former fellow-actress and mistress, Marquise-all this gossip of the day may be found in Collé, and other writers, and would not a little enliven the Chapter on Royal Green-rooms, in such a History of Private Theatricals as we have suggested.

But, however amusing these Ducal exhibitions may have been, some of the performances that took place, at the same period, in circles less elevated by rank, were far more interesting; and the little theatre of Voltaire at Paris, where he performed the part of Cicero, in his own Rome Sauvée,' calls up associations in the minds of all lovers of genius, before which the splendour of Bagnolet and St Cloud fades into nothing. When this great man, (says Condorcet,) repeated the beautiful lines, ' in which Cicero excuses his own love of fame,

Romains, j'aime la gloire, et ne veux point m'en taire,' &c. the character and the actor seemed one; and the delighted au'ditory almost doubted whether it was Cicero or Voltaire that 'stood before them, avowing and pleading for this weakness of 'great minds.' The tragedian Le Kain-whose splendid talents, by the way, Voltaire first discovered and brought into notice, having by chance seen him acting among a company of amateur tradesmen *—thus speaks of the performance of Cicero by his patron,—“ I think it is not possible that any one could be more true, more pathetic, or more enthusiastic, than M. de Voltaire in this part.'

So strong, indeed, was Voltaire's fancy for private acting, that wherever he went, a theatre seemed always a necessary adjunct to his establishment. His plays at Ferney, and his gay suppers of a hundred covers afterwards, attracted company, we are told, from a distance of twenty leagues round. When at Berlin, he used to indulge his dramatic propensity by performing tragedy with the brothers and sisters of the King; and, during his residence at Paris, a large room above his own apartment was converted into a theatre, in which he made his nieces act with Le Kain.

While the Philosopher of Ferney assumed the buskin with such success, the Citizen of Geneva, it appears, attempted the same accomplishment, and failed;-not even Madame d'Epinay could make anything of an actor of him. 'Malgré ma bétise ' et ma gaucherie, (he says, in his Confessions,) Madame d'Epi

* See the whole of this anecdote in Le Kain's interesting account of his acquaintance with Voltaire, given by Condorcet, vol. ii.

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nay

voulut me mettre des amusements de la Chevrette, châ'teau près de Saint-Denis, appartenant à M. de Bellegarde. Il y avoit un théâtre où l'on jouoit souvent des pièces. On 'me chargea d'un rôle que j'étudiais six mois sans relâche, et qu'il fallut me souffler d'un bout à l'autre, à la représentation. Apres cette épreuve, on ne me donna plus de rôle.'

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It was,

perhaps, jealousy of the superior talents of Voltaire in this line, that impelled Rousseau to inveigh so violently against the plays of Ferney.

To these few notices of the state of private acting in the reign of Louis XV., may be added the account given by Marmontel of the performances at the house of M. de la Popliniere, the rich financier, at Passy ;—as also the details of the magnificent fêtes given at Pantin, by the Opera-dancer, Mademoiselle Guimard, for whose superb theatre some of the Proverbes Dramatiques of Carmonlet were written. Nor should the historian pass over in silence the Theatre of M. Trudaine, on whose boards Les Accidents, ou les Abbés,' a piece considered by Collé, its author, too licentious to be printed with his other works, was yet thought innocent enough to be acted in the presence of two bishops, one of them holder of the Feuille des Bénéfices. There was also, I think,' says Collé, a third bishop there, 'whose name I forget-but of the other two I am certain.'

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In the subsequent reign the Court gave the tone in acting, as in all other sorts of amusements. Never was there a more flowery path to ruin than that of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette; nor is it possible to read of the festivities of Marly, and of the Little Trianon, without shuddering to think of the dreadful tragedies that followed. The practice, so prevalent at that period, of throwing ridicule upon all established institutions, (a fate, for which established institutions had to thank their own corruption and folly,) was, with most short-sighted levity, adopted at Court; and one of the favourite amusements of the Queen and her gay companions, was to parody the sittings of the Parliament,* in a sort of mock-heroic pantomime,—one of the Princes playing the part of President, and the beau Dillon, Besenvald, &c., representing ludicrously the other personages. It was on one of these occasions that the role of Procureur-Général was sustained by a youth, who little then foresaw the destiny that awaited him ;— who, instrumental in the formation of two great Republics, has survived, it is true, the brief glory of the one, but has lived to

receive an immortal reward, in the universal gratitude and homage of the other.

To these pantomimes succeeded ballets, and such jeux de société as La Peur' and Decampativos ;'-the former, a sort of dumb show, in which the actors put on the appearance of dying and coming to life again, and the latter, a more refined species of Blindman's Buff. To such an excess did these royal persons carry their love of sport and mountebankism, that the Comte d'Artois-his present Majesty Charles X.-actually took lessons, for some time, in rope-dancing from Placido and the celebrated Little Devil.*

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At length, tired both of ballets and Blindman's Buff, these royal play-fellows aspired to regular acting; and to the Queen it was a relief, from the representation of Royalty, to act the soubrettes in the Gageure Imprévue,' and the Devin du Village.' It was not, however, without a struggle with some parts of her family, that she was allowed to indulge in this favourite pursuit. The brother of the King would not suffer Madame to act; and the King himself, in order to discourage what he considered an indecorous proceeding, is said to have hissed the royal débutante the first night. From what has transpired, indeed, of the merits of her Majesty's acting, there is little doubt that the great majority of the audience must have been' de l'avis de l'aspic,' as well as the King. But royalty, 'quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia vertit,' is sure of applause, and the only honest opinion hazarded at the time, is that which Madame Campan, as well as Montjoie, has recorded; Il faut 'avouer que c'est royalement mal joué.'

Of the history of the German Drama we profess to know little; but, from the time of Reuchlin, the earliest writer and actor of plays in the academies of Germany, down to Schiller, whose sole experiment in the way of acting seems to have been still more unfortunate than that of Rousseau;† we have no

corps, a

* M. le Comte d'Artois, qui par sa taille, sa jeunesse, et ses graces 'naturelles, est fait pour réussir dans tous les exercices du 'ambitionné aussi la gloire de danser sur la corde. Il a pris longtems en silence, et dans le plus grand secret, des leçons du Sieur • Placide et du Petit Diable.'-Mémoires Sécrets pour servir, &c. Tom. 15, p. 182.

+ Schiller acted, while at the university, in a piece played before the Duke of Wirtemberg. Il choisit le Drame de Clavigo, de Goethe, ' et s'y reserva le principal rôle. Ce ne fut point pour lui une oc'casion de succès; il se montra fort gauche et fort empêché.-Vie de Schiller.

doubt that a sufficient contribution of materials towards a History of Private Theatres might be found.

In England the Drama, in its rise and progress, has followed pretty nearly the same course as in France. The sacred comedy, or mystery, was its first essay, and showmen and priests the earliest actors. From the church, too, after a similar sort of divorce, the histrionic art passed to universities and schools,-in the former of which it flourished to a very late period, while in the latter some relics of it even still remain. Gammer Gurton's Needle,' the production of a Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the first approach to anything like a regulat comedy in our language, was acted at Christ's College, Cambridge, in the year 1522. About forty years afterwards, both Oxford and Cambridge represented plays before Queen Elizabeth, in English as well as in Latin; and a Drama composed by a learned Doctor of Divinity of Cambridge, had the honour, we are told, of putting his Majesty King James I. fast to sleep.

Warton is of opinion, that, to these early collegiate repre sentations, the dramatic taste of the nation was, in no small degree, indebted for its improvement; nor must some share of the merit be denied to another class of private actors, the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, who, both by writing and acting, conduced considerably to the same object. John Roos, a student of Gray's Inn, and afterwards serjeant at law, wrote a comedy which was acted in the Hall of the Society in 1511; and the Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, the first specimen of a heroic play in our language, was performed by the students of the Inner Temple, in the year 1561, before Elizabeth at Whitehall.

We have seen that, in Italy and France, the cultivation of the histrionic art among amateurs of rank and station, had prevailed long before the establishment of public actors. But in England, mercenary stage-players existed from a very early period, and most of the entertainments we read of at court, and at the houses of nobility, were evidently performed by persons of this description. From the very infancy, indeed, of the Drama, there appears to have been a regular company of actors attached to the court, both in England and Scotland, and the only entertainments, of a theatrical nature, in which royal and noble personages themselves condescended to appear, were those allegorical Pageants and Pomps, with which it was the custom to

celebrate all solemn occasions.

These costly shows, becoming gradually more refined and dramatic, assumed, at a later period, a more elevated character under the name of masques, and, calling incident and beautiful

poetry to their aid, have been enshrined imperishably in our literature, by the pens of Jonson and Milton.*

as

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It was in the reigns of James I. and his successor, that these splendid creations attained their highest perfection. Thus magnificently constructed,' observes Mr Gifford, the Masque was not committed to ordinary performers. It was composed, Lord Bacon says, for princes, and by princes it was played. The prime nobility of both sexes, led on by James and his • Queen, took upon themselves the respective characters; and it may be justly questioned whether a nobler display of grace, and elegance and beauty, was ever beheld, than appeared in the masques of Jonson. The songs in these entertainments were probably intrusted to professional men; but the dialogue, and above all the dances, which were adapted to the fable, and acquired without much study and practice, were executed by the court themselves.'

It would be by no means an unamusing or uninstructive task, to collect such particulars as are recorded of these rich and fanciful spectacles, on which the Veres, the Derbys, the Bedfords, the Cliffords, the Arundels, and other historical names, reflect such lustre. In Jonson's Masque of Blackness, the Queen, and the ladies Suffolk, Derby, Effingham, Herberts, &c. personated the parts of Moors, and had, as we are informed by Sir Dudley Carleton, their faces and arms, up to the elbows, 'painted black.' But it became them,' adds the learned Secretary, nothing so well as their own red and white.' In the Masque of Oberon, Sir John Finnet tells us, the little Duke Charles (Charles I.) was still found to be in the midst of the fairy dancers.' The Hue and Cry after Cupid,' as performed at Lord Haddington's marriage, 1608, transcended in expensiveness even the ever memorable fête this year at Boyle Farm-having cost the eleven noblemen and gentlemen concerned in it, L.300 a man.'t

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The last attempt made to revive this species of entertainment was in the reign of Charles II., when the two future Queens, Mary and Anne, assisted by many of the young nobility of both sexes, performed a masque, called 'Calisto,' written by Crowne,

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*The Arcades of Milton was performed by the children of the Countess Dowager of Derby, at her seat Harefield-Place; and the Comus, says Johnson, was presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the Lord President of Wales, in 1634, and had the honour of being acted by the Earl of Bridgewater's sons and daughters.'

Lodge's Illustrations, vol. iii. p. 343.