rude drama in which a common incident in life was imitated for the sake of
diversion. And to pass to the other extremity of the world, among the
Indians, whose social institutions and mental cultivation descend
unquestionably from a remote antiquity, plays were known long before they
could have experienced any foreign influence. It has lately been made
known to Europe that they possess a rich dramatic literature, which goes
backward through nearly two thousand years. The only specimen of their
plays (nataks) hitherto known to us in the delightful Sakontala, which,
notwithstanding the foreign colouring of its native climate, bears in its
general structure such a striking resemblance to our own romantic drama,
that we might be inclined to suspect we owe this resemblance to the
predilection for Shakspeare entertained by the English translator (Sir
William Jones), if his fidelity were not attested by other learned
orientalists. The drama, indeed, seems to have been a favourite amusement
of the Native Princes; and to owe to this circumstance that tone of
refined society which prevails in it. Uggargini (Oude?) is specially named
as a seat of this art. Under the Mahommedan rulers it naturally fell into
decay: the national tongue was strange to them, Persian being the language
of the court; and moreover, the mythology which was so intimately
interwoven with poetry was irreconcilable with their religious notions.
Generally, indeed, we know of no Mahommedan nation that has accomplished
any thing in dramatic poetry, or even had any notion of it. The Chinese
again have their standing national theatre, standing perhaps in every
sense of the word; and I do not doubt, that in the establishment of
arbitrary rules, and the delicate observance of insignificant
conventionalities, they leave the most correct Europeans very far behind
them. When the new European stage sprung up in the fifteenth century, with
its allegorical and religious pieces called Moralities and Mysteries, its
rise was uninfluenced by the ancient dramatists, who did not come into
circulation till some time afterwards. In those rude beginnings lay the