refined manner: the one had the delicate pleasure of puto ting the fpectators upon guefling their meaning, and the other of not being mistaken in their fuppofitions, and of affixing the right name to the characters reprefented. Such was the comedy, fince called the Middle Comedy, of which there are fome inftances in Ariftophanes. It continued till the time of Alexander the Great, who, having entirely affured himfelf of the empire.of 'Greece by the defeat of the Thebans, occafioned the putting a check upon the licence of the poets, which increafed daily. From thence the New Comedy took its birth, which was only an imitation of private life, and brought nothing upon the ftage with feigned names and fuppofitious adventures. Chacun peint avec art dans ce nouveau miroir In this new glafs, whilft each himself furvey'd, This may properly be called fine comedy, and is that of Menander. Of one hundred and eighty, or rather eighty, according to Suidas, compofed by him, all of which Terence is faid to have tranflated, there remains only a few fragments. The merit of the originals may be judged from the excellence of their copy. Quintilian, in speaking of Menander, is not afraid to fay, that with the beauty of his works, and the height of his reputation, he abfcured, or rather obliterated, the fame Boileau Art. Poët, Cant, iii, of of all the writers in the fame way. He obferves in another paffage, that his own times were not fo * juft to his merit as they ought to have been, which has been the fate of many others; but that he was fufficiently made amends by the favourable opinion of pofterity.'" And indeed Philemon, a comic poet of the fame age, though prior to him, was preferred before him. The Theatre of the Ancients defcribed. I have already obferved, that Efchylus was the firft founder of a fixed and durable theatre adorned with fuitable decorations. It was at firft, as well as the amphitheatres, compofed of wooden planks: but those breaking down, by having too great a weight upon them, the Athenians, exceffively enamoured of dramatic reprefentations, were induced by that accident to erect thofe fuperb ftructures, which were imitated afterwards with fo much fplendor by the Roman magnificence. What I fhall fay of them, has almoft as much relation to the Roman, as the Athenian theatres; and is extracted entirely from Mr. Boindin's learned differtation upon the theatre of the ancients, who has treated the fubject in all its extent. The theatre of the ancients was divided into three principal parts; each of which had its peculiar appellation. The divifion for the actors was called in general the feene, or ftage; that for the fpectators was particularly termed the theatre, which must have been of vast extent, as at Athens it was capable of containing above thirty thousand perfons; and the orcheftra, which amongst the Greeks was the place affigned for the pantomimes and dancers, though at Rome it was appropriated to the fenators and veltal virgins. + The theatre was of a femicircular form on one fide, and fquare on the other. The space contained within Memoirs of the Acad, of Infcript, &c. Vol. I. p. 136, &c. * Quidam, ficut Menander, juftiora pofterorum, quam fuæ ætatis, judicia funt confecuti. QUINTIL. lib. fií, c. 6. the the femicircle, was alloted to the fpectators, and had. feats placed one above another to the top of the building. The fquare part, in the front of it, was the actors divifion; and in the interval, between both, was the orcheftra. The great theatres had three rows of porticoes, raised one upon another, which formed the body of the edifice, and at the fame time three different ftories for the feats. From the highest of thofe porticoes the women faw the reprefentation, covered from the weather. The reft of the theatre was uncovered, and all the, business of the ftage was performed in the open air. Each of thefe ftories confifted of nine rows of seats, including the landing-place, which divided them from each other, and ferved as a paffage from fide to fide. But as this landing-place and paffage took up the space: of two benches, there were only feven to fit upon, and confequently in each story there were feven rows of feats. They were from fifteen to eighteen inches in height, and twice as much in breadth; fo that the fpectator had room to fit with their legs extended, and without being incommoded by thofe of the people above them, no foot-boards being provided for them.. Each of these ftories of benches were divided in two different manners; in their height by the landingplaces, called by the Romans Præcinctiones, and in their circumferences by feveral flair-cafes, peculiar to each ftory, which interfecting them in right lines, tending towards the centre of the theatre, gave the form of wedges to the quantity of feats between them, from whence they were called Cunei. 1 Behind thefe ftories of feats were covered galleries, through which the people thronged into the theatre by great fquare openings, contrived for that purpose in the walls next the feats. Thofe openings were called Vomitoria, from the multitude of the people crowding through them into their places. As the actors could not be heard to the extremity of the theatre, the Greeks contrived a means to fupply. that that defect, and to augment the force of the voice, and make it more distinct and articulate. For that purpose they invented a kind of large veffels of copper, which were difpofed under the feats of the theatre, in such a manner, as made all founds ftrike upon the ear with more force and distinction. The orchestra being fituated, as I have observed, between the two other parts of the theatre, of which one was circular, and the other fquare, it participated of the form of each, and occupied the space between both. It was divided into three parts. The first and most confiderable was more particularly called the orchestra, from a Greek word that fignifies. to dance. It was appropriated to the pantomimes and dancers, and to all fuch fubaltern actors as played be tween the acts, and at the end of the reprefentations. The fecond was named Sun, from its being fquare, in the form of an altar. Here the chorus was gene rally placed. υποσκήνιον And in the third the Greeks generally beftowed their fymphony, or band of mufic. They called it Tosnove. from its being fituate at the principal part of the bot.. tom of the theatre, which they ftyled the scenes. I fhall defcribe here this third part of the theatre, called the scenes; which was also subdivided into three different parts. The first and moft confiderable was properly called the fcenes, and gave name to this whole divifion. It occupied the whole front of the building from fide to fide, and was the place allotted for the decorations. This front had two fmall wings at its extremity, from which hung a large curtain, that was let down to open the fcene, and drawn up between the acts, when any thing in the reprefentation made it neceflary. The fecond, called by the Greeks indifferently pouvion, and hofov, and by the Romans Profcenium, and Pulpitum, was a large open space in front of the fcene, in which the aftors performed their parts, and which, by the help of the decorations, reprefented either the public place or forum, a common street, or the country; but the place fo reprefented was always in the open air. The third divifion was a part referved behind the fcenes; and called by the Greeks wapaσnviov. Here the παρασκηνιον. actors dreffed themselves, and the decorations were locked up. In the fame place were alfo kept the machines, of which the ancients had abundance in their theatres, As only the porticoes and the building of the fcene were roofed, it was neceffary to draw fails, faftened with cords to mafts, over the rest of the theatre, to fcreen the audience from the heat of the fun. But as this contri. vance did not prevent the heat, occafioned by the perfpiration and breath of fo numerous an affembly, the ancients took care to allay it by a kind of rain; conveying the water for that ufe above the porticoes, which falling again in form of dew through an infinity of fmall pores concealed in the ftatues, with which the theatre a bounded, did not only diffuse a grateful coolness all around, but the moft fragrant exhalations along with it; for this dew was always perfumed. Whenever the representations were interrupted by forms, the fpectators retired into the porticoes behind the feats of the theatre. The paffion of the Athenians for reprefentations of this kind is not conceivable. Their eyes, their ears, their imagination, their understanding, all fhared in the fatisfaction. Nothing gave them fo fenfibie a pleafure in dramatic performances, either tragic or comic, as the ftrokes which were aimed at the affairs of the public; whether pure chance occafioned the application, or the addrefs of the poets, who knew how to reconcile the moft remote subjects with the tranfactions of the republic. They entered by that means into the intereft of the people, took occafion to footh their paffions, authorize their pretenfions, juftify, and fometimes condemn, their conduct, entertain them with agreeable hopes, inftru&t them in their duty in certain nice con 1 jectures; |