Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes movedto the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.
HISTORY OF THE STAGE.
BIOGRAPHY—FOR THE MIRROR.
BARRY, THE PLAYER.
MISCELLANY.
COMMUNICATIONS.
DRAMATIC CENSOR.
A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS
ACT I.
ACT II.
ACT. III.
ACT IV.
ACT. V.
Though the term "tragedy" has from the first productions of Æschylus tothe present time, been exclusively appropriated to actions of a seriousnature and melancholy catastrophe, there is reason to believe that itoriginally included also exhibitions of a pleasant, or comic kind. Therude satires, and gross mummery which occupied the stage, or rather thecart, of Thespis, were certainly calculated to provoke mirth in themultitude. By what has already been shown, the reader is apprised thatthe word, in its original sense, bore no relation whatever to thosepassions and subjects, to the representations of which it is nowapplied; but meant simply a dramatic action performed at the feast ofthe goat, in honour of Bacchus. Thus the different provinces of thedrama then undistinguished, were confounded under one term, andconstituted the prime trunk from which sprung forth the two branches oftragedy and comedy separately—the first in point of time usurping the[Pg 270]original title of the parent stock, and retaining it ever after.
Why human creatures should take delight in witnessing fictitiousrepresentations of the anguish and misfortunes of their fellow-beings,in tragedy, and, in comedy of those follies, foibles and imperfectionswhich degrade their nature, is a question which many have asked, but fewhave been able to answer. The facts are admitted. Towards a solution oftheir causes, let us consider what is said on the subject of tragedy inthat invaluable work "A philosophical inquiry into the origin of ourideas of the sublime and beautiful."
"It is a common observation," says the author, in the chapter onsympathy and its effects, "that objects which in the reality wouldshock, are, in tragical and such like representations, the source of avery high species of pleasure. This taken as a fact, has been the causeof much reasoning. The satisfaction has been commonly attributed, firstto the comfort we receive in considering that so melancholy a story isno more than a fiction; and next to the contemplation of our own freedomfrom the evils which we see represented. I am afraid it is a practicemuch too common in inquiries of this nature, to attribute the cause offeelings, which merely arise from the mechanical structure of our