat<e`> ludo utantur; id est,
non utendo aliquibus illicitis verbis vel factis, ad
ludum, et non adhibendo ludum negotiis et temporibus
indebitis unde illi qui moderate eis subveniunt, non
peccant, sed juste faciunt mercedem ministerii eorum
eis tribuendo. Et licet D. August._ super. Joan. _dicit
quod donare res suas histrionibus vitium est immane,
hoc intelligi debet de illis qui dant histrionibus qui
in ludo utuntur illicitis, vel de illis qui superflue sua
in tales consumunt, non de illis histrionibus qui moderate
ludo utuntur._''<p> Corneille, like his predecessors, and like Routrou
in particular, borrowed liberally from the Spanish
theatre; but his own taste, regulated probably upon
his situation, dictated an adherence to the classical
model. The French stage arose, it must be remembered,
under the protection of an absolute monarch,
for whose amusement the poet laboured, and in
whose presence the Drama was performed. It followed
as a natural consequence, that a more strict
etiquette was exacted upon the scene than had
hitherto been supposed applicable to a merely popular
amusement. A departure from regularity
in tragedy was no longer a bold flight. A violation
of decorum in comedy was no longer a broad jest.
When the audience was dignified by the presence
of the monarch, the former became an impertinence,
and the latter a gross and indecent insult.
The muse of comedy was therefore bound over for
her good behaviour; and even her grave sister was
laid under such rules and restrictions as should
ensure the decorum and dignity of her scene.</p>
<p> It was at this period that those classical fetters
which are framed on the three unities were fashioned
into form, and imposed on the French Drama.
These are acknowledged by Corneille, in his Essay
upon Dramatic Poetry, in the following short but
emphatic sentence:---``Il faut observer les unit<e'>s
d'action, de lieu, et de jour: personne n'en doute.''
The rule, as thus emphatically admitted by the
fiery Corneille, was equally binding upon the elegant
Racine, and has fettered the French stage
until the present day. ``La Motte,'' says Voltaire,
``a man of wit and talent, but attached to paradoxes,
has written in our time against the doctrine
of the Unities, but that literary heresy had no
success.''</p>
<p> Upon these rules, adopted by the very first
writer of eminence for the French stage, and subscribed
to by all succeeding dramatists, depends
the principal and long-disputed difference betwixt
the Drama of France and those countries in which
her laws of taste have been received; and the
stages of Spain, England, and modern Germany,
where those critical maxims have been controverted.
In other words, the unities proper to the Classical
Drama have been found inapplicable to plays of a
historical or romantic plan. It is, therefore, necessary
to examine with accuracy the essence and
effect of those laws so often disputed with more
obstinacy than liberality.</p>
<p> The arbitrary forms to which the French thus
subjected their theatre are, in their general purport,
founded on good and sound rules of the
critical art. But, considered literally, the interpretation
put upon those unities by the French critics
must necessarily lay the dramatic author under
restraints equally severe and unnecessary, without
affording any corresponding addition to the value of
his work. The pedantry by which they are enforced,
reminds one of the extreme, minute, rigorous, and
punctilious discipline, to which some regiments
have been subjected by a pedantic commanding
officer, which seldom fails to lower the spirit, and
destroy the temper of the soldier, without being of
the slightest service to him in the moment of danger
or the day of battle.</p>
<p> The first dramatic unity is that of Action; and,
rightly understood, it is by far the most important.
A whole, says Aristotle, is that which has a beginning,
middle, and end. In short, one strong concentrated
interest, upon which all subordinate incidents
depend, and to which they contribute, must
pervade the piece. It must open with the commencement
of the play, evolve itself, and be progressive
with its progress,---must be perpetually in
sight and never stationary, until at length it arrives
at a catastrophe, by which it is ended and extinguished.
In this rule, abstractedly considered,
there is nothing but what is consistent with good
sense and sound criticism. The period allowed for
dramatic representation is not long, and will not
admit of the episodical ornaments which may be
happily introduced into epic poetry. And as the
restlessness or impatience of a theatrical audience
is always one of its marked characteristics, it has
been observed, that neither the most animated description,
nor the most beautiful poetry, can ever
reconcile the spectators to those inartificial scenes
in which the plot or action of the piece stands still,
that the performers may say fine things. The introduction
of an interest separate and distinct from
the main action of the play, has a still worse effect;
it diminishes the effect of the whole, and divides
the attention of the audience; as a pack of hounds,
when in full pursuit, are impeded and puzzled by
starting a fresh object of chase.</p>
<p> Yet even this rule must be liberally considered,
if we would allow dramatic authors that fair room
and exercise for their talents, which gives rise to
the noblest display of genius in the art. Modern
dramatists are no longer, it must be remembered,
limited to the simple and severe uniformity of the
ancient Drama, which fixed on one single event as
its object,---made it the subject of the moral reflections
of the Chorus,---managed it by the intervention
of three, or at most five persons, and consequently
presented a picture so limited in size and
subject, that there was no difficulty in avoiding the
intermixture of a foreign interest. The modern
taste has opened the stage to a wider range of
topics, which are, at the same time, more complicated
in detail, depending on the agency of a variety
of performers, and on the result of a succession of
events. Such Dramas have indeed a unity of action
peculiar to themselves, which should predominate
over and absorb every other. But although, like
the oak, it should uplift itself over all the neighbouring
underwood, its dignity is not injured by
the presence and vicinity of that which it overshadows.
On the contrary, a succession of events
tending to the same end, if they do not divert the
attention from the principal interest, cannot fail, by
their variety and succession, to keep it fixed upon
the business of the scene.</p>
<p> To take an example. In the tragedy of <u>Macbeth,</u>
a chain of varied and important events is introduced,
any one link of which might be hammered
out into a Drama, on the severe and simple
model of the Drama of ancient Greece. There is
the murder of Duncan,---that of Banquo,---and the
dethronement and death of the tyrant; all which
are events complete of themselves, independent of
each other, and yet included within one tragedy of
five acts. But, nevertheless, this is never felt as a
deficiency in the performance. It is to the character
of Macbeth, to his ambition, guilt, remorse, and
final punishment, that the mind attaches itself
during the whole play; and thus the succession of
various incidents, unconnected excepting by the
relation they bear to the principal personage, far
from distracting the attention of the audience, continues
to sharpen and irritate curiosity till the curtain
drops over the fallen tyrant. This is not, indeed,
a unity of action according to the rule of
Aristotle, or the observance of the French theatre;
but, in a higher point of view, it has all the advantage
which could possibly be derived from the
severest adherence to the precept of Aristotle, with
this additional merit that the interest never stagnates
in declamation, or is suspended by unnecessary
dialogue.</p>
<p> It would in fact be easy to show, that the unity
of action, in its strict sense, may frequently be an
unnatural as well as a cumbrous restraint on the
genius of the poet. In the course of nature, an
insulated action seldom exists, of a nature proper
to transfer to the stage. If, indeed, the play is
founded on some single mythological fable, or if the
scene is laid in some early stage of society, when
man as yet remained separated from his kind, and
connected only with his petty tribe or family, the
subject of a plot may be chosen where the agency
of a very few persons, and these naturally connected
together, may, without foreign or extraneous
assistance, afford matter for a tragedy. But in the
actual course of the peopled world, men are so
crowded together, and their movements depend so
much upon impulses foreign to themselves, that the
action must often appear multiplied and complicated,
and all that the author can do is, to preserve
the interest uniform and undivided. Its progress
may be likened to that of a brook through beautiful
scenery. A judicious improver of the landscape
would be certainly desirous to make its course
visible, but not to cut off its beautiful undulations,
or to compel it into a straight channel. He would
follow the course of nature, and neither affect to
conceal the smaller rills by which the stream was
fed, nor bring them so much in view as to deprive
the principal object of its consequence. We admit
the difficulty inseparable from the dramatic art,
and must grant, that the author runs some risk of
losing sight of the main interest of the piece, by
dwelling upon the subordinate accessories; but we
contend, that the attention of the audience is still
more likely to be fatigued by a bald and simple plot,
to which, during the course of five acts, there must
belong much speaking and little progress. And, in
point of common sense and common feeling, that
piece must always present unity of action which
has unity of interest and feeling; which fixes the
mind of the audience upon one train of thought and
passion, to which every occurrence in the Drama
verges; and which is consummated and wound up
by the final catastrophe.</p>
<p> The second dramatic unity is that of Time, about
which the critics of various nations have disagreed.
If taken in its strict and proper sense, it means that
the time occupied by the representation, should not
exceed that supposed to be consumed in the action
represented. But even Aristotle extends the duration
of the action to one revolution of the sun, and
Corneille extends it to thirty hours, which is, to
the actual period of representation, as ten to one.
Boileau, a supereminent authority, thus lays down
the rule for the unities of time and place:---<p> ``Que le lieu de la sc<e'>ne y soit fix<e'> et marqu<e'>.
Un Rimeur, sans peril, del<a`> les Piren<e'>es,
Sur la sc<e'>ne en un jour renferme des ann<e'>es;
L<a`> souvent le H<e'>ros d'un spectacle grossier,
Enfant au premier acte, est barbon au dernier;
Mais nous, que la Raison <a`> ses r<e`>gles engage,
Nous voulons qu'avec art l'action se m<e'>nage;
Qu'en un lieu, qu'en un jour, un seul fait accompli,
Tienne jusqu'<a`> la fin le Th<e'><a^>tre rempli.''</p>
</p>
<p> It has been triumphantly remarked, that in thus
yielding up the strict letter of the precept---in
allowing the three hours employed in acting a play
to be multiplied into twenty-four or thirty---the
critics have retained a great proportion of the inconvenience
of this famous rule, while they sacrificed
its principle, and any advantage attached to its observance.
The only benefit supposed to be attached
to this unity is that of probability. We shall not at
present inquire whether this is worth preserving, at
the cost of imposing heavy restrictions on dramatic
genius. But granting the affirmative, probability
is as much violated by compressing the events of
twenty-four hours into a period of only three, as if
the author had exercised the still greater license of
the English and Spanish theatres. There is no
charm in the revolution of the sun, which circumscribes
within that particular period the events of
a Drama. When the magic circle drawn around
the author by the actual date of representation is
once obliterated, the argument grounded upon probability
falls; and he may extend his narrative
unconfined by any rule, except what may be considered
as resolving itself into the unity of action.
A week, a month, a year, years---may be included
in the course of the Drama, provided always the
poet has power so to rivet the attention of the audience
on the passing scene, that the lapse of time
shall pass unregarded. There must be none of those
marked pauses which force upon the spectator's
attention the breach of this unity. Still less ought
the judicious dramatist to permit his piece to embrace
such a space of time, as shall necessarily produce
the change on the persons of the characters
ridiculed by Boileau. The extravagant conduct of
the plot in the <u>Winter's Tale</u> has gone far to depreciate
that Drama, which, in passages of detached
beauty, is inferior to none of Shakspeare's in the
opinion of the best judges. It might perhaps he
improved in acting, by performing the three first
acts as a play, and the fourth and fifth as an afterpiece.
Yet, even as it is now acted, who is it that,
notwithstanding the cold objection arising out of
the breach of unity, witnesses, without delight the
exquisite contrast betwixt the court and the hamlet,
the fascinating and simple elegance of Perdita,
or the witty rogueries of Autolycus? The poet is
too powerful for the critic, and we lose the exorcise
of our judgment in the warmth of our admiration.</p>
<p> The faults of Shakspeare, or of his age, we do
not however, recommend to the modern dramatist,
whose modesty will certainly place him in his own
estimation far beneath that powerful magician,
whose art could fascinate us even by means of deformity
itself. But if, for his own sake, the author
ought to avoid such gross violations of dramatic
rule, the public, for theirs, ought not to tie him
down to such severe limitations as must cramp, at
least, if they do not destroy, his power of affording
them pleasure. If the whole five acts are to be
compressed within the space of twenty-four hours,
the events must in the general case, be either so
much crowded upon each other as to defeat the
very probability which it is the purpose of this law
to preserve; or, many of them, being supposed to
have happened before the commencement of the
piece, must be detailed in narrative, which never
fails to have a bad effect on the stage.</p>
<p> The same objections apply to the rigid enforcement
of the third unity, that of Place; and, indeed,
the French authors have used respecting it the
license of relaxing, in practice, the severity of their
theory. They have frequently infringed the rule
which they affirm to be inviolable; and their flexible
creed permits the place to be changed, provided
the audience are not transported out of the city
where the scene is laid. This mitigation of doctrine,
like that granted in the unity of time, is a
virtual resignation of the principle contended for.
Let us examine, however, upon what that principle
is founded.</p>
<p> The rule which prohibits the shifting the scene
during the period of performance, was borrowed by
the French from the ancients, without considering
the peculiar circumstances in which it arose. First,
We have seen already that, during the ancient
Drama, there was no division into acts, and that the
action was only suspended during the songs of the
Chorus, who themselves represented a certain class
of personages connected with the scene. The stage,
therefore, was always filled; and a supposed change
of place would have implied the violent improbability,
that the whole Chorus were transported,
while in the sight of the spectators, and employed
in the discharge of their parts, to the new scene of
action. Secondly, There is evidence that in the
<u>Eumenides</u> of <AE>schylus, and the <u>Ajax</u> of Sophocles,
the scene is actually changed, in defiance of the presence
of the Chorus; and a much greater violation
of probability is incurred than could have taken
place in a modern theatre, where, before every
change of scene, the stage is emptied of the performers.
Thirdly, The ancients were less hardly
pressed by this rule than the modern writers. From
the dimensions of their theatres, and the size of
their stages, the place of action was considerably
larger, and might be held to include a wider extent
than ours. The climate of Greece admitted of
many things being transacted with propriety in the
open air; and, finally, they had a contrivance for
displaying the interior of a house or temple to the
audience, which, if not an actual change of scene,
was adapted to the same purpose.</p>
<p> If this long-litigated question, therefore, is to be
disposed of by precedent, we have shown that the
rule of the ancients was neither absolute, nor did the
circumstances of their stage correspond with those
of ours; to which it may be added, that the simple
and inartificial structure of their plots seldom required
a change of scene. But, surely, it is of less
consequence merely to ascertain what was the practice
of the ancients, than to consider how far such
practice is founded upon truth, good taste, and general
effect. Granting, therefore, that the supposed
illusion, which transports the spectator to the actual
scene of action really exists, let us inquire whether,
in sacrificing the privilege of an occasional change
of scene, we do not run the risk of shocking the
spectator, and disturbing his delightful dreams, by
other absurdities and improbabilities, attendant
necessarily on a scrupulous adherence to this restriction.</p>
<p> If the action is always to pass in the scene, some
place of general resort must be adopted, a hall, anteroom,
or the like. It can seldom be so fortunately
selected but that much must be necessarily discussed
there, which, in order to preserve any appearance
of probability, should be transacted elsewhere;
that many persons must be introduced,
whose presence in that particular place must appear
unnatural; and that much must be done there,
which the very circumstances of the piece render
totally absurd. Dennis has applied these observations
with great force, and at the same time with
great bitterness, in his critique upon <u>Cato,</u> which
Johnson has quoted at length in his <u>Life of Addison.</u>
The scene, it must be remembered, is laid, during
the whole Drama, with scrupulous attention to the
classical rule, in the great hall of Cato's palace at
Utica. Here the conspirators lay their plot; the
lovers carry on their intrigues; and yet Sempronius,
with great inconsistency, disguises himself as
Juba, to obtain entrance into this vestibule, which
was common to all. Here Cato retires to moralize,
and chides his son for interrupting him, and, although
he goes out to stab himself, it is to this place
that he is brought back to die. All this affords a
striking proof how genius and taste can be fettered
and embarrassed by a too pedantic observance of
rules. Let no one suppose that the inconveniences
arising from the rigid observance of the unity of
place, occur in the tragedy of <u>Cato</u> alone; they
might, in that case, be attributed to the inexperience
or want of skill in the author. The tragedies of
Corneille and Racine afford examples enough that
the authors found themselves compelled to violate
the rules of probability and common sense, in order
to adhere to those of Aristotle. In the tragedy of
Cinna, for example, the scene is laid in the Emperor's
cabinet; and, in that very cabinet compelled,
doubtless, by the laws of unity, Amelia shouts
forth aloud her resolution to assassinate the Emperor.
It is there, too, that Maximus and Cinna confide
to each other all the secrets of their conspiracy;
and it is there where, to render the impropriety
more glaring, Cinna suddenly reflects upon the
rashness of his own conduct:---<p> ``Amis, dans ce palais on peut nous <e'>couter;
Et nous parlons peut-<e^>tre avec trop d'imprudence,
Dans un lien si mal propre <a`> notre confidence.''</p>
</p>
<p> It would be an invidious, but no difficult task,
to show that several of the _chefs-d'<oe>uvres_ of the
French Drama are liable to similar objections; and
that the awkward dilemmas in which the unity of
place involves them, are far more likely to destroy
the illusion of the performance, than the mere
change of scene would have done. But we refer
the reader to the <u>Dramaturgie</u> of Lessing upon this
curious topic.</p>
<p> The main question yet remains behind, namely,
whether such an illusion is actually produced in the
minds of the audience by the best acted play, as
induces them to suppose themselves witnessing a
reality;---an illusion, in short, so complete, as to
suffer interruption from the occasional extension of
time, or change of place, in the course of the piece?
We do not hesitate to say, that no such impression
was ever produced on a sane understanding; and
that the Parisian critic, in whose presence the unities
are never violated, no more mistakes Talma for
Nero, than a London citizen identifies Kemble
with Coriolanus, or Kean with Richard III. The
ancients, from the distance of the stage, and their
mode of dressing and disguising their characters,
might certainly approach a step nearer to reality;
and, producing on their stage the very images of
the deities they worshipped, speaking the language
which they accounted proper to them, it is probable
that, to minds capable of high excitation, there
might be a shade of this illusion in their representations.
The solemn distance of the stage, the
continuous and uninterrupted action, kept the attention
of the Greeks at once more closely riveted,
and more abstracted from surrounding circumstances.
But in the modern theatre, the rapid
succession of intervals for reflection; the well-known
features of the actors; the language which
they speak, differing frequently from that which
belongs to the age and country where the scene is
laid---interrupt, at every turn, every approximation
to the fantastic vision of reality into which those
writers who insist upon the strict observance of the
unities, suppose the audience to be lulled. To use
the nervous words of Johnson, ``It is false, that
any representation is mistaken for reality; that any
dramatic fable in its materiality was ever credible,
or, for a single moment, was ever credited.'' There
is a conventional treaty between the author and
the audience, that, upon certain suppositions being
granted by the latter, his powers of imagination
shall be exerted for the amusement of the spectators.
The postulates which are demanded, even
upon the French theatre, and under the strictest
model, are of no ordinary magnitude. Although
the stage is lighted with lamps, the spectator must
say with the subjugated Catherine,<p> ``I grant it is the sun that shines so bright.''</p>
</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>The art of stage-playing, according to Saint Thomas, is
<em> not in itself unlawful, nor is it forbidden to live thereby, seeing
</em> that it tends to human recreation, which is necessary to
* human life.---S.<p> If dramatic representation does not produce the
impression of reality, in what it may be asked, consists
its power? We reply, that its effects are produced
by the powerful emotions which it excites in
the minds of the spectators. The professors of every
fine art operate their impressions in the same manner,
though they address themselves to different
organs. The painter exhibits his scene to the eye;
the orator pours his thunder upon the ear; the
poet awakens the imagination of his reader by written
description; but each has the same motive, the
hope, namely, of exciting in the reader, hearer, or
spectator, a tone of feeling similar to that which
existed in his own bosom, ere it was bodied forth by
his pencil, tongue, or pen. It is the artist's object,
in short, to tune the reader's imagination to the
same pitch with his own; and to communicate, as
well as colours and words can do, the same sublime
sensations which had dictated his own compositions.
The tragedian attempts to attain this object still
more forcibly, because his art combines those of the
poet, orator, and artist, by storming, as it were, the
imagination at once through the eye and the ear.
Undoubtedly, a Drama with such advantages, and
with those of dresses and costume, approaches more
nearly to actual reality; and, therefore, has a better
chance of attaining its object, especially when
addressing the sluggish and inert fancies of the
multitude; although it may remain a doubtful
question, whether, with all these means and appliances,
minds of a high poetic temperature may not
receive a more lively impression from the solitary
perusal, than from the representation, of one of
Shakspeare's plays. But, to the most ignorant
spectator, however unaccustomed to the trick of
the scene, the excitement which his fancy receives,
falls materially short of actual mental delusion.
Even the sapient Partridge himself never thought
of being startled at the apparition of the King of
Denmark, which he knew to be only a man in a
strange dress; it was the terror so admirably expressed
by Garrick, which communicated itself to
his feelings, and made him reverse the case of the
fiends, and tremble without believing. In truth,
the effects produced upon this imaginary character,
as described by an excellent judge of human nature,
exhibit, probably, the highest point of illusion to
which theatrical exhibition can conduct a rational
being. In an agony of terror which made his knees
knock against each other, he never forgets that he
is only witnessing a play. The presence of Mrs.
Millar and his master assures him against the
reality of the apparition, yet he is no more able to
subdue his terrors by this comfortable reflection,
than we have been to check our tears, although
well aware that the Belvidera, with whose sorrows
we sympathized, was no other than our own inimitable
Mrs. Siddons. With all our passions, and all
our sympathies, we are still conscious of the ideal
character of that which excites them; and it is
probably this very consciousness of the unreality
of the scene, that refines our sorrows into a melancholy,
yet delicious emotion, and extracts from it
that bitterness necessarily connected with a display
of similar misery in actual life.</p>
<p> If, therefore, no illusion subsists of a character
to be affected by a change of scene, or by the prolongation
of the time beyond the rules of Aristotle,
the very foundation of these unities is undermined;
but at the same time, every judicious author will
use liberty with prudence.</p>
<p> If we are inclined to ascend to the origin of
these celebrated rules, we ought not to be satisfied
with the <u>ipse dixit</u> of a Grecian critic, who wrote
so many centuries ago, and whose works have reference
to a state of dramatic composition which
has now no existence. Upon the revival of letters,
indeed, the authority of Aristotle was considered
as omnipotent; but even Boileau remonstrated
against his authority when weighed with that of
reason and common sense.<p> ``Un pedant enivr<e'> de sa vaine science,
Tout h<e'>riss<e'> de Grec, tout bouffu d'arrogance,
Et qui de mille auteurs retenus mot pour mot,
Dans la teste entass<e'>s, n'a souvent fait qu' un sot,
Croit qu' un livre fait tout, et que sans Aristote,
La raison ne voit goutte, et le bon sens radote.''</p>
</p>
<p> The opinions of Aristotle must be judged of according
to the opportunities and authorities which
lay open before him; and from the high critical
judgment he has displayed, we can scarce err in
supposing he would have drawn different results,
in different circumstances. Dr. Drake, whose industry
and taste have concentrated so much curious
information respecting Shakspeare and his age, has
quoted upon this topic a striking passage from Mr.
Morgan's <u>Essay on the Character of Falstaff.</u></p>
<p> Speaking, says Dr. Drake, of the magic influence
which our poet almost invariably exerts over his
auditors, Mr. Morgan remarks, that</p>
<p> ``On such an occasion, a fellow like <u>Rymer,</u><*> waking from</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>in 3 part. _su<ae> Summ<ae>,_ tit. iii., cap. 4.) Saint Anthony,
indeed, adds the reasonable restriction that
no clergyman should play Harlequin, and that
Punch should not exhibit in the church.</p>
<ul>
<li>The cardinal was one of those ambitious men who foolishly
<em> attempt to rival every kind of genius, and seeing himself constantly
</em> disappointed, he envied, with all the venom of rancour,
<em> those talents which are so frequently the all that men
</em> of genius possess.
<em>
</em> He was jealous of Balzac's splendid reputation, and offered
<em> the elder Heinsius ten thousand crowns to write a criticism
</em> which should ridicule his elaborate compositions. This Heinsius
<em> refused, because Salmasius threatened to revenge Balzac
</em> on his <u>Herodes Infanticida.</u>
<em>
</em> He attempted to rival the reputation of Corneille's <u>Cid,</u> by
<em> opposing to it one of the most ridiculous dramatic productions.
</em> It was the allegorical tragedy called <u>Europe,</u> in which the
<em> <u>minister</u> had congregated the four quarters of the world!
</em> Much political matter was thrown together, divided into
<em> scenes and acts. There are appended to it keys of the _dramatis
</em> person<ae>_ and of the allegories.
<em>
</em> When he first sent it anonymously to the French Academy
<em> it was reprobated. He then tore it in a rage, and scattered
</em> it about his study. Towards evening, like another Medea
<em> lamenting over the members of her own children, he and his
</em> secretary passed the night in uniting the scattered limbs. He
<em> then ventured to avow himself; and having pretended to correct
</em> this incorrigible tragedy, the submissive Academy retracted
<em> their censures; but the public pronounced its melancholy
</em> fate on its first representation. This lamentable tragedy
<em> was intended to thwart Corneille's <u>Cid.</u> Enraged at its success,
</em> Richelieu even commanded the Academy to publish a
<em> severe <u>critique</u> of it, well known in French literature. Boileau
</em> on this occasion has these well-turned verses:---
<em>
</em> ``En vain contre le Cid, un ministre se ligue;
<em> Tout Paris, pour <u>Chimene,</u> a les yeux de _Rodrigue._''
</em>
<em> To oppose the Cid, in vain, the statesman tries;
</em> All Paris for <u>Chimene</u> has Roderick's eyes.
<em>
</em> It is said that in consequence of the fall of this tragedy the
<em> French custom is derived of securing a number of friends to
</em> applaud their pieces at their first representations. I find the
<em> following droll anecdote concerning this droll tragedy in
</em> Beauchamp's _Recherches sur le Th<e'><a^>tre._---See =D'Israeli,= <u>Curiosities
* of Literature,</u> vol. i., p. 243--5.<p> ``Yes,'' continues Mr. Morgan, ``whatever may be the neglect
of some, or the censure of others, there are those who firmly
believe, that this wild, this uncultivated <u>barbarian,</u> as he has
been called, has not yet obtained one half of his fame; and
who trust that some new Stagyrite will arise, who, instead of
pecking at the surface of things, will enter into the inward
soul of his compositions, and expel, by the force of congenial
feelings, those foreign impurities which have stained and disgraced
his page. And as to those <u>spots</u> which still remain,
they may perhaps become invisible, to those who shall seek
them through the medium of his beauties, instead of looking
for those beauties, as is too frequently done, through the smoke
of some real or imputed obscurity. When the hand of time
shall have brushed off his present editors and commentators,
and when the very name of Voltaire, and even the memory of
the language in which he has written, shall be no mere, the
Apalachian mountains, the banks of the Ohio, and the plains
of Sciola, shall resound with the accents of this <u>barbarian.</u> In
his native tongue he shall roll the genuine passions of nature;
nor shall the griefs of <u>Lear</u> be alleviated, or the charms and
wit of <u>Rosalind</u> be abated by _time._''<*></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The painted canvass must pass for a landscape;
the well-known faces of the performers for those of
ancient Greeks, or Romans, or Saracens, and the
present time for many ages distant. He that submits
to such a convention ought not scrupulously to
limit his own enjoyment. That which is supposed
Rome in one act, may, in the next, be fancied
Paris; and as for time, it is, to use the words of
Dr. Johnson, ``of all modes of existence, most
obsequious to imagination; a lapse of years is as
easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation
we easily contract the time of real actions,
and, therefore, willingly permit it to be contracted
when we only see their imitation.''<p> In adopting the views of those authors who have
pleaded for the liberty of the poet, it is not our intention
to deny, that great advantages may be
obtained by the observance of the unities; not considering
them as in themselves essential to the play,
but only as points upon which the credibility and
intelligibility of the action in some sort depend.
We acknowledge, for example, that the author
would be deficient in dramatic art, who should
divide the interest of his piece into two or more
separate plots, instead of combining it in one progressive
action. We confess, moreover, that the
writer, who more violently extends the time, or
more frequently changes the place of representation,
than can be justified by the necessity of the
story, and vindicated by his exertion of dramatic
force, acts unwisely, in so far as he is likely to embarrass
a great part of the audience, who, from
imperfect hearing or slowness of comprehension,
may find it difficult to apprehend the plot of his
play. The latitude which we are disposed to grant
is regulated by the circumstances of the case, the
interest of the plot and, above all, the talents of
the author. He that despises the praise of regularity
which is attainable by study, cannot reckon
on the indulgence of the audience, unless on the
condition of indemnifying them by force of genius.
If a definitive rule were to be adopted, we should
say, that it would certainly be judicious to place any
change of place or extension of time at the beginning
of a new act; as the falling of the curtain and
cessation of the action have prepared the audience
to set off, as it were, upon a new score. But we
consider the whole of these points of propriety as
secondary to the real purposes of the Drama, and
not as limitary of that gifted genius, who can, in
the whirlwind of his scene, bear the imagination of
his audience along with him over the boundaries of
place,<p> ``While panting Time toils after him in vain.''</p>
</p>
<p> But it is not upon the observance of the unities
alone that the French found their pretensions to a
classical theatre. They boast also to have discarded
that intermixture of tragic and comic scenes, which
was anciently universal upon the Spanish and
English stages.</p>
<p> If it had been only understood by this reformation,
that the French condemned and renounced
that species of tragi-comedy, which comprehended
two distinct plots, the one of a serious, the other of
a humorous character, and these two totally unconnected,
we give them full credit for their restriction.
Dryden, in the <u>Spanish Friar,</u> and other
pieces; and Southerne, both in <u>Oronooko</u> and <u>Isabella,</u>
as well as many other authors of their age,
have in this particular transgressed unpardonably
the unity of action. For, in the cases we have
quoted, the combination of the two plots is so
slight, that the serious and comic scenes, separated,
might each furnish forth a separate Drama; so that
the audience appear to be listening not to one play
only, but to two dramatic actions independent of
each other, although contained in the same piece.
So far, therefore, we heartily agree in the rule
which excludes such an unhappy interchange of
inconsistent scenes, moving upon opposite principles
and interests.</p>
<p> When, however, the French critics carry this
rule farther, and proscribe the appearance of comic
or inferior characters, however intimately connected
with the tragic plot, we would observe, in the
first place, that they run the risk of diminishing
the reality of the scene; and secondly, that they
exclude a class of circumstances essential to its
beauty.</p>
<p> On the first point it must be observed, that the
rule which imposes upon valets and subordinate
personages the necessity of talking as harmonious
verse and as elegant poetry as their masters, entirely
ruins the probability of the action. Where all
is elegant, nothing can be sublime; where all is
ornamented, nothing can be impressive; where all
is tuned to the same smooth <u>falsetto</u> of sentiment,
much or all may be ingenious, but nothing can be
natural or real. By such an assimilation of manners
and language, we stamp fiction on the very
front of our dramatic representation. The touches
of nature which Shakspeare has exhibited in his
lower and gayer characters, like the chastened background
of a landscape, increase the effect of the
principal group. The light and fanciful humour
of Mercutio, serves, for example, to enhance and
illustrate the romantic and passionate character of
Romeo. Even the doating fondness and silly peevishness
of the Nurse tend to relieve the soft and
affectionate character of Juliet, and to place her
before the audience in a point of view, which those
who have seen Miss O'Neil perform Juliet in the
fifth scene of the second act, know how to appreciate.
A contrast is effected, which a French author
dared not attempt; but of which every bosom
at once acknowledges the power and the truth. Let
us suppose, that the gay and gallant Mercutio had
as little character as the walking confidant of a
French hero, who echoes the hexameters of his
friend in hexameters of a lower level; or let us suppose
the nurse of Juliet to be a gentle Nora, as
sublime in white linen as her principal in white
satin; and let the reader judge whether the piece
would gain in dignity or decorum, any thing proportioned
to what it must lose in truth and interest.
The audience at once sympathizes with the friendship
of Romeo and Mercutio, rendered more natural
and more interesting, by the very contrast of
their characters; and each spectator feels as a
passion, not as a matter of reflection, that desire of
vengeance which impels Romeo against Tibalt; for
we acknowledge as an amiable and interesting individual,
the friend whom he has lost by the sword
of the Capulet. Even the anilities of the Nurse
give a reality to the piece, which, whatever French
critics may pretend, is much more seriously disturbed
by inconsistency of manners, than by broach
of their dramatic unities. ``God forbid,'' says
Mr. Puff, in the <u>Critic,</u> ``that, in a free country,
all the fine words in the language should be engrossed
by the higher characters of the piece.''
The French critics did not carry their ideas of
equality quite so far; but they tuned the notes of
their subalterns just one pitch lower than those of
their principal characters, so that their language,
similar in style, but lower in sentiment and diction,
presents still that subordinate resemblance
and correspondence to that of their superiors, which
the worsted lace upon the livery of a servant bears
to the embroidery upon the coat of his master.</p>
<p> It is not to mere expression which these remarks
are confined; for if we consult the course of human
life, we shall find that mirth and sorrow, and events
which cause both, are more nearly allied than perhaps
it is altogether pleasing to allow. Considered
relatively to a spectator, an incident may often excite
a mingled emotion, partaking at once of that
which is moving, and that which is ludicrous; and
there is no reader who has not, at some period of
his life, met with events at which he hesitated
whether to laugh or to cry. It remains to be
proved, why scenes of this dubious, yet interesting
description, should be excluded from the legitimate
Drama, while their force is acknowledged in
that of human life. We acknowledge the difficulty
of bringing them upon the scene with their full and
corresponding effect. It was, perhaps, under this
persuasion, that the Fool, whose wild jests were
too much the result of habit and practice to be subdued
even by the terrors of the storm, has been
banished from the terrific scene of King Lear. But,
in yielding to this difficulty, the terrible contrast
has been thus destroyed, in which Shakspeare exhibited
the half-perceptions of the natural Fool, as
contrasted with the assumed insanity of Edgar, and
the real madness of the old King. They who prefer
to this living variety of emotion the cold uniformity
of a French scene of passion, must be numbered
among those who read for the pleasure of
criticism, and without hope of partaking the enthusiasm
of the poet.</p>
<p> While we differ from French criticism respecting
the right to demand an accurate compliance with
the unities, and decline to censure that casual intermixture
of comic character which given at once
reality and variety to the Drama, we are no less
disposed to condemn the impertinent love-scenes,
which these authors have, as a matter of etiquette,
introduced into all their tragedies, however alien
from the passion on which they are grounded. The
French Drama assumed its present form under the
auspices of Louis XIV., who aimed at combining
all the characters of a hero of romance. The same
spirit which inspired the dull monotony of the
endless <u>folios</u> of Scuderie and Calprenede, seemed
to dictate to Corneille, and even to Racine, those
scenes of frigid metaphysical passion which encumber
their best plays. We do not dispute the deep
interest which attaches to the passion of love, so
congenial to the human breast, when it forms the
ground-work of the play; but it is intolerably
nauseous to find a dull love tale mingled as an indispensable
ingredient in every dramatic plot, however
inconsistent with the rest of the piece. The
<u>Amoureux</u> and <u>Amoureuse</u> of the piece come regularly
forth to recite their commonplaces of gallantry,
in language as cold as it is exaggerated, and as inconsistent
with passion and feeling as with propriety
and common sense. Even the horrid tale of <OE>dipus
has the misplaced garnishment of a love intrigue
between Theseus, brought there for no other purpose,
and a certain Dirc<e'>; whom, in the midst of
the pestilence, he thus gallantly compliments:<p> ``Quelque ravage affreux qu'<e'>tale ici la peste,
L'absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste.''</p>
</p>
<p> The predominance of a passion which expresses
itself so absurdly, is all that the French have condescended
to adopt from the age of chivalry, so rich
in more dramatic stores; and they have borrowed
it in all its pedantry, and without its tenderness
and fire. Riccoboni has probably alleged the true
reason for the introduction of these heavy scenes
of love intrigue, which is, that at little expense of
labour to the author, they fill up three quarters of
the action of his play. We quote from the French
version, as that immediately before us, and most
generally intelligible:</p>
<p> ``_Par exemple, otons de =Nicomede= les dix scenes de =Laodice;=
de =L'<OE>dipe,= les dix scenes de =Dirce;= de =Polieucte,=
les scenes d'amour d'=Aricie,=---et nous verrons que non seulement
l'action ne sera point interrompu<e:>, main qu'elle en sera plus
vive; en sorte, que l'on verra manifestement, que ces scenes de
tendresses n'ont servi qu'a ralentir l'action de la pi<e`>ce, <a`> la
refroidir, et <a`> rendre les h<e'>ros moins grands. Si, apr<e`> ces deux
meilleurs Tragedies de la France, on examine tous les autres, on
conno<i^>tra bien mieux cette verit<e'>. Lorsque l'amour fait le sujet
de la trag<e'>die, ce sentiment, si interessant par lui-m<e^>me, occupe
la scene avec raison; j'aime l'amour de =Phedre=, mais de
=Phedre= seul._''</p>
<p> Under this thraldom, the fetters of the French
stage long laboured, notwithstanding the noble example
of <u>Athalie,</u> the _chef-d'<oe>vre_ of Racine. By
the example of Voltaire, in one or two of his best
pieces, they have of late ventured occasionally to
discard their uninteresting Cupid, whose appearance
on the stage as a matter of course and of ceremony,
produced as little effect as when his altar
and godhead are depicted on the semicircle of a fan.</p>
<p> We have already observed, that the refined, artificial
and affected character of the French tragedy,
arose from its immediate connexion with the pleasures
and with the presence of an absolute sovereign.
From the same circumstance, however, the
French stage derived several advantages. A degree
of discipline, unknown in other theatres, was early
introduced among the French actors; and those of
a subordinate rank, who, on the English stage,
sometimes exhibit intolerable, contemptuous, and
wilful negligence, become compelled, on that of
France, to pay the same attention to their parts as
their superiors, and to exert what limited talents
they possess in the subordinate parts to which they
are adapted. The effect of this common diligence
upon the scene, is a general harmony and correspondence
in its parts, which never fails to strike a
stranger with admiration.</p>
<p> The Royal protection, also, early produced on
the Parisian stage an improved and splendid style
of scenery, decoration, and accompaniments. The
scenes and machinery which they borrowed from
Italy, they improved with their usual alert ingenuity.
They were still further improved under the
auspices of Voltaire, the first who had the merit of
introducing natural and correct costume. Before
his time the actors, whether Romans or Scythians,
appeared in the full dress of the French court; and
Augustus himself was represented in a huge full-bottomed
wig, surmounted by a crown of laurel.
The strict national costume introduced by Voltaire
is now observed. That author has also the merit
of excluding the idle crowd of courtiers and men of
fashion, who thronged the stage during the time of
representation, and formed a sort of semicircle
round the actors, leaving them thus but a few yards
of an area free for performance, and disconcerting
at once the performers and the audience, by the
whimsical intermixture of players and spectators.
The nerves of those pedants who contended most
strenuously for the illusion of the scene, and who
objected against its being interrupted by an occasional
breach of the dramatic unities, do not appear
to have suffered from the singular presence of this
Chorus.</p>
<p> It was not decoration and splendour alone which
the French stage owed to Louis XIV. Its principal
obligation was for that patronage which called
forth in its service the talents of Corneille and Racine,
the Homer and Virgil of the French Drama.
However constrained by pedantic rules; however
withheld from using that infinite variety of materials,
which national and individual character presented
to them; however frequently compelled by
system to adopt a pompous, solemn, and declamatory
style of dialogue<*>---these distinguished authors</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Rymer was a calumniator of Shakspeare.---S.</li>
</ul>
<p>his trance, shall lift up his constable's staff, and charge this
great magician, this daring <u>practiser of arts inhibited,</u> in the
name of Aristotle, to surrender; whilst Aristotle himself; disowning
his wretched officer, would fall prostrate at his feet
and acknowledge his supremacy.---O supreme of dramatic excellence!
(might he say,) not to me be imputed the insolence
of fools. The bards of <u>Greece</u> were confined within the narrow
circle of the Chorus, and hence they found themselves constrained
to practise, for the most part, the precision, and copy
the details of nature. I followed them, and knew not that a
larger circle might be drawn, and the Drama extended to the
whole reach of human genius. Convinced, I see that a mere
compendious <u>nature</u> may be obtained: a nature of <u>effects</u> only,
to which neither the relation of place, or continuity of time,
are always essential. Nature, condescending to the faculties
and apprehensions of man, has drawn through human life a
regular chain of visible causes and effects: But Poetry delights
in surprise, conceals her steps, seizes at once upon the heart,
and obtains the sublime of things without betraying the rounds
of her ascent. True poetry is <u>magic</u> not <u>nature;</u> an effect
from causes hidden or unknown. To the magician I prescribed
no laws; his law and his power are one; his power is his law.
If his end is obtained, who shall question his course? Means,
whether apparent or hidden, are justified in poesy by success;
but then most perfect and most admirable when most
concealed.<p> Racine, who began to write when the classical
fetters were clinched and riveted upon the French
Drama, did not make that effort of struggling with
his chains, which we observe in the elder dramatist;
he was strong where Corneille evinced weakness,
and weak in the points where his predecessor
showed vigour. Racine delineated the passion of
love with truth, softness, and fidelity; and his scenes
of this sort form the strongest possible contrast
with those in which he, as well as Corneille, sacrificed
to the dull Cupid of metaphysical romance.
In refinement and harmony of versification, Racine
has hitherto been unequalled; and his <u>Athalie</u> is,
perhaps, likely to be generally acknowledged as the
most finished production of the French Drama.</p>
<p> Subsequent dramatists, down to the time of Voltaire,
were contented with imitating the works of
these two great models; until the active and ingenious
spirit of that celebrated author seems tacitly
to have meditated farther experimental alterations
than he thought it prudent to defend or to avow.
His extreme vivacity and acute intellect were
mingled, as is not unfrequent in such temperaments,
with a certain nervous timidity, which prevented
him from attempting open and bold innovation,
even where he felt compliance with existing rules
most inconvenient and dispiriting. He borrowed,
therefore, liberally from Shakspeare, whose irregularities
were the frequent object of his ridicule; and
he did not hesitate tacitly to infringe the dramatic
unities in his plays, while in his criticism he holds
them up as altogether inviolable. While he altered
the costume of the stage, and brought it nearer
to that of national truth, he made one or two irresolute
steps towards the introduction of national
character. If we were, indeed, to believe the admirers
of Corneille, little remained to be done in
this department; he had already, it is said, taught
his Romans to speak as Romans, and his Greeks as
Greeks; but of such national discrimination foreigners
are unable to perceive a trace. His heroes, one
and all, talk like men of no peculiar character or
distinct age and nation; but, like the other heroes
of the French dramatic school, are ``all honourable
men;'' who speak in high, grave, buskined rhymes,
where an artificial brilliancy of language, richness
of metaphor, and grandeur of sentiment, are substituted
for that concise and energetic tone of
dialogue, which shows at once the national and
individual character of the personage who uses it.
In <u>Mahomet, Alzire,</u> and one or two other pieces,
Voltaire has attempted some discrimination of national
character; the ground-work, however is still
French; and, under every disguise, whether of the
turban of the Ottoman, the feathery crown of the
savage, or the silk tunic of the Chinese, the character
of that singular people can be easily recognised.
Voltaire probably saw the deficiency of the national
Drama with his usual acuteness; but, like the
ancient philosophers, he contentedly joined in the
idolatry which he despised.</p>
<p> It seems, indeed, extremely doubtful, whether
the French tragedy can ever be brought many steps
nearer to nature. That nation is so unfortunate
as to have no poetical language, so that some degree
of unnatural exaltation of sentiment is almost
necessary to sustain the tone of tragedy at a pitch
higher than that of ordinary life. The people are
passionately fond of ridicule, their authors are
equally afraid of incurring it: they are aware, like
their late ruler, that there is but one step betwixt
the sublime and the ridiculous and they are afraid
to aim at the former, lest their attempt, falling
short, should expose them to derision. They cannot
reckon on the mercy or enthusiasm of their audience;
and while they banish combats and deaths,
and even violent action of any kind from the stage,
this seems chiefly on account of the manifest risk,
that a people more alive to the ludicrous than the
lofty, might laugh when they should applaud. The
drunken and dizzy fury with which Richard, as
presented by Kean, continues to make the motion
of striking after he has lost his weapon, would be
caviare to the Parisian parterre. Men must compound
with their poets and actors, and pardon
something like extravagance, on the score of enthusiasm.
But if they are nationally dead to that
enthusiasm, they resemble a deaf man listening to
eloquence, who is more likely to be moved to
laughter by the gestures of the orator, than to
catch fire at his passionate declamation.</p>
<p> Above all, the French people are wedded to
their own opinions. Each Parisian is, or supposes
himself, master of the rules of the critical art; and
whatever limitations it imposes on the author, the
spectators receive some indemnification from the
pleasure of sitting in judgment upon him. To require
from a dancer to exhibit his agility without
touching any of the lines of a diagram chalked on
the floor, would deprive the performance of much
ease, strength, and grace; but still the spectator of
such a species of dance, might feel a certain interest
in watching the dexterity with which the artist
avoided treading on the interdicted limits, and a
certain pride in detecting occasional infringements.
In the same manner, the French critic obtains a
triumph from watching the transgressions of the
dramatic poet against the laws of Aristotle; equal,
perhaps, to the more legitimate pleasure he might
have derived from the unfettered exercise of his
talents. Upon the whole, the French tragedy,
though its regulations seem to us founded in pedantry,
and its sentiments to belong to a state of
false and artificial refinement, contains, nevertheless,
passages of such perfect poetry and exquisite
moral beauty, that to hear them declaimed with
the art of Talma, cannot but afford a very high
pitch of intellectual gratification.</p>
<p> The French comedy assumed a regular shape
about the same period with the tragedy; and
Moli<e`>re was in his department what Corneille and
Racine were in theirs; an original author, approached
in excellence by none of those that succeeded
him. The form which he assumed for a
model was that of the comedy of Menander; and
he has copied pretty closely some pieces from the
Latin stage. Moli<e`>re was endowed by nature with
a rich fund of comic humour, which is nowhere
more apparent than in those light pieces that are
written upon the plan of the Italian masked comedy.
In these he has introduced the jealous old Pantaloon;
the knavish and mischievous Servant, and
some of its other characters. In his regular comedy
he soared to a higher pitch. Before his time the
art had sought its resources in the multiplicity and
bustle of intrigue, escape, and disguise,---or at best,
in a comic dialogue, approaching to mere buffoonery.
Moli<e`>re's satire aimed at a nobler prey; he
studied mankind for the purpose of attacking those
follies of social life which are best exposed by ridicule.
The aim of few satirists has been so legitimate,
or pursued with such success. Female
vanity, learned pedantry, unreasonable jealousy,
the doating and disgraceful passions of old men,
avarice, coquetry, slander, the quacks who disgrace
medicine, and the knaves who prostitute the profession
of the law, were the marks at which his
shafts were directed.</p>
<p> Moliere's more regular comedies are limited by
the law of unities, and finished with great diligence.
It is true, the author found it sometimes necessary
tacitly to elude the unity of place, which he durst
not openly violate; but, in general, he sacrifices
probability to system. In the <u>Ecole des Femmes,</u>
Arnolph brings his wife into the street, out of the
room in which his jealousy has imprisoned her, in
order to lecture her upon the circumspection due
to her character; which absurdity he is guilty of,
that the scene may not be shifted from the open
space before his door to her apartment. In general,
however, it may be noticed, that the critical
unities impose much less hardship upon the comic
than upon the tragic poet. It is much more easy
to reconcile the incidents of private life to the
unities of time and place, than to compress within
their limits the extensive and prolonged transactions
which comprehend the revolution of kingdoms
and the fate of monarchs. What influence,
however, these rules do possess, must operate to
cramp and embarrass the comic as well as the
tragic writers; to violate and disunite those very
probabilities which they affect to maintain; and to
occasion a thousand real absurdities rather than
grant a conventional license, which seems essential
to the freedom of the Drama.</p>
<p> The later comic authors of France seem to have
abandoned the track pointed out by Moli<e`>re, as if
in despair of approaching his excellence. Their
comedy, compared with that of other nations, and
of their great predecessor, is cramped, and tame,
and limited. In this department, as in tragedy,
the stage has experienced the inconvenience arising
from the influence of the Court. The varied and
unbounded field of comic humour which the passions
and peculiarities of the lower orders present,
was prohibited, as containing subjects of exhibition
too low and vulgar for a monarch and his courtiers;
and thus the natural, fresh, and varied character
of comedy was flung aside, while the heartless vices
and polished follies of the great world were substituted
in its place. Schlegel has well observed, that
the object of French comedy ``is no longer life, but
society; that perpetual negotiation between conflicting
vanities which never ends in a sincere treaty
of peace. The embroidered dress, the hat under
the arm, and the sword by the side, essentially belong
to them; and the whole of the characterisation
is limited to the folly of the men and the coquetry
of the women.''</p>
<p> It is scarce in nature that a laughter-loving people
should have remained satisfied with an amusement
so dull and insipid as their regular comedy. A
few years preceding the Revolution, and while the
causes of that event were in full fermentation, the
<u>Marriage of Figaro</u> appeared on the stage. It is
a comedy of intrigue; and the dialogue is blended
with traits of general and political satire, as well as
with a tone of licentiousness, which was till then a
stranger to the French stage. It was received with
a degree of enthusiastic and frantic popularity which
nothing but its novelty could have occasioned, for
there is little real merit in the composition. Frederick
of Prussia, and other admirers of the old theatrical
school, were greatly scandalized at so daring
an innovation on the regular French comedy. The
circumstances which followed have prevented Beaumarchais'
example from being imitated; and the
laughers have consoled themselves with inferior
departments of the Drama. Accordingly we find
the blank supplied by farces, comic operas, and
dramatic varieties, in which plots of a light, flimsy,
and grotesque character are borne out by the comic
humour of the author and comic skill of the actor.
Brunet, a comedian of extraordinary powers in this
cast of interludes, has at times presumed so far
upon his popularity as to season his farce with political
allusions. It will scarce be believed that he
aimed several shafts at Napoleon when in the height
of his power. The boldness, as well as the wit of
the actor, secured him the applause of the audience;
and such a hold had Brunet of their affections, that
an imprisonment of a few hours was the greatest
punishment which Bonaparte ventured to inflict
upon him. But whatever be the attachment shown
to the art in general, the French, like ourselves,
rest the character of their theatre chiefly upon the
ancient specimens of the Drama: and the regular
tragedy, as well as comedy, seems declining in that
kingdom.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> As the Drama of France was formed under the
patronage of the monarch, and bears the strongest
proofs of its courtly origin, that of England, which
was encouraged by the people at large, retains
equally unequivocal marks of its popular descent.
Its history must naturally draw to some length, as
being that part of our essay likely to be most interesting
to the reader. In part, however, we have
paved the way for it by the details common to the
rise of dramatic art in the other nations of Europe.
We shall distinguish the English Drama as divided
into four periods, premising that this is merely a
general and not a precise division. The taste which
governed each period, and the examples on which
it is grounded, will usually be found to have dawned
in the period preceding that in which it was received
and established.</p>
<ol>
<li> From the revival of the theatre until the great
Civil War.</li>
</ol>
<p> II. From the Restoration to the reign of Queen
Anne.</p>
<p> III. From the earlier part of the last century
down to the present reign.</p>
<h2> IV. The present state of the British Drama.</h2>
<p> *</p>
<ol>
<li> The Drama of England commenced, as we
have already observed, upon the Spanish model.
<u>Ferrex and Porrex</u> was the first composition approaching
to a regular tragedy; and it was acted
before Queen Elizabeth, upon the 18th of January,
1561, by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple. It
partakes rather of the character of a historical than
of a classical Drama; although more nearly allied
to the latter class, than the chronicle plays which
afterwards took possession of the stage. We have
already recorded Sir Philip Sidney's commendation
of this play, which he calls by the name of <u>Gorboduc,</u>
from one of the principal characters. Acted
by a learned body, and written in great part by
Lord Sackville, the principal author of the <u>Mirror
for Magistrates,</u> the first of English tragedies assumed
in some degree the honours of the learned
buskin; but although a Chorus was presented
according to the classical model, the play was free
from the observance of the unities; and contains
many irregularities severely condemned by the
regular critics.</li>
</ol>
<p> English comedy, considered as a regular composition,
is said to have commenced with <u>Gammer
Gurton's Needle.</u> This ``right pithy, pleasant, and
merry comedy,'' was the supposed composition of
John Still, Master of Arts, and afterwards Bishop
of Bath and Wells. It was acted in Christ-Church
College, Cambridge, 1575. It is a piece of low
humour; the whole jest turning upon the loss and
recovery of the needle with which Gammer Gurton
was to repair the breeches of her man Hodge; but,
in point of manners, it is a great curiosity, as the
<u>curta suppellex</u> of our ancestors is scarcely anywhere
so well described. The popular characters
also, the Sturdy Beggar, the Clown, the Country
Vicar, and the Shrew, of the sixteenth century, are
drawn in colours taken from the life. The unity
of time, place, and action, are observed through the
play, with an accuracy of which France might be
jealous. The time, is a few hours---the place, the
open square of the village before Gammer Gurton's
door---the action, the loss of the needle---and this,
followed by the search for, and final recovery of
that necessary implement, is intermixed with no
other thwarting or subordinate interest, but is
progressive from the commencement to the conclusion.</p>
<p> It is remarkable, that the earliest English tragedy
and comedy are both works of considerable merit;
that each partakes of the distinct character of its
class; that the tragedy is without intermixture of
comedy; the comedy without any intermixture of
tragedy.</p>
<p> These models were followed by a variety of
others, in which no such distinctions were observed.
Numerous theatres sprung up in different parts of
the metropolis, opened upon speculation by distinct
troops of performers. Their number shows how
much they interested public curiosity; for men
never struggle for a share in a losing profession.
They acted under licenses, which appear to have
been granted for the purpose of police alone, not
of exclusive privilege or monopoly; since London
contained, in the latter part of the sixteenth century,
no fewer than fourteen distinct companies of
players, with very considerable privileges and
remunerations. See Drake's <u>Shakspeare and his
Times,</u> vol. ii., p. 205.</p>
<p> The public, therefore, in the widest sense of the
word, was at once arbiter and patron of the Drama.
The companies of players who traversed the country,
might indeed assume the name of some peer or
baron, for the sake of introduction or protection;
but those of the metropolis do not, at this early
period of our dramatic history, appear to have
rested in any considerable degree upon learned or
aristocratic privilege. The license was obtained
from the crown, but their success depended upon
the voice of the people; and the pieces which they
brought forward, were, of course, adapted to popular
taste. It followed necessarily that histories and
romantic Dramas were the favourites of the period.
A general audience in an unlearned age requires
rather amusement than conformity to rules, and is
more displeased with a tiresome uniformity than
shocked with the breach of all the unities. The
players and dramatists, before the rise of Shakspeare,
followed, of consequence, the taste of the
public; and dealt in the surprising, elevating, and
often bombastic incidents of tragedy, as well as in
the low humour and grotesque situations of the
comic scene. Where these singly were found to
lack attraction, they mingled them together, and
dashed their tragic plot with an under-intrigue of
the lowest buffoonery, without any respect to taste
or congruity.</p>
<p> The clown was no stranger to the stage; he
interfered, without ceremony, in the most heart-rending
scenes, to the scandal of the more learned
spectators.<p> ``Now lest such frightful shows of fortune's fall,
And bloody tyrant's rage should chance appall
The death-struck audience, 'midst the silent rout,
Comes leaping in a self-misformed lout,
And laughs and grins, and frames his mimic face,
And jostles straight into the prince's place;
Then doth the theatre echo all aloud,
With gladsome noise of that applauding crowd,
A goodly hotchpotch, where vile russettings
Are matched with monarchs and with mighty kings.''</p>
</p>
<p> An ancient stage-trick, illustrative of the mixture
of tragic and comic action in Shakspeare's
time, was long preserved in the theatre. Henry
IV. holding council before the battle of Shrewsbury,
was always represented as seated on a drum;
and when he rose and came forward to address his
nobles, the place was occupied by Falstaff; a practical
jest which seldom failed to produce a laugh
from the galleries. The taste and judgment of the
author himself were very different. During the
whole scene, Falstaff gives only once, and under
irresistible temptation, the rein to his petulant wit,
and it is instantly checked by the prince; to whom,
by the way, and not to the king, his words ought to
be addressed.</p>
<p> The English stage might be considered equally
without rule and without model when Shakspeare
arose. The effect of the genius of an individual
upon the taste of a nation is mighty; but that
genius, in its turn, is formed according to the opinions
prevalent at the period when it comes into
existence. Such was the case with Shakspeare.
Had he received an education more extensive, and
possessed a taste refined by the classical models, it
is probable that he also, in admiration of the ancient
Drama, might have mistaken the form for the
essence, and subscribed to those rules which had
produced such masterpieces of art. Fortunately
for the full exertion of a genius as comprehensive
and versatile as intense and powerful, Shakspeare
had no access to any models of which the commanding
merit might have controlled and limited his
own exertions. He followed the path which a
nameless crowd of obscure writers had trodden
before him; but he moved in it with the grace and
majestic step of a being of a superior order; and
vindicated for ever the British theatre from a
pedantic restriction to classical rule. Nothing
went before Shakspeare which in any respect was
fit to fix and stamp the character of a national
Drama; and certainly no one will succeed him
capable of establishing, by mere authority, a form
more restricted than that which Shakspeare used.</p>
<p> Such is the action of existing circumstances upon
genius, and the re-action of genius upon future circumstances.
Shakspeare and Corneille was each
the leading spirit of his age; and the difference
between them is well marked by the editor of the
latter: ``_Corneille est in<e'>gal comme Shakespeare,
et plein de genie comme lui; mais le genie de Corneille
<e'>toit <a`> celui de Shakespeare ce qu`un_ seigneur
_est <a`> l'eqard d'un_ homme de peuple _n<e'> avec le m<e^>me
esprit que lui._'' This distinction is strictly accurate,
and contains a compliment to the English author
which, assuredly, the critic did not intend to make.
Corneille wrote as a courtier, circumscribed within
the imaginary rules and ceremonies of a court, as
a chicken is by a circle of chalk drawn round it.
Shakspeare, composing for the amusement of the
public alone, had within his province, not only the
inexhaustible field of actual life, but the whole ideal
world of fancy and superstition;---more favourable
to the display of poetical genius than even existing
realities. Under the circumstances of Corneille,
Shakspeare must have been restricted to the same
dull, regular and unvaried system. He must have
written, not according to the dictates of his own
genius, but in conformity to the mandate of some
<u>Intendant des menus plaisirs;</u> or of some minister
of state, who, like Cardinal Richelieu, thought he
could write a tragedy because he could govern a
kingdom. It is not equally clear to what height
Corneille might have ascended, had he enjoyed the
national immunities of Shakspeare. Each pitched
down a land-mark in his art. The circle of Shakspeare
was so extensive, that it is with advantage
liable to many restrictions; that of Corneille included
a narrow limit, which his successors have
deemed it unlawful to enlarge.</p>
<p> It is not our intention, within the narrow space
to which our essay is necessarily limited, to enlarge
upon the character and writings of Shakspeare.
We can only notice his performances as events in
the history of the theatre---of a gigantic character,
indeed, so far as its dignity, elevation, and importance
are considered; but, in respect of the mere
practice of the Drama, rather fixing and sanctioning,
than altering or reforming, those rules and
forms which he found already established. This
we know for certain, that those historical plays or
chronicles, in which Shakspeare's muse has thrown
a never-fading light upon the history of his country,
did, almost every one of them, exist before him in
the rude shape of dry dialogue and pitiful buffoonery,
stitched into scenes by the elder play-wrights
of the stage. His romantic Dramas exhibit the
same contempt of regularity which was manifested
by Marlow, and other writers; for where there was
abuse or extreme license upon the stage, the example
of Shakspeare may be often quoted as its
sanction, never as tending to reform it. In these
particulars the practice of our immortal bard was
contrasted with that of Ben Jonson, a severe and
somewhat pedantic scholar;---a man whose mind
was coarse, though possessing both strength and
elevation, and whose acute perception of comic
humour was tinctured with vulgarity.</p>
<p> Jonson's tragic strength consists in a sublime,
and sometimes harsh, expression of moral sentiment;
but displays little of tumultuous and ardent
passion, still less of tenderness or delicacy, although
there are passages in which he seems adequate to
expressing them. He laboured in the mine of the
classics, but overloaded himself with the ore, which
he could not, or would not, refine. His <u>Cataline</u>
and <u>Sejanus</u> are laboured translations from Cicero,
Sallust, and Tacitus, which his own age did not
endure, and which no succeeding generation will
be probably much tempted to revive. With the
stern superiority of learning over ignorance, he
asserted himself a better judge of his own productions,
than the public which condemned him, and
haughtily claimed the laurel which the general
suffrage often withheld; but the world has as yet
shown no disposition to reverse the opinion of
their predecessors.</p>
<p> In comedy, Jonson made some efforts partaking
of the character of the older comedy of the Grecians.
In his <u>Tale of a Tub,</u> he follows the path
of Aristophanes, and lets his wit run into low buffoonery,
that he might bring upon the stage Inigo
Jones, his personal enemy. In <u>Cynthia's Revells,</u>
and <u>The Staple of News,</u> we find him introducing
the dull personification of abstract passions and
qualities, and turning legitimate comedy into an
allegorical mask. What interest can the reader
have in such characters as the three Penny boys,
and their transactions with the Lady Pecunia?
Some of Jonson's more legitimate comedies may
he also taxed here with filthiness of language; of
which disgusting attribute his works exhibit more
instances, than those of any English writer of eminence,
excepting Swift. Let us, however, be just
to a master-spirit of his age. The comic force of
Jonson was strong, marked, and peculiar; and he
excelled even Shakspeare himself in drawing that
class of truly English characters, remarkable for
peculiarity of _humour;_---that is, for some mode of
thought, speech, and behaviour, superinduced upon
the natural disposition, by profession, education,
or fantastical affectation of singularity. In blazoning
these forth with their natural attributes and
appropriate language, Bon Jonson has never been
excelled; and his works everywhere exhibit a consistent
and manly moral, resulting naturally from
the events of the scene.</p>
<p> It must also be remembered, that, although it
was Jonson's fate to be eclipsed by the superior
genius, energy, and taste of Shakspeare, yet those
advantages which enabled him to maintain an
honourable though an unsuccessful struggle, were
of high advantage to the Drama. Jonson was the
first who showed, by example, the infinite superiority
of a well-conceived plot, all the parts of
which bore upon each other, and forwarded an
interesting conclusion over a tissue of detached
scenes, following without necessary connexion or
increase of interest. The plot of <u>The Fox</u> is admirably
conceived; and that of <u>The Alchymist,</u>
though faulty in the conclusion, is nearly equal to
it. In the two comedies of <u>Every Man in his Humour,</u>
and <u>Every Man out of his Humour,</u> the plot
deserves much less praise, and is deficient at once
in interest and unity of action; but in that of <u>The
Silent Woman,</u> nothing can exceed the art with
which the circumstance upon which the conclusion
turns is, until the very last scene, concealed from
the knowledge of the reader, while he is tempted to
suppose it constantly within his reach. In a word,
Jonson is distinguished by his strength and stature,
even in those days when there were giants in the
land; and affords a model of a close, animated, and
characteristic style of comedy, abounding in moral
satire, and distinguished at once by force and art,
which was afterwards more cultivated by English
dramatists, than the lighter, more wild, and more
fanciful department in which Shakspeare moved,
beyond the reach of emulation.</p>
<p> The general opinion of critics has assigned genius
as the characteristic of Shakspeare, and art as the
appropriate excellence of Jonson; not, surely, that
Jonson was deficient in genius, but that art was the
principal characteristic of his laborious scenes. We
learn from his own confession, and from the panegyrics
of his friends, as well as the taunts of his
enemies, that he was a slow composer: The natural
result of laborious care is jealousy of fame; for that
which we do with labour, we value highly when
achieved. Shakspeare, on the other hand, appears
to have composed rapidly and carelessly; and,
sometimes, even without considering, while writing
the earlier acts, how the catastrophe was to be
huddled up, in that which was to conclude the piece.
We may fairly conclude him to have been indifferent
about fame, who would take so little pains to win
it. Much, perhaps, might have been achieved by
the union of these opposed qualities, and by blending
the art of Jonson with the fiery invention and
fluent expression of his great contemporary. But
such a union of opposite excellences in the same
author was hardly to be expected; nor, perhaps,
would the result have proved altogether so favourable,
as might at first view be conceived. We
should have had mere perfect specimens of the art;
but they must have been much fewer in number;
and posterity would certainly have been deprived
of that rich luxuriance of dramatic excellences and
poetic beauties, which, like wild-flowers upon a
common field, lie scattered profusely among the
unacted plays of Shakspeare.</p>
<p> Although incalculably superior to his contemporaries,
Shakspeare had successful imitators, and
the art of Jonson was not unrivalled. Massinger
appears to have studied the works of both, with the
intention of uniting their excellences. He knew
the strength of plot; and although his plays are
altogether irregular, yet he well understood the
advantage of a strong and defined interest; and in
unravelling the intricacy of his intrigues, he often
displays the management of a master. Art, therefore,
not perhaps in its technical, but in its most
valuable sense, was Massinger's as well as Jonson's;
and, in point of composition, many passages of his
plays are not unworthy of Shakspeare. Were we
to distinguish Massinger's peculiar excellence, we
should name that first of dramatic attributes, a full
conception of Character, a strength in bringing out,
and consistency in adhering to it. He does not,
indeed, always introduce his personages to the
audience, in their own proper character; it dawns
forth gradually in the progress of the piece, as in
the hypocritical Luke, or in the heroic Marullo.
But, upon looking back, we are always surprised
and delighted to trace from the very beginning,
intimations of what the personage is to prove, as
the play advances. There is often a harshness of
outline, however, in the characters of this dramatist,
which prevents their approaching to the natural
and easy portraits bequeathed us by Shakspeare.</p>
<p> Beaumont and Fletcher, men of remarkable talent,
seemed to have followed Shakspeare's mode
of composition, rather than Jonson's, and thus to
have altogether neglected that art which Jonson
taught, and which Massinger in some sort practised.
They may, indeed, be rather said to have
taken for their model the boundless license of the
Spanish stage, from which many of their pieces
are expressly and avowedly derived. The acts of
their plays are so detached from each other, in
substance and consistency, that the plot scarce can
be said to hang together at all, or to have, in any
sense of the word, a beginning, progress, and conclusion.
It seems as if the play began, because the
curtain rose, and ended because it fell; the author,
in the meantime, exerting his genius for the amusement
of the spectators, pretty much in the same
manner as in the <u>Scenario</u> of the Italians, by the
actors filling up, with their extempore wit, the
scenes chalked out for them. To compensate for
this excess of irregularity, the plays of Beaumont
and Fletcher have still a high poetical value. If
character be sometimes violated, probability discarded,
and the interest of the plot neglected, the
reader is, on the other hand, often gratified by the
most beautiful description, the most tender and
passionate dialogue; a display of brilliant wit and
gaiety, or a feast of comic humour. These attributes
had so much effect on the public, that, during
the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the
eighteenth centuries, many of Beaumont and Fletcher's
plays had possession of the stage, while
those of Shakspeare were laid upon the shelf.</p>
<p> Shirley, Ford, Webster, Decker, and others,
added performances to the early treasures of the
English Drama, which abound with valuable passages.
There never, probably rushed into the lists
of literary composition together, a band mere distinguished
for talent. If the early Drama be inartificial
and unequal, no nation, at least, can show
so many detached scenes, and even acts, of high
poetical merit. One powerful cause seems to have
produced an effect so marked and distinguished;
to wit, the universal favour of a theatrical public,
which daily and nightly thronged the numerous
theatres then open in the city of London.</p>
<p> In considering this circumstance, it must above
all be remembered, that these numerous audiences
crowded, not to feast their eyes upon show and
scenery, but to see and hear the literary production
of the evening. The scenes which the stage
exhibited, were probably of the most paltry description.
Some rude helps to the imagination of
the audience might be used, by introducing the gate
of a castle or town;---the monument of the Capulets,
by sinking a trap-door, or by thrusting in a
bed. The good-natured audience readily received
these hints, with that conventional allowance, which
Sir Philip Sidney had ridiculed, and which Shakspeare
himself has alluded to, when he appeals from
the poverty of theatrical representation to the excited
imagination of his audience.<p> ``Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O, the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great account,
On your imaginary forces work:
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder;
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth.
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass.''
<u>Chorus to K. Henry V.</u></p>
</p>
<p> Such were the allowances demanded by Shakspeare
and his contemporaries from the public of
their day, in consideration of the imperfect means
and appliances of their theatrical machinery. Yet
the deficiency of scenery and show, which, when
existing in its utmost splendour, divides the interest
of the piece in the mind of the ignorant, and
rarely affords much pleasure to a spectator of taste,
may have been rather an advantage to the infant
Drama. The spectators, having nothing to withdraw
their attention from the immediate business
of the piece, give it their full and uninterrupted
attention. And here it may not be premature to
inquire into the characteristical difference between
the audiences of the present day, and of those earlier
theatrical ages, when the Drama boasted not only
the names of Shakspeare, of Massinger, of Jonson,
of Beaumont and Fletcher, of Shirley, of Ford;
but others of subordinate degree, the meanest of
whom shows occasionally more fire than warms
whole reams of modern plays. This will probably
be found to rest on the varied and contrasted feelings
with which the audience of ancient and that of
modern days attend the progress of the scene.</p>
<p> Nothing, indeed, is more certain, than that the
general cast of theatrical composition must receive
its principal bent and colouring from the taste of the
audience:<p> ``The Drama's laws, the Drama's patrons give;
For those who live to please, must please to live.''
=Johnson='s <u>Prologue,</u> 1747.</p>
</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li><u>Shakspeare and his Times,</u> by Nathan Drake, M.D., pp.
* 553, 554, vol. ii.---S.<p> Perhaps it is the leading distinction betwixt the
ancient and modern audiences, that the former came
to listen, and to admire; to fling the reins of their
imaginations into the hands of the author and
actors, and to be pleased, like the reader to whom
Sterne longed to do homage, ``they knew not why,
and cared not wherefore.'' The novelty of dramatic
entertainments (for there elapsed only about
twenty years betwixt the date of <u>Gammer Gurton's
Needle,</u> accounted the earliest English play, and the
rise of Shakspeare) must have had its natural effect
upon the audience. The sun of Shakspeare arose
almost without a single gleam of intervening twilight;
and it was no wonder that the audience, introduced
to this enchanting and seductive art at
once, under such an effulgence of excellence, should
have been more disposed to wonder than to criticize;
to admire---or rather to adore---than to measure
the height or ascertain the course, of the luminary
which diffused such glory around him. The
great number of theatres in London, and the profusion
of varied talent which was dedicated to this
service, attest the eagerness of the public to enjoy
the entertainments of the scene. The ruder amusements
of the age lost their attractions; and the
royal bear-ward of Queen Elizabeth lodged a formal
complaint at the feet of her majesty, that the
play-houses had seduced the audience from his
periodical bear-baitings! This fact is worth a
thousand conjectures; and we can hardly doubt,
that the converts, transported by their improving
taste from the bear-garden to the theatre, must,
generally speaking, have felt their rude minds subdued
and led captive by the superior intelligence,
which not only placed on the stage at pleasure all
ranks, all ages, all tempers, all passions of mere
humanity, but extended its powers beyond the
bounds of time and space, and seemed to render
visible to mortal eyes the secrets of the invisible
world. We may, perhaps, form the best guess of
the feelings of Shakspeare's contemporary audience,
by recollecting the emotions of any rural friend of
rough, but sound sense, and ardent feelings, whom
we have had the good fortune to conduct to a theatre
for the first time in his life. It may be well imagined,
that such a spectator thinks little of the
three dramatic unities, of which Aristotle says so
little, and his commentators and followers talk so
much; and that the poet and the performers have
that enviable influence over his imagination, which
transports him from place to place at pleasure;
crowds years into the course of hours, and interests
him in the business of each scene, however
disconnected from the others. His eyes are riveted
to the stage, his ears drink in the accents of the
speaker, and he experiences in his mature age,
what we have all felt in childhood---a sort of doubt
whether the beings and business of the scene be
real or fictitious. In this state of delightful fascination,
Shakspeare and the gigantic dramatic champions
of his age, found the British public at large;
and how they availed themselves of the advantages
which so favourable a temper afforded them, their
works will show so long as the language of Britain
continues to be read.<*> It is true, that the enthusiastic</p>
</li>
<li>Eloquence may and ought to have a place in tragedy, but
<em> in so far as it appears with somewhat of an artificial method
</em> and preparation, it can only be in character when the speaker
<em> is sufficiently master of himself; for overpowering passion, an
</em> unconscious and involuntary eloquence is alone suitable. The
<em> truly inspired Orator will forget himself in the object which
</em> occupies him. We call it rhetoric when he thinks more of
<em> himself, and the art in which he flatters himself he has obtained
</em> a mastery, than of his subject. Rhetoric, and rhetoric
<em> in a court dress, prevails but too much in many French tragedies,
</em> especially in those of Corneille, instead of the suggestions
<em> of a noble, but simple and artless nature; Racine and Voltaire,
</em> however, have approximated much nearer to the true conception
<em> of a mind carried away by its sufferings. Wherever the
</em> tragic hero is able to express his pain in antithesis and ingenious
<em> allusions, we may safely dispense with our pity. This
</em> sort of conventional dignity is, as it were, a coat of mail, to
<em> prevent the blow from reaching the inward parts. On account
</em> of their retaining this festal pomp in situations where the most
<em> complete self-forgetfulness would be natural, Schiller hat
</em> wittily enough compared the heroes in French tragedy to the
<em> kings in old copper-plates, who lie in bed with mantle, crown,
</em> and sceptre.---=Schlegel.=</li>
</ul>
<p>still remain the proudest boast of the classical age
of France, and a high honour to the European republic
of letters. It seems probable that Corneille,
if left to the exercise of his own judgment, would
have approximated more to the romantic Drama.
The <u>Cid</u> possesses many of the charms of that
species of composition. In the character of Don
Gourmas, he has drawn a national portrait of the
Spanish nobility, for which very excellence he was
subjected to the censure of the Academy, his national
court of criticism. In a general point of view,
he seems to have been ambitious of overawing his
audience by a display of the proud, the severe, the
ambitious, and the terrible. Tyrants and conquerors
have never sat to a painter of greater skill;
and the romantic tone of feeling which he adopts
in his more perfect characters is allied to that of
chivalry. But Corneille was deficient in tenderness,
in dramatic art, and in the power of moving
the passions. His fame, too, was injured by the
multiplicity of his efforts to extend it. Critics of
his own nation have numbered about twenty of his
Dramas, which have little to recommend them;
and no foreign reader is very likely to verify or
refute the censure, since he must previously read
them to an end.<p> When a child is tired of playing with a new toy,
its next delight is to examine how it is constructed;
and, in like manner, so soon as the first burst of
public admiration is over with respect to any new
mode of composition, the next impulse prompts us
to analyze and to criticize what was at first the
subject of vague and indiscriminate wonder. In
the first instance, the toy is generally broken to
pieces; in the other, while the imagination of the
authors is subjected to the rigid laws of criticism,
the public generally lose in genius what they may
gain in point of taste. The author who must calculate
upon severe criticism, turns his thoughts
more to avoid faults than to attain excellence; as
he who is afraid to stumble must avoid rapid
motion. The same process takes place in all the
fine arts: their first productions are distinguished
by boldness and irregularity; those which succeed
by a better and more correct taste, but also by inferior
and less original genius.</p>
<p> The original school founded by Shakspeare and
Ben Jonson, continued by Massinger, Beaumont
and Fletcher, Shirley, Ford, and others, whose
compositions are distinguished by irregularity as
well as genius, was closed by the breaking out of
the great civil war in 1642. The stage had been
the constant object of reprobation and abhorrence
on the part of the Puritans, and its professors had
no favour to expect at their hands if victorious.
We read, therefore, with interest, but without surprise,
that almost all the actors took up arms in
behalf of their old master King Charles, in whose
service most of them perished. Robinson, a principal
actor at the Blackfriars, was killed by Harrison
in cold blood, and under the application of a
text of Scripture,---``Cursed is he that doeth the
work of the Lord negligently.'' A few survivors
endeavoured occasionally to practise their art in
secrecy and obscurity, but were so frequently discovered,
plundered, and stripped by the soldiers,
that, ``_Enter the red-coat, Exit hat and cloak,_'' was
too frequent a stage direction. Sir William Davenant
endeavoured to evade the severe zealots of
the time, by representing a sort of opera, said to
have been the first Drama in which moveable
scenery was introduced upon the stage. Even the
cavaliers of the more grave sort disapproved of the
revival of these festive entertainments during the
unstable and melancholy period of the interreguum.
``I went,'' says the excellent Evelyn, in his Diary,
5th May, 1658, ``to see a new opera after the Italian
way; in recitation, music, and scenes, much
inferior to the Italian composure and magnificence;
but it was prodigious that in such a time of public
consternation, such a variety should be kept up or
permitted, and being engaged with company, could
not decently resist the going to see it, though my
heart smote me for it.'' Davenant's theatrical
enterprise, abhorred by the fanaticism of the one
party, and ill adapted to the dejected circumstances
of the other, was not probably very successful.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> II. With royalty, the stage revived in England.
But the theatres in the capital were limited to two,
a restriction which has never since been extended.
This was probably by the advice of Clarendon, who
endeavoured, though vainly, to stem at all points
the flood of idle gaiety and dissipation which broke
in after the Restoration. The example of France
might reconcile Charles to this exertion of royal
authority. With this restoration of the Drama, as
well as of the crown, commences the second, part
of English dramatic history.</p>
<p> Charles II. had been accustomed to enjoy the
foreign stage during his exile, and had taste enough
to relish its beauties. It is probable, however, that
his judgment was formed upon the French model,
for few of the historical or romantic Dramas were
revived at the Restoration. So early as 26th November,
1662, the <u>Diary</u> of Evelyn contains this
entry: ``I saw Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, played,
but now the old plays began to disgust this refined
age, since his Majesty has been so long
abroad.'' Dryden, Howard, and others, who obtained
possession of the stage, introduced what was
for some time called Heroic Plays, written in
couplets, and turning upon the passions of love and
honour. In the dialogue, these pieces resembled
that of the French stage, where the actors declaim
alternately in the best language, and in the finest
thoughts, which the poet can supply; but without
much trace of natural passion or propriety of character.
But though French in dialogue and sentiment,
the heroic plays were English in noise and
bustle, and the lack of truth and nature was supplied
by trumpets and tempests, victories, and processions.
An entertainment of a character so forced
and unnatural, was obviously of foreign growth,
and flowed from the court. Dryden himself has
assured us, ``that the favour which heroic plays had
acquired upon the stage, was entirely owing to the
countenance which they had received at court; and
that the most eminent persons for wit and humour
in the royal circle had so far honoured them, that
they judged no way so fit as verse to entertain a
noble audience, or express a noble passion.'' In
these pieces the unities were not observed: but in
place of the classical restrictions, there were introduced
certain romantic whimsical limitations of the
dramatic art, which, had they been adopted, must
soon have destroyed all its powers of pleasing. The
characters were avowedly formed upon the model
of the French romance, where honour was a sort
of insane gasconading extravagance, and who seem
to have made a vow never to speak or think of any
thing but love; and that in language sometimes
ingeniously metaphysical, sometimes puerile to silliness,
sometimes mad even to raving, but always
absurd, unnatural, and extravagant. In point of
system it was stated, that a heroic play should be
no imitation of a heroic poem. The laws of such
compositions did not, it was said, dispense with
those of the elder Drama, but exalted them, and
obliged the poet to draw all things as far above the
ordinary proportion of the stage, as the stage itself
is beyond the common words and actions of human
life. The effects which a heroic play, constructed
upon such an overstrained model, produced, is well
described by Mrs. Evelyn, wife of the author of
that name already quoted, in a letter to Mr. Bohun,
written in 1671: ``Since my last to you I have
seen the <u>Siege of Grenada,</u> a play so full of ideas,
that the most refined romance I ever read is not
to compare with it. Love is made so pure, and
valour so nice, that one would imagine it designed
for a Utopia rather than our stage. I do not quarrel
with the poet, but admire one born in the decline
of morality should be able to feign such exact
virtue; and as poetic fiction has been instructive in
former ages, I wish this the same event in ours.
As to the strict law of comedy I dare not pretend
to judge. Some think the division of the story not
so well as if it could all have been comprehended
in the day of action. Truth of history, exactness
of time, possibilities of adventures, are niceties which
the ancient critics might require, but those who
have outdone them in fine notions may be allowed
the liberty to express them their own way, and the
present world is so enlightened that the old dramatique
must bear no sway. This account perhaps is
not enough to do <u>Mr. Driden</u> right, yet is as much
as you can expect from the leisure of one who has
the care of a nursery.'' (See Evelyn's <u>Works.</u>)
This ingenious lady felt what, overawed by the
fashion of the moment, she has intimated rather
than expressed; namely, that the Heroic Drama,
notwithstanding the fine poetry of which it may be
made the vehicle, was overstrained, fantastical, and
unnatural.<*></p>
</p>
<p>But though this be an undeniable, and in some
respects a melancholy truth, it is not less certain,
that genius, labouring in behalf of the public, possesses
the power of reaction, and of influencing, in
its turn, that taste to which it is in some respects
obliged to conform; while, on the other hand, the
play-wright, who aims only to catch the passing
plaudit and the profit of a season, by addressing
himself exclusively to the ruling predilections of
the audience, degrades the public taste still farther,
by the gross food which he ministers to it; unless
it shall be supposed that he may contribute involuntarily
to rouse it from its degeneracy, by cramming
it even to satiety and loathing. This action,
therefore, and reaction of the taste of the age on
dramatic writing, and <u>vice versa,</u> must both be kept
in view, when treating of the difference betwixt
the days of Shakspeare and our own.<p> In comedy, also, there was evinced, subsequent
to the Restoration, a kindred desire of shining in
dialogue, rather than attempting the humorous
delineation of character of which Shakspeare, Jonson,
and the earlier school, had set the example.
The comic author no longer wrote to move the
hearty laugh of a popular assembly, but to please
a fashionable circle, ``the men of wit and pleasure
about town;'' with whom wit and raillery is always
more prevailing than humour. As in tragedy,
therefore, the authors exhausted trope and figure,
and reduced to logic the language of heroic passion;
so in comedy, a succession of smart jests,
which never served to advance the action of the
piece, or display the character of the speaker, were
bandied to and fro upon the stage.</p>
<p> Satire is the appropriate corrective of extravagance
in composition, and <u>The Rehearsal</u> of the
Duke of Buckingham, though it can scarcely be
termed a work of uncommon power, had yet the
effect of holding up to public ridicule, the marked
and obvious absurdities of the revived Drama in
both its branches. After the appearance of this
satire, a taste too extravagant for long endurance
was banished from the theatre; both tragedy and
comedy retraced their steps, and approached more
nearly to the field of human action, passion, and
suffering; and down to the Revolution, a more
natural style of Drama occupied the stage. It
was supported by men of the highest genius; who,
but for one great leading error, might perhaps have
succeeded in giving to the art its truest and most
energetic character. The talents of Otway, in his
scenes of passionate affection, rival, at least, and
sometimes excel, those of Shakspeare. More tears
have been shed, probably, for the sorrows of Belvidera
and Monimia, than for those of Juliet and
Desdemona. The introduction of actresses upon
the stage was scarce known before the Restoration,
and it furnished the poets of the latter period with
appropriate representatives for their female characters.
This more happy degree of personification,
as it greatly increased the perfection of the scene,
must have animated, in proportion, the genius of
the author. A marked improvement, therefore,
may be traced in love scenes, and, indeed, in all
those wherein female characters are introduced
that which was to be spoken by a fitting representative
was, of course, written with more care, as it
was acted with greater effect. This was an advantage,
and a great one, possessed by the theatre
succeeding the Restoration. Great force and vigour
marked the dramatic compositions of this age.
They were not, indeed, equal to those of Shakspeare,
either in point of the talent called forth, or
the quantity of original poetry given to the public;
but Otway, and even Lee, notwithstanding his
bombastic rant, possessed considerable knowledge
of dramatic art and of stage-effect. Several plays
of this period have kept possession of the stage;
less, perhaps, on account of intrinsic merits, than
because some of the broad errors of the earlier age
had been removed, and a little more art had been
introduced in the combination of the scenes, and
disentanglement of the plot. The voice of criticism
was frequently heard; the dramatic rules of
the ancients were known and quoted; and though
not recognised in their full extent, had nevertheless
some influence in regulating the action of the
Drama.</p>
<p> In one heinous article, however, the poets of this
age sinned at once against virtue, good taste, and
decorum; and endangered, by the most profligate
and shameless indecency, the cause of morality,
which has been often considered as nearly allied
with that of the legitimate Drama. In the first
period of the British stage, the actors were men of
decent character, and often acquired considerable
independence. The women's parts were acted by
boys. Hence, although there were too many instances
of low and licentious dialogue, there were
few of that abominable species which addresses itself
not to the fancy but to the passions; and is
seductive, instead of being ludicrous. Had Charles
II. borrowed from the French monarchy the severe
etiquette of their court, when he introduced into
England something resembling the style of their
plays, he would have asserted what was due to his
own dignity, and the cause of sound morals and
good manners, by prohibiting this vulgar and degrading
license, which in itself was insulting to the
presence of a king. It was, however, this prince's
lot, in the regulation of his amusements, as well as
in his state government, to neglect self-respectability.
In his exile, he had been ``merry, scandalous,
and poor;'' had been habituated to share familiarly
coarse jests and loose pleasures with his dissolute
companions; and, unfortunately, he saw no reason
for disusing the license to which he had accustomed
himself, when it was equally destructive to his own
character and to decorum. What had been merely
coarse was, under his influence, rendered vicious
and systematic impurity. Scenes, both passionate
and humorous, were written in such a style, as if
the author had studied, whether the grave seduction
of the heroic, or the broad infamy of the comic
scenes, should contain the grossest insult to public
decency. The female performers were of a character
proper to utter whatever ribaldry the poet chose
to put into their mouths; and, as they practised
what they taught, the King himself, and the loading
Courtiers, formed connexions which gave the actresses
a right to be saucy in their presence, and to
reckon upon their countenance when practising in
public the effrontery which marked their intercourse
in private life. How much this shocked the
real friends of Charles, is shown by its effects upon
Evelyn, whose invaluable <u>Diary</u> we have already
quoted:---``This night was acted my Lord Broghill's
tragedy, called <u>Mustapha,</u> before their Majesties at
Court, at which I was present; though very seldom
now going to the public theatres, for many reasons,
as they are now abused to an atheistical liberty.
Foul and indecent women now, and never till now,
are permitted to appear and act, who, inflaming
several young noblemen and gallants, became their
misses and some their wives---witness the Earl of
Oxford, Sir R. Howard, P. Rupert, the Earl of
Dorset, and another greater person than any of
them, who fell into their snares, to the reproach
of their noble families, and ruin of both body and
soul.'' He elsewhere repeatedly expresses his grief
and disgust at the pollution and degeneracy of the
stage. (Evelyn's <u>Works,</u> vol i., p. 392.) In a letter
to Lord Cornbury (son of the great Clarendon)
he thus expresses himself: ``In the town of London,
there are more wretched and indecent plays
permitted, than in all the world besides;'' and adds,
shortly after, ``If my Lord Chancellor would but
be instrumental in reforming this one exorbitancy,
it would gain both the King and his Lordship multitudes
of blessings. You know, my Lord, that I
(who have written plays, and am a scurvy poet, too,
sometimes) am far from Puritanisme; but I would
have no reproach left our adversaries, in a theme
which may so conveniently be reformed. Plays are
now with us become a licentious exercise, and a
vice, and neede severe cencors, that should look as
well to their morality, as to their lines and numbers.''
---And, at the hazard of multiplying quotations,
we cannot suppress the following,---1st March,
1671:---``I walked with him (the King) through
St. James's Park, to the garden, where I both heard
and saw a very familiar discourse betwixt ------ (<u>i.e.</u>
the King) and Mrs. Nelly (Gwyn) as they called an
impudent comedian, she looking out of her terrace
at the top of the wall, and ------ (the King) standing
in the green walk under it. I was heartily
sorry at this scene.''</p>
<p> The foul stain, so justly censured by a judge so
competent, and so moderate as Evelyn, was like
that of the leprosy in the Levitical Law, which
sunk into and pervaded the very walls of the mansion;
it became the leading characteristic of the
English theatre, of its authors, and of its players.
It was, however, especially in comedy that this vice
was most manifest; and, to say truth, were not the
eyes of antiquaries, like the ears of confessors, free
from being sullied by the impurities subjected to
them, the comedies of this period, as well as the
comic scenes introduced to relieve the tragedies, are
fitter for a brothel, than for the library of a man of
letters.</p>
<p> It is a pity that we are under the necessity of
drawing the character of the Drama, at this age,
from a feature so coarse and disgusting. Unquestionably,
as the art in other respects made progress,
it might, but for this circumstance, have reached an
uncommon pitch of perfection. The Comedies of
Congreve contain probably more wit than was ever
before embodied upon the stage; each word was a
jest, and yet so characteristic, that the repartee of
the servant is distinguished from that of the master;
the jest of the coxcomb from that of the humourist
or fine gentleman of the piece. Had not Sheridan
lived in our own time, we could not have conceived
the possibility of rivalling the comedies of Congreve.
This distinguished author understood the
laws of composition, and combined his intrigue
with a degree of skill unusual on the British stage.
Nor was he without his rivals, even where his
eminence was most acknowledged. Vanburgh and
Farquhar, inferior to Congreve in real wit, and
falling into the next period, were, perhaps, his
equals in the composition of acting plays. Like
other powerful stimulants, the use of wit has its
bounds, which Congreve is supposed sometimes to
have exceeded. His dialogue keeps the attention
too much upon the stretch, and, however delightful
in the closet, fatigues the mind during the action.
When you are perpetually conscious that you lose
something by the slightest interruption of your
attention, whether by accident or absence of mind,
it is a state of excitement too vivid and too constant
to be altogether pleasant; and we feel it possible,
that we might sometimes wish to exchange a companion
of such brilliant powers, for one who would
afford us more repose and relaxation.</p>
<p> The light, lively, but somewhat more meagre
dialogue of the later dramatists of the period, and
of that which succeeded, was found sufficient to
interest, yet was not so powerful as to fatigue, the
audience. Vanburgh and Farquhar seem to have
written more from the portraits of ordinary life;
Congreve from the force of his own conception.
The former, therefore, drew the characters of men
and women as they found them; selected, united,
and heightened for the purpose of effect; but without
being enriched with any brilliancy foreign to
their nature. But all the personages of Congreve
have a glimpse of his own fire, and of his own
acuteness. He could not entirely lay aside his
quick powers of perception and reply, even when
he painted a clown or a coxcomb; and all that can
be objected, saving in a moral sense, to this great
author, is, his having been too prodigal of his wit;
a faculty used by most of his successors with rigid
economy.</p>
<p> That personification of fantasy or whim, called
characters of humour, which Ben Jonson introduced,
was revived during this period. Shadwell,
now an obscure name, endeavoured to found himself
a reputation, by affecting to maintain the old
school, and espousing the cause of Ben Jonson
against Dryden and other innovators.<*> But although</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>``There is only one other peculiarity which we shall notice
<em> in these ancient dramas; and that is, the singular, though very
</em> beautiful style in which the greater part of them are composed,
<em> ---a style which we think must have been felt as peculiar by all
</em> who peruse them, though it is by no means easy to describe in
<em> what its peculiarity consists. It is not for the most parts lofty
</em> or sonorous style,---nor is it finical or affected,---or strained,
<em> quaint, or pedantic,---but it is, at the same time, a style full of
</em> turn and contrivance,---with some little degree of constraint
<em> and involution,---very often characterised by a studied briefness
</em> and simplicity of diction, yet relieved by a certain indirect
<em> and figurative cast of expression,---and almost always coloured
</em> with a modest tinge of ingenuity, and fashioned, rather too
<em> visibly, upon a particular model of elegance and purity. In
</em> scenes of powerful passion, this sort of artificial prettiness is
<em> commonly shaken off; and in Shakspeare, it disappears under
</em> all his forms of animation: But it sticks closer to most of his
<em> contemporaries. In Massinger, (who has no passion,) it is
</em> almost always discernible; and, in Ford, it gives a peculiar
<em> tone to almost all the estimable parts of his productions.''---
</em> =Jeffrey.=</li>
</ul>
<p>glow of the public admiration, like the rays
of a tropical sun darted upon a rich soil, called up
in profusion weeds as well as flowers; and that,
spoiled in some degree by the indulgent acceptation
which attended their efforts, even our most
admired writers of Elizabeth's age not unfrequently
exceeded the bounds of critical nicety, and even of
common taste and decorum. But these eccentricities
were atoned for by a thousand beauties, to
which, fettered by the laws of the classic Drama,
the authors would hardly have aspired, or, aspiring,
would hardly have attained. All of us know and
feel how much the exercise of our powers, especially
those which rest on keen feelings and self-confidence,
is dependent upon a favourable reception
from those for whom they are put in action.
Every one has observed how a cold brow can damp
the brilliancy of wit, and fetter the flow of eloquence;
and how both are induced to send forth
sallies corresponding in strength and fire, upon being
received by the kindred enthusiasm of those
whom they have addressed. And thus, if we owe
to the indiscriminate admiration with which the
Drama was at first received, the irregularities of
the authors by whom it was practised, we also stand
indebted to it, in all probability, for many of its
beauties, which became of rare occurrence, when,
by a natural, and indeed a necessary change, satiated
admiration began to give way to other feelings.<p> Morals repeatedly insulted, long demanded an
avenger; and he arose in the person of Jeremy
Collier. It is no disgrace to the memory of this
virtuous and well-meaning man, that, to use the
lawyer's phrase, he pleaded his cause too high;
summoned, unnecessarily, to his aid the artillery
with which the Christian fathers had fulminated
against the Heathen Drama; and, pushing his arguments
to extremity, directed it as well against
the use as the abuse of the stage. Those who
attempted to reply to him, availed themselves,
indeed, of the weak parts of his arguments; but
upon the main points of impeachment, the poets
stood self-convicted. Dryden made a manly and
liberal submission, though not without some reflections
upon the rudeness of his antagonist's attacks:</p>
<p> ``I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things
he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all
thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly accused
of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them.
If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I
have given him no occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad
of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the
defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a
good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove, that, in many
places, he has perverted my meaning by his glosses, and interpreted
my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they
were not guilty; besides, that he is too much given to horseplay
in his raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from
the plough. I will not say, `The seal of God's house has eaten
him up;' but I am sure, it has devoured some part of his good
manners and civility.''<*></p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>See more on the subject of Heroic Plays, <u>ante,</u> Part i. of
* the present series, <u>Life of Dryden,</u> pp. 13, 14, and 22.<p> Congreve, less prudent, made an angry and
petulant defence, yet tacitly admitted the charge
brought against him, by retrenching, in the future
editions of his plays, passages of grossness and
profaneness, which the restless antiquary still detects
in the early copies. And, on the whole, Collier's
satire was attended with such salutary effects,
that men started at the mass of impudence and
filth, which had been gradually accumulated in the
theatre, during the last reigns; and if the Augean
stable was not sufficiently cleansed, the stream of
public opinion was fairly directed against its conglomerated
impurities. Since that period, indecency,
that easy substitute for wit and pleasantry,
has been gradually banished from the Drama,
where the conversation is now (according to Sheridan
at least) always moral, if not entertaining.</p>
<p> During the second period of the British Drama,
great improvement was made in point of art. The
principles of dramatic composition were more completely
understood, and the poets themselves had
written so much upon the subject, that, as Dryden
somewhere complains, they had taught their audience
the art of criticising their performances.
They did not, however, so far surrender the liberties
and immunities of their predecessors, as to
receive laws from the French critics. The rules
of the unities were no farther adopted by Otway,
Congreve, and the writers of their time, than their
immediate purpose admitted. It was allowed, on
all hands, that unnecessary and gross irregularities
were to be avoided, but no precise rule was adopted;
poets argued upon the subject according to caprice,
and acted according to convenience. Gross and
palpable extensions of time, and frequent changes
of place, were avoided; and, unless in tragi-comedies,
authors studied to combine the intrigue of
their play into one distinct and progressive action.
The genius by which this art was supported, was
neither so general nor so profuse as that which
decorated the preceding period. It was enough,
however, to support the honour of the Drama; and
if the second period has produced fewer masterpieces
of talent, it has exhibited more plays capable
of being acted.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> III. In the third period of dramatic history, the
critics began to obtain an authority for which they
had long struggled, and which might have proved
fatal to the liberties of the stage. It is the great
danger of criticism, when laying down abstract
rules without reference to any example, that these
regulations can only apply to the form, and never
to the essence of the Drama. They may assume,
that the plot must be formed on a certain model,
but they cannot teach the spirit which is to animate
its progress. They cannot show how a passion
should be painted, but they can tell to a moment
when the curtain should be dropped. The misfortune
is, that, while treating of these subordinate
considerations, critics exalt them to an undue importance,
in their own minds and that of their
scholars. What they carve out for their pupils is a
mere dissection of a lifeless form; the genius
which animated it escapes, as the principle of life
glided from the scalpel of those anatomists who
sought to detect it in the earlier days of that art.
Rymer had, as early as 1688, discovered that our
poetry of the last age was as rude as its architecture.
``One cause thereof,'' he continues, ``might
be, that Aristotle's <u>Treatise of Poetry</u> has been so
little studied amongst us; it was, perhaps, commented
upon by all the great men in <u>Italy,</u> before
we well knew (on this side of the Alps) that there
was such a book in being.'' Accordingly, Rymer
endeavours to establish what he calls the Rule of
Reason over Fancy, in the contrivance and economy
of a play. ``Those who object to this subjugation,''
he observes, ``are mere fanatics in poetry,
and will never be saved by their good works.''
The species of reason, however, to which Rymer
appeals, resembles, in its occult nature, that which
lies hidden in the depths of the municipal law, and
which is better known to the common class of
mankind under the name of Authority. Because
Aristotle assigns Pity and Terror as the objects of
tragedy, Rymer resumes the proposition, that no
other source of passion can be legitimate. To this
he adds some arbitrary rules, of which it would be
difficult to discover the <u>rationale.</u> It was the opinion,
we are told, of the ancients, ``that Comedy
(whose province was humour and ridiculous matter
only) was to represent worse than the truth,
History to describe the truth, but Tragedy was to
invent things better than the truth. Like good
painters, they must design their images like the
life, but yet better and more beautiful than the life.
The malefactor of tragedy must be a better sort of
malefactor than those that live in the present age:
For an obdurate, impudent, and impenitent, malefactor,
can neither move compassion nor terror,
nor be of any imaginable use in tragedy.'' It would
be difficult to account for these definitions upon
any logical principle, and impossible for an admirer
of the Drama to assent to a rule which would
exclude from the stage Iago and Richard III. It
is equally difficult to account for the <u>rationale</u> of
the following dogmata: ``If I mistake not, in poetry
no woman is to kill a man, except her quality gives
her the advantage above him; nor is a servant to
kill his master; nor a private man, much less a
subject, to kill a king, nor on the contrary. Poetical
decency will not suffer death to be dealt to each
other by such persons, whom the laws of duel
allow not to enter the lists together.'' (Rymer's
<u>View of the Tragedies of the Last Age.</u>) Though
for these, and similar critical conceits, it would be
difficult to find any just principle, nevertheless,
Rymer, Dennis, and other critics, who, mixing
observations founded on sound judgment and taste,
with others which rested merely upon dauntless
assertion, or upon the opinions of Aristotle, began
thereby to extend their authority, and produce a
more than salutary influence upon the Drama. It
is true, that both of the aristarchs whom we have
named were so ill-advised as themselves to attempt
to write plays, and thereby most effectually proved,
that it was possible for a Drama to be extremely
regular, and at the same time, intolerably dull.
Gradually, however, their precepts, in despite of
their example, gained influence over the stage.
They laid down rules in which the audience were
taught to regard the trade of a connoisseur as easy
and soon learned; and the same quantity of technical
jargon which, in the present day, constitutes
a judge of painting, was, in the beginning of the
eighteenth century, sufficient to elevate a Templar
into a dramatic critic. The court of criticism, though
self-constituted was sufficiently formidable, since
they possessed the power of executing their own
decrees. Many authors made their submission; and,
amongst others, Congreve humbled himself in the
<u>Mourning Bride,</u> and Addison, with anxious and
constitutional timidity, sacrificed to the unities in
his celebrated tragedy of <u>Cato.</u> Being in form and
essence rather a French than an English play, it is
one of the few English tragedies which foreigners
have admired. It was translated into Italian, and
admired as a perfect model by Riccoboni, although
his taste condemns the silly love intrigue. Its success
was contagious. Southerne and Rowe may be
considered as belonging to the same school; although
the former admired Shakspeare, and the
latter formed himself, in some degree, on the model
of Otway. Translations of French tragedies became
every day more frequent; and their diction
and style of dialogue was imitated upon the British
stage. The language of tragedy no longer expressed
human passion, or intimated what the persons of
the Drama actually felt, but described and debated,
alternately, what they ought to feel; and sounding
sentences, and long similes, exhibiting an active
fancy and a cold imagination, supplied at once the
place of force and of pathos.</p>
<p> The line between comedy and tragedy was now
strictly drawn. The latter was no longer permitted
to show that strain of heroic humour which exhibits
itself in the character of Falconbridge, Hotspur,
and Henry V., as well as Mercutio. All was
to be cold and solemn, and in the same key of dull,
grave state. Neither was comedy relieved by the
touches of pathetic tenderness, and even sublimity,
which are to be found in the romantic plays of the
earlier period. To compensate the audience for the
want of this beautiful variety of passion and feeling,
Southerne, as Otway had done before him, usually
introduces a few scenes of an under-plot, containing
the most wretched and indecent farce, which was
so slightly and awkwardly dovetailed into the original
tragedy, that they have since been cancelled
as impertinent intrusions, without being so much
as missed. Young, Thomson, and others, who followed
the same wordy and declamatory system of
composition, contributed rather to sink than to
exalt the character of the stage. The two first were
both men of excellent genius, as their other writings
have sufficiently testified; but, as dramatists,
they wrought upon a false model, and their productions
are of little value.</p>
<p> It is a remarkable instance of the decay of dramatic
art at this period, that several of the principal
authors of the time felt themselves at liberty to
write imitations of old plays belonging to the original
school, by way of adapting them to the taste
of their own age. <u>The Fair Penitent</u> of Rowe is
well known as a poor imitation of Massinger's
<u>Fatal Dowry.</u> It does not greatly excel the original
in the management and conduct of the piece;
and, in every thing else, falls as far beneath it as
the baldest translation can sink below the most
spirited original.</p>
<p> It would appear that the players of this period
had adopted a mode of acting correspondent to the
poetical taste of the time. Declamation seems to
have been more in fashion in the school of Booth
and Betterton than that vivacity of action which
exhibits at once, with word, eye, and gesture, the
immediate passion which it is the actor's part to
express. ``I cannot help,'' says Cibber, ``in regard
to truth, remembering the rude and riotous havoc
we made of all the late dramatic honours of the
theatre! all became at once the spoil of ignorance
and self-conceit! Shakspeare was defaced and tortured
in every signal character; <u>Hamlet</u> and <u>Othello</u>
lost, in one hour, all their good sense, their dignity,
and fame; <u>Brutus</u> and <u>Cassius</u> became noisy
blusterers, with bold unmeaning eyes, mistaken
sentiments, and turgid elocution!''---(Cibber's <u>Memoirs.</u>)</p>
<p> A singular attempt to deviate from the prevailing
taste in tragedy was made by Lillo, with the highly
laudable purpose of enlarging the sphere of dramatic
utility. He conceived that plays founded upon incidents
of private life, might carry more immediate
conviction to the mind of the hearers, and be the
means of stifling more vices in the bud, than those
founded on the more remote and grander events of
history. Accordingly, he formed his plots from domestic
crimes, and his characters never rose above
the ranks of middle life. Lillo had many requisites
for a tragedian; he understood, either from innate
taste, or critical study, the advantage to be derived
from a consistent fable; and, in the tragedy of the
<u>Fatal Curiosity,</u> he has left the model of a plot, in
which, without the help of any exterior circumstances,
a train of events operating upon the characters
of the dramatic persons, produce a conclusion
at once the most dramatic and the most horrible that
the imagination can conceive. Neither does it appear
that, as a poet, Lillo was at all inferior to
others of his age. He possessed a beautiful fancy;
and much of his dialogue is as forcibly expressed
as it is well conceived. On some occasions, however,
he sinks below his subject; and on others, he
appears to be dragged down to the nether sphere
in which it is laid, and to become cold and creeping,
as if depressed with the consciousness that he
was writing upon a mean subject. In <u>George Barnwell</u>
his apprentice-hero never rises above an idle
and profligate lad; Milwood's attractions are not
beyond those of a very vulgar woman of the town;
Thoroughgood, as his name expresses, is very worthy
and very tiresome; and there is, positively,
nothing to redeem the piece, excepting the interest
arising from a tale of horror, and the supposed usefulness
of the moral. The <u>Fatal Curiosity</u> is a play
of a very different cast, and such as might have
shaken the Grecian stage, even during the reige of
terror. But the powers of the poet prove unequal
to the concluding horrors of his scene. Old Wilmot's
character, as the needy man who had known
better days, exhibits a mind naturally good, but
prepared for acting evil, even by the evil which he
has himself suffered, and opens in a manner which
excites the highest interest and expectation. But
Lillo was unable to sustain the character to the
close. After discovering himself to be the murderer
of his son, the old man falls into the common cant
of the theatre; he talks about computing sands,
increasing the noise of thunder, adding water to the
sea, and fire to Etna, by way of describing the excess
of his horror and remorse; and becomes as
dully desperate, or as desperately dull, as any other
despairing hero in the last scene of a fifth act.</p>
<p> During this third period of the Drama, Comedy
underwent several changes. The department called
genteel comedy, where the persons as well as the
foibles ridiculed, were derived chiefly from high
life, assumed a separate and distinct existence from
that which ransacked human nature at large for its
subject. Like the tragedy of the period, this particular
species of comedy was borrowed from the
French. It was pleasing to the higher classes, because
it lay within their own immediate circle, and
turned upon the topics of gallantry, persiflage, affectation,
and raillery. It was agreeable to the
general audience, who imagined they were thereby
admitted into the presence of their betters, and enjoyed
their amusement at their expense. The <u>Careless Husband</u>
of Cibber, is, perhaps, the best English
play on this model. The general fault to which
they are all liable, is their tendency to lower the
tone of moral feeling; and to familiarize men, in
the middling, with the cold, heartless, and selfish
system of profligate gallantry practised among the
higher ranks. We are inclined to believe, that in
a moral point of view, genteel comedy, as it has
been usually written, is more prejudicial to public
morals than plays, the tendency of which seems at
first more grossly vicious. It is not so probable
that the <u>Beggar's Opera</u> has sent any one from the
two shilling gallery to the highway, as that a youth
entering upon the world, and hesitating between
good and evil, may be determined to the worse
course, by the gay and seductive example of <u>Lovemore</u>
or <u>Sir Charles Easy.</u> At any rate, the tenderness
with which vices are shaded off into foibles,
familiarizes them to the mind of the hearer, and
gives a false colouring to those crimes which should
be placed before the mind in their native deformity.
But the heaviness of this class of plays, and
the difficulty of finding adequate representatives for
those characters which are really well drawn, are
powerful antidotes to the evil which we complain
of. That which is dully written, and awkwardly
performed, will not find many imitators.</p>
<p> The genteel comedy, being a plant of foreign
growth, never obtained exclusive possession of the
English stage, any more than court dresses have
been adopted in our private societies. The comedy
of intrigue, borrowed, perhaps, originally from the
Spaniards, continued to be written and acted with
success. Many of Cibber's pieces, of Centlivre's
and others, still retain their place on the stage.
This is a species of comedy easily written, and seen
with pleasure, though consisting chiefly of bustle
and complicated incident; and requiring much
co-operation of the dress-maker, scene-painter, and
carpenter. After all the bustle, however, of surprise,
and disguise, and squabble; after every trick
is exhausted, and every stratagem played off, the
writer too often finds himself in a labyrinth, from
which a natural mode of extrication seems altogether
impossible. Hence the intrigue is huddled up
at random; and the persons of the Drama seem,
as if by common consent, to abandon their dramatic
character before throwing off their stage-dresses.
The miser becomes generous; the peevish cynic
good-humoured; the libertine virtuous; the coquette
is reformed; the debauchee is reclaimed; all vices
natural and habitual are abandoned by those most
habitually addicted to them:---a marvellous reformation,
which is brought about entirely from the
consideration that the play must now be concluded.
It was when pressed by this difficulty, that Fielding
is said to have dammed all fifth acts.</p>
<p> The eighteenth century, besides genteel comedy,
and comedy of intrigue, gave rise to a new species
of dramatic amusement. The Italian Opera had
been introduced into this country at a great expense,
and to the prejudice, as it was supposed, of
the legitimate Drama. Gay, in aiming at nothing
beyond a parody of this fashionable entertainment,
making it the vehicle of some political satire against
Sir Robert Walpole's administration, unwittingly
laid the foundation of the English Opera. The popularity
of his piece was unequalled; partly owing
to its peculiar humour, partly to its novelty, partly
to the success of the popular airs, which everybody
heard with delight, and partly to political motives.
The moral tendency of <u>The Beggar's Opera</u> has
been much questioned; although, in all probability,
the number of highwaymen is not more increased
by the example of Macheath, than that of murderers
is diminished by the catastrophe of George Barnwell.
Many years ago, however, an unhappy person,
rather from a perverted and misplaced ambition,
than from the usual motives of want and desperation,
chose, though in easy circumstances, and
most respectably connected, to place himself at the
head of a band of thieves and housebreakers, whose
depredations he directed and shared. On the night
on which they committed the crime for which he
suffered, and when they were equipped for the
expedition, he sung to his accomplices the chorus of
_The Beggar's Opera,_---``Let us take the road.'' But
his confederates, professional thieves, and who
pursued, from habit and education, the desperate
practices which Mr. B------ adopted from an adventurous
spirit of profligate Quixotry, knew nothing
at all of Gay, or <u>The Beggar's Opera;</u> and in their
several confessions and testimonies, only remembered
something of a <u>flash-song,</u> about `turning
lead to gold.'' This curious circumstance, while it
tends to show that the Drama may affect the weak
part of a mind, predisposed to evil by a diseased
imagination, proves the general truth of what Johnson
asserts in <u>The Life of Gay,</u> that ``highwaymen
and housebreakers seldom mingle in any elegant
diversions; nor is it possible for any one to imagine,
that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath
reprieved on the stage.''</p>
<p> This play is now chiefly remarkable, as having
given rise to the English Opera. In this pleasing
entertainment, it is understood that the plot may be
light and the characters superficial, provided that
the music be good, and adapted to the situation, the
scenes lively and possessed of comic force. Notwithstanding
the subordinate nature of this species
of composition, it approaches, perhaps, more closely
to the ancient Grecian Drama than any thing which
retains possession of our stage. The subjects, indeed,
are as totally different as the sublime from
the light and the trivial. But, in the mixture of
poetry and music, and in the frequent introduction
of singing-characters unconnected with the business
of the piece, and therefore somewhat allied to the
Chorus, the English Opera has some general points
of resemblance with the Grecian tragedy. This
species of dramatic writing was successfully practised
by Bickerstaff, and has been honoured by the
labours of Sheridan.<p> *</p>
</p>
<p> IV. With the fourth era of our dramatic history
commenced a return to a better taste, introduced
by the celebrated David Garrick. The imitations
of French tragedy, and the tiresome uniformity of
genteel comedy, were ill adapted to the display of
his inimitable talent. And thus, if the last generation
reaped many hours of high enjoyment from
the performances of this great actor, the present is
indebted to him for having led back the public taste
to the Dramas of Shakspeare.</p>
<p> The plays of this great author had been altogether
forgotten, or so much marred and disguised
by interpolations and alterations, that he seems to
have arisen on the British stage with the dignity of
an antique statue disencumbered from the rubbish
in which it had been enveloped since the decay of
the art. But although Garrick showed the world
how the characters of Shakspeare might be acted,
and so far paved the way for a future regeneration
of the stage, no kindred spirit arose to imitate his
tone of composition. His supremacy was universally
acknowledged; but it seemed as if he was regarded
as an object of adoration, not of imitation;
and that authors were as much interdicted the
treading his tragic path, as the entering his magic
circle. It was not sufficiently remembered that the
faults of Shakspeare, or rather of his age, are those
into which no modern dramatist is likely to fall;
and that he learned his beauties in the school of
nature, which is ever open to all who profess the
fine arts. Shakspeare may, indeed, be inimitable,
but there are inferior degrees of excellence, which
talent and study cannot fail to attain; and the statuary
were much to blame who, in despair of modelling
a Venus like that of Phidias, should set himself
to imitate a Chinese doll. Yet such was the
conduct of the dramatists of Britain long after the
supremacy of Shakspeare had been acknowledged.
He reigned a Grecian prince over Persian slaves;
and they who adored him did not dare attempt to
use his language. The tragic muse appeared to
linger behind the taste of the age, and still used the
constrained and mincing measure which she had
been taught in the French school. Hughes, Cumberland,
and other men of talent, appeared in her
service; but their model remained as imperfect as
ever; and it was not till our own time that any bold
efforts were made to restore to tragedy that truth
and passion, without which declamation is only rant
and impertinence. Horace Walpole, however,
showed what might be done by adopting a more
manly and vigorous style of composition; and Home
displayed the success of a more natural current of
passion. The former, choosing a theme not only
totally unfit for representation, but from which the
mind shrinks in private study, treated it as a man
of genius, free from the trammels of habit and of
pedantry. His characters in <u>The Mysterious Mother</u>
do not belong to general classes, but have bold,
true, and individual features; and the language
approaches that of the first age of the English
Drama. The <u>Douglas</u> of Home is not recommended
by his species of merit. In diction and character
it does not rise above other productions of the period.
But the interest turns upon a passion which
finds a response in every bosom; for those who are
too old for love, and too young for ambition, are all
alike awake to the warmth and purity of maternal
and filial affection. The scene of the recognition
of Douglas's birth possesses a power over the affections,
which when supported by adequate representation,
is scarce equalled in the circle of our
Drama. It is remarkable that the ingenious author
was so partial to this theatrical situation, as to introduce
it in several of his other tragedies.</p>
<p> The comedy of the fourth period is chiefly remarkable
for exhibiting <u>The Rivals</u> and <u>The School
for Scandal.</u> Critics prefer the latter while the
general audience reap, perhaps, more pleasure from
the former; the pleasantry being of a more general
cast, the incidents more complicated and varied
and the whole plot more interesting. In both these
plays, the gentlemanlike ease of Farquhar is united
with the wit of Congreve. Indeed, the wit of
Sheridan, though equally brilliant with that of his
celebrated predecessor, flows so easily, and is so
happily elicited by the tone of the dialogue, that in
admiring its sparkles, we never once observe the
stroke of the flint which produces them. Wit and
pleasantry seemed to he the natural atmosphere of
this extraordinary man, whose history was at once
so brilliant and so melancholy. Goldsmith was,
perhaps, in relation to Sheridan, what Vanburgh
was to Congreve. His comedies turn on an extravagance
of intrigue and disguise, and so far belong
to the Spanish school. But the ease of his humorous
dialogue, and the droll, yet true conception of
the characters, made sufficient amends for an occasional
stretch in point of probability. If all who
draw on the spectators for indulgence, were equally
prepared to compensate by a corresponding degree
of pleasure, they would have little occasion to complain.
The elder Colman's <u>Jealous Wife,</u> and some
of his smaller pieces, are worthy, and it is no ordinary
compliment, of being placed beside these
master-pieces. We dare not rank Cumberland so
high, although two or three of his numerous efforts
retain possession of the stage. The <u>Wheel of Fortune</u>
was certainly one of the best acting plays of
its time; but it was perhaps chiefly on account of
the admirable representative which the principal
character found in Mr. John Kemble.<*></p>
</li>
<li>See Dryden's controversy with Shadwell, <u>ante,</u> Part i.,
* <u>Life of Dryden,</u> p. 46, &c.<p> The plays of Foote, the modern Aristophanes,
who ventured, by his powers of mimicking the
mind as well as the external habits, to bring living
persons on the stage, belong to this period, and
make a remarkable part of its dramatic history.
But we need not dwell upon it. Foote was an unprincipled
satirist; and while he affected to be the
terror of vice and folly, was only anxious to extort
forbearance-money from the timid, or to fill his
theatre at the indiscriminate expense of friends and
enemies, virtuous or vicious, who presented foibles
capable of being turned into ridicule. It is a just
punishment of this course of writing, that Foote's
plays, though abounding in comic and humorous
dialogue, have died with the parties whom he ridiculed.
When they lost the zest of personality,
their popularity, in spite of much intrinsic merit,
fell into utter decay.</p>
<p> Meantime dramatic composition of the higher
class seemed declining. Garrick, in our fathers'
time, Mrs. Siddons in ours, could neither of them
extract from their literary admirers any spark of
congenial fire. No part written for either of these
astonishing performers has survived the transient
popularity which their talents could give to almost
any thing. The truth seems to be, that the French
model had been wrought upon till it was altogether
worn out; and a new impulse from some other
quarter---a fresh turning up of the soil, and awakening
of its latent energies by a new mode of culture,
was become absolutely necessary to the renovation
of our dramatic literature. England was destined
to receive this impulse from Germany, where literature
was in the first luxuriant glow of vegetation,
with all its crop of flowers and weeds rushing up
together. There was good and evil in the importation
derived from this superabundant source. But
the evil was of a nature so contrary to that which
had long palsied our dramatic literature, that, like
the hot poison mingling with the cold, it may in
the issue bring us nearer to a state of health.</p>
<p> The affectation of Frederick II. of Prussia, and
of other German princes, for a time suppressed the
native literature, and borrowed their men of letters
from France, as well as their hair-dressers,---their
Dramas as well as their dressed dishes.<*> The continental</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>there was considerable force of humour in
some of his forgotten plays, it was Wycherly upon
whom fell the burden of upholding the standard of
the Jonsonian school. <u>The Plain Dealer</u> is, indeed,
imitated from Moli<e`>re; but the principal character
has more the force of a real portrait, and is better
contrasted with the perverse, bustling, masculine,
pettifogging, and litigious character of Widow
Blackackre, than Alceste is with any of the characters
in <u>The Misanthrope.</u> The other plays of this
author are marked by the same strong and forcible
painting, which approaches more to the satire of
Jonson, than to the ease of Vanburgh, the gaiety
of Farquhar, or the wit of Congreve. Joining,
however, the various merits of these authors, as
belonging to this period, they form a galaxy of
comic talent, scarcely to be matched in any other
age or country; and which is only obscured by
those foul and impure mists, which their pens, like
the raven wings of Sycorax, had brushed from fen
and bog.</p>
<ul>
<li>See Dryden's controversy with Collier, <u>ante,</u> Part i., <u>Life
* of Dryden,</u> p. 73, &c.<p> The national character of the Germans is diametrically
opposite to that of the French. The
latter are light almost to frivolity, quick in seeing
points of ridicule, slowly awakened to those of feeling.
The Germans are of an abstracted, grave,
and somewhat heavy temper; less alive to the
ridiculous, more easily moved by an appeal to the
passions. That which moves a Frenchman to
laughter, affects a German with sorrow or indignation;
and in that which touches the German as
a source of the sublime or pathetic, the quick-witted
Frenchman sees only subject of laughter. In
their theatres the Frenchman comes to judge, to
exercise his critical faculties, and to apply the rules
which he has learned, fundamentally or by rote, to
the performance of the night. A German, on the
contrary, expects to receive that violent excitation
which is most pleasing to his imaginative and somewhat
phlegmatic character. While the Frenchman
judges of the form and shape of the play, the observance
of the unities, and the _d<e'>nouement_ of the
plot, the German demands the powerful contrast of
character and passion,---the sublime in tragedy and
the grotesque in comedy. The former may be
called the formalist of dramatic criticism, keeping
his eye chiefly on its exterior shape and regular
form; the latter is the fanatic, who, disregarding
forms, requires a deep and powerful tone of passion
and of sentiment and is often content to surrender
his feelings to inadequate motives.</p>
<p> From the different temper of the nations, the
merits and faults of their national theatres became
diametrically opposed to each other. The French
author is obliged to confine himself, as we have
already observed, within the circle long since
described by Aristotle. He must attend to all the
decorum of the scene, and conform to every regulation,
whether rational or arbitrary, which has
been entailed on the stage since the days of Corneille.
He must never so far yield to feeling, as
to lose sight of grace and dignity. He must never
venture so far in quest of the sublime, as to run the
risk of moving the risible faculties of an audience,
so much alive to the ludicrous, that they will often
find or make it in what is to others the source of
the grand or the terrible. The Germans, on the
contrary, have never subjected their poets to any
arbitrary forms. The division of the empire into
so many independent states, has prevented the
ascendency of any general system of criticism;
and their national literature was not much cultivated,
until the time when such authority had
become generally unpopular. Lessing had attacked
the whole French theatrical system in his <u>Dramaturgie,</u>
with the most bitter raillery. Schiller
brought forward his splendid Dramas of Romance
and of History. Go<e:>the crowded the stage with
the heroes of ancient German chivalry. No means
of exciting emotion were condemned as irregular,
providing emotion were actually excited. And
there can be no doubt that the license thus given
to the poet---the willingness with which the audience
submitted to the most extravagant postulates
on their part, left them at liberty to exert the full
efforts of their genius.</p>
<p> Lessing, Schiller, and Go<e:>the, became at once
the fathers and the masters of the German theatre;
and it must be objected to these great men, that in
the abundance of their dramatic talent they sometimes
forgot that their pieces, in order to be acted,
must be adapted to the capabilities of a theatre;
and thus wrote plays altogether incapable of being
represented. Their writings, although affording
many high examples of poetry and passion, are
marked with faults which the exaggeration of their
followers has often carried into total extravagance.
The plays of Chivalry and of History were followed
by an inundation of imitations, in which, according
to Schlegel, ``there was nothing historical but
the flames and external circumstances; nothing
chivalrous but the helmets, bucklers, and swords;
and nothing of old German honesty but the supposed
rudeness. The sentiments were as modern
as they were vulgar; from chivalry pieces, they
were converted into cavalry plays, which certainly
deserve to be acted by horses rather than men.''
---(Schlegel <u>on the Drama.</u>)</p>
<p> It is not the extravagance of the apparatus alone,
but exaggeration of character and sentiment, which
have been justly ascribed as faults to the German
school. The authors appear to have introduced too
harshly, brilliant lights and deep shadows; the tumid
is too often substituted for the sublime; and
faculties and dispositions the most opposed to each
other, are sometimes described as existing in the
same person.</p>
<p> In German comedy the same faults predominate
to a greater degree. The pathetic comedy, which
might be rather called domestic tragedy, became,
unfortunately, very popular in Germany; and found
a champion in Kotzebue, who carried its conquests
over all the continent. The most obvious fault of
this species of composition is, the demoralizing falsehood
of the pictures which it offers to us. The
vicious are frequently presented as objects less of
censure than of sympathy; sometimes they are
selected as objects of imitation and praise. There
is an affectation of attributing noble and virtuous
sentiments to the persons least qualified by habit or
education to entertain them; and of describing the
higher and better educated classes as uniformly
deficient in those feelings of liberality, generosity,
and honour, which may be considered as proper to
their situation in life. This contrast may be true
in particular instances, and, being used sparingly,
might afford a good moral lesson; but in spite of
truth and probability, it has been assumed, upon all
occasions, by these authors, as the ground-work of
a sort of intellectual jacobinism; consisting, as Mr.
Coleridge has well expressed it, ``in the confusion
and subversion of the natural order of things, their
causes, and their effects; in the excitement of surprise,
by representing the qualities of liberality,
refined feeling, and a nice sense of honour in persons
and in classes of life where experience teaches
us least to expect them; and in rewarding with all
the sympathies that are the dues of virtue, those
criminals, whom law, reason, and religion, have
excommunicated from our esteem.''</p>
<p> The German taste was introduced upon the English
theatre within these twenty years. But the
better productions of her stage have never been
made known to us; for, by some unfortunate chance,
the wretched pieces of Kotzebue have found a readier
acceptance, or more willing translators, than
the sublimity of Go<e:>the, the romantic strength of
Schiller, or the deep tragic pathos of Lessing.
They have tended, however, (wretched as the model
is,) to introduce on our stage a degree of sentiment
and awaken among the audience a strain of
sensibility, to which before we were strangers.</p>
<p> George Colman's comedy of <u>John Bull</u> is by far
the best effort of our late comic Drama. The scenes
of broad humour are executed in the best possible
taste; and the whimsical, yet native characters,
reflect the manners of real life. The sentimental
parts, although one of them includes a finely
wrought-up scene of paternal distress, partake of
the <u>falsetto</u> of German pathos. But the piece is
both humorous and affecting; and we readily excuse
its obvious imperfections, in consideration of
its exciting our laughter and our tears.</p>
<p> While the British stage received a new impulse
from a country whose literature had hitherto scarce
been known to exist, she was enriched by productions
of the richest native genius. A retired female,<*></p>
</li>
<li>See note, <u>ante,</u> Part iii, <u>Memoir of Cumberland,</u> p. 285</li>
<li>``The pitiful condition of the theatre in Germany at the
<em> end of the seventeenth and during the first third part of the
</em> eighteenth century, wherever was any other stage than
<em> that of puppet-shows and mountebanks, exactly correspond
</em> to that of the other departments of our literature. We have
<em> a standard for this wretchedness, when we consider that Gottsched
</em> could pass for the restorer of our literature; Gottsched
<em> whose writings resemble a watery beverage, such as was then
</em> usually recommended to patients in a state of convalescence,
<em> from an idea that they could bear nothing stronger, by which
</em> means their stomach became still more enfeebled.---Gottsched
<em> among his other labours, composed a great deal for the theatre
</em> connected with a certain Madam Neuber, who was at the
<em> head of a company of players in Leipzic, he discarded Punch
</em> (Hanswurst,) and they buried him solemnly with great
<em> triumph. I am willing to believe that the parts of Punch,
</em> of which we may even yet form a judgment from puppet-shows,
<em> were not always ingeniously filled up extemporarily,
</em> and that many flat things might occasionally be uttered by
<em> him; but still had undoubtedly more sense in his little
</em> finger, than Gottsched in his whole body. Punch, as an allegorical
<em> personage is immortal; and however strong the belief
</em> of his burial may be, yet he pops unexpectedly upon us, in
<em> some grave office-bearer or other, almost every day.''---
</em> =Schlegel.=<p> Besides this gifted person, the names of Coleridge,
of Maturin, and other men of talents, throng
upon our recollection; and there is one who, to
judge from the dramatic sketch he has given us in
<u>Manfred,</u> must be considered as a match for <AE>schylus,
even in his sublimest moods of horror. It
is no part of our plan, however, to enter upon the
criticism of our contemporaries. Suffice it to say,
that the age has no reason to apprehend any decay
of dramatic talent.</p>
<p> Neither can our actors be supposed inadequate
to the representation of such pieces of dramatic art,
as we judge our authors capable of producing. We
have lost Mrs. Siddons<*> and John Kemble, but we</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>courts, therefore, had no share in forming
the national Drama. To the highest circle in every
nation, that of France will be most acceptable, not
only on account of its strict propriety and conformity
to <u>les convenances,</u> but also as securing them
against the risk of hearing bold and offensive truths
uttered in the presence of the sovereign and the
subject. But the bold, frank, cordial, and rough
character of the German people at large, did not
relish the style of the French tragedies translated
for their stage; and this cannot be wondered at,
when the wide difference between the nations is
considered.</p>
<ul>
<li>Joanna Baillie.</li>
</ul>
<p>thinking and writing in solitude, presented to her
countrymen the means of regaining the true and
manly tome of national tragedy. She has traced its
foundation to that strong instinctive and sympathetic
curiosity, which tempts men to look into the
bosoms of their fellow-creatures, and to seek, in the
distresses or emotions of others, the parallel of their
own passions. She has built on the foundations
which she laid bare, and illustrated her precepts by
examples, which will long be an honour to the age
in which they were produced, and admired;---yet
its disgrace, when it is considered that they have
been barred their legitimate sphere of influence
upon the public taste.</p>
<ul>
<li>At the Theatrical Fund Dinner, in February 1827, Sir
<em> Walter Scott said, that ``if any thing could reconcile him to
</em> old age, it was the reflection that he had seen the rising as
<em> well as the setting sun of Mrs. Siddons. He remembered well
</em> their breakfasting near to the theatre---waiting the whole day
<em> ---the crushing at the doors at six o'clock---and their going in
</em> and counting their fingers till seven o'clock. But the very
<em> first step---the very first word that she uttered, was sufficient
</em> to overpay him for all his labours. The house was literally
<em> electrified; and it was only from witnessing the effects of her
</em> genius, that he could guess to what a pitch theatrical excellence
<em> could be carried. Those young gentlemen who have
</em> only seen the setting sun of this distinguished performer,
<em> beautiful and serene as that was, must give us old fellows,
</em> who have seen its rise and its meridian, leave to hold our
* heads a little higher.''</li>
</ul>
<h2>still possess Kean, Young,<*> and Miss O'Neil;<*> and</h2>
<p> Where, then, are we to look for that unfortunate
counterbalance, which confessedly depresses the
national Drama in despite of the advantages we
have enumerated? We apprehend it will be found
in the monopoly possessed by two large establishments,
which, unhappily for the progress of national
taste, and, it is said, without any equivalent advantage
to the proprietors, now enjoy the exclusive
privilege of dramatic representation. It must be
distinctly understood, that we attribute these disadvantages
to the <u>system</u> itself, and by no means
charge them upon those who have the administration
of either theatre. The proprietors have a right
to enjoy what the law invests in them; and the
managers have probably discharged their duty to
the public as honourably as circumstances would
admit of; but the system has led into errors which
affect public taste, and even public morals. We
shall briefly consider it as it influences, 1<u>st,</u> the
mode of representation; 2<u>dly,</u> the theatrical authors
and performers; and 3<u>dly,</u> the quality and composition
of the audience.</p>
<p> The <u>first</u> inconvenience arises from the great size
of the theatres, which has rendered them unfit for
the legitimate purposes of the Drama. The persons
of the performers are, in these huge circles, so
much diminished, that nothing short of the mask
and buskin could render them distinctly visible to
the audience. Show and machinery have therefore,
usurped the place of tragic poetry; and the author
is compelled to address himself to the eyes, not to
the understanding or feelings of the spectators.
This is of itself a gross error. Every thing beyond
correct costume and theatrical decorum is foreign
to the legitimate purposes of the Drama, as tending
to divide the attention of the audience; and
the rivalry of the scene-painter and the carpenter
cannot be very flattering to any author or actor of
genius. Besides, all attempts at decoration, beyond
what the decorum of the piece requires, must end
in paltry puppet-show exhibition. The talents of
the scene-painter and mechanist cannot, owing to
the very nature of the stage, make battles, sieges,
&c. any thing but objects of ridicule. Thus we have
enlarged our theatres, so as to destroy the effect of
acting, without carrying to any perfection that of
pantomime and dumb show.</p>
<p> <u>Secondly,</u> The monopoly of the two large theatres
has operated unfavourably both upon theatrical
writers and performers. The former have been,
in many instances, if not absolutely excluded from
the scene, yet deterred from approaching it, in the
same manner as men avoid attempting to pass
through a narrow wicket, which is perpetually
thronged by an importunate crowd. Allowing the
managers of these two theatres, judging in the first
and in the last resort, to be possessed of the full
discrimination necessary to a task so difficult---
supposing them to be at all times alike free from
partiality and from prejudice---still the number of
plays thrust upon their hands must prevent their
doing equal justice to all; and must frequently deter
a man of real talents, either from pride or modesty,
from entering a competition, clogged with
delay, solicitation, and other circumstances, ``_haud
subeunda ingenio suo._'' It is unnecessary to add,
that increasing the number of theatres, and diminishing
their size, would naturally tend to excite a
competition among the managers, whose interest it
is to make experiments on the public taste; and
that this would infallibly secure any piece, of reasonable
promise, a fair opportunity of being represented.
It is by such a competition that genius is
discovered; it is thus that horticulturists raise
whole beds of common flowers, for the chance of
finding among them one of those rare varieties
which are the boast of their art.</p>
<p> The exclusive privilege of the regular London
theatres is equally, or in a greater degree, detrimental
to the performer; for it is with difficulty
that he fights his way to a London engagement,
and when once received, he is too often retained
for the mere purpose of being laid aside, or <u>shelfed,</u>
as it is technically called;---rendered, that is, a
weekly burden upon the paylist of the theatre,
without being produced above four or five times in
the season to exhibit his talents. Into this system
the managers are forced from the necessity of their
situation, which compels them to enlist in their service
every performer who seems to possess buds of
genius, although it ends in their being so crowded
together that they have no room to blossom. In
fact, many a man of talent thus brought from the
active exercise of a profession, in which excellence
can only arise from practice, to be paid for remaining
obscure and inactive in London, and supported
by what seems little short of eleemosynary bounty,
either becomes careless of his business or disgusted
with it; and, in either case, stagnates in that mediocrity
to which want of exercise alone will often
condemn natural genius.</p>
<p> <u>Thirdly,</u> and especially, the magnitude of these
theatres has occasioned them to be destined to company
so scandalous, that persons not very nice in
their taste of society, must yet exclaim against the
abuse as a national nuisance. We are aware of the
impossibility of excluding a certain description of
females from public places in a corrupted metropolis
like London; but in theatres of moderate size,
frequented by the better class, these unfortunate
persons would feel themselves compelled to wear a
mask at least of decency. In the present theatres
of London, the best part of the house is openly and
avowedly set off for their reception; and no part of
it which is open to the public at large is free from
their intrusion, or at least from the open display of
the disgusting improprieties to which their neighbourhood
gives rise. And these houses, raised at
an immense expense, are so ingeniously misconstructed,
that, in the private boxes, you see too little
of the play, and, in the public boxes, greatly too
much of a certain description of the company. No
man of delicacy would wish the female part of his
family to be exposed to such scenes; no man of
sense would wish to put youth, of the male sex, in
the way of such temptation. This evil, if not altogether
arising from the large size of the theatres,
has been so incalculably increased by it that, unless
in the case of strong attraction upon the stage,
prostitutes and their admirers usually form the
principal part of the audience. We censure, and
with justice, the corruption of morals in Paris. But
in no public place in that metropolis is vice permitted
to bear so open and audacious a front as in the
theatres of London. Barefaced infamy is in foreign
cities never permitted to insult decency. Those
who seek it must go to the haunts to which its open
disclosure is limited. In London, if we would
enjoy our most classical public amusement, we are
braved by gross vice on the very threshold.</p>
<p> We notice these evils, without pretending to
point out the remedy. If, however, it were possible
so to arrange the interests concerned, that the
patents of the present theatres should cover four,
or even six, of smaller size, we conceive that more
good actors would be found, and more good plays
written; and, as a necessary consequence, that good
society would attend the theatre in sufficient numbers
to enforce respect to decency. The access to
the stage would be rendered easy to both authors
and actors; and although this might give scope to
some rant, and false taste, it could not fail to call
forth much excellence, that must otherwise remain
latent or repressed. The theatres would be relieved
of the heavy expense at present incurred, in paying
performers who do not play; and in maintaining,
as both Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden do at present,
three theatrical corps, for the separate purposes
of tragedy, comedy, and musical pieces; only
one of which can be productive labourers on the
same evening, though all must be supported and
paid. According to our more thrifty plan, each of
those companies would be earning at the same time
the fruits of their professional industry, and a due
profit to the house they belong to. The hours of
representation, in one or more of these theatres,
might be rendered more convenient to those in high
life, while the middling classes might enjoy a rational
and classical entertainment after the business
of the day.</p>
<p> Such an arrangement might, indeed, be objected
to, by those who entertain a holy horror of the very
name of a theatre; and who imagine impiety and
blasphemy are inseparable from the Drama. We
have no room left to argue with such persons; or
we might endeavour to prove, that the dramatic
art is in itself as capable of being directed either
to right or wrong purposes, as the art of printing.
It is true, that even after a play has been formed
upon the most virtuous model, the man who is engaged
in the duties of religion will be better employed
than he who is seated in a theatre, and listening
to the performance. To those abstracted
and enrapt spirits, who feel, or suppose they feel,
themselves capable of remaining constantly involved
in heavenly thoughts, any sublunary amusement
may justly seem frivolous. But the mass of mankind
are not so framed. The Supreme Being, who
claimed the seventh day as his own, allotted the
other six days of the week for purposes merely
human. When the necessity of daily labour is removed,
and the call of social duty fulfilled, that of
moderate and timely amusement claims its place,
as a want inherent in our nature. To relieve this
want and fill up the mental vacancy, games are
devised, books are written, music is composed, spectacles
and plays are invented and exhibited. And
if these last have a moral and virtuous tendency; if
the sentiments expressed are calculated to rouse
our love of what is noble, and our contempt of what
is base or mean; if they unite hundreds in a sympathetic
admiration of virtue, abhorrence of vice, or
derision of folly; it will remain to be shown how
far the spectator is more criminally engaged, than
if he had passed the evening in the idle gossip of
society; in the feverish pursuits of ambition; or in
the unsated and insatiable struggle after gain---the
graver employments of the present life, but equally
unconnected with our existence hereafter.</p>
<ul>
<li>John Philip Kemble died at Lausanne, 26th February,
<em> 1823. Mrs. Siddons died in London, 8th June, 1831. We
</em> have now (1834) lost the other two also. Charles Young, full
<em> of honours, and with faculties unimpaired, took leave of the
</em> British stage, 30th May, 1832, and Kean died 11th May, 1833.</li>
<li>Since the publication of the work in which this essay originally
<em> appeared, Miss O'Neil has exchanged the honours of
</em> public, for the happiness of private life; having been married
* for some years to Mr. Wrexon Becher, M.P.---S.<p> This electronic transcription of `Scott's Miscellaneous Prose
Writings', vol. I, part 6 is based on the edition published by
Robert Cadell, Edinburgh, 1841, and comprises pages 525--852 of
that edition.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>the stage has to boast other tragic performers of
merit. In comedy, perhaps, it was never more
strong. In point of scenery and decoration, our
theatres are so amply provided, that they may
rather seem to exceed than to fall short of what is
required to form a classical exhibition.<p> Page divisions and column titles have been removed.</p>
<p> All end-of-line hyphenation have been removed, and the de-
hyphenated words placed at the end of the first line. The
guide for whether to keep or remove the hyphen has been the
text itself.</p>
<p> Small caps in the first few words of a chapter or section
have been replaced with lower-case letters. Small caps in other
contexts have been retained.</p>
</p>
<p>END OF ESSAYS ON CHIVALRY, ROMANCE, AND THE DRAMA.</p>
<p>-----------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
<ul>
<li>The following changes have been made to the text:</li>
<li>The following misprints have been corrected:<p> The following markup has been added:</p>
<p> Each paragraph begins with two spaces indentation.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li> 552, c. 1, l. 1: ... opinions of La Noue, (was: Na Noue)</li>
<li> 575, l. 17: The Drama.<*> (was: no footnote.)
p. 587, c. 1, l. -24: ``Reverend lordes and ... (was: no quotes)</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Markup<p> Indicates major part of the text</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><u> </u> indicates text in italics
= = indicates texts in small caps (extra emphasis)</p>
<p>--- indicates an em dash. Longer sequences represent correspondingly
longer dashes.</p>
<p><title page>
<table of contents>
<title>
<text><p> As page divisions have not been retained in this edition, page
references have been replaced with <?> and <!> markup.</p>
<p> The <? ident> construction represents a page number reference
to the page in which the corresponding anchor <! identifier>
appears.</p>
</p>
<p><a`> a grave
<a^> a circumflex
<ae> ae ligature
<c,> c cedilla
<e`> e grave
<e'> e acute
<e:> e dieresis
<e-> e with overbar
<e^> e circumflex
<i^> i circumflex
<o`> o grave
<OE> OE ligature
<u^> u circumflex
<u:> u dieresis<p> Footnotes in the text were placed at the foot of the page; in
this edition they have been placed immediately after the line
in which they are referenced. The footnote callout is always
an asterisk,<*> and the text of the footnote has been placed,</p>
<ul>
<li>Like this</li>
</ul>
<p> slightly indented, between two empty lines, with an asterisk
in the left margin as illustrated above. If the footnote
comes at the end of a paragraph, the first line of the
following paragraph is indented two spaces, as usual.</p>
<p> If two footnotes appear in the same line, the text of both
footnotes appear below the line, separated by an empty
line.</p>
</p>
<p><agr> Greek small letter alpha
<dgr> Greek small letter delta
<EGr`> Greek capital letter E with ` accent
<igr`> Greek small letter iota with ` accent
<kgr> Greek small letter kappa
<mgr> Greek small letter mu
<ogr> Greek small letter omikron
<pgr> Greek small letter pi
<rgr> Greek small letter rho
<sfgr> Greek small letter final sigma
<tgr> Greek small letter tau<p> A (reasonably) centered asterisk in an otherwise empty line
indicates a vertical ellipsis, printed as an empty line.</p>
</p>
<p><? identifier> page number reference
<! identifier> page number anchor</p>
<h2><*> footnote</h2>
<p> Both forms appear once.</p>
<ul>
<li>vertical ellipsis<p> Sic.</p>
</li>
<li>Notes</li>
</ul>
<h2>d'Urf<e'>? D'Urf<e'>?</h2>
<p> The transcription and proof-reading was done by Anders
Thulin, Skraddaregatan 1F, S-582 36 Linkoping, Sweden. (Email:
Anders.X.Thulin@telia.se)</p>
<p> As far as I am concerned, this electronical edition is free,
and may be used in any way for any purpose whatever.</p>
<p> I'd be glad to hear of any errors or omissions you might
find.</p>
<ol>
<li> 597, c. 2, l. 43: Apalachian mountains ...</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Revision history:</li>
</ul>
<p>Version: 1.0 1997-07-06</p>
<p>END OF FILE</p>
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