was held in such repute that his sayings have been recorded by all literary men from Seneca to Scaliger; and Paris in the reign of Domitian reached such a height of celebrity, that he was put to death by that Emperor out of jealousy.* The early Christian fathers, as might be expected, are vehement opponents of the Theatre; but what was the Theatre they denounced? No longer the intellectual Drama, which contained moral and religious instruction, but the lowest order of games and filthy exhibitions of the Circus, having lived sixty years with honour, I left my house this morning a Roman knight, but shall return to it this evening AN INFAMOUS STAGE PLAYER." Verbal criticism is not of a very high order, neither is splitting hairs solid argument, yet when quotations are used for grave purposes, they should not be overstrained. In the original, which has been preserved, the expression of Laberius is as follows: 66 Ergo bis tricenis annis actis sine nota Eques Romanus lare egressus meo Now how the single word mimus can be fairly translated to mean an "infamous stage player," profounder scholars than I am must determine. In Ainsworth's Dictionary "mimus” is defined, "a mimic, a scurrilous buffoon or jester, a farce or ridiculous story." A stage player or actor of the legitimate Drama is either histrio, scenicus, tragœdus or comadus. But at any rate to eke out the given translation, we require the adjective infamis or famosus." *Roscius and Æsopus, his tragic contemporary, amassed enormous fortunes, far surpassing any thing we know of as the produce of art in modern times. to which it had degenerated. Well might pious minds exclaim against every thing springing from an art which had been corrupted to such disgusting abuses; and we can scarcely credit the historian when we read that Theodora, whom Justinian afterwards elevated to the imperial throne, exhibited herself frequently on the public Stage in a state of perfect nakedness, wearing nothing but the narrow girdle which the law prescribed.* The reasonable advocate of the Stage shudders when he thinks such low sensuality can in any way be connected with the art he believes to be both useful and instructive; but he is consoled by ascertaining that these abuses occurred when the world was sunk in general profligacy, and nothing can be said to flourish when only its baser attributes are hailed with applause. Sir Walter Scott, in the context which follows the passage Dr. Bennett has quoted, with reference to the opinions of the early fathers, goes on to make the following remarks, which materially qualify the bearing of the insulated extract, and support the view I have submitted. " It ought, however, to be noticed," says he, "that their (the early fathers') exprobation 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 * Gibbon, Decl. and Fall. Drama, were presented 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. 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 Ludi Scenici the intrigues of the gods and 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."* This outrageous mixture of exhibitions, this extraordinary jumble of opposite religions, and this blending together an audience half Christian and half Pagan, is a union of circumstances such as can never occur again, and on this ground, the view the early fathers took of the Stage, as they witnessed it, cannot fairly be applied * Art. Drama, Suppl. to Encyc. Brit. to the dramatic art as it is now, either in its nature or its exercise. These pious men, in their zeal to withhold the impurities of the ancient dramatists from the community, do not appear to have carried their scruples so far as to reject the aid of mistaken genius, when it could assist themselves or strengthen their arguments. On this point the following remarks by a highly moral writer* and a sound scholar, are shrewd and applicable. "In the darker ages, when the whole world seemed to conspire against genius; when learning had degenerated into sophism, and religion was made a theme of metaphysical subtlety, serving, it should seem, no other purpose but to puzzle and confound, to inflame the passions and perplex the mind; then it was the Fathers of the Church in whose hands these authors (the Greek comic dramatists) were, held it a point of conscience to destroy the idols of the Stage, as they had already destroyed the idols of the Temple, and to bury heathen wit in the same grave with heathen superstition; their poets and their gods were to be exterminated alike. To the more enlightened taste, or perhaps to the lucky partiality of Chrysostom, we owe the preservation of Aristophanes. Continually engaged in argumentative and controversial writings, there * Cumberland's Observer, vol. iii. No. 152. + Brumoy; Bishop Watson. were some who occasionally condescended to quote a passage, as it served their purpose, from those proscribed comedies, either to help out their wit, or illustrate their meaning." Notwithstanding this, we scarcely expect to find avowed dramatists among the early fathers; but towards the end of the fourth century, Gregory Nazianzen, surnamed "the Divine," a poet, as well as an Archbishop, supplied the place of the pagan plays he banished from the Stage at Constantinople, by the introduction of sacred dramas from stories in the Old and New Testament. He wrote many of these compositions, one of which, his tragedy called Χριστος Πάσχων, or " Christ's Passion,” is still In the prologue it is said to be an imitation of Euripides.* Speaking of this, Milton says, (in his preface to Samson Agonistes,)" Gregory Nazianzen, a father of the Church, thought it not unbecoming the sanctity of his peron, to write a tragedy which is entitled "Christ suffering." extant. Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, also wrote tragedies and comedies, adapted to the Stage, from familiar stories of Scripture, in imitation of Euripides and Menander; and Sozomen informs us, that these compositions, now lost, rivalled their great originals in genius, expression, and conduct. In A. D. 990, Theophylact, Archbishop * Vide Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poet. vol. iii. p. |