The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, byStephen Cullen Carpenter
Typographical errors are marked with mouse-hover popups. Spellings were changed only whenthere was an unambiguous error, or the word occurred elsewhere with theexpected spelling. In the Index and the play, some missing or incorrectpunctuation marks, and inconsistent use of italics, were silentlyregularized. In addition, apostrophes were used or omitted inconsistentlyin several words: a’nt, cant, dont, had’nt, hav’nt, havn’t, is’nt,musn’t, shant and would’nt; these have all been regularized.
The Mirror Of Taste
Dramatic Censor
Index to Volume I
Man and Wife
| Vol. I. | FEBRUARY 1810. | No. 2. |
rise and progress of the drama in greece—origin oftragedy—thespis—æschylus, “the father of the tragic art”—hisastonishing talents—his death.
It has been already remarked that at a very early period, considerablymore than three thousand years ago, the Chinese and other nations in theeast understood the rudiments of the dramatic art. In their crude,anomalous representations they introduced conjurers, slight of hand menand rope dancers, with dogs, birds,monkies, snakes and even mice whichwere trained to dance, and in their dancing to perform evolutionsdescriptive of mathematical and astronomical figures. To this day thevestiges of those heterogeneous amusements are discernible all overIndostan: but that which will be regarded by many with surprise, is thatin all countries pagan or christian the drama in its origin, with thedancings and spectacles attending it have been intermixed with divineworship. The Bramins danced before their god Vishnou, and still hold itas an article of faith that Vishnou had himself, “in the olden time”danced on the head of a huge serpent whose110tail encompassed the world.That very dance which we call a minuet, has been proved by an ingeniousFrenchman, to be the same dance originally performed by the priests inthe temple of Apollo, and constructed by them, to be symbolical of thezodiac; every figure described by the heavenly bodies having acorrespondent movement in the minuet: the diagonal line and the twoparallels representing the zodiac generally, the twelve steps of whichit is composed, representing the twelve signs, and the twelve months ofthe year, and the bow at the beginning and the end of it a profoundobedience to the sun. About the year four hundred after the building ofthe city of Rome, the Romans, then smarting under great public calamity,in order to appease the anger of heaven, instituted theatricalperformances, as feasts in honour of their gods. The first Spanish playswere founded, somet