appalling, up to the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, which was not in like manner wrought into action, and preached in this impressive way to awe-struck crowds. Legend, like the Gospels, lent itself to the same purpose: instead of being read, it was thrown into a stirring representation, and so offered to spectators as well as to hearers. When all were believers (for those who had not the belief of faith and love, had that of awe and fear), these spectacles no doubt tended most powerfully to kindle and keep alive the religious interest; to stamp upon the hearts and souls of men the sublime truths, as well as the pious fictions of religion. What remains, the dry skeleton of these Latin mysteries, can give no notion of what they were when alive; when alive, with all their august, impressive, enthralling accessories, and their simple, unreasoning, but profoundly-agitated hearers. The higher truths, as well as the more hallowed events of our religion, have in our days retired into the reverential depths of men's hearts and souls they are to be awfully spoken, not, what would now be thought too familiarly, brought before our eyes. Christian tragedy, therefore, could only exist in this early initiatory form. The older Sacred history might endure to be poeticised in a dramatic form, as in the Samson Agonistes;' it might even, under certain circumstances, submit to public representation, as in the Esther and Athalie of Racine, and the Saul of Alfieri. A martyrdom like that of Polyeucte might furnish noble situations. But the history of the Redeemer, the events on which are founded the solemn mysteries of our religion, must be realised only, as it were, behind the veil; they will endure no alteration, no amplification, not the slightest change of form or word: with

them as with the future world, all is an object of “ faith, not of sight."

Since the publication of this work
I have had the great good fortune to
be present at the performance of the
last of the ancient mysteries, which
still lingers in Europe, the Passion
Spiel, by the peasants of the Ammer-
gau. No one who has not actually
seen such a representation can fully and
justly imagine the character and influ-
ence of these Medieval plays. During
my early life I have seen the drama in
all its forms, as exhibited in the most
splendid theatres of Europe. I have
never witnessed a performance more
striking from its scenic effect: the
richness and harmony of the decora-
tions and dresses, brilliant and blended
in their colours as in an old Italian
picture (by Gentile da Fabriano); the
music, though this was of a modern
cast (much was chanted by a chorus or
semichorus alternating, as on the Greek
stage); and the general sustained in-
terest and impressiveness of the whole.
There was nothing, I think, which
could offend the most sensitive religi-
ousness. All was serious, solemn, I
may say devout; actors and audience
were equally in earnest. The Saviour
himself was represented with a quiet
gentle dignity, admirably contrasting
with the wild life and tumult, the stern
haughty demeanour of the Pharisees
and rulers in their secret plottings and
solemn council (the Sanhedrin,) and the
frantic agitation of the Jewish people.
Even in the most perilous passages -
the washing the feet of the disciples-ance of the Lord to the Disciples.
there was no departure from the com-
manding repose of the Master. The

one or two comic touches (no doubt
the coarser jests and rude pleasantries
have been refined away by the greater
fastidiousness of modern manners),—
the greedy grasping of Judas after the
pieces of silver; the eager quarrelling
of the Roman soldiers, throwing dice
for the seamless coat, did not disturb
the general grave impressiveness, but
rather gave a certain reality to the
scene. Legend, too, had entirely
dropped away; it was the evangelic
history cast, with no mean skill, into a
dramatic form. I never passed a day
(it lasted from 7 in the morning till 3
in the afternoon,) in more absorbed and
unwearied attention. The theatre was
not roofed over by human hands, but
with the bright blue sky above, at the
bottom of a green valley, flanked by
picturesque mountains, which closed in
the remoter distance. And to crown
the whole, on that occasion, the day,
which had been bright, gradually dark-
ened; the clouds in their thick heavy
masses rolled slowly down the moun-
tain sides, looming blacker and blacker,
till just at the moment of the Cruci-
fixion, the storm-the thunderstorm-
burst, in awful grandeur. It disturbed,
but did not close the drama; there was
some confusion, especially among the
audience, who were most exposed (we
were under partial shelter). But the
end, if hurried, was still grave, serious,
and conscientiously carried on to the
close, the Resurrection, and the appear-

I was assured that the moral and religious effect on the peasants them

8

The Abbess of a German convent made a more extraordinary attempt to compel the dramatic art into the service of Latin Christianity. The motive of Hroswitha, declared by herself, is not less strange than her design. It was to wean the age (as far as we can judge, the age included the female sex-it included nuns, even the nuns of her own rigid order) from the fatal admiration of the licentious comedy of Rome. "There are persons," writes the saintly recluse, "who prefer the vanity of heathen books to the Sacred Scriptures, and beguiled by the charms of the language, are constantly reading the dangerous fictions of Terence, and defile their souls with the knowledge of wicked actions." There is a simplicity almost incredible, but, from its incredibility, showing its perfect simplicity, in Hroswitha's description not only of her motives but of her difficulties. The holy poetess blushes to think that she too must dwell on the detestable madness of unlawful love, and the fatally tender conversations of lovers. however she had listened to the voice of modesty, she could not have shown the triumph of divine Grace, as of course Grace in every case obtains its signal triumph. Each of the comedies, instead of its usual close, a marriage, ends with the virgin or the penitent taking the vow of holy celibacy. But in the slender plots the future saints are exposed to trials which it must have been difficult to represent, even to describe, with common decency. Two relate to adventures in which

:

character.

If

selves was excellent. Of the audience I could judge and it was an audience gathered from all quarters, many more than could obtain accommodation. No one (the preparations last for a year or two) is permitted to appear, even in the chorus, unless of unimpeachable in hexameters, Panegyris Oddonum.

These plays have been recently edited and translated into French with great care by M. Magnin.-Théâtre de Hroswitha. Paris, 1843.

t Hroswitha wrote also a long poem

holy hermits set forth in the disguise of amorous youths, to reclaim fallen damsels, literally from the life of a brothel, and bear them off in triumph, but not without resistance, from their sinful calling. Of course the penitents become the holiest of nuns. And the curious part of the whole seems to be that these plays on such much more than dubious subjects should not only have been written by a pious abbess, but were acted in the convent, possibly in the chapel of the convent. This is manifest from the stage directions, the reference to stage machinery, the appearance and disappearance of the actors. And nuns, perhaps young nuns, had to personate females whose lives and experiences were certainly most remote from convent discipline." The plays are written in prose, probably because in those days the verse of Terence was thought to be prose: they are slight, but not without elegance of style derived, it should seem, from the study of that perilously popular author, whom they were intended to supersede. There are some strange patches of scholastic pedantry, a long scene on the theory of music, another on the mystery of numbers, with some touches of buffoonery, strange enough, if acted by nuns before nuns, more strange if acted by others, or before a less select audience, in a convent. A wicked heathen, who is rushing to commit violence on some Christian virgins, is, like Ajax, judicially blinded, sets to kissing the pots and pans, and comes out with his face begrimed with black, no doubt to the infinite merriment of all present. The theatre of Hroswitha is indeed a most curious monument of the times.

See note of M. Magnin (p. 457), in answer to Price, the editor of Warton, ii. 28. M. Maguin has studied with great industry the origin of the Theatre in Europe.

No wonder that the severer Churchmen took alarm, and that Popes and Councils denounced these theatric performances, which, if they began in reverent sanctity, soon got beyond the bounds not merely of reverence, but of decency. But, like other abuses, the reiteration of the prohibition shows the inveterate obstinacy and the perpetual renewal of the forbidden practice. The rapid and general growth of the vernacular Mysteries, rather than the inhibition of Pope and Council, drove out the graver and more serious Latin Mysteries, not merely in Teutonic countries-in England and Germany-but in France, perhaps in Italy."

Latin, still to a certain extent the vernacular language of the Church and of the cloister, did not confine itself to the grave epic, the hymn, or the Mystery which sprang out of the hymn. The cloisters had their poetry, disguised in Latin to the common ear, and often needing that disguise. Among the most curious, original, and lively of the monkish Latin poems, are those least in harmony with their cold ascetic discipline. Anacreontics and satires sound strangely, though intermingled with moral poems of the same cast, among the

"Item, non permittant sacerdotes, ludos theatrales fieri in ecclesiâ et alios ludos inhonestos."-Conc. Trev. A.D. 1227. Hartzheim, iii. p. 529. Compare Synod Dioc. Worm. A.D. 1316. Ibid. iv. p. 258.

* The prohibitions show that the ancient use of masks was continued :"Interdum ludi fiunt in ecclesiis theatrales, et non solum ad ludibriorum spectacula introducuntur in eis monstra larvarum, verùm etiam in aliquibus festivitatibus diaconi, presbyteri ac Mary Magdalene was a favourite subdiaconi insaniæ suæ ludibria exer- character in these dramas. Her earlier cere præsumunt, mandamus, quatenus life was by no means disguised or sofne per hujusmodi turpitudinem eccle- tened. See the curious extract from a siæ inquinetur honestas, prælibatam play partly Latin, partly German, publudibriorum consuetudinem, vel potius lished by Dr. Hoffman, Fundgruben corruptelam curetis a vestris ecclesiis für Geschichte Deutschen Sprache, extirpare."-Decret. Greg. Boehmer, quoted by Mr. Wright. Preface to Corpus Juris Canon. t. ii. fol. 418.—│Early Mysteries.' London, 1838.