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Born in Cisalpine Gaul in the district of Mediolanum, he was brought among the Insubrian prisoners of war to Rome, and earned a livelihood, first as a slave, afterwards as a freedman, by remodelling Greek comedies for the theatre down to his probably early death . His language was not pure, as was to be expected from his origin; on the other hand, he directed his efforts, as we have already said, to a more artistic construction of the plot.
I read these and I read several comedies of Lope de Vega, and numbers of archaic dramas in Moratin's history, and I really got a fairish perspective of the Spanish drama, which has now almost wholly faded from my mind.
"I decline, seigneur bishop, to aid in the accomplishment of such a sacrilegious knavery," the hermit-laborer answered in Latin, "but if I reveal your trick to that barbarian he will put you to death! I shall not be the means of your death. God will one day judge you! In the meantime I shall raise my voice against your unworthy comedies." "What!
But the actors who were to perform the Greek comedies in Rome were not supplied with the masks beyond doubt much more artificial that were necessary for them; a circumstance which, apart from all else in connection with the defective acoustic arrangements of the stage, not only compelled the actor to exert his voice unduly, but drove Livius to the highly inartistic but inevitable expedient of having the portions which were to be sung performed by a singer not belonging to the staff of actors, and accompanied by the mere dumb show of the actor within whose part they fell.
The future will create cosmogonies and Divine Comedies more numerous, more various, than those on sculptured Egyptian temples and Gothic cathedrals, and Bibles more imaginative perhaps than the ones painted in the Pisa Campo Santo and in the Sixtine Chapel. The future? Nay, we can see a sample already in the present.
If one would realize how colossal it is, and of what dignity and majesty, let him contrast it with the purposes and objects of the Crusades, the siege of York, the War of the Roses, and other historic comedies of that sort and size. Last week I was beating around the Lake of Four Cantons, and I saw Rutli and Altorf.
Thus the English have memorials of the several reigns, but no such thing as a history. There is, indeed, now living, one Mr. To conclude, in my opinion the English have not such good historians as the French have no such thing as a real tragedy, have several delightful comedies, some wonderful passages in certain of their poems, and boast of philosophers that are worthy of instructing mankind.
"I shall not waste time in commending the Writing of this Play: but I will give you my opinion, that there is more Wit and Acuteness of Fancy in it, than in any of BEN. JOHNSON's. Besides that, he has here described the conversation of gentlemen, in the persons of TRUE WIT and his friends, with more gaiety, air, and freedom than in the rest of his Comedies.
I say this not, of course, from my experience of countries which I have not visited, but from all I hear of the stage in Germany and in England. The impression left on my mind by the performances I witnessed is, that the French people are becoming dwarfed. The comedies that please them are but pleasant caricatures of petty sections in a corrupt society.
The cardinal was a modern representative of the ancient patrician. Living himself in princely luxury, he endowed hospitals and surgeries for the public. He distributed alms, patronized men of science and art, and entertained the public with comedies, operas, oratorios, puppet-shows, and academic disputes. Under the auspices of this patron, Handel composed three operas and two oratorios.
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