Phaenomena, similar to those which accompanied the origin of tragedy and
comedy among the Greeks, would take place among the Romans much more
slowly, and the drama would, in any case, have much longer remained in
its first irregular form from the character of the people, their
continual engagements in wars of conquest, the nature of their
government, and their rapidly increasing empire. But, however this might
have been, the conquest of Greece precluded both the process and the
necessity of it; and the Roman stage at once presented imitations or
translations of the Greek drama. This continued till the perfect
establishment of Christianity. Some attempts, indeed, were made to adapt
the persons of Scriptural or ecclesiastical history to the drama; and
sacred plays, it is probable, were not unknown in Constantinople under
the emperors of the East. The first of the kind is, I believe, the only
one preserved,--namely, the [Greek (transliterated): Christos Paschon],
or "Christ in his sufferings," by Gregory Nazianzen,--possibly written
in consequence of the prohibition of profane literature to the
Christians by the apostate Julian. [1] In the West, however, the
enslaved and debauched Roman world became too barbarous for any
theatrical exhibitions more refined than those of pageants and
chariot-races; while the spirit of Christianity, which in its most
corrupt form still breathed general humanity, whenever controversies of
faith were not concerned, had done away the cruel combats of the
gladiators, and the loss of the distant provinces prevented the
possibility of exhibiting the engagements of wild beasts.

I pass, therefore, at once to the feudal ages which soon succeeded,
confining my observation to this country; though, indeed, the same
remark with very few alterations will apply to all the other states,
into which the great empire was broken. Ages of darkness