[800] Hist. of Portuguese Lit. p. 83-111. It would be vain to look elsewhere for so copious an account of Gil Vicente, and very difficult probably to find his works. See too Sismondi, Hist. de la Litt. du Midi, iv. 448.
Mysteries and moralities in France. 42. We have no record of any original dramatic composition belonging to this age in France, with the exception of mysteries and moralities, which are very abundant. These were considered, and perhaps justly, as types of the regular drama. “The French morality,” says an author of that age, “represents in some degree the tragedy of the Greeks and Romans; particularly because it treats of serious and important subjects; and if it were contrived in French that the conclusion of the morality should be always unfortunate, it would become a tragedy. In the morality, we treat of noble and virtuous actions, either true, or at least probable; and choose what makes for our instruction in life.”[801] It is evident from this passage and the whole context, that neither tragedy nor comedy were yet known. The circumstance is rather remarkable, when we consider the genius of the nation, and the politeness of the court. But from about the year 1540 we find translations from Latin and Italian comedies into French. These probably were not represented. Les Amours d’Erostrate, by Jacques Bourgeois, published in 1545, is taken from the Suppositi of Ariosto. Sibilet translated the Iphigenia of Euripedes in 1549, and Bouchetel the Hecuba in 1550; Lazarus Baif, two plays about the same time. But a great dramatic revolution was now prepared by the strong arm of the state. The first theatre had been established at Paris about 1400 by the Confrairie de la Passion de N. S., for the representation of scriptural mysteries. This was suppressed by the parliament in 1547, on account of the scandal which this devout buffoonery had begun to give. The company of actors purchased next year the Hotel de la Bourgogne, and were authorised by the parliament to represent profane subjects, “lawful and decent” (licites et honnêtes), but enjoined to abstain from “all mysteries of the passion, or other sacred mysteries.”[802]
[801] Sibilat, Art Poëtique (1548), apud Beauchamps, Recherches sur le Théâtre Français, i. 82.
In the Jardin de Plaisance, an anonymous undated poem, printed at Lyons probably before the end of the fifteenth century, we have rules given for composing moralities. Beauchamps (p. 86) extracts some of these; but they seem not worth copying.
[802] Beauchamps, i. 91.
German theatre.
Hans Sachs. 43. In Germany, meantime, the pride of the meister-singers, Hans Sachs, was alone sufficient to pour forth a plenteous stream for the stage. His works, collectively printed at Nuremberg in five folio volumes, 1578, and reprinted in five quartos at Kempten, 1606, contain 197 dramas among the rest. Many of his comedies in one act, called Schwanken, are coarse satires on the times. Invention, expression, and enthusiasm, if we may trust his admirers, are all united in Hans Sachs.[803]
[803] Hans Sachs has met with a very laudatory critic in the Retrospective Review, x. 113, who even ventures to assert that Goethe has imitated the old shoemaker in Faust.
The Germans had many plays in this age. Gesner says, in his Pandectæ Universales: Germanicæ fabulæ multæ extant. Fabula decem ætatum et Fusio stultorum Colmariæ actæ sunt. Fusio edita est 1537, chartis quatuor. Qui volet hoc loco plures ascribat in vulgaribus linguis, nos ad alia festinamus.