Reuchlin, or Capnio (as he who was one of the lights of his generation was misnamed and misnamed himself,) who had with his other great and eminent merits that of restoring or rather introducing into Germany the study of Hebrew, revived the lost art of comedy. If any one had preceded him in this revival, Macropedius was ignorant of it, and by the example and advice of this great man he was induced to follow him, not only as a student of Hebrew, but as a comic writer. Hrosvitha indeed, a nun of Gandersheim in Saxony, who lived in the tenth century and in the reign of Otho II. composed six Latin comedies in emulation of Terence, but in praise of virginity; and these with other of her poems were printed at Nuremberg in the year 1501. The book I have never seen, nor had De Bure, nor had he been able (such is its rarity) to procure any account of it farther than enabled him to give its title. The name of Conrad Celtes, the first German upon whom the degree of Poet Laureate was conferred, appears in the title, as if he had discovered the manuscript; Conrado Celte inventore. De Bure says the volume was attribué au même Conradus Celtes. It is rash for any one to form an opinion of a book which he has never examined, unless he is well acquainted with the character and capacity of its author; nevertheless I may venture to observe that nothing can be less in unison with the life and conversation of this Latin poet, as far as these may be judged of by his acknowledged poems, than the subjects of the pieces published under Hrosvitha's name; and no reason can be imagined why if he had written them himself, he should have palmed them upon the public as her composition.
It is remarkable that Macropedius when he spoke of Reuchlin's comedies should not have alluded to these, for that he must have seen them there can be little or no doubt. One of Reuchlin's is said to have been imitated from la Farce de Pathelin, which under the title of the Village Lawyer has succeeded on our own stage, and which was so deservedly popular that the French have drawn from it more than one proverbial saying. The French Editor who affirms this says that Pathelin was printed in 1474, four years before the representation of Reuchlin's comedy, but the story is one of those good travellers which are found in all countries, and Reuchlin may have dramatised it without any reference to the French drama, the existence of which may very probably have been unknown to him, as well as to Macropedius. Both his pieces are satirical. His disciple began with a scriptural drama upon the Prodigal Son, Asotus is its title. It must have been written early in the century, for about 1520 he laid it aside as a juvenile performance, and faulty as much because of the then comparatively rude state of learning, as of his own inexperience.
Scripsi olim adolescens, trimetris versibus,
Et tetrametris, eâ phrasi et facundiâ
Quæ tum per adolescentiam et mala tempora
Licebat, evangelicum Asotum aut Prodigum
Omnis quidem mei laboris initium.
After it had lain among his papers for thirty years, he brought it to light, and published it. In the prologue he intreats the spectators not to be offended that he had put his sickle into the field of the Gospel, and exhorts them while they are amused with the comic parts of the dialogue, still to bear in mind the meaning of the parable.
Sed orat author carminis vos res duas:
Ne ægre feratis, quod levem falcem tulit
Sementem in evangelicam, eamque quod audeat
Tractare majestatem Iambo et Tribracho;
Neve insuper nimis hæreatis ludicris
Ludisque comicis, sed animum advortite
Hic abdito mysterio, quod eruam.
After these lines he proceeds succinctly to expound the parable.
Although the grossest representations were not merely tolerated at that time in the Miracle Plays, and Mysteries, but performed with the sanction and with the assistance of the clergy, it appears that objections were raised against the sacred dramas of this author. They were composed for a learned audience,—which is indeed the reason why the Latin or as it may more properly be called the Collegiate drama, appeared at first in a regular and respectable form, and received little or no subsequent improvement. The only excuse which could be offered for the popular exhibitions of this kind, was that they were if not necessary, yet greatly useful, by exciting and keeping up the lively faith of an ignorant, but all-believing people. That apology failed, where no such use was needed. But Macropedius easily vindicated himself from charges which in truth were not relevant to his case; for he perceived what scriptural subjects might without impropriety be represented as he treated them, and he carefully distinguished them from those upon which no fiction could be engrafted without apparent profanation. In the prologue to his Lazarus he makes this distinction between the Lazarus of the parable, and the Lazarus of the Gospel History: the former might be thus treated for edification, the latter was too sacred a theme,
—quod is sine
Filii Dei persona agi non possiet.
Upon this distinction he defends himself, and carefully declares what were the bounds which ought not to be overpassed.
Fortassis objectabit illi quispiam
Quod audeat sacerrimam rem, et serio
Nostræ saluti a Christo Jesu proditam
Tractare comicè, et facere rem ludicram.
Fatetur ingenuè, quod eadem ratio se
Sæpenumero deterruit, ne quid suum,
Vel ab aliis quantumlibet scriptum, piè
Doctève, quod personam haberet Christi Jesu
Agentis, histrionibus seu ludiis
Populo exhibendum ex pulpito committeret.