RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE STAGE, ORIGIN OF VARIOUS POPULAR ANTHEMS, PLAYS, SONGS, &c., &c.

TRAGEDY.

Tragedy, like other arts, was rude and imperfect in its commencement. Among the Greeks, from whom our dramatic entertainments are derived, the origin of this art was no other than the song which was commonly sung at the festival of Bacchus.

A goat was the sacrifice offered to that god. After the sacrifice, the priests, and all the company attending, sung hymns in honour of Bacchus; and from the name of the victim payos, a goat, joined with win, a song, undoubtedly arose the word tragedy.

"At first, the tragedy was void of art;

A song where each man danced and sung his part,
And of god Bacchus roaring out the praise,
Sought a good vintage for their jolly days;

Then wine and joy were seen in each man's eyes,
And a fat goat was the best singer's prize.
Thespis was first, who, all besmear'd with lee,
Began this pleasure for posterity;
And with his carted actors, and a song,
Amused the people as he pass'd along.
Next Eschylus the diff'rent persons placed,
And with a better mask his players graced;
Upon a theatre his verse express'd,

And show'd his hero with a buskin dress'd.
Then Sophocles, the genius of the age,

Increased the pomp and beauty of the stage;

Engaged the chorus song in ev'ry part,

And polish'd rugged verse by rules of art."-Dryden.

ORATORIOS.

The oratorio commenced with the fathers of the Oratory. In order to draw youth to church, they had hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs, or cantatas, sung either in chorus, or by a single voice. These pieces were divided into two parts, the one performed before the sermon, and the other after it. Sacred stories, or events from Scripture, written in verse, and by way of dialogue, were set to music, and the first part being performed, the sermon succeeded, which the people were induced to stay and hear, that they might be present at the performance of the second part. The order has been recently revived in London under the auspices of Father Newman and Mr. Faber.

The subjects in early times were the Good Samaritan, the Pro

digal Son, Tobit with the Angel, his Father, and his Wife, and similar histories, which by the excellence of the composition, the band of instruments, and the performance, brought the Oratory into great repute; hence this species of musical drama obtained the general appellation of Oratorio. The Oratorio was introduced into England in 1720, when Handel set "Esther" for the Chapel of the Duke of Chandos at Cannons. This was, in the year 1732, performed by the children of the Chapel Royal at the King's Theatre. For a period of about a century, with few interruptions, Oratorios were performed at one or other of the London theatres on the Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent. Within the last few years they have been performed almost weekly at Exeter Hall.

RELIGIOUS PLAYS.

Apollinarius, who lived in the time of the emperor Julian, wrote religious odes, and turned particular histories, and portions of the Old and New Testament, into comedies and tragedies, after the manner of Menander, Euripides, and Pindar. These were called Mysteries, and were the first dramatic performances. The first dramatic representation in Italy was a spiritual comedy, performed at Padua, in 1243; and there was a company instituted at Rome, in 1264, whose chief employment was to represent the sufferings of Christ in Passion Week. The Rev. Mr. Croft, and the Hon. Topham Beauclerc, collected a great number of these Italian Plays or Mysteries; and at the sale of their libraries, Dr. Burney purchased many of the most ancient, which he speaks of as being evidently much earlier than the discovery of printing, from the gross manner in which the subjects are treated, the coarseness of the dialogue, and the ridiculous situation into which most sacred persons and things are thrown.

In 1313, Philip the Fair gave the most sumptuous entertainment at Paris ever remembered in that city. Edward II. and his queen Isabella crossed over from England with a large retinue of nobility, and partook of the magnificent festivities. The pomp and profusion of the banquetings, the variety of the amusements, and the splendour of the costume, were unsurpassed. On the occasion, Religious Plays were represented of the Glory of the Blessed, and at other times with the Torments of the Damned, and various other spectacles.

The Religious Guild, or fraternity of Corpus Christi, at York, was obliged annually to perform a Corpus Christi play. But the more eminent performers of mysteries were the Society of Parish Clerks of London. On the 18th, 19th, and 20th of July, 1390, they played Interludes at the Skinners' Well, as the usual place of their performance, before king Richard II., his queen, and their court; and at the same place, in 1490, they played the Creation of the World. The first trace of theatrical perform

ance, however, in this country, is recorded by Matthew Paris, who wrote about 1240, and relates that Geoffrey, a learned. Norman, master of the school of the abbey of Dunstable, composed the play of St. Catherine, which was acted by his scholars. Geoffrey's performance took place in the year 1110, and he borrowed copes from the sacrist of St. Albans to dress his characters.

In the reign of Henry VII., 1487, that king, in his castle at Winchester, was entertained on a Sunday, while at dinner, with the performance of Christ's Descent into Hell; and on the Feast of St. Margaret, in 1511, the miracle play of the Holy Martyr St. George was acted on a stage, in an open field at Bassingborne, in Cambridgeshire, at which were a minstrel and three waits, hired from Cambridge, with a property-man and a painter.

Thus, it appears that the earliest dramatic performances were of a religious nature, and that the present drama, as will be seen in another article, takes its data from the 16th century.

PUBLIC THEATRES IN ROME.

The first public theatre opened in Rome, was in 1671; and in 1677, the Opera was established in Venice. In 1680, at Padua, the opera of Berenice was performed, in a style which makes all the processions and stage parapharnalia of modern times shrink into insignificance.

RISE OF THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND.

William Fitzstephen, a monk of Canterbury, who wrote in the reign of Henry II., and died in 1191, in speaking of the performances of the stage, says, "London, instead of common Interludes belonging to the theatre, hath plays of a more holy subject; representations of those miracles which the holy confessors wrought, or of the sufferings wherein the glorious constancy of the martyrs did appear." In the reign of Edward III., it was ordained by the act of parliament, that the strollers should be whipt and banished out of London, on account of the scandalous masquerades which they represented. By these masquerades we are to understand, a species of entertainment similar to the performances of the mummers; of which some remains were to be met with, so late as on Christmas Eve, 1817, in an obscure village in Cumberland, where there was a numerous party of them. Their drama related to some historical subject, and several of the speeches were in verse, and delivered in good emphasis. The whole concluded with a battle, in which one of the heroes was subdued; but the main character was a jester, who constantly interrupted the heroics with his buffoonery, like the clown in the tragedies of Calderon, the Spanish Shakspeare. The play of Hock

Tuesday, performed before queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, was in dumb-show, the actors not having had time to get their parts. It represented, says Dr. Percy, in his Reliques of Ancient Poetry, after Laneham, the outrage and insupportable insolency of the Danes, the grievous complaint of Huna, king Ethelred's chieftain in wars; his counselling and contriving the plot to dispatch them; concluding with conflicts (between Danish and English warriors), and their final suppression, expressed in actions and rhymes after their manner. One can hardly conceive a more regular model of a complete tragedy. The drama in England, undoubtedly arose much in the same way as it did in Greece. The strollers, or vagrants, with their theatres in the yards of inns, answer to the company and exhibitions of Thespis; and the improvements were gradual, till at last, to use the words of Sir George Buck, who wrote in 1631, dramatic poesy is so lively expressed and represented upon the public stages and the theatres of this city (London), as Rome, in the highest pitch of her pomp and glory, never saw it better performed.

ANCIENT PLAYHOUSES AND BEAR-GARDENS, &c., IN LONDON
AND SOUTHWARK.

The most ancient playhouses, says an intelligent writer, i. e., those of London, were the Curtain in Shoreditch, and the Theatre in Holywell Lane. In Stowe's Chronicle, p. 349, edit. 1598, occurs a notice of both the Theatre and the Curtain:-" And near unto Holywell Priory are builded two public houses for the acting and show of comedies, tragedies, and histories for recreation: whereof one is called the Curtain, the other the Theatre, both standing on the south-west side towards the field."

In Birch's View of London, which is very rare, there is a representation of the Fortune Playhouse, with a flag before the door; it was situated between Whitecross Street and Golden Lane. The original structure which stood here, was appointed for the nursery of the children of king Henry VIII. The lease was purchased by Edward Alleyn, Esq., founder of Dulwich Hospital, and he formed it into a theatre, denominated The Fortune, and finished it in 1599. In 1621, the whole building, and the theatrical property, were destroyed by fire. After being rebuilt, it was offered for sale in 1661, and then was of sufficient space to afford twenty-three tenements and gardens, and a street, now called Playhouse Yard; which is at present occupied by dealers in old clothes.

The Red Bull Playhouse, stood on a spot of ground lately called Red Bull Yard, near the upper end of St. John's Street, Clerkenwell, and is traditionally said to have been the theatre at which Shakspeare first held gentlemen's horses. In the civil * A necessary appendage at playhouses in former days.

wars it became celebrated for the representation of drolls; and Francis Kirkman, in 1672, published a collection of these pieces, the frontispiece of which exhibits the inside of this theatre.

The Swan Theatre was the most westerly of the playhouses on Bankside, and must have stood at no great distance from the Surrey end of Blackfriars' Bridge. It was a large house, and flourished only a few years, being suppressed at the commencement of the civil wars. It is represented in the Antwerp View of London, now in the possession of John Dent, Esq.

A little to the West of St. Mary Overie, in a place called Globe Alley, stood, says Pennant, the Globe, immortalized by having been the theatre on which Shakspeare first trod the stage, but in no higher character than the Ghost, in his own play of Hamlet. It appears to have been of an octagonal form, and is said to have been covered with rushes. The door was very lately standing. James I. granted a patent to Laurence Fletcher, William Shakspeare, Richard Burbage (the first performer of Richard the Third), Augustine Phillipes, John Hemmings, Henrie Condell, William Sly, Robert Armin, and Richard Cowlie, and others of His Majesty's Servants, to act here, or in any other part of the kingdom.

Near the water, on Bankside, stood Paris Garden, one of the ancient playhouses. It seems to have been much frequented on Sundays. This profanation was at length fully punished by the dire accident which Heaven directed, and befell the spectators, when the scaffolding suddenly fell, and multitudes of people were suddenly killed or miserably maimed. The omen seems to have been accepted; for in the next century the manor of Paris Garden was erected into a parish, and a church founded under the name of Christ's.

The following is a list of the theatres erected between 1575 and 1600:

In the early part of Shakspeare's acquaintance with the theatre, the want of scenery seems to have been supplied by the simple expedient of writing the names of the different places where the scene was laid. The covering, or intended roof of the stage, was anciently termed the heavens. Many of the companies of the players were formerly so thin, that one person played two or three parts; and a battle, on which the fate of an empire was supposed to depend, was decided by half a dozen combatants. The person who spoke the prologue was ushered in by trumpets,